As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

23. The Anteroom

For a moment Marks was confused; after what seemed like infinity in the endlessly similar rooms, his nose filled with dust and gypsum, his eyes filled with an unending field of gray and white, the familiar anteroom seemed incredibly alien and lush, giving him a headache. The scratched floor, the hatrack, the buzzing silence, the yellow wallpaper; it was all exactly the same.

Agnes also appeared to be the same pretty, tall girl with dark curly hair and a long, narrow skirt. She stood frowning in the middle of the small space, her arms wrapped around herself.

“This,” she said for the third or fourth time, “is quite unusual.”

Marks ignored her. This was his immediate decision regarding Agnes: Ignore her. He knew her role, now. To trick. To confuse. To lead them invariably to traps and mistakes. He wished he’d made note of her suggestions when they’d been together earlier, so he could cross each and everyone one of them off their future route.

They’d all been standing in silence, and Marks cleared his throat tentatively. They’d made their way out of the maze of newly-built rooms and seemed to be basking in the achievement.

“Listen,” he said. “We have to get moving. We’re still trapped in the larger maze, the longer we stay here the harder it will be to escape.”

Dee and Dennis turned and looked at him. Dee nodded tiredly. Dennis just looked around, dreamily.

“We know where these three doors go,” Marks said.

“Do you?” Agnes asked, smiling.

“The newt is the maze we just escaped,” he went on. “The lion is the library. The duck is the dining room.” He rummaged in the bag and pulled out the notebook, which had become a tattered disaster. “There’s actually only one room we haven’t gone through yet. In the Dining Room, there was a door with a snake on it.”

“A Viper, specifically,” Agnes added. When they all turned tom look at her, she smiled brightly and curtsied. “Here to help!”

“There’s one more!” Dee sdaid excitedly. “In the weird lounge, the break room, there was a door with a bear on it.”

Marks smiled. “Right! Two doors we haven’t tried.”

“No,” Dennis said.

“No what?”

“No, we don’t go back in. Mr. Marks, I know you mean well. And you been a real help and comfort, but you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do, right?” He spread his arms and turned around. “We’re here. In the entryway. I know the door … vanished, whatever. But this is where we came in. It’s the closest we’ll be to getting back out. We stay here and concentrate on fighting our way back out. The door’s gone, but that don’t mean the exit’s not just through the wall or something.”

Marks shook his head. “It won’t work.”

Dennis smiled. “Man, you’ve been talking like you have some sort of advanced degree in Crazy Places, but as far as I can tell your ideas ain’t gotten us very far.”

“Dad!”

“Deandra, quiet. I know Mr. Marks helped you. He’s a good man. I ain’t sayin’ otherwise. Two people can disagree on strategy. Right, Mr. Marks?”

Marks nodded. “They can. But do you really think this place would make a door just vanish but leave the connection to the outside world?”

“It’s a maze after all,” Agnes said brightly. A tub of movie theater popcorn had appeared in her hands. “If you can just go back out the way you came, kind of defeats the point.”

Marks shut his eyes. “Don’t help,” he snapped.

“Don’t help, don’t talk to me, don’t follow us around,” Agnes sighed, scooping up popcorn and tossing it into her mouth. “You are all so rude. Every one of you.”

“Marks, you want to go right back into that place. Different doors? Different rooms? Man, I’m grateful—truly, I am, though maybe a little irritated you brought my daughter here—but you’re wrong. You said it yourself, man. This place is all about gettin’ us to Hamster. Spin the wheel. Chase ourselves around. I think the smart play here is to ignore all the bullshit and think outside the box.”

Marks shook his head. “You’re wrong. It’s not that easy.”

Agnes nodded, grinning. “Really, it’s not.”

“Don’t help.”

Dennis shrugged. “We’re staying here and we’re going to try to find our way out. You do what you gotta do. You did what you said you would. You found me for Dee. Let me take care of her from here.”

Marks hesitated and looked at Dee. She was looking at the floor, and he reminded himself that for all her tough talk and confidence, she was just a kid, and here was her father she thought she’d lost. They were wrong—he knew it in a way that was impossible to explain or justify. Dennis would still be in this room a day from now, a week, a month, a year. But he couldn’t prove it, and there was always the slightest possibility he was wrong, because he knew places like this, they cheated.

He looked at Agnes. She smiled back at him, bright, beautiful. He thought her ongoing transformation into the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen had reached the edge of the Uncanny Valley; soon she would be so otherworldly beautiful she wouldn’t seem human any more. She would be hard to look at. And if it continued long enough she would cross through and become something totally alien. The place cheated. Even if he didn’t have this vague, half-remembered experience, she was evidence of that.

If they stayed to follow Dennis’ plan, it would be just like being trapped in the Waiting Room or the new rooms—they would waste time. The longer they stayed, the harder it was going to be to escape, the easier it would be to just sit and wait. Staying was death. But he couldn’t force Dennis to follow him, and he couldn’t force Dee away from her father.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go on.”

Dee looked up. The expression on her face resembled terror.

“Look,” he said, talking to both of them but looking at Dee. “I’ll find my way. I’ll make notes. And when I find the route, the way out, when I solve the puzzle, I’ll come back here and get you both.”

Agnes clapped her hands in delight.

“What if we break out?” Dennis asked.

“Then when I come back here I’ll just follow you.”

“Marks,” Dee said. “Don’t … we should … we should stay together. You might get lost in there and never find your way back here.”

He saw fear in her face, tamped down but pushing its way to the surface. But he didn’t have any choice. If he stayed to help them it was doom. They would lose track of how long they’d been in the room. Any work they did to tear out the walls or floors would be repaired, subtly, an inch here and there, so that they never made any real progress. The place would play tricks on them, as ever.

He smiled. “I’ll be okay. I’ll find the way out and come back for you both. I promise.”

The smile felt tight and false on his face. She looked back down at the floor. Dennis nodded. “Man, I think you’re making a mistake, but good luck. And when we break out, we’ll send help. We’ll keep watch. We won’t just abandon you.” He held out his hand.

Marks took it and shook. Then he turned hurriedly, still indecisive, worried about the kid. He didn’t think Dennis would hurt her on purpose, but nothing was on purpose in a place like this. As he turned and looked up, Agnes was standing there, a vision.

“I’ll come with you,” she said. “You’re so much more interesting.”

He sighed. He didn’t want her company, but he didn’t think he’d be able to stop her. He shrugged the backpack, now filled with just a flashlight, the notebook, and quarter-full bottle of water, and reached for the door marked with the lion carving on it.

“Marks!”

He turned to look at Dee, who had taken a half-step towards him. She hesitated, then seemed to reach a point of resolve, straightening up.

“Thanks, man,” she said. “For helping me.” She frowned. “Something’s been bugging me. Why the animals? Why do the doors have the animals carved on them? A different one? Duck for the dining room, lizard for those new rooms. Lion for the library. Is it just random shit?”

Marks shook his head. “It means something. We just haven’t figured it out.”

“Does everything mean something? Like all the dictionaries in the library—is everything a clue?”

“Everything!” Agnes said cheerily. “Except the things that aren’t.”

For a moment they all stood there. Then Marks nodded, turning again. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”

“Sure.”

The word sounded like a curse. He looked at Agnes, who had an expression of excitement, her eyes shining. She still smelled like sandalwood, clean and fresh. He turned and opened the door, thinking about the dictionaries in the library.

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

21. A New Room

Marks regretted the rope. It dangled from the ladder and there was no way to retrieve it, and now that it had proved its usefulness he worried about it. There might come a room up ahead where they would wish fervently for a rope, and there would be none.

He looked around. “Seems like they’re expanding,” he said. “Building new rooms.”

“Great,” Dennis said. “That’s what we need. More of this.”

“Where are the workers?” Dee asked. “If they’re building, where are they?”

Marks looked around. “Maybe if we make our way through this section, we’ll find them.”

This was met with silence. He looked around. “Three doorways,” he said. “Who wants to pick?”

Dee pointed at a doorway in the far corner. “It’s the opposite direction of the elevator shaft,” she said. “So maybe it takes us away from the Waiting Room.”

“I’m all for that,” Dennis said.

Marks led the way. The doorway led to a short hallway that was also rough, new drywall and unfinished flooring. At the other end was another unfinished doorway, which led them into another room of taped, sanded drywall. This one had eight doorway openings.

“Whatever they intend this to be,” Dennis said, “it’s going to be huge.”

Marks nodded thoughtfully. “Any guesses on the next move?”

No one said anything. After a moment he nodded and headed for the doorway directly opposite the one they’d just come through.

.o0o.

“It’s the same.”

Marks nodded, looking around at the newly-installed drywall, the thick white lines of the taped and sanded seams, the rough subfloor, the bare bulb. They’d tried four doorways so far, and all led to a similar room, with the sole difference being the number and positioning of the doorways. None of the rooms had actual doors, just openings that led to short, identically drywalled halls and then to a room that appeared to be just as recently created.

“It’s a maze,” Marks said resignedly. “A maze within the maze.”

“How long have we been in here?” Dee asked.

“A few hours,” Marks said.

“Anyone know where the first room is any more?”

A moment of silence as they contemplated the walls and floor that looked exactly like every other room they’d been through. Marks swung the backpack around on his shoulder, reached in, took out the notebook, and turned it to a new page.

.o0o.

“How big can the maze be?”

Marks looked at Dennis and shrugged. “Theoretically? Infinite. But there has to be a way through.”

“Doesn’t do us any good if it takes infinity,” Dee said.

They were sprawled on the rough floor of one of the rooms, eating a desultory meal of water, donuts, and power bars. Supplies were getting low, but Marks decided not to make that a topic of conversation at that moment.

Dee yawned.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Marks said after a moment of depressed silence. “Gotta sleep some time.”

“All right,” Dennis said. “I’m done in, sure enough.”

They fell silent. Marks took off his jacket and balled it up to make a pillow, but the stacks of money he still had sewn into the lining made it the worst pillow ever made. He slid the backpack over to Dee, and she struggled similarly to make it resemble something comfortable.

For a few minutes they all tried to relax, to close their eyes. Finally, Dennis sat up.

