by Krista Wolf
She tried pushing her way into the room, but Logan still didn’t step aside. Instead he yawned.
“I was up pretty late,” he told her. “Maybe give me another hour?”
“Up late?”
He sighed. His shoulders slumped and he stepped back, finally allowing the door to open. Kara took it as an invitation to push inside.
Except for his rumpled up bed, the room was empty.
“No,” he chuckled, reading her mind. “No one else here. Just me.”
She crossed her arms playfully. “No cute blondes from the lobby?”
“I threw them all out at midnight,” Logan teased.
Kara felt a sudden wave of relief. It was relief she really couldn’t explain — a peace of mind that made her genuinely happy. Why should she even care what Logan did? Or who he did it with?
Especially after your own little ‘honeymoon’…
Logan yawned again and Kara poked him in the ribs. “Then why’d you stay up so late?” she asked. “You know what today is.”
“The winter solstice.”
“Yes, and we’re—”
“I stayed in the room last night,” Logan said abruptly. When Kara’s eyes went wide he simply nodded. “Room 334.”
A chill ran through her, sending goosebumps up and down Kara’s arms. She was awestruck.
“By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“The whole night?”
“Well, most of the night, anyway.”
She punched him hard in the arm. “You asshole!” she cried out. “We told you not to do that! Something could’ve happened! Anything could’ve happened to you, and neither Jeremy or I would’ve been there to—”
“Kara, stop already!” He was clutching his head now, as if in pain. “It’s alright, okay? I’m fine. And besides, I made some progress.” He let go of his head, but was still rubbing his temples.
“What kind of progr—”
“I know where the scrying crystal is,” he said.
Kara stopped dead in her tracks. A smile leapt unbidden to her lips.
“And you have it?”
Logan sighed again and shook his head. “Well, not exactly…”
Thirty-Four
“This right here,” said Logan, munching down on a piece of toast. “This is where I saw it.”
He was pointing to the photograph again, the one with Rudolph Northrop. Logan’s finger tapped the shrouded mirror behind the man’s head.
“You saw it in the mirror?” asked Jeremy.
“Yes,” he replied. “More like through the mirror, if that makes any sense.” He dragged his toast through the yoke of a runny egg — something that had always made Kara wince — and held it up as he spoke. “Right where we saw that glow two nights ago.”
She thought back, remembering the strange glimmer in the antique mirror. How it pulsated with light, its energy ebbing and flowing.
“Explain,” said Jeremy.
Logan caught the waitress’s attention and called for another cup of coffee. When he turned back again, Jeremy had a pencil out and was actually taking notes.
“So I’m up last night,” he said, pausing to point at Kara, “worrying about you, and I start thinking about the third floor…”
“Not worried about me?” Jeremy mused.
Logan smirked back at him. “No, bud. Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Don’t be?”
“Nah,” said Jeremy. He sat up straighter, squaring his chest. “I can take of myself just fine.”
“Good because—”
“Oh will you two stop it already?” Kara exclaimed. “Holy shit. It’s like I’m sitting at the kids’ table!”
She’d raised her voice intentionally loud in the dining hall to humiliate them. Neither of the men looked embarrassed. Instead, they only glared at each other.
“Don’t stop with your story,” she prodded Logan. “Keep going.”
His stare lasted a couple of more uncomfortable seconds before he looked down at his food again. Then he went on.
“I couldn’t sleep. So I ran up there, and I sat in the room for a long time,” he said. He turned to face Kara. “By the way, I did what you asked. I talked Radcliffe into making up the room for us. His people weren’t happy about it, but three of them went up there and changed it out. They dusted everything, swept it clean. I made sure they did all of it, even the mirror. I told him I might sleep there so they even laundered the bedding.”
“So what happened?” asked Jeremy impatiently.
Logan shot him a dirty look. “So I’m sitting there. Quietly. Just listening. And… well…”
His expression changed slightly. It was a look Kara didn’t recognize.
“I have to say, I heard a lot of strange shit.”
“Like what?”
“Sounds,” Logan replied. “Noises, voices… More than once I almost left the room to track them down. I needed to know where they came from, what the hell was going on. But then I realized something.” He leaned forward a bit, his eyes narrowing.
“What?”
“It was all a distraction.”
Jeremy stopped scribbling. He looked up at Logan through his glasses. “A distraction?”
“Yeah. Like…” He paused, struggling with the words. “Like whatever’s up there was trying to lure me away. Like it wanted to draw me out. To get me back into the corridor.”
Kara considered the statement. Logan definitely wasn’t embellishing, or being dramatic. He looked a little troubled, actually. As if genuinely perplexed.
“It didn’t want me in that room,” he finished. “I’m sure of it. It wanted me anywhere else but there.”
Jeremy was scribbling again. “And you know this… how?”
“I just do.”
Kara jumped in before they could start challenging each other again. “But nothing happened in the room?”
“Not at first,” said Logan. “But then… I don’t know, the room somehow got darker. Or maybe it just seemed that way, because that’s when I noticed the glimmer again. The one in the mirror.”
