Sign Here(48)

As he got closer, he had to shake off the feeling of walking backward. Not in the physical sense, but in the temporal. The setting was the same: same trees, full height well before Silas was even a figment of his mother’s imagination. Same moon, same lake. Sarah Kelly was the same. Same exactly, caught forever in that very night. In fact, the only thing that was different about her was that now she was gone.

When he reached the clearing, the illusion held. At first glance, the snuffed-out candles looked like wine coolers in the moonlight. The way the blanket was bundled and folded in the corners, it looked like abandoned clothes.

This place held on to its ghosts.

Silas gathered the candles and draped the blanket over his arm. And as he turned back, something caught his eye. A color in the water, red as a tongue. Red like a wound when you were waiting for the blood to come. He bent over and picked it up, gently twirling the stem to shake the water off.

There was no way Mickey could’ve known that Sarah loved poppies.

Only Lily would’ve known that.





PEYOTE





“WHO DO WE SHOW this to?” I asked, holding out KQ’s signed form.

“Me,” Felix said. He scanned the document and blinked again, which I was beginning to understand as less of a protective function and more of an information-processing one.

“Your access has been granted. Come with me.” Felix spun around and started down the hallway, his duck feet flapping uselessly in front of his wheels.

The hallway went on for much longer than any real hallway could. I felt feelings I hadn’t known in eons, making it hard to come up with the right words. Excitement, anticipation. The first feelings to die with mortality.

“So, you’re looking for someone?” Felix asked. He was leading the way ahead of us, but somehow I knew he was still watching.

“A real asshole,” Cal said.

“I don’t have one of those!”

“Another joke?” I asked.

“A fact,” he responded. “But it results in a humor response in sixty-four percent of our visitors.”

“So you declare that detail to all the girls? Here I was feeling special.”

“Don’t flirt with the Psycho Sonic,” I whispered. “His head might explode.”

“Sonic was a hedgehog,” Felix said, his wheels whirring through the slaps. “I’m a more general animal.” He stopped abruptly, and even though I didn’t touch him, I came close enough to make me wipe my hand on my shirt.

“Here we are.”

The door was simple white, like all the others, save for the nameplate printed in gold.

The Looking Glass.



* * *



—

BEFORE WE GO ANY further, I’ve been keeping something from you. You know about the concept of a Complete Set; we’ve gone over that. And you know the purpose of the Looking Glass. You even know my last name. But I have yet to tell you what came from that night with Slips in our bunk, the information that drove me from the Second Floor to the Fifth. That drove me all the way here, to stand in front of this door.

I’m talking about the loophole.

Let me remind you once more: this is Hell. It is supposed to punish the bad. But it was a failed experiment from the start, wasn’t it? If a place is built for bad people—as in truly bad, rotten-cored people, the kind of bad that just spills off the skin like scent—bad people will make it their home. It’s the great irony of the whole thing. Hell, like all other prisons, may start out as punishment. But if you survive long enough, it becomes a training ground. A place to cut your teeth on your badness, to make it work for you. In which the punishment of anyone but you becomes its own reward.

So, here’s the big agency secret. Ready?

If you get a full set of deals from your own heirs, you get a redo on Earth.

The Harrisons were mine in every sense of the word. From me they were made, and from them I would rise. I had only one more to go, and then all I had to do was make sure that, when I got back, I wouldn’t repeat the mistakes that landed me here in the first place. I had to find out exactly when and why it happened, go back to that very moment, and do the opposite. The Looking Glass was the only way.

In short, behind this door was my humanity. And I wanted it back. Whatever the cost.

“Can we go in now?” I asked, reaching for the doorknob. A tail came out of some unseen slot and slapped me on the hand.

“I can’t go in there with you, for mechanical reasons. Which means I will be timing you. Our research shows that it takes exactly three minutes and thirty-five seconds for the Looking Glass to find what it is looking for, and for that information to be printed. We calculated in roughly forty-three seconds for human processing time, to adjust for your antiquated circuitry. If the Looking Glass is still engaged when my timer goes off, you will be immediately shipped Downstairs. Do you understand?”

I went cold, but managed to nod.

“Good.”

Felix faced the door, and a light scanned his glass eyes. It flashed twice and turned green.

“Your time starts now.”





MICKEY





WHEN MICKEY OPENED THE bedroom door, Ruth was on the bed, a book in her lap. She cast it aside as soon as Mickey walked in.