“Anyone see a light switch?” he said, his voice ragged. “I’ll never sleep with that light in my face.”

“Part of the torture,” Dee said.

Marks climbed to his feet and walked over to the bulb hanging down. He squinted up at it, examining the fixture, then pulled the flashlight from his pocket and with one efficient tap smashed the bulb.

For a moment, there was silence. The room wasn’t entirely in darkness; light from the four doorways bled into it, giving it a twilit, spooky cast.

“Do you … hear something?” Dee asked.

They sat and listened. Dennis lay back down again. “Try to sleep, baby.”

.o0o.

Marks was bent over his notebook when Dee and Dennis woke up, stiff and aching from a night on the hard floor.

“Damn, I think I’ve got splinters in my butt,” Dee said, scowling.

“I’ve got a plan,” Marks said.

.o0o.

They walked into the room, the same room as usual: Drywall, mudded seams, bare bulb. This one had three doorways, including the one they’d just walked through. Marks walked briskly up to the bare bulb and smashed it, then made a note in his notebook.

“How many rooms so far?” Dennis asked, stretching.

“One hundred fifty four,” Marks said.

“Jesus.”

They stood for a moment in the darkness. Both of the other doorways were lit up, meaning they hadn’t been in those rooms yet. Marks thought surely they would start encountering some repeated rooms soon.

“Marks.”

He stepped over to where Dennis was standing in the middle of the room, looking down at the floor.

“You must hear that!” Dee suddenly said.

Something crunched under Marks’ feet. he knelt down and picked up a shard of glass. “Sons of bitches,” he said, face reddening.

“They been replacing the bulbs,” Dennis said flatly, his voice low and spiritless. “They been followin’ us and replacing the bulbs. We maybe already been through half the rooms we’ve seen.”

“Can you hear that?!”

Ignoring Dee, Marks dropped the shard. He looked up at Dennis, whose face had taken on a tight, still look. “How? How could someone be following us and doing that and us not notice?”

“Guys!”

They turned to look at Dee. For a moment they stood in perfect silence. Distant, they could hear what sounded like voices, deep and random, and a sort of scraping sound, like someone was dragging something across the rough flooring. Dee backed away from the direction of the sound. After a few beats the men joined her, all three backing away.

“What does that sound like to you?” Marks asked.

“Nothing good.”

“Come on, come on!” Dee shouted, and turned to run through the opposite doorway. Dennis cursed and spun to follow. Marks hesitated for one moment, then ran after them.

They no longer looked around as they entered a room. They were all the same: Apparently newly-built. sometimes even smelling faintly of the joint compound used to seal the seams, damp and earthy.

And behind them, always seemingly closer, the voices and the incessant scraping noise. Marks thought he could feel it inside his head, like an angry insect had gotten trapped inside his skull and was chewing its way out.

They stopped, breathing hard, and he realized they’d been moving through the rooms faster and faster, almost running, without any conscious thought. The noise kept creeping closer no matter how quickly they moved, and the voices had resolved into ominous shouts and screams, the scraping noises sounding like something sharp being dragged along the walls.

But they never saw any signs of anyone else in the maze, and unless by sheer luck they were continuously advancing deeper into it instead of walking back over their own trail, which seemed much more likely, Marks couldn’t understand how that was possible.

“Stop,” Dennis said, breathing hard and staggering over to one wall, leaning against it. “Stop. It’s been hours. I can’t go any more.”

Marks nodded, stopping and putting his hands on his hips and bending over, breathing in air in greedy gulps. Dennis slid down to the floor and sat desolately, his legs spread in front of him. Dee just sat on the floor, sweaty, and lay back, closing her eyes. To Marks, it felt like they’d just given up. Without a discussion of any kind, they’d simply decided to sit down and let whatever it was overtake them.

He had to admit, it felt good to stop. He wasn’t certain how long—subjectively—they’d been in this place. Two days? Three? Less? More? And he had no idea how long they’d actually been inside. It felt like infinity, and all he knew was that after so much time spent running and thinking and deciding, he was ready to be done. And if all he’d accomplished was reuniting Dee and her father, he thought maybe that was an okay legacy. He’d fixed one thing. A lot time when he’d gotten involved in situations, investigations, he’d accomplished nothing. And sometimes, he knew, he’d only made things worse.

He stumbled over and sat down next to Dennis, and closed his eyes. He listened to the storm of sound inching closer to them, and it suddenly seemed comforting.

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

20. A New Room

For a moment they stood, frozen with surprise. Then they all looked up at the ceiling and the panel.

“Dennis,” Marks said. “If you got on my shoulders, could you climb up there?”

Dennis squinted. “Yup.”

No one moved. “Dennis,” Marks said. “If you get up there, do you think you’d be able to pull me up after you, if Dee helps?”

Dennis’ squint turned into a frown. “Well … ” He turned and looked Marks up and down. “Maybe.”

“And leave me here?” Dee demanded.

Marks shook his head. “One of us braces the others legs, and he dangles down, grabs your arms, we pull you up.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Not saying anything specific about anyone’s level of physical condition here,” Dennis said, “but you feeling confident we can pull off those feats of strength?”

Marks straightened up. “Jesus, I’ve got rope in the bag.”

In short order, Marks had produced the rope he’d bought and gotten down on his hands and knees. Dennis took the rope and used Marks as a human step stool, pulling himself up into the service hatch. His legs disappeared, kicking and wriggling, and a moment later the rope dropped down, looking like a thin, frail white line that would obviously snap when tested.

Dennis’ face appeared framed in the square of the hatch. “You doin’ all right, baby?”

Dee offered him a sardonic thumb’s up. Marks was amused to see how quickly she’d gone from joy at seeing her father to a sullen sort of exasperation. He assumed this was standard for children.

“You next,” he said.

She eyed the black square for a second. “Where do you think it leads?”

He shrugged. “Back to the lounge?”

She shook her head, her expression uneasy. “Seems too easy, don’t it? Too damn easy to just backtrack. Like you said, this room is a trap. We ain’t supposed to be able to get out. So why have an access panel in the damn elevator?”

Marks pursed his lips and looked up at the black square above them. “A trap within a trap,” he said thoughtfully.

“Make it worse,” Dee said. “That’s what I’d do, if I was Agnes, lookin’ to keep us in here like bugs in a jar or something.”

Marks kept staring at the hole in the ceiling. Presently Dennis’ face reappeared.

“I got it secure enough,” he said. “You guys coming?”

Marks animated, coming back to the present. “You go,” he said to Dee. “I’ll follow.”

She looked at him dubiously. “You think you be able to climb this rope? When’s the last time you had gym class?”

“Go,” he said with a grimace, taking hold of the rope and holding it taut for her. She shook her head and grabbed on, easily pulling herself up with four powerful tugs, Dennis grabbing onto her and reeling her up the last few feet. Two faces looked down at Marks.

“Come on, old man,” Dee said. “You got me into this mess, you got to get me out.”

“You volunteered,” Marks said, tossing the backpack up. Dennis caught it smartly, and it disappeared into the darkness beyond. He took hold of the rope and tugged on it, took a deep breath, and launched himself upwards, pulling with all his might.

That went well enough. When it came time to move one hand up, he found it no easy task, eventually managing to support himself somewhat by clamping his feet together and letting some of his weight go there. Where it had taken Dee seconds to scramble, it took Marks nearly a minute, and when they pulled him onto the roof of the elevator, he was sweating and breathing hard. He lay on his back staring up at the total darkness of the elevator shaft, catching his breath and waiting for the tell-tale signs of a heart attack while Dennis retrieved the rope and untied it.

There was a strange sense of space all around them, as if the shaft were much larger than it should be and the elevator was in fact swinging freely like a pendulum. The light leaking up and out of the elevator was weak and quickly absorbed, illuminating just a few inches of the elevator’s top, the thick metal cables rising up into darkness.

Rolling over, Marks grabbed his bag and extracted a flashlight by feel. He clicked it on and aimed the beam around them, revealing they were, in fact, in a shaft just large enough to hold the elevator cab. There was a maintenance ladder on one wall. He aimed the flashlight up above them, but the beam diffused and dissolved long before revealing anything of note.

“At least there’s a Ladder,” Dennis said.

Marks snorted. “I was hoping for an exit.”

“You sure there is one?” Dennis said, then looked sharply at Dee. “Oh, shit, of course there’s an exit, right?”

Marks nodded. “There is. There has to be. It’s hard to explain why, but if there wasn’t an exit we’d know. We’d feel it, and give up. But we can sense there is one, so we keep moving, and that’s what this place wants.”

“If that’s what this place wants, then why have a room where everyone’s just sitting around waiting?”

Marks puffed out his cheeks for a moment. “I don’t know. Come on. Let’s climb.”

The ladder was easier than the rope, but it was still difficult. Hand over hand, feet slipping on the rusted, lubricated rungs, he felt the sweat pour from him, his breathing labored and his jaw aching as he clenched the flashlight between his teeth. The darkness above didn’t seem to change, and it didn’t take long to become mesmerized by the steady scroll of the ladder and metal piping along the wall. He knew it didn’t have to make sense, an endless elevator shaft in the midst of this place. His brain still rebelled against the implied infinity of it.

He’d lost the bubbling cheer he’d been feeling earlier. Now it all seemed too neat, too simple, and he worried there really was no choice, no possibility of making their own path. That Agnes was truly in charge, tugging them this way and that.

And yet she’d seemed, at times, as surprised as they’d been, as if she didn’t know everything about this place, as if she’d inherited it, not built it. She’d hinted that changes were made she had nothing to do with, frustration with things that happened without her. It was heartening to think that even Agnes had so little control over her existence, that maybe she wasn’t so different from them, scurrying around like ants fleeing the magnifying glass.

He climbed. His arms burned and his back ached. He climbed long after he thought they should have found the doors leading back to the queer lounge. He felt doubt creeping in, but kept climbing. The idea that it was all a complex trick that had been set up was too much to bear. But as he climbed it seemed increasingly likely that they’d gone much further than they should have, that they’d either missed the doors leading back to the lounge, or those doors had vanished. And maybe that meant this was the trap, the real trap, that they were now in a pitch-dark shaft clinging to a ladder until they were exhausted. Until they headed back down only to discover the elevator had vanished, until they realized they were trapped in this endless, dark space forever, and just let go, to fall endlessly.

