“Time for bed,” said Mother Hemlock, coming closer. “Time for you to sleep like good little girls.” Her voice was gentle now. “I won’t even put you in the closet. Just lie down.”
“No!” Gretel screamed, looking up. “No, I don’t want to.”
Ollie charged straight at Mother Hemlock, hoping to get past her, maybe go down the basement stairs again. Something. But a large cold hand grabbed her arm as she ran past.
“Troublesome girl!” said Mother Hemlock. “Go to sleep.”
To her horror, Ollie felt her eyelids growing heavy. She turned to look at Gretel. Gretel stared back at her, desperation in her face. Frost was stealing up over her eyes, sealing them shut. Ollie screamed when she felt the frost creeping up over her own face.
“Go to sleep,” said Mother Hemlock. “Soon you’ll be ours forever, and I’ll have done all he wanted. He’ll give me this place to be mine forever. Just sleep till dawn.”
No, Ollie screamed. No, I won’t. You can’t make me.
But she realized she was only screaming in her head. No sound came out. Her eyelids were heavy as marbles. She felt herself sinking to the floor. Dad, she thought, right before a thick sleep claimed her, I’m sorry. I hope Coco and Brian are okay. I tried. I really tried.
Then she thought, If I was stuck here, like Gabe, maybe I would have done it too.
And finally she thought, Mom?
Then nothing.
16
COCO THOUGHT SHE saw a door in the basement wall. Just caught a tiny glimpse of a narrow door with a tarnished handle. Her triumph didn’t last long. Just as she reached for it, the oil lamp went out and the glass part shattered, sending shards everywhere, cutting her fingers. Coco gasped and nearly dropped the lamp.
It was completely dark now, and her lamp had broken out of nowhere. What had happened? Coco froze. Listening, since she couldn’t see. But this time she heard nothing. There was no cold breeze, no strange voice, no footsteps. Why had the lamp broken? Coco wished she’d grabbed matches from the lobby desk earlier, like she’d seen Ollie do, so she could relight it.
Well, at least she’d found the door before her light went out. She was just going to have to climb in the dark. Coco took a tighter grip on her broken oil lamp, unwilling to leave even the possibility of light behind. Groping ahead, she opened the basement door and started stumbling her way up the stairs.
There was no light. None at all; she had to climb by touch, feeling the steps with her toes, straining her ears. Her imagination turned every creak of the staircase into another person’s footsteps and every hiss of her clothes into ghostly, whispering voices. Coco wiped her palms on her flannel pants and kept going, gritting her teeth. It was the worst possible situation for a clumsy person. The staircase was very narrow, and the steps seemed to be all different heights. She kept catching her feet painfully on taller-than-expected steps and almost falling.
It didn’t help that her toes and fingertips were numb. The lodge was freezing.
She was so busy concentrating on not stubbing her toes that the door at the top took her by surprise. In fact, she ran into it face-first with a bang and nearly knocked herself out.
She almost fell backward down the stairs, caught herself, and then just stood there in the dark for a second, panting. She tasted blood, realized that she’d split her lip on the door. She thought a couple of very bad words. Then, scowling ferociously, she put her hand on the doorknob and came stumbling out.
She stopped short in surprise. She’d come through the door into her and Ollie’s room.
“Okay,” she muttered. “That’s weird.” Then the sound of her own voice made her jumpy, so she didn’t say anything else. She tried the light switch. Didn’t work. Figured.
But Coco could still see just fine. The room was full of moonlight. After the inky darkness on the stairwell, the moonlight was bright enough to make her blink. The storm must be over. Stepping cautiously, she crossed the room and threw wide the half-closed curtains. Beyond the window was the huge sweep of mountain and trees and ski lift, and the huge heaps of snow, still and sparkling. Coco took a deep breath. It was good to see the sky.
Then she noticed that, even with the curtains wide open, the moonlight fell in stripes across the room, as though there were bars across the window. But there weren’t.
Coco spun, looking around the room. The moonlight was bright, but tricky; she had to squint into the corners, looking for anything out of place. Like a shadow with nothing there to cast it.
