The Din - Chapter 2

The Din - Chapter 2

“W-What are you?” Wil half-shouted, half-whispered, both terrified someone would hear and excited that her years of searching had finally, finally yielded a result.

The shadows shifted around and the larger one made itself more prominent. “Hello, Wil.”

She stepped back, trying to steady her breath. This was too much. Maybe she was hallucinating? She had never known what she’d find here, but this was certainly not it.

The shadow smiled. “We’re the Missing, Wil. You’ve been looking for us for a long time.”

Wil nodded. “But how did you know that? Nothing was ever here when I came—”

“We were always here,” the shadow, which was definitely female, said. “But you always took too long, or didn’t stay long enough. Tonight, we were finally lucky. We got through.”

“Why?” Wil asked. Curiosity left no room for fear anymore. How could shadows move, talk, walk without something to cast them? Each one was shaped so uniquely, they all sparked new ideas in her mind. She’d really have something to scribble down later.

“You’re special, I guess,” the shadow-girl replied. She had a slight cockney accent, but nothing as thick as Jack’s Wynnish one.

“Special? Special how? And how do you know?” She reached out and touched the one that had been covering the light. He was much smaller than most of them, almost the size of a child. She touched something, that she was sure of, but she couldn’t tell what exactly it was. It was solid, yes, but at the same time, a void of light, like a true shadow. It was one of the strangest things she’d ever touched.

The shadow sighed. “I couldn’t tell you. I just know you are.” She looked behind Wil. “Good, your friend is gone. Shall we depart?”

“Depart?” All she seemed to be doing was asking questions. “Where to? Where did you all even come from?”

The shadow smiled in a mysterious manner. “I’ll have to show you, now, won’t I?”

Wil looked at the stairs and sighed. There was a decision to make. Plunge into the unknown right now, with no warning, no ideas on what it would be like, and no idea when or how she’d return, or just go back up to the party and pretend like nothing had happened.

As she realized that returning meant listening to the end of Duke Charlagne’s story, she knew her choice. Besides, adventure was staring her in the face. There had never been a way for her say no.


The sensation of leaving one’s dimension is one few experience and even fewer tend to live through. Wil, however, had an experienced travel companion, and was fortunate enough to successfully endure the feeling of having her skin turned inside out and then sucked all the way through her entire digestive system several times over. It was disconcerting to suddenly have her feet on solid ground once more, and moreover, to have everything back where it normally was. She seemed surprised to be on one piece. It was terrible and horrifying and wonderful all at once.

More disconcerting than her transportation, though, was the complete lack of color in her surroundings, in the people—then she noticed that she was colorless, too. Everything was in black or white, no gray, no variance except for herself. She was now dressed in grayscale, but everyone—and everything—else was simply black or white. The walls imposed upon her, appearing wider in the middle until you ran your hand across it and found it smooth and straight. Her eyes and her small, human mind had trouble deciphering and comprehending the world her new friend had brought her to.

It was delightful.

“This is where you all live?” Her eyes were wide like a child’s, eager and showing that she was easily swayed.

The shadow-girl nodded. “Do you like it?”

Wil laughed. “Yes, it’s…I can’t even describe it!” The first new thing she’d experienced in over ten years. Ten years of her pristine white walls, her deep red ornate carpets, of fancy paintings and shiny silverware. Ten years of the mindless monotony of privileged life, numbing her mind and caging her in. Almost ten years since her father had vanished. Ten years.

“My name is Neesha,” the shadow-girl said, taking Wil’s hand instead of dragging her by the arm. “I want to show you my home.”

Thoughts of her father slowly led to thoughts of her mother, of Elizabelle. “Wait—not that I don’t want to see it, I’m sure it’s all perfectly wonderful, but won’t my family be expecting me?”

Neesha gave yet another slightly creepy smile. “Time passes differently between the spaces. Don’t worry, and you’ll be fine. I bet you’d have a lot more time to play if you let yourself go.”

Wil smiled shyly. “A young lady does not ‘let herself go’. It simply doesn’t work that way.”

Neesha sighed and looked at her. “Your mother isn’t here. You can do whatever you’d like here.”

Wil bit her lip and chuckled nervously. She’d never tasted freedom. It was better than soft sheets and rare delicacies any day.

