Katalepsis

Lily One fell silent as she awaited an answer to her open invitation — come out come out, wherever you are, you hidden watcher tucked into the blind folds of this darkly dripping dream.

She may as well have been talking to the Eye itself, for all she knew.

Maybe she did know. And we needed to find out.

Her own sharply narrowed eyes darted back and forth beneath the shelter of the pavilion roof, tracking across the damp-edged concrete foundation, searching for any sign or symbol out of place. Then her gaze ventured outward, scanning the woods for any lurking red points glowing in the undergrowth or peering around the tree trunks. Her shoulders and neck were tense with nervous energy. She wet her lips with a flicker of her tongue, then ran a hand through her luxurious mane of blonde hair; loose tresses of pale gold fell about her face.

Was she truly anxious, or was this another act, another layer of falsehood spun into convincing beauty by the logic of the dream, by Sevens’ misappropriated skills, by myself and the Eye and the gyre of this nightmare, designed to draw me and mine out from our invisible pocket of safety?

“Come on,” she hissed, more to herself than to the assumption of an observer. “We can’t break role for long, we need to get back to our hiding place. If you’re there, please, come out.”

Lily Two stalked the perimeter of the pavilion’s concrete, parting air with the blunt metal of her nightstick. She swept the weapon in slow arcs of discovery, hoping to connect with the postulated secret audience of this silly little play. Lithe and light and springy on her feet, she moved with the focus and dedication of a hound on the hunt, subtle muscles rolling and flexing beneath the thick fabric of her dark tights and the unflattering fall of her grey skirt. Red hair was swept back out of her freckled face, hairline touched with a sheen of sweat.

Watching them from my concealed position, I started to understand why these two were part of Twil’s fantasy — both of these young women, about the same age as us, were frighteningly beautiful, like a pair of angels crammed down into human form.

“They’re here,” Lily Two repeated, then sniffed the air, nose twitching. “They’re right here, and they all need a bath. I can smell them, I swear it.”

Twil — Twillamina, locked deep in the dream — watched her bodyguards and lovers with uncomprehending eyes, her vision blinded and blurred by more than just her missing glasses. She sat on one of the benches all hunched and shrunken, her eyes red from hot panic and cold tears, with Lily One’s grey blazer cushioning her backside, seemingly oblivious to the implications of the moment.

“I wish they’d just bring back my book,” she whined in a pitiful little voice, not really herself, not the Twil I knew.

Beyond the pavilion, misty raindrops swirled in great wind-stroked masses. Leaves shivered against their fellows, sending a susurrant sigh across the woodland canopy. The trees seemed to lean inward, tucking us within a secluded bower.

“Evee,” I hissed. My left palm was slippery with sweat on the handle of her wheelchair. “We have to show ourselves. We have to try talking.”

Evelyn clenched her teeth. She kept her voice slow and calm, so as not to disrupt the magical effect of the Fadestone. “We have no idea what these two really are. Can we risk this?”

“They’re reaching out to us,” I whispered back. “They’re trying to make contact, that’s a big deal. And they’re being polite and—”

Evelyn snorted. “‘Being polite’ qualifies them for nothing, let alone trust.”

“They’re lucid!” I hissed. “They’re lucid in the dream! That has to mean something!”

“Heather—”

“And I think they might be the twins Stout was talking about, though I don’t understand how. Evee, we can’t let this opportunity go. Horror might be here soon, we need to talk with these two. And we can hardly rescue Twil if we don’t show ourselves anyway! We have to do this, we may as well attempt diplomacy first!”

“Heather, that was an actual question. Pay attention to my words, not what you imagine I say.”

“Ah?”

Evelyn glanced up at me, snuggled down in her wheelchair. The Praem Plushie peeked out of the gap in her grey dressing gown.

“Can we risk this?” Evelyn repeated in a soft murmur. “Make the decision. If you think this is the right move, we’ll do it. I have no objections, but I want you to make the decision, properly.”

My throat closed up. How certain was I?

Raine carefully removed our bag of supplies from her shoulder and hung it from the other wheelchair handle, nice and low so it wouldn’t add too much counterweight to Evelyn up front. Raine made sure to keep one hand on the chair at all times, to maintain her own invisibility. Then she raised her sheathed machete to her own face and yanked the sheath off with her teeth. The blade glinted in the grey light of the drizzle beyond the pavilion.

She dropped the sheath into the bag and spun the machete over the back of her hand. Then she grinned, first at me, then at the Lillies, dragging her eyes up and down both of them as if sizing up an opponent in a boxing ring — or a partner on the other side of a bed.

“We can take ‘em if we have to fight, sweet thing,” she purred. “If this all goes tits up, I can take ‘em both.”

Evelyn huffed and rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, please do. Stabbing them to death with a bloody great knife will solve everything, of course. Raine, these women are parts of Twil. If you seriously hurt them I will personally find a dog to shit in your pillowcase every day for the rest of your life.”

“Um, yes,” I added quickly, catching Raine’s eye. “Though maybe not with the dog part. Raine, please, please don’t hurt them. I think Evee’s right, they’re probably parts of Twil. The way they talk and move, even the way they look, it’s like bits of her, smeared around.”

“Phrasing, Heather,” Evelyn grunted. “Besides, I thought your theory was the opposite, that they’re Stout’s mysterious twins. Whatever that means.”

“Okay, well, maybe my theory is … incomplete,” I admitted with a sigh. “But we’re not going to find out unless we talk to them!”

“Blade’s just for show,” Raine purred. “I promise. Sometimes you gotta front a bit if you wanna avoid a scrap.”

“Good girl,” I said on reflex; I was getting far too used to that. “Evee, please. We need to speak with them. If it all goes wrong, we can just vanish again. Can’t we? We can vanish and run off into the woods. Yes, to answer your question properly. Yes, it is worth the risk.”