But everything seemed normal. Her and Ollie’s stuff was on the floor, Ollie’s spread out and messy, the way they’d left it that morning. The sight hurt. Coco clenched her fists and kept looking.
Then movement caught her eye. Coco’s head jerked up. Something was moving in the big mirror over the dresser. Coco went closer. “Ollie,” she whispered. Ollie was in the mirror. She was standing, facing gray-faced Mother Hemlock. Behind her stood the guy in the ski mask. Gabe. He was blocking the door. Keeping Ollie in the room.
He wasn’t helping Ollie, Coco thought in rising horror. He was helping Mother Hemlock, helping Seth.
He’d betrayed them.
Coco watched as Ollie tried to dart past Mother Hemlock. But even as she tried, Coco saw the ghost woman reach out and touch her friend, lightly, on the face.
Ollie tried to keep running. But she couldn’t. Her eyes got heavy; she stumbled and half fell, like she was falling asleep on her feet. Shaking, Coco saw a rime of frost creeping up Ollie’s face, sealing her eyes shut.
Coco remembered the frostbitten ghost girl at the top of the stairs. Knew what would happen to Ollie if Coco couldn’t get her out.
Ollie slumped to the floor, asleep. At least Coco hoped Ollie was asleep, and nothing worse. Coco had both her palms pressed to the glass in the mirror. “Ollie!” she screamed. “Ollie!”
But her friend didn’t twitch. Mother Hemlock had picked her up. She heaved Ollie into one of the rows of narrow beds. The moonlight had a strange blurring effect, flattening Ollie’s face, draining out Ollie’s personality, so that Coco wouldn’t have known which one was her friend at all, except for her curling hair.
“Ollie,” Coco whispered. Ollie didn’t look, though. She didn’t even twitch. No one looked, except for the skier. Gabe. He looked sadly up and straight out at her.
The watch beeped softly. Bleakly.
“They got her, didn’t they?” said Coco. “Seth and Mother Hemlock. Just like that.”
Two beeps. Slow and sad. YES.
Coco felt strangely calm. It was as though she’d burned through all her fear, of the dark, of everything, and now she was calm. Determined. No Ollie, no Brian. But she was still free. Gretel—the ghost girl Coco recognized from the stairs, from her nightmare—was being bundled into a bed next to Ollie. If only Coco could race out into the corridor, find the bones, and then come back and . . .
But then Coco thought, Hang on. Bones? Gabe had told them about the bones. Gabe had betrayed Ollie.
Why was she trusting anything Gabe said? Maybe she didn’t need bones at all. Maybe—
Torn, Coco looked back into the mirror and recoiled.
Right on the other side of the glass was Mother Hemlock. Watching Coco.
She smiled at Coco. Tapped the glass of the mirror. Her lips moved, and though Coco couldn’t hear her, she saw what Mother Hemlock was saying.
Soon.
Coco wanted to say something brave and clever. But she couldn’t really think of anything. She was cold and tired and alone and most desperately scared.
But even as she stared into Mother Hemlock’s dead face, she was still thinking. Seth hadn’t wanted her to have Ollie’s watch. He hadn’t wanted her to have the Ouija board either. He’d come into the basement and taken the board back. But why? If he wanted Gabe to lie to her, tell her the wrong things, then why take the board aw
ay again?
Coco thought of Gretel’s bones. They’d heard a lot about Gretel’s bones. From dreams, from Gabe.
But she couldn’t trust Gabe.
Maybe Seth, Coco thought, wanted her to be chasing Gretel’s bones until dawn.
But if not the bones, then what?
Coco thought of the world behind the mist. To get back from there, they’d needed something that existed on both sides. They’d used a book called Small Spaces. That was why having Gretel and her bones to open the mirror had seemed reasonable to Coco. Because Gretel was something—someone—who existed on both sides.
But what if it didn’t have to be Gretel and her bones? What if it could be . . .
That was when Coco noticed it.
Just peeking out from under Ollie’s bed. The oil lamp. The oil lamp that had broken in her hand down in the basement. It had fallen. It lay on its side, just showing, halfway under Ollie’s bed. It was broken too.
