by Suzy Cox
“You’ve got eternity on the other side of the Door—what’s a few more weeks here?” Lorna said.
“Plus you’re a brilliant asset to the Agency,” said Nancy, as always, all business. “Much as I hate to admit it, maybe we need someone who’s a bit more impetuous than I am around here and isn’t afraid to bend the Rules. Sometimes.”
“Oh. My. God. Did you just say the Rules aren’t always to be obeyed?” asked Lorna. “Nancy Anne Radley, I am so going to remind you of this the next time you’re all ‘Nooo, you can’t go into Barneys Co-op and start possessing girls just so you can know what it feels like to try on Lanvin.’”
“No! I didn’t mean that, I simply meant …”
As Lorna and Nancy carried on arguing, I quietly clicked my fingers, employing Edison’s Lifesaver trick to block out the sound of their—increasingly shrill, it had to be said—voices. See, not everything about Ed was bad after all. Pretentious, yes. Black, totally. Hot, uh-huh. But not bad. He would have to have been an utter saint not to have found a way to get some peace and quiet stuck in limbo with these two. The way he turned up on the roof to check that I was okay—that was kinda cool. Plus, if it wasn’t for Ed’s extra lessons, off curriculum as they’d been, Nancy was right—David would be somewhere very different now.
Like here, with me. I found myself hating the thought of that when, just days ago, being with David again was all I wanted. Or all I ever thought I did.
Being dead, I thought as I watched Lorna and Nancy silently squabbling, it wasn’t the end of the world after all. In that moment, it kinda felt like a beginning.
Chapter 32
I LEFT LORNA AND NANCY OUTSIDE AND SLOWLY walked back up the Attesa steps. As I came into the lobby with its checkerboard floor and red velvet drapes, I thought back to my first day here. Opening my eyes to see a bespectacled Nancy trying to be all serious, but unable to hide her concern, me not knowing where I was or how I’d gotten there. I’d felt so lost, so scared. Like I’d never find my place again.
Even now—now I had my Key—I shuddered at the memory.
“Wow. I’m not sure that I can do this. I’ve thought about this moment for so long and now it’s here, I’m actually having an attack of morality. I can’t get the stupid Rules out of my head …”
I did a rabbit-in-the-headlights stop. That was Tess’s voice, but she wasn’t talking in a tone I’d ever heard her use before. This wasn’t default Tess: snarky and dripping with I-don’t-care-if-you-vote-me-Least-Likely-to-Give-a-Shit. This was different. Really different. Tess sounded almost … unsure of herself. Scared about whatever she couldn’t do.
I looked around the lobby. Where was she? I could hear her, but I couldn’t see her. She must be tucked around the corner, standing by the only place out of my line of sight: the Big Red Door.
Right where I’d left my Key.
“Tess, come on,” said another lower voice. “You don’t need to do this. We can still find your killer.”
Edison. I was sure of it. But why was he … My stomach fell and my legs became weak. What were he and Tess discussing?
“Hayes, you know that—more than anyone—I cannot stand to watch another ghost go through the Door. And watching Little Miss Emo having this big afterlife crisis about whether to put her Key in the damn lock or not. It’s pathetic.”
Tess sighed loudly.
“But stealing her Key?” Edison said. “Sending yourself through the Door instead of her? Even I know that’s a whole big bag of wrong.”
Oh God.
“Whether you believe Nancy’s stupid Rules or not, we don’t know if it even would work,” Tess reasoned. “What if I tried to use Charlotte’s Key and it didn’t even fit in the Door when I held it? Or if I went through, then burned in some hellfire or whatever? Like I repeatedly tell those dimwits out there, we don’t know what’s on the Other Side. But it’s something really powerful, and whatever it is could have set up a booby trap for dead girls who steal Keys and don’t play along.”
I wanted to move. Desperately. I wanted to shout. I wanted to tell Tess that—no matter how she felt about me—she couldn’t be considering this. But I was glue-sticked to the spot. She couldn’t betray me like this. Please, no.
