by Sean Easley
No, I can’t. She’d be packed to leave before I finished the first sentence. It already takes all I’ve got to keep her from running off to join the circus.
Nico leads me up a thin metal staircase to a burgundy door marked COURTYARD.
I stop him before he opens it. “Why are you doing this? If bringing me here is so dangerous, why risk it?”
“Because Stripe asked me to. If he thinks it’s worth it to track your dad down, then I do too.” He grins. “Besides, it’s fun, yeah?”
“Putting myself in danger isn’t exactly my idea of fun.”
“Then you haven’t lived, my friend.” He opens the door, and the warm, blueberry-spiced air wraps around me. “Welcome to The Hotel Between. We hope you find your destination.”
5
Dancing in Russia
Nico and I step into a warm, sunlit courtyard. I breathe in the smell of wet grapes and fresh-cut grass. Birds chirp in the cedar trees under a clear sky. A wall of carved marble encircles us, glittering like snow cone ice and hung with curtains of climbing vines. Huge potted floral arrangements and rosebushes wave in the breeze.
And doors . . . so many doors, set into the curved wall every few feet. Their painted wood frames reflect the sun in dazzling colors, each completely unique. One arch features white mosaic curls dotted with sapphires over a door etched with starbursts. A carving of an elephant is set so deep into another one that the door itself must be two feet thick. The next, two pillars encircled by dragons, support a crossbeam that bows at the corners, like the entrance to Oma’s favorite Chinese restaurant.
The doors look identical to the ones hanging from the tree in my dream. They continue around the courtyard, similar only in how different they look from one another—each a mash-up of cultural icons. What I take to be Hotel staff in maroon slacks and suspenders roll brass luggage racks and trays of food along the walkways. The yard is greener and sunnier than our yard back at home ever looked. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.
Though . . . wasn’t it just nighttime? And cold?
Nico continues left down the covered patio like this change isn’t even a big deal.
I step onto the grass and gaze up at the cloudless sky. “It’s daytime.”
“Yep.” He rounds a column and cuts across the yard toward a fountain—a grand, multitiered pool with an enormous marble tree at its center. Water pours from the gold-flecked branches like the boughs of a willow.
“But . . . it’s daytime,” I say again, running to catch up.
“So?”
“It was just night.”
“In Texas.” Nico rolls his eyes. “Night in Texas is day on the other side of the world. Try to keep up.”
This can’t be possible. I mean, part of me believes, or I wouldn’t have come, but this—the intricate doors and glittering murals, the warm sunshine and shimmering orange koi in the fountain . . .
“Okay then, where are we?” I ask as a girl in a colorful, jangly outfit and gobs of jewelry sidles past.
Nico stops at a large, angled board with a sheet of splotchy tan paper stretched across it. The words FIND YOUR DESTINATION flow across the top in bronze script. “The Sundial Courtyard is like a shortcut.” He points to the Roman numerals carved above each of the doors. “See those? They’re time zones. Twenty-four of them.”
The sundial . . . the Roman numerals . . . the Courtyard’s a giant clock, with the marble tree fountain casting shimmering, watery shade toward my own time zone, where it’s the middle of the night.
I spin slowly, taking in each and every door set into the circular wall.
“These frames down here are staff-use-only.” He leans against the parchment board and nods to the railing around the top of the Courtyard wall. “Guests use similar doors up there on the Mezzanine.”
“There are people up there.” Whole groups lean over the balustrade, watching the staff hurry back and forth across the paths below. A young boy spits over the railing, and it lands close to a girl in maroon slacks leading a luggage cart.
I’m suddenly very aware of how exposed we are out here. “Everyone can see us.”
“Guests on the Mezz can, but they don’t have access down here.” Nico fishes in his pocket. “To them, the Sundial Courtyard is just another mystery of the Hotel. The only ones we need to make sure we keep you hidden from are the maids.”
“Maids?” I laugh.
His eyes widen. “Trust me. You do NOT want to get on the maids’ bad side.”
