HUDDLED in this bizarre mental trap, Elizabeth stared at that strange little candle Emma had made for her. Every box has a lid and every cell a door. She’d only need to find the key to this place, this down cellar, that was all. This place didn’t feel like a cell. There was a scent, however. Paper? She couldn’t tell. Although a tiny circlet of light wavered from that one feeble candle, its glow petered out after a few feet. It wasn’t completely silent down here either. There was something beyond the walls, though not the hollow cries of the mad she knew. The sound was a little bouncy, even jaunty, falling in tiny drops from above … and was that a man’s voice? “Music.” She aimed a look at the dense, dark bowl of a ceiling. “Upstairs.” Was this cellar part of a house? Possibly. She liked that idea, too; it felt right. “Whatever Emma made, she made quickly. This is a place she knows well,” she said, listening to the words roll off her tongue. Hearing her own voice above the clamor of all those pieces always had calmed her.
What do You think about The Dickens Mirror (2015)?
