The boy looked up at her. The boy who had tormented Gwendolyn as Mister Zero. He was no longer withered and frail, and his long white hair had been trimmed, but there was no mistaking his fragile features, or his pale grey eyes with that haunted, fidgety look.
“Quiet,” he said.
Gwendolyn didn’t know what to say anyway. Bill was the child who had been plugged into the central spire of the City, absorbing all of the energy the Lambents drained out of its Cityzens, using that power to keep the City unchanged for five hundred years. But despite such a larger-than-life history, here he was, sitting amongst the other unclaimed children like he was nobody special, looking small and pathetic.
Was he dangerous? It seemed unlikely, given the sad, slow way he ate his nutrient glue. Gwendolyn had only spoken to him briefly, after the collapse of the spire, and he had seemed like a completely different person. Even his voice had been different. Though to be honest, Gwendolyn had been heavily concussed at the time, and had been fairly convinced she’d imagined him. But here he was.
She leaned across the table and hissed at him. “Bill! What are you doing here? Do you remember me?”
He leaned in as well. Then he whacked her on the head with his spoon.
“Ow!” Gwendolyn roared.
“Quiet! I don’t wanna get sent to the Consequence Closet.”
She tried to wipe the glue off her scalp. “Well, that sounds particularly horrible.” She was sorely tempted to lunge across the table and tackle him. “I’m getting awfully tired of everybody hitting me.” But she forced herself to sit back down, and wait for another chance.
After dinner, the children queued up for the evening bathroom routines, boys on the left and girls on the right. Gwendolyn grabbed Bill by the arm and pulled him to the back of the line.
“Bill!” she whispered. “Do you remember me?”
He gave her a dazed look. Then he blinked a few times, and his expression seemed to clear. “I… I think so. You’re that girl, ain’t you? The one from that place. From when I woke up.”
“Yes, that’s right. What do you remember about it?”
“I remember… waking up. Like I’d had a long dream. Something about men in funny hats, and a lot of white light.”
“And what are you doing here?” she said, careful to keep her voice low.
“The police found me in the tower. They didn’t know what to do with me. I told them to go get my father, but when they went to the house, he wasn’t there. Nuffin’ was there.” His expression grew sadder, if that was possible. “It was all gone. So they brought me here.”
“So you don’t remember anything that happened while you were in… that place?”
He sniffed, and whipped his nose on his sleeve. “No. And I don’t want to, neither. Just… just leave me alone.”
Gwendolyn knew he wasn’t lying. He didn’t remember his time as the Collector. Come to think of it… Bill’s voice was so different from Mister Zero’s. And Gwendolyn had never seen the Collector’s mouth actually move, had only heard an eerie voice resonating through the O.R.B. Had Bill only been some puppet? If so, who had been pulling the strings, dangling this poor boy inside that crystal spire? The thought sent her imagination reeling.
But her daydreaming didn’t last long. She was separated from Bill and sent into a tiled room with metal lockers and long benches. She watched the other girls to see what was expected of her, and was horrified to see them stripping off their clothes and marching into a large room where she could hear water running.
There was no way she was going to get down to her altogether in front of all these people. But two of the older girls moved in behind her, and Gwendolyn decided it was better to do it herself before they did it for her.
What followed was the single most mortifying experience of Gwendolyn’s life. She was grateful she had no hair to wash. She had been the last one in, but made sure she was the first one out.
They were ushered back into the changing room to dry off with scratchy towels that were far too small. Thin grey nightgowns were provided at one end of the room. Gwendolyn put it on, and scowled in disgust at the sash and bow around the waist. She hated that sort of thing. It was almost more embarrassing than wearing nothing at all.
Back in the dormitory area, the boys and girls were reunited, and silently crawled into their beds. Gwendolyn found herself going along with everyone else and climbing into her own.
The Childkeeper gave them all one last inspection. She chose children at random and checked that their fingernails were clean and their area was in order. Then she nodded, satisfied.
“Good night, children. Rest well. You have more work to do tomorrow.”
The children sang back—
​
Yes, Childkeeper,
Good night to you as well.
We owe you for your time,
and thank you for your care.
​
Gwendolyn grunted. “It doesn’t even rhyme…”
The Childkeeper went to the large double doors that led to the street. There was the click of a key turning, and the massive thunk of a heavy lock. Then she turned out the lights, and exited through a small side door.
Gwendolyn lay in her bed, absently running a hand along her freshly-scrubbed scalp. A depressive fog was creeping up on her. Her limbs were heavy. Her thoughts were slow. Not since her breakdowns in Faeoria had she felt like this. She had been stripped of her home, her belongings, even her dignity. All her energy had drained away with the water in the showers.
