Another Pan

by Daniel Nayeri

  “OK, so then what?” John said.

  Peter sighed. “You say it aloud . . . and you have to be close to the book, as if you’re speaking the hour to it.”

  John began biting his lower lip.

  “Then”— Peter got up from his seat, walked toward the door, and turned the knob —“you just open a door — any door that’s closest to the book. You’ll know it because it will be marked with the Eye of Ra. But once you’ve opened the door, it’s an active portal until you shut it and the eye disappears.”

  “What if someone shuts the door while you’re inside?” asked Wendy.

  “You just say the name of the hour again,” said Peter. “You can open a portal pretty much anywhere inside the underworld. But you have to be careful, because every location in the underworld corresponds to a place in the overworld. So if you open a portal in one place, you end up in the matching spot.”

  “What’s the overworld?” said John.

  “For the moment that would be Marlowe,” said Peter. “See, the underworld melds itself to what’s above, like a parasite to a host, and replicates it. It’s sort of like . . . like an evil twin. Its parts match up with the school in some way. The biggest difference is that the underworld version is always bigger, much more dangerous, and a whole lot less . . . academic, let’s say.” He laughed at his own dumb joke.

  Wendy remembered the columns forming a clutter eerily similar to the basement from which they had entered the underworld. She remembered the lake of fire that had looked so much like the puddle and the electric cord. And of course, she remembered all the things inside Marlowe that had begun to look like the underworld — the dirty, grimy hallways caked with dead moths, the stone step, the marble column turning into mud.

  “We were in the basement,” she whispered.

  Peter nodded knowingly. “So you probably ended up in the base of the pyramid. It’s attached to Marlowe right now, but the Egyptian underworld is always shaped like an upside-down pyramid.”

  Wendy nodded, remembering all the stairs leading downward, into the dark void below, just like the steps in the basement that led up into the school. She didn’t want to think about the horrors that might lie dormant beyond the first layer of the underworld.

  “The main thing to remember,” said Peter, his voice a conspiratorial whisper, “is to watch for the eye over a door. You could look inside a room and everything could look completely normal, but if it has the eye over it, it’s the portal. And if you leave the door open, you’re just leaving the gateway open and inviting all sorts of nasty things in from the underworld. And it always starts with just a feeling. . . .” Peter looked around as if to signal what he meant — because everyone had been aware of the creepy change in atmosphere, the tainted air, in Marlowe over the last few days.

  “So once we fix the leak, everything will go back to normal, right?” asked Wendy.

  Peter shrugged. “Some things,” he said, as if he didn’t care.

  “Peter,” said Wendy, “when people come back to school tomorrow, they’ll see the step and the column and all that . . . ?”

  “You’d be surprised how little people notice,” said Peter. Then he added, “Don’t worry. The big things will fade away. But you can’t have your happy fairy-tale school back as long as the book is hidden here. The overworld only becomes more and more tainted the longer it’s attached to the underworld.”

  With that, Peter pulled the door open. Tina stumbled into the room, having been pressed tightly up against the closed door. She looked dissatisfied, clearly not having caught more than snippets. How strange, thought Wendy, that he doesn’t trust her with the secret of opening the gate. How strange that she still does what he says.

  Peter shook his head and clucked his tongue like a disapproving parent. “Hey, babe,” he said to Tina, sarcasm dripping from his lips. “Can’t even go a second without me?”

  Tina ignored the comment and pushed past him toward Wendy. “Can we do this already? I have disturbed advisees to counsel and condoms to hand out.”

  “Funny.” Peter turned to Wendy. “I need the book now. Whether she’s been out there for days or weeks, we still need to force her through a new gate.” The way Peter said she, with so much disdain and malice, signaled to Wendy that he had met this figure before. That he had a personal vendetta.

  “OK,” whispered Wendy, wondering how you force a shadow or a phantom through anything, and, more important, where she had seen that unearthly eye before.

  As they crept out of the classroom, they spotted the two LBs coming back toward them. One of them shook his head as if to say he didn’t see anything else.