“So…would you show me around?” she asked. Neesha smiled.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Come.” She reached out of the cloak to take her hand again, and this time, Wil noticed that the skin from her elbow down was white, just like the lower half of her face. As much as she loved it, a lot of things about this place were just disconcerting.

Neesha tilted her head. “Come on, I don’t bite. Hurry up, or they will end up missing you.” She chuckled slightly at herself. Apparently, something she said had caught her fancy.

Wil nodded and took her hand. Oh, this would be so unacceptable back home. Two girls holding hands? Going to one of those girls’ homes? Oh, oh, her mother would frown on this.

She smiled the whole way there.



The place was a wonder. The laws of physics seemed not to apply; each building looked as though it was built to break, but instead stood tall and magnificent. There was no light, but at the same time, no dark. The shadows didn’t fade like in her home. There was harsh contrast between their light and dark. The simplicity set her heart afire.

“So, what’s the economy like?” She knew from experience that as a polite conversation topic, this one generally sparked heated, yet friendly debate.

However, Neesha looked at her incredulously. “Economy? Get your head out of your world. We don’t have one of those here. We all make our own homes, we do the jobs we need to do, and live in general harmony with one another. We have very little of the things your people hold dear.”

“So no parties? No dresses, no economy, no long, fancy names for food?”

“Not a thing. We have our family.”

“Well, who doesn’t have one?”

“That’s the thing. We all have one. The same one. We are all one giant family here.”

It was strange, but she could work with it. There were bound to be different things here. It was a whole new world nested inside the shadows.

They finally came to Neesha’s home. It was awkwardly shaped and looked too small to even walk into. Still, it was magnificent. She had to start thinking outside the limits of her world, like she said. It had to work.

“Come,” Neesha said again, pulling her along. She was a little wary; after all, she thought the house might collapse at any moment. It was quite a shame, really. It was so cute.

As they approached, though, it seemed to fit them, oddly enough. When they reached the door, it was perfectly sized to allow room to enter. Not that she understood physics very well, but this shouldn’t be normally possible. It was so damn wonderful.



In the Wilkes Manse, the basement door opened for the second time that night. Jack stuck his head in, looking around.

“Wil? You still in here? No one’s seen you back at the party…” He stepped inside and frowned. Maybe she was hiding? She might’ve been mad at him. That seemed to happen often enough. He sighed.

“Come on, silly girl, I know you aren’t that crazy. Only a little, I promise, no more than the rest of us.” He peered around the refrigerator, looking in every corner. It was starting to look like she simply wasn’t there.

“Oh, bollocks.”



Tea with Neesha was fascinating. They only had one kind of tea, but it spiraled in all sorts of crazy patterns when milk was added before turning back to black. The first few times, she’d nearly ruined hers by adding too much because she wasn’t paying attention.

Wil sighed and looked around. “You live by yourself?”

Neesha hadn’t taken a drink, instead choosing to stand by the window. She was hard to spot because of the high contrast, but she’d yet to remove her hood.

“Yes. Like I said, we don’t have the same structures as you. We don’t live in separate families. We all live in our own homes unless we choose otherwise.”

Wil pursed her lips. “My mother will have to be dead before I get that kind of freedom.” She went and stood by the window, watching as the people ran by. Some were small enough to be children, toting sticks and hoops, but choosing to jab each other rather than knock the hoop along.

“Even those children live by themselves?” she asked.

Neesha walked up next to her and nodded. “Mostly. The children usually stick together in pairs, or all live together in one big home. They can still take care of themselves.” She sighed and sat. to Will, it looked sort of strange.

Wil sat across from her, picking up her tea once more. “May I ask you something?”

She nodded. “Anything. What’s on your mind?”

Wil bit her lip. “What purpose does that hood serve?”

Neesha smiled. “Mystery. If you knew exactly who I was, would you want to come with me?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer that. However, a bell then tolled outside. Neesha turned her head; pumpkin-orange tufts of hair peeked out.

“Oh, hell’s bells, we’re late. Come on!” She grabbed her hand again and led her out of the house, pulling her all the way to the square.

In the center stood a stage, and on it, curtains seemingly hanging from nowhere. A woman stood in the center. She was by far the most human-looking there. All the others were bent shapes with faces, little tiny things and great hulking beasts all together. Neesha pulled Wil into a seat and smiled.

