The Key of Lost Things

by Sean Easley

  “We had to have found it eventually,” I say. “I mean, Miss Dare came back. And what happened to the door’s pin? Someone must have taken it.”

  “She did,” Oma says. “Miss Dare offered it as proof of her family’s history with the Embassy. She said they’d done what was necessary to keep the Embassy safe ‘from those who would possess it.’ ”

  “You mean safe from Stripe,” Orban adds.

  There’s a collective gasp as everyone understands the implication. Possessing things—people, places, objects—is the domain of Mr. Stripe. If he had his way, he and those like him would own everything and everyone in the world.

  Orban meets my gaze. He’s one of the few around the Hotel who knows what Stripe is really like. I wonder what he’s thinking right now. What does he remember?

  “I still don’t understand,” Cass says. “If Dare had the pin, why not come back sooner? What happened to the rest of them?”

  “That is the mystery.” Oma lifts an eyebrow. “Only Admiral Dare knows the truth. The rest of what happened back then is lost to us.”

  So many mysteries. There’s still so much I don’t know about the Hotel, and the Embassy, and yet somehow I’m supposed to be learning how to lead in this place? It’s overwhelming. How is one person supposed to keep all this stuff under control? It won’t be long before Agapios realizes what a bad decision it was to train me.

  No. I can’t let that happen. My family has a history with the Hotel, just like the admiral’s family was connected to the Embassy. Dare proved she belonged. I can too.

  8

  Made of Glass

  I stare into the glass-walled guest elevator, hands on my hips.

  “So,” I say, making sure I understand the problem, “the guests went in there . . .”

  “But they never came out,” Orban says. “At least, not out into the Hotel. Their family got a phone call from Dubai, where the guests ended up. We returned them home and took their coins so that they’ll forget their unplanned excursion, but we have to keep it from happening again.”

  Elevators not going to their correct destination—one more problem to deal with. I wonder if Nico’s behind this one too.

  Orban finishes posting the stanchions and hanging velvet ropes around the elevator to make sure no one else takes an unexpected trip. It’s only one of about forty elevators in the Elevator Bank ring, but even having one OUT OF ORDER sign bothers me. We were supposed to be able to take all those down once we got the Greenhouse and the Vesima back. Those OUT OF ORDER signs seem to scream to everyone who passes, Look, here’s one more thing Cam can’t handle.

  “I’ll take a ride and see what happens,” I tell him. “Maybe I can figure out what’s wrong.”

  “I’m coming too!” Cass’s voice calls from around the bend.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. How is it she always manages to be where she’s not supposed to be?

  “Aren’t you on front desk duty right now?” I ask. “I’m certain that’s what the schedule says.” After all, I’m the one who wrote the schedule.

  “I’m on a break.”

  Dad rounds the corner behind her. “I figured we’d go for a little walk.”

  “ ‘Roll,’ Dad,” Cass corrects. “Sheesh.” Dad chuckles.

  It’s weird seeing the two of them getting along. Growing up, Cass was always the one irritated at him for abandoning us. Now it seems easier for her to talk to him than it is for me to, even though I was the one who invited Dad to stay with us. But I just can’t forget all those years we had without him.

  “I saw the report of the elevator problem hidden under a bunch of papers in the front office, and I was curious,” Cass says. “I want to help.”

  I hid that sheet under those papers specifically to avoid this. Cass has gotten into a habit of trying to show me just how helpful she can be, so that I’ll move her off front desk duty.

  “I’m only checking it out,” I tell them. “It won’t be fun.”

  “Then you won’t mind company,” Dad says. “Please.”

  I twist my lips. “All right,” I say, and my family piles onto the elevator as though we’re headed to the fair.

  Like all the other guest elevators, the three floor-to-ceiling walls of this gold-trimmed box are connected to different views from around the world. These show scenes of rainbow-colored geysers, a pastoral countryside dotted with sleeping goats under a night sky, and a craggy cliff side that drops into an ocean glittering with the sunset. Windows like these are scattered throughout the Hotel, but for some reason they always feel more impressive in the elevators. Maybe it’s because we’re close enough to press our noses to the glass.