  “OK, Wendy, lead the way.” Peter took Wendy’s hand with such ease that for a second she didn’t even realize it. But then, as his grip tightened, a warm feeling spread over her, like the first time Connor had kissed her.

  Tina made a disgusted sound with her throat. She grudgingly took her place out of the spotlight while Wendy led them toward the basement. The group shuffled along quickly but noiselessly, with only the occasional whisper of “Left here” or “Round that corner” dotting the silence. Soon they passed Wendy’s locker, and then halfway down the main corridor, one of the boys stopped in front of a floor-to-ceiling trophy case. “That douche still owes me for the game,” he whispered.

  “Stupid sport,” said Cornrow, also falling behind to look at the trophies and victory photos.

  From up ahead, Peter motioned for them to move, and they continued on.

  This time Wendy heard Cornrow whisper, “It’s that prick Connor Wirth’s fault. Too worried about his shrine getting tainted with a little side bet.”

  Every time Wendy heard boys from her school talking, she felt ashamed to even go here. None of them really appreciated Marlowe, with all its everyday excesses: the marble trophy case, the vending machines full of organic treats, the sign forbidding handheld devices, and the distance-learning lab full of flat-screen TVs. As they were making their way down the hall, a couple of girls from Wendy’s English class wandered past. They swayed along easily, carelessly, completely unaware of the chaos that was going on around them. They were in their cheerleading uniforms — stragglers who must have stayed late after practice. They glanced at the boarding boys invitingly. When they saw Wendy with Peter, they began whispering to each other. Wendy caught the words Connor and holding hands with an RA. One of them said loudly, “He’s too hot for her. She must be putting out.”

  Wendy turned to watch the girls walk away. They took a left turn at the end of the long corridor where the hallway branched in the shape of a T. As they ambled out of sight, their chattering heads close together, oblivious to everything around them, Wendy saw a long, elegant shadow appearing over their shoulders, a few moths fluttering behind it. One of the girls shuddered. She turned around as if she felt something behind her. She ran her hands through her hair, trying to remove some invisible pest. Without noticing their own reactions, the girls quickened their steps and left through the back door.

  “OK, another left here,” said Wendy. She rushed into the turn and immediately stopped. Halfway down the hall was her locker again. “Wait. Something’s not right.”

  “What’s wrong?” said Peter. “You said you knew where the book —”

  “No,” said Wendy. “Look, we’ve been down this hall before.”

  John ran a few yards ahead and peeked down one of the hallways. “Are you sure?” he said. “There are three hallways before the basement.”

  “Yes,” said Wendy, irritated, “and we’ve been down all three.”

  “You sure?” said John, looking around as if he was trying to remember a much longer journey. The confused look on his face gave Wendy a sinking feeling in her stomach.

  Peter ran one hand through his hair. “I know what’s wrong,” he said. “This happened when the British Museum was the overworld.” Tina and the boys were now gathered around them, waiting for Peter to explain. “We’re lost,” he said.

 
“I don’t get it,” said the boy with cornrows. “I’ve gone to this school for ten years, man. I can take you to the friggin’ basement. Follow me.”

  He hadn’t taken four steps before he stopped cold, face-to-face with the trophy case full of Connor Wirth’s achievements. “What the f —?”

  “Stop wasting time!” Peter snapped as he marched toward the boy and pulled him roughly by his arm. To Wendy’s surprise, the LB just accepted the rough treatment. He didn’t object to being manhandled by his RA. Didn’t try to fight, or threaten to have his dad sue, the way most Marlowe kids would have done. Wendy wondered if he was on drugs or something, but then Peter continued, “We’re lost because the hallways are turning into a maze. The underworld is a labyrinth. And now Marlowe is, too.”

