GANDALF SIMON

“Nothing! I did nothing,” Gandalf whispered, pushing away the bright light. Why had she thought this busybody woman would understand, would offer any kind of comfort? “Never mind. Where are we going?”

“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said. “That comment was unkind. I have a big mouth. Please, tell me what happened to you.”

Gandalf shook her head and started walking away from someone else who didn’t understand. Then she stopped herself. If there was ever a person to share her story with, Evelyn might be that person. Someone odd, like her, and seeming apart from others. “I was kidnapped by Homeland Security and held captive. Tortured, though they called it enhanced interrogation. It broke me.”

Evelyn stared at her, mouth open. She grabbed Gandalf’s arm.

“I’ll tell you the story another time. Now, please let us find Iris and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

It did. It seriously creeped her out. Something about institutional hallways with closed doors at regular intervals. These floors were tiled rather than wooden like the detention center in Maine, but the walls held the same silenced voices, the same dank odor of broken lives and hopeless yearning.

Gandalf kept walking, sensing Evelyn following her, until she reached the darker cavern of a stairwell. Gandalf was thrust back in time, facing a similar darkness in Maine. Back then, she hugged the institutional hallway with a hurricane roaring outside, her life depending on her ability to escape. She wasn’t sure she could do this now, relive that moment this way. She should turn back. But what if Evelyn was right? What if the old woman needed rescuing? What if Iris’s life depended on them?

“Listen,” Evelyn said. A brief murmur of voices drifted up from the floor below. “Sounds like they’re downstairs.”

At the bottom of the stairs they saw a strip of light under a doorway to the left and walked quietly in that direction. Gandalf tried not to look too closely at the patterns of mold blooming on the wall, not to breathe too deeply the ancient musty air.

“Should we just go in?” Gandalf asked.

“I don’t know. What if they’re holding Iris against her will? Maybe one of us should stay out here, so we can go for help?”

“I’ll stay,” Gandalf offered, but then the door opened to Lexi holding a broom like a baseball bat. When she saw Evelyn and Gandalf, Lexi lowered the broom. Gandalf tried to relax, but every muscle fiber was engaged. She couldn’t stay in the hallway, even to stand guard, and stepped forward to join Evelyn at the door. No way could she stay behind by herself in the cold hallway, both empty and crowded with some kind of presence.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Lexi said. “But what are you doing here?”

“Gandalf and I were out walking,” Evelyn said. “We saw you with Iris and wanted to help. Is she okay? What is this room?”

This room, Gandalf thought, is in an abandoned mental institution with the ghosts of crazy people all locked up in the dead of night. She must be nuts to be here. And Jess, she must be wild with worry by now.

The third woman joined Lexi. “This is a storeroom for the old hospital. And you’d better come in. There’s a night guard who patrols this building.”

“Quiet.” Lexi put her finger to her lips. “My mom is trying to sleep.”

She stepped back to let them enter the room, crowded with stacks of sagging cardboard boxes, piles of rusty box springs, unidentifiable equipment covered in dust. Mismatched chairs in a makeshift circle were heaped with blankets and pillows and sleeping bags; opened packages of cookies and chips and thermoses covered an upturned carton. Iris slept on her side on an old sofa, covered by a faded comforter and sleeping bag. The yellow cat was curled against her chest. Lexi sat down at her mother’s feet, and the other women took chairs around the circle.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asked.

“My mother asked Gloria for help,” Lexi said. “And Gloria called me.”

“I don’t understand,” Evelyn said. “Why did Iris go missing and what’s going on?”

“It’s a long story,” Lexi said. “Come get comfortable and we’ll talk. If you are here to help my mother, that is.”

Evelyn and Gandalf both nodded. Yes. Of course.

Gandalf looked around and realized she felt relaxed and strangely calm in this extraordinary situation. What was wrong with her, to be more comfortable in this chaos than in ordinary life?

“Who are you?” Evelyn interrupted, pointing to Gloria. “Why do you look so familiar?”