“I think you’ll enjoy this.”



Jack burst into Madame Wilkes’ room very suddenly, out of breath and eyes very, very wide. The Madame looked furious.

“Insolent child, how dare you—”

“Madame, please listen!” he interrupted. Any other day, he would take the verbal beating without protest, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation.

The Madame pursed her too-red lips and shifted in her seat. “Go on.”

And Jack explained everything.



The floor show was really something else. The woman surprised Wil right off the bat; she came out in almost nothing at all, just jangly little beads draped all over and hanging from bands around her thighs. Her lips were black, but her skin was white like Neesha. Wil couldn’t help but blush. She’d been looking at girls for a full three years now, but the many other years of being told to find a nice boy, to dress pretty for the boys, to hope that one day, a boy would overlook just how strange she really was and make a lady of her, she was still rather uncomfortable with it.

Especially in public.

Neesha nudged her and smiled. Her teeth were a little sharper than most people’s, now that she got a good look. “Calm down. We don’t care about that here. We don’t really have genders, but we do have hes and shes, depending on what we feel like.”

The woman on the stage pulled a strange sort of violin seemingly out of nowhere and set one end on the stage. She flexed her fingers, which were suddenly long and spindly, and drew them across the thin, spidersilk strings. It was as if a whole symphony was being played with just that one instrument, loud and clear and melodious, all from that one instrument.

She leaned forward in her seat, smiling broadly. No one else seemed nearly as interested in the display as she, but she didn’t notice. Another woman, similar in appearance, came out on the other side with another instrument, striking up in harmony the mystic flute in her spindly fingers.

Before she knew it, the performance was over and the two women disappeared behind the curtain once more. The audience stood, and as they did, the chairs and stage vanished completely. She was utterly confused, but thrilled nonetheless.

“Neesha, how does this work?” she asked, suddenly showing the excitement that had been slowly building since they’d arrived. "How did they disappear? What were those instruments? Do you play any? Where did all the color go? Neesha!--"

"Hush, girl," Neesha replied. "I'll tell you soon. Just hush for now." She stopped and listened.

Wil looked around and noticed that all the other people were gone. She peeked around a few corners, stood on tiptoe, peered around. They were just...gone.

"We should get you back," Neesha said suddenly, taking her hand.

Wil pulled away this time, frowning. "Wait. I've barely been here. You said we'd have plenty of time before anyone noticed I was missing. You said time passes differently here."

She grabbed her hand again, sighing. "I said differently, not slower. It speeds up and slows down at a fairly random rate. If I'm correct--which I almost always am--they are looking for you. Intently. We should get you back," she reiterated.

Wil pulled away again, though. "But will I ever see you again? It took me nine years to find you all!"

"Come back next week. We've made the connection, so it should be easier from now on. Don't worry about it, okay?"

Wil bit her lip and nodded. She was afraid to lose this wonderful place. There was too much she hadn't seen, too much she didn't know to lose it now.

They arrived at a black door. Neesha reached her white hand out of her robe and grabbed the knob. "I can't come back with you. You're making this trip on your own, I hope you know."

"On my own? But, but I don't think I can! What do I do?"

Neesha smiled and peeked around to see if anyone else was looking. "Here." She pulled her hood back, revealing that pumpkin-orange hair she'd seen before. Two big poofy tufts hung at the sides of her face, and the rest was cut short and voluminous.

She touched Wil's face with her ghostly hands and pulled her close so their lips touched. When she pulled them away again, there was an odd tingle left on Wil's skin. SHe felt dizzy.

"This should keep you safe," Neesha said. "Now go, hurry, before they really notice and come looking too closely. Go, go!"

Wil tried to move, but found herself dazed. Neesha rolled her eyes and pushed her, chuckling.

“One week!”



She approached the dark house with pride. She was doing what she’d always been meant to do. She pulled her hood back up and couldn’t resist a devilish grin.

Upon entering, she was greeted by several of the women like the ones that had been on the stage, though they were slightly more scantily clad and instead of playing music, they performed the general menial tasks for him. They let her pass without incident. She nodded as she walked through, and entered his throne room.

