The Hotel Between

by Sean Easley

  I gotta quit thinking about it, or it’ll make me angry and tip off the Hotel heart-readers or whatever it is that can sense people’s intentions. If Dad was working with Stripe to stop the Hotel, then he must have discovered something important that could help. Maybe in finding him, we could also help the children.

  Unfortunately, I don’t know how, and I don’t have long to learn before my time here runs out.

  The hubbub of the lobby swirls around me. People knocking at the doors, bellhops coining luggage carts, kids laughing and running around statues.

  I stand up, close my eyes, and breathe in the Hotel’s air, waiting for something. Anything. Lead me, O great coin.

  Nothing.

  So I walk the lobbies. Maybe if I retrace Dad’s steps, the coin will . . . I dunno . . . float? Shine? I’d take anything to point me in the right direction.

  As I explore, I notice differences between some of the lobby knockers. Many doors on the outer wall have signs that read OUT OF ORDER instead of the location they’re bound to. Those knockers look darker, dingier, as if the color’s been sucked out of them.

  Between the Eastern European Lobby and the Asiatic Lobby, I find a display covered in brochures. Mixed in with rows and rows of see-the-sights-ofs and enjoy-the-luxuriousnesses stands a row of safety pamphlets. There’s nothing I love more than a good safety pamphlet. The doctors have sent all sorts of guidebooks and diagrams home with Cass over the years to make sure we know what to do in case of emergency. I’ve read them all.

  I thumb through one of the foldouts titled “In Case of Pin-Failure.”

  1. In the event of a failed hinge-pin, Hotel staff must evacuate all guests to the Mezzanine. Locate your nearest map-board and follow the instructions.

  2. If you find yourself at the location of the pin emergency, do not panic. Notify the nearest doorman immediately. Again, ushering guests to the Mezzanine remains first priority.

  3. If a doorman cannot be found, please contact the facilities workshop to notify them of the pin emergency.

  4. If you find yourself trapped in the pin emergency, do not panic. Locate your nearest map-board, and follow the designated path. . . .

  Whatever this pin-failure thing is, it sounds terrible. I pocket the pamphlet to read more thoroughly later, and continue through to the Asiatic Lobby.

  I run my fingers around the granite pillar at the end of the staircase, taking in the pearl inlay in the tile. Red satin falls in waves from the ceiling. The hanging lanterns, the woman plucking out a soothing song on an unfamiliar instrument as people laugh and talk . . . it all seems unreal. Amazing. It’s easy to forget that dirty secrets lie hidden behind all this glamour.

  I insert my coin into the slot on the nearby map-board, and the gleaming ink curls and twists, drawing the framework of the Hotel. A shimmering line weaves between the doors, showing where I’ve been, and forming a banner across the top with the words, “Find Your Destination.”

  But the ink doesn’t stop there. Intricate embellishments swirl in from the corners. Sharp lines and cross-hatching form a face. A man’s face.

  I start to pull back, but something about that face stops me. I know those eyes. I’ve seen them in the mirror when I’m brushing my teeth, and in the pictures I keep under my bed.

  It’s Dad.

  I trace his jawline with my finger. Nico said the map-boards sense where I want to go. . . .

  The board draws another face on the opposite edge, this time with a body to match. It’s Cass. Only she’s not in her wheelchair. She’s walking, redrawn frame-by-frame, putting one foot in front of the other. She looks so healthy, spirited in the ink. It’s strange, seeing her like this. Even after the surgeries to straighten her clubbed foot, she’s never been able to walk. I know she’s happy, but I’ve always selfishly wished she could run and play like I can.

  More images pop across the page, but I can’t stop looking between these two. This is why I’m here. My “destination.”

  And the Hotel knows it.

  I yank my coin from the slot and step back. Everyone keeps saying the Hotel has a will of its own. Using the coin let it see what I want . . . who I am. Does the Hotel really know why I’m here? No, that’s ridiculous. It’s just a place.

  Get out.

  I glance up to see the security cameras in the corners of the lobby. The maids are watching. Tracking me. Rahki bound my face to the wall on the slightest suspicion I might be with the Competition. What will they do when they find out who I really am, and why I’m here?