Evelyn took a deep breath. She straightened up in her chair, doing her best to reassume the mantle of Evelyn Saye, Mage of Sharrowford, despite her withered body and fragile frame, her missing prosthetic, and her position tucked down in a wheelchair.

It worked. For a moment, Evelyn looked as if she sat upon a throne. Her face dropped into an easy sneer of casual superiority.

“Very well,” she said. Her hands shifted beneath the layered folds of her grey dressing gown. “Both of you be ready. Our window may be very narrow, so do not hesitate. Raine, be prepared to move, but don’t move too far, stay close. Heather, you need to start talking the moment I drop the Fadestone’s effect. Stay in contact with the wheelchair if you can, because if anything goes wrong, I’ll use the Fadestone again. You will get left behind if you’re not in contact. Do you understand?”

Raine chuckled. “You wouldn’t do that, my dark and mysterious magician girl. You’d never leave me behind.”

“I bloody well would leave you behind, you fool,” Evelyn hissed. “And you would do well to act like it.”

Raine cracked a grin. “Very well, captain Saye. Drop out of stealth and drop our shields. The away party is ready for transport. Three to beam down. Four if we count Praem.”

I squint-frowned at Raine. “Excuse me?”

Raine chuckled. “Never mind, sweet thing. It would take too long to explain. Tell you later.”

“Heather, concentrate,” Evelyn hissed. “You need to do the talking, and do it quickly. If this works, then I’ll deal with Twil, but you are up first. Are you ready?”

I took a deep breath, tugged my yellow blanket tighter around my shoulders, and raised my head; I did not feel ready, not remotely. I felt ugly and incomplete, small and weird and reduced, like a squid washed up on a beach and denied the cool waters of the ocean. I was damp with rainwater and my left shin throbbed like somebody had been hitting it with a sledgehammer for the last three days. Without my other six selves or my six beautiful tentacles, I felt as if I was about to give a presentation while stark naked and covered in filth. I felt vulnerable and vile, especially when compared with Twil’s effortless angelic beauty, Lily One’s queen-bee femininity, and Lily Two’s predatory athleticism.

But victory left me no other choice; saving Twil left me no options. So I nodded, and lied, “Yes. I’m ready.”

“On three,” Evelyn said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice. “One.”

Raine raised her machete and rolled her shoulders. I puffed out my chest and tried to look confident, tried to envision myself with all my limbs, a mouth full of sharp teeth, and eyes glowing neon pink. I was still myself here, even if I was scattered. Still Heather Morell. Still everything I was meant to be, and no dream could deny that, not for much longer.

“Two.”

Lily One started to turn away, opening her mouth, perhaps to call out again. Lily Two lowered her nightstick, about to give up on her search. Twil looked down into her own lap, bottom lip all a-wobble, despairing at ever recovering her oh-so-precious tome.

“Three,” Evelyn finished. “Now.”

Our unveiling went unannounced — no crackle of static or thump of displaced air, no magical fwoomp or tingle of power dancing across my scalp, no change in perception or sensation to tell me that the Fadestone’s magic no longer concealed us from prying eyes.

We were simply, suddenly, silently there.

Lily One flinched and leapt back, hands out to ward us off, eyes wide in shock. Lily Two caught us in her peripheral vision, then whirled around and raised her nightstick. Twil shot to her feet, mouth hanging open.

“Hello!” I said, putting one hand up in an open-palmed greeting. “Hello, hi, yes, it’s us. We don’t mean you any—”

“Hey hey hey,” Lily Two said, striding forward, brandishing her weapon, flapping her transparent raincoat wide like a billowing cape. “You three have a lot of explaining to do.”

Raine whirled her machete outward, pointing with the tip of darkly gleaming metal. A grin ripped across her face. “You best step off, carrot-top,” she purred. “I’ve got edge, but you’re all blunt. I’ll fuck you inside out if you’re not careful.”

“A knife?” Lily Two sneered, but she slammed to a halt. “As if that matters? I can break that knife in one hit, thank you?”

Lily One raised both hands and gestured toward Lily Two, suddenly trying to play peacemaker. “My darling bud-mate, slow your roll—”

“We don’t mean you any harm!” I finally managed to shout. “We just want to—”

“My book!” Twil shrieked.

Her voice cut through everyone and everything, blotting out the sound of the rain and the leaves and the drip-drip-drip of water falling from the pavilion roof, smashing through our voices and thoughts alike, as if she was the only real thing present in the clearing. For a split-second there was no sound and no motion, only Twil’s sudden outrage.

Then the strange spell broke and Twil marched right up to the brewing confrontation, her brow furrowed, her lips compressed with futile fury, her eyes brimming with a threat of fresh tears. Lily One and Two both tried to ward her off or hold her back, but she pushed past them and planted her feet directly in front of Raine and Evelyn and me.

“You stole my book!” she squawked. “One of you did! Give it back! Give it back, it’s not yours, give it—”

“For pity’s sake,” Evelyn hissed. Twil halted, blinking rapidly, squinting to see Evelyn’s face through the veil of poor eyesight. “Stop whining, Twil. It’s right here.” Evelyn dug around inside her grey dressing gown and produced the heavy leather-bound book. “Here. See? Safe and sound. And not going anywhere.”

Twil’s eyes lit up with relief. “That’s— please— I need—”

She reached for the stolen tome — then recoiled from the flat of Raine’s machete.

“Raine—!” I hissed.

“Ah ah ah ahhhhh,” Raine purred, her voice trailing off into a long slow rasp. She held Twil’s terrified eyes, then flickered her gaze to the bodyguards. Both the Lillies were paused and tense, ready to spring to Twil’s defence the moment that machete turned edge-on. Raine spoke, nice and slow: “Here’s what we’re gonna do, you comedy threesome. We’re gonna give you the book, and you’re gonna agree to talk. Do we have a deal?”