He shook his head. He wanted to wipe the sweat from his eyes, but was afraid to let go of the ladder.

He swept the area ahead of him awkwardly with the flashlight, twisting his head this way and that, then paused and swung the light back. Carefully, he stopped climbing and hooked his elbow through on the rungs, taking the light from his mouth and holding it steady. There it was, on the opposite side of the shaft.

“Door,” he shouted. “A door!”

“The Lounge?” Dee shouted back.

He leaned forward as far as he dared, clinging to the metal ladder. “No, it’s one of the other doors, the usual doors,” he said slowly. “It has a carving of … a newt. A lizard, but I think it’s a newt.”

“We’ve seen newt!” Dee shouted.

“Sure,” Marks said, breathing hard in between the words. “But we had a choice before. Doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

“Mr. Marks,” Dennis said, his voice strained. “We’re hanging on a rusty ladder in an elevator shaft. This ain’t safe.”

Marks nodded to himself. “The real question is how do we get over there?”

For a moment he let the light dance on the door. It looked exactly like the doors had looked in the earlier rooms—heavy, wooden, dark.

“Jump?” Dee suggested.

Marks choked as a wave of giddy, hysterical laughter seized him. “No,” he managed to say. “We don’t jump.” He looked up into the darkness above. “We swing,” he said, not believing the words as they came out of his mouth. “We tie the rope to a rung of the ladder up above, then we Tarzan swing over there.”

“Did he just say Tarzan swing?” Dennis wanted to know.

Marks turned the flashlight onto the ladder and estimated the width between the rungs. “I’ll go first. You both stay below.”

He climbed, counting rungs and doing manic math in his head. They needed to get high enough so they’d have the length of rope necessary to swing over. He overcompensated, hooked his arm through a rung again while leaving the flashlight in his mouth, and fished out the rope one-handed. Awkwardly, he lopped the rope around the rung and formed a hitch that he thought would be sufficient. Then he fished up the other end of the rope and repeated the process so he had a long loop of rope knotted twice to the ladder. The loop was long enough, and he hoped having two knots would be insurance against someone plummeting down to their death.

“All right!” he said. “I’m going to try it.”

He ignored the anxious murmur of voices below and trained the flashlight on the door. There was a sliver of landing jutting out from the threshold; he thought it entirely possible to swing over, grab onto the doorknob with one hand while getting his feet on the landing. Then he could see if the door opened inward or outward.

He took a deep breath, tugged on the rope, and put the flashlight in his mouth again. Then he started climbing back down, counting rungs. When he judged he was in the right position, he took hold of the rope with one hand and slowly let it take his weight as he took his other hand from the rung and grabbed onto the rope. For a moment he was suspended with his feet on the rungs, then he leaned back, gathered himself, and launched himself into the air, hanging onto the rope.

He started swinging. The first leap only took him halfway to the door, but he could see he had the positioning right. Like a kid on a tire swing, he began working up momentum, forward, then back, forward, back. Each time the door came closer and closer, but as his arms burned and trembled he suddenly wasn’t confident he’d be able to let go with one hand. He thought it entirely possible if he tried he would lose his grip on the rope entirely.

Sweating, breathing hard, he kept swinging. The door drew closer and closer, and finally something in his brain clicked and he took his right hand from the rope and reached out as he swung towards the door. He closed his fingers around the ornate handle, his feet hitting on the stub of landing and skidding off and on as his momentum tried to pull him back. When he finally settled he was stuck leaning out over the darkness, struggling to breathe around the flashlight and uncertain if he could release the rope and not be pulled backwards by gravity. He teetered out over the emptiness, then slowly pulled himself forward until he was leaning against the door. He pressed his cheek against the wood and breathed for a few seconds, trembling.

“Marks!” Dennis called up. “You okay?”

Marks nodded. Then he realized they couldn’t see him, and forced his muddy brain to consider the problem of letting go of one of the two things keeping him from falling. He moved his hand on the door’s handle and depressed the thumbpiece, became unbalanced and pitched forward as the door slid inward. He lost his grip on the rope and fell, almost sliding back out and down but managing to catch hold of the threshold. Grunting, he pulled himself up and into a brightly-lit room.

“Marks!” Dennis called. “We can see the doorway! You okay? We’re comin’!”

“Fine!” Marks shouted, spitting the flashlight onto the floor and lying back, breathing hard. He considered how inadequate the word fine was in context. He had never been physically built for adventure, and this was turning into more work than he’d done in a long time.

He sat up and looked around. The room looked brand new—it was just a box of recent drywall, taped and mudded. The floor was plywood subfloor. The light was just a bare bulb hanging down from the ceiling. Instead of another door, there were three open doorways leading to similarly bright spaces.

“Marks! I’m sending Dee over to you!”

Marks wiped a hand over his face and flicked sweat onto the floor. He shrugged the backpack off and settled the jacket on his shoulders. Then he picked up the flashlight went and stood in the doorway. He trained the light upwards until he found them; Dee was clinging to the ladder with one hand, the other looped into the rope. She stared right at him, her face a mask of terror.

“Come on!” he said, trying to appear jovial. “I’ll catch you!”

She didn’t appear to be comforted by this announcement. She closed her eyes and let go of the ladder, swinging in a gentle arc towards him. As she came close he reached out with unexpected grace and grabbed hold of her shirt, pulling her in. She let go of the rope and they tumbled to the floor with a bounce.

“I’m okay, Dad!” Dee shouted across the void.

“All right,” Dennis shouted back uncertainly. “Here goes nothing!”

From the darkness, Dennis seemed to materialize from nothing, zooming in close. Marks pushed Dee behind him and reached for her father, but mis-timed it, and Dennis swung back, swallowed by the darkness. Dennis unleashed a stream of invective and reappeared with a determined look on his face, kicking forward with a yelp. Marks reached and grabbed him by the ankles, pulling with all his might. They both landed on the rough subfloor, and Marks felt splinters digging into his legs.

For a moment they lay there, panting. Then Dennis sat up and looked around.

“Well this is kind of disappointing.”

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

19. The Waiting Room

“Why do they all just sit there, waiting?”

Marks shrugged. “It’s a Waiting Room, right?”

The three of them were sitting on the floor in front of the elevator, a picnic of sorts spread out in front of them. Marks had pulled everything out of his backpack and taken an inventory and reviewed his map, making more notes. Dennis discovered there was hot water in one of the urns instead of coffee, so they unplugged it to let it cool. Then they had a meal of power bars, donuts, and coffee.

“That was the worst lunch I have literally ever eaten,” Dee said.

“Your Mom would never have allowed it,” Dennis said, grinning. “That woman, she drove me mad, girl, but she knew how to get things done.”

Marks was re-packing the bag, trying to lay power bars like bricks to gain the most efficient possible use of space. Every few minutes he glanced up at the doors. He didn’t want to admit it out loud, but he felt alive and energetic, almost happy. He had a clear purpose, no distractions, and for the first time in a very long time he didn’t have any bills to worry about, he didn’t have to figure out how to live on ten dollars a week or where he was going to sleep that night. He didn’t have to spend hours pretending to really, really enjoy a cup of cooling coffee just so he could sit inside someplace warm for a while.

And he still had more than four thousand dollars sewn into his jacket. In a strange way he refused to acknowledge consciously, he felt like every day he spent in this awful place, this dark, black house, was a day he didn’t have to spend a dime on survival. It pushed his eventual return to penury further and further out, and that was comforting.

“Maybe we should try to recruit people,” Dee said. “This is messed up. They all got lured here just like us, right Mr. Marks?”

Marks nodded. “That’s probably true, though places like this find its victims in different ways. There are odd little entrances all over the place, hidden. Turn a dark corner, there you are.” He turned to look at them. “The one constant is these places only reveal themselves to people who have nothing to lose, and no one looking for them. People who won’t be missed.”

They all contemplated that for a grim moment. Then Dennis brightened. “Well, then it messed up this time, because I had Dee.”

Marks nodded, turning his attention back to his packing. “Yes. Without Dee you’d just be sitting here, like the rest of them.”

“Who we should at least try to talk to, right?” Dee said impatiently. “They’re being messed with, right? That’s why they’re just sitting here. It’s like a spell or something, the same way Agnes made herself look a certain way. A trick. We got, like, a duty to try and snap them out of it.”

“Agnes,” Dennis said musingly. “That’s the name she gave me, too.”

Marks shook his head. “Your Dad didn’t just sit around.”

“What?”

“It’s a trick, sure, but it’s not forcing anyone. That would be against the rules. This place wants us all in here because it’s easier to soak up our energy, but if it enchanted us into sitting around or something, it wouldn’t get much out of us. It wants people up and moving: Getting coffee, walking the perimeter, arguing, getting into fights. No, the people here who are just sitting? They’re sitting because they don’t want to do anything else. They’ve given up.”

“Then why don’t this place liven them up?” she asked. “It wants energy, movement, business. Why let them just sit?”

He shrugged. “Best guess? Agnes has her hands full. Whatever she is, she’s just one of it. She has to go greet and fuck over every visitor to this place, guide them here. She doesn’t have time to come in here and make everyone do calisthenics or something.”

“What’s calisthenics?”

“Nothing important.”

“Still,” she said firmly. “We should try to snap ’em out of it.”

“No, we shouldn’t.” Marks finished packing and zipped up the backpack. “Let’s say we get a dozen, two dozen, or just one person to get off their ass. These are people who chose to sit down and wait. Your Dad’s been here for what seems to him like two days, we walk in and he’s still motoring, trying to figure this out. These people are sitting here because they’ve given up. If we pry some loose they’ll be dead weights around our necks. We won’t be able to help them, and they’ll hurt us, they’ll slow us down, they’ll argue every decision, they’ll complain, and we’ll suffer for it.”

“Baby,” Dennis said slowly after a moment’s silence. “I got to side with Mr. Marks here on this. You maybe ain’t seen the quality of people I have, and I’m glad of that. But most people make bad decisions, then get mad at you over ’em. We’re better off on our own. These people got eyes and ears. They could come to the same conclusions we did.”