She craned her neck and tilted her head back to look upside-down out the barred window. Moonlight broke through the clouds. Its pale glow seemed to caress her.
And Gwendolyn sang her own song, barely above a whisper.
​
Sparrow and Starling, Darrow and darling
I miss you terribly so.
Come to me here, I need you my dears,
For I’m terribly all alone.
Hey ho, here we go,
I’m...
​
But she couldn’t finish. Her voice choked off, and she rolled onto her side. She wished they had let her keep her books. She would have read Kolonius Thrash and the Perilous Pirates, and see the crew going about their familiar adventures. She would reread how Kolonius and Brunswick and Carsair had stopped Tylerium Drekk from robbing the Archicon bank. Back on their world, she was sure the crew was getting up to newer, stranger adventures without her, filling up more volumes in the Library of All Wonder.
But she didn’t have anything. Not even any ideas. So she ran her finger along the sheets, invisibly doodling her initials. Two capital G’s, a larger one wrapped around a smaller one. The special symbol she’d drawn since she was a little girl.
But suddenly, it wasn’t imaginary anymore. Glowing green ink trailed from her finger, staining the sheet. Her initials shimmered up at her.
Gwendolyn’s eyes went wide.
Then the letters began to move. They twisted and morphed until new words glittered up at her, written in an elaborate flowing script.
Come and find me.
Gwendolyn’s touched the words, smearing the wet ink. A tingle shot up her arm, an electrifying jol. And suddenly it was as though an invisible hand had lifted a weight from her shoulders; one she hadn’t realized was there. She felt lighter. Stronger. A glowing after-image of the words still danced before her eyes.
Come and find me. She could practically hear the words echoing in her head.
Her feet hit the floor.
She glanced around at the rows of identical beds. I’m getting out of here, she thought. There was magic out there, somewhere, and she was going to find it. Someone was calling her. Someone wanted her. And her heart leapt to think who it might be.
Well, she wouldn’t keep them waiting. She was Gwendolyn Alice Gray, and this place could not hold her. But first…
I’ll need my things. She looked to the front doors. Locked tight. She wasn’t getting out that way, anyway.
So she turned and went the other way, to the door the Childkeeper had left through. It was unlocked. Gwendolyn opened it and headed into the dark hallway beyond.
There were a few doors on either side. But the one at the end of the hall had a frosted glass window with the words Administrative Office printed on it. It was locked, but hadn’t closed completely, and Gwendolyn was able to open a crack and glance inside.
The room was empty. Moonlight filtered in through a transom window. There was a desk with a large chair behind it, and a tiny chair in front of it. It wasn’t hard to picture the Childkeeper looming over whatever poor soul happened to be sitting there.
There were doors on either side of the room. But the one on the left drew her eye. There was nothing remarkable about it, but Gwendolyn felt a strange pull somewhere inside her. She’d had a similar feeling years ago, in the caves of the Crystal Coves. A subtle nudge that drew her closer. Was this what she was supposed to find?
The door opened onto a series of steps that spiraled downwards into darkness. Despite every ounce of common sense she had screaming at her not to go down a darkened stairwell in the middle of the night, those ounces of common sense were vastly outweighed by a ton of curiosity.
But both curiosity and sense were disappointed when all she found was another door at the bottom, this one emblazoned with the words KEEP OUT in very unfriendly letters. Even more unfriendly were the three gratuitously large padlocks that held it shut. The sort of door that made her curiosity scream so loud she was afraid someone would hear it urging her to Get Through That Door!
She pressed a hand to it. It seemed to be humming, like some enormous machinery were running somewhere behind it.
Curiosity alone wouldn’t cut through cold steel, though. No matter. This wasn’t why she was here. She headed back to the office and looked around for her things. She found her satchel behind the desk and bent to snatch it up, but the sound of feet on the basement stairs made her stop.
Gwendolyn threw herself under the desk and scrunched up as small as she could.
Footsteps entered the room and clicked across the floor. The unmistakable sound of the Childkeeper’s stiletto heels. Followed by the sight of those heels. Gwendolyn pressed herself even harder against the back panel of the desk.
Please don’t sit down, please don’t sit down, please don’t sit down…
Fortunately, the Childkeeper did not sit down. Instead, Gwendolyn heard the sound of a phone being lifted from its cradle, and the rotary dial spinning.
“It’s me,” the Childkeeper said. “I have performed the evening checkup. All is going well, but we will need new recruits soon. There are only so many orphans, after all.”
Gwendolyn’s eyes widened. That was not a particularly comforting statement.
There was a pause before the Childkeeper spoke again. “I concur completely. These Revels have been going on for quite some time now. The children there would make perfect candidates. Perhaps tonight?” She paused again. “Yes. We must create a return to values.”
Gwendolyn’s eyes were quite a lot wider now.
