Once (Scenes 6-9)
6
And found herself passing into a crowded entrance hall, where a doorman wearing a white mask gave her a program at the threshold of the double doors. She entered dressed in a sky-blue Sunday dress with a square neckline and a mask of her own tied over her face and her hair hanging over the small of her back. Other guests in formal dress were there, many of them in couples of men and women congregating in their own private groups, talking and laughing. Other groups, comprising men or women only, hung around their own little groups, talking about things Colbie couldn’t quite hear out of earshot. And there were a few loners hanging around the corners of the entrance hall or sitting on benches and observing the crowds around them, looking for groups to mingle and converse with.
She hung around the outskirts, a loner herself, and observed these other loners and the groups they were looking for and noted their masks. They all wore either black or white masks that covered only their eyes, leaving their mouths open to express their salutations to other fellow mask-wearers.
“It’s a masquerade ball,” she said and looked at the program, but there were no lines of printing on any of the pages. So she went back to the doorman who had given her the program and said, “Um, excuse me.”
The doorman flinched at her voice, but ignored her.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said.
The doorman kept ignoring her, but eventually relented. “Y-yes, ma’am. What is it?”
”I think there’s been a mistake,” she said, handing him the program he gave her. ”All the pages are blank on this one. Can you hand me another one?”
The masked doorman paused, then handed her another one, saying, “Sorry, ma’am. I must’ve given you the wrong one.”
Colbie opened the program, but like before, the pages were blank. She said, “It’s blank in this one, too.”
The doorman paused for a while longer and gulped as the other masqueraders started avoiding both of them, then said, ”There must be a mistake, then. I’m very sorry, ma’am, for the inconvenience.” He paused again, as though thinking of her words, then added, ”By the way, do you know what color your mask is?”
“Oh, um . . .” She paused, looking down at her dress, and said, “Black, I think.”
“No, I’m afraid not,” he said.
“Then it’s white,” she said.
“It’s not that, either,” he said.
“Can you tell me?”
And all at once, the doorman began to sweat under his collar, as the other masqueraders began pointing the two out in hushed whispers, and said, “Ma’am, will you excuse me?”
“Sorry,” she said and stalked off towards the restroom and looked at the bathroom mirror. Unlike the black and white masks the others wore, her mask had a dark red hue and a glossy finish that reminded her of fresh blood, and so she took it off and inspected it.
The restroom door then opened to reveal another masked woman entering, but on seeing Colbie without her mask, the woman gasped and stormed out and left the door ajar.
After that, Colbie came out and caught a glimpse of the woman hiding amongst her girlfriends, talking about her encounter with the Red-something. Colbie had no idea what this Red-something was, so she tried to find another person wearing a red mask but had no such luck. To be sure, she saw masks of different styles and designs in the entrance hall, but everywhere she looked, all the groups of masqueraders had masks of black or white and no other color. She was the only one with a red mask, the only one belonging to neither group of masqueraders. And everywhere she looked, she saw the momentary glances of the other masqueraders, who turned away from her whenever she looked in their direction. And even when she walked towards them, they avoided facing her directly, or if they were facing her, they pretended to look past Colbie at someone else. And even when she wasn’t facing them, she felt their hushed whispers surrounding her with half-heard phrases about the Red-something.
She glanced back at the doorman, once again greeting the other masqueraders and then whispering in their ears and pointing her out amidst the crowd.
“They’re avoiding me,” Colbie said under her breath, “but why?”
She thought about it for a time, thinking about the Red-something or whatever they’re talking about. And so her thoughts lingered onto an Edgar Allan Poe story she had read in American Lit., though the title of it escaped her. The story was about a cloaked figure called the Red . . . She couldn’t think of the next word, even as she could almost grasp its form in her mind, reaching out and pulling off its mask and peering up at its face. That’s when she remembered something else and noticed her empty hands, then cursed when she couldn’t find her key.
A few heads turned in her direction, but they turned away when Colbie looked at them. She checked her pockets but found that her dress had no pockets for her to put her key in, so she went back to the doorman, while the crowd of masqueraders parted before her and avoided looking at her.
The doorman looked away from her, as well.
Colbie said, “Excuse me.”
Again, the doorman ignored her.
