The Other Side of the Wall

by Amy Ephron

  The trifle was delicious and so were the chocolates and the butterscotch candy that Colin made Tess try, even though she was quite full. Colin didn’t eat anything, at all, saying he’d had dinner earlier in the kitchen.

  He led them into the living room, too, where Tess had a lovely view of the dancers, who were wild and skilled and elegant at the same time, effortlessly performing back dips and over the shoulder moves, one young gentleman lifting his partner and practically tossing her over his shoulder and then sliding her back, gracefully onto the ground, which required both to perform their moves in perfect step with one another. There was a little bit of tap dancing here and there. Some of the dancers seemed as if they were trained. It occurred to Tess that maybe everyone in England took dancing lessons when they were a kid.

  Colin introduced them to his sister, too, whose name was Elizabeth and who was eight. And, as the music crescendoed at exactly that moment, Colin playfully took Elizabeth’s hand and gave her a tiny bit of a dance spin in the room, which despite her age she pulled off rather elegantly. And then laughing, Colin took Tess’s hand and gave her a spin, too, which she executed brilliantly. But he was a very good dancer. It only lasted a minute, as the music ended.

  On the other side of the dance floor, there was a line of people waiting to talk to a young woman who was seated behind a table. She, too, had pin curls and she was wearing white satin ballet slippers and a lovely, white satin dress with sleeves that puffed like a princess’s. Her eyes were dark and she was sitting in a wing-backed chair in front of a small mahogany side table that had been placed in front of her. On the other side of the table was another chair that was presently occupied by a tall young gentleman, who was holding his right hand out, palm up for the young woman to see.

  “That’s Adele,” said Colin quietly. “She’s a ‘seer.’” And then he added almost in a whisper, “My mother believes in ‘seers’ and so do most of her friends.”

  Tess didn’t say anything at first. She wanted to say that she knew someone like that, too, not like his mom, like Adele. But Max gave Tess an intense dirty look as if he was begging her telepathically not to say anything, at all.

  But then Tess couldn’t help herself entirely. “I want to talk to her,” she said excitedly. “Colin do you think your mother would mind if I asked for a reading, too?”

  “Not at all,” said Colin. “I’m sure she’d approve of it.”

  Max just rolled his eyes.

  ~ CHAPTER TWELVE ~

  reading the cards

  Do you want me to tell you something you already know?” Adele asked. Tess was now seated opposite her, the mahogany side table between them.

  It was such a strange question. “Why would I want you to tell me something I already know?” asked Tess, confused by Adele already.

  Adele laughed. “Sometimes people like reassurance,” she answered. “And sometimes I tell people things they already know. It’s not me really. I ask the question, or you do, but it’s the cards that tell me the answer. I’m not much more than a conduit,” she said modestly.

  Tess looked at Max for an explanation. “A conduit is something that conveys things,” Max explained, understanding what Tess was asking without her even posing the question. “Sort of like a pipe is a conduit for conveying water.”

  “You did want a reading of the cards, didn’t you?” asked Adele.

  Tess wasn’t sure what she wanted.

  She knew she didn’t want her palm read—that felt too definitive. She knew she didn’t want to throw coins or that other thing that they called runes, bamboo sticks, that their mom’s friend Franny liked to throw. That felt like taking too much of a chance.

  But suddenly Adele had a deck of cards in her hand. They seemed to appear out of nowhere. The back of the cards had stars and a moon and a planet that looked like Saturn with a ring around it and in the top right, a picture of a profile of a woman who looked a bit like Adele herself. The back of the cards was navy-colored and the stars, moon, and Saturn were painted in white, as was the picture of the face of the lady, which had a circle around it, so that her face was framed like a cameo.

  Tess figured if Adele had a deck of cards with her own face painted on them that maybe she was legit, but she wasn’t sure she could back up that logic. That could be part of the show, too. She was sure though that it wasn’t a coincidence that the face on the cards resembled Adele.