The pause was longer this time. “Yes, the girl did make some mischief today. She tried to cause a fuss in front of Mr. Pump. Attempted to rile up the other children… No, they are well trained and drained. They dealt with her on their own. This is undoubtedly the safest place for her. She cannot be allowed to roam the City on her own. I will see that the troublemaker is made quite at home here. If that is all?”
The person on the other end of the line seemed to think so, as Gwendolyn heard the sound of the phone being set down. If Gwendolyn’s eyes grew any wider, they’d be liable to fall out and roll around on the floor.
The Childkeeper’s shoes disappeared and Gwendolyn heard them clicking away over to one of the doors, which opened, then closed.
Gwendolyn moved as slowly as she could force her panicked body to go, and peeked around the desk. The room was empty again. The Childkeeper must have gone back down to the basement again. Gwendolyn tiptoed to the door to the hallway, and snuck out of the office—
Only to come face-to-face, to face, to face, with two girls wearing gray pajamas and cruel smirks, and the Childkeeper standing behind them.
Uh-oh, Gwendolyn thought. Wrong door.
“See?” said the girl on the left. “We told you she was out of bed.”
“You were quite right to do so,” the Childkeeper said, calm as ever. “Please escort her to the Consequence Closet.”
Before Gwendolyn could so much as blink, the girls grabbed her by the arms and dragged her back into the office.
The Childkeeper went and opened the third door in the room, but it was too dark to see what lay inside.
Gwendolyn was hurled through it, where she slammed face first into the opposite wall. She cried out and spun around, readying herself for a fight.
“You see, I am not as lax as my predecessor. The rules must be followed. I’ll see you in the morning,” The Childkeeper said. “Well, some morning, anyway. I haven’t decided which one, yet.”
Gwendolyn lunged at her, only to have the door slammed in her face, hitting her already abused nose. The lock clicked.
And then it was dark. And quiet.
“Ugh,” Gwendolyn said. The sound was close and muffled. She felt around, and the room was small enough that she could touch all the walls without moving. She turned around to face the door, not that it mattered in the dark. Then she sank against the wall, sighed, and slid to the floor.
“The Consequence Closet,” she said, dabbing at her bleeding nose with the hem of her dress. “Well, I suppose it could be worse. There could be spikes in the walls and rusted nails through the door and broken glass underfoot.”
There were times when her imagination was less than helpful.
I can’t stay here, Gwendolyn thought. She had to escape. She had to get to the Revels and warn her friends. No doubt they were there right now, partying the night away, with no inkling that a squad of policemen was coming to round them all up and bring them to the Home. Not to mention the Childkeeper’s comments about Gwendolyn herself. She had to escape.
But while her imagination had plenty to say on the subject of the potential tortures that could be inflicted on her, it had precious little to offer in the way of getting out.
Think, she told herself. What did she have?
Her satchel. She still had her satchel!
Hurriedly, she flipped it open and dumped its contents on the floor, then felt her way through them. Her brief burst of hope quickly faded. All she had were her three books: her journal, Kolonius Thrash, and The Annals of the Fae. Nothing particularly useful. In the dark, she couldn’t even read them.
No, she thought. What could be more useful than books? Because, as good books often do, they had given her an idea. A familiar idea. And, if past experience had taught her anything, it was an extraordinarily bad idea. But she had no choice. Not if she was going to escape the Childkeeper, and warn her friends.
She picked up the larger of the two books.
“Robin Goodfellow,” she said. “Robin Goodfellow. Robin Goodfellow.” She knew the power of names, and the power of threes.
But nothing happened.
She tried again. “Puck Robin. Puck Robin. Puck Robin.”
The book in her hands began to glow. The edges of the book glimmered, filling the closet with a ghostly green light.
It seemed to be coming from one page in particular. Gwendolyn opened it to find a beautifully illuminated page, with all manner of faeries and creatures frolicking in the margins and twining around the text. The first letter was an enormous R that took up fully half the page.
The hole in the R was glowing. The upper space of the letter was filled by an illustration, and if Gwendolyn was not mistaken, it was the inside of Cyria Kytain’s laboratory. And into the picture stepped Puck Robin.
The faerie folded her arms. “Oh look, once more the orphan calls my name. Dost though call me to break your oath again?”
“I’m not an orphan,” she spat. “And I’ve come to fulfill the terms of our agreement.”
“Such honeyed words I’ve heard you speak before. But I expect you’d have my help once more.”
“Well, help is a strong word. You see, I would love to take you out on the town, as we’ve agreed. There will be singing and dancing and oh, just so much fun. I simply need help getting there.” She tried not to let on how desperate she was.
Puck Robin squinted. “Then you’ll take me to these Revels of yours? But how do you strengthen the oath you swore?”
