Cradling the mirror box and the spiral aftereffect under one arm, Isaac pulled on the metal doorknob and the door opened. He rushed inside and slammed the door shut behind him. There was only a fluorescent light in here, flickering dimly, but it gave enough light for him to see that there was no lock on the door. He had run into a trap.
He looked frantically around in the few seconds he had before Candi entered, hoping there were tools in here that he could use as weapons. No tools. There was only a large machine with two big fat wheels of white gauze on a bar at the bottom, and above them a complex structure that looked like a loom of some kind. He had no idea what it was for, only that it had no use for him to protect himself.
Candi pulled open the door with her left hand and slammed it shut behind her. Brandishing the drill saw in her right hand, she stared at Isaac. He backed up as best he could against the machine, but it was full of sharp edges and angles.
And then she smiled. “You’re even stupider than I thought,” she said. “If you’d stayed out there in the tunnel, you could have gotten out on one of the loading ramps. But now you’re stuck. That gauze folder will pierce you if you get any closer.”
She moved toward him.
She was right. He couldn’t back up any more. He could feel the machine cutting into his T-shirt. The flickering light was dim, but there was enough for him to see the razorlike ridges of the saw blade coming closer and closer to his neck. Candi pressed a switch. The saw began to turn, its piercing high-pitched scream like the sound of a dentist’s drill, only louder.
He kicked out at her, but it had no effect. Her abdomen was hard as a rock. Killing people was clearly better exercise than riding a bike. Candi was a lot stronger than he had expected.
The drill saw lashed out. If Isaac didn’t think of something quickly, he was as good as dead. He looked down at his hands.
He set the mirror box on the floor beside him and held up the spiral aftereffect. He set it on ten and it began spinning.
Candi’s eyes couldn’t avoid it. They fixed on it immediately. She’d never seen anything like it before. She stopped moving toward him.
“I know what you’ve done, Candi,” Isaac said, gaining confidence because he had slowed her down.
Candi lowered the drill saw, completely transfixed by the spiral aftereffect.
“I know you killed Joey Haynes,” Isaac went on. “Because he played the piano. And I know you’ve killed other people before him. People who also played the piano. And now you want to kill my mother. What do you have against piano players, Candi?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “I … I …” Her eyes were staring at the spiral aftereffect. Now Isaac had her trapped.
“You even killed your own brother!” he shouted at her.
“Don’t talk about my brother!” she screamed, her voice suddenly returning to her. She viciously moved toward him again, the drill saw now raised above her head.
Isaac quickly lowered the spiral aftereffect so that it was out of her field of vision.
Candi stumbled and fell to her knees. She seemed completely disoriented. “You’ve gotten in my way ever since you first showed up,” she said, sounding as if she was going to cry. She struggled to her feet. “And now I’m going to stop you for good.”
“You’ll never get away with it. Dr. Ciano knows now. And security will be here any second.”
“I’ll get away with it, all right. I know how to get out of here from the loading docks,” she said fiercely, her fury returning. “I’ll disappear. They’ll never find me. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.” She swiped at Isaac with the drill saw and knocked the spiral aftereffect out of his hands.
He was helpless. He had no weapon to use against her. All he had was the mirror box. He had put it on the floor, and now he was shielding it from Candi, standing between it and her.
And then, without warning, incredibly—there was no other way to describe it—Isaac and Candi were sucked into the mirror box. It was just like the times it had sucked in the stick of licorice and then the piece of paper with Isaac’s questions on it. Isaac felt a rushing, pulling sensation. The box grew larger and larger. It was as though he was being dragged underwater by a powerful undertow.
And then they were inside the box.
But it didn’t look like the inside of the box. He was standing in front of a gigantic cube, as high as a six-story building. It was full of square holes. He knew exactly where he was.
It was the Menger sponge—the strange object he had in his collection in which every chamber was horribly smaller than the one before. There was nothing else to be seen—he was on an endless plane with the sponge.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned around. Candi was running toward him, still pointing the drill saw at him. She was getting closer.