  • • •

  I get my chance to ask my mounting questions later, when we meet back in Sev’s room on the twenty-first floor. The barn-like smell of wood shavings and Sev’s jars and jars of dust makes me sneeze as I fill him and Nico in on what happened in Budapest, and Stripe’s note.

  “Binding a door with a pin-sleeve,” Nico says, shuffling a deck of cards on Sev’s bed. The snow-dusted cathedral fills the window behind him. “Now there’s something I’ve never seen. Good thinking. If you can get Rahki to trust you, your job’ll be that much easier.”

  “Because she is never going to like Nico,” Sev jokes.

  Nico blows him a raspberry.

  “So,” I say, taking my time to find the right words, “does that mean you guys are the Competition?”

  “Yep,” Nico says.

  I’m not sure whether his cool admission is comforting or troubling. “Rahki told me the Competition wants to stop the Hotel. She thinks you’re bad.”

  Sev hmphs.

  Nico scowls at him. “We’re here to protect people, whatever the cost.”

  But that sounds exactly like what Rahki wants to do. “Where does the Maid Service take those kids?” I ask. “What do they want with them?”

  “You do not want the answer to that question,” Sev says, focused on the small stick he’s whittling with his knife.

  “Yes I do. Come on! Is this your task? Stopping the Hotel from stealing kids?”

  “Shh.” Nico shakes his head.

  I’m getting tired of being shushed, though. “Just tell me. Did my dad know what the Hotel was up to? Did he figure out a way to stop them?”

  “You’d have to ask him,” Nico says. “Finding him is your only job here. If you do that, you’re doing more to stop them than anyone else.”

  It’s a dodge, but at least I know who’s who now. It seems Dad trusted Stripe, and that’s enough for me. When I find him, he’ll be able to tell me all the things no one else is willing to. If I find him.

  Sev gives Nico a side-glance, and returns to his whittling. He’s so laid-back, working the wood as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. With every swipe of his knife I can’t help picturing what would happen if he missed and sent the blade through his finger. Every once in a while he rubs dirt from a nearby jar into the wood, which soaks the soil up like a sponge.

  “Rahki said the magic’s in the pin,” I say, when I realize he’s carving another one.

  “Magic is in life,” Sev says. “In the life of many things. Earth. Plants. Blood. Nico explains better. He is more sensitive to the binding than anyone I have met.”

  Nico leans back and shuffles the deck into the air. “Binding comes from life,” he says. “It’s a strong connection tethering one thing to another. Not many sources of binding are strong enough to feel it, though. You find it a lot in people, especially families—the magic of trust and dependence binds us together.”

  I point at the pin Sev’s sanding. “But that’s not a person.”

  Nico fans the cards and twists the deck like a master magician. “To make the doors work, you need something more than just natural binding between people. Trying to get that much magic out of a person is . . . dangerous.”

  “It is evil,” Sev corrects, staring him down.

  I swallow. Is the Hotel making pins out of kids?

  But Nico waves Sev off. “Point is, getting enough magic out of a person to bind a door would make that person . . . less than
themselves.” He drops the deck and holds up a block of old, gray wood. “So we use this instead.”

  “This wood is special.” Sev runs the sandpaper gently over the pin’s smooth surface. “From special tree. Its magic winds through the Hotel like tree roots.”

  Like the tree from my dreams. And the symbol that’s all over the Hotel. Only this wood’s gray, like Cass’s coin.

  “Too bad the tree’s lost,” Nico adds. “All we have now are these old remnants.”

  “What happened to it?” I ask. “Did it die?”

  “It got pinched.”

  I give Nico a confused look.

  “You know. Pinched.” He sighs. “Filched, swiped, stolen, whatever you want to call it. Someone took the whole Greenhouse over a decade ago, and the Vesima tree with it. Apparently the Hotel’s been going downhill ever since.”

  “You can’t just steal a place.”

  “You can if the only way to reach it is through the binding.” Sev eyes down the length of his pin. “All you have to do is pop the pins.”

