Page 68 of Middle of the Night

Ethan does, pushing his face between the bars, wincing as the coarse iron scratches across his ears. Like someone’s scouring them with the Brillo pads his mom uses. But once they clear the bars, the rest of his head is free. Now all he has to worry about is the other two-thirds of his body.

“Stand as straight as you can,” Russ advises.

Ethan takes a deep breath, makes himself as straight and thin as possible, and slides the rest of the way out.

The others applaud. All but Billy, who peers between the bars like a dog in the pound. “I don’t think I’ll fit,” he says.

“You will,” Ethan says. “Just do what I did.”

He guides Billy through it, starting with one shoulder and one knee. As Billy pushes his head between the bars, there’s a moment in which Ethan fears he won’t make it. The bars seem to catch on Billy’s ears, pinning them against his head. Billy keeps pushing forward, all but forcing his head through, his ears scraped scarlet.

“You can do it,” Ethan says when Billy pauses. “Just suck—”

He’s interrupted by a voice cutting across the grounds, as loud as a shotgun blast. “Hey! You kids shouldn’t be here!”

Ethan whips around to see someone in the distance, hurrying up the path. He looks official. Dark suit. Tie flapping as he runs, his dress shoes scuffing along the gravel.

“Shit!” Ragesh yelps. “Run!”

He takes off, sprinting away from the mausoleum and going back the way they came. Russ follows, his skinny legs pumping. Panicked, Ethan doesn’t know what to do as the man in the suit keeps yelling for them to stop and his body keeps insisting he run. So he spins in place like a broken toy, bumping into Billy, who’s still trying to wriggle his way out of the mausoleum, his body at an angle now, the gate’s bars slicing across his chest and back.

Ashley latches onto Ethan’s arm. “Let’sgo!” she says with a tug. “Grab Billy.”

Ethan does, snagging Billy’s hand and pulling as hard as Ashley’s pulling him. Each tug only seems to lodge Billy tighter between the bars, his eyes widening as if they’re about to pop out of his head.

“Stop,” he hisses. “I can’t move.”

That’s when Ethan realizes the awful truth of the situation.

They are in a place where they absolutely shouldn’t be.

The others are leaving or have already left.

And Billy is completely stuck.

EIGHTEEN

On the outside, little about the mausoleum has changed in the past thirty years. It still rests in the shadows of the trees, the giant willows weeping onto the pitched roof. The only noticeable difference between then and now is the fat padlock on the gate, hanging from chains looped around the bars. Even though it’s likely because of what happened thirty years ago, I can’t help but have the same thought I did then: Is all this effort to prevent someone from entering—or the dead inside from escaping?

The other obvious change has nothing to do with the mausoleum, but with me. There’s no way I’d fit between those bars now. I’d be lucky to get a leg through.

Yet there’s something inside that I’m curious to see, so I venture off the path and approach the gate. Peering through the bars is an addition made since the last time I was here—a narrow box of granite placed directly on the mausoleum floor.

I aim my phone’s flashlight into the darkness, sweeping it across the stone until I spot the name carved into it.

EZRA HAWTHORNE

While I’m not surprised that Mr. Hawthorne chose the institute grounds as his final resting place, I do find the plainness of it interesting. The man was rich as sin, and his family spent a fortune turning this piece of New Jersey woods into their own private estate. Yet he’s buried inside a simple granite box that doesn’t even include the years in which he was born and died. The only other writing I can see is an epitaph, etched a few inches beneath his name.

DEATH IS MERELY AN ILLUSION

I have no idea what that means. That Ezra Hawthorne believed in an afterlife? Or that there is no such thing and those who believe in it are fools? It makes me think about Billy. Dead—but also not. I wonder what Ezra would have thought aboutthat.

I leave the mausoleum and move on, my steps quick against the gravel path. After I round another bend and pass a hedge maze that’s seen better days, the mansion comes into view.

The structure sits large and stately against the rolling lawn. Wide and rambling, it bears no particular architectural style, making it seem like a building out of time. Something from a movie. Other than its size, the most striking feature about the Hawthorne mansion is its silence. The place isquiet. The only sounds I hear as I approach are my own footsteps, startlingly loud amid the overall hush. It makes me instinctively start to tiptoe, which might not even be necessary. I haven’t seen or heard signs that anyone else is around.

Still, I try to make myself as inconspicuous as possible once I draw close to the mansion. Sneaking up to a window in the back, I cup my hands to the glass and look inside. It appears to be some kind of sitting room, with wingback chairs and a velvet sofa surrounding a low coffee table. A tapestry hangs from one wall, while another is filled with a large landscape painting.

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