The Hotel Between

by Sean Easley

  I watch in horror as a docent pokes his sliver into the arm of one of the girls from Budapest, and the girl is slurped into the sliver’s tip like water through a drain.

  “Stop!” I shout. “Leave them alone!”

  But the docents keep pouring through a door on the far side.

  A woman in an apron rushes across the yard, gathering children to her. Little ones cry as they run for safety. Bells chime overhead.

  A team of monks appears in a far doorway, brandishing tall wooden staves that look like bigger versions of Rahki’s duster. They face off against the docents nearest them, striking the tips of their staves across the lawn like matches being lit, sparking as they slam the glittering ends into the intruders to bind them to the ground.

  But there are too many.

  I find Cass with Rahki next to the refreshment tables. Rahki wields her duster like some ancient warrior, striking the baton with her gloved fingers to bind the enemies to the earth, the wall, even each other. She’s protecting Cass, along with the few children who’ve taken shelter behind her.

  “What can I do?” I ask.

  Rahki binds a woman’s face to the grass, kicks the sliver away, and shoots me a glare. “Someone invited the docents in. No way they could have reached the Monastery otherwise. Did you do this?”

  “I-I—”

  My hesitation is all the answer she needs.

  Rahki skims her fingers down the baton, gathering a film of glittering dust, and then swings the duster under my legs, knocking me onto my butt. I scramble to get away, but she slaps my hand to the ground with her dusted glove, binding me in place.

  “Traitor,” she growls, yanking my pins from their pin-sleeves before rejoining the fight.

  The battle rages across the lawn, docents slivering monks and kids alike, monks striking and binding alongside Rahki. It’s far from a fair fight, though. The Competition outnumbers us, and their slivers swallow monk after monk, child after child, with a single prick, removing them from the fray and depositing them somewhere across the globe.

  I struggle to free myself of Rahki’s binding, but it’s no use. Only she can release me before the dust wears off.

  Behind her, a monk inserts his coin into one of the centaur statues and strikes an attack pose. The icon springs to life, mirroring the monk’s stance. Lyre raised, teeth bared. The centaur rears up and races forward, but before it reaches its target the monk controlling it gets slivered away.

  The centaur stills as the monk bound to it vanishes.

  This Monastery was supposed to be a safe place. The children . . . they were protected. That’s why Dad chose it as his hiding spot for the Greenhouse. It was the least likely place Stripe would find it. I’m a fool. A weak pin that’s failed and is causing all the others to fail around me. I fell for another of Nico’s tricks, and now everyone’s going to pay the price.

  Cass grabs my free hand. “What did you do, Cam?”

  “I didn’t . . . ” I want to cover my face, but my other hand tingles with Rahki’s binding. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was trying to prevent this. All I wanted was to get Dad back.”

  “Dad?” Cass’s tone flares with anger.

  “They have him,” I tell her. “Stripe said he’d give Dad back in exchange for the Greenhouse, but—”

  A voice from the door stops me. “Well, this is a bit more chaotic than expected.”

  Stripe tips his flat straw hat in our direction. Nico hobbles on his crutch behind him. He looks so much like Stripe now, dressed in a similar suit, hair slicked to the side under his identical hat.

  “Nico!” Rahki yells from across the yard.

  She strikes her duster and dashes for him. Nico dodges her palm, slides a sliver from an inner jacket pocket, and sticks her with the pointy end.

  “No!” I scream as Rahki balls up into the tip of Nico’s weapon.

  The lawn goes silent.

  She’s gone. Everyone from the Hotel is gone. The kids, the monks . . . all slivered away. I did this. I led him here. If I’d just thrown that pin away, if I hadn’t entertained the idea of doing what Stripe asked. . . .

  “You said it would be quiet!” I rage. “That no one had to know!”

  Mr. Stripe adjusts his cufflinks. “It only counts if it’s in writing. Besides, I decided if I’m going to take the Greenhouse, I might as well get back the other things the Hotel stole from me, too.”

