Page 73 of The Staircase in the Woods

Lore moved fast, three long strides to the door—

She whipped it open, already saying Owen’s name. “Owen, why the fuck did you—” But even as the words were falling out of her mouth, she knew in her gut what had happened. The door no longer opened on Owen and Nick. It did not find the Greige Room. It found a new room instead. A strange country kitchen. Garish. Tacky. Her guts churned. Her head spun.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Hamish, now behind her. “Wait. What happened? Where are they?”

“They’re gone,” she said. And when she said the words, a little voice slithered into her mind, a voice that she feared was not her own but still sounded like her, and it said:One step closer to doing it yourself, Lore. Like you always do. The only way anything ever gets done.

42

The Tear-Drowned Playroom

Everything felt sluggish. Owen threw out a hand to brace himself against the doorjamb so he didn’t fall forward into the room ahead of him—a playroom. A playroom that was not his father’s bedroom. A playroom with a dead Christmas tree but not his two friends, Lore and Hamish.

He shut his eyes so hard it hurt. He thrust his free hand toward his mouth. He bit down hard on his pinky, yanking a crescent of fingernail free—like a vine pulled loose from under the dirt, it unzipped down the side of the nail, freeing fresh blood. He tasted that blood, dark and coppery. He suckled the finger and tried not to bite it clean off.

“The fuck did you do that for?” Nick growled at him.

“I—it was my father’s bedroom.”

“What? So what?”

“He—” Owen had to bite back bile. “He was in it. My dad. I saw him. Ismelledhim. He had cancer and…” His voice died on the vine.

“You really fucking did it now, Zuikas.” Nick grunted. “You’re bleeding, by the way.”

Owen looked down at the pinky finger. Fresh blood oozed toward the crook of his fingers. Over his knuckles. “I know.”And it feels good. It feels right.

“Lore! Hamish!” he called suddenly. A desperate plea.

No one answered. Because they were somewhere else now.

The rooms had shifted. He’d closed the door and that was that.

“Do we go through?” Owen asked Nick.

“What are you asking me for?” Nick said, sounding defensive. “I’ve never been here. I don’t know shit from shit, Nailbiter.”

“I think we go through. Maybe…maybe the door will reset then. Maybe the rooms will shift and, and, I dunno, and they’ll be there. In the next room. This place can’t be infinite. We’re going to see them again, right?”

Nick didn’t say anything.

“Nick. Right? We’ll see them again?”

All Nick did then was shrug, then step through the door.

Owen cursed, and followed after.

He stepped into the playroom—

Then turned, closed the door behind him, and opened it again.

The Greige Room was gone.

In its place waited a crowded attic space full of boxes and bins and the detritus of domestic life: a rack of bagged clothes, a leaning stack of framed paintings, a crooked tower ofNational Geographicmagazines, a beat-up-looking tricycle. And at the far end, under a gable vent and small wooden door, there was a disheveled futon mattress. On that mattress was something else, a body-shaped thing swaddled in filthy bedsheets, bedsheets the color of rust and old chocolate.

The body-shaped thing on the lumpy mattress sat straight up.

Owen let slip a small cry of alarm, then slammed the door.

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