The Blackhope Enigma (3 page)

A figure in a padded jacket and red hat stepped from the crowd and stood underneath one of the balls, staring up at it.

Sunni squinted at the minuscule boy, her heart starting to hammer in her chest as the horror of it sunk in. “Dean.”

“Whoa.” Blaise rubbed his eyes and looked back at the canvas. “Oh, man. I can’t believe this.”

As they watched, amazed, Dean moved away from the juggler toward a dim alleyway. He was half walking, half running, looking wildly around him.

“He’s so small,” said Sunni, her voice breaking. “And terrified. Like a bug that’s going to get squashed any minute. I have to get him out!”

“But how? I mean, what did —?”

“The labyrinth,” Sunni said, turning to Blaise. “That’s what took him there.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s all Dean did. He walked around the labyrinth.”

“Loads of people do that, but they don’t vanish!” replied Blaise.

“I know,” said Sunni. “It must have been what he said while he did it.”

“Chiaroscuro.”

“And that triggered something that pulled him into Corvo’s painting.”

Blaise crouched down and touched the labyrinth’s black tiles. “They’re just pieces of stone. That painting is just a bunch of colors on a piece of cloth. How . . . ?” His voice trailed off.

“Magic.” The word flew from Sunni’s mouth like a bullet.

“You think those rumors about Corvo are true.”

“Seeing is believing.” She packed her sketchbook and drawing materials into her backpack and hauled it over her shoulders. “I’m going in after Dean.”

“That’s insane, Sunni.” Blaise threw his arms up in the air. “You might not get out again.”

“There’s a way in, so there must be a way out. Why would Corvo make a painting you can’t leave?”

“How do we know? He might have.”

“Then why make a rule that the labyrinth can never be dug out of this floor? Because it’s the way in and
out
of the painting.”

“Maybe. But you don’t have to be the one to find out, Sunni.” Blaise’s face was bone-white.

“I’m not leaving Dean in there.”

“And I’m not telling you to do that! Let’s get help. Let’s find the guards and tell them.”

“They won’t believe us. No one will. We’ll just be in loads of trouble for losing Dean and I’ll end up having to go in to get him anyway. At least if I go now, I know roughly where he is.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” said Blaise.

“Like I’m going to drag you into it.” Sunni stepped up to the labyrinth’s entrance. “This is my problem. Dean’s my stepbrother, and I’m supposed to be looking after him. My stepmom will have my head if she finds out what’s happened.”

“But I’m part of this, too,” Blaise protested.

“You have to stay behind to explain if I don’t come back.”

“If you don’t come back?” He nodded his head in disbelief. “Is that what I’m supposed to do? Tell your parents I stood by and watched you disappear?”

Sunni wound her lavender-striped scarf around her neck and buttoned up her coat. Her heart-shaped face was pale but composed. “Look, I might find Dean and be back in five minutes. Or it might take longer. But hopefully you won’t have to tell anyone. And who’s going to believe you, anyway? So keep it quiet for now, huh?” She started to follow the labyrinth, murmuring “chiaroscuro” as she went.

Blaise trailed her around the perimeter as she went. “Stop it, Sunni, this is crazy!”

Sunni held one arm out to ward him away. Her heartbeat calmed as she walked along the path. At first she was aware of Blaise just behind her, begging her to stop, but then he and the rest of the Mariner’s Chamber fell away. There were only the black tiles snaking around and around at her feet. As she neared the last corner, she felt sleepy in the way she had when her mother had gently brushed her hair a long time ago.

There were distant footsteps somewhere. Sunni noted the sound and let it go.
It doesn’t matter
. The weight of her body was draining away, as if she had thrown off a huge stone that was keeping her anchored. Only her feet were still grounded enough to stop her from floating away, to move her steadily and irrevocably into the labyrinth. When at last she stepped into its perfect center, her feet broke free of gravity and she was released like a leaf on a breeze.

Blaise stood frozen to the spot, staring at the dissolving girl in the center of the labyrinth. Sunni was as dreamy and still as a statue, her eyelashes fluttering slightly. She began to look vague around the edges, as if someone had thrown a gauze curtain in front of her.

Someone’s footsteps in the corridor were coming closer, and Blaise looked away, momentarily distracted. In that split second, he knew he had missed his last glimpse of Sunni. He jerked his head back, but she was already gone.

A security guard looked into the Mariner’s Chamber and saw a boy standing alone in the empty room.

“You OK, son? Seen a ghost?” he asked.

Blaise shook himself and answered, “No, I’m all right.”

“Then make your way down to the exit please. It’s closing time.”

The guard left, whistling down the corridor.

Blaise moved close to the painting, his head reeling. He had noticed the burst of twinkling lights there after Sunni vanished.
The way her body melted into nothing
, he thought, bewildered.
How could someone ever come back from that?

The chamber walls seemed to be closing in on him, the idiot who let her go and stayed behind himself. If only he could run his hands over the painting’s surface and somehow pluck her out, chisel her out if he had to. But she was embedded in there now. Blaise’s eyes raced over the area where he had seen the lights. There were hundreds of little people and no time to search.

A distant voice called, “Son, come on. I have to close this floor.”

Blaise wanted to pound the walls and shout for the guard to give him just fifteen more minutes. But he knew the man would say no and tell him to come back tomorrow.

Come back tomorrow. That’s all I can do
. He shoved his sketchbook and pencils into his bag and left the Mariner’s Chamber, barely managing to mutter “Thanks” as he passed the guard and flew down the spiral staircase.

Another guard on the ground floor ushered Blaise outside and locked Blackhope Tower’s main door. The wintry night air hit him like a hard slap.

He trudged along the winding driveway, snow crunching underfoot. The only other person in the parking lot was a woman sitting in a car, its engine thrumming, but Blaise was so preoccupied that he didn’t even notice her.