  “They’re not things!” Cass yells. “They’re people! Children!”

  He pops his cane into his hand and leans over her. “They’re possessions, dear, like any other.”

  “What are you going to do with them?” I ask.

  “I’ll put them to good use.” He gives me a wink. “People never understand the value of those around them until they’re history. Like you. Was the hope of finding your father worth risking all those kids? Probably not.” He taps his forehead with his cane. “But your mistake is my gain.”

  I gulp down the stone forming in my throat. “And what about us?”

  “Dear boy”—Stripe cocks his head—“I couldn’t have done this without you. I’ll keep my end of the bargain.” He nods to Nico, who, after a quick glance at me, limps back through the door on his crutch. “For your trouble, you’ll get the man you always wanted. Unfortunately, he may not be all you hoped for.”

  Cass spits in the grass at Stripe’s feet.

  “Now that’s plain rude.” He stuffs his cane in the crook of his arm and pulls on his gloves. “We’ll have to tell Reinhart to work some manners into your education.”

  Nico shuffles back through the door, followed by two docents dragging a man between them.

  My blood freezes. My heart clangs in my chest, in my toes, in my fingers that are still bound to the earth. I’m shaking as the docents throw the haggard, bearded man to the ground at Cass’s wheels.

  “I told you I’d help you find him,” Nico whispers, and tosses me the necklace with Dad’s coin.

  I’ve never felt such hatred toward anyone in my entire life.

  “Thus concludes our business,” Stripe says, patting the man on the head. “Goodbye, Reinhart. Shame Melissa died for nothing.” He steps through the door and inserts his black iron key into the other side.

  Nico gives me one last look, pats his pocket, and says, “Hope you find your destination,” before following.

  Stripe closes the door, and it explodes in a cloud of wood and metal.

  When the dust settles, it’s only Cass, me, and a man we’ve never met left in the empty yard.

  25

  What I Wanted

  I stare at the shattered door, unable to look away. Unable to accept what just happened. I said I’d pay any price, and now I have.

  Cass has her elbows on her knees. She’s crying. I want to comfort her, to stroke her hair like Oma does and encourage her to face this with me. I struggle to pull my hand free from Rahki’s binding to go to her, but it won’t budge.

  A tingle of fear buzzes through my body when I think about the man behind me. What if he doesn’t want us? What if he hates me for what I did to get him back? He and Mom fought to keep the Greenhouse out of Stripe’s hands, and I undid all that.

  But this is what I’ve wanted for so long. I found him.

  So I turn to see my end of the bargain.

  The man sits cross-legged in the grass, a crumpled flap of cardboard pressed to his chest. Long, yellow toenails poke through the holes in his shoes. A once-puffy coat hangs off him in tatters. He sets his cardboard scrap aside, and I read the words scribbled on it in permanent marker: HOMELESS, COLD, ALONE, HUNGRY. PLEASE HELP. What has Stripe done to him?

  “Reinhart? Reinhart Kuhn?”

  He looks up, glancing between Cass and me. His long, oily hair is so matted it doesn’t look real. Even his facial hair looks like it was glued on. “How do you know my name?”

  I breathe in a shudder. It’s him.

  Cass wipes her tears and scoots toward him. “It’s us, Dad. Cassia”�
��she points at me—“and Cameron.”

  “Cameron?” His expression falters, like he’s struggling to understand. “That name . . . no. I’m dreaming. You’re not real. You can’t . . . I don’t . . . I can’t remember.”

  “His coin, Cam,” Cass says. “Agapios said his memories were bound.”

  I turn the necklace over in my free hand, feeling the smooth surface of the etchings worn down from years of me handling it.

  I hold it out to him. “Take it.”

  He crawls toward me on all fours, reaching.

  As he takes the wooden disc, a shock jumps from him to me. Memories flash through my mind, faster and more complete than ever before. Mom’s face, and the lapel pin Agapios gave me. The memory of traveling through doors I’ve never seen, all over the world. Twin babies—one in Mom’s arms, the other lying in a clear glass box, connected to a hospital machine.