  For a moment, they all stood there while Peter deliberated. Wendy expected him to have some grand plan for unraveling the maze that was now their school. But all Peter said was “Getting lost in the maze could get dangerous.” Then he turned to Tina and added, “Tina, you go and scout out a route. The key is to find a way downward; doesn’t matter where you find it.” With that, he turned away from her, pulling Wendy along with him. He turned only once to say to Tina, “Text me when you find a way.”

  Tina’s gaze fell, but she obeyed.

  “Don’t worry,” said Peter to Wendy. “Tina can take care of herself.” Wendy could see Tina’s chest rising up and down, heaving with a mix of hatred and disappointment. She wondered what Tina had wanted to hear. Did she want Peter to tell her to stay in a safe spot, too? Was she hurt that he was sending her to face dangers that he was shielding Wendy from? Wendy wondered why Tina would let Peter treat her like this — one of the boys one minute, his favorite girl the next. But then again, Tina had serious skills. He probably just needed her to back him up.

  Just then, as she watched Tina disappear down a hallway that could lead anywhere, Wendy felt her hair flutter. She whipped around. Again, there was nothing there. She grabbed John and pulled him close to her, but John pulled away from her and went to stand by the two LBs.

  “Careful, kid,” said Peter. “She doesn’t look like much, but she doesn’t mess around.”

  “What do you mean she doesn’t look like much?” John shot back. “Stop pretending you’re not scared!”

  “I don’t get it,” said Wendy. “What does she want?”

  “Me,” said Peter with an almost proud smile. “She wants me.”

  It seemed like they had walked in circles for hours when Tina finally sent a text message. In reality, it had been only twenty minutes, and Tina said that she had found it easy to get to the basement. But no matter where the rest of them went, the maze seemed to encircle them like a man-eating snake, always moving, coiling around itself so there was no escape.

  Try service elevator, Tina’s text said, NW corner of Mrlo. Leads down.

  But despite the simplicity of the instructions, another fifteen minutes later the group was back in front of the trophy case. Somehow, Wendy got the feeling that the maze was targeting them. That it was adapting to them specifically, moving and changing around them so they couldn’t get back to the basement — and to the book. But why had it let Tina get away?

  Peter turned to the boys. “You two. Go and find the elevator . . . and . . . we need some sort of string. Something really long.”

  The boys checked their pockets. Wendy, too. But John was already running down the hall.

  “Where are you going?” she yelled after him.

  He stopped at the end of the hall. “My fortress of solitude,” he yelled back as he opened his locker, all the way down from the trophy case. When he rushed back to them, he was carrying two packets of dental floss.

  “Brilliant,” said Peter. “Here, take this,” he said to the boys. “The maze is focused on the three of us — me, John, and Wendy — because we’re the ones who have been through the door. So you have to find the way down to the basement holding one end of the string, and we’ll hold the other. When you get there, text us, and we’ll follow the string down.”

  Soon, the text came and they began gathering up the floss across the halls of Marlowe. Peter said that they had to run, because who knew how long this plan would work. They bolted down the hallways, with Peter gathering up the floss in his fist so that it would remain taut — a signal to the LBs that they were still on the other end.

  Wendy was exhausted. The flight down the hallway and into the service elevator was a blur. All she could sense was the fuzzy outline of things. The outline of Peter’s free hand on her back. The outline of John running ahead. The outline of two girls from English class in the adjoining wing of the school whispering frantically now that Wendy Darling was racing down the hall with the infamous rule-breaking RA. And finally, when they reached the elevator, there was the outline of Tina waiting for them. Tina, who even in all this excitement and hysteria hadn’t missed the fact that Peter had protected Wendy, while he had let her navigate the maze alone.

  When they were safely out of the elevator and standing at the top of the rickety basement steps, Peter signaled that they could relax. John was wheezing heavily as he took out his inhaler. He bent double and rested his hands on his trembling knees.

  “So I still don’t get it. Why was the maze zeroing in on the three of us?” Wendy asked.

  The boys were waiting at the top of the basement steps, waiting for someone to unlock the door leading down, holding an empty case of floss, high-fiving each other and cheering their triumph.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” said Tina. She was the last to step out of the elevator.

