Hunting November

by Adriana Mather

  She looks back out the peephole and cracks the door. She peers through the opening, looking in both directions. I count to five in my head. Ines turns, nods, and then steps into the hallway. We waste no time in following her. But the moment the door clicks shut behind us, my stomach flips. There’s no turning back. We’re in a Lion-run Strategia hotel, uninvited, and all the exits are potentially blocked by guards.

  We walk down the long hallway at a steady pace, my heart beating so loudly that I’m surprised Aarya hasn’t scolded me for it. Ahead of us is a grand curving staircase, and the closer we get to it, the more I wonder about my dad’s clues. Each one has been aimed at me but has ultimately been useless without my Strategia friends to help decode it. Was he trying to protect me by not letting me do this alone? But then again, if he wanted to protect me, wouldn’t he just tell me where he was and protect me himself?

  We make our way down the stairs toward a large elegant lobby that has a comfortable seating area, a bar, and the entrance to a restaurant. Scattered throughout are masked Strategia in gowns and tuxedos. I want to lift my skirt on the stairs, but I can’t risk revealing my boots or, god forbid, the edge of my jeans.

  We head toward the bar, scoping out the room as we go. On the far side is a red velvet rope. And in front of the rope is Hawk. I suck in a quick breath and hold it for a few seconds. Even though I’m wearing a mask and know it would be nearly impossible for him to recognize me across the room, I’m unnerved. Ash and I share a glance and I can tell he’s thinking what I’m thinking—bad effing luck.

  “What?” Aarya hisses as she grabs a spot at the far end of the bar where the drinks come out.

  I sit down next to Aarya, but Ines and Ash remain standing.

  “The crew leader is at the rope,” I say, keeping my voice down.

  Hawk greets two guests as they arrive, and they lift their masks. He takes a good look at them while a server offers them a glass of champagne. He gives a quick nod and moves on to ask the next guest to lift her mask.

  Aarya stares daggers at Ash. “Care to do anything else to make this harder than it already is? Maybe you want to streak across the room…or light a curtain on fire?”

  Ash winks at her and leans lazily against the bar. “We knew the crew would be a problem. I’m shocked that you’re shocked.”

  Aarya gives him a withering look.

  While some Strategia go straight to the velvet rope, others appear to be in no rush, casually chatting on couches and drinking at tables. And thankfully, there are also some clusters of non-Strategia to use as marks.

  I slip my hand in my pocket, searching out the keys on my phone, and type to Layla.

  Me: Entrance problems. Will update when in motion.

  “Far right, four-top,” Ash says, and I follow his eyes.

  Four non-Strategia men seem to be engrossed in conversation and drinking something of the whisky variety. There are enough empty glasses on the table to indicate they have been consuming a fair amount.

  “Agreed,” I say. “It’ll seem like they naturally drank too much.”

  Ines nods.

  And we wait, scoping out the room for other possible marks to create our diversion. But despite my best efforts, my eyes keep drifting to Hawk, and while I can’t hear what he’s saying, I’m certain he’s memorized the guest list, making him far more organized and savvy than I originally gave him credit for. I eye the champagne server standing next to him. From his uninterested expression and the fact that he keeps checking the clock on the far wall, my bet is that he’s not Strategia and is merely a hotel employee.

  “What about the champagne guy?” I say, and look at Ash.

  “I considered him, but spilling drinks isn’t enough to distract someone like Hawk,” Ash says.

  “It might work if it was part of our larger distraction,” Aarya says. “But we would have to get uncomfortably close. How sure are you that he won’t recognize you behind those masks?”

  “Look,” I say. “He’s speaking to each person individually. If we arrange it so that you and Ines are in front of us, it might work.”

  “My vote is yes,” Ines says, and we all turn to her. “I can unbalance the server if November can push the drinks toward Aarya.”

  “No problem,” I say. “And if our distraction doesn’t work, you can create a stink, Aarya, storm off to the bathroom, and we can regroup.”