  “No,” I say. “You could just go back to where the Greenhouse is in the real world and re-pin it. Right?”

  Sev glances up. “Not if you do not know where to look. Some places are so hidden, the binding is the only way to reach them.”

  Nico checks his watch. “We gotta go, kiddo. Afternoon errands call.”

  “Before you leave . . . ” Sev tosses him another secret look.

  “Oh yeah,” Nico says. “Almost forgot.”

  Sev pulls a long, needle-sharp stick from his desk drawer. “Let me see your hand, Cameron.”

  I scoot back. The way the pointed tip of the needle shimmers makes my shoulders itch. “Uhh, why?”

  Nico rolls his eyes. “Just do it.”

  “Nuh-uh. Last time someone asked for my hand, they bound my fingers together.”

  “Pshh.” Nico snags my wrist and holds my palm out to Sev, fingers spread.

  My heart races. I try to break free, but Nico holds me firm. “Let go!”

  “It’s just a touch. Be still.”

  Sweat beads on my forehead. Sev’s brown eyes darken. He focuses in on my finger and pricks the tip with the needle.

  “There.” Sev touches an eyedropper to the tiny bubble of blood that rises on my fingertip, and sucks a drop into the glass. “Done.”

  Nico releases me.

  I rub my wrist. “What was that for?”

  Sev holds out his open palm. “Hand me your father’s coin, and I will show you.”

  I untie the necklace begrudgingly and hand it over. “You people are weird.”

  “I will consider that a compliment.” Sev takes the coin and the eyedropper to his worktable. “The coin only wants to reveal its secrets to its true owner. This coin still knows it does not belong to you, so it is hiding all that it knows. We must strengthen the binding between you and the coin to speed up the process, and reveal those memories.”

  My binding. My blood. The stuff that connects me to Dad, and Cass, and Oma.

  I rub my wet finger. “You could have asked.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Nico winks.

  Sev drips my blood onto the coin and rubs it with his finger. The back side of the disc sparkles like rubies, and I hear the crack of a door opening in my head as the glow fades.

  “That’s it?” I say, hanging Dad’s coin back around my neck.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “One more thing,” Sev says as Nico pulls me toward the door. He hands me the pin he’s been working on. “This is for you. It might get you out of trouble. Iz dvukh zol vybirayut men’sheye. If all options are bad, choose the one that hurts least.”

  The pin is perfect. Smooth. Exact. Just like the ones Nico and Rahki have.

  “Don’t I also need one of those little gun-thingies?”

  Nico laughs. “The plugs aren’t magic or anything. There are lots of ways to pin a door.”

  Sev grips my shoulders and looks me in the eye. “Do not use it unless you have to. Think of it as . . . a way out.”

  Orban’s words reverberate in my head. Get out. Get out.

  I nod, then slide the pin into the bottom pin-sleeve on my shirt as Nico drags me out to do more work.

  13

  To Your Statues!

  I’m twisting and winding my way from the moss-covered rocks of Scotland to the crowded streets of Cuba. From Cuba to the temples of Laos. From Laos to the ancient stones of Israel, to the city- covered hills of Morocco. I know all these places, because I’m not me. I’m . . . someone else.

  And I’m afraid.

  I feel the coin in my pocket. I hate this coin. It’s brought nothing but trouble. But soon I’ll be free of it.

  Every hall and door takes me further from who I want to be. These sparkling halls are claustrophobic. This is no longer my grand adventure. But I made a deal. All I have left is this one last job, and it’ll be okay. Melissa will be okay.

  I’m in a staff elevator, pressing the button for the fourth floor. Cold wind from the Shaft chills me to the core.

  It’s all happening so fast. Panic washes over me. Someone’s with me. Her long, silky hair. Her scent—like blueberries. Beautiful Melissa, my light in this pit.

  She’s close, and then she isn’t. She’s being pulled away. Her face shrinks into the darkness.

  A loud crack, and a burst of wind. Agapios stares back at me.

  And the doors open.

