SATURDAY, 12:41 A.M.
The brothers tripped and banged into each other as they flew past the first door and the Plato wall light. At the landing, David tromped down. Xander turned to look back. Nothing was after them. “Wait!” he said.
David stopped. “Are they coming?” he asked.
Xander shook his head.
“What was that? What happened to my pajamas?” He was slowly reascending the stairs.
Xander looked at his palms, as if for clues. “They were just pulled out of my hands.”
“So somebody was in the locked room.”
Xander thought about it. Somehow, the way the pajamas vanished didn’t feel like someone yanking them away. “There was kind of a breeze when it happened.”
“Yeah, anything moving that fast is gonna make its own wind.”
“Not like that. I mean right before they disappeared.”
“So, what now?”
Xander smiled. “We keep looking.” He started down the corridor.
“Well,” David said, coming up behind him, “if you want any more clothes, use your boxers.” He chuckled at that.
“Funny.”
Both of them kept their eyes on each door they passed.
The first one, then the second. They reached another wall lamp, this one completely different from the last. It appeared to be half of a large, ornate goblet. Lead or pewter, maybe.
There was a flat base; a stem that resembled a vine-entwined column; and a chalice inlaid with colored glass pieces, cut like gems. Light not only poured from its open top, up the wall to the ceiling, but also gleamed through the colored glass. He saw now that each fixture was different, but he could not tell at this distance what each one resembled.
The next room they entered was much like the first two: bench, shelf, locked second door. The theme of the items had something to do with war. There was a smooth, round helmet; binoculars—black, not white as the ones in the Alpine room were; and a gun belt with bullets and a holster, but no gun. On the bench was a hand grenade.
Xander nudged David. “Don’t touch that, either.”
They went from room to room, finding the same arrangement of bench, shelf, hooks, and locked door. The items within reflected a wide range of activities, from mountain climbing to boating to something to do with hunting. Several times Xan-der and David were at a loss for what the items meant. They reached the end of the long hall and the final door.
“I counted twenty,” Xander said.
David nodded. “I lost count at twelve.”
Xander noted that the wall at the end of the hallway was not mirrored but decorated to match the side walls. The landing at the other end, where they had started, seemed far away.
To make their investigation complete, they stepped through the last door. Hanging from the hooks were the props from a costume play: a round shield, battered and bent; a simple helmet, equally scarred; a scabbard with a sword’s hilt extending from it; a net, made of steel links; and what appeared to be an animal pelt. Xan-der tried the interior door, knowing what he would find: it was locked. When he turned away, his heart leaped into his throat. David was holding the scabbard, pulling the sword from it.
“David! Don’t touch it!”
His face was beaming. “Why not? This is cool!”
Xander grabbed his brother’s hands, preventing him from pulling the short sword all the way out. “It might be a trick,” he said. He listened for any sounds that might reach him from the hall. No doors clicking open. No footsteps.
David watched him listen without saying a word. They stood like that—both boys in only boxers, sword and scabbard held between them—for a long time. It did not escape Xander how strange it was that he was more worried about the props than about their intrusion into the rooms. Rooms were rooms. A man’s tools, his weapons, were part of who he was, part of what he did. To Xander, his camera said more about him than his bedroom. He did not know in what way, but he suspected the items in these rooms were more important than the rooms themselves. Because of that, if there was a trap, he believed the spring, the trigger, would be among them.
With a stillness, a quiet, he began to relax. He released his brother’s hands.
David, spooked now, did not move. He said, “What is it?”
Xander smiled. He nodded toward the sword. “Let’s see it.” It came out of the scabbard with a metallic shiiing! David held it up. The blade was two feet long, thick, tapering to a fine point. It was dinged and scratched with rust and— “Is that blood?” David asked, staring.
“Stage blood,” Xander said with more certainty than he felt.
David rotated his wrist, circumscribing a figure eight in the air with the tip.
Xander cautiously plucked the helmet off the hook. He hefted it in his hands. He said, “This thing’s heavy.” It felt gritty under his fingers, as though it was rusting or had been lying in dirt. He checked inside, then fitted it over his head.
David laughed. “Gluteus Maximus, I salute thee!”
Xander pulled the metal net off its hook. It too was heavy, even heavier than the helmet. About the length of the sword, it was formed into a tube, open at both ends, but wider on one side than the other. Leather straps were attached to the wide end. He understood what it was. He stuck his arm into the tube up to his shoulder. His hand popped out the other end, where a metal band crossed over his palm. He tugged on the straps and cinched the ends together like a belt under his opposite arm.
“Whoa!” David said.
Xander flexed out his chest, held up his arm. “Chain mail,” he said. His arm almost immediately felt the strain of the chain’s weight. He lowered his hand, resting it on the locked door handle. “I know what all this—” The handle rotated under his palm. He fell to the floor as the door clicked open.
David screamed and dropped the scabbard. He squared himself to the door. He held the sword in both hands, extending his arms before him.
Xander scrambled up. He stood next to David. Light, sunlight, streamed through the three-inch opening. Nothing on the other side interrupted the flow of light. No shadows cast by beast or man as they prepared to push through. A sound, not dissimilar to the wind in the trees, reached their ears. Beyond it was a muted rumble, like a distant surf.
“Xander?” David said.
That spurred Xander to move. He approached the door. He cocked his head to see through. Only light. He reached out, touched the edge of the door, and pulled it open.
David sucked in a sharp breath. Beyond the threshold was nothing that could be part of the house. It was a vast landscape of sand. An unfelt wind whipped the grains into spinning dervishes that danced for a few seconds before settling again. New torrents sprang up in different spots. Nearby, rocks broke the surface of the dunes. They huddled low as if avoiding the sting of flying sand.
The heat of a midday sun radiated over the boys. Impossible, Xander thought. It must be about one o’clock in the morning. Here, anyway . . . certainly not in there. Sand blew in. Xander felt it hit his legs and then his stomach and chest. It was drifting in, obscuring more and more of the hardwood floor. He stepped closer, put his hand on the door frame. He stretched his leg past the threshold.
“Xander, don’t!” David yelled.
“I’m just seeing,” he said over his shoulder.
He pushed his bare foot into the hot sand. It sank in a half inch. This was no hallucination, though he didn’t really think it was, with David seeing it too. Xander released the door frame and took another step. He was completely out of the little room now.
“Xander!” David screamed again.
Xander looked back, grinning at the wonder of it all.
The door slammed shut.