Wicked Hungry

The tiny tag dangles in front of my face. Is it even real? I’m going to pull it before it disappears.

I reach out and pull.

What was I expecting? A wailing siren? A rush of color and sound? Nothing of the sort happens. Nothing appears to have changed. But then Karen gasps beside me.

“What?” I ask.

“Stanley, can’t you see it? There’s a door,” she whispers to me.

I look where she’s pointing. There’s a door, all right, rusty brownish red in the middle of this big green disk. I walk over to it. There’s a handle. My outreached hand grabs the handle and turns it, and the door opens, revealing a stairway.

Nye is behind me now. “Go on, enter, before it vanishes,” he says.

I look back at Karen to see if she’s telling me this could be trap, too, but she just looks impatient. So I climb in. Karen, Connor, and Nye follow, followed by the demon, who shuts the door behind us.

We’re in a huge spiral staircase, made out of very old stone. How can I tell the staircase is so old? Because it’s worn underneath our feet, so worn that the steps aren’t quite at right angles, and there’s a big dip in the middle.

“Where are we?” I ask, looking back at the others.

“I’ve heard rumors of a place like this,” Connor says. “But Whelan is new, and I’m not sure he’s worked out all the secrets of his job.”

“Wasn’t he trained?” I ask.

Connor shakes his head. “The last gatekeeper died unexpectedly, before imparting much of what he knew. I know Whelan has been looking for these stairs for years.”

“I myself thought they were destroyed when the gateway was still outside Salem,” Nye says.

“Where are we, then?” Karen asks.

“You see those marks on the walls?” Connor asks.

There’s this circle with an eye in the middle.

“Yeah,” I say. “What is that?”

“That’s the mark of the gatekeeper,” Connor says. “These are his private stairs, used only by him, or in the case of an emergency by those qualified to use them. At least that is how it was supposed to work.”

“But where do they lead?” I ask.

“Nowhere?” Connor says. “Everywhere? Wherever you need to go? Whelan told me the little he knew, but he’s never used them.”

“Will they take us to the Seelie queen?” I ask.

“If that’s where you need to go,” Connor says. “That’s how I understood it, anyhow.”

Karen whispers in my ear, “Is that where you really want to go?”

“I need to see Meredith,” I say. “I need to find her and Carolina.”

“I’ll follow you, Stanley,” Karen whispers. “Wherever you go.”

“You don’t have to,” I say.

“I’ve gone this far,” she says. “I’ll go as far as it takes.”

“Where do the rest of you want to go?” I ask them.

“I want to go home,” Rewsin says from behind us.