Dee seemed unhappy, but she nodded. “All right.”

They sat for a while. Marks thought about getting another cup of coffee, then imagined himself having to relieve himself against a wall somewhere, as there didn’t seem to be a bathroom anywhere. Then he thought there would be a bathroom somewhere in the maze, wouldn’t there, and he decided it was best that he never, ever see it.

“Listen, we don’t—”

Without fanfare, the elevator emitted a dry, sterile ping.

Marks could hear her, he could hear Agnes, doing the same schtick. Sixth floor, unwanted advances, that sinking feeling, model trains. The voice was dim and muffled, but rising and clarifying.

“Come on!”

They scrambled to their feet. Marks swung the backpack over his shoulder, then turned to glance at the urn of cooling water. He was down to his last few bottles of water, and the gallon or three in the urn would be more than useful. But there was no time. If they paused to gather it, figure out how to carry it with them, there was a very good chance the elevator would leave, and they had no way of knowing if it would ever come back. They had to take the opportunity.

“When the doors open, we go in immediately,” he said, poised. “Don’t hesitate!”

Dennis and Dee both nodded. They all stood, poised, ready.

Agnes’ voice, rising in volume: Eighth floor, bloomers, pantaloons, lederhosen.

The doors split open.

They ran forward, silent, and crowded into the cab, spinning to face the doors, breathing hard from pure excitement. They waited.

“Excuse me?”

They all froze.

“Is this the way out or not?”

They all three turned almost as one, and stared back at the pleasant-looking, washed-out young man in the mid-range suit. He looked a little worse for the wear; rough around the edges. His blond hair was out of place, his jacket was torn, and he had a shallow gash just under his hairline.

Marks smiled and stepped to one side, pushing Dee gently against then wall of the cab. “We don’t know,” he said, feeling honest and upright.

“Dammit,” the man said. “I was really hoping you knew more than I did.”

“Life is disappointment,” Marks said brightly. He looked up at then ceiling. “Dee, if your Dad holds you up, think you can pry open that panel?”

Dee squinted up at the square. “Maybe. With what?”

“It should just push up, like a ceiling tile.” Marks looked at Dennis. “Okay?”

The man in the suit frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Sir, we’re inspecting elevators today,” Marks said. “You go on in and have a cup of coffee.”

“Marks,” Dee hissed.

Marks looked at her, then at Dennis. They both stared back at him. He slumped a little, and turned to face the man in the suit. “I don’t think this is the way out,” he said quietly. “We came down here too. It’s a Trap Room. You should stick with us.”

The man in the suit blinked. “What’s a Trap Room? Do you know Agnes?”

“Everyone here,” Marks said, “knows Agnes. Dee?”

She looked at Dennis. “Dad?”

Dennis peered up at the panel. “Okay. No harm in trying. I’ll lift you up, see if you can push the panel up.”

“Uh,” the man in the suit said. “I’m still standing here.”

Dennis scooped up Dee and lifted her up by her waist. She pushed her hands up against the panel until it lifted.

“Higher!” she said.

Dennis boosted her up.

“Why are we going up through the ceiling?” The man in the suit said, frowning. “Is this room so terrible?”

“It’s the worst room of them all.” Marks said.

Dee pushed the panel up a few inches, then slid it back until she’d revealed the opening, which was about two by two. It was a square of inky black.

Suit Man leaned forward and peered up at it. “So … let me get this right. You’d rather go up into the pitch-black shaft than stay in that room. Jesus, I’ve seen some frightening shit these last three days, but I can’t even imagine what would make me climb into that.”

“Coffee,” Marks said.

“And donuts,” Dennis added, letting letting Dee drop down to the floor.

The four of them stared up at the dark square. “How do we get up there?” Dee asked.

“We’ve got lots of chairs,” Dennis said.

No one moved. One by one they turned to stare at the doors.

“Chances the doors shut if any one of us step outside?” Marks asked.

“What?” Suit Man said, smiling nervously.

Dennis looked at Marks. “Pretty good.”

One by one, they turned and looked at Suit Man. He continued to stare up at the panel for a few moments, then turned and looked around. “What?”

Marks stepped over and took him by the arm and began walking him in a tight circle inside the elevator. “What say you dash out there and grab us a chair or two?”

Suit Man frowned. “Why—you don’t want to—what’s going to happen to me if I go out there?”

“Our experience is limited,” Marks said, turning him in a tight circle. “But probably nothing.”

“You were going in there anyway, right?” Dennis said.

“Sure, but that was before you freaked me out.”

“You weren’t freaked out before this?” Dee asked.

Suit Man pulled away from Marks and stood in front of the doors. “What happens if I step out there and the doors close behind me?”

“All the coffee and donuts you can consume,” Marks said.

“And we’re fucked,” Dennis added. Then he glanced at Dee. “We’re in trouble.”

“Dad,” she groused.

Suit Man turned. “All right,” he said, looking from face to face. “Tell me why you’re going up the elevator shaft. Why aren’t you just picking a door?”

Marks looked at Dee, then at Dennis. He looked back at Suit Guy. “It’s a trap,” he said. “There are no doors.”

“I see.” Suit Man said. He looked back through the doors and set his jaw. “All right, I’ll grab a chair. But then I’m coming with you.”

Marks, Dennis, and Dee exchanged looks, and nodded at each other.

“All right,” Marks said. “Deal.”

“Appreciated,” Dennis added.

Suit Man turned, squared his shoulders, and stepped briskly out of the elevator. He stopped and turned, smiling.

“Well!” he said.

The elevator doors snapped shut.

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

18. The Waiting Room

“It occurs to me,” Dennis said slowly, “that you might be a dirty trick.”

Marks sipped the coffee. It was terrible, watery and gritty, with only a vaguely coffee-like flavor. “Like maybe we’re not what we seem to be.”

Dennis nodded. “I met a woman when I arrived. Nice older black lady, said she’d been here for days, suggested we team up. Full of opinions about where to go.”

Marks nodded, blowing on the steaming cup. “She changed. Looked different by the end.”

Dennis nodded, studying Marks, then leaning forward a little to study Dee.

“And now you’re wondering if we’re part of the Welcome Wagon, here to mess with you.”

Dennis leaned back and pursed his lips. “It had crossed my mind, yeah. Shit, man, I dealt with the prison yard, basically didn’t sleep for four years because I was convinced I was getting killed or … or something if I did. And I still felt more secure than I do right at this moment.”

“Smart man.” Marks toasted him with his coffee cup. “You’ve been living on donuts and coffee for two weeks now?”

They were seated on the floor near the urns, Dee to one side of her father and Marks on the other. People sometimes approached the tables and sniffed in irritation before getting their own cups or plates of pastries, but no one said anything. Marks watched them curiously, wondering how in the world they could possibly just sit there.

Dennis nodded. “I got experience with terrible coffee, man, and stale donuts. Meetings, AA.” He blinked. “Wait. You say two weeks? I count two days.”

“Time’s different in here. The whole point is to drain you, keep you spinning.” He sipped the coffee again and winced. “The donuts as bad as this?”

“Worse,” Dennis said. “There’s a definite sawdust vibe going on.”

“You walk the perimeter?”

Dennis nodded, and Marks found himself impressed. There was something of himself in Dennis, he thought, even though they looked quite different: Marks white, wearing a cheap suit, somehow inert and heavy; Dennis black and wearing denim, his hair cut short (but slowly growing wild), his hands calloused. But Marks could sense that despair, that knowledge that you’d lost more time than you had left, that opportunities were running out. He smelled familiar desperation on Dennis and it made him feel like they were on the same team. A losing team, perhaps, but at least familiar.

“I started at the elevator,” he said. “And walked right. Hit the wall, turned left. Kept walking. And walking. And walking. This room is god-damn huge.”

“You find the edge?”

Dennis shook his head, sipping his own coffee. “Not yet. I decided I would get some sleep, stuff my pockets with donuts, and carry two cups of coffee with me, make an attempt at finding the other side of this room.” He looked around. “This place is crazy.”

Marks nodded. “Who fills the coffee urns? Puts out the donuts?”

“Never saw no one.”

Marks sipped the coffee with a straightfaced sense of resignation and looked over the crowd of people sitting around them. Some stood, in small groups. Marks ran his eyes over them, reminding himself that they might be plants, figments, or even Agnes herself, who had demonstrated an ability to change her form to some extent, and who certainly wasn’t human.

“Hey!”

A doughy-looking woman with hair that had been dyed bright read, but which had grown out into a dull silver, giving her a two-toned look, turned and looked at them with dulled, blank eyes. “What?”

“How long you been here?”

She shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Guess!”

“Dunno.”

He got to his feet and carried his coffee over to one of the knots of people: Three young men wearing casual office clothes: Button-down shirts, jackets. They looked at him politely as he approached.

“How long you been here, guys?”

They looked at him, then at each other, smiling secretly. They shook their heads and turned away, leaning in close to have a private conversation. Marks nodded and returned to where Dennis and Dee were sitting.

“Not too friendly, huh?” Dennis asked.

“The Waiting Room part is genius,” Marks said. “For a lot of people, they can’t process what’s happening to them. It’s so far outside their experience and expectations, they don’t know what to do. Their brains shut down, become paralyzed. And then you give them a waiting room, and instinct takes over. They sit. They wait. Anyone trying to upset that is ignored, or attacked.”

“Okay,” Dennis said. “So what do you do for a living, Mr. Marks? Because it sounds like you build places like this. Or, like we touched on, maybe you’re my old black lady friend fucking with me.” His eyes flashed in Dee’s direction. “Messing with me.”

“I know the word, Dad.”

“No,” Marks said. “Just been to a few places in this general category. That’s how I came to look for you, in a building that shouldn’t exist.”

“All right. All right. So, we walk the perimeter. You really think there’s a way out of here?”

“You tried the elevator?”

Dennis shook his head. “No button. Tried pulling the doors open, even tore apart one of the chairs and tried prying them with one of the legs. All it got me was bloody fingers.” He held up his hands. The fingers were scabbed and raw.