  “What do you think is wrong with it?” Cass asks as we start moving.

  “I’m not sure anything is wrong yet,” I tell her.

  “But Orban said—”

  “I won’t know for sure until I see for myself.”

  She folds her arms. “You don’t trust Orban?”

  “Of course I trust him.”

  “But you don’t believe him.”

  I clench my jaw.

  Dad shifts uncomfortably. He doesn’t jump into our arguments often, which is probably for the best. Every time he’s tried, it doesn’t end well. “How are your plans for the gala?” he asks. “You haven’t talked much about it lately.”

  “They’re fine,” I say. Truth is, I haven’t done much to talk about—I’ve looked through Agapios’s files from previous Hotel events, come up with some meal ideas to give to Chef Silva. But I can’t let anyone know how behind I feel. Hopefully, during my next meeting with Agapios, I’ll get a few more leads on what to do.

  “If you need any help from me, you know you can ask, right?” Dad says.

  “Yeah.”

  He takes a deep breath. “Cam, I wanted to talk to you.”

  Here we go. I knew there had to be another reason for them forcing their way into a small, enclosed box with me.

  “Yeah,” Cass says, straightening her back. “Dad says you need to cut me some slack with this whole front desk thing.”

  Dad rests a hand on her shoulder. “Cassia, let me talk.” He looks back to me. “I understand that you’re looking out for her, but that’s not your job.”

  “But Agapios said it was my job,” I retort. “I’m supposed to be in charge of the assignments, figure out who belongs where.”

  “Do you really think the front desk is the best place for her?” he asks. “Or are you putting her there because you’re trying to manage her?”

  That’s not fair. For most of our lives, it was just Oma, Cass, and me. Sometimes Cass had a home health care nurse, but we couldn’t always depend on having anyone else. That meant I had to do a lot—learn a lot—to take care of things when Cass had one of her many surgeries, or know what to do if anything went wrong. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t taking care of her, or taking care of me, and now he’s telling me I shouldn’t be taking care of Cass anymore?

  The elevator rattles, and the platform shakes beneath our feet. I place a hand against the warm window of the hot springs to balance myself.

  Cass flips on her brake. “Guest elevators don’t normally do that, do they?”

  “Not as far as I know,” I reply. Though, I don’t ride the guest lifts very much. Staff are supposed to stick to the service elevators.

  The floor shakes again, as though changing rails. Shaft elevators move in all directions to reach the doors, so a rail switch isn’t uncommon. Only, this time the box grinds to a complete stop.

  We can’t have gotten to our floor already.

  I hit the button again. Nothing happens. “We’re stuck.”

  Cass pushes me aside. “Let me try.”

  “There’s nothing you can do that I can’t.”

  “There’s lots I can do that you can’t,” she says, mashing the console. Then, “Yep, stuck.”

  I pick up the elevator phone to call the front desk. It rings and rings, but no one picks up. I glare a
t Cass. “Looks like no one’s manning the front desk after all.”

  She grimaces. “Elizabeth’s supposed to be there.”

  “No,” I say, “you are supposed to be there.”

  “We can argue about that later,” Dad says. “Right now we need to figure out how to get this thing moving again.”

  “Maybe there’s something on the rail?” Cass guesses. “We should have Maintenance inspect it.”

  But this is a problem I can deal with. Like Oma says, it’s an opportunity. A chance for me to prove that I can handle any situation the Hotel throws at me. A way to show that I know what I’m doing. “I’ll check. Dad, can you boost me up?”

  “Maybe we should wait,” he replies.

  “We don’t need to wait. I’m the CiT. I can do this.”

  He leans his back against the cliff-view wall, studying me. “If anyone should go, it’s me. It’s too dangerous up there.”

  I narrow my eyes. “So it’s okay for Cass to do things that are dangerous, but not for me to?” It’s a terrible argument, I know, but I need to prove myself. “I can handle it.”