He pulls out his coin and inserts it into a slot on the board.
The paper bursts to life. Sparkling strokes and glittering honey- colored lines zip across it, drawing a series of concentric circles and decorating them with sketches of trees and rivers and doors.
The swirling lines of amber light finish by scribbling the words YOU ARE HERE at the center of the innermost circle.
“It’s a map,” I proclaim.
“More like . . . a representation.” Nico points to the paper. “If you could see all of the pieces of the Hotel at once, it wouldn’t make much sense, so the map-boards make sense of it for us. The boards only show what we need, and track our coins so we can find one another.”
I touch my finger to the paper, and an electric hum vibrates through me. The ink begins to swirl, tracing a winding line through the map. New paths emerge across the paper. Words like “United States” and “Texas” scribble themselves over a couple of the doors.
Nico snatches my finger away, and the ink fades. “No touching. We don’t want anyone to know you’re here.”
“Right. Sorry.”
He taps the marker at the center, and the ink springs to life again, drawing names like “Rio Hall” and “Pyramid Foyer” onto the board.
“The Courtyard is basically the core of the Hotel,” he says, indicating the circle we’re in. He drags his finger to the circle that surrounds that one, and the ink in that section grows bolder, flaring to life like sparklers. “The Courtyard is set into the middle of the Mezzanine.” He points to the rail above us. “Together, the Mezz ring and Courtyard form the heart of the Hotel. The doors in the cliffs surrounding the Mezz lead to the ring with the Elevator Bank, and beyond.”
More circles exist beyond those two we’re in. The outermost ring reads “Lobby Level.” Smaller circles fit between the others, but I can’t tell if they’re actual places or just extra lines.
“Now”—he gives the map-board his full attention—“where would Sev be?”
The lines continue to twist across the map, scribbling words like “Couples’ Dinner Party” and “International Bingo” and “Dim Sum Banquet.” My stomach grumbles at the thought of food . . . all I had for dinner was snacks from the hospital vending machines.
I hope Cass is all right.
“There.” Nico plants his finger on a door marked “Russian Mixer,” and under it a circle that reads “Vsevolod Pronichev.” “Follow me.”
He veers onto one of the spoke paths that stretch away from the fountain tree, to a door flanked by columns twisted in a rainbow of colors and topped with onion-shaped domes.
“This way to the Russian Branch,” he says. “Dobro pozhalovat!”
My ears crackle annoyingly again as we pass into the next hall. I want to ask Nico what that’s about, but it’s all I can do to keep up.
“I like Russia,” Nico says, nodding to a boy around my age pushing a mop bucket as he passes. “The buildings are so cool.”
“Oma has a postcard Dad sent to her once from Red Square.”
“Oh yeah. So many colors on those domes.”
We take the third door down—marked with a sign that reads POCCNR with the N and R backwards—and pass through a panel hidden behind a flowered tapestry to enter the rear of a grand ballroom. The sounds of upbeat string music mix with the powerful aroma of perfume as men and women in tight suits and sparkling gowns hold conversations I can’t understand. Long-stemmed glasses filled to the brim with drink fizz at their lip
s as they laugh and smile and dance.
Russia. We’re in Russia. I’ve never even been out of Texas before.
A heavy weight sinks to the pit of my stomach. I don’t know if I can handle all of these new experiences at once. “This is a bad idea,” I say as Nico edges past couples spinning and dancing under the colored lights. “We should leave.”
Nico gives each guest a professional bow as he crosses the polished floor. “Too late now, kiddo.”
He points to a boy who looks like he’s in high school standing beside a table covered in food. His skin is dark with a cool tone to it, and a bold crimson sash with ochre fringe hangs across his shoulder. He’s talking to a girl much shorter than him, also in staff tails, with a black satin hijab wrapped under her chin.
“Wait here.” Nico grabs a tiny sandwich off the brass platter carried by a passing staff member. “Do. Not. Move.”
He scarfs down his sandwich and hurries to grab the boy’s attention.