Marks nodded, looking over at the shiny metal doors. “Hey, Dee, remember the slide into that weird lounge? We had no idea it was there.” He nodded again. “I’ll make a bet, we walk the perimeter we’ll walk for a long time, and find nothing.” He looked at Dennis. “This whole place is designed to waste our time. Chances are, if you see an obvious way, you’re being screwed.”

Dennis sighed. “All right, so we can’t wait, we can’t walk, so what do we do?”

Marks gestured. “The elevator. Look, this place is trying hard to convince us the elevator’s a dead end. But it can’t be. If we couldn’t go back, it wouldn’t be here—the doors usually disappear when you can’t go backwards.”

“Yeah,” Dennis said, leaning forward. “Yeah. That’s right, when you can’t go back, the door just ain’t there. I remember that.”

“So if the elevator is still here, there has to be a way to get back in it. Ride it back up. Or ride it somewhere.”

Dennis smiled. “Mr. Marks, you just saved us a lot of walking. So how do we get the elevator doors open?”

Marks shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Dennis studied him for a moment, then smiled broadly. “My man!”

“Dad,” Dee said.

Marks smiled. He’d forgotten how good it could be to just have voices around you, people paying attention to you, interacting and reacting. He stared at the elevator doors and basked, for a moment, in having another adult just sharing his company.

“We could just wait for the next bunch of stupid people,” Dee said.

Marks turned to look at her, his dreamy half-smile still in place. “What?”

Dee shrugged. “We came down the elevator, and the doors opened and stayed open until we stepped off. Why not wait for the next group of dummies who get trapped in here, and just step back on?”

Dennis and Marks looked at each other.

“Would that work?” Dennis asked.

“I have no idea.” Marks looked back at the elevator doors. “But unless we come up with something better, we’re going to find out.”

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

17. The Waiting Room

For a moment, Marks had the sensation of being sealed off, the air going still and the pressure climbing. Then the cab lurched, sending him stumbling into Dee. They righted themselves, and the elevator shuddered into motion.

“Why isn’t she coming?” Dee asked. “Why didn’t she come?”

He sighed. “Because it’s a trap, kid. Because we messed up and fell for a trap.”

She looked ready to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out one hand awkwardly and put it on her shoulder. “Shut up, kid. We were fucking doomed from the moment we walked in here.”

She started crying. “Also my damn fault,” she sobbed. “Ah, shit, I’m sorry. You didn’t have much going on, Mr. Marks, but you looked like you were on the upswing, huh? Cash, and you looked like a man hadn’t had a roof over his head for a while. And I dragged you here, and now we’re gonna die, aren’t we?”

“No,” he said quietly, looking around. “This place wants us alive. That’s the point. It wants to steal our time.”

The elevator cab was oppressively red. The music seemed to be on an endless loop without structure, just a motif repeating endlessly. He looked up; there was a maintenance panel in the middle of the ceiling.

The ride went on longer than should have been possible, the cab just shaking and screeching on and on. They stood in silence, him with his hand on her shoulder, her with tears streaming down her face. The music playing.

Suddenly, the music was interrupted by a burst of static, and then Agnes’ voice came over the air, tinny and cheerful.

“Fifth floor: Knickers, moonbeams, and carcinogens,” she announced. “I wanted to thank you for a truly entertaining time! You totally broke records. You lasted long time. I will never forget you, dour poor man and black moppet.”

“Is she going to just keep talking to us forever?” Dee asked. “Is that how this goes?”

“Sixth floor: Seashells, seashells, by the seesaw,” Agnes continued, her voice somehow seeming to fill the entirety of the cab, a pulsing vibration using every molecule of the elevator as an amplifier. “To be clear, while, yes, it’s true I pushed you towards this option from the very beginning, I also offered some better choices. For example, there is actually a map in the library! Really there is! It would take you ever so long to find it, but I was not, actually, lying.”

“Seems like it,” Marks said, leaning back against the rear of the elevator and wishing fervently for a cigarette for the first time in a long time.

“Seventh floor: Kittens, barbells, feral children. Nasty place, the seventh floor, do not go there. Mr. Marks, you wished to know who I made myself resemble. I shan’t tell you, but I am sure you will figure it out in time. And then, my manly, miserable Marks, you will wish you had not.”

Marks nodded to himself as if this made perfect sense. He glanced down at Dee, who was staring up at him apprehensively, and winked.

“Eighth floor: Blood diamonds, blood money, blood donations,” Agnes snapped off. “Ninth floor: Beetles, earworms, human centipedes. Tenth floor … tenth floor, end of the line.”

Her voice cut off, the shaking stopped, and with a neutral-sounding ding the doors split open again.

It revealed a pleasant room, quite large and filled with people. There were hundreds of multi-colored plastic seats arranged either in rows or little groups. A long table along the wall nearest the elevator held urns of coffee and plates of donuts. Many of the people had paper cups in their hands. A Muzak version of a sad, melancholy song was playing softly—but Marks was momentarily relieved to hear it was a different song than the one he’d been hearing everywhere else.

“Tenth floor,” Agnes said softly all around them. “Old friends.”

They stepped into the room, and the elevator doors closed behind them softly. The smell of coffee was strong, and the music seemed to recede to an almost subliminal level of volume. Marks squinted and leaned forward, then straightened up.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “There’s a horizon.”

A few people seated nearest them glanced over. One elderly gentleman, wearing a suit of tattered and oversized clothes, looked Marks up and down and sniffed audibly.

“There’s a five year wait for a chair,” he said. “I’m not moving.”

“Is my Dad here?” Dee asked, straining up onto her toes. “I mean, this is where she wanted us to go. This was her trick. He has to be here, right?”

“Maybe, kid,” he said. “Stay close, though—this place is huge!”

“Dad!” she shouted, setting off between the rows of chairs. “Dad!”

Marks noted how many of the people in the chairs were elderly. A few scowled at Dee as she raced by.

“Keep it down!”

“I’m sleeping here, sweetheart.”

“Shut up, you fucking brat!”

Marks waved them away as he hustled after her, trying to keep up. He noted that the people near the elevator were all uniformly older, often decrepit. A few he noticed had dust on their shoulders as they dozed, and the air, he realized, had a thick, earthy smell that definitely implied a lack of bathrooms. He glanced down and saw that the floor was covered in a soft pelt of dirt that wasn’t dirt—too light, too springy. It hit him a moment later and he stumbled, gagging, and almost losing his balance: It was skin flakes and hair, dirt and fingernails from the people who’d been sitting here, waiting, for years, possibly decades—so long it had all mulched into some sort of soil, complete with tiny sprouts, their delicate green leaves reaching up for …what? Tears? Sweat? Saliva?

For the first time, the fear that maybe they were trapped got a hand on him. He wondered at the odds: All of these people, he had little doubt, had entered this room just as he had—a little stunned, possibly already exhausted by a lengthy journey through the maze, but essentially certain there was always another door, another option. Even if you looped back to the beginning or found yourself in some terrible room again, there would always be another way.

And now here they were, sitting down, letting their lives slip away.

“Dee! Slow down!”

She ignored him, racing forward and shouting. The room, Marks noted, went on and on, impossibly large. Their voices, rather than echoing off the high ceiling and distant walls, just fell flat. The effort to shout was a strain, as if the air was thicker than usual and it required more energy just to be heard. The sheer scale of the place started to eat away at his equanimity, and he was suddenly afraid he’d lose track of her and not be able to locate her again.

“Dee!”

For a moment, Marks thought there was a faint echo, then he realized he was hearing someone else shout her name.

“Dad!”

Dee swerved, cutting down a new aisle between a whole new island of seats. Marks hurried after her, backpack bouncing. Through the sweat that started to fog his vision he could see a tall, lanky man wearing a denim jacket, wearing blue work pants and a pair of battered old boots. He was running easily through the narrow lanes between the chairs, and scooped Dee up into his arms when they met, swinging her in a half-circle before setting her down on the floor.

Several of those seated scowled and grumbled.

“Baby, what are you doing here?” he asked. Marks slowed down and walked the last few feet towards them, breathing hard. He halted and leaned over, putting his hands on his knees, sucking in air. The backpack slid forward and rested on the back of his head.

“I came after you,” she said. “When you didn’t come back I knew somethin’ had happened to you.”

Kneeling in front of her, he put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. Marks liked him: He was middle-aged, fortyish, and had the skinny frame of someone used to being hungry, but with a paunch that hinted at a slow down, more time spent sitting around than he was used to. His face was deeply lined, the sort of face, Marks thought, that was used to a lot of expression.

“You shouldn’t have come, baby,” he said seriously, eyes shining. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Dee was crying. “I wanted to find you,” she said softly.

As murmurs of disapproval swept the crowd, Dee’s father’s eyes drifted over her shoulder to where Marks stood.

“Who’s this?”

Dee turned and dragged an arm across her nose. “Mr. Marks. He’s helping me.”

Her father eyed Marks up and down, his face set. “You brought her here, man?”

“I followed him! He didn’t know!” Dee added quickly. “He was comin’ here to look for you, and I snuck after him.”

Marks looked at his shoes. “I had a chance to turn back when I knew she was here, and I didn’t,” he admitted. He forced himself to look up. “I’m sorry.”

The man stared for another few moments, then stood up. Patting Dee’s shoulder, he stepped around her and approached Marks, who steadied himself. He’d been punched in the nose more than once and while he didn’t enjoy it, he’d found that he came back from it admirably.

“All right, what’s done is done and we can talk about it later,” the man said. He held out a hand. “Dennis,” he said.

Marks took his hand. It was warm and dry and rough, the hands of someone used to working with them. His grip was powerful, his shake efficient. “Phil,” Marks said.

“He’s been keepin’ an eye on me, Dad,” Dee said from behind them. Dennis studied Marks for another moment, then sighed.

“All right,” he said. “All right. I know how willful this one is. And I know I sure didn’t expect this bullshit when I showed up here, so … all right. You’re here now.”

Marks nodded. “You have a look around? Any doors? Any way out?”

Dennis nodded. “Yeah, I been lookin’. All we got in here is chairs. And people. And if you walk a real long way in that direction—” He turned to indicate an area of the room behind him. “You find some real old chairs with some real dead people sittin’ in them.” He looked back at Marks. “So, as far as I can tell, no, no way out.”