“It’s your decision, Tess.” Edison’s voice was measured, level. It was the same tone he’d used when he was teaching me the Jab and all those other tricks. “All I wanna point out is this: If you use her Key to go through the Door, she’ll be stuck here forever. Can you really do that to another person?”
“Hey! What’s with you?” Tess asked in an angry whisper. “I might be getting nervous, but I am going to do this. You know that. We had a deal.”
WTF?
“We never had a ‘deal,’” Ed said quietly. “I’m not some Wall Street asshole. I don’t make deals with anyone.”
“You promised that you’d help me to get out of here,” Tess said. “It’s been six years and I still don’t have a clue who killed me. Six years, Ed. SIX. The trail’s gone cold. The police gave up trying to find my murderer long ago.” Her voice caught. “You knew the plan—you were supposed to befriend her, make her trust you—then when she got her Key, you’d help me to get it. Of course the irony is that all your work was a waste of time—I didn’t bank on her being stupid enough to just leave it lying on a table where anyone could pick it up. Whatever, the point is that you promised to help me. So don’t get all ‘can you really do that to her?’ on me now. You have no right. You owe me that much.”
“Tess, please …” Edison sounded broken. “We’ve been through this. Sure, I might have played along with things at first, but I didn’t think you were seriously going to steal the girl’s Key. You can’t do this to Charlotte.”
Played along? So Tess was the reason why Edison had been showing me the ropes? My stomach lurched.
“No? Then what about what you did to me, Ed? You and your brother?”
I heard Ed pace across the floor. “We’ve replayed that night a million times, Tess. It was no one’s fault. I didn’t know you were going to be there.”
“Oh, come on. I always waited for Matt outside the restaurant after his shift ended,” Tess said. “I was his girlfriend. It was what I did.”
Wait, Tess had been dating Edison’s brother?
“Well, you shouldn’t have been there that night,” Edison snapped. “He should have called you, told you to stay away. He knew how dangerous that place was. That’s why I went on that final job in his place. If he cared about you he’d never have let you anywhere near it.”
“Thanks, Edison.” Tess’s voice was scratchy. “Out of all the things you’ve said to me since, that’s got to be one of the worst.”
Ohmigod, was I hearing this right? Tess was there the night Edison died? So Lorna was right after all. They had known each other when they were alive. Just not in a way any of us could ever have guessed.
“I’m sorry,” Edison said. “I’m sorry you were there that day and I’m sorry you looked through the window after the gunshot went off …”
“I heard a bang. I was worried about Matt. I didn’t know they’d hit you. I—”
“I’m sorry one of the gang thought you saw who killed me. And I’m sorry he shot you too.”
Oh. My. God.
“And I’m sorry—most of all—that Matt didn’t protect you in the first place by calling and telling you not to meet him that night,” Ed said quietly.
“I was in a coma for five days and he never visited.” Tess’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Five days. You remember? Those first five days you were here before me?”
“It would have been too dangerous for him, Tess, you know that …” Edison coughed quietly. “We’ve discussed this. Let’s not go over and over it all again. Please. Your death was a tragic case of wrong place, wrong time. I’m not the reason you’re still here, that you haven’t gone through the Door. So don’t try to use that as an excuse for what you’re about to do to her.”
“
But it is your fault,” Tess said, her voice stronger now. “If you’d just helped me trail the guys who Matt had worked for in my first days in the Attesa, we could have figured out who shot me—and you. I could have gotten my Key. We both could. But instead all you wanted to do was watch over your stupid, selfish brother and your mom.”
“I had obligations,” Edison said. “You could have taken up that Lyndsay girl’s offer of help.”
“Her? As if! What use was she with all her ‘read the Rules’ and ‘don’t disobey’? She was the original bossy boots. Worse than Nancy could ever be. No, Ed, me being stuck here is your fault.” I could imagine her slowly shaking her head, her brunette waves bouncing with every word. “I deserve a break. I deserve to leave. And I need you to get out of my way, so I can pick up Charlotte’s Key and go through the Door.”
“I can’t do that.” Edison’s voice was firm.
