The Inn Between (5 page)

Quinn got into her flannel shorts and favorite baseball jersey. She slipped beneath the quilt just as Kara's mom said, “Lights out.”

For a while she and Kara talked in the secret language Kara had developed for use during dark sleepovers. If Quinn traced a heart on Kara's shoulder it meant
Who do you like?
Kara would spell the boy's name with her finger on the palm of Quinn's hand. If Kara touched Quinn's hand to her foot and pretended to squash it, it meant
What's bugging you?
Quinn would spell out her answer on Kara's hand.

That night Kara touched Quinn's hand to her head. This meant
What are you thinking?

Quinn put her finger to Kara's palm and wrote one letter—E.

Kara squeezed Quinn's hand. She held it until she fell asleep.

Quinn twisted and turned beneath the covers for the longest time. Finally, she drifted off. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep when something dragged her from her dreams.

She opened her eyes but there was little difference—the room was spider-black. She never used to be afraid of the dark, but now she slept with the hall light on and her bedroom door wide open. Occasionally her mother would forget and turn out the light while Quinn was asleep. If she awoke in darkness, beads of cold sweat would skitter over her body. She'd lie frozen, unable to move, unable to breathe, until gray morning light pressed its way in through the blinds.

Here, with Kara beside her, the darkness was bearable. Quinn searched for the time but then remembered there was no clock in the room. A hollow shuddering blew past the window. She sat up and listened. It came back again and again.

Quinn slunk out of bed and walked to the window. She pulled back the heavy drapes. Darkness stretched like a gloved hand over the landscape. Only the tiniest sliver of moon lit a jagged horizon that seemed a million miles away. She breathed deeply. Bluebells. She could swear she smelled bluebells. She twisted a lock of hair between her fingers.

As Quinn rested her cheek on the cool glass, the wind swooped in and pressed against the pane. Beyond the whoosh and hiss, she heard something else. Not a hum this time, but a low, distant wail.

Quinn listened sharply. There was something familiar about the pitch—the alternating sobs and silence. Was it possible? Could it be? Questions circled themselves, knotting inside Quinn's mind. She listened again, but then suddenly the crying stopped.

Quinn took a deep breath. She was doing it again. She was imagining things. It was just a coyote. Or a bobcat.

Quinn shut the drapes and slipped back beneath the covers. She closed her eyes and lay there for the longest time until her thoughts began to melt and drift away.

The next morning, she awoke to the shrill buzzing of the telephone. It rang three times and then stopped. Their wake-up call. Mrs. Cawston had forgotten to cancel it.

The room swam in soupy darkness. Quinn sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. She yawned and stretched. Kara was still sound asleep.

The bed beside them was empty. Kara's mother was gone. The covers lay flopped over the pillow in a tangled mess. Quinn nearly looked away, but then a tiny dark speck caught her attention. It was the size of a pinhead, but it seemed to be growing.

She swung her legs around the side of the bed and stood. She was sore and wobbly, like she was using her legs for the first time in decades.

She moved toward the opposite bed. The spot on the duvet had already grown to the size of a quarter and it was getting larger and darker by the second.

Slowly, carefully, Quinn reached out a trembling hand. She grasped the corner of the pink duvet and peeled back the covers. She gasped.

On the pillow, where Kara's mother had been lying, was a pool of blood.

 

8

Q
UINN SPRANG BACK.
Her heart pulsed in her throat. Blood drummed in her ears. She dove for Kara.

Kara made a soft sound, like a cooing dove. She rolled over and continued to doze. Quinn shook her hard. “Wake up, Kara. Wake up!”

Kara raised her head. She looked at Quinn through puckered eyes and yawned like she'd been asleep for centuries. “Huh? Whaa?”

“There!” Quinn yelled. “Look!”

Kara sat up drowsily. She looked around. “Where? What?”

Quinn pointed a frantic finger at the other bed, but when she turned to look at it, the blood was gone.

She leaped toward the bed and pulled back the covers. She flopped them this way and that, but there was no trace of blood. She swore it had been there a second ago—a deep, wet stain. She picked up the pillow—it was silky white, the duvet rosy pink. She let them fall from her hands. She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes. Her mind was hazy. She must have been dreaming.

“What's wrong with you?” said Kara.

Quinn took a deep breath and exhaled. “Your mom's gone.”

Kara frowned. She stretched her arms and rubbed her eyes. She looked over at the empty bed, then at Quinn's confused expression, and shook her head. “Don't worry. She's probably in the next room.”

The door between the two rooms was shut. The overnight bag Mrs. Cawston had brought was gone. So was her purse. Only Quinn's shorts, Kara's skirt, and their T-shirts were left—all folded neatly in two piles on top of the dresser. The room key was placed between them.

Quinn wandered toward the window and pulled open the drapes. The sky was still dark, but a hint of blue crept over the horizon. She wondered what time it was. Probably very early, judging by the position of the sun. “Why didn't she wake us?”

Kara stepped out of bed and stretched. “I guess she wanted to let us sleep in.”

Quinn grabbed her clothes and entered the bathroom to change—just in case Josh decided to barge into the room. Her whole body felt achy. She tilted her neck side to side and rubbed her arms and thighs.

She got dressed as quickly as she could. The new blue T-shirt she'd bought for the trip was wrinkled from the car ride. She didn't like the idea of wearing the same clothes two days in a row, but she could think of worse things. Like having no toothbrush. Both Kara's and hers weren't there. Mrs. Cawston must have forgotten to leave them out. Where had she moved the overnight bag?

Quinn dragged her fingers through the tangles in her hair. That's when she noticed the skin around her wrist had healed. Not scabbed over, but mended. Good as new. Like she'd never been cut at all. She slid the bracelet higher on her wrist and rubbed the spot. The wound hadn't been nearly as bad as she'd thought.