  “Cards it is then,” said Adele without waiting for an answer and expertly flipped three cards up and placed them next to each other in a straight line.

  Adele looked down at the cards and then up at Tess, as if she was examining her. Then Adele’s eyes fluttered. When she opened them, she seemed to be not really looking at Tess, even though she was staring straight at her.

  Her voice sounded strange as if it was coming from a distant place. It occurred to Tess the whole thing might really be a performance, a very practiced act. Except Tess couldn’t quite figure out how Adele was making her voice sound as if it was coming from a hushed megaphone, whispered and amplified at the same time. It was very strange.

  “You know there’s something on the other side of the wall, don’t you?” Adele said simply.

  Actually, Tess didn’t know that, at all, but before Tess could reply, a voice behind them piped in softly, “Oh Adele, are you frightening the children again? I asked you not to do that.”

  Adele fluttered her eyes, as if she’d been in a trance or something.

  “She once told me the strangest thing,” said Colin’s mother to Tess. “It was as if she was in a trance or something. She said, ‘How do rats know when houses are empty?’ I had no idea what that meant. Adele, really,” said Colin’s mother. “I mean it, you’re not supposed to frighten the children!”

  “I wasn’t meaning to Mrs. Sanborn. Not at all,” said Adele. “It’s the cards that tell me what to say. You know that.”

  “You do know that, Mother,” Colin piped in. “Or at least you believe it. My mother hardly makes a move without consulting Adele,” he said to Tess and Max. “Never a big decision without her.”

  His mother laughed which was sort of refreshing as Tess thought Colin might be making fun of his mother.

  “It’s true. I don’t. Adele is a bit of a wonder. But I do hope she hasn’t told you anything too startling.” She tousled Colin’s head again and practically danced back into the party.

  Somehow Tess couldn’t shake it. It was a warning. There was no question about that. You know, don’t you? There’s something on the other side of the wall. That’s what she’d said, really, wasn’t it? That Tess knew there was something on the other side of the wall. Was that what Adele meant when she said she was going to tell Tess something she might already know? Was that what she was referring to? Or was it something else?

  Colin’s mother had interrupted her reading. Tess had tried to hang around by the table, but another woman had already sat down for a reading. And it was one a.m. and Max insisted they had to go back down to their suite.

  They thanked Colin and he said he was awfully glad they’d come and he seemed to mean it. It had been sort of fun. Memorable even. Tess’s mother said those were the best nights out, the ones that you remember.

  Colin politely walked them out to the elevator which arrived this time without an elevator operator.

  Max did not point out to Tess that there were only 7 numbers on the elevator panel, even though he did note it himself. Tess was weirded out enough already. Tess didn’t usually get unsettled by anything. Max was also tired. He hoped Aunt Evie hadn’t “checked” on them. It was late, and he was certain she would be nervous if she hadn’t been able to find them. But thankfully everything was copacetic in The Garden Room. “Copacetic” was a funny word their mom used—it meant A-OK. In less than four minutes, both Tess and Max were in their pajamas and in their beds, safely under the covers, sound asleep.
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br />   Tess had a dream she was trying to make her way through a maze, high-tech, orange-colored and strangely three-dimensional, straight waves of Day-Glo orange light, precise lines in a hallway that sharply changed direction and elevation in a nanosecond and seemed to have no end. She wasn’t certain whether she was supposed to be walking on them, as if they were a pathway, or underneath, ducking endlessly below them, sidestepping them, for fear they were a laser of a sort or a sophisticated security system that might sound an alarm at any moment, as if she wasn’t meant to be there, at all.

  She was startled awake by the dream. Her heart was pounding. The dream ended—well, it hadn’t really ended. She’d woken up in the middle—without her knowing whether she’d found her way out or not. And the three-dimensional orange lines reminded her of the strange vectors of light she’d seen that afternoon that had flashed out from the cat’s eye marble. It took her a little while to calm down before she went back to sleep.

