Eddie gazed up at me uncertainly, then back at the taxi driver. The taxi driver had stopped just past the entrance. His eyes were searching each table.
“Hurry,” I whispered. “He hasn’t seen us yet.”
“But maybe we should just explain to him—” Eddie said.
“Huh? Explain what?” I shot back. “That we can’t pay him because we lost our memory and don’t know our name? I really don’t think he’ll buy that—do you?”
Eddie twisted his face in a frown. “Okay. How do we get out of here?” he demanded.
The front door was blocked by the taxi driver. But I spotted a glass door on the back wall near our table.
The door had a filmy, white curtain over it and a small sign that read: NO EXIT.
But I didn’t care. Eddie and I had no choice. We had to leave—fast!
I grabbed the knob and pulled the door open. Eddie and I slipped through, then tugged the door shut behind us.
“I don’t think he saw us,” I whispered. “I think we’re okay.”
We turned away from the door and found ourselves in a long, dark hallway. This must be an area used by the hotel workers, I thought. The floor had no carpet. The walls were dirty, stained, and unpainted.
We turned a corner. I held out a hand to stop Eddie.
We listened hard for footsteps. Had the taxi driver seen us duck out? Was he coming after us?
I couldn’t hear a thing over the pounding of my heart. “What a horrible day!” I wailed.
And then the day turned even more horrible.
The man in the black cape stepped out from around the corner. “Did you really think I wouldn’t follow you?” he asked. “Did you really think you could escape from me?”
17
He moved forward quickly, his face hidden in the shadows.
Eddie and I were trapped, our backs pressed against the curtained, glass door.
As the caped man drew near, his features came into view. His eyes were dark and cold. His mouth was locked in a menacing snarl.
He raised his palm to Eddie. “Give them back,” he demanded.
Eddie’s eyes bulged in surprise. “Huh? Give what back?” he cried.
The caped man kept his palm in front of Eddie’s face. “Give them back—now!” he bellowed. “Do not play games with me.”
Eddie’s expression slowly changed. He glanced at me, then turned back to the caped man. “If I give them back, will you let us go?”
I was totally confused. Give what back? What was Eddie talking about?
The caped man uttered a short, dry laugh. It sounded more like a cough. “Do you dare to bargain with me?” he asked my brother.
“Eddie—what is he talking about?” I cried.
But Eddie didn’t reply. He kept his eyes locked on the shadowy face of the caped man. “If I give them back, will you let us go?”
“Hand them back—now,” the big man replied sharply, leaning menacingly over Eddie.
Eddie sighed. He reached into his pants pocket. And to my shock, he pulled out the three smooth, white stones.
My brother the pickpocket had struck again. “Eddie—when did you take those?” I demanded.
“In the sewer,” Eddie replied. “When he grabbed me.”
“But, why?” I asked.
Eddie shrugged. “I don’t know. They seemed important to him. So I thought—”
“They are important!” the caped man bellowed. He grabbed the stones from Eddie’s hand.
“Now will you let us go?” Eddie cried.
“Yes. We will go now,” the man replied, concentrating on the stones.
“That’s not what I said!” Eddie exclaimed. “Will you let us go?”
The man ignored him. He piled the stones one on top of the other in his palm. Then he chanted some words, words in a foreign language that I didn’t recognize.
As soon as he chanted the words, the hallway began to shimmer. The doors began to wiggle and bend, as if made of rubber. The floor buckled and swayed.
The caped man began to shimmer and bend, too.
The hallway throbbed with a blinding, white light.
I felt a sharp stab of pain—as if I had been hit hard in the stomach.
I couldn’t breathe.
Everything went black.
18
Flickering orange light broke the darkness.
I opened my eyes. Blinked several times. Took a deep breath.
The caped man was gone.
“Eddie—are you okay?” I asked in a quivering voice.
“I—I think so,” he stammered.
I gazed down the long hall, startled to find it lit by flickering candles. A candle was perched in a holder beside each door.
“Sue, how did we get in this hallway?” Eddie asked softly. “Where is the caped man?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m as confused as you are.”
We stepped into the flickering light. “This has to be the old section of the hotel,” I guessed. “They must want it to look old-fashioned.”
We walked past door after door. The long, narrow hallway was silent except for the thud of our shoes on the hardwood floor. The doors were all closed. No other people in sight.
The flickering candlelight, the dark doorways, the eerie silence—all gave me a cold, tingly feeling. My entire body trembled.
We kept walking through the dim, orangey light.
“I—I want to go back to the room,” Eddie stammered as we turned another corner. “Maybe Mom and Dad have come back. Maybe they’re waiting for us up there.”
“Maybe,” I replied doubtfully.
We entered another silent hallway, glowing eerily in darting, dancing candlelight. “There’s got to be an elevator down here somewhere,” I muttered.
But we passed only dark, closed doors.
Turning another corner, we nearly bumped into a group of people.
“Ohh!” I cried out, so startled to find others in these long, empty hallways.