  Aarya smiles. “Creating a stink is what I do best.”

  “So then we’re agreed,” Ash says, and we’re all quiet, the nervous kind of quiet that happens right before you step onstage or run a race.

  Next to Ash, the bartender preps a tray with four glasses and fills them with the same amber-colored alcohol the men at the four-top are drinking.

  Me: Get ready.

  I clasp Ash’s hand, passing him the small jar of Drunken Confessions ointment. Ines fluidly shifts her position so that she blocks him from the view of the rest of the room. Ash pulls a toothpick out of his pocket, unscrews the jar lid, and scoops out some of the clear goo. When the bartender turns to replace the alcohol bottle on the shelf, Ash swipes the toothpick along the bottom of the drinks where the glass is thicker and will hide the smudge. I’m assuming it’ll also make it less likely for the server to accidentally touch the ointment.

  Not a minute passes and a middle-aged woman dressed identically to the champagne server collects the tray with the four drinks. And just as we hoped, she delivers them to the table of non-Strategia men.

  We wait while the server removes the plethora of empties. I count the seconds off. Five seconds until the first man grabs his tumbler. Two more seconds before the next does the same. And four seconds after that until the last two join in. At which point the first man leans forward, bracing the table and drooping his head. Hole in one. The second man, also losing control over his movements, overgesticulates and knocks the leaning man’s glass right off the table. It lands with a loud crash, shattering on the shiny stone floor.

  The lobby crowd turns to look, including Hawk, and the server rushes to get something to clean it up with.

  The first man tries to stand, clearly annoyed with the second, but he only makes it halfway out of his chair before he grabs the table awkwardly. His weight tips it, sending the remaining glasses sliding into him, and everything crashes to the floor.

  “Now,” Ines whispers, and we walk at a casual pace toward the velvet rope, pausing briefly to observe the chaos in order to blend with the rest of the room.

  We approach the rope, Ines and Aarya side by side and Ash and I behind them. I force myself to relax with each step we take toward Hawk, unclenching my hands and lowering my shoulders.

  The table of men has two servers at it, nervously trying to clean up the mess. I hear one of them tell the men that they’re cut off, and everyone involved is getting increasingly loud.

  “If you’ll only follow us…,” the male server says.

  “I will not!” one of the men replies indignantly. “I’m not done here.”

  “I’m afraid you are done,” says the female server.

  In my pocket I type Now into my phone and press Send, only hoping that Layla and Matteo succeed in distracting Eddie and Willy out front.

  We stop near Hawk, who gives Aarya a quick glance. “Welcome,” Hawk says in his scratchy voice, momentarily looking toward the drunken argument. “Please remove your masks and help yourself to a glass of champagne.”

  “Do you know who I am? Do you know how much money I spend in this hotel?” says one of the men in a booming voice. “You can’t kick me out. I’m not leaving.” I hear what I think is a chair crash behind me.

  Well, there’s the truth serum part of the ointment.

  “Take your hands off me!” exclaims the man.

  Hawk turns his attention back to the altercation, frowning.

  Ines re
aches for a glass of champagne, pulling it forward quickly and into the lip on the edge of the tray hard enough to unbalance it. The champagne server isn’t looking at Ines, he’s staring at the stumbling men like everyone else.

  “Watch out,” Ines says to the server, who immediately attempts to readjust the wobbly tray.

  I reach out in the same moment as though I’m trying to help, stepping forward and directly into his path. He trips over my ankle and I reach up, sending the almost-steadied tray flying, crashing into Hawk and soaking him and the hem of Aarya’s skirt.

  Hawk growls at the server like he might eat him.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what…Sorry,” the server says, trying to pick broken glasses off the floor.

  “Look at my dress!” Aarya says with annoyance, and my heart sinks. She must think we have no chance of getting past this rope.