  ~ CHAPTER THIRTEEN ~

  in which tess hopes that ]everything is normal

  Oatmeal, please,” said Tess. There was something comforting about oatmeal. Comforting and normal. “No, no almond milk. Whole milk, please,” she said to the waiter who was hovering over her as he always did. He pulled her napkin out from around her silverware and with a flourish settled the napkin on her lap. Tess managed a smile, but she wasn’t in the mood to be special or to be treated as if she was special.

  She realized she was starting to feel a little like Max had, wishing they could have a normal vacation. She was still a bit shook up from the dream she’d had the night before. And the strange thing Adele had said to her that she didn’t want to think about.

  She was also puzzled by their new friend Colin, the costume party, and his mother’s apartment on the 8th floor.

  Aunt Evie had said it was a fancy hotel even though it didn’t look that way. The sofas in the library were well worn, as were the carpets in the dining room, the drapes in their suite were red velvet, elegant but also ancient. But the party at Colin’s mother’s apartment had convinced Tess that it was in fact an upscale hotel. 5 Star for sure. Maybe 4.

  When they woke up the next day, it was pouring, and the rain showed no signs of letting up. Aunt Evie had looked it up on her iPhone and the weather channel said it was also raining buckets again in Berlin. Actually, it didn’t say “buckets.” Aunt Evie had added that part for effect when she told Tess and Max. She wasn’t sure if their parents were going to make it today. Not even because of the weather in Berlin—but London was so windy and wet, there was talk that Heathrow might be shut down for the night if the storm kept up. As if in punctuation, there was a hint of lightning flashing out the window of the dining room, lighting up the dark gray sky. Max counted one . . . two . . . and didn’t make it to three before thunder seemed to almost rattle the building.

  “Oh, my,” said Aunt Evie. “I’m glad we all decided to sleep in.”

  Aunt Evie wanted to know what they’d done last night after she’d gone to bed.

  Max looked at Tess who was excellent at telling stories and leaving out parts that might make people nervous but leaving in parts that were true.

  “Max made a friend,” said Tess.

  If you’d asked Max, he would have said that Tess had made a friend. But he let her continue.

  But she corrected herself. “Max and I made a friend,” she said. “Colin. Colin Sanborn,” said Tess, as she knew Aunt Evie liked them to know a person’s first and last name. “Strange. It’s the same name as the hotel,” Tess said to Aunt Evie. “In fact, he lives in the hotel,” Tess added. “All year-round.”

  “I’ve always thought it would be lovely to live in a hotel,” said Aunt Evie dreamily. “Your bed would be made every morning. Leave your dry cleaning outside the door and magically it would come back to you the next day. If you went out, a hotel operator would take a message for you. You’d have a little box behind the reception desk with your messages in it and any hand delivered packages. You could pick up the phone,” Aunt Evie went on, “and order room service, assuming, of course, the hotel you stayed in had room service. . . .” This last was said with a bit of an edge.

  That was one of the peculiarities of THE SANBORN HOUSE. It didn’t have room service. But Aunt Evie said they got a good deal on the rooms and she didn’t mind that much, on this vacation. It was a real holiday and she thought they’d want to all have their meals together. Especially when their parents arrived. If they ever did arrive.

  “With his parents?” asked Aunt Evie.

  “Whose parents?” said Max who had sort of lost the train of thought.

  “The boy you made friends with who lives in the hotel.”

  “Oh,” said Tess, jumping in. “We only met his mother. We met his sister, too. She was eight and very adorable. His mother was very elegant, and she was having a costume party.”

  “Really?” said Evie. “Were people wearing masks?”

  “No,” said Tess. “But there was a piano player and a singer, and dancing, and everyone was wearing clothes that looked like they might have been from the twenties. And the kid had a table hockey game and Max played table hockey with him and Max won.”

  “Do you think I really won, Tess?” asked Max. “It seemed like he just stopped paying attention.”

  “I think he was just—” she hesitated, “—tired,” said Tess although she wasn’t sure that was true. It had been very strange.