Everything’s happening so fast. I try not to think about what we’re doing, but alarm bells sound off in my head. Oma’s stories, Stripe’s warnings, Nico’s promise that passing through the Hotel doors always costs something, the thought that I’m actually in a magic hotel. What if this is all a trap? I could be handing myself over to the very people Dad hid us from, and not even know it. And Cass—I just left her. What kind of brother does that?
The girl in the headscarf storms off across the ballroom, and Nico and the other boy push me out a different side door into a dark hallway.
The boy closes the door behind us, and the noise of the party dies instantly. “So,” he says, his Russian accent grumbly and deep, “this is the one Stripe sent?”
I swallow hard. He’s a big guy—tall and stout enough to make two of me. I feel like I’m standing completely in his shadow.
A tiny smile curls up one corner of his stubbled lip. “Vsevolod Pronichev.” He offers a hand. “I am called Sev.”
I hesitate, but after a trusting nod from Nico I shake Sev’s hand. His grip is strong; his hands, rough and calloused.
“Come,” Sev says. “We go somewhere private.”
He leads us down the hall and through another before hitting the call button next to a pair of shiny elevator doors with the image of the tree engraved across their surface.
I run my fingers along the engraving. My tree is everywhere in this place. The elevator looks just like it did in the picture of Mom and Dad. They were here. For the first time, I am somewhere they have been. I bite my lip to hold back the strange mix of emotions welling up inside me. This is the closest I’ve ever come to doing something with them.
The elevator dings, and the doors slide open, splitting the metallic tree down the middle. I imagine a hand coming through the doors, beckoning me inside.
Nico glances down the hall. “Should we be worried about Rahki?” I assume he’s talking about the girl who stormed away from them.
Sev’s bass-y accent echoes as we board the lift. “She will hold back. Trust her.”
The walls inside the elevator are made of glass, but it’s what lies on the other side of the glass that takes my breath away. Each wall is a window to another place. In one, I see a city of skyscrapers aglow with traffic and streetlights. In another, craggy, moss-covered hillsides are wrapped in fog. And in the window across from it, white, cracked earth that looks as if it hasn’t seen rain in years stretches out under an ocean-blue sky.
Sev presses the button for floor twenty-one. “This elevator is typically for guests,” he says, “but I think is good for you to see.”
The elevator ascends, but it feels like we’re moving sideways as well as up. At one point, I’m pretty sure the elevator even changes directions. But the landscapes beyond the glass never change. Looking at them, it’s like we’re not moving at all.
I rest my hand on the wall between me and the flat, white desert. The heat of its sun warms my palm. When I touch the wall with the green, foggy hills, a chill prickles up my arm. Will I ever get used to this? I can’t wrap my head around it just yet. I’m basically in two places at once.
“Is it real?” I ask, gazing out over the bustling city below.
Nico grabs the rail and looks through the glass with me. “Yep. The whole world, just a step away.”
My lifelong search has finally started. Dad’s out there, I can feel it. Before long I’ll have him back, and everything will be the way it’s supposed to be.
6
The Doorman in Room 2109
The elevator opens into a hallway with plush, patterned carpet. Dim bulbs with corkscrew filaments flicker in sconces. The heavy doors are numbered—2103, 2104, 2105—with framed paintings of bears in between.
Sev stops at room 2109 and inserts a key with a soft, silvery twinkle. “V gostyah horosho, a doma lutshe.”
Nico translates, “Visiting is good, but home is better.”
They have no idea how true that is.
Sev’s room is small, cozy, with dull slate walls and a smell like woodworking class. Shelves loaded with books and jars and little carved figurines line the room. A cloud of dust hangs in the air, lit by the gray light cast from the window. Sawdust lies in mounds on the floor, covering the leather chair, even curled in shavings next to the bed.
“Goodness, Sev.” Nico wipes a finger through the sawdust on the table. “Don’t you ever clean this joint?”
“Would not do any good. At least it keeps me warm.” He clears the tools from his desk. “Did you bring land for me?”