  Hawk takes a handful of fast steps away from us. I hold my breath in hopeful anticipation as he grabs some cloth napkins from an empty table, but as he turns back in our direction, my chest deflates. Damn it. Before he can return, though, the argument at the table escalates. I look just in time to see one of the men lose his balance and crash into the male server, knocking them both to the floor.

  Hawk pulls his walkie-talkie off his belt. “Eddie,” he growls into it. He waits a beat, tries again, but there’s no immediate response. And in that moment I’m grateful to Layla. But I also feel a sense of pride, like maybe I’m better at being a Strategia than I originally thought.

  “Shit,” Hawk says under his breath, and my body tenses. I’m afraid to blink. Hawk turns toward the champagne server. “Leave that and go get one of the security guards from the front entrance.”

  The young guy stands and for a second I think Hawk is going to walk back to us. But he doesn’t; he heads toward the altercation. We don’t waste a second. We step around the rope and slip through the door.

  The ballroom is brimming with Strategia. I gulp. There must be more than three hundred people here. First thing I do is search for alternate exits. But unfortunately there is only one other door, above which is a small sign that reads WC in fancy script. I’m fairly certain it stands for water closet, which I’m guessing means it leads to the bathrooms, not an exit; to top it off, it’s guarded from the inside. And the windows are the large picture kind that don’t open, which means being discovered or causing a scene here would be disastrous.

  “How can I help?” Ash asks, breaking my train of thought.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I say, quickly taking in the details of the room, which is decorated in a winter wonderland theme.

  The high ceilings are strewn with white lights, looping into the center and hanging down like sparkly snow. Along the walls there are twinkling white artificial trees; the tables are laid out in all white with silver candelabras and fragile china, and a live band plays Christmas music.

  As we walk through the crowd and tables, a platform becomes visible with a single table on it. Perched behind that table like it’s a royal court sit three people in matching red-and-gold masks—an old man with silver hair that reaches his shoulders, who I can only assume is Jag; a woman with strawberry-blond hair in an elaborate braid, who must be Rose; and a young guy with a shock of white-blond hair.

  I look at Ash, giving him my best expression of shock from behind my mask, and his eyes reflect my surprise. I’m just glad most of my face is covered, because he doesn’t seem to realize that I already knew Brendan was here.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Aarya says, noticing him, too, and I can’t tell if she’s happy that she might get a chance to take him out or if she’s annoyed to have another obstacle.

  As they begin to discuss this development, I look away from my Lion relatives and force myself to study the room.

  “Okay, let’s see,” I say, more to myself than to anyone else. “My dad and I made decorations every year for the masquerade ball. So if I had to guess, whatever we’re looking for is connected to the decor.”

  “Was there a common theme for the decorations you made?” Ash asks, and the conversation about Brendan dies down.

  I shake my head. “It changed every year.”

  “Is there anything here that feels personal or like a coded message?” Aarya asks.

  “Maybe the trees,” I say. “I mean, I grew up next to a forest and we spent a lot of time in the woods, but there have to be at least forty trees in here and they are pretty uniform. So I’m not sure that’s it.”

  I scour the room, starting at one end and moving strategically to the other, looking for anything that sparks a memory or stands out. But like the trees, most of the decorations aren’t unique, just one of many scattered throughout the room. We weave in and out of the tables and I stop at one to get a closer look. The centerpiece for each table is a glass vase filled with white twigs, white flowers, and a branch of pinecones with white-painted tips. And surrounding the glass vase are tea lights and, at this table, a card with the number 32 written on it in calligraphy.

  They all stop with me as I stare at the decorations.

  “It’s not that there aren’t things here that are personal,” I say. “In fact, there are a ton of things. The fake snow—every single year my dad and I would get hot cocoa and sit outside on the first snowfall of the year. The pinecones—I decorated some in school when I was in third grade with glitter and googly eyes to look like me and my parents. And the trees, like I already said.”