There was no place to go but into the Menger sponge. It was so big that the largest hole was high above him. He began to climb, using smaller holes to grip with his hands and put his feet in. It was amazing how fast he got to the top, and then he was inside.
He was in a vast hall with black empty windows all around. He heard Candi climbing behind him. He headed for the biggest hole. It was hard to move quickly because the floor was pitted with holes. He reached the hole, climbed halfway up the wall, and got inside. Now he was in a space the size of a movie theater. He could still hear Candi behind him, so he frantically kept climbing. The next hole was the size of a living room. He began to sweat. He turned and looked behind him. Candi was just entering the room with her drill saw still turning.
He ran for the next room. This cubic space was the size of a bathroom. He could almost feel the walls closing in around him. A horrible sinking feeling set in, and he knew that he was really trapped now. He was like somebody in a horror movie, running from the monster by going up into the attic. Any room he went into would be smaller than the one he was in. But where else could he go?
Nowhere … except into the next room, which was the size of a closet. He could hear Candi breathing heavily right behind him. And on into the next room, which was so small he couldn’t stand up. Then into the next, which was so tiny that he had to crouch down into a ball. He was panting, and his clothes were soaked with sweat.
And then he was shrinking, becoming so tiny that the space became the size of the first vast hall he had entered. He climbed to the next biggest hole, but now he knew it was hopeless. Because what had happened before was happening again, repeating itself on a miniature level. Every space he entered got smaller and smaller. It was infinite. He was never going to get away from Candi. It was a cycle he’d never break. Never, never, never …
“Good-bye, my friend,” a voice said. “And thank you for bringing her to me. I couldn’t do it on my own.”
Isaac was standing in the hospital basement again, next to the gauze folder, with the mirror box at his feet. It was the first time he had heard Joey’s voice.
Joey had saved him.
But Candi wasn’t there. She must still be in the mirror box, thought Isaac. Joey had gotten her because of what Isaac had done with the spiral aftereffect.
“Hello, Candi,” Joey said.
EALLY, THERE’S NOTHING ELSE TO SAY. My friends found me in the basement. Miss Sharpe felt cornered, and she ran. She’s out there somewhere,” Isaac said politely to the reporter and hung up the phone.
“My grandson, the celebrity.” Grandpa chuckled.
“Hey, Ize, are you still giving autographs?” Kravetz asked.
Their laughter was interrupted by a knock at the door. A UPS man was holding two large boxes, one marked FRAGILE. He was standing at the open doorway of the new house that Vera, Grandpa, and Isaac had moved into a few weeks earlier.
“My collection! I thought they were lost forever,” Isaac said as he ran to the door. “Careful, they’re fragile. Hey, Matt, wait until you see these.”
“Thank you,” Grandpa said. He smiled as he watched Isaac and Matt carefully climb the stairs, each
holding a box.
Upstairs, the two boys gently placed the boxes on a table in the attic of the small, sunny house. Like a skilled surgeon, Isaac cut open the boxes and removed the carefully wrapped contents. The process was long and tedious, but necessary.
When everything was unpacked, Isaac knew something was missing. It was the mirror box. Instinctively, he understood why it wasn’t there. Isaac had given it what it wanted, and it had given Isaac what he needed.
“Hey, man, what’s this?” Matt asked, getting Isaac’s attention.
“It’s the Menger sponge,” Isaac said. “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
Downstairs, Vera’s next student arrived for her piano lesson.
WILLIAM SLEATOR met ANN MONTICONE while they both worked at the Boston Ballet. He was the pianist and she made costumes. Their friendship was cemented when they discovered that their favorite movie is Bride of Frankenstein. They have previously collaborated on the book Test together. Ann lives in Boston and teaches at an elementary school. William divides his time between homes in Boston and Thailand.
This book was designed by Maria T. Middleton. The text is set in 11-point ITC New Baskerville, a revival typeface reinterpreted by John Quaranda in 1978 and based on the original eighteenth-century classic created by John Baskerville. The display font is Webster Roman.
This book was printed and bound by R.R. Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Its production was overseen by Erin Vandeveer.
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