Nico digs the jar of dirt from Oma’s garden out of his pocket. “I bound another door, too.”
Sev raises an eyebrow.
“I was practicing,” Nico says. “Besides, it was the only way to get him in to meet Stripe.”
“I do not believe that you of all people need practice binding things.” Sev holds up the jar and gives it a shake, then sets it alongside the hundreds of other tiny, dirt-filled jars. “And Stripe approved of bringing him here?”
“Practically ordered it.” Nico flops down in the leather chair. Dust billows from the cushions. “Gotta hear this story.”
I hesitate; I’ve never been one for lots of talking, but now I feel like I’m spewing my life out to everyone. Nico already knows all of this information, though, so what would be the point in keeping it a secret from his ally?
So I tell Sev everything, along with the bits Stripe shared. Sev listens to every word. Never looking away. Never interrupting. It’s as if he and I are the only two people in the world.
When I’m done, he pinches his brow. “It will be difficult to keep you secret if you stay.”
“Wait, I can’t stay here,” I say, sitting on the edge of the twin bed. “I just came to figure out what’s in the coin and go back home.”
Nico shakes his head. “Doesn’t work like that.”
I don’t like the sound of this. “If I’m not back soon, Oma and Cass will worry. They’ll probably have the police out looking for me.”
“It will take awhile to access your father’s memories,” Sev says. “And the only way to unlock them is by spending time in the Hotel.”
“Then I’ll leave my coin here!”
“The magic won’t work without you,” Nico says. “We can hide you.”
Sev frowns. “Every moment he remains puts our task in jeopardy.”
“He’s part of the task!” Nico snaps.
“What task?” I ask, and they both look at me as if they momentarily forgot I existed.
“Don’t worry about it.” Nico watches Sev’s face carefully. “All you have to do is find your dad. We’ll keep you safe. Promise.”
Sev sighs. “Bez truda, ne vitashish i ribku iz pruda. Everything worthwhile requires a push. You must stay.”
“And what happens when we find him?” I ask.
“You leave. It’s a touch.” Nico’s eyes darken. “Digging around into the Hotel’s secrets will complicate that, though. That’s why we only want you to find your
dad. We’re stuck here. You’re not.”
Sev nods approvingly.
“I-I can’t,” I say. The sun is high outside Sev’s window, but I have no idea what time it is in Dallas. Cass and Oma will be coming home from the hospital. Cass’ll need someone to help her over the hump of getting back to our normal routine, someone to lock her chair into place in Oma’s van. Oma gets so tired; she’s getting too old to do it herself.
But that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To find someone who’ll take care of us all.
Sev’s eyes soften. “It is your choice, but it is a choice. We will not blame you either way.”
All these choices play tug-of-war with my emotions. I’m pretty sure my destiny is to one day stay home and never leave again. But this is about my dad. More than that . . . it’s about Cass, too. She and Oma both insist she doesn’t need me worrying about her, but I want her and Oma to be taken care of. I want me to be taken care of. To feel like a kid.
Still, I can’t leave her alone that long.
“I can’t,” I say again. And I hate myself for it. It makes me sound so scared. “My family needs me.”
Sev locks my gaze. “Your family is not lost. Your father is.”
My fingers clench the bed sheets. There’s so much I don’t understand about this place. Oma said she’d pay any price, but I don’t think I can. Finding Dad was a dream. I can’t travel the world. I’m just Cam. Scared, unremarkable Cam.
Boom-boom-boom!
We all jump at the pounding on the door.
“Maid service!” a voice yells. “Open up!” Boom-boom-boom!
“It is the Maid Commander.” Sev points to the window. “Hide him. Out there.”
Nico throws the window open and a gust of icy air whips around me. Sev helps me over the ledge into the powdery snow outside his first-floor window. Twisted iron bars dripping with icicles fence the building in. The street beyond is wet and steamy. Gray sludge rolls in mounds in front of a large, historic-looking building that’s all pointy towers and wrought iron and lots and lots of barred windows. The air is so cold, my nose and ears and fingers contract.
