by Riley Sager
“She’s in danger!” I’m still kicking, still writhing. Bernard pins me against the bed, where I thrash beneath his weight. “You have to believe me! Please!”
I feel a pinch on my upper left arm, there and gone in an instant. Looking to the other side of the bed, I see Dr. Wagner with a syringe and the needle that’s just been plunged into my flesh.
“This will help you rest,” he says.
I now know for certain he doesn’t believe me. Worse, he thinks I’m crazy.
Once again, I’m on my own.
“Help Chloe.”
My voice has gone quiet. The sedative kicking in. My head lolls onto the pillow. When Bernard backs away from me, I realize I can no longer move my limbs.
I make one last plaintive whisper before the sedative fully takes hold.
“Please.”
I sink against the bed like someone plunging into a warm pool, descending deeper and deeper until I’m so far gone I wonder if I’ll ever emerge.
ONE DAY EARLIER
37
My family is dancing across Bow Bridge. I sit in my usual spot next to George. Watching them. Wishing I could dance with them. Wishing I was as far away from this place as possible.
The park is silent except for the sound of my family’s shoes beating against the bridge floor as they twirl across it in single file. My father is first. My mother’s in the middle. Jane takes up the rear.
As they dance, I notice that their heads are lit from within by tiny flickering flames. Like jack-o’-lanterns. Tongues of fire lick from their mouths and leap in their eyes. Yet they can still see me. Every so often, they look up at me with those fiery eyes and wave. I try to wave back, but something’s in my hands. I haven’t noticed it until now. I’ve been too distracted by my parents and sister and the flames. But now the thing in my hands takes precedence over the carnival far below.
It’s heavy, slightly wet, hot like the lit matches I sometimes hold to my palm.
I look down.
Sitting within my cupped hands is a human heart.
Shiny with blood.
Still beating.
I wake up screaming. The sound blasts from my lungs, the sound reverberating off the walls. I clamp a hand over my mouth, just in case another scream is on its way. But then I remember the dream, gasp, and pull my hand away, checking it for blood and slime that aren’t really there.
I look from my hand to my surroundings. I’m in the sitting room, sprawled across the crimson couch. The faces in the wallpaper are still staring, still screaming. The grandfather clock ticks its way toward nine a.m., the sound filling the otherwise silent room.
When I sit up, something slides from my lap onto the floor.
The gun.
I slept with it all night. Apparently, that’s my life now. Sleeping in my clothes on a thousand-dollar sofa while cradling a loaded gun. I suppose I should be frightened by what I’ve become. But there are more pressing things to be afraid of.
The gun goes back into the shoe box, which is in turn put back in its hiding place under the sink. Like a fickle lover, I no longer want to look at it now that I’ve held it all night.
Back in the sitting room, I grab my phone, desperately hoping to see that Chloe or Dylan called me during the night. They didn’t. All I see are the texts I sent Chloe.
I need to get out of here.
I think I’m in danger.
The fact that Nick has Ingrid’s phone can mean only one thing: he also killed her. A horrible thought. With it comes gut-squeezing grief that makes me want to lie down on the floor and never get up again.
I resist because I’m in the same situation she was. A person who might know too much. A person at risk. The only question now is how much Ingrid knew about Nick.
Erica told her something. Of that I’m sure. She shared her suspicion that something was amiss at the Bartholomew, and Ingrid started digging around. The voicemail Ingrid left confirms it.
I grab Erica’s phone from the coffee table, where it sat all night, and replay the voicemail.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what you told me yesterday, so I did a little digging. And you’re right. There’s something deeply weird going on here. I still don’t exactly know what it is, but I’m starting to get really freaked out. Call me.
I close my eyes, trying to form a timeline of events. Erica vanished the night of October fourth. Ingrid left this message the day before. If what she said in her voicemail is correct, then Erica had revealed her concerns about the Bartholomew the day before that, on October second.
Quickly, I scroll through Erica’s texts, checking to see if I missed something she sent to Ingrid on that date. There’s nothing. I return to the call log, doing the same for her outgoing calls.
And that’s when I see that Erica had missed another call from Ingrid.
The time was shortly after noon.
The date was October second.
Ingrid had even left another voicemail.
Hey, it’s Ingrid. I just got the message you sent down the dumbwaiter. Which is super cool, by the way. It’s, like, old-timey email. Anyway, I got it and I’m confused. Am I supposed to know who Marjorie Milton is?
I stop the message, play it again, listen intently.
Am I supposed to know who Marjorie Milton is?
I play it a third time, Ingrid’s voice sparking a memory. I know that name. It was read rather than heard. In fact, I saw it in print inside this very apartment.
I cross into the study, where I fling open the bottom desk drawer. Inside is the stack of magazines I found on my first day here. All those copies of The New Yorker, each marked with an address and a name.
Marjorie Milton.
The former owner of 12A.
