Masque of the Red Death Read Online Free PDF

my voice.
    “You’d like to be his girlfriend,” she says.
    “He”—the boy emphasizes the pronoun—“is our older brother.”
    Their brother chooses this moment to open his eyes and look at me. He’s younger than I guessed. I always thought he might be in his mid-twenties, but I see that he’s closer to my age. Maybe eighteen.
    The little girl leans in and whispers, “His name is Will. It’s short for William.” This time I don’t draw back when she gets close.
    He smiles up at me, a smile of unimaginable sweetness, a smile that I would never have expected from him, with his magical hands and shivery whispers.
    My heart goes all fluttery.
    “You’re alive, then?” he says.
    “Alive?”
    “Deaths are bad for the club. Just a few days ago a girl choked on her own vomit. I didn’t want that to happen to you.”
    My sense of wonder fades. He brought me here for the good of the club. Not to save me. At least, not because he likes me.
    “Are you two bothering our … guest?” he asks the children. They walk toward the doorway, casting glances over their shoulders, turning to stare back at us until he makes an annoyed gesture and they go, giggling, into the next room.
    “Your guest?” I ask as coldly as I can.
    “I don’t know what else to call you. The person I hoped wouldn’t die in my bed? I found you unconscious behind one of the curtains when I was locking up.”
    My shame is followed by a cold wave of anger.
    “You didn’t think you should have taken me to the hospital?”
    He raises a dark eyebrow. “I didn’t have time.”
    He didn’t have time? He found me unconscious, brought me home, but couldn’t be bothered to stop at a hospital or to get me to my father, who could have administered appropriate medical care?
    I glare at him, furious.
    He stares back. I realize that he doesn’t use eyeliner after all; his eyes are that dark and that amazing. And angry.
    “Listen,” he says. “Every second of my day is filled with something that has to be done. Every second. I didn’t take drugs last night, and I didn’t pass out behind a gold brocade curtain, and I don’t have friends who would leave me at a club. Okay?”
    “I could’ve died.”
    “How does that make last night different from any other night?”
    This is unfair, because I rarely go to the club more than twice a week.
    The children reappear in the doorway.
    “Let’s get some breakfast,” he says for their benefit, though the words seem to be addressed to me. They scamper away and he climbs out of bed. He’s still wearing the same fitted shirt and pants that he wore last night.
    “Will,” I try his name out tentatively.
    “Don’t talk about the way you live, not in front of Elise. She doesn’t know any women besides our elderly neighbor, so she’s bound to be fascinated by you.”
    He means me at the club. He doesn’t know anything else. But maybe that’s all there is.
    He leads me into the kitchen. Both windows are covered with an array of blankets that appear to have been nailed over the opening. Light still filters in, giving the illusion of a muted stained-glass window. The room feels soft and oddly pleasant. On the table there are six apples. Will unwraps half a loaf of bread and begins to slice it with a large knife. The children pull out a single chair and climb onto it.
    “Sit by us,” Elise says. I sit gingerly in an empty chair.
    “My name is Araby,” I tell her. Maybe he really doesn’t know my name or who I am.
    Will smiles.
    “Do you take care of them?”
    “Yes. Our mother died three years ago.” He picks up one of the apples and then sets it in front of Henry.
    “Will, that’s all the food we have until tomorrow.” Elise’s eyes are too big for her face.
    I try to calculate how much food that is for each of them, how many bites. It isn’t much. He toasts the bread over some sort of burner.
    “The air is safe?” I put my hand to my mask; it feels odd being the only person in the room whose