“It’s good to see you doing so well,” said the headmaster, studying Cora as he sat. If he’d seen the brief wrinkle in her serenity, he didn’t say anything. “I admit, I was concerned about you after your most recent readjustment. There was some question of whether we’d been moving too quickly with you.”
“I’ve realized that you can only help me so far before I have to help myself,” said Cora. She held up one hand, showing its complete lack of rainbows. “I’ve faced down some of my demons at last, and I’ll be ready to rejoin the world outside very soon.”
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not as eager to believe that as some of the matrons.”
“You’ve seen many students come and go,” said Cora. “You have reason to be suspicious when a problem child turns themselves around too quickly. I understand why you’re not going to be immediately convinced of my motivations.”
“You say all the right things,” said the headmaster. “It’s odd, for a traveler to give up on their door so quickly. Many of our students stay here until they age out of the program, and return home unsuited for normal society. Their parents are very disappointed in them.”
“My parents have always supported me,” said Cora neutrally.
“Your admission papers say that they thought you had committed suicide when you first disappeared. Do you have much experience with death, Miss Miller?”
Cora looked at him levelly. “More than I would like.” Sailors whose ships had sailed into the wrong waters, gasping out their last breath in her arms. The deep cold waters of the Moors, where the Drowned Gods had seized her fast and pulled her down, down into the depths, the unforgiving depths, where nothing was forgotten or forgiven.
The sailors had been heroes in their own stories, and the mermaids had been the monsters. But it didn’t matter who wore which label. When monsters met heroes, there were always casualties.
The headmaster might have been a hero, once. He was a monster now. There was going to be a casualty, even if he didn’t kill bodies. The only question left was which one of them was walking away.
“I’ll be frank, Miss Miller: I think you’re trying to trick me. I think your little friend from Miss West’s school came on some sort of ill-conceived rescue mission, and you think you’re going to walk away. I would like to state, in so many words, that it’s not going to happen. You will remain here until you turn eighteen, and at that point, you can choose to drop out, or you can choose to do the sensible thing for your own future, or you can choose to leave. I think you’ll find that it won’t matter if this was a trick: the door you so eagerly seek will be closed to you.”
“I understand,” said Cora. “I assure you, this isn’t a trick. I was right to come here. The rainbows are gone from my skin. My hair will change next, I’m sure, and I’ll be saved. It’s nice to play sometimes. But you can’t live your whole life running toward rainbows. Rainbows won’t feed you or clothe you or put a roof over your head. All they’ll do is shine. Lots of things can shine. I think I’d like to shine. I’ll just do it quietly.”
There was a pause as the headmaster looked at her and Cora did her best to keep breathing, to keep looking at him with calm, untroubled eyes. This was another kind of war. This was a battle, and she knew how to win battles. All too often, the trick was in refusing to be the first one to move.
Finally, the headmaster nodded. “I don’t entirely believe you yet,” he said.
“I can’t blame you for that.”
“But if, as you say, you’re willing to change your behavior, I would be delighted to welcome you back to the fellowship of humanity.” The headmaster smiled. It wasn’t the terrible smile he’d shown her during her intake, all teeth and ill intent, but it wasn’t a kind smile, either, and it only made the slightest of impression on his general air of forgettable blandness.
Cora took a careful breath. This was a gamble, and one that might have been better left for another time … but gambles were risky by nature, and if this one paid off, it might make her position substantially better. That made it worth trying.
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
“Yes, Miss Miller?”
“I can’t … I know you when I see you, but I can’t remember your face when I’m not looking directly at it. Why is that?”
And the headmaster’s smile widened.
12?THE HEADMASTER’S TALE
“THE DOORS HAVE ALWAYS been more inclined to prey on little girls,” said the headmaster, and Cora said nothing. He was a man who enjoyed being listened to: anyone with eyes could see that. He liked it when people made him feel important, and attention had always been a quick route to importance. Attention said “you exist.” Attention said “I see you.”
She supposed that for a man who disappeared from the mind’s eye as soon as he was out of sight, being seen might be even more important than it was for most people.
“That doesn’t mean boy children are safe, only that they’re less likely to see the lures, or to recognize them as the signs they are. Their parents prepare them for other dangers, other risks. They keep them safe from strangers and from busy highways. They don’t keep them safe from impossible doors.”
Cora found her silence was too heavy to hold. She had to put it down. “My parents never warned me about the doors, sir.”
“They told you to be quiet and constrained and obedient, didn’t they? That’s virtually the same thing. The doors want wild things. They want feral beasts in the skin of dutiful daughters—and you can’t sit here, with your neatly brushed hair and your tidy uniform and tell me you don’t know what it is to be feral. I know you too well for that.”
Cora said nothing.
“I was a good boy. I listened to my elders, I did my lessons, I tried to behave. And one day, there was a door where no door belonged, and I opened it, and found myself in a world where color was a fairy tale. It was a cut-paper reality, black and white and malleable, and I was a god there, because I understood how to move in three dimensions. I taught the people so many things they thought were impossible because the rules of possibility were different for them. I made their world infinitely better, and when I was done, they asked if I would stay. They offered me the paper moon and the cardboard stars if I would be their new leader. I could have ushered them into a golden age. But I missed my family. I missed food with shape and texture, that didn’t feel like sawdust in my mouth, no matter how glorious it tasted. I was born for this world, Miss Miller, even as you were, and I wanted—I needed—to return to it. The doors tell their children to be sure. Well, I was sure I needed to go. I told them so. I told them I had done all that I could. And do you know how they replied?”
Cora shook her head, still silent. This time, her silence was not by choice. It was the swallowed horror of someone who could see the shape of the story coming together in front of them, and wished, very much, that they had the power to look away.
“They said I couldn’t go without allowing them to give me a gift, because I had been so very good to them, and so kind, and they couldn’t stand the thought of me leaving empty-handed. And then they held me down, all my smiling, friendly companions, the people who I’d come to care for almost as family, and they stripped the individuality from my bones, so no one in this world would be able to remember me between one moment and the next. My parents, when I came staggering into the backyard, had almost forgotten they had ever had a son. My sister had moved into my bedroom. I could remind them I was real, when I made an effort, but I would simply … slip out of their minds every time I turned my back.