  “Is their suite nice?” asked Aunt Evie.

  “Oh, no,” said Max. “They live on a whole floor.”

  “Oh,” said Aunt Evie. “That does sound lovely. I’m glad you had a nice time.”

  Tess sincerely hoped that would continue to be the case.

  As if in further punctuation, there was another bolt of lightning outside illuminating both the sky and the dining room.

  Max counted again. One . . . two . . . and again, he didn’t make it to three before the bolt of thunder hit, loud and rolling, and the walls of THE SANBORN HOUSE seemed to shake.

  ~ CHAPTER FOURTEEN ~

  an incident in the garden room

  Max was carrying four books. An amazing copy of a book he’d never known existed, The Lost World with beautiful illustrations and a plot description that seemed like it might really be the basis for the crazy dinosaur movie he liked so much. It was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who’d written the Sherlock Holmes books. Max thought it was a pretty cool discovery and might be a lovely book to get lost in. He was also carrying a big encyclopedia Tess had found (and borrowed) called The Encyclopedia of Birds in England which she thought Aunt Evie might like, and another book Tess had asked him to take down from the shelf, which really didn’t make any sense to Max. It was called Beginning Physics. Max figured it had been left behind by a hotel guest who was a student, although why Tess was suddenly interested in physics did baffle him and made him a bit nervous. Tess insisted they borrow a dictionary, too. The books were heavy and unwieldy, so when they got to the room, Max handed Tess the key so that she could open the door for them.

  Tess felt a spark the moment the key touched her hand. She looked to see if it was sparkling. It wasn’t exactly sparkling. Well, maybe she saw a couple of sparks. And a couple of lines, like sparks, orange-colored lines emitting from the crystal handle that looked like the marble she had found. She hoped Max hadn’t noticed the sparks.

  And then, as if the key had a mind of its own, it magically (or magnetically) seemed to be drawn to the lock. There was a distinct click as it locked in perfectly without Tess even aiming for the keyhole. Then odder still, the key seemed to turn all by itself. Tess was still holding on to it. So, she reasoned, Max wouldn’t necessarily know that it turned by itself. But when Tess looked back at him, she knew immediately from the look on Max’s face that he had seen it, too.

  The door to The Garden Room flew open.

 
The room looked different, lighter, as if it had been remodeled. Maybe the sun was just out for a change and they’d pulled the curtains back. The sun was out and the housekeeper seemed to have opened all the curtains and tied them with sashes. Funny, Tess hadn’t noticed that there were sashes before. And, truly, a moment earlier, it had been storming out. Absolutely pouring rain. She didn’t think winter storms were like that.

  The room looked fancier, somehow. Maybe she’d never seen it in bright daylight. Well, maybe it had changed a bit. Or it hadn’t. There was definitely more lace on the pillows on Max’s rollaway in the living room. Maybe housekeeping had been in while they were at breakfast and changed the sheets. The rug looked newer. That was probably the effect of the light, too. It was the same rug, but it looked newer. And the coffee table was very polished, almost as if you could see your reflection in it.

  She was quite startled when a boy’s voice said, “Hello.”

  Colin was sitting on the living room couch as if he belonged there and didn’t realize he was intruding and that nobody had asked him in. Although he guessed it from the look on Tess’s face.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “Mother says I shouldn’t drop in on friends just because they’re staying with us. That I’m not supposed to go into their rooms unless I’m asked. It’s so peculiar though to have people staying with you, that I always forget. And I wanted to see you both.”

  “Really?” said Tess, attitude in full force. “And how did you get in?”

  Tess didn’t think people were supposed to walk into your hotel room uninvited even if, as he seemed to indicate, they owned the hotel. Especially if you aren’t even there when they drop in.

  “How did you get in?” she asked again accusingly.

  “You left the garden door unlocked,” said Colin, quietly and sheepishly. “I was playing there. And—and I wanted to see you both. And I touched the handle and it opened. And . . . I’m so sorry. I was just about to leave you a note.”