“Excuse me, sir, but I must’ve misplaced something,” she said and reached out to him and—
He flinched and stepped away, then regained himself and said, “What did you misplace, ma’am?”
“It’s a key,” she said.
“What kind of key?” he said.
“I don’t know what kind,” she said, “but I know I had it when I came here. I was just wondering if you could—”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” the doorman said and slipped past the double doors into the hallway beyond.
Colbie just stood there, speechless, wondering why he would just up and leave like that, till she felt the other masqueraders looking at her, yet when she looked back at them, they all ignored her.
She sighed, saying, “Ugh, this sucks!”
Then she spotted the program the doorman had dropped on the threshold and picked it up and went out into the hallway to give it back to him but stopped just outside the double doors, thinking better of it. She opened the program and saw the pages were blank, but on closer inspection, holding it against the light of a wall sconce, she noticed a name fluorescing in invisible ink.
“Edward Foster?” she said and looked down the hallway along the rows of mirrors and paneling on the walls. “Who are you?”
“Excuse me,” a woman said, and Colbie jumped before turning around and looking at the same woman who had walked in on her in the restroom. “Sorry about that! I didn’t mean to startle you, but you may want to keep this,” and she handed Colbie another program.
“I already have one,” she said, holding hers up, “but thanks, anyway.”
“You misunderstand,” the woman said, pressing the program she had into Colbie’s hand and taking the one Colbie picked up off the ground. “Kathy wanted you to have that one.”
“Why?” Colbie said.
“Open it, and you’ll find out,” the woman said, “but not yet and not here. There are too many wandering eyes and whispering lips around here, so be on your guard.” She then opened Colbie’s program and perused the pages beneath the light of the wall sconce, till she saw Colbie staring. “Don’t mind me.”
“Have you been spying on me?” Colbie said.
“Just to make sure you’re you,” the woman said, snapping the program closed. “Do you know who this Edward Foster is?”
“How should I know?” Colbie said.
“Just checking.”
“Do you know him?” Colbie said.
“I have an idea who he is.”
“What about Kathy?”
The woman smiled and said, “I have my secrets, but yes. I know her,” and she was about to walk down the hallway where the masked doorman had gone when Colbie caught her arm. “What?”
“Have you seen my key anywhere?” she said, letting go.
“No, I haven’t,” the woman said. “What does it look like?”
“It’s small,” she said, “like a house key or a trunk key.”
“That’s too generic to help much,” the woman said. “Where did you find it?”
“In my dream just before I came here,” Colbie said, “and then I lost it somewhere a few minutes ago.”
“I see,” the woman said. “Keys don’t just appear and disappear at random in dreams, but try not to concern yourself with what you’ve lost. Try to see it from a different angle, instead.”
Colbie considered this woman’s advice and said, “What angle are you talking about?”
So the woman raised her finger to her temple, saying, “The real key lies in you, in your knowledge and your creativity, which you have in spades. I’m glad to have met you in person, Colbie,” and she placed a finger to Colbie’s lips before she said anything else. “I know we haven’t met before, but I need your help,” and she took her finger off her lips.
“What kind of help?” Colbie said.
“Kathy will be placed under a sleeper curse soon,” the woman said, “and you’re the one to wake her out of it.”
“Seriously?” she said.
The woman nodded her head.
“How do you know that’ll happen?” she said. “And why me?”
“Because it’s fated to happen,” the woman said, “and I’m just here to give you a heads up before it does.”
“But why me?”
“I already told you,” the woman said.
“Yeah, but why?”
“I don’t know why,” the woman said. “Kathy’s already been placed under a sleeper curse on my watch, because I was too distracted to notice before I could do anything to stop it. It hasn’t happened yet, but when it does (and it will), her spirit will lie somewhere on these premises.”
“Where?” Colbie said.
“I have no idea where,” the woman said. “All I know is that if she doesn’t wake up by tomorrow morning, she’ll stay asleep for God knows how long. That’s why I’m here,” she added and pointed to the program in Colbie’s hand, “and that’s why you need to hold onto that. So don’t lose it!”
“I won’t,” Colbie said, “but can’t you do anything else?”