The woman glanced at him as he went by, then continued to watch the main door for a sign of her son, Dean, and stepdaughter, Sunni.

S
unni was aware of someone standing over her. Her eyes fluttered open to find she was lying on the ground. A palm holding a few coins was thrust under her nose. The woman whose hand it was stared at her from under an elaborate hairstyle, woven through with pearls. Sunni cried out and pushed the hand away, but the woman did not blink or flinch.

Sunni glanced down at a bundle of rags beside her and realized to her horror that it was a person’s legs; one knee jutting out sharply, the other just a stump wrapped in filthy cloth strips. Her heart thumped double time, sending bolts of fear shooting along her spine. She rolled away and scrambled to her feet, ready to sprint.

The richly dressed woman was bending down to offer coins to a one-legged beggar. His face was grimy but smiling at the lady. Neither had moved.

Sunni hugged herself and felt the familiar density of flesh and muscle under her skin.
I’ve seen these people before — in the painting. And now I’m in it, too
. The weightless, dreamy feeling she had experienced on the labyrinth had gone. Her feet were firmly rooted to the ground, and there was no way to fly off.

The medieval buildings in the small square where she stood were bathed in a slanting lemony light. The air smelled of nothing. Not sea, nor smoke, nor food.

There was no sound. Not a rustle or hum or breath except for her own.

“Dean!” Sunni screamed to crack open the deadness of the place. It was as if she were shouting into a cupboard. No echo, no response. “Dean, Dean! It’s me!”

She shouted his name until she doubled over, coughing. Where was he? How far could he have gone? Had he even heard her?

Slowly Sunni walked back to the woman and the beggar. She touched the lady’s stiff dress. Then she gingerly touched her hand. Not exactly waxy, not exactly cold. Just not alive.

Sunni moved through the square, around a pack of young men with fixed laughing mouths and some toothless old ladies soundlessly shouting at street urchins. She hunted for something, anything that looked like a way out. But there was nothing.

She shivered. Although there was no breeze, there was also no heat from a real sun. She spoke out loud just to hear something. “Dean! How are we ever going to get out?”

Get a grip, girl
. She stopped and faced a church with a tall spire.
Did I draw that earlier?

She pulled her sketchbook out and found her rough sketch of the painting. If she had had time to finish copying it, she would have had a sort of map of the painting to follow, but she had hardly drawn anything of importance. At least she had marked out the church spire. Its tip pointed her gaze in the direction of something even more interesting: the castle on a hill overlooking the city. That must be the highest place in “Arcadia.” She flung her backpack over her shoulder and set off toward the hill.

Dean sat curled up in a dark corner of a deserted alley and looked at his watch. Three thirty a.m. He had been wandering around for hours and hours. But it was still bright sunshine here. The shadows hadn’t moved. Nor had anything else.

He rubbed his swollen eyes, feeling slightly calmer inside now. Not like when he’d first woken up and found himself lying on a road in this place, whatever it was. He’d thought he must have been dreaming and had punched himself in the arm. It had hurt. This was no dream.

He’d ventured over to see the golden juggling balls suspended in the air. He didn’t know why, but he could stand underneath them and they didn’t fall on him. He had looked around the crowd of people staring at the juggler, some with mouths hanging open, some pointing. Only the ones at the front had complete faces.

Dean felt sick at the horrible memory. The people near the back had shadow eyes, no noses and their mouths were just a stroke of red.

He had run away, panicked. Everywhere figures were planted like statues.

He had yelled for his mom and been answered by silence. Hurling himself through the streets, he had fallen over a mangy dog and tripped into a wall. He had finally dragged himself into this empty alley and hidden himself in a corner.

His stomach rumbled. He had taken a bit of bread from a baker’s basket, but it felt odd and he decided not to try it. The same thing had happened with an orange he’d picked up. He’d tried peeling it, but it was as solid as if it had been carved from wood. If everything here was like this, he was going to starve to death.

Dean wished he were back in Blackhope Tower with Sunni, before he’d walked around those tiles in the floor and begun to feel dizzy. The last thing he’d seen before his vision faded was that painting.

A feeling started to tug at Dean from deep inside. The strange clothes people wore in this place, the odd houses, even the animals seemed familiar. The more it made sense, the more dreadful it was.

His head slumped forward into his hands. How could he be inside a painting? Would anyone ever figure out where he was? And how could they get him back?

After a while he pulled his jacket hood up over his head, hugged his knees even more tightly, and fell over onto his side. Moments later, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

Sunni turned into another twisting lane and looked at the scene around her.
More clone people
, she thought. Fausto Corvo hadn’t given his figures much variety. She saw the same nose over and over, and the same eyes, which was almost as unsettling as the weird, unfinished faces in the shadows and behind the crowds.

A donkey and cart loaded with sacks of grain caught her eye. She pulled the hat off the driver’s head and perched it between the donkey’s ears. If she came back this way, she would recognize them.

She drew the lane into a sketch map of the streets she had walked already and labeled it “Donkey with Hat.” So far she had lanes labeled “Oranges in Fountain,” “Upside-Down Dog,” and others, making up a trail she could follow back if she had to.

“Donkey with Hat” Lane curved up a hill into a park surrounding the castle. Its towers and turrets gleamed in the perpetual morning sun, while its red banners and pennants were apparently flying in the nonexistent breeze.

Sunni walked along the castle walls until she came to an ancient tree. She hauled herself up until she was on the highest of its limbs and sat down, her legs dangling.

The view was not as good as she had hoped. She could see some of the lanes she had followed, but others were hidden below. Where the houses ended, masts of ships poked above the rooftops. There was no sign of her stepbrother. On top of that, she felt as if she had been awake for days, with her stomach rumbling continuously.