  Dad twists his lips. “All right,” he says finally. “Be careful, though.”

  He cradles his fingers together to make a foothold and lifts me high enough to reach the escape hatch in the ceiling.

  “It’s stuck too,” I say after a few failed attempts to open it.

  “Try this,” Cass says, and digs in the space next to her chair cushion to pull out a small Swiss Army knife. She’s always pulling stuff out of those crevices, but I’ve never seen this item before.

  “You were sitting on a knife?” I ask, incredulous.

  “It was in the crack next to the cushion,” she says, ignoring my tone. “Keeps falling out of my pocket. Try it.”

  One of the built-in accessories—I think it’s a can opener—gives me enough leverage to pop the hatch open, and Dad lifts me up the rest of the way.

  I pull myself out and duck under the curved metal track that supports the elevator to once again face the empty open-air column.

  The mechanism that attaches the elevator to the rails along the pit wall comes almost up to my stomach. It’s so dark that I can barely make out the gears and wheels that allow the elevator to move along it.

  A burst of wind cuts through me, and I grab one of the curved tracks to keep from falling into that pit like Mom did. This is a terrible idea. What am I trying to prove, really? That I can face danger and be reckless too? I’ve never had any desire to be reckless.

  “What do you see?” Dad calls from inside.

  “I’m not sure,” I answer. “It’s too dark.”

  “Here, give him this,” Cass says. Moments later Dad hands me a flashlight. Only, it’s not a normal flashlight. It’s one of the armrests from her chair. Another of the Motor Pool’s upgrades? Nice.

  I pass the flashlight over the rail line and find the problem almost immediately.

  “Something’s growing across the tracks,” I tell them. “Or grew. Some kind of vine or root or something.” I run my fingers along the woody mass that’s twisted around the metal and wrapped up in the wheel. “I think it’s dead.”

  “Can you cut it loose?” Dad asks.

  I use Cass’s knife to saw at the piece that’s twisted around the rail. It seems unlikely that this thin curl of wood could have diverted the elevator and its passengers to a completely different door, but then again the Hotel’s magic does strange things sometimes.

  The dead growth pulls loose, and I examine it in the flashlight beam. A crisp, brown flower hangs from the branch, like a dark-colored lily that dried in the sun. “Should be good now. I’m coming—”

  The elevator lurches.

  I stumble and grab for the rail, but miss, and instead end up hooking my arm into what remains of the dead growth.

  Cass’s armrest tumbles into the darkness. But I’m okay. I’m okay. I just need to get inside before—

  The elevator drops again, rolling down the curved incline in the track, and this time my footing slips.

  “Cam!” Dad’s voice.

  I slide off the edge.

  A yank on my wrist stops my fall. Pain shouts through my shoulder as my body slams against one of the elevator’s windows.

  My heart races as I dangle over the darkness. The elevator only dropped a few feet, but it left me hanging from the vine.

  I face out into the pit, my back pressed against the surface of the gold-framed glass. Nothing but this thin, dead vine wrapped around my wrist keeps me from falling into the hole below. When I look over my shoulder at the elevator wall behind me, I see the opposite side of the nighttime pasture scene inside the elevator—both sides are bound, only this side faces south instead of north.

  I hear a commotion inside the elevator. Dad’s saying something, but I can’t understand him over the boom of my heartbeat. I could have died. I could have fallen like Mom did, and that would have been it. Thank goodness that vine was there to catch me, but what now? I can’t move, can’t bring myself to look up or down, can’t do anything except hold on.

  “Cam,” Dad’s voice says again, above me now, “I’ve got you,” and there’s a tug on the vine as he starts to pull me up.

  I spin as I rise, and catch a glimpse of myself reflected in the night sky beyond the glass wall. Only . . . it’s not me I see. It’s Nico. He’s wearing a tweed vest, with a blue flower in his lapel. His hair is longer than I remember, poking out from under his flat cap.