“Not without endangering your life and the lives of your friends,” the woman said. “As it is, this is all I can do for Kathy. The rest is up to you.”
Colbie just stared, saying, “What do you expect me to do?”
“I’ll give you a hint,” the woman said and planted a kiss on her lips. “Think of Sleeping Beauty, and you’ll know what to do. I’ll be off now. It was nice talking to you,” and she passed by Colbie and walked down the hallway and turned the corner—
7
And found the doorman leaning against the wall paneling between two mirrors and checking his watch, catching his attention the moment she appeared. And when she approached him, she did so under the unfavorable impressions Blaze had said of him, that he was a shady man who dealt with other shady characters, yet his overall demeanor dispelled that notion.
He stood up and straightened the collar of his dinner jacket and said, “Can I help you, ma’am?”
“Yes, you can,” Cooley said, looking at his eyes through the eye slits of his mask. “Is your name Ronald Hamilton?”
The man just stared at her through his mask, silent for a time, seeming to analyze Cooley’s reactions as much as she was analyzing his. He said, “I don’t know who that is, ma’am. You must’ve mistaken me for someone else.”
“Oh, really?” she said. “Do you go by an alias?”
“Ma’am, I don’t know what you’re saying,” he said and scuffed the soles of his shoes on the carpet before passing her by on his way back to the ballroom. “Good evening, ma’am.”
“Edward Foster, is it?” she said.
The man stopped and looked back at her, saying, “Do I know you?”
“Not yet,” she said.
The man paused for a moment, then came back to her and said, “What business do you have with me?”
“A plea for help,” she said.
“What kind of help?”
“The kind only you can give,” Cooley said. “In a few hours’ time, Kathy will succumb to a sleeper curse.”
“Kathy?” the doorman said. “Do you mean Katherine Hearn?”
Cooley nodded her head.
The doorman backed away from her and said, “How do you know the mistress of this house?”
“I’m her avatar and spirit guide,” she said and took off her mask, revealing an exact copy of Katherine’s face. “You have no reason to be afraid of me, sir. I’m just looking out for Kathy by making sure the right people know what’s going to happen, and I know her spirit will lie somewhere on these premises when she succumbs to the curse. Will you help me?”
The masked doorman paused again, seeming to roll Cooley’s information through his head, and said, “Who else did you tell?”
“The girl I saw talking to you,” she said. “Her name is Colbie.”
“Colbie?” he said. “Do you mean the girl in the blue dress with the red mask?”
“That’s the one,” she said.
“Anyone else?” he said.
“Nobody else,” Cooley said and handed him back the program he had dropped on the threshold when he ran from Colbie. “You dropped this, Mr. Foster, so be more careful next time. I don’t want you to blow your cover,” she added and noticed her hand beginning to fade. “I don’t have much time left, so I implore you to help Colbie out however you . . .” And she faded away before she could say anything more.
8
The ball had started, and masqueraders were already congregating in the ballroom, many of them dancing with their incognito partners, others conversing on various topics, and here she was sitting alone on a solan sofa in a corner of the ballroom with the program lying next to her, looking at the herringbone parquet design on the floor, so that she wouldn’t see the masqueraders throwing wary glances her way.
And last but not least, she was thinking of her lost key and watch and the strange woman’s warning of future events. If keys never appeared and disappeared at random in dreams, as the woman had said, then the same was true for watches, as well. Losing both, she thought for a moment, meant a loss of control and a loss of time. In addition, when she considered the woman’s brief appearance in the restroom as she was inspecting her mask, as well as her conversation with her just outside the double doors, she cursed herself for not getting her name. Still, the woman’s intelligence on Kathy’s fate weighed on her, pushing her to think beyond the confines of a lost key and whatever it opened.
She wished she knew what it was.
Pushing those thoughts away, she looked up at the masqueraders in their reveries and listened to their hubbub blending into a continuous hum up to the coffered ceiling, from which hung a succession of six chandeliers designating six major sections of ballroom. In fact, the ballroom was more of a humongous hallway separated into six rooms of a specific color in each, from blue and purple and green to orange and white and violet. And from where she sat in the blue section of the ballroom, she saw two grandfather clocks on both sides of the room, both ticking closer and closer to 6:00 p.m.