When Quinn exited the bathroom Kara was already dressed. She was slow waking, but once she got going she fizzed with energy. She had a huge smile on her face and her brown eyes sparkled.

“Can you check if your mom's in the other room? If she's there, ask her for the toiletry bag. I wanna brush my teeth.”

“Okeydokey, artichokie,” said Kara. She moved toward the adjoining door, threw it open, and passed into the next room. Quinn didn't follow, just in case Josh or Mr. Cawston wasn't quite ready.

Quinn thought Kara's dad was great. Like Kara, he always wore a huge smile. He loved to tell funny stories and often surprised Kara and Josh with tickets to some ball game or movie or amusement park.

Quinn's parents used to be like that, too—happy, smiling, full of energy and fun. Now their voices were somber, their movements slow. Their words were guarded, like they could never really say what they meant. They were ghosts pretending to be people. They looked real and sounded real, but Quinn was sure if she reached out to touch them, her hand would slice through thin air.

Kara emerged from the archway. “Josh is still asleep, but my parents are gone.”

Quinn gasped. “What do you mean gone?”

“As in
not there
, silly.”

Quinn stared at her for a moment, calculating explanations. “Do you think they went to get breakfast?”

“Maybe,” said Kara. “Or maybe they're getting some stuff from the car.”

“Yeah. I'm sure that's it.” Quinn smiled. “They probably went to get the charger. Your mom said she'd charge the phone in the morning.”

Kara moved back toward the archway. “I'm gonna wake Josh.”

Quinn returned to the window. Sunlight spilled over the landscape. The sand glistened like crushed gold. She could hear Josh grumbling in the next room.

She crossed the room and stepped into her boots. She opened the door and peeked out. The corridor was as dim as it had been the previous evening. Light sizzled from the fake candles. She searched right and left for Kara's parents.

At the far end was a trolley filled with towels, rolls of toilet paper, and tiny bottles. A short, stout maid in a black dress with a frilly white apron stood beside it. She looked up and her lips curled into a smile—the same sticky-sweet smile as on all the other employees of Inn Between. She bent her head and went about her business, dumping a wastebasket into a trash bag attached to the trolley's end.

Quinn shut the door. She didn't want to run into anyone, especially the old man from the night before.

Josh stumbled into the room, his shirt hanging out of his jeans, and flopped onto the bed where his mother had slept. “Where are they? I'm starved.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “You're so predictable.”

“And you're so annoying.” He threw a pillow at her.

Quinn caught it. “Stop bickering, children,” she said, imitating Mrs. Cawston. “Or I'll call the mother ship to beam you both up.”

Kara and Josh laughed.

Josh tried the TV. Channel after channel was filled with nothing but black and white dots. They watched the frenzy for some time in silence, but no one came.

“Where could they be?” asked Quinn.

Kara shrugged. “You know them. They like to wander off on their own. They're weird like that.”

Quinn nodded. It was true. The Cawstons could be unpredictable. “But don't you think it's strange—even for them?”

“Maybe.” Kara sighed. “But I gave up trying to figure them out ages ago.”

Josh's stomach rumbled. He sprang to his feet and shut off the TV. “Let's go. They're probably having coffee. Maybe eating without us.” The thought seemed to trouble him immensely.

“He's right,” said Kara. “Besides, this room is starting to make me feel claustrophobic.”

“Should we leave a note?” asked Quinn.

“Good idea,” said Kara. She rifled through the dresser drawer and found a pad of paper and a pen. She quickly jotted down a few words and left the paper on the bed.

The three headed through the halls toward the main lobby, Josh up front, Kara in the middle, and Quinn bringing up the rear. They made it all the way to the enormous lobby without meeting a single soul.

Morning light streamed in through the long, lean windows. In the lemony glow, the lobby was even more beautiful than Quinn remembered—the most beautiful hotel she'd ever seen.

As she stared at the gilded wallpaper and interesting artwork, a grinding noise stole her attention. The elevator was heading upward. She caught sight of the operator's legs standing beside a passenger wearing beige polyester pants with matching beige support shoes.

“I so want to ride that thing,” said Josh. “It reminds me of the elevator in that horror movie. You know, the one where those three kids are trying to escape a city full of postapocalyptic zombies and they race into this old building and jump in the elevator, only the elevator is jammed and a zombie reaches in and pulls the one guy right through the bars, totally shredding him?”

“Charming,” said Kara.

“I'll stick to the stairs,” said Quinn.

“Suit yourself.” Josh shrugged. He left the girls to wait by the elevator, apparently forgetting his stomach and his parents for the moment.

Persephone was behind the front desk, busy checking in a new guest. Quinn decided she must work long shifts. Maybe she even lived at the hotel. Maybe all the employees did—after all, the hotel was pretty far from civilization. If anything, they'd have a very long commute.

The new guest was a young woman. Her long dark hair was damp. So were her clothes. Her eyes were glassy and listless, her face puffy, her lips marbled. She wasn't carrying any luggage.

Quinn's eyes met the woman's, and for a moment Quinn thought she seemed frightened.

Quinn and Kara exchanged glances.

The woman was about to say something, but Persephone interrupted. “Your key, Ms. Khan. Let me know if there's anything else.”

She stared at the bronze key for a moment, then took it and left the front desk, glancing side to side as she left the lobby.

At the far end, Quinn noticed the French doors were open. Beyond them she heard dishes and cutlery clanking. The edge of a starched white tablecloth was visible. She took Kara's arm. “Come on.”

“Josh!” called Kara. “Restaurant!”

Josh tore himself from the elevator and joined the girls. They stood in the doorway searching the tables for Mr. and Mrs. Cawston.