I stared at them as they passed. They wore long robes, and their faces were hidden under dark hoods. I couldn’t tell if they were men or women.
They moved silently, making no sound at all. They paid no attention to Eddie or me.
“Uh… can you tell us where the elevator is?” Eddie called after them.
They didn’t turn back, didn’t reply.
“Sirs?” Eddie called, chasing after them. “Please! Have you seen the elevator?”
One of them turned back toward Eddie. The others continued moving silently down the hallway, their long robes swishing softly.
I stepped up beside my brother and the robed figure. I could see the face under the hood. An old man with bushy white eyebrows.
He peered out at Eddie, then at me. His eyes were dark and wet. His expression was sorrowful.
“I smell evil around you,” he croaked in a dry whisper.
“What?” I cried. “My brother and I—”
“Do not leave the abbey,” the old man instructed. “I smell evil around you. Your time is near. So near. So very near…”
19
“What abbey?” I demanded. “Why are you saying that?”
The old man didn’t reply. The candlelight glowed in his watery eyes. He nodded his head solemnly under the heavy hood. Then he turned away from us and glided silently after the others, the hem of his robe sweeping along the bare floor.
“What did he mean?” Eddie demanded when the hooded man had vanished around a corner. “Why did he try to frighten us?”
I shook my head. “It had to be some kind of a joke,” I replied. “They’re probably on their way to a party or something.”
Eddie frowned thoughtfully. “They were creepy, Sue. They didn’t look like they were in a party mood to me.”
I sighed. “Let’s find the elevator and get up to the room. I don’t like this old part of the hotel. It’s just too dark and scary.”
“Hey, I’m the one who gets scared,” Eddie said, followin
g me down the hall. “You’re supposed to be the brave one—remember?”
We wandered down one long, candlelit hallway after another, feeling more and more lost. We couldn’t find an elevator or stairs or any kind of exit.
“Are we going to walk forever?” Eddie whined. “There has to be a way out of here—doesn’t there?”
“Let’s go back,” I suggested. “The taxi driver is probably gone by now. Let’s go back the way we came, and go out through the restaurant.”
Eddie pushed his dark hair back off his forehead. “Good idea,” he muttered.
We turned and started the long walk back. It was easy to keep in the right direction. We followed the hallways and made left turns instead of rights.
We walked quickly without speaking.
As we walked, I tried to remember our last name. Tried to remember Mom and Dad. Tried to picture their faces.
Tried to remember something about them.
Losing your memory is so terrifying. Much more frightening than being chased by someone.
That’s because the problem is inside you. Inside your own mind.
You can’t run away from it. You can’t hide from it. And you can’t solve it.
You just feel so helpless.
My only hope was that Mom and Dad would be waiting in the room. And that they could explain to Eddie and me what had happened to our memories.
“Oh, no!” Eddie cried, startling me from my thoughts.
We had reached the end of the final hallway. The hotel restaurant should be on the other side of the curtained glass door.
But there was no door.
No door back to the restaurant. No door at all.
Eddie and I were staring at a solid wall.
20
“No!” Eddie wailed. “Let us out! Let us out of here!” He pounded furiously on the wall with his fist.
I tugged him away. “This must be the wrong hallway,” I told him. “We made a wrong turn.”
“No!” he protested. “It’s the right hallway! I know it is!”
“Then where is the restaurant?” I replied. “They didn’t seal it up while we were walking the halls just now.”
He stared up at me, his chin trembling, his dark eyes frightened. “Can’t we go outside and walk around to the front?” he asked wearily.
“We could,” I replied thoughtfully. “If we could find a door that led to the outside. But so far—”
I stopped when I heard voices.
I turned and saw a narrow hallway leading off to our right. The voices seemed to be floating through this hall I hadn’t noticed before. Voices and laughter.
“That must be the restaurant down there,” I told Eddie. “See? We just had one more turn to make. We’ll be out of here in a few seconds.”
His face brightened a little.
The voices and laughter grew louder as we made our way down the narrow corridor. Bright yellow light shone out from an open doorway at the end.
As we stepped into the doorway, we both cried out in surprise.
This was not the hotel restaurant we had our tea in.
I grabbed Eddie’s arm as I stared in shock around the enormous room. Two blazing fireplaces provided the only light. People in strange costumes sat on low benches around long, wooden tables.
A whole deer or an elk was turning on a spit, roasting over a fire in the center of the floor.
The tables were piled high with food—meats, whole cabbages, green vegetables, fruits, whole potatoes, and foods I didn’t recognize.
I didn’t see any plates or serving platters. The food was just strewn over the long tables. People reached in and pulled out what they wanted.
They ate noisily, talking loudly, laughing and singing, taking long drinks from metal wine cups, slapping the cups on the tabletop and toasting each other merrily.
“They’re all eating with their hands!” Eddie exclaimed.
He was right. I didn’t see any silverware at the tables.