It was currently 5:54 p.m.
Two clocks, just like the two dials on her missing dream watch.
One clock told the time, and the other counted down the time remaining till the next hour.
Just like her missing dream watch.
She stood up, forgetting her program, and walked towards the central aisle, ignoring the masqueraders that parted from her approach, looking at the clocks on either side, one telling time, the other counting down.
And like Moses parting the Sea of Reeds, Colbie parted the crowds as she left the blue room and entered the purple room, looking on either side of her.
And behold! Another pair of grandfather clocks stood on both sides of the purple room, ticking one minute closer to 8:00 p.m. as the crowds stirred around her.
It was now 7:55 p.m.
She proceeded, the crowds parting before her, into the green room, where she saw another pair of clocks ticking one minute closer to 10:00 p.m., and a hum of whispers arose from the crowd around her.
It was now 9:56 p.m.
She proceeded, the crowds parting before her, into the orange room, where she saw another pair of clocks ticking one minute closer to 12:00 a.m., and the hum of whispers grew into a rumble of speculations and prophecies.
It was now 11:57 p.m.
And even as the reports of two gunshots going off resounded through the ballroom and shook the crowds around her, she proceeded, the crowds parting before her, into the white room, where she saw another pair of clocks ticking one minute closer to 2:00 a.m., and the rumbling of the crowd grew into a stir of spoken revelations and dreadful confirmations.
It was now 1:58 a.m.
She proceeded, the crowds parting before her, into the white room, where she saw another pair of clocks ticking one minute closer to 4:00 p.m., and the stir of words grew into yells begging for her to stop.
It was now 3:59 p.m.
Yet she proceeded, the crowds parting before her and getting restless, where she only saw one massive grandfather clock before her with no hands on an empty dial-face, as though time had lost all meaning. And before her stood a set of double doors built into the body of the clock itself, looming larger in view as she approached it. Only then did she remove her mask and let it fall to the ground, rousing another stir of yelling voices from the crowd as she reached out to grasp the handles and pull the door open into God knows what.
Now the yells grew into screams, as she yanked and pulled at the door handles and sent ear-splitting creaks of rusty hinges cracking down the six sections of the ballroom. Then a stampede of masqueraders rushed from the place in a flurry of screams and jostles and shoves and groans.
Yet she yanked and pulled the doors open, opening them into an endless void within, wherein she tread on tenuous steps—
9
And listened for any sign of a living soul within the depths, tuning out the fading hum of panicked masqueraders behind her. So she walked and she walked, listening through the growing silence of the darkness, listening till she could only hear the steady drumming of her heartbeats inside her heaving chest, listening to her own breathing, listening to her footfalls echoing through an empty unseen space around her.
And for a time (God only knew how long), Colbie heard nothing else but her own heartbeats and breathing and footfalls.
After a time, a reverie of thoughts flooded Colbie’s mind with flashes of her mother’s tired face, sleeping on that sofa in the family room with the movie on the television playing itself into her mother’s dreams, and now playing itself into her own dream in snatches of waking reality.
Her thoughts boomed with the shatter of a percussive shock through her mind, a cloud of debris clouding her mind’s eye and wafting at her nose, then it hummed and screeched with the sound of dueling voices, the voices of Kendra and Celia arguing.
"Calm down, you two!" Colbie said, and her words echoed through the chamber of her thoughts, now echoing through the empty space around her as she walked on.
Then her mind flashed upon Mara’s angry face, her eyes glaring like the fires of Hell and tears falling down her cheeks, when Mara’s scream echoed through Colbie like a thunderclap, saying, "You made a promise! You made a promise to my sister, and YOU LIIIIIIIIIIIIIED!"
And all at once, huge waves of psychic energy flowed through the air around Colbie, and sonic booms detonated through her mind and turned everything around her into blinding light and buzzing through her ears with percussive static.
And through that buzzing fury, through the anguish of her tears, and through the pulsing chaos of her heartbeats, Colbie ran and ran and ran deeper through the void, into a darkness more than night, into a crisis of the soul. Colbie ran and ran and ran, till her legs ached and her breath came out raspy and ragged, slowing her steps and doubling herself over and grabbing at her knees, catching her breath in huffs and puffs.