Marks smiled slightly. “That’s what she wants us to think, isn’t it?”

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

16. The Queer Lounge

The slide melted away and he was free-falling, crashing down through a drop ceiling suspended by thin wires and an aluminum frame. He landed on something with a lot of give and bounced off, crashing down onto the floor and rolling over. He looked around.

“Ah, shit,” he said. “Not again.”

A moment later, screaming, Dee rocketed from the slide that was hidden up above in the shadows gathered near the ceiling. She hit what Marks could see now was the trampoline and bounced off too, landing on top of him and knocking him over. He heard Agnes follow, cheering as she hit the air and laughing uproariously as she bounced and crashed into them in a cloud of peppermint.

“Oh, lovely!” she said, sitting up with her legs stretched out in front of her. “Lovely! Sorry, I would have warned you but I didn’t put in the slide. Someone has been very naughty!”

Dee sat up and stared around. “No!”

Marks pushed himself back until he was resting against the door of the closet. “It is a maze, after all,” he said.

They all jumped as the refrigerator suddenly tipped violently as something inside it threw itself against the door. It fell back into place after coming very close to tipping over, and Agnes burst into laughter.

They were back in the oppressive, queer employee lounge. The Victrola was playing the same jazzy music, and the place still had the deflated air of a room recently abandoned. Marks indulged himself for a moment, wondering if the sensation of someone having just been there was actually them, if they were somehow displaced and out of sync with time, following themselves.

“Wonderful!” Agnes said breathily.

Dee stood up and brushed herself off. “Doors are the same,” she said. Then she scowled. “Everything’s the same. We just looped back on ourselves. We’re wasting time.”

“Calm down,” Marks said, grunting as he pushed himself to his feet. “We’re not wasting time. It’s a maze. This has to happen.” He shrugged off the backpack and took out the notebook, which was getting a wrinkled and tattered look to it. “We know where that dumwaiter leads to,” he said. “So we choose something else.” He looked up over the notebook at Agnes, who remained on the floor smiling. “Any suggestions for finding her Dad faster?”

Agnes sighed. “All business, you are, Miserable Moody Mr. Marks. All business and fussing. It’s why you’re so unhappy. We just rode a slide from the Underground to the Lounge! It was delightful! And all you can do is get out your grimy notebook.” She sprang up and made a stuffy, angry face. “Let us see, turn to page nine, class, and let us examine the Incident of the Dum Waiter.” She grinned and looked at him. “See?” she said, pointing. “Fussy.”

Marks nodded. “I’m making a note: Don’t be so fussy.”

Agnes grinned. “Was that a joke? A terrible, weak, unfunny joke? Progress!” She spun and took Dee by the shoulders. “Now, dismal, despairing Dee, let me go on record and state that I have been trying to steer you in the right direction since the start, because my official advice is to follow the wolf and take the elevator.”

Dee and Marks both turned to look at the door. It was the familiar door they’d seen in almost every room, and the wolf carved on it looked intimidating, feral. Dee looked at Marks, and he shrugged.

“Dee’s Dad is at the other end of that ride?”

“It’s your best bet, Mr. Mopey Marks. As I just discovered, someone is not only tearing down barricades I set in place, someone is installing slides! So I have no idea if my memories are accurate.” She grinned. “Which, I hear, is something you of all people should understand and sympathize with! But you won’t, because you’re a nasty sort of person. But if you’re looking for dear dopey Dee’s Dad, the Wolf Door is the door I would try.”

Dee looked at Marks. “We got to.”

Marks nodded. “I know.” He turned and studied Agnes. “But there’s a trick. We should spend a moment trying to see it.”

Agnes drew herself up, and Marks was suddenly aware of just how attractive she’d become. When they’d first encountered her she’d been pretty enough, certainly, but she had slowly and subtly changed, becoming taller, thinner, rounder, her skin clearer, her eyes brighter, her hair somehow shinier and bouncier. She was a goddess, almost too beautiful to look at. “I am insulted. And also no longer interested in your cruelty. That door, as you might recall from your ridiculous map, takes you back to the library. That dumwaiter, as you know, takes you to the odd little bedroom—or it did. That door,” she continued, pointing at the door with a bear carved onto it, “leads to the saddest room in this place. The elevator is the one you want.”

“Fine,” Marks said. “Let’s go, Dee.”

Dee nodded, walked over to the elevator and stood right in front of it. Up close the doors were battered and dented, with at least two very deep scratches in the metal. Like something had attacked the doors. There was just one button. It looked like it was made of pearl, a milky white that shined like plastic. The Wolf was scratched into the metal, etched somehow, as if with acid. Up close it seemed terrifying. Up close it was like the wolf was looking directly at her, and it seemed hungry.

She reached up and pressed the button. It was warm, and she was rewarded with a soft ding. A second later, the doors split open.

The interior of the elevator was all plush red. The floor was a deep, polished black. The music was the same tune being played on the Victrola but in a muted, tinkly version that was all treble, perfectly synced. The same tune Agnes had been humming when they first arrived.

Dee took a step back and twisted around to look at Agnes. “I want to go a different way?”

“There’s a party behind the Bear Door,” Agnes said. “Or was, a long time ago. It’s a sad party, but since you don’t seem to want to find your father, I suppose that would actually be appropriate.”

Dee clenched her jaw and turned back to the elevator. Marks stepped up behind her. “Come on, kid. He’s either in the next room, or he’s not. Let’s go see what’s what.”

Dee took a deep breath. “All right,” she said. She stepped into the elevator, paused, then turned. Marks hurried after her, suddenly terrified the doors would snap shut.

Nothing happened. He turned to peer back into the room at Agnes.

“Coming?”

She smiled. “No.”

The doors snapped shut.

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

15. Underground

The hall terminated in a dark space that felt simultaneously wide open and constricted. It was hard to see, but the place was clearly an intersection of dirt tunnels supported by rotted beams. All of the entrances appeared to have been boarded up at one time, the shattered remnants of the lumber scattered on the floor, bent nails rusting in the damp.

“Not this again,” Agnes said despairingly as she flounced in,

A single feeble oil lantern hung on one of the walls, emitting a sickly pale glow that made the tunnels leading away look even darker. Their tunnel entrances are posts and lintels of wood; some were collapsed, making it impossible to enter. A chill wind blew through the intersection. Marks tried but couldn’t determine which direction the wind came from.

Next to the lamp, something had been tied to a string and hung from the ceiling. He stepped up close to it and blinked. It was a small carving, another chess piece like the pawns they’d seen in other rooms. But this one was a queen. Marks pulled the notebook from his bag and made notes: That made four rooms with chess pieces. Plus the Hall of Mirror with all the chess openings. He didn’t know what it meant. Maybe it was just another set of random details designed to confuse, to seem meaningful, just to send them spinning off in other directions. Or maybe it was the key.

Single sheets of paper, like fliers, had been nailed to the beams in places, and rustled gently in the breeze. Six of the tunnels remained open, each with a simple, crude wooden sign nailed to their crossbeams. Each sign had a single word carved onto it: LIMBO, NARNIA, MORDOR, XANADU (a thin stream of water marked the floor of that tunnel, fed by a persistent drip from the ceiling), VIDESSOS, and finally MULVAN.

The air was humid and smelled earthy.

“This place,” Dee said tiredly, “makes no damn sense.”

Marks reached over and tore one of the papers from the framework. “Attention,” he read. “Beware of man eating rats.”

Dee looked around in sudden terror, but Agnes leaned in to her. “Nonsense,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for ages. Though, to be fair,” she added, looking around, “there do seem to be fewer rats down here.”

“Why are some of these closed off?” Dee asked, looking at Agnes. “What if the right way is blocked, and we can’t get out because of it?”

Agnes pursed her lips and looked contemplative. “I hadn’t thought of that, darling dim Dee,” she said. “It is possible. Let’s see, they keep changing things—”

“Who’s they?” Dee demanded, eyes wide.

“I don’t know,” Agnes said, laughing. “I really don’t. But they keep changing everything on me, all the time, the little scamps.”

“Oh my god.”

Marks swung the backpack around and consulted his notebook. “Don’t listen to her, Dee,” he said. “This is a maze. There’s a way in and a way out. We just pick our next move, like we have been.” he looked up. “We’ve only been to maybe ten, twelve rooms so far,” he said. “This place is almost certainly much larger than that. We need a lot more data before we can draw any conclusions.”

Dee’s distress seemed to grow. “How big do you think this place is?”

“I certainly don’t know,” Agnes said with a laugh, “and I’ve been here forever.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marks said.

“What about my father?”

Marks glanced up at her. “Go on and ask her, if you want. Just be prepared for bullshit.”

“Tosh,” Agnes said, smiling. “Dear, dimwitted Dee, if I were you—not the nasty and quite rude Mr. Marks—I would look to the Abyssinian maid with a dulcimer, singing of Mount Abora!”

Dee frowned. “What? Say anything that makes sense!”

“She means Xanadu, kid,” Marks said. “It’s from a poem.”

Dee turned, scanning the tunnel entrances. “It’s one of the choices!” she said excitedly.

“Sure it is,” Marks said. “Hey Agnes, is Xanadu the tunnel we should take because it will lead us to Dee’s Dad, or is the tunnel we should take because it will keep us spinning through your little pleasure palace longer?”

“Well, gee, Mr. Grumps,” Agnes said, spinning in place. “Why can’t it be both?”

Marks looked up and met Dee’s gaze. “Sorry kid. I know you want a short cut. There might be one, but she’s not going to tell us about it, okay?”

“But,” Agnes said, pausing in her spin to hold up one finger. “I never lie.”

“You can mislead without lying,” he said, glancing back down at his notebook and making a mark. “Or, fuck, you’re lying about never lying.”

Dee stood looking from Agnes to Marks, wringing her hands. She stared at Marks for a few moments, eyes wide and glassy.

“Xanadu,” she said, stamping her foot. “We take the Xanadu tunnel.”

Marks glanced up, then down again. Agnes clapped her hands. “Oh, well done, Dee!” she chirped. “Well done!”