It was on both sides of the mirror, Coco realized. Like the Ouija board.
There is a way to win, Seth had said.
Coco tried to remember everything she’d seen when Ollie went through the mirror the first time.
Two things reflected in both sides of the mirror.
One of them was the fire.
Coco thought. And she thought. She glanced down at the watch. Glanced back at sleeping Ollie.
But before she could make up her mind, Seth appeared in the mirror beside Mother Hemlock.
“Well,” he said composedly.
Coco actually heard his voice. Not from the mirror. Coco spun around. He was standing in the middle of her room, her side of the mirror, hands in his pockets. “Well, that’s that,” he said. “She’s not coming back through now, even if you open the way. She’ll sleep until dawn. It didn’t go too well for you tonight, did it? Despite the thing on your wrist. Although it has been delightful watching you try.”
Coco didn’t say anything.
Seth raised an eyebrow at the row of beds in the mirror, at Ollie in one of them. “Olivia is really too trusting. First Mr. Voland, then that boy in the ski boots. Really. A little mistrust, and she wouldn’t be in this mess at all.”
“Where’s Brian?” asked Coco.
Seth grinned at her. “Lost,” he said. “You’d be surprised where the doors lead in this lodge tonight. He certainly has been surprised. I made sure he got lost and stayed lost. I doubt you’ll find him before dawn. If you like,” he added, with a kindly air that made Coco feel faintly sick, “you can give up now. Go through this minute, go to sleep on the bed next to your friend, and you won’t even notice the dark.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” said Coco. “It’s not dawn yet.”
“No,” he said. “But soon.”
Coco said, “Are you going to shove me through the mirror right now?”
“Where would the fun be in that?” He had dimples when he smiled. Somehow the fact that he was enjoying himself made it all a lot worse.
“Fine,” said Coco. “Then I’m leaving. I’m going to figure out how to save Ollie.” She turned for the door. Realized that there were now three doors leading out of the room. She stopped and looked back.
Seth laughed. “Do as you like. You can play my games until dawn, if you wish. But then—through the mirror.”
And then he was gone. Not like disappearing in a puff of smoke or anything. No, just, one second he was there, and Coco blinked and then he wasn’t.
17
WELL, THIS IS DUMB was Coco’s first thought. It wasn’t like she was stuck in the bunk room. She had the watch. All she had to do was ask it to beep when she stood in front of the correct door. She could get away from the horrible sight of Ollie asleep, eyes frozen shut.
But—Coco had an idea. It was a very risky idea. But it was the only one she could think of. She just needed the answers to a couple of questions first. She thought she knew how to get them. Maybe, she thought, Seth had made a mistake when he had the basement stairs lead up to this room. Probably he’d wanted her to see that mirror, to see what had happened to Ollie, so Coco would get scared.
Coco was scared. But she had an idea.
She dove for her stuff, still scattered on the bunk room floor. She scrabbled among her belongings, came up with a marker and paper. “I’m going to ask a couple of questions. After each question, I’m going to read out the alphabet,” she told the watch. “Stop me at the right letters, to spell out an answer.”
The watch beeped twice.
Coco asked, talking as softly as she could, barely moving her lips, in case Seth was listening, “How do I wake up Ollie?”
She started reading the alphabet. All around, the lodge was completely, utterly still. Coco didn’t like the stillness. It felt like there were eyes in the shadows. Watching. Waiting.
CAL HER BY NAME, said the watch. BUT U MUST BE ON HR SID MROR.
That was what Coco had been afraid of. She took a shaky breath.
Next question.
“Are you a part of Ollie?”
She started reading the alphabet again.
ALWAYS, said the watch.
“Okay,” said Coco. “Then I know what I’m going to do.”
18
COCO STARTED TO CRY. It wasn’t hard. She’d had a lot of tears pent up inside her. She fell to her knees and sobbed, staring at Seth’s stupid three exits, the three doors that—maybe—led from the bunk room. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t. Please. Please stop. I don’t want to play anymore.”
