“The doors,” Will says, and we huddle around them, trying to get them locked up. A floor peg is jammed into its rut. That’s all we’ve got. All that’s standing between us and the outside.
“They’re coming!” Jules whispers, high-pitched and panicked, and Will and Lilly start dragging a massive table toward the doors. The noise is excruciating. I run over to help. We lift it the rest of the way and shove it crosswise against the wood. Jules hooks his fire poker through the handles.
We back up, our hands tight around our weapons. My head feels like it’s about to blow off like a firecracker.
I can’t hear anything from the other side of the doors. No footsteps. Nothing but that scratchy, almost subliminal whine. It’s like they stopped right outside the doors, or kept running. The pale man has turned into a weird statue again, his shoulders tense, fingers curled and posed like he’s trying to imitate one of the painted figures in the Sistine Room.
We wait, frozen. Minutes pass. My joints start to feel like chewed-up rubber.
“Are they gone?” Lilly whispers.
Or are they waiting right outside? I imagine them out there, inky figures standing like black pillars, silent and tense.
“I think they kept going,” Will says under his breath. “We should keep barricading the door. In case they come back.”
We break into frantic motion, trying to stay as quiet as possible, but our clothes whisper and the wood floor squeaks. Will stacks a few heavy chairs on top of the table. I climb up them and heave an eight-legged bureau with peacock mother-of-pearl reliefs on top. Then a leather-padded stepladder. A footstool. We climb higher, higher, until the entire twelve-foot-high doors are covered with a grid of furniture.
As I’m scrambling down I hear something from outside. An awful rough, grating sound, like claws on wood.
I freeze, clinging precariously to a chair, one foot dangling in the air. My eyes flick frantically toward Lilly on the other side of the stack.
The sound seems to go on forever, scrrrrtch-scrrrrcth, echoing in the hallway, so close to the other side of the door. And finally it breaks off. It doesn’t pass, doesn’t fade into the distance. It’s just gone.
I hop the rest of the way down, land quietly on the pelt of a wolf. Jules catches my arm and pulls me upright. Mutters in my ear, his breath hot: “You need to talk to him.” He cuts his eyes toward the pale man. “What was that outside? You need to ask him why they brought us down here?”
I nod. Will gestures toward the back of the library and we move farther in, our group splitting around side tables and sofas like water. My feet sink into fur and bristles, skin-crawlingly crunchy. The pale man stays close to me, still limping along, his wounded arm cradled against his chest.
We reach the huge marble fireplace and press ourselves into the shadows of one of its carven pillars. The library is silent. The pale man stands slightly apart from us, staring at the doors. I inch over to him.
“Hey,” I say. “Faites attention. We’ve been kidnapped. We’re American citizens, and we need to get out of here. We need to know what’s going on.”
My heart is pounding ridiculously loudly. The pale man doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at me.
New tactic: “Je m’appelle Anouk,” I say. “Et vous?” Psychology 101. Treat your subject like he’s a human being. Pleasantries before business. Better yet, business disguised as pleasantries.
“Moi?” the pale man rasps. Still watching the door. And again, softly: “Moi. Qui suis-je. . .”
Who am I . . .
His eyes widen. He looks lucid, frightened, like someone waking up from a nightmare. “Je suis perdu,” he says. “Perdu dans l’ombre.”
I turn to the others.
“He said he’s lost,” I say. “Lost in the shadows.”
“That’s a terrible name,” Jules says, and almost simultaneously Lilly twists her hands together and whispers: “Uh, fantastic, so are we.”
I turn back to the pale man. “Fine. You’re Perdu. Pleased to meet you. Were you kidnapped too? How do we get out of here?”
Perdu starts to giggle, his head tipping back. An ugly sound crawls out, like his throat is full of broken glass.
“You cannot leave,” he says. “You cannot leave!”
“Why is he laughing?” Jules says, eyes wide. “Shut him up!”
I feel sick. “We had a deal—” I start to say.
“Shhh,” Perdu whispers, and places a long thin finger to his lips. “He is close.”
Will stiffens. I look over my shoulder at the doors, my heart squeezing up into my throat.
“Who?” I prompt. “Dorf?”
“No.” Perdu wraps his arms around his bony shoulders. He seems to shrink, twisting. And as he turns, he points down the length of the library to the closed doors, silent behind their cage of furniture. “L’homme papillon,” he says, in a guttural, piercing croak. “L’homme papillon!”
“What’s he saying?” Lilly hisses.
“The butterfly man.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask him what we’re supposed to do!”
“Perdu?” I whisper fiercely, and he jerks upright, jittering. “Perdu, what do you know? Who are you?”