“It’s mine!” Twil shouted, voice gone shrill and cracked. “You have no right to do this! No right at all! This is stealing! I can’t believe anybody — let alone a young lady — would steal on purpose like this. It’s unthinkable. It’s grotesque. It’s— it’s—”

“Never known you to be above a spot of shoplifting,” Evelyn grumbled.

Twil blinked down at her. “E-excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Who are you, anyway?” Twil demanded. “I don’t understand why you’re all treating me like this, it’s so horrid!”

Evelyn sucked on her teeth. “You two — the lucid pair, I’m talking to you — what does the book represent, hm? What does this mean?”

Lily One narrowed her eyes. “No chance, not before it’s returned to her.”

“Twil, please,” I said, trying to play the polite cop to Raine’s bad cop and Evelyn’s too-familiar-encouraging-you-to-recommit-to-crime-cop. “We only—”

“Twillamina,” Lily Two interrupted, speaking directly to me. “You will address her by her full name.”

I started to sigh, but Lily One spoke up before I could lose any of my temper. “Yes, it’s important,” she said, eyebrows raised. “Please, don’t use the short version of her name, at least not directly. It’s dangerous. Understand?”

“Alright, alright,” I said, hands up in exasperated surrender. “Twillamina, we only took your book in order to bait you out here, so we could talk. I’m sorry it’s so distressing, I didn’t realise it would upset you quite this badly. We’ll give it back, we just want to know you won’t all run away. Is that fair? I think that’s fair. Please, do tell me if you think it’s unfair.”

“Here,” Evelyn grunted. “I’ll give you these for free. A show of good faith.”

Evelyn produced Twil’s glasses from inside her dressing gown and held them out. Twil’s mouth fell open. She hesitated, glancing at Raine for permission to reach forward.

Raine shot her a wink and said, “I won’t cut you, girl. Go ahead.”

Twil eased forward with exaggerated care, as if Evelyn was a cobra poised to strike at her hand. She snatched her glasses from Evee’s fingers and pulled away. She fumbled the frames back onto her face, blinking and squinting through the ridiculously thick glass. The circular lenses made her amber eyes look huge, like a bug or an alien, or one of Evelyn’s less well-proportioned anime girls.

She blinked at Evee several times, then put her fingertips to her mouth. A slow blush crept up her cheeks.

“Remember me yet?” Evelyn grunted.

“No … ” Twil said. “I-I mean yes, but no. No!”

Lily One straightened up and tossed her hair back, golden mane arranged over her shoulders. She put both hands on her hips, adopting an imperious pose. “All right then,” she said, enunciating her words with great precision. “Return the book to Twillamina, and we shan’t depart. We won’t open any hostilities either. Will we?” Her eyes slide sideways, toward Lily Two. “Will we, my dearest?”

Lily Two sighed and rolled her eyes. “We won’t be the ones to start it. But we could win it. You know we could.”

“And where would that leave us?” Lily One asked, not so gently.

“If you’re correct.”

“I am correct,” Lily One countered. Her gaze flickered back to us. “Or at least I’m willing to gamble.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Lily Two grumbled a wordless complaint, but she lowered her nightstick and shrugged all the same. Raine copied her gesture, lowering the machete and bowing her head to her counterpart, though a nasty grin lingered on her face. Lily Two rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose with open contempt. Raine looked her up and down with naked appreciation.

“Nice legs,” Raine said.

“Shut your vile mouth,” Lily Two replied. “Or I shall seal it with a gag.”

“Love to see you try, tough stuff. Wanna tie me up while we’re at it? I don’t make for a good captive, but you can sit on my face and—”

“Stop,” Evelyn grunted. “For fuck’s sake, Raine.”

Raine cracked a shit-eating grin. “Just a bit of friendly sparring.”

“Your friend there has better sense,” Lily Two said. “Better stop before she tugs your leash.”

“Actually I would be the one holding that,” I said gently, then cleared my throat. Why had I bothered to clarify that point?

“Ahem,” Lily One said. “The book, please. Hand it directly to Twillamina.” Lily One’s voice softened instantly as she turned to address Twil. “Twillamina, darling, sweetie, it’s perfectly safe, they won’t hurt you. We’re both right here.”

Evelyn held out the leatherbound tome. The raindrops swirled and misted beyond the pavilion, shivering the leaves and shaking the high branches of this dreamlike woodland. Twil crept forward with Lily One’s hand on her lower back. She eyed Evelyn for a long, long moment, then swallowed hard. She gently closed her fingers around the book, shaking worse than the twigs in the canopy above us.

Then she hopped back again, out of reach. She ran her hands over the cover, letting out a deep sigh of relief. She hugged the book to her chest, eyes fluttering shut.

“Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed.

“Hooray,” Lily Two deadpanned. “How much time does that buy us?”

Lily One sighed heavily and twirled a lock of golden blonde hair between her fingers. “While breaking role like this? Not enough.” She clucked her tongue at us. “So, which one of you three clowns are we actually talking to? It can’t be all three of you, no way.”

“Clowns?” Raine purred, grinning dangerously.

“Buffoons,” Lily Two said. “Fools. Jokers. You’ve earned the title for this little stunt, if nothing else.”

Evelyn huffed and rolled her eyes. “Great. They’re still insufferable. I blame Twil. And no, I shan’t be using that ridiculous name for her.”

Twil opened her eyes and blinked at Evelyn. “Excuse me? Sorry, did I do something wrong?”

“Tch,” I tutted at the Lillies. “Yes, really, must you use language like that? I thought we had a truce now.”

