“Who do you think lives here?” I asked them.
“Does someone live here?” Thad said. He gestured at the bed.
“That doesn’t look like it’s been used in a while,” he pointed out.
“Could be someone’s second home,” Callista suggested. Both Thad and I looked at her in disbelief.
“Come on,” she insisted. “You’re in Beverly Hills. People here have a few homes. Maybe they’re only here in the winter.”
“And Anon gets to send people here all the other seasons?” I pondered aloud. I felt a strange thrill at the idea of traipsing through this giant house—maybe finding pictures of its owner on the walls or family portraits scattered throughout. It could be a treasure trove for my Great Work.
The others followed me to the door and I could feel their anticipation as we crept out—everyone taking quiet steps even though we didn’t have to, whispering even though we quickly realized there was nobody around to hear us. The hallway was just as magnificent as the bedroom, walls lined with rich paintings illuminated by sunshine that streamed through skylights. The carpet was so thick it was like a layer of white moss beneath my shoes.
There were several doors on each side of the hall, all open and inviting us in. As I passed, I glanced inside them: a blue bedroom, a green bedroom, a tiled bathroom with two sinks and sparkling-clean mirrors. Everything was neat and made up like a model home, the only sounds coming from the gentle hum of the air conditioner. Oh such lavish extravagance: a house with air actually circulating. Should’ve invited my mom.
“This place smells like a department store,” Callista observed in a low voice. “It’s like the scary furniture section.”
“That place scares you too?” I said, grinning. “I thought I was the only one.”
“It’s a bunch of rooms with no walls,” she insisted. “It just doesn’t feel right. Ever since I was a kid I’ve hated that place.”
“Imagine it at night,” I said. She shivered.
“I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Thad said under his breath. “There’s nothing scary about a bunch of empty furniture and bedrooms.”
“But there’s no one here,” I said, waving my hand in front of us as we crept ahead. “That isn’t a little creepy to you?”
“I think it’d be much creepier if we ran into somebody,” Thad said. “And it’d be a bit hard to explain how we got in through the second story.”
“‘Sorry, a random letter we found on a cliff told us to break in,’” Callista said in dry retort.
We reached the end of the hall. It opened up to a balcony area with shelves of books against the walls, light streaming from a giant circular window that was high above the twin front doors, a chandelier hanging by a chain from the ceiling. A stairway with white railing curved down to the ground floor.
Everything was decorated beautifully. But no photographs, I noticed. Not a single portrait of a person, not even a painting of a face. All the artwork was of bland, nondescript things: flowers, animals, and shapes. No clues to the owner. No eyes for me to read.
We were all pressed together, having gone silent unintentionally. When we reached the top of the stairs, though, I finally spotted something that was out of place: three propped-up paper bags sitting in front of the door. They were from Trader Joe’s, the grocery store. Beside them, stuffed into the letter slot, was a thick white package.
“And there’s the note,” I told the others, already hurrying down the stairs. Hearing them so close behind sent a wave of déjà vu: hadn’t I dreamed of running up stairs with them? I pushed the feeling away in time for me to reach the bottom and pull out the envelope.
Just like the first letter, this one also had my name printed on the front. But the envelope was heavier: something far bigger than a letter inside. Anon must have had a lot of confidence in the fact that I would follow his instructions, or at least a lot of hope. I glanced around at the other’s faces, already full of so much expectation that I ripped the envelope apart.
Two things tumbled out. I managed to catch one but the other slipped out of my hand. I’d grabbed a rectangular and bulky object, wrapped in plain red gift paper. An old VHS tape had fallen to the floor, with a white note taped to its front. Callista swept it up.
“Be careful!” she told me. “You almost broke this thing.”
I reached to snatch the letter from the tape, but she was already opening it herself. Thad and I leaned over her shoulders:
To Mr. Asher,
I am grateful you are reading this. My hope in your survival has increased. You are already proving many people wrong.
By now, you are likely wondering who I am. Unfortunately, I cannot remedy that. Though we will correspond, you will never see my face, and you will never meet me. To risk myself being discovered will obliterate any chance we have of succeeding, now or forever. This is a more important part of the Grand Design than who you are in this life.
You may also be wondering why you are here. I have promised to answer this. But to tell you all the things about who you are in this page would be of no avail. You would not believe me, and I would be unable to answer all your questions.
However, I have been keeping some things for you for many years. One of those things is this videotape. The other is in the safety deposit box listed at the bottom of this page. Now that you have proven yourself in this further step, you should have them.
I have also included a gift for your birthday. Do not unwrap it until you have watched the tape.
Have courage. Don’t trust anyone.
ANON
13
Daniel Rothfeld
The moment we read the final words, and probably even a second before, the three of us spun around, immediately searching for a television. We didn’t need direction: I shot off one way, Callista the other, Thad up the stairs, our feet pounding against carpet and tiles and hardwood floors from different parts of the house.
Finding a TV was not hard at all in that well-furnished place, but finding a TV with a VCR proved to be far more difficult. I dove in to an office with eerily empty bookshelves and a desk with fake flowers in pots, and checked the TV on the wall to find that it only played DVDs. I bumped into Callista as she came out of another room.
“There’s a whole entertainment room but no stupid VCR,” she told me. Who even used VHS tapes anymore? Finding a cart and buggy might have been easier.
In the end, Thad called out from upstairs, and Callista and I stepped on each other’s feet in our haste to get to him. He’d gone into the green bedroom and found that the small television had both DVD and VHS players embedded in its front. Callista pushed the tape in without hesitation, flipping the TV on and finding the correct channel. Thad and I sat on the bed and she squeezed between us while holding the remote.
The tape started. We had fallen into such a hush of anticipation that I could pick Thad and Callista’s anxious breathing apart from each other.
There was a little rolling static in the beginning of the recording, but that ended in seconds. Then it showed a blank screen, and finally a face.
It was a man filmed shoulders up, sitting in front of a nondescript white wall. He wore a black button-up shirt but no tie, his skin white but not pale enough for me to think that he was unhealthy, slight circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He had a carefully shaven face, leaving a slight stubble that looked too intentional to be unplanned, hair swept to the side leaving his forehead exposed. His eyes were hazel, staring straight in to the camera, making certain it was filming before settling back a few inches in his leather chair.