“Can’t? Or won’t? I don’t see why it matters to you what happens to some stupid new girl? She’s only been around a week—it’ll be years before she feels the way I do. What do you care anyway? You’re not usually this way with newb—Oh.” Her tone switched. “Oh, I see now.”
I heard Tess’s feet spin on the floor. She must be turning to face him full on. “You have feelings for her, don’t you?”
“No,” Edison said.
“Don’t lie. That’s why you showed up on the roof, isn’t it?” Tess ranted. “That whole white knight act wasn’t to back me up; it was because you didn’t want me stealing her Key! You were never going to help me, were you? All the cozying up to her, the extra lessons—they weren’t so you could gain her trust—you actually like Charlotte.”
There was a silence. I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear what would fill it.
“No, well, it started as that but … she’s different,” Edison said.
Was I? Tess sighed with frustration.
“You can’t take this from her.” Edison changed tack. “Look, what if we take a Key from the next one? Wait for someone evil? Someone who doesn’t deserve out of here?”
“I thought I had your word,” Tess said in a low voice. “Guess I was wrong.”
I heard a scuffle, the movement of feet, then scraping. Metal on wood. Which had to mean Tess was—oh no—picking up the Key. My Key. My only way out of this world. I might not want to use it yet, but that didn’t mean I never would. I couldn’t let Tess have it. I had to stop her.
I willed my legs to work and sprinted across the tiled lobby, skidding into the alcove where the Door was—just in time to see Tess putting my key into the hole. Edison stood frozen behind her. “Charlotte, this isn’t what it seems, we—”
I ignored him. “Tess, please, please don’t do this,” I said. My voice sounded like someone else’s.
Tess spun around. A pained look passed over her face. Her pupils were so large, her eyes looked black in the shadows.
“Charlotte. I guess I should have been ready for you to appear just at the wrong moment—as always.” She was trying to keep her voice steady, but it wobbled a little as she spoke. “It would have been much easier, for both of us, if you’d stayed away. You didn’t need to see this.”
“Tess, please.” I swallowed hard. “I know we haven’t been the best of friends, but this? You can’t go back from this. I heard you two talking …”
Edison’s eyes met mine, then darted to the floor.
“You know this is wrong,” I said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“No, you really don’t,” said a solid voice behind me. My backup girl. Nancy.
“Just put Charlotte’s Key back on the table,” Nancy said, in a determined tone I’d never heard her try on Tess before. “You can search for your killer again—and this time the three of us will be here to help. With all the things we’ve learned recently, I know we can find him or her.” Nancy’s eyes were kind, but her expression resolute. “There must be clues you’ve overlooked, leads we can look into, lessons we can learn from other cases.”
Furls of smoke began to slide under the bottom of the Door. The locked glowed.
“Plus, the last time you tried to solve your murder, I wasn’t around,” Lorna said, flanking me on the other side. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And, you know, I’m secretly the smartest one here.” She smiled, trying to lighten the moment, to show Tess that if she took my Key out of the lock now, we’d forgive her. It would be okay.
We stared at Tess. Not one of us daring to move. She was motionless: a stone statue holding a Key she didn’t dare turn, as three pairs of eyes bore into her, silently begging her to do the right thing.
The smoke danced across the white and black tiles, skipping over Edison’s feet.
“I can’t stay here forever,” she said to Nancy. “Watching dead girl after dead boy check into this hotel, get their Key, and leave. Watching the lucky ones go naturally when their time is right. Watching the Living I knew grow old, then move on. Watching all those people do what I’ll never do. Achieve what I never can. Get the hell out of here.”
The edges of the Door took on an amber glow, like the end of one of Edison’s cigarettes. I felt the floor beneath me gently vibrate.
“You won’t be here forever. I promise you.” I took a small step toward her. The Door hummed.
Suddenly I knew what I had to do. “If you return my Key, I won’t use it until we’ve found yours.” I knew what I was offering her, the terrible pact I could be making, but in that moment, I wanted to help. With my Key in her hand, I finally knew what it was like to be Tess. The hourly horror she must feel, knowing she could never complete what she came here to do.
