And I paused, uncomprehending. They were glowing human shapes . . . transparent, filled with light. Mannequins, I think they were called. They were perched in what would have been the front window of the store, now shrouded by the metal shutter. There were four of them, posed as if in dance, with translucent wings. The mannequins were wearing gossamer dresses that must have been for sale somewhere in the store. They looked like angels, lit from within from strings of lights like those I'd seen Englishers use for Christmas decorations. I stared up into the empty skulls of the figures. They had no faces. In this way, they were like Amish dolls, blank. We didn't create graven images.
I touched a translucent face. It seemed alien. Unreal. And I was pretty sure I wasn't part of the intended market for the short dresses they wore in varying shades of white sheer fabric. Far too immodest and vain for a Plain girl.
I brushed bits of drywall off my sleeves. But maybe I wasn't a Plain girl anymore. I didn't look like one.
In the dim glow of the mannequins, I searched for a way to bring their light with me. I tried to pull one of the mannequins off the display, but her cord only extended six feet. Once I drew her beyond that, the cord came unplugged from a giant battery beneath the stage, and she went dark. I fumbled around and plugged her back in. I let her lie on the cold marble floor, but she threw enough light for me to be able to see the glass doors of the main entrance and the metal door beyond. I had to get them open somehow.
The glass doors were easy enough. I pried the first set open with my fingers. They gave way under the pressure of my shoulder. I guessed that these were automatically powered doors. The second set was locked, top and bottom, with strong slide bolts.
And the metal segmented door stood between me and the outside. It extended all across the face of the building. I searched at the bottom of it for a handle, for a way to raise and lower it. It seemed to have rolled out of the ceiling, but was connected to the floor by a metal footer. I searched for a way to release it, crawling on my hands and knees, probing with my fingers, until I found a series of release switches. I tripped them all. Taking a deep breath, I slipped my fingers beneath the metal curtain and lifted.
The noisy metal wall rolled up like a roman shade. I'd lifted it no more than three feet when I saw several sets of legs before me: human, horse, and wolf.
And the gray light behind them washed in.
A smile broke on Alex's face.
"Welcome to paradise."
***
For that brief time in that closed-up store, it was paradise. And more.
Alex led Horace inside, and Fenrir hesitantly followed in their wake. We closed down all the doors, refastened them.
Alex grinned as he locked the last set of doors. "I feel like I'm in a military installation."
"And that's good?"
"Yeah. This is our fortress. Our stronghold against the night."
I blew out a breath. I was beginning to feel safe, for the first time in many weeks.
The first thing to fight was the worry of darkness. Alex brought inside the spark I'd so lovingly ensconced in pine needles in a hollowed-out plastic bottle. The spark seemed very bright after I blew on it. I could see it gleaming in my hands, like an orange star.
"Here," Alex said. "Try this."
He'd found two pillar candles from a holiday display. They smelled strongly of cloves. I gently poured the fire from my ember to the wicks, blew on them until the breath of life stabilized the fire. The candles burned, dripping wax. They were covered in glitter, but they were perfectly functional for what we needed, which was to explore our surroundings.
We passed by the cash registers at the mouth of the store. Money was useless in our new world. We crossed to the candle display, unwrapped more candles, and added light there, to mark our surroundings.
Horace clomped on the marble floors. He nosed past a harvest-themed display of straw bales and scarecrows, reaching up to taste a garland. It was quite lovely, made of corn husks, ears of fancy dried corn, figs, and oranges studded with cloves. I'm sure that someone had worked quite hard to create it, and Horace appreciated the artistic effort involved. He nipped it off as high as he could reach and then bit the head off of one of the scarecrows. The hapless scarecrow head dangled from his mouth, then quickly disappeared.
Fenrir had vanished as soon as he entered the store. I could hear his claws clicking on the floor from a far distance away.
The department store was composed of two levels, split by an escalator. At the foot of the escalator stood a nonfunctioning fountain. The first floor was primarily clothing for men and women. It smelled heavily of perfume. I saw more of the gossamer dresses the mannequins wore, organized on hangers. There were different departments for "misses" and "women." That made no sense to me. Only the young unmarried women wore small sizes and the married women wore the larger ones?
There were warm, dry coats. I fingered the wool and leather with some envy and desire. I walked past the women's formal dresses. These must be the ones that English girls wore to go to dances and weddings. The fabrics shimmered with sequins and lace. I let my hand brush the edge of a large white dress advertised for a bride.
I smiled and shook my head.
"What's so funny?" Alex said.
"A Plain woman wouldn't ever be married in that. It's too vain. And shows too much flesh."
"What do you wear for weddings?"
"Each girl makes herself a new dress. It's usually blue. But very similar to what we wear every other day."
"To avoid the sin of pride," he said.
"Ja. A marriage is a union of people in the light of God. It hasn't got much to do with . . ."-I paused to read a tag-"'a self-bustling train with pickups.' Whatever that is." It sounded like a selection of heavy machinery.
I smoothed the surface of the dress and felt a pang. I wondered if Ginger had worn a dress like this at her wedding. I wished that she were here so I could ask her.
We passed by the glittering jewelry counter and the cosmetics counter full of inscrutable jars and bottles. I had worn makeup only once, when Ginger had done it for me. When I put it on, I had felt beautiful. Until Elijah told me that my face was dirty and that I should wash it.
There were some useful things here: perfumed soaps, soft cloths to scrub with, and brushes for hair. And having a watch to tell time might be helpful. I had lost track of which day it was. I hadn't paused to honor the Sabbath-I honestly had forgotten when it was.