Two chickens, squawking loudly, fluttered across the floor, chased by a large brown dog. A woman had two babies in her lap. She ignored them while she chewed on a large hunk of meat.
“It’s a costume party,” I whispered to Eddie. We hadn’t the nerve to move from the doorway. “This must be where those guys in the hoods were going.”
I gazed in amazement at the colorful costumes in the room. Long robes, loose-fitting pajama-type outfits of blue and green, leather vests worn over black tights. A lot of men and women wore animal furs around their shoulders—despite the blazing heat from the fireplaces.
In one corner, a man appeared to be wearing an entire bearskin. He stood beside a giant wooden barrel, working a spigot, filling metal cups with a thick, brown liquid that oozed from the barrel.
Two children in rags played tag under one of the long tables. Another child, dressed in green tights, chased after one of the squawking chickens.
“What a party!” Eddie whispered. “Who are these people?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t understand what they’re saying too well. Can you?”
Eddie shook his head. “Their accents are too weird.”
“But maybe someone in here can tell us how to get outside,” I suggested.
“Let’s try,” Eddie pleaded.
I led the way into the room. Even though I was walking slowly, timidly, I nearly tripped over a sleeping hound dog.
Eddie followed close behind as I made my way up to one of the men turning the roasting deer on the spit. He wore only knee breeches of some rough brown cloth. His forehead and the top of his body glistened with sweat.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said.
He glanced up at me and his eyes bulged wide in surprise.
“Excuse me,” I repeated. “Can you tell us how to get out of the hotel?”
He stared at me without replying, stared as if he had never seen a twelve-year-old girl in jeans and a T-shirt before.
Two little girls, wearing gray dresses down to the floor, walked up to Eddie and me, staring up at us with the same shocked expression as the man. Their streaky blond hair fell wild and tangled behind their backs. It looked as if it had never been brushed in their lives!
They pointed at us and giggled.
And I suddenly realized that the entire room had grown silent.
As if someone had turned a knob and clicked off the sound.
My heart started to pound. The strong smell of the roasting deer choked my nostrils.
I turned to find everyone in the room gaping in open-mouthed wonder. Staring in silence at Eddie and me.
“I—I’m sorry to interrupt the party,” I stammered in a tiny, frightened voice.
I let out a cry of surprise as they all climbed noisily to their feet. Food toppled off the table. One of the long benches clattered to the floor.
More children pointed and giggled.
Even the chickens seemed to stop clucking and strutting.
And then an enormous red-faced man in a long white gown raised his hand and pointed at Eddie and me. “It’s THEM!” he bellowed. “It’s THEM!”
21
“Do they know us?” Eddie whispered to me.
We stared back at them. Everyone seemed to freeze in place. The man stopped turning the deer on the spit. The only sound in the huge dining hall was the crackle of the fires in the twin fireplaces.
The man in the white gown slowly lowered his hand. His face darkened to a bright scarlet as he gaped at us in amazement.
“We just want to find the way out,” I said. My voice sounded tiny and shrill.
No one moved. No one replied.
I took a deep breath and tried one more time. “Can anyone help us?”
Silence.
Who are these strange people? I wondered. Why are they staring at us like that? Why won’t they answer us?
Eddie and I took a step back as they began to move toward us. Some of them were whispering excitedly, muttering to each other, gesturing with their ha
nds.
“Eddie—we’d better get out of here!” I whispered.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But I didn’t like the excited expressions on their faces.
And I didn’t like the way they were moving along the wall, moving to get behind us, to surround us.
“Eddie—run!” I screamed.
Angry cries rang out as we both spun around and hurtled toward the open doorway. Dogs barked. Children started to cry.
We darted back into the dark hallway and kept running.
I could still feel the heat of the fire on my face as we ran, still smell the tangy aroma of the roasting deer.
Their excited, angry cries followed us through the long hall. Gasping for breath, I glanced back, expecting to see them chasing after us.
But the hall was empty.
We turned a corner and kept going. Candles flickered on both sides of us. The floorboards groaned under our shoes.
The eerie, dim light. The voices far behind us. The endless tunnel of a hallway. All made me feel as if I were running through a dream.
We turned another corner and kept running.
The misty candlelight blurred as I ran. I’m floating through a dark orange cloud, I thought.
Do these empty, candlelit halls ever end?
Eddie and I both cried out happily as a door appeared in front of us.
A door we had never seen before.
It has to lead to the outside! I told myself.
We raced to the door. We didn’t slow down as we reached it.
I stuck out both hands. Pushed hard.
The door flew open.
And we stepped out into bright sunlight.
Outside! We had escaped from the dark maze of the hotel corridors!
It took a few seconds for the harsh white glare to fade from my eyes.
I blinked several times. Then I gazed up and down the street.
“Oh, no!” I wailed, grabbing my brother’s arm. “No! Eddie—what has happened?”
22
“It—it’s daytime!” Eddie stammered.
But the bright sunlight wasn’t the only shock.