At the end of the long chamber, there was a figure similar to Neesha herself, though much taller and more imposing than she could ever hope to be. It turned; like her, the upper half of its face was in shadow, but no eyes peered out of the black. His face was long, too long, and the unnaturally large smile on his face was full of jagged teeth.

“Good to see you,” he said. “I assume you were successful?”

Neesha nodded. “Yes. We finally reached her. She seems to like us rather a lot.”

The greater shadow smiled wider. “Very good. We need her, you know. We can’t make it without her.”

Neesha tried to contain her excitement. “Yes. We’ll have her shortly, sir, I can promise you that.”

He turned around and peered out the window at the city. “Then I suggest we prepare.”



Wil woke up, back in her bed, mostly undressed and with people all around her. She was slightly dizzy, but recognized her mother, the doctor, a few of the servants, and Eliza. Of them all, Eliza was the only one who looked worried.

“Hmph. Scare us half to death, and you’re in your bed? To think you’re my daughter.” Her mother’s hair was in short, tight waves today, and her face was, as always, caked in makeup. It was a wonder she could move her face at all.

Eliza knelt beside Wil and took her hand. “Oh, I knew about it, but I didn’t realize it had gotten this bad! Oh, my dear Ann!” She was suddenly taken with grief, pressing her face to her sister’s hand and sobbing quietly.

“Hush, silly girl,” Wil said. “What’s going on?”

Her mother stepped forward. She seemed almost pleased, sneering. “And you call her the silly girl. Jack told us everything, about your hallucinations and your madness. You disappeared from the party last night.” She scoffed and crossed her arms, looking away. “Shameful.”

Wil frowned and sat up. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Jack was kidding. It’s a simple practical joke he was playing on me, nothing more.”

“Then where were you?” her mother asked in a cruel, accusing tone.

Wil bit her lip. “Uh, I meant…on the rest of you. We did it together. We thought it would be funny?” It was the best she could do on short notice. Otherwise, she was excellent at lying to her mother.

One of the servants then pulled Jack in by the collar. His green eyes were sad and guilty, and one had a thick ring around it. “Hey, Wil. Sorry ‘bout all this.”

“We thought you might lie to us,” Madame Wilkes said. “This boy has told the truth. You are on house arrest. You will not leave this room until next week. Maybe by then you’ll have learned your lesson, you ungrateful, unpleasant child.”

“Wait, all week?” Wil threw back the covers, making all the others present shield their eyes. She didn’t care.

Her mother was the only one to refrain from turning her head. “Yes. One whole week. You will eat one meal per day, and your etiquette teachers will see you in here.”

“What about my fencing classes?”

Her mother smiled. There was no doubt; this time, she was very pleased.

“There will be no fencing.” With that, she dragged Jack out and slammed the door, the sound resounding throughout the small room. Wil sat back on her bed in disbelief. Jack, of all people, betrayed her. She didn't want to believe it. They'd been best friends almost since birth. How could he do this to her? How? She looked around the room, biting her lip to refrain from crying. She wasn’t that weak. She stood defiantly and wiped her face with a handkerchief on the desk. She wouldn’t let them win. Without dressing for the day, she sat at her desk and began to work.



A few hours later, Eliza knocked on the door and entered. “Hello.”

Wil was still at her desk, scribbling furiously with her quill. She shook it suddenly, frowning. “Hm. Need more ink. Liza, be a dear and fetch some?”

Eliza didn’t listen, instead walking over and kneeling beside her. She sighed and touched her hand. “Listen to me, Ann. They will let you out if you tell them that you don’t hear anything. Just…pretend you don’t, okay? I know you miss Father—”

“Ink.” Her fingers were stained black with the ink. She dipped them in a small puddle where it had collected on one drawing and began smearing it across a new, blank sheet. “Liza, get me ink.”

Eliza frowned and stood up. “All right Ann. Stay in here and rot, for all I care.” She stomped out, her heels clicking against the hard floor. “To think I lost my sister to the madness. Shame.”

Wil jumped up and grabbed her arm. “Liza, I swear, I’m not mad. They were calling only to me. I think I can show them to you, but only at the party next week. Please, trust me. You always have before, and I’ve always been there for you, haven’t I?”