Lily One folded her arms over her chest, cocked her hips to one side, and stuck her tongue into her cheek — a parody of a bad girl, acted by a young woman who never went to bed late, ate all her vegetables, and did her homework on time. There it was, clear as my own face in a mirror, that fake rough exterior wrapped around a core of honesty and kindness, the surface-level mean streets attitude over a girl who’d lived most of her life on a farm, in the woods.

Lily One, at least, was part of Twil.

Maybe I was wrong about them being something else. My deductions grew less clear with every passing moment.

“I don’t know about you three,” Lily One drawled. “But we do have to stay somewhat within our roles. Pardon the sneering disgust and the feelings of … ” she trailed off, looking me up and down with a cocktail of pity and revulsion. “Aversion. It’s just the roles. No hard feelings.”

“Roles?” Evelyn grunted. “Explain.”

Lily Two said, “Roles. In the dream.”

Lily One sneered down at Evelyn. “Clearly you’re not the dreamer of the bunch.”

“You’re talking to all three of us,” I said, as politely as I could. “I’m lucid, I know what this is, and I know where I am. I know that none of this is real, that this is all a dream, or a play, metaphorically speaking. This is Evelyn. She’s lucid too. And this is Raine, she’s … semi-lucid. Sort of.”

“That’s me,” Raine purred, shooting the Lillies a cheeky wink. “Half-asleep and ready to rut.”

I sighed. Lily One wrinkled her nose. Lily Two looked like she wanted to spit at Raine’s feet.

Twil glanced between us as we spoke, wide-eyed but seemingly lost.

Evelyn snapped: “Is Twil keeping up with any of this?”

Twil herself just flinched, staring at Evelyn, blinking behind her huge glasses. “Excuse me?”

“Hahaha!” Lily One laughed with sneering contempt. “No, obviously not, duh!” She reached over and stroked the back of Twil’s head, smoothing her dark hair over her scalp. Twil made a happy little noise, blushing faintly in maidenly embarrassment. “If we let that happen, the dream-substrate would collapse. Twillamina will remember this as a friendly little chat, but the details aren’t going in. She’s as asleep as the rest of them.”

“Alright, so, we can talk,” I said. “I think we should establish our positions first.”

“Yes, quite,” Evelyn said. “We need to understand who or what we are addressing. Both of you are clearly lucid. I was working off the assumption that you’re parts of Twil, but—”

“We are,” said Lily Two.

Lily One sighed. “Sort of. It’s complicated. Go on, Saye.”

Evelyn frowned at the pair of Lillies. “But now I’m not so sure. You’re something else, aren’t you? You’re from outside this dream, you didn’t come in with us. Twil doesn’t have the kind of knowledge you’re displaying. What are you?”

“Woah woah woah,” Lily One said, raising a hand, smiling with sarcastic disbelief. “You first, sweetheart.”

“ … ah,” Evelyn grunted. “I see.”

“Sorry?” I said. “Us first what? What do you want us to do? Evee, you’re following this?”

“Mutual suspicion,” Evelyn grunted.

“Mexican stand-off!” Raine cheered. “My third favourite kind of stand-off.”

“We need you to prove what you are,” Lily One said. “As of right now, I’ve seen no compelling evidence that you’re not just another part of the dream. You need to prove to us that you’re real. Not just that you look the part of random crazies from inside the hospital.”

“Huh,” Lily Two grunted. “Good point. This could be tailor-made to expose us.”

I sighed a great big sigh and closed my eyes briefly. “I really have had enough of this place. Was our conversation with you yesterday not proof enough?”

“Don’t blame us, sweetheart!” Lily One said. “We’re taking a risk doing this too, you know? Give us something to work with. You can’t expect us to just go on trust alone, the stakes are too high for that.”

Raine purred, “I could fuck you both at the same time, how’s that for—”

Evelyn cleared her throat, a double-barrelled ahem-ahem to shut down Raine’s libido. The Lillies both looked down at her too. Twil followed, then blushed again and hid her lower face behind her big heavy book.

“We intervened in your board game,” Evelyn said. “Back in the dayroom.”

Lily One raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Mmhmm,” Evelyn grunted. “You were losing the game, against Horror. Mostly because you were playing like morons. Strategy games are not Twil’s strongest skill, to put it lightly, which is why you were playing so poorly. We were right there, watching the end. I reached in while we were invisible, and re-arranged the pieces to buy you time, and maybe let you snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, if you’re not completely brain-dead.”

Lily One glanced at Lily Two, and said, “You’re meant to be the strategist.”

Lily Two shrugged. “Hard to think with only one lobe, don’t blame me.”

“Is that enough proof for you?” Evelyn drawled.

“Well,” Lily One said slowly, clearing her throat with a mockery of politeness. “That just proves you were acting within the dream, not anything else.”

“Here,” I said. “Look at this.”

I flipped the left side of my snug yellow blanket back over my shoulder, raised my left hand, and pulled back my sleeve.

The Fractal gleamed on my left forearm, marked out in the familiar black lines and angles. Raindrops shivered among the trees. The trunks creaked as if bending before high winds. Water splashed down off the roof, forming little pools on the earth just beyond the lip of concrete.

The Lillies stared.

Lily One said, “Dearest, do you see that?”

“I see it,” replied Lily Two. “But it means nothing.”

“Nothing? Are you joking? Has your reduction to this limited dream-form cut out four fifths of your brain?”

“Could be a trick.”

Lily One gestured at the Fractal. “This young woman has geospacial astral-cartographic magic tattooed on her body. I don’t think that’s possible to fake.”

“You lack caution,” Lily Two said.

I huffed. “Oh for crying out loud.” I pointed at the red plastic roof of the pavilion, at the sky beyond. “What do you see in the sky?”

Lily Two frowned, one eyebrow raised in a perfect little arch. Lily One blinked several times, making a curious little o-shape with her mouth. “Right back at you,” she said. “What do you see in the sky?”

“The Eye.”