  • • •

  I wake up groggy and exhausted. This could be from the endless list of errands Nico and I ran last night, or the weird dreams I’ve been having ever since Sev bound my blood to Dad’s coin a few days ago, but my brain is spinning and I can barely open my eyes. I’m not even sure that I want to, because Mom’s still hiding behind my eyelids. All of her this time . . . not just a picture. I drift in and out of consciousness, searching for her on the edge of sleep.

  Nico’s as chipper and loud as always when he shows up to help me get dressed, and I kinda hate him for it. Okay . . . maybe hate’s a strong word, but I really, really dislike him right now.

  “Hold your arms out,” he says, draping the suspenders over my shoulders.

  Even the Easter-colored Warsaw buildings outside my window make me yawn. “I don’t wanna go. I wanna sleep.”

  Nico cinches the suspenders, and a shot of pain zips through my chest. “Not a chance. If you don’t work, the Old Man will boot you, and you’ll never find your dad. Only six days left, remember?”

  But I can’t do another day like yesterday. I won’t survive it. I’ll die of exhaustion, and Nico will have to cart my body back to Oma and tell her, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Cameron just couldn’t cut it.”

  I glance over at my growing stack of postcards for Cass and Oma. I’ll have to send them this afternoon, before I get too many more. Either that, or stop getting them everywhere our errands take us. It’s nice to be able to let them know I’m okay and haven’t run away or been kidnapped, but I wish I could hear from them in return.

  Last night Nico and I bought chocolate from a shop in Brussels that looked like Willy Wonka’s dream world. We purchased Broadway tickets under the flashing screens of Times Square in New York, and picked up a box of cigars in Havana at a sweet-smelling shop full of wood and leather (Nico tried to get me to open the box, but Oma would absolutely kill me if I went anywhere near something like that). We even arranged a gondola ride through Venice. I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that one, since Nico tried to push me into the canal as a joke.

  My feet moan as I slip my Chucks on. “What’s on the fourth floor?” I ask through another yawn.

  Nico stops. “Why?”

  I haven’t told him about my dreams yet, despite having every opportunity. Work at the Hotel these past few days has been grueling, but whenever we’re not working Nico and I are usually hanging out. I’m glad for the time with him. He’s got so many stories, and he always seems like he enjoys hanging out with me. With me! The boy no o
ne wanted to hang out with. I’m even starting to get used to his pranks. He still refuses to talk about his task, though.

  “Sounds like binding your dad’s coin really worked,” he says after I relate three days’ worth of sleeps. “The coin would reveal the strongest and more recent memories first, so maybe what you saw has something to do with his disappearance.” He stops to think. “But I don’t know what’s on the fourth floor. . . .”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s out of order. Has been for as long as I’ve worked here. It’d take a topscrew to get in.”

  “A what?”

  “Topscrew. A master key, like the ones the MC and the Old Man have. Topscrews open any door bound to the House.” He watches my face, squinting as if he’s thinking through a difficult math problem. “Hmm. I’ve got an idea. It’d be dangerous though.”

  Whenever Nico starts talking about danger, I know I need to tread carefully. “Dangerous, how?”

  He shrugs. “All you need to do is nab a topscrew. So it’s simple really.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like I can just take one from the Maid Commander.”

  “Not the MC.” He grins with mischief. “The Old Man. He’s got an extra pearl topscrew in his key cupboard. And you’re gonna steal it.”

  • • •

  Nico and I use breakfast service as a planning session, discussing our options between guest deliveries in Dubai. I keep telling him he should be the one to pinch the key—I mean, topscrew—but he won’t hear of it.

  “You’ve got to learn to take risks, kiddo,” he says after our final stop. “This is the only way.”

  “Fine.” Arguing with him is like trying to stop a runaway train. “So then . . . you and Sev will create a distraction—but you won’t tell me what that is—and I’m supposed to . . . what? Sneak down to the sub-level, break into Agapios’ office, and steal the key? By myself?”

  “That’s about it.” Nico removes his coin from the breakfast cart, and the magic drains from it with a honey-colored shimmer. “The Old Man will never notice. I’ll talk to Sev about setting something up. Make sure you’re ready.”