  They all stare at me.

  “Gross,” Aarya says, and Ines elbows her. “What?” she says to Ines. “It’s ridiculous how sentimental she is.”

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Ines says, and there is something almost wistful in her voice.

  “Could the message be like your collages?” Ash asks me. “Some combination of all those stories?”

  I consider the idea. “My instinct is no,” I say. “Those pictures combined in a really specific way. These don’t. Not to mention that each of the decorations is replicated all over this room. This is table thirty-two and I would bet there are close to fifty in here with the exact same arrangement. It doesn’t make sense that my dad would have us go through fifty tables or trees just to hunt something down.”

  The band finishes playing their song, but instead of starting another one, they fall silent, and so does the room. Jag stands from behind the table on the platform, lifting his glass of champagne.

  “Family and friends,” he says in a deep voice. “We are so pleased you could join us on this special day.” His tone is confident and warm and he has a relaxed air about him that makes him easy to watch. I stop momentarily. How can someone so awful be so charismatic?

  Jag’s mask isn’t as concealing as ours, leaving half of his face visible. He has a strong jaw like my dad and the same even hairline. The similarities are unnerving.

  My dad places a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup on the coffee table in front of me where I sit on the living room floor, surrounded by library books detailing the origins of names by country and mythology, Latin root words, and linguistics.

  “Take a break and eat before your food gets cold,” he says, sitting down on the couch with a book of his own.

  “Mmm-hmm,” I say in agreement.

  “The name books will be there when you’re done,” he says, but I can hear the smile in his voice. He’s always encouraged me to immerse myself in new subjects, not merely to learn them but to dig deep and pull them apart piece by piece like a mechanic rebuilding an engine.

  “It’s just so interesting,” I say, shoving a bite of soup-dipped grilled cheese in my mouth and keeping my eyes on my book. “They all mean something—last names, first names. All of them. And once you get the hang of it, they’re pretty easy to decipher. Ask me a name, any name.” But before he can give me one, I start talking again. “Like for instance, your name is Engli
sh, but it stems from the late Greek Christophoros and it means ‘to bear’ or ‘to carry,’ which makes sense because you’ve always had a lot of responsibility. People’s names tell you something about them.”

  My dad puts down his book and listens; he always listens. “What if people don’t know the meaning of their own name—do you think the meaning ceases to be relevant, or does the meaning hold whether they know it or not?” he asks, and I look up from my reading to consider his question.

  “I’d have to say”—I pause, reviewing the names I know and the qualities of the people who have them—“they hold. Whether people know it or not, their name says something. Sort of like the difference between the words cinnamon and stink. Cinnamon just sounds happy and brings up an image of something pleasant, whereas stink just…stinks.” I down a spoonful of tomato soup. “So go ahead, ask me a name.”

  My dad thinks for a few seconds. “Hamilton,” he finally says.

  “Hamilton?” I say. “Like American history Alexander Hamilton?”

  “Like my father,” he says, and for a moment I’m taken aback. He never talks about his family. He told me once that his parents died before I was born and that he was never close with them. When I asked for more information, he just said there was nothing more to tell. I didn’t even know that was his dad’s name.

  “Your dad was named Hamilton?” I ask, curious. “Boy, are you lucky you got Christopher. You could have been Hamilton Junior.”

  “You have no idea how lucky,” he says, and even though he matches my smile, I can tell his heart isn’t in it.

  “Okay, Hamilton,” I repeat. “It’s derived from Old English, and hamel in Old English means ‘crooked.’ ”

  “Interesting,” he says.

  “Right?” I say, wholeheartedly agreeing.

  Jag sweeps his eyes across the room. “The appointment to Regent is not only a great honor but a great responsibility. Brendan is young but strong, like I was at his age,” he says. Brendan smiles at the praise, but not in the cocky self-confident way he would have at the Academy. This Brendan seems to be more reserved, almost shy.