The Lilies glanced at each other, both surprised.

“The Eye,” I repeated. “It’s the sky. But it’s like we’re inside it, or seeing it from behind, or something. There’s no split in the eyelid, no way for it to open. I can see it, and Evee can see it. Raine can’t. Not yet, anyway. How’s that?”

Lily One wet her lips, pushing me that final inch over the finishing line. “And what exactly is ‘the Eye’?”

“An Outsider god,” I said. “My name is Heather Morell, but I suspect you already know that. We’re here to rescue my twin sister, Maisie. She and I were kidnapped by the Eye ten years ago. I escaped. She didn’t.”

A flicker of horrified sympathy ghosted through Lily One’s expression. She put a hand to her mouth in shock. Lily Two dropped most of her aggression for a moment as well, brow creasing with recognition. She reached out with her free hand, toward the other Lily. They touched fingers briefly, then held on tight, holding on to each other.

Turned out I was right all along.

I went on. “The Eye has … trained me, to some extent, in the use of hyperdimensional mathematics. You probably call it something else, but I’m willing to bet you’re the same. Because you’re the twins, aren’t you? We spoke with Professor Wilson Stout a little while ago, and he mentioned twins, twins who keep slipping in and out of Wonderland—”

“Wonderland!?” Lily One echoed. “Oh gods above, that’s what you call it?”

“Yes,” I huffed. “Please, concentrate on the subject. You’re the twins he mentioned, your reactions just now made it obvious. You were once taken by the Eye as well, weren’t you?”

Lily One let out a big sigh. She glanced at Lily Two — her twin sister, there was no doubt about that now — and nodded. Lily Two nodded back.

“Okay, I give in. You’re legit.”

Lily Two stuck her nightstick back inside her grey blazer. She broke the contact between the pair and folded her arms across her chest. “Fair enough.”

“Good,” I said. “Now, what are you? You’re obviously not just parts of Twil, but you’re also that? What’s going on here?”

Lily One rolled her eyes. “Again, right back at you. Look, sweetheart, Heather, we’re sympathetic to all this, it’s a bit … a bit much. But what are you? You’re clearly not a dreamer, you’re barely treading water, let alone swimming. You’re not even suited up properly. The dream is trying to chew you up because you’re breaking all the rules, breaking the role assigned to you.”

“I’m one seventh of something that used to be a human being,” I said. “It’s complicated. Like I said, I can do hyperdimensional mathematics. That’s how all this got so messy.”

“Huh,” Lily Two grunted. “Figures.”

“Human messes everywhere,” said Lily One. “Why am I not surprised?”

Evelyn piped up, “I’m human. I’m a mage, but I’m human, and last I checked I’m no dreamer.”

“Me neither,” said Raine. “One hundred percent grade-A human being.” She reached back and slapped her own rump.

Lily One snorted. Lily Two shook her head, and said, “As if.”

“Look,” I said before this could accelerate into an argument. “That’s not important right now. We’re lucid, you’re lucid, that—”

“Temporarily,” said Lily Two.

“Yes,” said Lily One with a tight little sigh. “The more we deviate from the parameters of our hiding places, the more the dream is likely to react. We can’t keep this up for too long or we’ll dry out completely and have to leave, or the dream will send something to get rid of us. That’s what Horror was doing earlier, I think. Trying to uproot us and throw us out. She knows, though she can’t show it.”

“Alright,” I said, “so we need to talk quickly. What do you mean, hiding places?”

“We’re party crashers,” said Lily One with a mischievous little smile.

Lily Two said, “Invaders.”

“Uninvited guests, I prefer.”

“Viruses.”

“Ew!” Lily one tutted. “Don’t. Please.”

Lily Two shrugged. “And we’re hiding, like viruses do. Inside cells.”

“Hiding inside aspects of Twil, yes?” Evelyn said.

Lily One nodded to Evelyn. “Correct, mage girl, well done! I like you better than stinky and annoying here,” she gestured at me and Raine in turn. “Yes. All of this, these mannerisms, this face, this body, these … weird clothes.” She paused to flick at the end of her grey tie. “All of this is from Miss Twillamina here. These are parts of her. Well, one part of her.” Lily One cleared her throat. “We had to split it in two, to accommodate both of us.”

“Mmhmm,” Lily Two grunted.

“And you were already here?” I said. “Or you came in when we did? Why Twil, why pick her?”

Lily One sighed and rolled her eyes, then gave me a look like I was a very slow little fool. “We’re not native to this dream. We just turned up and hid inside the first vessel we could find.” She gestured at Twil. “Twillamina just so happened to have one lying around, separated from her body, trapped in here.” She tapped Twil’s leatherbound book. Twil pulled the book away slightly, as if confused. “We’re just piggybacking on that. It was easier than slipping into some other form. Like this, we can walk around the dream a little without getting chewed up and spat out right away. But we have to stay in character. At least when we’re around … well, anybody who isn’t lucid. Certainly any of the nurses.”

“And you’re not human beings?” Evelyn asked.

“Correct! Do you want a prize for that one? Did I not make it blindingly obvious already?”

I said, “You don’t seem very alien.”

Lily One rolled her eyes again. “Because we’re hiding, duuuuh. Trust me, you three, this might make sense to you, but it’s complete nonsense to me and my dear sister here. When we turned up, it was like being plunged down to the bottom of the ocean, in the dark, surrounded by weird wriggling lifeforms. Ugh.” She stuck her tongue out. “These personalities you’re talking to, these are more like diving bells or dry suits. We’re just peering out of tiny windows in the front, squinting into the murk, communicating by waving our arms about. Deaf and dumb and with no sense of touch. You’re lucky you’re getting this much.”

“Is it … uncomfortable?”

“Imagine being stuck in an antique diving suit for three days,” Lily Two said. “Stewing in your own sweat and urine.”

