Taylor
Taylor enters the parlor, tightly gripping the champagne and glasses she was sent to retrieve from Canton’s. The relaxed atmosphere she encounters is much at odds with her own anxiety: Eduardo is bent over the vintage turntable, fiddling with a record, Liam and Jerry sprawled on nearby chairs. Eduardo grins as a catchy classical-Caribbean fusion song begins playing.
“One of my favorites: Joachim Horsley,” he announces. He starts moving around—dancing, she realizes—Jerry snickering at his moves.
Liam doles out the champagne. “To another successful initiation prep,” he says, and then adds, “and to New Girl here.”
As the four of them clink, Taylor allows herself to fully meet their eyes. For a moment, and despite the unsettling events of the day—including the conversation she just eavesdropped on between Peter and Michael—she feels a grin coming on. She’s reminded of the easy camaraderie between the waitstaff at her dad’s restaurant. Once the last customer leaves, they crank up the music, pop open some beers, shoot the shit. Theirstories and laughter can easily dribble into the early hours of the morning.
But then she takes in the surrounding scene: theEyes Wide Shutmasks arranged on the chesterfield couch, the glass display case with the secured scroll that all employees naturally avoid, the staggering grandiosity of the room itself. No—it’s different here: They are at a secret society, readying members for an initiation cloaked in mystery and aided by the use of drugs and divination readings. And, based on what she’s just overheard, it’s a secret society with some change underfoot. Perhaps dangerous, drug-related change. Whatever is going on, it seems to be deeper than using opium solely for geomancy purposes.
And finally, her eyes come to Jerry, laughing at Eduardo like everything is just fine. But Taylor knows this couldn’t be further from the truth.
She hopes the Knox has nothing to do with what befell her former patient, but with every passing day that the mysteries of this place deepen, that feels a little less likely. At any rate, since Vivianisalive—and apparently well enough to be joining the Nextdoor app—Taylor hopes that it’s only a matter of time before she gets clarity on what really happened.
With the taste of champagne still fresh in her mouth, Taylor exits through the back door of the Knox, eyeing the spot where the garbagemen removed the trash not even an hour earlier. It’s now as pristine as can be. What other messes does the Knox so carefully clean up? One involving Vivian?
Taylor starts to walk away, her phone beeping with notifications from Aunt Gigi now that it has sprung to life with service.
Then, suddenly, a woman’s scream pierces the air.
Taylor stops short, whipping around to scan the back of the Knox building. As usual, it appears orderly and inaccessible, like a stiff coat snapped to the very top button.
Maybe Taylor imagined it; shehashad a day.
But then, it happens once more: a shrill scream that causes the hairs on the back of her neck to stand at attention. She anxiously searches for the source but sees nothing. Then, a small movement in a fourth-floor window catches her eye.
A drape waves, then comes to rest, as if someone has just stolen a glance out the window.
Vivian
Present Day
Vivian opens her eyes.
She’s in an empty room.
No—it’s not empty. As an awareness stirs within her, the room slowly becomes filled, almost like someone’s popping items into a dollhouse: drapes, an IV pole stand, a lighthouse oil painting, a Victorian parlor chair, a commode, faux-candle wall sconces, a mahogany end table. It’s a room she’s staying in, apparently, though she has no recollection how she got here. The room is of questionable taste, a mixture of antique meets hospital. Like Weird Barbie tried her hand at interior design.
Wait. She goes back to the Victorian parlor chair. Sheknowsthat chair. It takes her several tries to focus on it, as too much concentration causes the vise around her head to painfully tighten. The chair’s petit point embroidered floral backside, the hand-carved headpiece, the brass-nail head trim—it’s an item she sourced for Michael.
For the Knox.She’s at the Knox.
The crushing realization builds in her like a pot of boiling water, until she opens her mouth to release a hot scream.
She gasps for air. Then a second scream rises from her depths, and she similarly lets it loose.
Suddenly a foreign finger urgently jams a couple of pills into her open mouth. Vivian begins coughing as the medication dissolves into her saliva. She immediately recognizes the bitter taste: Xanax.
Vivian
February
“Paramedics are on the way,” Rose reports in a shaky voice. Her face is ashen as she pulls back the chairs, creating more space for Graham’s resuscitation efforts.
Peter, Michael, and the bartender alternate doing CPR, while Oliver simply stands there looking at his father with eyes bugged out like he’s on some acid trip.
It doesn’t look hopeful; Graham is as gray as Nantucket fog.