Tess turned and looked at me. “Really, Feldman?” she asked, out of habit breathing hard. “You’d do that for me? You’d damn yourself to an eternity in limbo, just to help—when I’ve been nothing but horrible to you since you got here?”
“I would,” I said, staring her down, willing her with everything I had to drop my Key.
Her face became a mask. She tightened her grip on the metal fob and began to turn.
“Tess, please, I’ll help too,” Edison said. “I’ll do everything I can this time.”
Tess squeezed my Key in the lock. The Door started to gently tremble. A puff of green smoke shot out from under it. Tess gasped, as if suddenly aware of what she was doing.
She whimpered and jumped back like she’d been burned—with the Key in her hand and out of the lock.
The Door groaned as the smoke sucked back under it, like a vacuum cleaner in reverse. Instantly it returned to its usual painted hue. Tess collapsed onto the Attesa floor in a ball of sobs.
Maybe I should have walked out right there and then, given her the kind of speech I gave David or at the very least hit her. But suddenly hearing Tess’s cries, I knew I couldn’t. Instead I ran over and held her tight until she was all wept out.
“I had to be mean to you.” Tess was beginning to speak normally again now. “I knew if I started to like you even a little bit, I couldn’t go through with it. Guess I’m even lamer than I imagined.” She sniffed and gave me the ghost of a smile.
Lorna bobbed down and stroked Tess’s hair. “We’ll figure this out,” she promised, as Nancy joined the hug.
“Hey, Ghostgirl,” Edison said, breaking the mood.
I looked up and found his green eyes. “What?”
“A word.” He beckoned me to where he was now standing at the curtain’s edge. Nancy gave me a small nod and took Tess’s head from my lap to hers. I stood up and ducked behind the red velvet.
“Exactly how much of that conversation did you hear?” Edison asked as I reached him.
I pulled the curtain back an inch and looked at Tess sitting broken in Nancy’s arms. She seemed so fragile now. “Enough to know that you haven’t been totally honest with me.” I let the curtain fall back again and turned to face Ed. “But that you had your reasons and you tried to make it right.”
His eyes softened and he stared me down for a beat longer
than was necessary. I tried to move, to go back to the others, but my feet felt as if they were tacked to the tiles.
“And the very last part,” he said, leaning a little nearer, “were you close enough to hear that?”
My arms went weak and hundreds of bubbles formed in my chest. Was that a ghost thing or a girl thing? Maybe it was a side effect of my Key. I managed an uh-huh.
Edison’s palm found my elbow. I tried not to shudder. He broke my gaze and looked down. “Look, Charlotte, you’ve got a lot to deal with right now. You and the blond band boy … You have history. I get it. I saw how he was looking at you up on the roof. If you still want to—”
“No! Ed, I know the David thing looked bad.” I tried to move toward him too, but the air between us felt dense like sponge. “But after everything that’s happened, I really wouldn—”
Waaahhhh! Waaahhhh! Waaahhhh! The sound of a siren blasted through the lobby.
I shot back with surprise, almost tumbling over. Edison steadied me, pulling me back onto my leaden feet. The bubbles fizzed where my heart used to beat.
“Charlotte!” Nancy called out. We spun around and ran back to the other side of the curtain.
Nancy jumped to attention. “I hate to change the subject,” she said, looking down at Tess, “especially at a moment with quite as much gravitas as this, but it seems”—she pointed to a light flashing madly above the Attesa’s front desk—“that any second now we’re going to get a new arrival.”
Nancy grabbed my hand and quickly pulled me over to the old-fashioned mail chute at the front desk. I was too confused and beat and what just happened? to argue. Tess and Lorna followed behind.
A letter sealed with red wax appeared. Nancy tore it open.
“A seventeen-year-old girl’s just been murdered …,” Nancy said, skimming quickly, “coming out of the Hudson Library Bar, up by Central Park. According to this, someone deliberately pushed her in front of a cab. Oh! A bit like you, Charlotte …”
For such a star pupil you’d have thought Nancy—at some point before now—would have taken a lesson in tact.