Lily One wrinkled her nose. “Ick!” She sighed. “You know, Heather, I would dearly love to talk to you sometime when we’re not trapped in these roles. You’re right, for the record. We were … abducted, by the Eye, a long time ago. But we can’t really have a proper conversation about that with these suits on.” She flapped her arms. “It’s … exceedingly rare to survive the experience, as far as we can tell.”

“Yeah,” Lily Two snorted. “Love to. Nice little chat with our real faces on.”

I sighed. “Don’t sound too enthusiastic about it.”

“I can’t,” she grunted at me, a sneer on her lips. “Lucidity has limits. I do actually want to, but this voice makes it sound like I’m being shitty at you.”

“O-oh.”

Evelyn said: “What are you both, really?”

Lily One sighed. “That’s hard to explain, we—”

I cleared my throat, dug through my memories, and made an educated guess; I recalled the text from the library of Carcosa, the one which Heart had so faithfully translated for me — A full and true account of the disappearance and return of the twin sisters Jane Doe and Mary Doe, their subsequent alienation and alienism, their mathematical skills and strange habits, and their eventual transition into the weft between worlds. I tried to remember the names, as accurately as I could.

“Xiyuol’tok-al and Zalui’yel-tul,” I said, then cringed. “I do apologise, I’m probably butchering your real names beyond recognition, but that’s you two, isn’t it?”

Both the Lillies stared at me for a moment, blank-faced and empty-eyed, as if their ‘diving suits’ had been briefly vacated.

Then Lily Two scrunched up her nose with absolute disgust. Lily One raised both hands so she could flap them in distress.

“Um,” I said. “Was it—”

“Yes!” Lily One said, almost but not quite laughing. “Very bad! Urgh, oh, blegh.” She stuck her tongue out. “That was terrible, that was awful, just vile! Hearing those words — my name! — from a flapping meat-hole. Ugh. Oh that was disgusting.”

Lily Two said, “Please, never do that again.”

“Sorry!” I said, suddenly blushing. “Sorry, I was trying to be polite. Calling you Lily and Lily inside my head is getting a little … disrespectful, that’s all. Was I at least close?”

“A very rough approximation, sure,” said Lily Two. “Our names, as pronounced under a lake of tar, through the trunk of an elephant.”

Raine chuckled. “Those are some real Doctor Xargle names. What are we talking to here, a pair of space aliens?”

Evelyn slapped Raine on the knee with one hand. “Don’t be rude.”

“Yes,” I added. “Please, I was just trying to be polite. Is there something you’d rather be called?”

Raine gestured at the twins. “So which one of you is Xiyu and which one is Zalu?”

The twins glanced at each other. Lily One pulled a face, but Two shrugged. “It would be better if they can tell us apart.”

“It’ll undermine the dream!”

“Not if it’s just between us.”

“Uuurghhh,” Lily One sighed. She turned back to us with a very unimpressed expression. “Alright, fine. But don’t use these names in front of the nurses or any other patients. I’m … ‘Zalu’, and my sister here is ‘Xiyu’.”

Raine said, “And how do we pronounce those correctly, hey?”

Lily One — Zalu — rolled her eyes and threw back her mane of blonde hair again. “You don’t, homo sapiens. You need an entirely different vocal setup. And don’t bother trying to remember what we look like. These faces are just Twillamina. If we ever meet again, we won’t look anything like this. In fact, you’ll probably foul your underclothes and scream your head off.”

Raine cracked a grin. “Wanna bet? If I win, I’m gonna slap your pert little alien backside, for real.”

“What do you look like normally?” I asked quickly, to short-circuit any future interdimensional incidents.

“Bigger,” said Lily Two — Xiyu. She smiled, thin and tight and dangerous.

“Niiiiiiiice,” Raine purred.

The twins both rolled their eyes at Raine; I didn’t blame them.

Twil followed this entire exchange as if she was listening to her ‘lovers’ debating the state of the weather or what we were all going to have at the next tea party. Her eyes seemed detached and dream-like. None of this was going in, the twins had been honest about that part.

“And you,” Zalu said, pointing a finger at me. “You know about us, somehow. I take it that means you’re the one who dropped all the loose change?”

I blinked at her, utterly bewildered. “The what, pardon me?”

“The loose change! That’s what brought us here in the first place. We don’t generally make a habit of randomly taking a stroll in ‘Wonderland’.” She made air-quotes with her fingers. “We only turned up because of all the racket. We assumed it was, well, somebody a bit more like us, in trouble. Which, I guess you are.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Zalu rolled her eyes and raised her right hand. She flicked her fingers as if doing a magic trick. Then she held her hand out to me, and opened her fist.

A greenish soapstone coin sat in the middle of her palm, shaped like a five-pointed star.

“Yours?” she said.

My wide eyes told her everything she needed to know. She gestured to Xiyu — her sister, her bud-mate, her twin. Xiyu produced a matching soapstone coin with a flicker of her fingers, holding it up to show me.

“Huh,” Evelyn grunted. “That explains one thing, and opens about a dozen more questions. None of which we have time for.”

“Yes!” I said. “Those are mine. Well, sort of. I was carrying them with me when we went to Wonderland. I assumed they’d gotten lost in the dream like everything else. Where did you get them?”

“I told you,” Zalu huffed. “We heard them clattering all over the floor, making such an awful racket. We thought one of our kind was in trouble … though, well, it’s been a while, to put it lightly. That’s why we came running! And then we found all this nonsense.” She gestured vaguely at the sky, the dream, everything. “Better question, where did you get these? Random humans running around with currency is very weird. Like finding a possum with a wallet.”

“Oh, um,” I tried to gather myself, casting my mind far, far back. “One of them we found on a corpse, Outside. The other was a gift from an Outsider, called Hringewindla, though that probably won’t mean anything to you.”