Eliza placed her hand against the flat of her chest. “Ann, I’m not sure how much of this I can take! You usually make it so easy to believe you, but this…this has reached the point of insanity!”

“This is my breaking point,” Wil said. “I’ve put up with this place my whole life, and finally, I found something better. Let me show you, Liza. You have to believe me, even if no one else does.”

Eliza looked at her sister, at the stained fingers and scraggly, unbrushed hair. She certainly appeared mad. But then she looked at her eyes, deep, dark brown, serious and determined. They were not the eyes of a madwoman.

“All right, Ann, I’ll let you drag me along on this one. But I’ll have to tell Mother if this trip isn’t fruitful.”

Wil nodded and released her, sighing with relief. “Good. Oh, and Liza?”

The younger of the two turned and smiled. “Yes?”

“My name is Wil.”



By the next weekend, Wil’s room was filled with drawings. Usually, she only got to draw when she had time, and considering the infrequency with which that happened, she only had a few. But an entire week spent inside her room had given her ample occasion to let the images come out onto paper. She’d gone through several bottles of ink, and the empties lay on the floor around her, a few drops staining the carpet from each. Jack generally helped her pick up when she got this distracted, but he hadn’t visited at all that week.

They sat in piles around the room, but a few lay on the desk, still drying. They were large, sharp drawings, full of odd angles and deep contrast. It took a minute for one’s eyes to adjust to them before seeing the picture. There was real genius in the use of negative space to create an image, but no one noticed that. Instead, all they saw was the dissipation of a mind, displayed on paper for all to see.

Wil walked down the stairs serenely and elegantly, instead of tromping down and whining like she usually did. Her dress was even frillier and more ridiculous than the previous week’s, but she did not scratch, she did not shuffle, and she did not fuss.

Eliza waited at the end of the stairs as primly as a girl could. She barely looked up, but joined her sister as she arrived, entering the giant ballroom side-by-side.

“How are we doing this?” Liza asked, her small, elegant lips barely moving.

“Stay with me most of the night. If Mother asks, you’re trying to help me readjust to polite society.” It would work. She knew it.

Eliza nodded. “I don’t know if I can lie to Mother, but I’ll try.”

A small smile tugged at the corners of Wil’s mouth. “I do it all the time. You’ll be fine.”

Eliza broke face a moment, looking at her sister incredulously. “What? How long? And why? Oh, Ann—Wil, Wil, what have you been doing?”

Wil shook her head. “Not now. Mother’s close.”

They tried to dodge all the young gentlemen, the servants, and their mother all at once, and did rather well for a while. However, their luck did not last.

“Annabeth!” A tall young man pushed through the crowd to reach her. Wil groaned internally. Duke Charlagne of Brimbury.

“Hello, Duke,” she said with a curtsy. “I’m sorry, but my sister and I are in something of a hurry. If it could wait?”

Duke Charlagne nodded, sighing. “Well, I—I just wanted to make sure you were all right. You disappeared suddenly last week and never returned.”

Wil smiled and laughed. “Oh, I’m so sorry about that. There was a minor emergency. My dear sister had fainted, and I just had to help her—”

The duke smiled and sighed with relief. “Oh, wonderful, then, I was afraid it was me. Good, this means I can finish my story! I was in the underbrush, and only a leaf separated me from the ferocious beast—”

Wil swooned suddenly, dropping to the floor. Duke Charlagne was so wrapped up in his own story that he didn’t notice, and took a full minute to realize that everyone was crowded around not him, but the girl on the ground.

“A-Wil!” Eliza knelt beside her, smoothing her skirts down before tending to her sister. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, too much excitement, I think,” she said, winking ever so slightly. Eliza took a second to understand, then helped her to her feet.

“Duke Charlagne, I’m sorry to pull her away so suddenly, but I think she needs some air. I guess your tale was just too thrilling for one girl to handle!”

She led her away from a further confused duke, sighing. “Wil, that was horrid! That poor boy. He was so dashing, too.”

“Liza, you are a twat—”

Eliza gasped. “Wil!”

She shrugged. “I heard it from Jack. Anyway, listen. We have to get to the basement. That’s where they are.”

Eliza frowned, seeming apprehensive. “’They’? Wil, what is it that’s down there?”

Wil smiled. “A whole world, Liza. And Mother doesn’t live in it.”