Marks nodded. “Okay.”

Dee stamped her foot again. “Okay?”

He nodded, stuffing the notebook back into his backpack. He looked around. “This is pretty incredible,” he said to Agnes. “Congratulations.”

“I didn’t build it.”

Marks nodded briskly and glanced back at Dee. “Ready?”

“That’s it? We just go?”

Marks shrugged. “We don’t have enough information, kid. We can’t scout ahead, so all we can do is pick a path right now. Your Dad might be down this tunnel—or that might be the exit, or it might be a trap, or might be a room filled with man-sized Venus Flytrap plants.”

“Oooh!” Agnes chirped, clapping her hands.

“Look at this place!” Marks said, waving his arms around. “Five minutes ago we were in a hall of mirrors. Now we’re a mile underground. We’re going to walk through a door and be underwater, or a mile in the air, or in a room made of tinfoil. This is a Soul Battery. It’s all insane architecture and nonsensical topography. Nothing makes sense until you map it out and find the path.” He grinned. “So, let’s go. You’re either right and for some reason Cruella here is telling us the truth, or you’re wrong and she’s leading us deeper into the maze. Either way, we’ll have one more data point.”

Agnes emitted an outraged snort. “Cruella?”

Dee smiled. “All right.”

Marks turned and faced the tunnel with XANADU on the sign. The tunnel was pitch black, and he suspected there would be some design component to ensure they couldn’t peek ahead even if he wasn’t worried about leaving Dee alone. He took one second to marvel at the verisimilitude: The damp smell, the sound of dripping water, the sense of immense weight above them. It was amazing.

Then he checked to make sure Dee was right behind him, turned, and started walking down the tunnel. After a moment, light bloomed, and he twisted around to see Dee had taken out her phone, and was using the flashlight feature. He winked, and turned back just in time to feel the floor skid away, and then he was on a metal slide, free-falling downwards.

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

14. The Hall of Mirrors

“Holy shit,” Marks said.

It was a large room, with a very high, arched ceiling that had been painted, spectacularly, with a beautiful painting of a naked woman surrounded by a lush junglescape, her hair flowing as if she was underwater. She seemed to reach down to them, Marks thought, a comforting embrace from one of the immortals, welcoming one of her own back into the warmth of her bosom.

“Simplistic in theme,” Agnes said, stepping next to Marks and following his gaze. “Gaia, Mother of the Earth. But the artist had an eye for technique and detail, and the work remains at my insistence. Something about her, regal and grand, powerful. There is a fluid motion to the scene that I like.” She nudged Marks playfully. “In case you think I’m just an inhuman monster, trapping souls here for my amusement.”

Marks shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “Not for your amusement.”

The walls of the room were covered floor to ceiling with mirrors, sending reflections of them bouncing back and forth, making every movement a ripple in time. The facing mirrors created infinite worlds, all seemingly identical. Marks had a sense of movement, subtle and unhappy, as if in the furthest reflections, the tenth or twelfth multiple reflection, seemingly so far away, there was a lot of movement, even though they were all standing quite still.

“Lots of doors in this one,” Dee said, her voice sounding small.

“Yes,” Agnes said. “This has usually been a major intersection of the maze, and so it is now. I don’t like the room, personally. Too cliché, don’t you think? Mirrors. Hmph. Everyone wants a creepy room, oh I know, mirrors.” She sighed. “But every time I try to get rid of this room, it comes back.”

Marks thought he detected a legitimate tone of unease in her voice, as if the persistence of this room despite her efforts bothered her.

For the first time, Marks had a real sense of being underground, not simply in a windowless space, but buried under rock and dirt. There were six archways with heavy-looking doors set into them, quite wide and ornately decorated. In front of each archway was a plaque. At first Marks expected to find the usual animal engravings, but instead each brass tile had been inscribed with words: Giuoco Piano, Indian in Reverse, Polugaevsky Variation, Santasiere’s Folly, Torre Attack, and Foyle’s Double Reverse.

“No animals,” Marks said. Their voices had a curiously dead tone to them, as if something was absorbing the noise instead of bouncing it.

“I know!” Agnes said, spinning around, arms out. “That’s a naughty twist, isn’t it? Set up certain rules, then suddenly change ?em. It disorients and upsets, you see. Oh!” She theatrically clapped her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that, now. No doubt I’ve upset you even more which would possibly have been my intent all along. Oh!”

“They’re chess openings,” Dee said.

Marks turned to look at her. “What?”

Behind him, Agnes tilted her head, eyes locked on the girl.

Dee was flustered. “Chess. I told you, Marks. My Mom taught me a little. She liked to play. She said her father taight her, that he used to sit in the park and play for ten dollars. Had a little clock, hustled people.” She looked down at her feet. “I asked her how in hell you make any money playing chess in a park, and she said you can cheat at anything and make money from it.”

“Cheat at anything!” Agnes cheered. “Whatever could that mean!”

“Chess openings,” Marks said musingly, turning to look back at the nearest door, where the plaque read Giuoco Piano.

“A chess master memorizes them, like, dozens of moves deep,” Dee went on. “Two masters can play an opening’s first fifty moves in a minute, just slamming through it until someone introduces a change.”

“You might want to take a little more time with your moves,” Agnes said.

“Chess,” Marks said. “Random.”

“Excuse me?” Agnes sounded outraged, but she was still smiling.

“What do you mean, random?” Dee asked.

Marks sighed. “A place like this … it’s filled with random details. It’s part of the scam. Everything seems like it should tie together, everything seems like its part of this huge, ever-increasing pattern. You feel like you just have to see a little more, think a little more, and it will all become clear. But it’s all bullshit. None of it means anything. This is just pretty details. It’s all designed to keep our minds racing, chasing tails, to distract us.”

“Oooor,” Agnes said, raising one delicate eyebrow, “it’s a clue. A big, huge, exciting clue, the key to everything.”

For a few moments they all just stood. Marks and Dee turned, running their eyes over the doors and the plaques, Agnes swayed in place, humming to herself.

“We still have to make a choice,” Dee said. “We have to pick a door. So how do we pick?”

Marks sighed. “I don’t know. I was picking my favorite animals. I don’t know much about chess.” He turned to look at the girl. “You know chess, what do you see?”

Dee studied the plaques, eyes leaping from one to another. Then she turned and looked at Agnes. After a moment, Agnes looked back at her and smiled.

“You said you would take us to my father,” Dee said. “Which door?”

Agnes cocked her head and tucked her bottom lip out slightly. “I’m sorry, dear. It’s not that simple.”

“Why not? You promised.”

“I didn’t, actually,” Agnes said. Then she shrugged. “I said I would lead you to him.”

“Same thing,” Dee said.

“No,” Agnes said, her expression suddenly sad. “It’s not, actually.”

“Dee,” Marks said softly. “You can’t trust her. Think. Think about chess. Pick a door.”

“I don’t know,” Dee said.

Marks nodded. “Then nothing’s changed. We just pick a door, like we have been.”

Dee stamped her foot. “No,” she said. “She said she would take me to Dad and then she said Hippopatomus. We have to pick the right door.”

“Oh, darling, dumb Dee, there is no such thing as a right door. There are doors. They all lead somewhere. You can spend years opening all the doors in this place! And then, when you’ve opened them all—they change! Sometimes they change without my permission, which is annoying.”

Marks took off the backpack and set it down on the floor. Then he sat down next to it and pulled out the notebook and began making notes.

Dee stared. “What are you doing?”

“Rushing won’t get us anywhere,” Marks said. “Let’s take a breath and think.”

Dee stamped her foot again, then relaxed. With three quick steps she was next to him, dropping to the floor. “Mr. Marks,” she whispered. “Please.”

He turned to her and leaned in close. “You know I used to drink,” he said. “A lot.”

Dee blinked. “What?”

He nodded. “Bourbon, mostly. I never used to—that is, I did, but just once in a while, like regular folks. Then something … happened. I don’t quite … I don’t quite remember what, and my mind,” he brought his hand up to his temple and made a circular motion. “My mind would race. Thoughts ping-ponging back and fourth. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t make sense. So, I drank. I slowed myself down by drinking. I would sit in a bar and let the darkness wash over me and the booze would slow me down., one drink at a time, like I was filling myself with gelatin, until finally I passed out.”

Dee frowned. “Why are you telling me this?”

Marks sighed. “It worked. It took a long time, but all those lost afternoons, they slowed me down. They stopped my brain from spinning, and I was able to pull out of it, crawl back.” He snorted, half smiling. “I’m still crawling.” He looked distant for a moment, then snapped back. “Sometimes you have to slow yourself down, give yourself a chance to settle. So, sit here for a moment, kid. Settle.”

Dee’s face scrunched up and for a moment she seemed almost about to cry. She struggled with a fierce sense of impatience. She kept picturing her father receding from her, getting smaller as he moved further away, and sitting still made it feel even worse, even more real. Then she shook herself and slumped down a little. “Okay.”

Marks nodded and returned his attention to the notebook, making marks. “Tell me about your Dad.”

“You guys,” Agnes said, sitting gracefully on the other side of Marks, folding her long legs under herself as if it was a standard move she did quite often despite the narrow skirt. “You’re making me cry.”

“He’s fat,” Dee said, dragging one arm across her nose. “Or, he isn’t, but he will be. He eats a lot, he gains weight, then he gets worried and drops it. He makes jokes. Bad jokes. Dumb jokes, but they make him laugh and when he laughs you can’t help it, you laugh too.”

“I do hope we find him,” Agnes said wistfully. “He sounds delightful.”

“Hush,” Marks said gently.

“Anyway, he has a temper. Or used to. He promised me he was working on that.” She snorted. “Shit, I don’t even care any more. Just want to find him. I mean, if he’d come back, found an apartment, gotten a job, and he turned out to be a prick, at least I’d know. Three years, I’d walk out. But now it’s like he never even got a chance.”

Marks nodded, still making notes. “But he didn’t teach you chess.”