He paused, giving himself a moment. No one else spoke.
“So the glimmer,” Logan goes on, “it gets brighter. More defined. And I’m looking at it, starting at it, and then suddenly I see it.”
“See what?”
“This.”
Logan’s finger was on the photograph again. This time, he was pointing to the scrying crystal.
“At first I thought it was a reflection,” he went on. “But it wasn’t. It was there. Inside the mirror. Only there were other things in there too. Things that swirled, and moved, and… shuffled around?” He shivered involuntarily as if the word — or the memory — creeped him out. “I don’t know for sure,” he continued, “but I could tell, these things were really there. There but not there, if you know what I’m saying.”
Kara knew what he was saying. But she still didn’t like it.
“So the crystal somehow ended up in the mirror,” said Jeremy. He no longer looked skeptical.
“Maybe because of something that happened during the ceremony,” Kara theorized. “During the ritual.”
They were working it out in their heads. Going through scenarios. Suddenly Jeremy snapped his fingers.
“And if the scrying crystal got transferred through the glass—”
“—maybe Rudolph Northrop did too,” Kara finished.
The three of them sat frozen for a moment, looking inwardly for answers as their food grew cold. Guests passed by, talking and laughing. Other sounds echoed — the clink of glasses, the clatter of silverware against ceramic plates. The world, going on all around them. It was Kara who finally spoke up.
“This explains everything,” she said. “Why the ritual went unfinished. Why there’s no record of Rudolph Northrop after the date on the back of this photo.” She flipped it over for effect. “Whatever portal or gateway Northrop accidentally opened is still partly open. And the mirr
or is the key.”
“So is the date,” said Logan, pointing down at it. “This same week, every year. The winter solstice.”
Jeremy’s mouth was twisted in deep thought. He began cleaning his glasses again. “Well we know where everything else is,” he said. “But where’s the bell?”
Silence. Blank stares. Shrugs.
Logan and Jeremy eventually started talking again, but she could no longer hear them. A strange sensation had presented itself at the back of her neck. The feeling turned into a warmth that crawled quickly upward, sending a tingling numbness across the surface of Kara’s scalp.
Somehow she was holding the old photo again. Looking down into it. Peering through time.
Kara stared down at it for several long seconds. Then she pushed back from the table…
… and walked straight out of the room.
Thirty-Five
There were certain indicators Kara had learned to look for whenever she was about to experience a retrocognitive episode. One of them was the tingle. Another, a distinct sour taste in her mouth.
Right now it felt like she’d squeezed the juice of an entire lemon directly onto her tongue. And the numbing tingle? It was more of a paralysis than anything else.
Kara put her hand to her forehead. She couldn’t even feel her fingers. It was like touching another person, and she recoiled quickly from the strangeness of the experience.
The entire time though, she still hadn’t stopped looking at the old photograph.
The photo…
Her eyes were drawn to Rudolph Northrop’s table. More specifically, to the bell. It was small and plain. Flared tight at the end. The handle was longer than the the bell itself.
Kara’s legs still moved, even though her eyes remained locked on the picture. Someone bumped into her and apologized. Another few people moved out of her way. It was all happening in the background, really. It might as well have been happening to someone else. Kara was only barely there. Just barely—
The ‘whoosh’ came, and suddenly she was someplace else. She was still standing in the Averoigne’s lobby, but so many things were different. The lighting, for one. The noise, the heat… the people too. Kara saw men and women walk by, almost transparent to the eye. They left trails as they moved, and they moved either too slowly or too quickly to be real. Almost like a piece of film reel stuck in a projector, stuttering, skipping. Jammed and then released and then jammed again.
A man stood out to her, tall and wizened. He had a rounded, rimmed hat. A beard that went down to his chest. He was standing in front of the massive fireplace at the back end of the lobby, and with another ‘whoosh’ of sound and wind, Kara was standing there too.
The man looked over his shoulder. Then he reached out, grabbed hold of something near the fireplace mantle, and pulled. Kara heard the grinding of stone on stone. She saw the shift of something heavy. A swirl of powder, or dust.
As she watched, the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver bell. The bell. He secreted it someplace with his hands, and Kara had to lean in to see what it was:
A keystone?
No, that wasn’t right.
A dedication stone?
Whatever it was, the stone was deeply carved. Either that, or something was written across its face.
The man pushed hard, and the stone slid back into place. He glanced backward one last time before shuffling away, leaving Kara staring down at a fireplace that flickered strangely, moving impossibly fast.
WHOOSH!
It ended just as abruptly as it started. Kara was back. Fully in control. She stood now in the exact spot she stood in her vision, one hundred or so years prior. All she had to do was lift her chin… and there it was. A rectangular stone, set into the fireplace amongst the others. Faded with age, stained with time. It was carved with a single date:
1902
Kara reached out and grabbed hold of the stone. She pulled hard, but it didn’t budge.
Come on…
The failure made her angry, so she pulled harder. The stone shifted this time, just a fraction of an inch. Her heart caught in her throat.
“Miss?”
