The Gray House

The old guard swore to Ralph on his honor that he hadn’t unlocked the door for Godmother, neither at night nor in the morning. Ralph believed him. When he’d left last night, Old Man could have slept through an artillery attack. But the spare set of keys, usually available for the use of the counselors, Ralph had taken.

Ralph knew that the children of the House could get in and out of the tiniest cracks, but he could not imagine the same arcane paths being taken by an elderly lady. As much as he tried to chase it away, his imagination kept unfolding this surreal picture before him: the boys, resembling at the same time a group of busy black ants and a detachment of sinister ninjas, dragging a listless woman, bound tightly like a mummy, swiftly along the rainwater pipe. Variations on this theme included the body being delivered ceremoniously to the basement or stuffed down the storm drain. Then the ant ninjas soared on their invisible strings to the third-floor windows and went to work on the counselor’s room, filling their capacious backpacks with her personal effects.

The vision of Vulture thoughtfully putting down the signature at the bottom of Godmother’s resignation letter, carefully checking it against her real autograph on some paper or other, was much less bizarre and much more frightening. In a peculiar coincidence, Bird Leader was known for his advanced ability to forge any handwriting. It was a point of pride for him on par with, if not more than, his talent at picking locks. And the one thing that Ralph could not picture, no matter how he tried, was Godmother stapling an important document to the door of the principal’s office. She’d never do that. It was against her style.

Ralph made sure to personally examine the basement, the attic, and every empty room on the first floor in both wings. The closer inspection of the storm drain he decided to postpone until dark. He took a break in his investigations to pay another visit to Shark and convince him not to declare an emergency assembly and not to remove anyone from the House unilaterally, since Godmother’s flight clearly indicated that she herself had grave doubts about the success of such actions. Shark made a brief display of reluctance and then quickly surrendered—almost eagerly, Ralph thought.

On his way out of Shark’s office, Ralph bumped into Raptor, who shook his hand.

“The victory is ours,” he whispered.

Sheriff was more direct.

“Way to go, man, throwing out that harridan,” he said, bathing Ralph in a gentle wave of alcohol reek. “Keep it up!”

Sheriff had been celebrating the happy riddance of Godmother since morning, and by this time could hardly be called lucid, but it still made Ralph pause. What did the counselors think he’d done when congratulating him? After running through several possibilities of what they might have been imagining, he decided to cancel the dive in the storm drain altogether.

Ralph hadn’t been back to his office through the day, but when he finally reached it around ten at night, there was a surprise waiting for him inside.

On the floor in the middle of the room stood a massive bronze candlestick. One of its two cups was empty, but the second contained the lopsided runny stub of the taper.

SMOKER

The hallway is flooded with the bluish dusk and that familiar scent—of what, I wonder. Plaster? Damp? Rain puddles? I clutch tighter at my skinny bag, containing a change of underwear, a drawing pad, and a box of paints. Also the diary. It is only two days old, but the first entry is backdated by a week. I am going to use this notebook to let R One know of my impressions. Which means I’m a snitch. I am having a hard time coming to grips with that thought. I will write what I see and hear, and he will read my scribblings after fishing the diary out of the trash bin in the common bathroom. And put it back there once he’s done.

He’s probably feeling uneasy right now as well, even if he doesn’t show it. Not that I can see his face. He hasn’t let a single word slip about our agreement, and that’s for the best, because I’d hate it if he started talking about it now.

I am looking very closely at my bag.

We roll past someone’s legs and they jump back to the wall quickly, out of our way. The Crossroads floats by. Monkey the Bandar-Log flies out of the door of the Second and rolls on the floor, screeching indignantly. Then he sees us, springs up, says “Oh wow!” and dashes back in the room. I’m only seeing this out of the corner of my eye, since my gaze is firmly planted on the bag.

Finally we stop. Ralph wheels me around and bangs on the door. The sound makes me flinch.

“’S not locked!” the familiar testy voice answers.

I take a deep breath, but don’t have time to let it out before Ralph uses me to swing the door open. He does in fact use his hand to push it, but I still get an impression that it is me.