Dagger Key and Other Stories

“You can’t help. This is just going to make things worse for me,” she said. “I want you to leave now!”

He unbuckled his belt, whipped it off, and pried with the buckle at the loose board.

“What’re you doing?”

“Trying to understand this.”

He managed to pry the board up sufficiently that he could grip it with the tips of his fingers. He pulled it back farther and put an eye close to the gap he had made. A flash of light, and he saw an unfamiliar night sky with too many stars and a glowing red cloud occupying its southern quadrant. Hovering at an unguessable distance between him and the cloud was a dark wormlike structure. He had the impression he was looking at something of immense size.

Another flash of light, then another, and another yet…

In the intervals between flashes, he was afforded glimpses of different vistas. Many he was unable to quantify, their geography too vast and bewildering to be comprehensible. Those that he was able to comprehend all possessed the quality of immensity. Great reaches containing strangely proportioned structures. By the time he pressed the board back into place, he thought he understood the house. A sketchy understanding, but the basic picture was clear. The doors were programmed (he could think of no better term) to admit you to different portions of the house; but before you settled into the room to which you had been directed, you saw the place through which you transited, or perhaps it was simply another place that you might have transited to. A place removed from or perhaps inclusive of the house. There was much he was unsure of, but he was sure of one thing—the doors could be reprogrammed.

Grace continued to warn him away, but he refused to listen. Wishing it were sharper, he pushed the tongue of the belt buckle against the seam beside her neck, denting it slightly. He pushed harder, lodging the point in the dent and jamming it down with both hands. The seam writhed and suddenly deflated; the bands holding her retracted without a sound, appearing to flow back into the boards behind her. She let out a gasp and staggered away from the wall.

“The doors,” he said. “They can be adjusted…calibrated to take you away from the house. I’m not sure what this place is, but it embodies physical principles. Mechanical principles. Maybe…”

Grace planted both hands on his chest and sent him reeling backward. “You’re not hearing me!”

“I’m telling you how to escape,” he said.

She tried to shove him again, but he caught her hands.

“You’re not hearing me,” he said angrily. “I’m trying to help you. The uglies…they manipulate the house. And they’re stupid, right? Everyone I’ve talked to says that. So if they can do it, the chances are you can manage it, too.”

Grace twisted away from him. “You don’t know! You’ve only been here a little while. No time at all. Most of us have been here for years.”

“But you haven’t tried, have you? All you’ve done is mope about. Why don’t you take a moment and…”

“Do you want to die? That’s what’s going to happen.”

“Just listen and I’ll go.”

“I heard what you told me, all right? I’ll check the doors!”

“And watch the uglies,” he said. “When you’re with them, watch what they do with the doors.”

She started to speak, but instead stared past him, looking at something over his shoulder with fierce concentration. There was no sign of fear in her face, though fear, Shellane understood upon turning, must be responsible for her intensity of focus.

Three of the uglies had come into view around a bend and were crouched as if in preparation for an attack, squeezed together by a narrowing of the walls. Two of them resembled the men imprisoned in the cells, but the third, the biggest, was identical to the man who had pursued Shellane through the woods. Severely deformed. Jagged orbits shadowing his eyes, a darkly crimson mouth visible behind a toothy jack o’lantern grimace. Shellane braced himself for a fight. Despite Grace’s assertion that they were strong, they looked spindly and frail, and he believed he could do some damage. But rather than charging at him, they began to whimper like a chorus of terrified children, gaspy and quavering. The one on the right lifted its head to the ceiling, as if seeking divine assistance, and gave forth with a feeble ululation. Urine dribbled down its leg. The others hid their eyes, but continued to peek at him, as if not daring to turn away from the cause of their terror.

They were afraid of him, Shellane realized. No other explanation satisfied. He took a step toward them—their whimpers rose in pitch and volume. Definitely afraid. He caught Grace’s hand, tried to pull her away. If they could get clear, he thought, he would have time to come up with a plan. But she yanked her hand free and dropped to her knees, then sank into a reclining position, her eyes averted, like a child who sees the inevitable, some terrible punishment, and seeks refuge in collapse.