Page 69 of The Staircase in the Woods

“We should go. We have to go. I mean—” Lore shrugged. “Not like we’re going to be going back to sleep. The rooms haven’t changed. Still a bathroom. Still a dark place. We’ll just—we have our phones, yeah? Power them up, we can use the flashlights to make it through.”

Owen sighed. Fear prickled his skin. He didn’t want to leave because—well, this room was safe. Safe enough, anyway. No dead girls, no thumbs on cakes. Just some dead fish and ugly greige. It would be easier to stay here. To remain here.To wait and stop and be safe and shrivel up and deliquesce until you’re just a comfortable, soft gelatin soaking into the gray-beige carpet.That thought, sung to him like a song from outside himself. A lullaby of sorts. The comfort of doing nothing. The peace of waiting. The easy contentment of slow death.

That’s what you’ve been doing your whole life,he realized.

Just watching and waiting and—

And dying.

He shuddered.

Lore was right. They had to go. They had tomove.

“Good?” Lore asked, rhetorically, not waiting for an answer before she said, with some finality, “Good. Meanwhile—I can’t believe I have to say this, but it’s like we’re going on a road trip. That means ifyou have to go to the bathroom, do it now, since we…have a bathroom. We’ll go in one at a time, butkeep the door open. No room for embarrassment here, cool? Door open.”

They all nodded.

“Line up for potty breaks,” she said. “Except I’m first, because I know you animals are going to soak the seat.”

She headed off to the bathroom. Nick followed after.

Hamish took Owen aside. “Fuck, man. I don’t know about this. I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

“I don’t know either. But I don’t think we can stay here.”

“Tell me we’re going to be all right.”

“If you’re looking tomefor reassurance, we’re pretty fucked.”

Hamish shrugged. “I still need it. I still need to know we’re going to be okay, that we’re going to get out of this place, man.”

It dug into him to see Hamish rattled. Hamish, who for so long lived what could best be described as anunexamined life,looking to Owen, who lived what could only be described as anoverexaminedlife.

“We’re going to be fine,” Owen lied.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Covenant?”

“Covenant.”

They hugged.

It was the last time they’d do so for a long while.

39

The Loneliest Number

The Broken Glass Bathroom.

Before Lore went in, her mind felt occupied, her mental fingers sliding around the margins of the puzzle of this place. Because that’s what it was to her: a puzzle, a game, a maze. Like Owen had said, a D&D dungeon, aZorkadventure game. Solve the puzzle. Choose the right path. It felt cold and clarifying.

But then she went into the bathroom.

She had to be careful—the whole room was full of broken mirror glass. Easy enough to step over, but it was a little slippery. Some of it was in the sink, too. The mirror itself was broken from the center out—as if someone had struck it with a fist or an object. Most of the glass was gone, though a few pieces still stuck to the backing. Slivers of Lore stared back at herself. But also: words. Someone had drawn words on the glass. Not on every shard, but on half of them, at least, drawn on with what looked like lipstick.

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