“Huh,” Xiyu grunted. “Ghoulish, but valid enough. They’re hers, legitimate like.”

“Tch,” Zalu tutted. She held the coin out to me. “Well go on, take it. It’s yours, by rights.”

I gingerly plucked the coin from her outstretched hand; she cringed at the touch of my skin and then wiped her palm on her skirt, trying not to grimace. Xiyu stepped forward and dropped her coin into my palm, to avoid touching me.

“What do they do?” I asked, staring at the coins. “What are they? I’ve been carrying them around all this time, without knowing.”

“I already told you, they’re loose change!” Zalu sighed. “Evelyn here has a better head on her shoulders than you, Heather, my God. We can’t afford all these questions right now, we’re running out of time. If we meet again one day, without these meat-suits on, maybe you and we can have a proper conversation. Hopefully with your twin sister at your side. Good luck with that, I mean it.” Zalu tried to smile for me, but it came off like a catty girl pretending she didn’t hate me. “But if you’re going to have any hope of unravelling this dream and plucking her from the Eye, we have to stop wandering around like a bunch of lemons and get a move on.”

“Hear hear,” Evelyn muttered.

I tutted softly — it was good advice, but the Lillies had such irritating personalities. Were these really parts of Twil, parts of her mind? She was never like this. How much of this attitude was Twil, and how much was the alien twins from Outside?

“Fine,” I said. “I agree. But how do we do that? How do we combat the dream itself?”

Zalu folded her arms over her chest. “We assumed you had a plan! That riot yesterday, that was part of it, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Raine confirmed. “We’re gonna pull down the prison walls. Take over the hospital, overthrow the staff — the security is already secretly with us, but they can’t declare openly yet. Lozzie, the one who started yesterday’s riot, she’s with us too. We’re gonna crack this place wide open.”

“And then break into the secure wing,” I added. “I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re keeping my twin sister. And maybe other things too, parts of me. Probably.”

Zalu sighed. Xiyu shrugged.

“You don’t think that’ll work?” I asked.

Xiyu shrugged again. “Normally we don’t have to think about stuff like this at all. This whole place is absurd. And we can barely see it, remember?”

Evelyn cleared her throat. “Do you have time for a quick, seemingly off-topic question? I assure you, it matters.”

“No,” said Zalu. “But ask away, I suppose.”

“You’ve met humans before? Where? Have you been to Earth?”

Zalu blinked down at Evelyn in girlish surprise. “Is that where you’re from?” She put a hand to her mouth in shock. “Oh my gosh, no wonder you’ve messed this place up so badly.” 

“That would be my fault,” I said. “I’m the one who did this, sort of. With some help. Look, that’s a long story, and there’s too many factors involved to explain quickly. You two are the only second opinion we can get in this place, the only experienced dreamers. Do you think tearing down the institution will work, or not? Are we on the right track?”

The twins shared a long, lingering look. Twil followed them, looking back and forth between their faces as if listening to a silent conversation.

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Twil spoke up.

“I … I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Twil said slowly, so gentle and timid, shrinking behind her glasses, clutching her religious tome to her chest, arms wrapped tight and secure around the leather cover. The caged werewolf peeked out from between her arms. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to break the rules. We might all get punished. I don’t want to be punished. It’s frightening.”

Zalu reached for Twil’s hand. Xiyu stepped closer, to touch Twil’s shoulder.

Before they could make contact, Evelyn said: “Twil. Look at me. What are you afraid of?”

Twil blinked behind her massive round lenses. She stared at Evee, then blushed faintly, frowning with confusion. “You … ‘Evelyn’,” she said the name so carefully that I could almost hear the quotes. “You claimed that I have … c-carnal knowledge of you, but—”

“You do,” Evelyn said. She was completely unembarrassed. “You just don’t remember it right now. Twil, you don’t have to compartmentalize yourself in front of me. Or in front of Heather. Or Raine. Or anybody. You are your entire self. Stop hiding.”

Twil raised the book to cover her chin and mouth and nose, amber eyes peeking out over the top.

Raine snorted. “Was that your grand plan to crack her psyche open?”

To my surprise, Evelyn didn’t snarl with anger or frustration, she just held Twil’s gaze. “No. Those are my honest feelings.”

“E-Evee?” I said. “Are you okay?”

“No. Next question.”

“Twillamina does have a point,” Zalu said. “At least like this you’re all relatively safe. What happens if you fail, if you get captured, or this escalating series of riots doesn’t work? You really think a rag-tag group of revolutionaries out in the woods can bring down an institution that, as far as we can tell, represents the Eye itself?”

“Oh!” I said. “Actually the Eye has pretty direct representation, weirdly enough.”

The Lillies both blinked at me. “Pardon?”

“Yeah,” Raine added. “And she’s a total gilf smoke show. Eleven out of ten. Spicy granny. Trust me.”

The twins looked at Raine like she was mad.

“The Governor,” I explained with a little sigh. “We saw her earlier. I’m pretty sure she’s a direct representation of the Eye. If we can somehow communicate with her, possibly after gaining control of the building itself or the institution as a whole, then … maybe anything is possible.”

Zalu just blinked, wide-eyed and tight-jawed, making it clear that she thought we were all completely bonkers. Xiyu blew out a long, slow breath, glancing off into the woods, checking our perimeter.

Evelyn said, “And for that, we need Twil lucid. She’s one of our aces. In case you two didn’t work this out yet, she’s a werewolf. If she transforms, no number of nurses could stand against her. We need her back with us.”

Zalu rolled her eyes and put a protective hand on Twil’s shoulder. “And you think her going all ‘Werewolf of Brinkwood’ isn’t going to bring the self-correcting mechanisms of the dream crashing down on her?”

Evelyn frowned. “How do you know the name Brinkwood?”

