Chapter Text
I lay in bed, flexing my new fingers, testing them for any abnormalities. The stomach extraction had been invasive, but tolerable. However, when he asked if I’d like my hand back, he’d blindfolded me and wouldn’t explain why. I’d acquiesced, needing my dominant hand more than answers.
The only painful part had been setting it. He’d warned me, but still, I was not prepared to feel a ligament reattach. I had wanted so bad to rip the blindfold off, to know if the pain was simply my imagination. To reassure myself that my skin was not in fact being stretched until it had snapped surely over each finger like a glove.
When it was done, Ben had looked tired. Exhausted. He’d walked me back to the room and shut the door without following me inside.
Resting, but not sleeping. It wasn’t the same, but too much had happened. I was in Oz, or a nightmarish version of it. I needed to get home. But what would happen when I left Ben? Was he all that was keeping me alive?
It was a terrifying thought.
The door opened, and I peeked over the blankets to see him. When he saw me, he rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. “I just want to sleep. I’ll let you sleep too.”
He stripped. The sight of his body naked showed me exactly how powerfully built he was. Somehow, he seemed larger without his clothes on.
His weariness was palpable. When his head hit the pillow, he seemed ready to sleep; I was an afterthought. He made me lift up my hair. Complying, I felt something prick the base of my neck, where the button was. It hurt, enough that I tried to turn my head.
“It’s already in. It’ll be a long sleep—a day, maybe two.” He started cranking. “I was nice. Usually I make the girls watch so they never attack me again. You’re so different. I think you’re going to be the one that stays.” He yawned. “I could put dreams in. Not tonight, but next time. I make them for myself, but I’d give you one.”
For the first time, I didn’t feel real. I was a vessel, something that he could bust apart, piece back together, and even fill up. I was glad when the clicking stopped; had I been able to think on it longer, I might have gone mad.
***
When I woke up, I was lying on a table. I rolled my head to see Ben, his back turned as he worked at the counter across the room. When I tried to sit up, he quickly put down his things and came over to me.
“Couldn’t remember the exact number of turns.” He touched my shoulder, surveying me, or more importantly, my throat. “I felt bad about the hand. I decided you can have your voice back, if you promise not to scream.”
Afraid it was too good to be true, I cautiously tried my own name. “R-Rey.”
It felt like a gift, an invisible muzzle torn off. Ben watched me warily. I could tell he was expecting the usual. And while I didn’t want to scream, I had a million questions. I almost started rambling them off before I remembered how much he would hate that.
“Thank you.” I didn’t want to lose the gift. “Would you like me to stay silent while you work?”
His eyes lit up, and the clouded expression dissolved into delight. “Would you like to help me?”
Answers were what I wanted. If I could keep my cool, maybe he would tell me, or I’d find a good moment to ask.
He showed me his current project, a small wooden cat. He had been applying hair to it. Mouse hair, by the look of the pelt. He pulled a stool out for me, and I sat while he grabbed a pair of tweezers.
“Could you hold it while I apply?”
He set the figure in my open palm; it was slightly larger than a quarter. After a moment, I was beginning to think he didn’t need me to hold it. With meticulous care, he applied each small hair. His hands didn’t shake, and his eyes were hyper-focused. When the side of the cat was covered, he finally looked up at me.
“One question.”
I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut, worried I’d waste it on something stupid. Was I dead? Yes. Was I trapped in some weird body? Yes. What had happened to all the other girls? What if he actually told me? Did I want to know?
“Could you tell me—” I paused, knowing if I didn’t word this right, he could deflect. He might still. “…your story?”
The question wasn’t what he was hoping for; I could see that right away. I didn’t ask another one. Instead, as the minutes ticked by, I wondered if he would ignore it. But as he flipped the figure over in my hand to work on the other side, he let out a resigned sigh.
“You would ask that.” He pursed his lips. “What if I say no?”
He met my eyes, no doubt waiting for me to start screaming or protesting. Something told me he had to answer the question, unless I gave him a reason not to. I held my hand still, trying my best to keep my face expressionless.
Another lapse of silence. He worked the rest of the hair on. Hours crawled by, but I found I didn’t tire. When the small cat was finished, he put it down.
He opened a drawer and pulled out a white doorknob that, as I inspected it closer, was filled with a billowing swirl of wispy cloudlike tendrils. Just like before, he switched out the doorknobs. A soft light pulsed when it clicked into place.
“I exist. I doubt I was born, but I don’t know. The tools were on the table and I knew how to use them. I craft doors, portals, but I don’t know who uses them. I take energy from the life I find outside. People, animals, birds sometimes…”
He gripped the handle hard, and the door groaned loudly as he opened it. Snow drifted across the threshold, but the howl of the wind made my eyes widen. I had forgotten that cold, the cold of sitting forgotten in a downed aircraft as you waited for the snow to consume you, and it screamed on the other side of that door like a banshee.
I could see the side of the mountain where we’d crashed; the snow had already erased any trace of the wreckage. He let me look for a long minute before wrenching the door shut again.
“The planes are brought to me, always with a woman on board. A gift, I think. For making the portals.”
My eyes shifted to the dollhouses. I noticed a light switch on in the small one. He followed my gaze. “I don’t want to build you a house. I hope you stay. If I have to whittle you down that small, you’ll stay that way forever.”
He went to the small cat figurine on the counter, inspecting the figurine. “The church has mice, or so I was told. I promised her a few cats to help.”
“Her?”
He tsked. “I answered your question for today. When you’ve been good, I’ll let you ask another.”
I peered closer at the church and thought I heard music. His hand trailed up my back.
“Ben. If you answer one more…I’ll kiss you.”
Arms encircled me, his cheek pressed against my own. “Hmm?”
“Is—Is Rose in that house with the picket fence?”
He gave me a squeeze. “I knew you’d understand.” He let go of me and walked over to the house, smiling proudly. “I made little figures of her sons. I even offered to make new ones if she wanted them to grow up, but I don’t think she can bear to part with them, even though she knows they’re not real.”
He allowed me to come close to the small house with the picket fence, and with a delicate touch that belied his thick fingers, opened the front door. I leaned close, staring in. I didn’t see anyone, but I heard the sound of a TV and children laughing.
A scream wanted to ripple out of my throat. We were toys. Things to play with, to keep the eternal hours from boring him. And I’d either be trapped in this world forever or wake up someday in an even smaller one.
I felt the last piece of the person I was slipping away.
I turned to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck, noticing once again that the light in his eyes had faded slightly.
“I knew you’d be the one.”
I crushed my lips against his, my hands combing through his hair till I found what I’d hoped was there. His arms that had tightened around my waist tried to react, to push me away, but it was too late.
It clicked once.
The silence was all that was left, and it was louder than a scream.