Page 55 of The House of Quiet

Chapter Forty-Seven

An Arrow Falling

Trickles of warm blood from nicks in Arrow’s skin slip down her neck and soak into her dress as Hawthorn drags her backward through the hallway.

“I can’t hurt you,” Arrow says.

“No, but your disgusting friends can.” Hawthorn bangs on the door behind himself. Arrow closes her eyes and hopes against hope that the House Wife won’t open it. It’s stayed closed this long when they were all desperate to get through it. Surely it will deny Hawthorn, too.

The House Wife opens it. Arrow never did believe in luck, anyway.

“There’s too much noise,” the House Wife says, hands over her ears, her voice a high whine.

“Move!” Hawthorn shoves her aside and throws Arrow into theroom. Then he slams the door and pushes the bolt into place. He whirls on them and gestures to the House Wife, then waves the scalpel in the general direction of a closet door. “Get over there. Open it.”

The House Wife shakes her head. “There’s too much noise. We need to quiet the noise. We have to take the noise to the heart of the house.”

“Shut up!” Hawthorn punches the House Wife. She sits down hard, legs splayed, head hanging. Arrow lunges, but he’s expecting it. He slashes at her. She retreats, arm bleeding now, too. Arrow’s aware of exactly how much blood she can afford to lose before she dies. She has to be smart and careful.

“We need quiet,” the House Wife whispers.

“Useless.” Hawthorn gestures toward the door and glares at Arrow. “You. Open it.”

Arrow does as she’s told. And not just because of the threat. She has to know what’s on the hidden floor. Plus, a different environment might offer her a fighting advantage.

“Hidden staircase,” Arrow whispers to herself. Behind the door is a narrow, dark set of stairs going up. She tries to put some space between herself and Hawthorn to set up an ambush, but he closes the distance and casually jabs her in the back, drawing even more blood.

“Don’t try it,” he growls.

At the top of the stairs, she walks out into the most disappointing reveal of her entire life. The mysteriously hidden third floor is just a room . Large enough she’s certain there aren’t any secret chambers.

There’s the circular window high on the wall, now a sullen, solid red with the sunlight blocked by fog outside. Lake told her not to fall down the red circle. But how could Arrow go through the window? Unless Hawthorn throws her. She’ll be sure to avoid that.

She glances around desperately for something she might have missed.

There are no chains, no restraints, no cages.

No children waiting for her to save them.

Just a solitary desk with a chair tucked in.

On the desk is a tidy stack of paper inside a leather folio with a pen resting on top. Like a station waiting for a secretary.

Arrow drifts toward the papers.

“Stop!” Hawthorn shouts. “Don’t move.” He’s looking around the room, frantic. “It has to be here. It has to be.”

“What has to be here?” Arrow asks. Hawthorn answers by stabbing her lightly in the back again. She really hates him. “Tell me what you’re looking for, and I can help you. I’m very motivated by the idea of not dying.”

“They have another machine,” he says.

“To do the procedure?”

“Why would we do all this to get our hands on another way to do the procedure? Don’t be stupid.

Think, you disgusting little bogger. Didn’t you wonder why the minister of finance had been here before?

Why Sky’s father had? What interest would they have in the House of Quiet if all it did was help poor children? You know better than that.”

Arrow does know better than that. Whatever was happening here, they had the house set up to keep wealthy people comfortable for short stays, and to keep poor children locked up.

“What do they do here?” Arrow whispers. She doesn’t want to know. She has to know. The paintings in the hallway downstairs haunt her. All those children with their hands raised, the euphoric looks on their faces as they were literally walked on top of.

“Whatever it is, it’s worth taking bogger children and performing the procedure on them, only to send them directly here rather than try to use their abilities elsewhere.

It’s worth powerful men paying fortunes the likes of which you can’t fathom for just a single visit.

And it can only be operated by someone with abilities like the House Wife’s.

Like Birdie’s sister had, which was the only reason we were helping her.

So we—” He pauses, corrects. The doctor isn’t his partner anymore.

“So I am going to discover the secret, and take it, and then I’ll control both the means of production and the end product.

I’m going to be the most powerful man alive.

” He kicks the desk, sending the pen rolling.

“But what are they doing here? Why hide this room if there’s nothing in it? ”

Arrow keeps her eyes on the window. That red window, the one that unnerved River so much.

Lake warned Arrow not to fall down it. Such a strange way to phrase that.

Wouldn’t Arrow fall through or out a window?

Plus, she kept saying that Birdie went down the stairs and then died.

The hidden stairs led up. Surely going back down them wasn’t any more treacherous.

Arrow looks around. The desk, the chair. The window. There are no other red circles. Then it hits her. If it were sunny, the sun would hit that window from the east. Right around the same time every morning. Exactly when the House Wife always retrieved Rabbit and Sky.

Arrow hurries toward the center of the room.

“Hey!” Hawthorn shouts.

“Let me try something.” Arrow lines herself up with the window, then starts walking from the wall. She takes a step, stomps. Takes a step, stomps. Takes a step, stomps. This time it sounds different. Hollow.

Arrow crouches and feels around the seams of the floorboards until she finds a string. She tugs it up. A hole in the floor reveals a tight, circular staircase winding downward.

“I found it,” Hawthorn says, triumphant, peering down shoulder to shoulder with her.

Before Arrow can elbow him in the face, someone shoves them both from behind. They tumble into the dark together.