Page 38 of House of Clowns

She looked down at me with this bizarre determination. "Lie down."

I didn't have to hear anymore. I lay down on the blood-red carpet, shut my eyes, and let the thick odor of metallic blood flood into my nostrils.

"Count to three," she said. Her voice was flat. "And focus on where she'd be. When you find her, give her the code—something only she'd know. That'll anchor you both, help you enter her dream."

"Fine," I growled, settling myself. I took a deep breath, then counted.

I counted each number like it was a step through the dark: one, two, three. My mind wandered back to the maze, to that first night when I saw her—all that innocence and defiance, such a bright spark against the dim world we lived in. I'd regretted not going to her sooner; if I had, maybe I would have claimed her that very first night.

A door materialized, and I reached for the handle and shoved it open. The world abruptly shifted around me. I stepped into a tent, its walls flexing with an eerie glow of red neon, tinging everything with long and distorting shadows. In the center, a great maze flowed down, curving and turning with mirrors at every turn. Faint, haunting circus music murmured back, each note hanging in the air like a ghost of memories past.

And there she was, a flash of white as she darted through the maze, her reflection flickering in the mirrors like a ghost slipping between worlds. I walked toward her and entered the maze, the red glow above me sputtering unsteadily. The first mirror caught my reflection and there I was—a clown, even here, even in my own dream.

She ran ahead, a flash of white receding deeper into the labyrinth, her reflection rippling from one mirror to another. I started after her, running down the twisting corridors. Yet just when I could almost reach her, the maze would shift, the mirrors gliding as though they were partitions, blocking my way.

Finally, she turned around the corner just in front of me, and I caught her wrist and drew her near, her back pressed against a mirror. She looked up at me, her eyes searching, as though something familiar but forgotten shone somewhere deep in my gaze. The words swelled in my chest, words so long held in, words that I had never dared to utter.

I leaned in, pressing my lips against hers, whispering against them,"I will always come back."

Her fingers brushed my face, soft and cold, her skin sallow as though she was drifting off, pale, her form blurring, becoming translucent. And in desperate clawing up my throat, I yelled as she began to fade,"I fucking love you."

A soft smile touched her lips, and she reached out, her hand intertwining with mine. She pulled me after her, straight into the mirror, and I felt a lurch, some sensation of falling throughendless space. I tumbled through the darkness until, suddenly, my feet hit solid ground—golden leaves crunching beneath me. I looked up, and there it was. The tall, haunting building before me could be mistaken for no other.

"Santa Maria Asylum,"I said in a whisper to myself, and a shiver ran over me as the meaning registered.

I was in.

TWENTY TWO

JOKER

Before me lay the asylum hallway, dim and decaying; the walls chipped, shadowed with years of neglect and torment. The old wheelchair sat in the center, creaking as if moved by an invisible hand. I glanced sideways to see a man banging his head against the wall, the blood of each impact making the wet sound resound in the silence. His head twisted as I passed; his vacant eyes locked onto me with a hollow accusation.

Farther down the street, a woman stood stock-still, her eyes black as ink, staring at me with a heavy darkness that kept my feet in place. Her lips curled upward, into what was unmistakably a smile—or a warning. I started to move down the sidewalk once more, my pulse concussive in my ears with every step, and that is when I saw him.

A man was dressed as a doctor—a mask shaped like a rabbit's head, but the mask was stitched from human skin, the sutures crossing in a rough pattern on it like some kind of gruesome patchwork covering his features. He held an axe for chopping, tilted his head, and watched me, a predator's gaze raising every hair on my body. I whirled and ran in the opposite direction,toward a door that was at the far end of the hall. The sound of drums and a haunting lullaby filled the air, mocking me, while pushing my feet toward speed.

But it would not move. Panic flooded me as I threw my weight against it, hearing footsteps draw closer, heavier. A soft whisper slipped through the door, barely audible but unmistakable.

"Save me." Her voice.

I slammed my foot against the door, feeling it give in with a splintering crack. I plunged inside and slammed it shut just as the doctor reached me, his masked face pressing into the small window, watching me with that grotesque smile beneath his mask.

I turned, and there she was. The room was bleached white, devoid of anything but Chiara, who huddled in her far corner. Kneeling, her hair falling in front of her face, quivering shoulders. Her eyes went wide as she looked up—her lips quivering in a whisper: "Save me… I killed them all."

I knelt beside her, wrapping my jacket around her shoulders. "It's all a dream," I murmured—my voice as level as I could maintain it, hoping that would draw her from whatever nightmare had her in its grip.

And then, in the blink of an eye—as if I'd only blinked—the asylum disappeared.

We lay on soft grass beneath an open sky, warm sunlight spilling over us. Chiara looked over at me, her white dress billowing softly in the breeze, her eyes meeting mine with a calm she hadn't possessed in a long time.

"I don't want to wake up," she whispered, turning closer to me.

I looked down to find I was dressed in white too, the scars on my face and hands gone, somehow miraculously so, as if this world—this place—must be some version of us in which all the brokenness, all the dark of what had been, wasn't.

"But you have to," I said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "There's a whole world out there for you."

"What's a world without you in it?" she whispered, her hand falling softly against my chest, her fingers resting where my heartbeat steadied. I took her hand in mine, anchoring her here, grounding her.

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