Why Erica would feel the need to tell Ingrid about her is a mystery. Marjorie Milton is dead. And I’m pretty sure neither Ingrid nor Erica ever met the woman. Both arrived long after her demise.
I’m on the move again, winding up the stairs to the bedroom window where both George and my laptop sit. I flip it open and Google Marjorie’s name. Dozens of results appear.
I click on the most recent article, dated a week ago.
CHAIRWOMAN RETURNS TO GUGGENHEIM GALA
The article itself is pure society-page fluff. A museum fund-raiser held last week in which businessmen and their trophy wives spent more per plate than what most people make in a year. The only item of note is a mention that the event’s longtime coordinator was back after serious health issues forced her to miss last year’s gala.
It includes a photo of a seventy-something woman wearing a black gown and a proud, patrician smile. The caption below the picture gives her name.
Marjorie Milton.
I check the article’s date again, making sure it is indeed from last week.
It is.
Which means only one thing.
Marjorie Milton, the woman whose death opened a spot in the Bartholomew for at least two apartment sitters, is alive.
38
I look at my watch and sigh.
Seven minutes past two.
I’ve entered the third hour of sitting on the same bench just outside Central Park. I’m hungry, tired, and in dire need of a bathroom. Yet sitting here is preferable to being back at the Bartholomew. At this point, anything is.
The park itself is behind me. In front of me, directly across the street, is the apartment building where Marjorie Milton currently resides.
Like much of what I know about Mrs. Milton, I found her address online. It turns out that in Manhattan even the filthy rich are sometimes listed in the White Pages.
Other things I’ve learned: That her friends call her Margie. That she’s the daughter of an oil executive and the widow of a venture capitalist. That she has two sons who, no surprise, grew up to become an
oil executive and a venture capitalist. That she has a Yorkie named Princess Diana. That in addition to chairing pricey museum fund-raisers, she also gives generously to children’s hospitals, animal welfare groups, and the New-York Historical Society.
The biggest thing I learned, though, is that Marjorie Milton is alive and well and has been since 1943.
Some of this information, such as where she lives, was discovered before I left the Bartholomew. But most was gleaned while I was on the bench, the hours ticking by as I searched the internet from my phone.
I’m here in the hope that Marjorie will eventually come outside to take Princess Diana for a walk. According to a Vanity Fair piece about her that ran three years ago, it’s one of her favorite things to do.
Once she does, I’ll be able to ask not only why she left the Bartholomew, located a mere ten blocks south of her current address, but why the people still living there claim that she’s dead.
While I wait, I continually check my phone for responses from Chloe and Dylan that have yet to arrive. Finally, at half past two, a wisp of a woman in brown slacks and a teal jacket emerges with a leashed Yorkie by her side.
Marjorie.
I’ve now seen enough photos of her to know.
I leap from the bench and hurry across the street, approaching Mrs. Milton as soon as Princess Diana stops to pee in the topiary by the neighboring building’s front door. When I get a few steps behind her, I say, “Excuse me.”
She turns my way. “Yes?”
“You’re Marjorie Milton, right?”
“I am,” she says as Princess Diana tugs at the leash, eager to mark the next topiary. “Do we know each other?”
“No, but I live at the Bartholomew.”
Marjorie looks me up and down, clearly pegging me as an apartment sitter and not a permanent resident. My clothes are the same ones I’ve been wearing since yesterday, and it shows. I haven’t showered. I haven’t put on makeup. Before leaving to stake out her building, I did the bare minimum. Comb through my hair, brush across my teeth.
“I don’t understand how that’s any concern of mine,” she says.
“Because you also lived there,” I reply. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
“You were misinformed.”
She’s in the midst of turning around and walking away when I reach into my jacket and produce a copy of The New Yorker that’s been rolled up inside it. I tap the address label.
“If you want people to believe that, then you should have taken your magazines with you when you left.”
Marjorie Milton glares at me. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m the person living in the apartment you used to own. Only I was told you were dead, and I’d really love to know why.”
“I have no idea,” Marjorie says. “But I never owned that apartment. I simply stayed there for a brief time.”
She resumes walking, the Yorkie trotting several feet in front of her. I trail behind them, not content with the answers I’ve been given.
“How long were you there?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Apartment sitters are disappearing,” I say. “Including the one who was in 12A after you and before me. If you know something about that, then you need to tell me right now.”
Marjorie Milton halts, surprising Princess Diana, who trots forward a few paces before being choked by the tightened leash. The dog is forced to take a few backward steps while her owner spins around to face me.
“If you don’t leave me alone this instant, I’ll give Leslie Evelyn a call,” Marjorie says. “And trust me, you don’t want that. I lived there, which you know already, but I won’t say anything else.”
“Not even if people are disappearing?” I say.
She looks away from me, ashamed. Quietly, she says, “You’re not the only ones with rules.”
Then she’s off again, Princess Diana pulling her along.
“Wait,” I say. “What kind of rules?”