  The images of Dad’s time at the Hotel scorch entire stories into my brain at once. Mom, carving coins. The joy in her smile. The unspeakable mystery of getting to know her, and loving her more than anything in the world. A wedding on an island beach, with the Old Man standing at the podium and the Maid Commander giving the wooden rings. The signing of the contract with all those beaming hotel faces watching.

  But there are other stories, too. Stories of a man in dark alleys, wearing a pinstriped suit. Posh hallways lined with glassed-in boxes of a different sort. Museum exhibits, displaying conquests long past. Children, like the ones Stripe stole, all connected back to the Curator, who wants to make a deal.

  And finally, a story that ends with a woman falling out of a service elevator. I see it clearly for the first time, as though Dad and I are the same person. I’m arguing with Mom. She’s upset. And then, the argument stills. We’re alone in the elevator, but a static-y, binding sound roars so loud that I can’t make out what she’s saying.

  She slides her coin into my pocket. Gives me a kiss.

  I reach for her.

  She falls.

  The crack of a pin and a blinding light. A clap like thunder. And when I look back at those elevator doors, the face I see isn’t Stripe’s, or Agapios’s. It’s my father’s face, reflected in the steel.

  I let go of the coin, and the memories drain away, becoming little more than dim, jumbled images. What I remember, though, makes me sick.

  Tears boil up into my eyes. “It’s your fault.”

  My father stares at me, mouth open, unblinking. The guilt on his face tells me he remembers now too.

  I wipe my eyes and stand, Rahki’s binding finally broken. My shoulders are electrified with anger. “It was you,” I say, the knot in my chest a thousand times bigger and impossible to untie. “You loved her, and then you let her go.”

  He rises to his knees. “Cameron, you have to understand—”

  “You were working for him!” Shadows of terrible things shift in my mind. “You knew what Stripe was. You’d seen the awful places where those kids ended up, and you helped him anyway, just like Nico. Stripe wanted you to steal the Greenhouse to stop Mom’s plan, but she found out. She tried to stop you. And you . . . ” I can’t bring myself to say it again.

  “It wasn’t like that.” He reaches for my hand.

  But I yank it away. “I saw it! In your memories. All those kids—the ones the Hotel’s trying to save—he takes them and binds them to serve terrible people. That’s why Mom died. She was trying to stop what you started.”

  “I didn’t intend for it to go like that.”

  “Did you not intend to work for Stripe? Did you accidentally steal Mom’s topscrew?” I dig out the pearl key and chuck it at him. “Take it! You wanted it; you can have it. Just stay away.”

  A door down the yard bursts open, and the Maid Commander races through, sword drawn.

  I kneel beside Cass as the maids position themselves between us and the man who should be our dad. “It’s going to be okay,” I whisper, wrapping my arm around Cass’s shoulder.

  She shoves me off and shoots me a scowl that says it’s not okay. It’ll never be okay, because I traded a bunch of innocent kids for this. The man I was searching for all this time was a traitor. The villain responsible for our mother’s death.

  The father who abandoned us.

  I got what I wanted. Only now I don’t want it anymore.

  • • •

  I sit on the toppled armoire in the Monastery cellar, running my fingers through the mossy stones. Thinking. Hoping I haven’t ruined everything, as bad as it seems, but knowing it couldn’t possibly be worse.

  The door in the shadows that had been bound to the Greenhouse now lies in a pile of broken fragments, just like everything else. Stripe destroyed it when he took what he came for.

  The memories I saw through the coin are beginning to fade. The stories in my head don’t make as much sense as they did when Dad and I both held it. Reinhart. Not Dad. I refuse to call that man “Dad” ever again after what he did, and what I did to save him.

  The MC separated us as soon as she arrived. I haven’t seen Cass for hours, and who knows where Rahki got slivered away to. I’ve messed it all up.

  The latch clanks and slides, and the heavy door screeches open. It’s Agapios. Not the Maid Commander. I’m not sure whether I’ve been delivered from the MC’s wrath or into the hands of Death himself.

