Page 56 of The Staircase in the Woods

“Lore—I don’t think I can. You all go ahead. I’ll—I’ll catch up.”

Christ on a clamshell,she thought. If she had guessed anyone would be melting down right now, it would’ve been Owen. Hamish, once upon a time, was Mister Go-Along-to-Get-Along Guy; whatever you told him to do, he’d do it.Hamish, drink this shot of hot sauce. Hamish, crush this can with your head. Hey, Ham, I dare you to press your asscheeks against Principal Schnur’s office window.God, there was one time they went to an old quarry that had long ago filled up with water, and someone had set up a rope swing, and they told Ham to swing on it and jump in. It was alongway down, and the water below was cold and black, and he didn’t give a shit, didn’t stop to ask any questions, didn’t haveone iotaof concern over it. He just whipped off his shirt, bolted toward the rope, and swung his ass like Tarzan out over the void. Then: hands-free. He let go, dropped like a bunker buster bomb.Splash.They all went in then, except Owen, who stayed up top—he said he wasn’t scared, but that “someone needs to watch our stuff.” Later, they learned that years before, a kid had died in that quarry doing exactly what they did. Turned out, there was a wholebunch of strip-mining equipment down there. Rusty, jagged metal, hiding under the surface. Kid landed in the wrong spot, crushed the center of his face on the top of a bent crane or something. Died instantly. When they all heard that, it was like,Whoa, what the fuck, we came really close to death. Except Hamish. Hamish said, and she would never forget this, “Yeah, but we had fun, and we all gotta die sometime.” Then he laughed and took another epic hit off his bong.Gurgle, gurgle.

What a difference then and now,she thought before marching over to Hamish and cupping his chin, turning it toward her.

“We gotta go. There’s a thumb on the cake. This room smells awful. We have to find an exit, and the exit is not in here. We can leave the door. Leave the door, Hamish.”

In a small voice, he said, “She looked like my Emma.”

“Who?”

“The girl. The bloody girl.”

Ah. So that’s what this was. That dead girl looked like one of Hamish’s daughters. Lore could not relate to that. She had no children. Had no pets. Didn’t want them. People you chose to love, chose to fuck, they were doors you could walk through or not. But you get dependents? Spouse, kids, a dog? You owe them and they owe you. They aren’t doorways. They’re whole houses. They’re a mortgage, and Lore, well, Lore was ever the renter.

“She’s not your daughter, Ham. Do you want to see your daughter again? Your wife? Your other kids?”

He nodded like a little kid being asked if he wanted ice cream after getting shots at the doctor.

“Then we have to move. Okay?”

That seemed to do the trick.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeahyeah. Okay. Yeah.”

Hamish let go of the door.

And then together they went to the closet and followed Owen through to the living room.

34

Gone, Matty, Gone

June 6, 1998.

Just after midnight.

Matty Shiffman went up the stairs, jumped into nowhere, and was gone.

Just afterthat,there was a moment when none of them were looking directly at the staircase. Owen was bent over, throwing up. Lauren was looking at the trees in the darkness, watching the shadows shimmy and swim and sway, and she was sure that when they moved just such a way, she would see Matty out there playing hide-and-seek, all while she did her very best to try to rememberyou’re on drugs you’re on drugs none of this is real Matty is still here you’re just hallucinating really fucking badly. Hamish ran around the back side of the staircase, yelling for Matty. And Nick? Well, all Nick had to do was blink one long blink.

And when they looked at the staircase again, it was gone.

—

Onea.m.

Lauren screamed into the woods. The woods screamed back, taking her voice and turning it into an arrow and firing it into her ear, an ear that drizzled blood now. So she screamed louder. A fox screamed back. A fox with a human face but sharp, sharp fox teeth. Beyond the human-faced sharp-toothed fox, Lauren thought she saw a staircase rise up out of the dark, and beyond the fox’s screams and the fox’s cackles, she wassureshe heard Matty calling her name, and she rantoward it, she ran top speed because she wanted to climb the staircase and be with him, and she was so, so,sosorry that she screwed things up for them, and her legs burned and she charged hard toward the stairs and toward the voice and then—

A dark shape, the fox with a human face,no,a wolf, a werewolf, a creature dark and hirsute, slammed into her, knocking her to the ground.

The beast’s face resolved into Owen.

“You almost ran off the cliff,” he said, breathless.

“Fuck you,” she whimpered, because though she did not know it was a cliff, maybe that’s where the staircase was. Maybe it was out there, over the edge. Maybe that’s where Matty went. He went over the cliff.I want to go over the cliff too. I want to fly like Matty did. Fly, climb, fall, die. Absurd, that. She was sure he was dead but sure he was alive. What did that mean? What could thatpossiblymean?It means you want to join him,she thought. Wherever he was.

And at that moment and in all the moments for years to come she would always think,I made him do it, I pushed him away, and if I hadn’t acted like such a dick that night, he would not have gone up that staircase like a cocky angry show-off.He is dead and gone, and I should be dead and gone too.

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