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Part 2-4: Castle
The tingling went away, and that was about it.
Persi widened her eyes and turned her palms up at me.
“Um, it fits?” I said.
“You don’t feel anything different?”
I closed my eyes and tried. It was so quiet. I thought of how it felt to be in my room, with the smells and sounds of Deluxe’s army of pets. Last time I did that in a strange situation, I was sent there. This time, nothing happened. I shrugged at Persi.
“Let’s keep looking around then,” she said.
The main door deserved a try. I wanted to check the bookcases for a secret lever, but it didn’t feel appropriate until we’d attempted the obvious exit. Persi grabbed the iron hoop and yanked. It stuck fast.
“Figures,” I said.
“Come on. Give me a hand.” She held onto it, leaning backwards at an angle.
“Sure, yeah.” I gripped it as well and found my footing.
Persi counted down from three, and we heaved.
The door groaned. It gave, not even a quarter inch, but the subtle, grinding budge was unmistakable.
“Holy hell. It is real,” I said.
“Again.”
Two more team pulls, and the wide slab crackled open, screeching on rusted joints, disintegrated grime and ancient splinters raining out all along its edge. Beyond, more stone walls. It was a wide hallway. The wall opposite held an empty sconce. The sourceless light from the parlor bubbled out, illuminating the passageway for a few paces in either direction. We poked our heads around the edge. Pitch black tunnels in both directions. It was the office hallways all over again.
An intuition struck me. Could this literally be the office? Only in a haunted, castle format? The thought spurred another.
“Hey Persi, do you remember how the fluorescent lights would come up on over you? Back before you got out?”
“I think so. I remembered I needed to see, and then that was it.”
“Want to try again?” I pointed at the sconce.
She nodded and stood in the doorway, eyes closed. I went back into the parlor, made sure the zombies were still dead, and retrieved the fake vase stand. I laid it on its side at the door’s jam. If it wanted to, the huge thing could probably smush the stand with conviction, but this seemed a prudent thing to do.
“Any luck?”
“I may be overthinking it,” she said. She walked into the hallway, then plunged leftward. I held onto the door frame, watching her melt into the gloom. Then she was gone. I swallowed, waiting for her to come back, or say something. Time crawled, unable to find purchase in this flat, echoless place. The swirl and rush of my heartbeat was my only anchor. I let twenty thuds pass.
“Persi?”
After an age: “Right here.”
She did not sound ‘right there.’ The voice came from the other side of a cavern.
“I think you should come back,” I said, and risked moving a little closer into the shadows. I kept my fingertips on the door frame, for all the good that would do. The ring tickled, and I caught something flash out of the corner of my eye. The sconce. There was a little prickle of yellowy light shimmering from within.
“What did you…?” Persi’s voice floated in like it was carried by a dying breeze.
“Shit.” I mumbled, and let go of the door. I moved up to the sconce, and it snapped into brightness. I turned, expecting to see the door shut, or gone altogether. It remained open. I could see further down each end of the hallway now, but there was still no sign of Persi. I sucked in a breath and trotted after her, relying on the ring to take care of any new sconces.
As the last of the light faded from behind me, the darkness ahead snapped away and there was Persi. I yelped and put my hands up, succeeding in only shoving her instead of jogging right into her.
“Hey, whoah!” she said, pinwheeling and tripping backwards. She landed on her butt.
“Sorry! Sorry,” I said. I made to help her up but she waved me off.
“What was that?”
“I thought you were so much further away, you sounded at least down the end of the hall,” I said.
“You too. The light doesn’t carry well either. Look.”
Behind me, it was all blackness. We stood in a weak oval of yellow. By all accounts I should’ve been able to see the last sconce, or the light from the door.
“C’mon, I need to look,” I said, pointing back the way we’d come.
Persi straighted up her dress and nodded. We walked back. The first sconce popped back on like a light bulb. The door was shut. Half the vase stand lay there, not crushed nor smushed, but cut clean as if by a laser.
“Well what now?” I said, staring at the stand, dimly assured by its presence. It meant that the parlor might still be behind there.
“We—” Persi started, then stopped. “You hear that?”
Now that she’d said it, I could. Ahead of us, from the direction we’d not yet explored, there was a light patter. The cavernous distortion made it faint and wispy. Pit-pa… it-pat… pit-pat.
“Water?” I said, hoping against hope.
“Something’s coming.”
“I’m choosing this way,” I said, hooking a thumb over my shoulder. I grabbed Persi’s hand and pulled her towards the second sconce. We ran.
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