She began rocking the stone right and left. It shifted some more. Kara put her back into it, grabbing it tight with both hands and pulling hard one last time.
“Excuse me! Miss?”
It popped free! She stumbled backwards for two whole steps, then regained her balance and set the stone down on the floor. Her entire arm shook as she reached into the cavity she’d just created and came out with her prize:
A small, dusty silver bell.
Yes!
Kara threw her head back in exultation. She brushed the dirt from it quickly, then whirled around.
Logan and Jeremy were standing behind her, along with a half dozen other stunned guests. All of them were staring at her.
“Ummm…”
Quickly Logan bent to replace the stone as Jeremy pulled her away. They retreated together, the three of them, backing into a small corner of the main lobby. There, on a couple of old chairs, they spent the next few minutes passing the bell between them.
“That was unreal,” Logan swore. “How the hell did you—”
“I don’t know!” Kara shook her head excitedly. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt this exhilarated. “It was the first time that’s ever happened! I’ve never focused on a photograph in order to find something. It’s always been—”
“And you saw it?” Jeremy asked. “You actually saw someone hiding the bell there?”
Kara nodded, still thrilled. “Clear as day. But not this day,” she added. “Some day a hundred years ago.”
Logan picked up the bell and held it out like he was going to ring it. Jeremy shook his head at him and he put it down.
“Alright, so we’ve got everything we need,” said Logan. “Except information. And I’m assuming you guys accomplished something during your little sleepover, right?”
Kara and Jeremy exchanged glances. It was impossible not to.
“Well?” Logan laughed. “Nothing?”
Jeremy stood up and pulled a low table over, making their little corner into a semi-circle. Across it he spread out a series of files they’d retrieved from the library.
“So there’s this guy,” he starts off. “Victor Walcott. He owned the small farm that used to be right here, exactly where the Averoigne was built.”
“The hotel was actually built on his house,” added Kara. “Right over it.”
Jeremy nodded. “Only from what I gather, he didn’t want to go. In fact, the city re-zoned his property in order to squeeze him out.”
Kara pulled out the photos from yesterday. She handed them to Logan, who flipped through them with a low whistle.
“The librarian would probably shit if she knew you took these,” he laughed.
“Oh yeah.”
Jeremy shuffled through another series of papers. He began reading from a journal this time. “So apparently this guy Walcott goes a little crazy. He breaks some windows, makes some threats. I think here,” he said pointing, “it says he’s accused of hexing someone.”
Kara and Logan’s ears both perked up. It was the first she was hearing about this.
“He gets driven out of town,” Jeremy continues. “Or at least, that’s what people assumed. Because not long after the hotel is built, he just kinda disappears.”
“Like Northrop,” Logan offers.
“Yes, sort of. Only earlier.”
Kara put one hand under her chin and cracked her neck, first left, then right. It was a habit that usually freaked people out, but neither Jeremy nor Logan even flinched.
“So you’re thinking he’s the hotel’s first victim?” she asked Jeremy.
He made an iffy face. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Maybe he’s his own victim,” said Logan.
Once again Jeremy looked intrigued. It was funny how quickly the two of them could go from taking jabs at each oth
er to actually cooperating. “Go on,” he said.
Logan shifted forward in his chair, happy to have an audience. “My gut feeling is this: maybe Walcott is responsible for what happened here. You say he threw hexes. Maybe there was something to that. Only whatever he did to screw the hotel, it ended up screwing him also.”
Kara nodded. “And then Northrop comes along. He tries to fix things. Reverse the hex. And he fucks things up too. Even worse.”
Jeremy seemed to be following along, even nodding in agreement with them. It felt good. Really good. Almost like progress.
“And here’s the kicker,” said Logan. “You…” he pointed at Jeremy. “You tried to destroy that mirror the other night. You even shouted the word ‘NO.’ So what if…” he paused to scratch at his face. “What if the spirit that took hold of you was Walcott?”
All three of them fell silent. Jeremy stared back at him, completely enraptured.
“What if he understood we’re here to unfuck the hotel, and knew we needed the mirror in order to do it?”
Kara broke out in more goosebumps. It was a solid theory. She looked at Jeremy. Not only was he unafraid, he seemed almost excited at the prospect.
“If that’s true, then we have to hurry,” Jeremy finally said.
Logan nodded. “We’ve got everything we need. Assuming the scrying crystal shows up again, and I’m sure it will.”
“And tonight’s the night,” said Jeremy. “The winter solstice. Our last chance.”
“Plus the room’s all set,” Logan added.
They both looked at Kara. For some reason they were deferring to her. Ironically, she even knew what their next step would be. Even if she wasn’t all that crazy about it.
“Only one thing left to do…” she said.
Thirty-Six
“For fuck’s sake it’s about time you called back!”
Xiomara’s wizened face took up the whole video screen. Wherever she had the camera set up, it was way too close. Kara had to chuckle. The old woman was wiser than all the rest of the Order put together, but there were some things she’d simply never get the hang of.
“Sorry,” Kara apologized. “The storm made it almost impossible to get reception. Last night alone we couldn’t—”