“I don’t suppose I could talk to Cyria instead? Is she in there somewhere?”
“The inventress is likewise indisposed, and cannot come to aid you, little Rose.” The imp smirked, using Gwendolyn’s faerie name, Rosecap.
Gwendolyn searched for something, anything she could offer. “Then, I… I swear by… by my name.” She didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded good. “I’m just a little bit trapped at the moment, so just a little help is all I need.”
Robin’s eyebrows went up, but the surprise disappeared behind a mask of indifference. “For collateral, that will have to do. Give it me, from your lips, and speak it true.”
Gwendolyn sighed. Nothing but bad ideas today. “Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn Alice Gray.”
The faerie shrugged. “Fine. I admit, it’s been quite dull of late. Stand back, dear child, and I’ll appear post haste.”
Robin snapped her fingers.
Nothing happened.
She frowned, and snapped again. And there was just as much nothing as before.
Robin looked bewildered and slightly alarmed, and a part of Gwendolyn was glad to see the smugness wiped off her face. But the rest of her was worried.
“What is it?”
Robin kept snapping her fingers. “I swear, this never happens.”
“There must be something wrong with your magic!”
Robin glared daggers that nearly leapt off the page. “My magic is fine,” she growled. She clapped her hands and turned into a badger, an eagle, a snake, and a lion, in rapid succession. “See?” she said when she had a normal mouth again. “The problem is yours.”
Gwendolyn huffed. “I don’t see how.”
“I feel the problem coming from your end. Or rather, not feel. It’s completely dead.”
“What does that mean?
“That… place prevents my attempts to appear.”
Gwendolyn glanced around the dark closet. “Yes, I suppose it is rather more horrible than usual. What do we do?”
“A smaller trick is all we need, don’t fear. Puck Robin shall get you out of there, oh yes, and then what mighty fun we’ll share”
There was a soft click. The handle turned by itself. And the door opened.
“Yes!” she hissed, quietly.
Stuffing her books back in her bag, Gwendolyn snuck into the empty office and looked around. She certainly wasn’t going to try the door again. Instead she eyed the transom window. She wheeled the office chair over to it, climbed up, and sprang the latch. The window opened smoothly and Gwendolyn squeezed through it.
A chill wind cut through her thin grey pajamas, and she crossed her arms for warmth. Not wasting any time, she darted across the concrete courtyard to the front gate. She scrambled up it, and dropped down to the other side, falling and scraping her knee in the process.
“Graceful,” said a voice. Gwendolyn looked up to see Puck Robin, clad in her usual black suit and orange tunic.
“Oh, so now you pop up.”
Robin shrugged. “The magic’s not so thin out here. I will not be barred from this mortal sphere. Now, time for fun, to pay your debt. Though my dear, you are not dressed for it yet.”
“No, wait—“
“I shall not and won’t, not one minute more. A party was promised, so to the dance floor!” Robin clapped her hands, and Gwendolyn found herself once again subjected to a fairy godmother’s makeover.
There was a blast of wind, and her pajamas were gone, replaced by her violet dress from the previous day. But now it was sleeker, sleeveless, embroidered with glistening silver vines and flowers, and sporting several inches of sparking fringe around the hem. A hem that was a bit higher than Gwendolyn remembered. A silver circlet wrapped around her upper arm. Delicate silver flats slipped themselves onto her feet.
She also felt a rather unfamiliar sensation on her head. Tentatively, she reached up to find a sequined headband around her forehead with a small feather sticking up from the side, and…
Hair. She had hair. She could feel a mop of sculpted waves, much smoother and tamer than what she’d previously had. She managed to pull some down to see that it was, in fact, a shining platinum blonde, as flat and straight as her own hair had been wild and curly.
She shot a withering glare at Robin. Though she was not entirely sure how she felt about this new development, she definitely did not appreciate it being done without so much as a by-your-leave.
“What?” Robin said. “You can’t be seen so bare of head; the sight would stop these Revels dead.”
Gwendolyn did not lessen her glare. “Just don’t forget who took my hair in the first place. Wait… Where’s my bag?”
Robin winked. “It’s quite safe and sound, your little pack. And when my fun is done, you can have it back. So let’s be off, my violet dear, some distant music plucks Puck’s ears.” Robin clapped her hands, and her own outfit turned a deep crimson. She wore white spats, though her feet were still bare. She was also smaller now, looking more of a teenager, but no less alluring or mysterious for it.
“Fine. Are you finished? We have to get to the Revels before the Childkeeper does. Not that I’ve any idea where they’ll be tonight, they move them every time. I don’t know how we’re going to find the place.”
Robin winked. “With a bit of magic, a bit of luck. And no party can escape the Puck.” The fairy clapped again, the world whirled around them, and they disappeared.