Xiyu pointed a finger at Twil’s head. “From her, obviously.”

“Look around,” Zalu continued. “Look at the internal logic of this place! A werewolf, here? The dream will react, and it will send something to crush her.”

Zalu drew Twil back slightly, away from us. Xiyu moved closer, as if shielding Twil with her own body.

Evelyn snapped: “Why do you two care? You don’t even know her.”

Zalu sighed. “We don’t care. I don’t care — me, the real me, does not care. But these personalities do.” She gestured at herself and her sister. “They care, they’re part of Twil, and they’re trying to protect her. We can’t act with true independence, I keep telling you that. We’re constrained by our roles, and our roles are to protect Twil’s vulnerable core.”

Xiyu said, “If we stop protecting her, we’ll lose our cover completely. They’ll go back to being part of her.”

Evelyn slapped the arm of her wheelchair. “Then you need to give them back. Let her protect herself!”

Twil cowered from the sudden shouting, uncomfortable and afraid. She squeezed her eyes shut. The Lilies closed ranks as she shrank behind them.

“She’s not yours!” Evelyn snapped.

“Wait, wait, Evee,” I said, stepping forward. “They’re not claiming her, they’re parts of her. We’re still talking to Twil. We’ve been talking to her this whole time. Isn’t that correct?”

“Bingo,” said Zalu. “Remember, humans, we’re just along for the ride. You’ve gotta work this mess out between yourselves. All we’re doing is carrying on in the role Twillamina wants for us. She knows on some level that the dream will crush her if she reassumes her full self. The nature of this dream cannot bear a werewolf — it can’t even bear a little riot.”

“No,” I said.

Everyone looked at me, at the certainty in my voice.

But I had eyes only for Twil.

She stared back at me over the cover of her leatherbound book, her face framed from below by that illustration of a caged werewolf upon the cover.

“She’s invincible,” I said. “Twil, if you remember nothing else, remember that. You’re invincible. You’re unstoppable. I’ve seen you shrug off knife wounds and broken bones. I’ve seen you tossed against walls by supernatural force, then get up again and get back into a fight without so much as a limp. Your flesh regenerates faster than it can be wounded. You’re one of the strongest people I know. And you’re invincible.”

Twil stared at me, wide eyed, caught in bewildered horror. Slowly, she said, “I’m … I’m sorry, but I’m not your kind of crazy.”

“I’ve had enough of hearing that line since we arrived here,” I said. “I don’t care. You’re still invincible.”

Twil started to cry, slow tears leaking from behind her glasses. Her face scrunched up. “I’m not. I’m not, I’m just hiding. It’s all I can do—”

“You could beat every nurse in this place ten times over, Twil!” I said, spreading my yellow blanket out to either side. My left leg throbbed, but I did my best to ignore the pain and the stiff muscles. “You could kill every nurse, every doctor, and win the riot for us, single handed!”

“I— I can’t!” she wailed. “I need to stay down, I need to keep my head down, it’s the only— the only way to be safe!” She shook her head, but she couldn’t take her eyes off me.

“Keep pushing,” Evelyn hissed from behind me. “Keep pushing her, Heather.”

“No,” I said to Twil. “There’s no safety in keeping your head down. That’s always the biggest lie they tell us, the lie everything else depends on. Keep quiet, don’t speak up for yourself, stay out of sight, all that rubbish. They tell us that lie to keep us docile, to keep us separate, to stop us from finding each other. And it doesn’t work. It doesn’t keep you safe.”

“It— it does—” Twil sobbed. “It does, I was safe, I was—”

“Not for long,” I said. “That’s the lie. They tell you to toe the line, to do as you’re told, to be a good girl. But they’ll come for you in the end too, and you don’t even have to do anything wrong to provoke it. That’s what was happening to you back there, back in the dayroom, with that board game.”

Twil blinked at me, bewildered, but not quite faking it well enough to convince herself.

I pointed at the Lillies; they seemed paralysed, paused against the background of the swirling rainy mist. “They knew it, so you must know it too, on some level. Horror was cornering you, peeling away your protection. And it didn’t matter that you’d been a good girl and followed all the rules and kept your head down. It’s a lie, Twil. It’s a lie to keep you under control.”

“N-no, it … ”

“You’re invincible,” I repeated one final time. I could feel her wavering, about to break. “And you know what else? You could have leapt across that table and pulled Horror’s head clean off her shoulders, without even breaking a sweat.”

Tears were running down Twil’s cheeks as she stared at me. Amber eyes glistened with reflections of the rain-streaked light.

I smiled and held out a hand. “Twil, you’re one of us. And you are exactly my kind of crazy.”

Twil swallowed, throat bobbing. Her lips parted with a quiver. She panted, as if building herself up to something new. “I— I think I know you. You’re—”

A bright and bubbly voice broke across the clearing, sweeping beneath the pavilion like a gust of stormy wind.

“What’s this about pulling off my head?”

We all whirled — me with my yellow blanket clutched tight and a hiccup caught in my throat, Raine swinging her machete upward to meet this new and sudden threat; Xiyu pulling her nightstick from inside her uniform as Zalu stepped in front of Twil, arms wide to protect her vulnerable core self. Evelyn leaned forward in her wheelchair, turning pale and wide-eyed. Even Praem peeked out from inside Evelyn’s dressing gown, her eyes nothing but flat circles of white fabric.

A familiar nurse stood at the edge of the clearing, right at the tree line, holding an umbrella against the misty raindrops, white uniform half-hidden beneath a puffy raincoat. Her blonde hair was pinned up behind her head. A sickly-sweet smile split across her face.

“Hello there, girls,” said Horror. “Didn’t you know? It’s the height of bad manners to talk about a person behind their back. Now, once again, with less gormless gaping this time, please. What’s all this about pulling off my head?”