Page 135 of The Staircase in the Woods

“Nick,” Hamish said, cautious. “You okay, man?”

“You brought him back to me,” Nick said, but in that voice Lore couldn’t help but hear other voices, too, behind his: Alfie, Judy, the kids, and more, too. A chorus of stolen voices. Nick chuckled. “Thank you for that.”

“Nick,” Hamish said, louder, agitated. “Come on, Nick. Please. Don’t fuckin’ do this. Come back to us, Nick.”

“Please,Nick,” Owen said.

But Lore feared it was too late. They’d brought their friend here—right to the heart of the house, to the center of the labyrinth, only to be gored to death by the Minotaur. They’d wanted to save him, and they’d damned him instead.

“You want to leave?” Nick asked. His eyes flashed in the hollow wells of their sockets, showing off mirrors, lightbulbs, gleaming brass. He grinned bigger now, his mouth large, too large, and for a moment, his teeth were piano keys, then a metal ice cube tray, then cheap plastic Christmas lights, twinkling. “Go ahead. I’ll let you. But I keep Nick. And I get the sweet little candy taste of knowing that you abandoned yet another friend to me.”

They shared looks.

Lore, in her gut, wanted to leave.

It made sense, didn’t it? Nick was too far gone. If they had a chance at freedom, shouldn’t they take it? Her brain went through the logic of it:You can go, you can leave, you can go live your life, fix your game with Owen like you promised, you can make good with the friends you have, Lore—but even then, even if you can’t, do you even need those people? You only ever needed yourself.

Owen looked at her, and she saw him there—her best friend for so long. A creative partner. He put her on a pedestal for so many years, and all she did was piss on his head from that lofty height. Then she looked at Hamish, a man lost because they’d pushed him away, someone who thought he was fat and stupid and who literally gave himself to the drink and the drugs and now to God and to fitness and to…who knew what else. And Nick. Nick, who had been loyal all this time. Loyal to the Covenant. Loyal to Matty.

You do need these people,she thought.

And they need you.

They all shared looks.

They all nodded to one another.

“We’re here for Nick,” she said.

Nick laughed. “Then no exit for you. I guess you’re staying for the show.”

He clapped his hands and the lights went out.

81

The Floor Show

The lights went out, and Owen’s heart leapt in fear. The darkness felt palpable. Like it covered him—smotheredhim. Like suddenly he was alone with himself and in that moment all the bad thoughts came roaring up and roaring back, how weak he was, how he should’ve never been born, how Lore rejected him, how Matty was always so much better than him, and in that sensation his arms started to itch, and so did his fingertips, and he felt the greatest urge to dig into himself with tooth and claw, tearing himself down to the struts, ripping skin from meat and meat from bone, rendering himself raw and skeletal—

Then the lights came back on, and he felt blinded by them.

Nick remained in the center.

But Alfie and his automaton family were gone.

Now, three other automatons appeared.

Automatons that werethem.

Lore, Hamish, and Owen.

The room had changed at the corners of the Dreamboat house, too. In the far left corner, the Hamish automaton—gray cinder block cheeks and carpet tufts of hair—stared at himself in a broken mirror. Vomit slicked his chin as his arm shot up suddenly in a robotic slot machine motion, dumping pills into his open mouth.

In the far right corner, Owen saw himself. A sad coatrack of aboy, skin painted with bone-white primer, eyes just dark holes in the cold ceramic face. All the while taking that Old Timer penknife and pulling the blade in short, sharp tugs across his upper arms, then his upper thighs. The sound of it was nearly deafening, the littlethkkk, thkkk, thkkkof the cuts being made. The blood that spilled was not plastic beads, nor was it red curtain, but rather blood, fresh blood, real blood pooling around his feet and seeping into the carpet.

And then Lore. Lore off to the side. No. Not Lore. Lauren. Little Lauren. Young—here, maybe what, thirteen, fourteen? Porcelain doll skin. Hair of some old stuffy. Teeth of an old gray computer keyboard, and her eyes the spinning disks of a disk drive, whirring, whirring. She was the only one who spoke: “Hello?” she asked, her voice garbled, computerized, like something recorded on MIDI and played back through a Casio. “Is anybody home?”

Lore, the real Lore, not the Lauren Thing, stifled a sob as she shrank.