“This is where I lived,” Nelson said, hands gripping his cane tightly. “My room is down at the end of the hall.”
“Do you miss it?”
“The room?”
“Life,” Wallace said distractedly, the hook tugging him onward.
“Some days. But I’ve learned to adapt.”
“Because you’re still here.”
“I am,” Nelson said. “I am.”
“Do you feel that?” he whispered. Weightless, like he was floating, the song, the whispers filling his ears.
Nelson looked troubled. “Yes, but it’s not the same for me. Not anymore. Not like it once was.”
And for the first time, Wallace thought Nelson was lying.
He continued up the stairs. The stairway was narrower, and he knew he was climbing toward the odd turret he’d first glimpsed upon his arrival with Mei. It’d been something out of a fairy tale, of kings and queens, a princess trapped in a tower. Of course this was where the door would be. He couldn’t imagine it anywhere else.
He took each step slowly. “Did you try to stop him?”
“Who?”
Wallace didn’t look back. “The Reaper. With Lea.”
Nelson sighed. “He told you.”
“Yes.”
“I did,” Nelson said, but it sounded faraway, like a great distance separated them. A dream, the edges hazy around a thin membrane. “I tried with all my might. But I wasn’t strong enough. The Reaper, he … wouldn’t listen. I did everything I could. Hugo did too.”
The stairs curved. Wallace gripped the railing without thinking. The wood was smooth under his fingers. “Why do you think he did what he did?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Was it?”
“No,” Nelson said harshly. “He should never have laid a hand on that girl. He’d done his job by bringing her here. He should have left matters well enough alone. Wallace, are you sure about this? We could go back downstairs. Wake up Hugo. He wouldn’t mind. He should be here for this.”
Wallace wasn’t sure of anything. Not anymore. “I need to see it.”
And so he climbed.
Windows lined the walls, windows he hadn’t seen on the outside of the house. He laughed when he saw sunlight streaming through them, even though he knew it was the middle of the night. He paused at one of the windows, looking out through it. There should’ve been a vast expanse of forest on the other side, perhaps even a glimpse of a town in the distance, but instead, the window looked out into a familiar kitchen. The faint sounds of Christmas music filtered in through the window pane, and a woman pulled homemade candy canes from the oven.
He continued on.
He didn’t know how long it took to reach the top of the stairs. It felt like hours, though he suspected it was only a minute or two. He wondered if it was like this for everyone who’d come before him, and he almost wished Hugo were there, leading him by the hand. Such a funny little thought, he mused to himself. How it pleased him, the idea of holding Hugo’s hand. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Hugo he’d wished he’d known him before. He thought things could have been different, somehow.
He reached the fourth floor.
He was surrounded by windows, though the curtains had been drawn. A little chair sat next to a little table. On top of the table was a tea set: a pot and two cups. A vase had been placed next to the cups, filled with red flowers.
But no door.
He looked around. “I don’t … Where is it?”
Nelson lifted one finger, pointing up. Wallace lifted his head. And there, above them, was a door in the ceiling.
It wasn’t as he’d expected. In his fear, he’d built it up in his mind, a great metal thing with a heavy, foreboding lock. It’d be black and ominous, and he’d never work up the courage to walk through it.
It wasn’t like that.
It was just a door. In the ceiling, yes, but it was still just a door. It was wooden, the frame around it painted white. The doorknob was a clear crystal with a green center in the shape of a tea leaf. The whispers that had followed him up the stairs were gone. The insistent tugging on the hook in his chest had subsided. A hush had fallen in the house around them as if it held its very breath.
He said, “It’s not much, is it?”
“No,” Nelson said. “It doesn’t look like it, but appearances are deceiving.”
“Why is it in the ceiling? That’s a weird place for it. Has it al ways been there?” The house itself was strange, so he wouldn’t be surprised if it’d been part of the original construction, though he didn’t know what it could lead to aside from the roof.
“That’s where the Manager put it when he chose Hugo as a ferryman,” Nelson said. “Hugo opens the door, and we rise to whatever comes next.”
“What would happen if I opened it?” Wallace asked, still staring at the door.
Nelson sounded alarmed. “Please. Let me get Hugo.”
He tore his gaze away, looking back over his shoulder. Nelson was worried, his brow furrowed, but there was nothing Wallace could do about that now. He could barely move. “Can you feel it?”
He didn’t need to explain. Nelson knew what he meant. “Not always, and not as strong as it was before. It fades over time. It’s always there, at the back of my mind, but I’ve learned to ignore it.”
Wallace wanted to touch the door. He wanted to wrap his fingers around the doorknob, to feel the tea leaf pressed against his palm. He could see it clear in his mind: he would turn the tea leaf until the latch clicked, and then …
What?
He didn’t know, and not knowing was the scariest thing of all.
He stepped back, bumping into Nelson, who grabbed his arm. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” Wallace said. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I think I’d like to go back downstairs now.”
Nelson led him away.
The windows were dark as they descended the stairs. Outside, the forest was as it’d always been.
Before they reached the landing to the third floor, he looked out the last window to the long dirt road that led to the tea shop and strangely, a memory flitted through his head, one that didn’t feel like his own. Of being outside, face turned toward the warm, warm sun.
The memory faded, the night returning, and he saw someone standing on the dirt road.
Cameron, looking directly at Wallace. He held out his arm, palm toward the sky, fingers opening and closing, opening and closing.
“What is it?” Nelson asked him.
“Nothing,” Wallace said, turning away from the window. “Nothing at all.”
CHAPTER
13
At the beginning of his twenty-second day at Charon’s Crossing, a file appeared on the counter next to the cash register. The tea shop hadn’t yet opened, and Mei and Hugo were in the kitchen, getting ready for the day to begin.
Nelson was sitting in his chair in front of the fireplace, Apollo at his feet.
Wallace moved around the shop, pulling the chairs down from the tables and tucking them underneath. It was getting easier for him, and it was the least he could do to help. He never thought he’d find joy in such menial work, but these were strange days.