Page 33 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Twenty-Six

A Girl Outside Time

Lake stands in a hallway. Or outside. Or in smoldering ashes. She sees so many versions of this place, and most of the time she can’t tell which one she’s actually in.

“Are you really here?” she asks her companion. He keeps flickering from child to man, so she can’t tell what he actually looks like. Only the blue, blue eyes remain the same. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, though. You are now or you have been or you willbe.”

“Which of us are going to die?” he whispers.

Lake laughs. “Everyone.” She holds out her hands and spins, encompassing the whole world. “ Everyone dies, you silly thing.”

There’s a pause. She thinks he’s gone, because she’s back in the hallway. It smells fresh and new. Someone is crying nearby. She wants to help them, but a hand appears out of nowhere, holding her arm. Anchoring her.

“Who is going to die in this house?”

“I told you. Everyone. All my friends. Everyone I’ve met here is dead. Dead or lost. It’s the same.”

The voice is patient and soft, but compelling. “Tell me: Are any of the people in the house right now going to die here?”

Lake stomps her foot. She hates this conversation.

It’s confusing, and she doesn’t like being confused.

But she can’t help answering. “There’s no such thing as now!

Not anymore. I don’t understand what you mean by that.

Oh. Maybe I do.” She spins in a slow circle, closing her eyes, thinking.

The pretty one, River, she’s been young, but she’s also been old.

And empty. Dawn, too, she’s seen that way, and Nimbus: taller, and empty.

“Birdie doesn’t get older,” she says. “That’s right.

She goes down the stairs, and she doesn’t come back up.

I never see her again after that. Arrow doesn’t get older, either, but I don’t know why.

And you.” She leans closer, taking a deep breath.

“You smell like smoke and death. You’re why I don’t get older.

I answered your question, so I don’t have to talk about this anymore. ”

Lake skips down the hall—down the empty rock surrounded by bog—through the charred remains of the house—down thehall.