“We can take turns keeping watch. Two hours each.”
“I’m not sleeping anyway,” Jules says. “Not a chance.”
And so we wait.
We’ve built our own personal bubble of warm light and coziness in front of the fireplace. Will found a light switch behind a panel next to the mantel. Jules and Lilly have a fort—possibly a full-on mansion—out of chairs, pillows, carpets rising slowly into existence. It’s kind of morbid if you think about it, setting up camp down here in the palace of your psycho captors. Like a zombie-murder-sleepover. But the alternative is cowering in the dark, so we might as well make the most of it, right? Also, there’s some satisfaction to be had from using the Sapanis’ stuff. I’m assuming this is their library, if the Sapanis are real people. I’m also assuming this place is not a two-hundred-year-old archeological site. It’s their house. Their huge, pristine, underground home. And I bet they really don’t want their murder-victims-to-be pawing through their books and using their furs and putting butt prints on their chairs.
I grab a pillow and mush it up behind my neck, leaning against a desk leg.
Will has wandered off to scout out the library. Lilly and Jules are busy with home-improvement matters. Perdu’s hiding behind the chair again, eyes pinched shut, curled up like a dead spider. His velvet bandages are black and crackly.
“Perdu,” I say quietly. His mouth twitches open. Wet, gray teeth flick into view, squeezed together, haphazard and gross. He winces, as if the word hurt him. “Where are you from?”
“Péronne,” he breathes.
I’m trying to unstick my pant leg from my ankle. The blood has started to cake where the wire caught it.
“And how did you get down here?”
“C’est ma maison,” he whispers. “Il me garde.”
“This is my home,” I translate for Jules, who is looking over at us from behind his wall of chairs. “He keeps me.”
“What is he, the house pet?” Jules asks.
“Hey,” Lilly’ says, frowning at Jules. “You don’t know what he’s been through. He might have been down here way longer than us. It’s probably messed with his mind.”
“Below,” Perdu mumbles, and I raise my hand, signaling Lilly and Jules to be quiet. “Down. Far into the earth. To good luck and safety and everlasting peace, they brought me. But I will be leaving soon. When the war is done, that is what they told me, when the war is done you may go. But it stretches on and on. It never ends.”
“What war?” I ask.
“That war.” He uncurls a finger toward the ceiling. “Up there. They are cutting off heads in the Rue du Fauconnier. Can you not hear the screaming?”
“There is no war up there,” I say. “At least, not one you’d hear down—”
“There is always war.” He’s crying again. I can see the tears, glimmering tracks down his cheeks. “Everywhere is war. Up there. Down here.” He taps the finger against his head. “In here.”
“Uh-huh.” I glance at Jules and roll my eyes. “How old are you, Perdu?”
His hands come up, fingers splayed like twin fans. He closes his fists, opens them, again and again, and I realize he’s showing me—ten fingers, ten years—decade after decade flickering past.
“You’re not that old. When were you born? What year?”
“1772.”
Will is back. He makes a sound, a soft bark from somewhere in his chest. I think it was supposed to be a laugh. I wouldn’t even have known he was there otherwise. Kid moves like a ghost.
Jules glances at Will. “What? What did he say?”
“That he’s over two hundred years old,” I answer. I lean back against the fireplace. Look up at the ceiling, with its network of lines sketching out the Greek figures. I recognize Andromeda, Cygnus, someone who I think is Capricorn but looks like a minotaur. That gets me to thinking about the Theseus myth, young people being thrown into a labyrinth to feed a monster. But if they wanted to re-enact that one they got the numbers wrong: there are supposed to be seven of us. And Dorf didn’t sound like he wanted us to be food for that thing. He sounded like we were ruining his plans.
I sigh, still staring up at the ceiling. If this were a proper indie movie moment, I’d be doing my stargazing next to a spray-painted van, while on a road trip across Montana. I’d have guitar and a big old happy dog. I’d stare up at the endless night sky and feel small or something. Since this is my actual life, I’m looking at stipples of white paint on a ceiling and I’m thinking about being eaten alive by something called the butterfly man.
I ease my pant leg back over the cut. Glance up at Will. “Did you find anything?”
“No other doors out,” he says. “Lots of books on philosophy. And the chimney’s blocked about six feet up. And a clock.”