Next second, the left-hand door to the room flew open and Brian came stumbling in, wild-eyed. He saw Coco.
“Coco!” he cried. “I ran down the hallway. I ran and I ran and finally got to a door, but it just opened into the kitchens, or closets, or the Wilsons’ living room . . .” He was shaking, wild-eyed. “And I couldn’t find you.”
Coco hugged him tightly. It’s working, she thought, heart hammering. The smiling man would only let Brian find her if he thought she was beaten. He liked to gloat; he’d want to gloat in front of them both.
Maybe he was right, and they were beaten. After all, Coco only had the one impossible idea. But at least she and Brian could try it together. She was so glad to see her friend. “It’s not over yet,” she said as softly as she could. But she let the tears pour from her eyes.
“Are you okay?” Brian asked in alarm, seeing her sob.
Coco didn’t answer; she had her eyes on the shadows of the moonlit bunk room. One of the shadows, she noticed, was human-shaped. She raised her eyes to the mirror and Gabe was standing there just behind Mother Hemlock. Both ghosts were watching them. Mother Hemlock looked gleeful. Expectant. Gabe just looked sad.
Brian looked up, following Coco’s gaze. He recoiled from their dead, stiff faces.
Inside, Coco was tense as a spring. But on the outside, she let herself keep on crying. “I’m sorry, Brian,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t find Gretel’s bones. I’m so sorry.”
Brian just stared at her, bewildered. “No,” he said. “What bones? It’s okay, it’s not dawn yet. We’re not beaten, we’re not.”
In chess, there was a move called a feint. The opposing player makes an aggressive move on one part of the board, to draw your attention. Like Coco had done with her queen when she played chess with the smiling man. The thing about a feint is it’s just a trick. A ploy. A way to mask a much more subtle, simple, and straightforward attack somewhere else.
So Coco let herself cry. She was pretty sure it was what Seth was expecting her to do. Just a little pink-haired girl crying.
Ollie’s watch felt cold under her fingers.
Coco kept crying. But, quickly, she pulled off Ollie’s watch, handed it to Brian. “Don’t follow me,” she whispered, between sobs. “That lamp”—she jerked her chin at the oil lamp—“is going to light in
a second, I hope. Make sure it doesn’t go out.”
Brian stared at her tearstained face. She gave him a fierce stare. He’d trusted her during the chess game. This wasn’t chess.
Or maybe it kind of was.
Brian, without saying a word, just took the watch and nodded once.
Coco turned back to Gabe. Quickly and quietly, she said, “If you were ever a person, ever even a little bit of a good person, answer me: Ollie has matches, doesn’t she?”
Gabe stared at her. He still looked guilty. Then he nodded.
“Where?” Coco demanded.
“Front pocket,” he whispered.
They didn’t have time for more. Seth swept into the room. “Change your mind?” he asked airily. Coco still had tears on her face. It was no effort at all to keep on sobbing.
“I give up,” she whispered. “We give up. I’m tired of being scared. I don’t want to be scared until dawn. Can I—can I go through now? I want it to be over. Please. I just want it to be over.” Coco buried her face in her hands and cried shrill, desperate, beaten tears.
“Surprising,” said Seth. “Despite your appearance, I thought you’d have more backbone.”
Coco just let her eyes fill again. “Please,” she said. “Please, enough.”
Brian was staring at Coco, and the horror in his voice wasn’t faked when he said, “Coco, what are you doing?”
“I just don’t want to be scared anymore,” said Coco. “If we go through the mirror, we’ll just sleep on a bed, just like the other ghost children. They’re not scared. Like Ollie.” She waved at the mirror, saw Brian catch sight of Ollie and bite his lip so hard it bled. “We won’t be scared when we’re sleeping.”
“I won’t!” snapped Brian. “I won’t go through the mirror! You can’t make me!”
Seth said, “I fear that you will find that I can. After all, that was the price of losing.”
“Don’t be scared,” said Coco. “Soon we won’t be scared at all.” She gave Brian a long look. She couldn’t say trust me, but she tried to let her eyes say it for her.
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