  I jerk my head around to look out into the empty air behind me, but he’s not there. And when I look back at the glass, I notice there’s something else odd about the image too. It’s as if the reflection is being hand drawn frame by frame. His outline keeps shifting—inky, haphazard lines with scribbled edges.

  Mirror-Nico takes one hand off the vine and puts a finger to his lips as Dad hoists me the rest of the way up onto the elevator.

  Immediately I’m engulfed in a bear hug. “I was so scared that I’d lost you again,” Dad says, squeezing me hard.

  But I’m not even thinking about the fall anymore—I’m too busy processing what I just saw. Was it Nico who twisted that growth up in the rail? Was he the one who put me in danger?

  And if so, why is he trying to kill me?

  9

  Lightning Strikes

  Now that the overgrowth has been cut away from the tracks, the elevator is able to take us back to the Elevator Bank.

  Once we’re out, I head straight for the safety of my room. That night I lie in bed, covers up to my chin, nowhere near asleep. Thank goodness Housekeeping was able to replace my bed, because all I want to do is lose myself under the covers. Nico’s troublesome grin haunts me. I probably imagined it. Or maybe it’s stress, like Oma keeps saying.

  Almost a week has passed since my new assignment, and I don’t feel any closer to having this gala thing figured out. There are so many things to consider, like arranging entertainment, and making sure no one with an allergy eats anything that’ll kill them. Then there’s the whole seating chart thing. . . .

  I roll over and open the top drawer of my bedside table to pull out Bee’s sliver. A part of me wants to use it, to disappear like that cat vanished down that hallway. Is that why Bee left it with me, so I could follow her to Nico? I can’t though; I promised Rahki. Besides, I have no idea where it would take me, and I have too many responsibilities to deal with at the moment.

  The knob on my door turns, and I shove the sliver under the covers, only briefly worrying that being too rough with it will result in my bed performing some tricks of its own.

  Cass rolls through the door.

  “Don’t you knock?” I ask, heart pounding. She’s the last person I want knowing I’ve got a forbidden magical weapon hidden in my bedroom.

  “I was coming to see if you were okay. Sheesh,” she says, pretending to be offended.

  “You were?”

  “Of course I was. You almost fell today. I was scared.”

&n
bsp; “Oh.” I’m not sure what to say to that. I lie back, careful to avoid the tip of the sliver next to me. “I’m fine. I didn’t die.”

  She bunches up her lips, waiting for something. “Don’t you have something you want to say to me too?”

  I glance at the clock. I know she wants me to talk about what Dad said in the elevator—to tell her I’m sorry—but all I really want is to get her out of my room so that I can stow the sliver safely back in its hiding place. “Umm, no, not really. You can go on about your business.”

  Cass folds her arms. “You mean go back to chaining myself to the front desk? Apparently that’s all I’m good for.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “I don’t even know why I try with you,” she snaps, and leaves, slamming the door behind her. I should go after her. Apologize for being a jerk. She was coming to check that I was okay after my harrowing afternoon, and I repaid her by pushing her away.

  But I don’t move. If I apologize, she’ll know she’s right—and she’ll know that I know she’s right—and she’ll keep doing stuff like she did today. What if something worse had happened, and no one had been there to answer the front desk phone? The more I think about it, the angrier it makes me. Everyone else does what I say, so why is she exempt? If anything, what happened on the elevator further proved my point. Surely Dad will see that now.

  If Cass doesn’t like me, maybe she’ll stop trying to convince me to change her assignment. I’m supposed to manage people, right? This is the only way I know how to manage her. She’ll stay mad at me, but if that means doing what she’s supposed to, maybe it’s for the best.

  • • •

  Another week over. Another awkward family dinner night.

  This time Oma takes us to a tiny village built on a tributary beside a wide lake surrounded by palm trees. Two dozen or so tin shacks rise out of the water on stilts. A heavy thundercloud hangs over the distant mountains. The lake swooshes beneath us, making the boats bob against the pier.

  “It’s Catatumbo!” Cass shouts, way too loudly for this quiet place. How on earth is she so good at this?