  “You’re very lucky,” the Old Man says as the door locks behind him. He glides forward, bony cheeks curved in a slight, but false, smile. “You escaped the Competition. That is no easy feat.”

  “Stripe let me get away.” The faces of all those poor, scared children rise up in my brain. “He said it was the deal. But I swear, I was trying to stop him.”

  “Is that why you brought a pin that belonged to him with you to the Monastery? To stop him?”

  A tide of guilt rises in my throat. “I didn’t realize what he was going to do. He said no one would know.”

  Agapios scratches his hooked nose and squats eye-level with me. “The Curator is, at his core, a thief. He promises people their desires in exchange for what he wants to add to his collection. However, none who enter an agreement with him ever get what they truly seek.”

  I close my eyes and fight to control the guilt bubbling inside me. “And Reinhart?”

  Agapios breathes a raspy sigh. “Years ago, your father made such an agreement with Stripe. Many have paid for it since.”

  “I saw what happened,” I say. “When I handed him his coin, it was like his memories . . . ”

  “A transaction,” Agapios says. “You kept your father’s coin so long, it had become bound to you, and you began to see his memories when you grew old enough. When your binding and your father’s met, the coin and its memories transferred back to their original owner.”

  “So I won’t dream anymore?”

  “Not his dreams. From now on, your dreams will be your own.”

  I fix my gaze on the stones in the floor.

  “The man you call Stripe has long sought a successor,” Agapios says. “He believes that if he can create a willing copy of himself, he can grow his empire far beyond what he could otherwise. This is the agreement your father made: to become Stripe’s . . . replacement.”

  “So Reinhart was like Nico.”

  “Yes. However, Reinhart’s love for Melissa complicated matters.”

  “You don’t do what he did to the people you love.” I finger the carved wood of the armoire. “Reinhart betrayed the Hotel. Betrayed her. And . . . so did I.”

  “Your father had his reasons, just as you had yours.”

  My insides curl. “Mom was trying to overthrow Stripe for good, wasn’t she? She had an idea. I saw her, carving coins.”

  Agapios sits down next to me. “Melissa was a remarkable woman. She believed in the mission of this ancient House more than most, because she knew the truth about the terrible people who do terrible things in hidden corners of the world. She wanted to use our doors to provide an escape not just for our guests, but
for those the world has mistreated.”

  “The kids.”

  “Yes. The Hotel Between exists to serve those lost and forgotten children. It is why we charge so much for guests to use our doors. Most of these wealthy patrons are unaware that their money funds our mission.”

  My lip curls. “All those guests—”

  “—are not who you think they are.” He gives me a stern, bony stare. “Many of them are just as lost. Your mother saw this. She recognized that so many people live their lives never understanding—never even seeing—the misfortune of others. The world turns away from those who hurt, excusing themselves by saying that they ‘could not possibly understand.’ ” He pauses. “You know this, yes?”

  He means Cass. Kids at school make fun of me sometimes because I care about my sister so much, but they don’t understand what it’s like. They don’t want to understand.

  Agapios pulls a coin from his pocket. “Before your mother joined us, the Hotel was merely a front for our deeper mission. We hid our true purpose behind the shine of our doors. But she made the operation of our Hotel a part of the mission. Melissa created the coins to open the hearts of those who stay here. She believed if the Hotel could guide the dreams of our guests, they would carry our purpose beyond these walls, to the whole world. So she began the practice of binding a coin to each person who entered, and the Hotel in turn called those it believed could benefit.”

  “I thought the coins just bound memories?”

  He shakes his head. “The coins bind the Hotel to the person as much as they bind the person to the Hotel. Once bound, a bit of our Hotel will always remain in them. Though the specific logistics of our guests’ vacations are left behind when they return their coin, their binding with the Hotel will continue to remind them of what they’ve seen, and reveal to them through their dreams the world they haven’t seen.”

  “She wasn’t going to attack Stripe head on,” I realize. “She was going to let the Hotel make people care.”