“A-Amund, what the hell was that?” Edith stammers.
Only now do I realize I still have my arms wrapped around her.
“Sorry,” I say, quickly releasing her.
Edith flushes. “I meant the ghost. Did you see her too? Her neck—”
“You mean her?” I gesture to where Anastasia hovers down the hall.
Edith grimaces.
“Who is she?” she asks, her voice shaking like the rest of her body.
“I think she’s Irina’s aunt. The one who died in the Tragedy.”
Edith takes a moment to collect herself. “Maybe she knows the way out of here?”
“Maybe.”
Cautiously, we approach Anastasia. The walls groan as the hall stretches and stretches before us, the horizon seeming impossibly far, until it’s drowned in shadows. Each step I take seems to echo louder, as if the hall is becoming more cavernous as we continue.
Anastasia drifts forward, leading us onward. The hall fades away before my eyes, replaced by the entryway of my home. My mother is standing in front of the door, and an eleven-year-old Nils stands beside her, clutching her hand tightly.
“Amund, come with us,”my mother’s voice says.“Please.”
I stop in my tracks, knowing full well my mother isn’t here. Edith isn’t reacting to her at all, and this conversation happenedyearsago.
“What?”someone asks. Someone who sounds like me, I realize.
“We’re leaving,”she continues.“Hurry, before your father comes back.”
Edith grabs my arm, stopping me. “A-Amund? Do you see that?”
I turn to her. “What?”
“It’s my childhood home,” Edith says. “The hallway to the bathroom and… my parents’ bedroom.”
“No, I don’t,” I say, though I don’t tell her whatIam seeing. “We have to continue. It’s the only way out.”
“I can’t,” Edith says, her voice trembling. “Please, I can’t go back there.”
“Then you’ll be trapped here forever,” I remind her. This must be part of the challenge of this cursed hallway. You have to confront a wound from your past in order to escape. As I stare at the door aheadof me, I know what that wound must be.
Our worst memory.
Edith shakes her head, her white hair swaying. “You don’t understand. I can’t—Ican’tsee that again.”
The terror in her voice makes my chest ache. Her parents’ bedroom, she said. I recall what I read in her file. Isn’t that where she witnessed their murder-suicide? No wonder she doesn’t want to face it again. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.
So we both see doors ahead.
For her, it’s the door to her parents’ bedroom.
For me, it’s the front door to my house.
Itmustbe the way out, too.
“Here,” I say, offering her my hand. “You can close your eyes. I’ll lead you through it.”