I grab the sleeve of her jacket, trying to keep her there, desperate for one single bit of useful information. When Marjorie pulls away from me, the sleeve stays in my hands. Her arm slides out of it, and the jacket falls open, revealing a white blouse underneath. Pinned to it is a tiny brooch.
Gold.
In the shape of a figure eight.
I let go of the jacket. Marjorie stuffs her arm back into it and pulls it closed. Before she does, I get one last look at the brooch, seeing that it’s not an eight at all.
It’s an ouroboros.
39
Two hours later, I’m in the main branch of the New York Public Library, one of many occupying the Rose Main Reading Room. The library itself is bright and airy. Late-afternoon sun slants through the arched windows. Puffy pink clouds adorn the murals on the ceiling. Hanging from it are chandeliers that cast circles of brightness onto the long tables aligned in tidy rows.
I’m gripped with unease as I contemplate the stack of books in front of me. A sense of darkness closing in. I wish it was because of the books themselves. Old, dusty volumes about symbols and their meanings. But this ominous mood has been with me since the moment I glimpsed Marjorie Milton’s brooch.
The snake eating its tail.
Exactly like the painting in Nick’s apartment.
I said nothing to Marjorie after I saw it. The brooch and its possible meaning left me speechless. I simply backed away, leaving her standing with her dog on the sidewalk. I kept walking, as if the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other would somehow help everything make sense.
The disappearances and Nick and Mrs. Milton’s short-lived stay at the Bartholomew. They’re all connected. I’m certain of it. An ouroboros of a most sinister nature.
Which is why I ended up at the library, striding to the help desk and saying, “I need as many books on symbology as you can find.”
Now a dozen titles sit in front of me. I hope at least one of them will help me understand the meaning behind the ouroboros. If I can learn that, then maybe I’ll have a better idea of what’s going on at the Bartholomew.
I grab the top book from the stack and flip to the index, looking for entries about the ouroboros. I do the same with the others until twelve open books are fanned out across the table. The arrangement provides a gallery view of the ouroboros in all its many incarnations. Some are as simple as line drawings. Others are elaborate etchings embellished with crowns and wings and symbols within the serpent’s circle. Hexagrams. Greek letters. Words written in unknown languages. The sheer volume and variety overwhelm me.
I grab one of the books at random—an outdated symbology textbook—and read its entry.
The ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon forming a circle or figure eight by eating its own tail. Originating in ancient Egypt, the symbol was adopted by the Phoenicians and then the Greeks, where it gained the name used today—Ouroboros, which is roughly translated as “he who eats the tail.”
Through this act of self-destruction, the serpent is in essence controlling its own fate. Eating itself—which will bring death—while also feeding itself, which brings life. On and on and on for all eternity.
A symbolic representation of coming full circle, the ouroboros became associated with many varied beliefs, most notably alchemy. The depiction of a serpent devouring itself symbolizes rebirth and the cyclical nature of the universe. Creation rising from destruction. Life rising from death.
I stare at the page. Key words emerge from the pack, standing out as if they were bold red and underlined.
Creation rising from destruction.
Life rising from death.
All of it an unbroken circle. Going on and on forever.
I snatch another book and leaf through it until I come to an image of a card from a tarot deck.
The Magician.
It depicts a man in red-and-white robes standing at an altar. He lifts a wand toward the heavens with his right hand and points to the ground with his left. Sitting above his head like a double halo is a figure eight.
An ouroboros.
There’s another, different one around his waist. A snake holding itself in place by biting its own tail.
The altar contains four objects—a staff, a sword, a shield adorned with a star, and a goblet made of gold.
I lean in closer, studying first the shield, then the goblet.
Upon closer inspection, I realize the star in the shield isn’t just any star. Its interconnected lines form five distinct points, all of them surrounded by the circle of the shield itself.
A pentagram.
As for the golden cup, it looks less like a goblet and more like something ceremonial.
A chalice.
Seeing it next to the pentagram strikes a bell deep in the recesses of my memory. I leap from the table, leaving the books thrown open across it. Back at the information desk, I summon the same exasperated librarian who helped me earlier. He cringes when he sees me.
“How many books do you have on Satanism?” I say.
The librarian’s cringe becomes a wince. “I don’t exactly know. A lot?”
“Give me all of them.”
By five thirty I have, if not all of them, then at least a damn good sampling. Sixteen books now sit in front of me, replacing the symbology texts that have been swept aside. I sort through this new stack, flipping to their indexes, scanning the names in the hope one stands out from all the rest.
One eventually does, in a scholarly text titled Modern Deviltry: Satanism in the New World.
Marie Damyanov.
I remember it from the article I read about the Bartholomew’s tragic past. All those dead servants and rumored ghosts and Cornelia Swanson’s alleged murder of her poor maid. One of the reasons Cornelia seemed so guilty was because she had once consorted with Damyanov, an occult leader.