She shook her head, leaning back, her palms flat against the floor. “No, was my Mom. She had this old set her dad gave her, nice wooden pieces, green felt on the bottom, a board that folded up into a box to hold them. She said kids at school teased her when she joined the chess club, but she didn’t care; it was like the first time in her life she’d found something she just enjoyed, you know, something that wasn’t work or grades or because her parents had made her, but because she just liked it. So she didn’t care what people said.” She sighed. “It was fun. I like chess. We would sit with a book she got from the library, 1000 Chess Openings, and just play through them, recreate the famous games, stuff like—” She paused. “Hey!”

Agnes, who had been dozing prettily, suddenly snapped awake. “Hey!”

“What is it?” Marks asked.

Dee stood up and walked from plaque to plaque, lips moving as she studied them in turn. She turned and looked at Marks. “Foyle’s Double Reverse isn’t a real opening.”

Marks sat forward. “Are you sure?”

She shrugged, looking back down at the plaques. “No. I don’t know every fucking opening—sorry. I don’t though. But I know all these others, or I read about them, saw the name. Except that one. I never heard that one before.”

Marks smiled. “See? You slowed down.” He pushed the notebook back into the backpack and stood up, moving stiffly. “All right, Foyle’s it is.”

Agnes made a tsking sound. “I can’t say much—really, I can’t—but I wouldn’t go that way. If they haven’t moved things around—which they do, all the time, and it is incredibly annoying—then that door leads to a dreary, nasty room I prefer to avoid.”

Marks shut his eyes. “You know, trying to decide whether you’re actively deceiving us or telling us the truth or a version of it in hopes that we’ll assume you’re lying to us is exhausting, so maybe you could stop telling us things and just, I don’t know, do some interpretive dancing over in the corner until we make our decision.”

Agnes pointed at him. “Rude. Here I share my wonderful, amazing home with you, and not only have you completely failed to see the truth of this place, but you’re rude to me on top of everything.”

Marks looked at Dee. “You ready, kid?”

She offered him a thumb’s up. He strode over to the archway and took hold of the door, which was different than all the others: It seemed older, and was heavier, the metal hardware blackened and rusted. It moved slowly, silently, revealing another short hallway that turned at a right angle a few feet in, obviously intended to prevent people from seeing what lay beyond just by opening doors. Marks considered scouting ahead, but didn’t want to leave Dee alone with Agnes, or send Dee alone into the unknown. He shifted the backpack onto his shoulder and started walking.

Behind him, he heard Agnes: “Rude.”

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

13. The Myna Bird Room

“What,” Dee said slowly, hugging herself, “is going on?”

“Poor, stupid, dumb, idiot Dee-Dee,” Agnes said, spinning lazily and breaking into a fluid sort of dance around them. “Poor, poor, imbecilic, moronic Dee. You see, my dear, your friend Mr. Marks is damaged goods, and only half-smart. So he sees some things you perhaps did not, and he distrusts the evidence of his senses, which is bright. Terribly, terribly bright, and yet his diminished capacity means he mistakes cleverness for insight. In short, he’s like a man in the audience who sees the sleight of hand and thinks that means he knows how the trick is done.”

Dee blinked, following Agnes as she danced around the room in a haze of peppermint. “What?”

“Oh!” Agnes exclaimed. “Darling, dumb Dee!”

“Dee,” Marks said, scrubbing his face. “Agnes isn’t one of us. She’s not trapped here, she’s not trying to find a way out. She’s—”

“Your guide,” Agnes said, stopping and entering a ballet first position.

“—the enemy. She’s here to confuse us, to stop us from figuring things out, to influence us to choose the wrong paths.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “She’s been trying to keep us from finding our way.”

“If that were true, Mr. Marks,” Agnes said, lifting herself up en pointe on her toes, “you would be in a much worse place than this awful room.” She smiled beatifically at the bird in the cage. “I despise that creature. I’ve been trying to hide it away so deep inside this place that no one will ever find it. But it keeps finding its way back here.” Her face suddenly sobered and she looked at Dee and Marks. “Or someone keeps moving it back. I’m not alone in here, you know. I have enemies.”

Dee took a few steps closer to Marks. “So you’ve been lying to us?”

“Delightful dimwitted Dee! Not exactly. I never lie. At least, not the way you mean.” She suddenly relaxed and took three swift steps forward, clasping her hands together in supplication as Dee crowded into Marks, hugging him in sudden terror. “Please understand, adorable dense Dee, I am your guide here. I am here to help. To assist. But there are rules. I can’t just say, this door, then this door, then that door. You may not realize it, as you are clearly challenged in your thought processes, but I have been offering you clues. Hints.” Her face took on an expression of sorrow. “I wish I could be more explicit, dear, I do. But I am forced to follow the rules too, you see.”

“All that means, kid,” Marks said, “is that it’s up to you and me to find our way. She’s just going to confuse everything, if she can.” He looked at the woman. “Tell me: Who are you trying to resemble? I know I’m supposed to be affected by the way you look.”

Agnes smiled and laughed, and began dancing again, leaping and spinning around the perimeter of the room, making the bird squawk and flutter its wings in alarm. “You don’t remember? For shame, Mr. Marks! Ah, I hate this room I hate this room I hate this room I hate this room!”

“So,” Dee said, stepping slightly away from Marks. “So … you, like, work here?”

Agnes stopped again and drew herself up, standing elegantly with one slender leg extended in front of her. She seemed to grow taller, her face more beautiful. “I am the designer and sole owner of this place, delicious dull Dee. This is my home. I offer guided tours and amusements.”

Marks snorted. “She’s being self-important,” he said. “She’s an employee. Or a prisoner. She didn’t make this place.”

“How do you know?” Dee asked.

Marks shrugged. “I’m guessing—”

Agnes barked a laugh and entered first position again.

“—but she’s been genuinely confused a few times, I think,” he continued. “A few things have been moved or changed that she wasn’t ready for. If she owned this place, that wouldn’t happen.”

“Unless, my dear weird uncle, you had minions who often played pranks and practical jokes on you.” She relaxed again and began to pace furiously. Every time she came close to the cage, the bird spread its wings and squawked. “Oh, they think they’re so amusing, sweet slow Mr. Marks, always shifting things an inch this way, a centimeter that way—the different systems part of the joke you see. They’re always leaving bits and pieces for you to stumble on, to help you.” She snorted. “Thankfully, usually you’re all too slow-witted to notice. I mean, the route out of this place was pretty clear from the first room, if you were paying attention. But of course, you weren’t.”

Dee stepped forward, and Agnes stopped moving to lean down and smile at her.

“Is my father here?”

Agnes nodded enthusiastically. “Yes!”

Marks had turned and was studying the four doors again. The one leading back to the bedroom was still open, the still, dim hallway somehow unsettling. “Don’t trust her, Dee.”

Agnes rolled her eyes. “Go on, darling dumb Dee. Ask me! Ask me!”

Dee swallowed, staring up at her. “Can you take me to him?”

Agnes nodded. “Yes!”

“Will you?”

“Yes!”

Marks turned. “What?”

Agnes straightened up. “Well, of course I will help a poor, frightened, obviously brain-damaged child find her father, who trembled in here a week ago looking quite sketchy—so undesirable, I must admit, that I hid from him and was derelict in my duties by letting him wander almost totally unguided—I do apologize, my delectable dolt, but your father resembled nothing more than a criminal element. I did offer him some clues that he failed to follow almost entirely. I know precisely where he is, and I will lead you to him!”

Dee smiled. “Really?”

Agnes reached down and patted her on her head, three times, slowly. “Yes,” she said slowly, stretching the word out, nodding her head elaborately. She straightened up and flounced over to where Marks stood. She stood next to him for a moment, hands clasped behind her, taking sidelong glances at him.

“I say,” she said, “I do smell nice, don’t I? The perfume? The scent? Still not coming back to you, my miserable morbid Marks?”

“Dee,” marks said as if Agnes were not there. “We can’t trust her.”

“And yet, there are two possibilities!” Agnes said excitedly, turning to regard the doors. “Either I will lie to you, and the path I suggest will lead you to further confusion and possibly eternal imprisonment, or I will assume you will doubt me and tell you the true and correct path assuming you will doubt me and do the opposite.” She slapped her hands. “So exciting! I do so love this part, when I am unmasked, and you, Mr. Morbid Marks, are by far the fastest anyone has ever arrived at this realization. But,” she leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. “I will also tell you this: I do not lie. I may deceive, but my statements are always true. And I say this: I will lead you to him, to dear dumb Dee’s father.”

For a moment, they appeared to be a romantic pair, Agnes strikingly pretty, her head on Marks’ shoulder, the two of them standing silent, shoulder to shoulder.

“Marks?” Dee said. “If she knows where my father is?”

Marks nodded. “All right,” he said. “All right. Which way?”

Agnes animated, skipping away and clapping her hands. “Oh, lovely! Lovely! This is going to be ever so much fun. Mr. Marks—not you, dour doting Dee, but our wonderful Mr. Marks—you are the most fun. The funnest. The mostest fun person I have had here in such a long time!” She paused and made a face. “Do you know how many people simply give up? Sit down and wait? Wander aimlessly, weeping? Kill themselves?” She shook her head. “Too many, Mr. Marks. Too too many. But not you, lovely you! You are determined to figure everything out and escape! I adore you!”

Marks nodded, still not looking at her. He knew she’d purposefully resembled someone, someone she assumed would have an affect on him. A memory. Probably a tragic one, someone from his past that would affect his judgment, unbalance his emotions. Only his ruined memories, the lost years, saved him, and he didn’t want to look at her unnecessarily for fear of dredging up the memory.

“Which door, then?” he asked. “To find her father. Which way?”

Agnes stopped and turned to face him. Somberly, she gave a little half-bow, pushing her hands together. “Hippopotamus,” she said.

Marks glanced at Dee, who nodded fiercely at him. He took out his notebook and made a few scratches in it, then closed it and stuffed it back into his backpack. He took a deep breath. “All right, kid. Let’s go find your old man.”

As Agnes mimed clapping, grinning, he stepped forward and took hold of the handle of the door with the Hippo engraving. It revealed what was becoming a familiar, simple hallway. He stepped into it, followed quickly by Dee and Agnes, who continued to mime clapping as she followed them to the other end. Marks opened that door and stepped through.

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