  “It only targets the ones who’ve been inside,” said Peter. “The ones chasing bonedust.”

  “So you believe the mummies are real?” John panted. “The stories about the five victims of great crimes being stolen by the death god. You think bonedust might actually exist?”

  “Evidently,” said Peter, trying to sound bored. Then he added nonchalantly, “I would’ve had it a long time ago if the overworld didn’t keep changing. Every time that book gets moved, I have to jump on a plane and start all over.”

  Wendy wondered how old this guy was. He didn’t look any more than nineteen. “So you got the RA job just to be near the exhibit?” she asked. Peter just looked at his nails. He took a second to think, then said, “It’s the underworld — not exactly a part-time gig.”

  “But it feels so small,” Wendy muttered.

  “Things aren’t always laid out for you to see,” said Peter. “Some things are much bigger than their visible parts.”

  Then Peter said something that sent chills through Wendy. “This part of Marlowe — the dark side of it — it’s always been here, even if you didn’t see it. It’s what drew all the pieces together to begin with.”

  Peter didn’t have to say it. Wendy already knew what the “pieces” were: the Book of Gates; Peter, who was forever chasing it; and the Dark Lady, who was ever conscious of the danger Peter presented. This place was predestined. There was an evil here. Maybe it would always be here — even if they closed the leak, found all the bonedust, and destroyed the book. The labyrinth might go away, but what scared Wendy was the idea that the devil that had attached itself to Marlowe was much harder to get rid of.

  “Was that . . . woman with the hood . . . was that her?” Wendy asked. “The Dark Lady . . . um . . . the death goddess?”

  “You saw the eye,” said Peter, “the broken one. I’ve seen that on only one other person . . . years ago.” Wendy thought he would tell her more, but he trailed off.

  “OK, let’s do this, then,” said John. “Let’s force her back in . . . or whatever.”

  “Guys.” Peter turned to Tina and the boys. “Go back to the dorms.”

  “What?” said Tina, not bothering to hide her anger.

  “Do it,” he said. “This is my thing.” This time, Tina and the boys obeyed.

  Peter went to the basement door. “So the book’s in here?”

  Wendy h
esitated. Then she nodded.

  Peter’s lips curled incredulously. “I can’t believe you left it next to the last open door.” Then he whispered something to himself and said, “Let’s move. I have an idea.”

  My mama used to call me Martina Fabiola

  My papi used to call me his little preciosa

  My girls, Ronnie and Lia, used to call me the genius ’cause I passed pre-algebra

  Richard Lubenstein used to follow me around and call me “regina di mi corazón,” bad Spanish for “queen of my heart”

  Mrs. Waxman used to call me Ms. Vazquez

  Poet used to call me his muse

  Cornrow used to call me a dime-piece shorty

  Peter used to call me his girl

  “So what’s your plan?” Wendy asked Peter as she unlocked the door at the top of the basement stairs and watched him take the steps two at a time.

  “Relax,” said Peter. “I have it under control.”

  “How, exactly?” Wendy asked in her most rational tone. “Tell me.”

  Peter ignored her, which made John glare at him through razor-thin eyes and mumble curses. He ran down the steps after Peter, as always looking for every opportunity to hassle the arrogant RA. “I bet he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing,” John said, as if Peter weren’t right there within earshot, “but we’re still walking down to the creepy basement, chasing after some undead thing that’s trying to kill us.”

  “Give him a chance,” whispered Wendy.

  John, who was losing all patience, turned and yelled at his sister, “We’re going to die, Wendy! Do you get it? Game over? Brutally shredded corpses? Tú no more está alive-o?”

  “Look, Peter knows way more about this stuff than we do,” Wendy whispered. “And he says he has it under control.” John hated her mature act.

  “And how, exactly?” asked John. “Is Peter one of the X-Men? Excuse me, Peter, did you by any chance train at Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters? Do you have a field degree in kicking superevil ass that we don’t know about?”