Read Online Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin - Free Book Online

didn’t cross any bridges when we walked home, so Will lives on this side of the river. I scan the lower city for smoke, telling myself that he must be fine.
    The city is laid out simply. The upper city is elevated, and the harbor is close. The lower city is bordered by a marshy inlet where the ocean meets a swamp. The river curls around the lowest part of the city, and the remnants of streets frame everything, creating a grid that I can see as I look down, though there are trees and grass growing in places that used to be streets.
    Today I don’t recognize the world from up here, and the room I inhabit in this sterile apartment seems completely unfamiliar, too. If April were here, she would laugh and offer me a drink. We would toast to something banal. We wouldn’t talk about what our lives were supposed to be. But we would know.
    I turn away from the window, pace back and forth. Without April and her steam carriage, I am trapped.
    The hours trickle by. At lunchtime the cook assures me that she sent my packet of food to the address I gave her in the lower city. After lunch Mother plays piano. That’s how she seeks her oblivion.
    Instead of working in his laboratory, Father sits on the couch, staring out the window. If he doesn’t leave the apartment, I won’t be able to search his lab.
    This conviction that I won’t be able to steal from Father fills me with relief. But relief is quickly followed by guilt at my cowardice.
    “Mother gave me money,” I tell him. “I want to buy a child-sized mask.”
    Father writes instructions on a slip of paper and then signs it.
    Our courier is back at his post in the hallway. Like most people of our social status, we never really have to leave the building. We pay him to brave the germs and the violence. Except that I want to get out. The walls are closing in on me. Without April, I’m only allowed to leave the building with Father. And if I can’t go to the club, I won’t see Will.
    I instruct the courier carefully. He is an older man, balding and thin. I remember what Mother told me yesterday, that they sent him to search through the bodies. I shudder, because he was looking for April, and because he had to look, had to touch… I force that thought away.
    “Do you have children?” I ask, remembering the half-overheard conversation he had with Father.
    “A daughter,” he says.
    “Does she own a mask?”
    “Not yet. She isn’t old enough for school. We’re saving…”
    I scratch out what Father wrote and carefully rewrite the order for two child-sized masks, instead of one.
    “Ma’am?” He stares at the note.
    “My parents can afford it,” I say.
    He folds the paper carefully and puts it in an inner pocket before he walks toward the stairway; couriers aren’t allowed to use the elevator. I consider running after him, going with him to the factory. But as a woman on the street … he doesn’t get paid as much as a guard. It wouldn’t be fair to him. I go back into the apartment.
    I nearly collide with Father in the foyer. He pats my arm.
    “You’re so grown up. I always meant to have a portrait made. It’s one of my greatest regrets, waiting until it was too late.”
    I don’t ask whether it’s too late because I’m too old now, or because what he wanted was a portrait of both of his children.
    “I’m going downstairs to inquire about the damage,” he says. His voice is pleasant and vague. Perhaps he thinks Mother is listening.
    As soon as he’s gone, I slip into his laboratory. Beakers filled with bright bubbling liquid simmer above a controlled flame that is not so different from the one Will used to cook breakfast for Henry and Elise. The right side of the room is lined with shelves filled with jars of dead insects, mostly crickets.
    Father’s notes are scattered everywhere, except for a large wooden desk, which is completely bare. I take one step over the threshold, and then another. Father won’t stay downstairs long. I cross the room, drawn to