"You think you've only been here for a day, but by my watch it's been over a week."
Laurie's head hurt. No matter how much they talked, they were still in the dark. They could not pull their stories together, could not create coherence out of the chaos.
"So where are we?" she said quietly. "When are we?"
The door to the kitchen swung open and Billington ?
Billingson? Billings? Billingsly? Billingham ? walked in, carrying a tray of hors d'oeuvres.
Daniel turned toward him. "What is this?" he demanded.
The other man chuckled.
"And what's your name?" Norton asked. "We seem to have conflicting reports."
"We'll just call him Mr. Bill," Stormy said.
Laurie felt a little bit better. Humor leavened the seriousness of the situation, made it not seem so scary, so solemn, so grave.
Grave.
"You can call me Mr. Billings," the assistant said in a voice that brooked no argument. "That is the name by which I am currently known." He put the tray down on the table.
"What's going on?" Daniel asked.
"You want to know what's happening? You want to know why you entered a House in Dry River, Arizona"
--he nodded at Mark--"and you entered a House in Chicago, Illinois"--Stormy--"and yet you're both here? Along with everyone else?"
"It had crossed our minds," Stormy said dryly.
"It's because the Houses are getting stronger. They are almost at full strength."
Laurie stared at the assistant. She had to keep reminding herself that he was five different men, a different person to each of them, and that was a hard thing to fully comprehend. There were similarities, obviously, but there were differences as welclass="underline" different dynamics in their relationships with him, different memories and histories, different names. It was, she supposed, like looking at the individual facets of a giant diamond from five angles. Or like the old blind-men and the-elephant story.
"I didn't know there were other Houses," Daniel said.
Billings smiled. "Perhaps I forgot to mention that."
Stormy snorted. "I guess each House is a post of your electrified fence, huh?"
"Not a bad analogy, Stormy boy." His expression darkened. "But lose the sarcasm, and please refrain from speaking to me in that manner. I am less than happy with that attitude."
Stormy shut up.
"So where are we?" Laurie asked. "Whose House are we in?"
"All of them."
"That doesn't make any sense."
He smiled at her. "It doesn't have to."
Laurie thought about what she'd seen on the Other Side, in that empty hollowed House through the den door, and the conversation she'd had with her mother-- her adoptive mother, she amended, although that coldly matter-of-fact description did not in any way do justice to their relationship. They'd talked about family things, about her father and Josh, and although they had not had time to discuss the House before her mother had flown away, she'd told Laurie that she had come to visit "while you were here," and Laurie put the most positive spin on that statement and took it to mean that there was a possibility of escape.
But nothing made sense, nothing fit together in any sort of logical manner. She'd been thrilled to see her mother again, emotionally overwhelmed, but her mother's physical appearance had been truly bizarre, and the conversation they'd had had been filled with disconcerting non sequiturs.
"So we don't need to understand anything," Daniel said. "We just need to live here and charge up the batteries."
The assistant grinned. "Bingo."
"What about when they're fully charged again?" Norton asked. "Can we leave then? Will our jobs be done?"
"Oh, no. You can never leave."
"Why not?"
"The Houses don't want you to."
"So we're supposed to just--"
"Make the best of it."
Laurie listened silently to this exchange. She was still not sure how she felt aboutBillington --Billings--and that was one thing she wanted to talk to the others about. He was clearly not affiliated with Dawn--he hadn't even been aware of the girl's existence until she'd told him about her--but even though the girl was evil, did that automatically make Billings good? She wasn't sure. He didn't seem . . . bad, exactly. But he was not a knight in shining armor, either. And the fact that he was keeping them here against their will, or was aiding the House in doing so, suggested that his motives were not all that pure.
Billings pointed toward the tray of hors d'oeuvres.
"Eat up," he said. "There's plenty more where that came from." He smiled at them, headed toward the kitchen. "You can talk behind my back for a few minutes.
I'll return in a moment with your meals."
They did not talk behind his back, though. They were afraid to. And when he returned soon after with a tray of roast beef, they were eating in silence.
Norton After serving dinner and clearing off their plates, Billings disappeared, and the rest of them quickly tried the kitchen door and the cellar door to see if either of them offered a way to get out of the House, but it was to no avail. Outside each of the windows, the world was dark, pitch-black, and Norton found himself wondering if the windows looked out onto the other world or were simply facing the blankness of the border in between.
Neither thought was particularly comforting.
They spent some time comparing notes, comparing theories, hashing over some of their concerns, but they did not seem to be making much headway, and when Norton's wristwatch had--correctly or incorrectly--informed him that it was ten o'clock, he said he was tired, excused himself, and went upstairs to his bedroom. As he climbed the stairs, he heard Stormy complain loudly about not having a television or radio, and Norton had to admit that he himself would appreciate having something to read. If they were going to be stuck in here with only each other for company and no entertainment or intellectual stimulation of any sort, nerves were going to get awfully frayed awfully fast. They were already starting to grate on each other. They had the Houses in common, yes, and their current predicament, but they were also five separate people from five different walks of life, and even under the best of circumstances that was not always a recipe for harmony.
And these were far from the best of circumstances.
He lay in his bed, unable to sleep, staring upward at the ceiling. He'd lied. He wasn't tired. He'd just wanted some time alone, some time to think. Even if everything the butler said was true, there were still gaps, still things he didn't understand, and he wanted to be able to sort through it all and see if he couldn't somehow make sense of it.
A half hour passed. An hour. He heard Mark walk down the hallway to his room. Another hour passed.
Two. He tried to go to sleep. Couldn't. Tossing and turning, he closed his eyes, lying first on his back, then on his stomach, then on his side, but sleep would not come.
Sighing, he turned his head on the pillow, looked toward the window. He saw the moon outside, stars. A typical night sky.
A typical night sky?
His heart pounding, excited but afraid to get his hopes up, he sat up in bed, threw off the covers. He stood, walked over to the window, and looked out.
Lights.
The lights of Oakdale.
He could make out the blinking red light atop the water tower, assorted streetlights, the glowing orange ball of the 76 station.
Was it over? Were they free? Norton quickly pulled on his pants and shirt, unlocked his bedroom door. He hurried out into the hall. It was long after midnight and he would have expected there to be only quiet, but the House was far from silent. He heard low whispers at the far end of the shadowed hall, occasional thumping from somewhere downstairs. Above, in the attic perhaps, there was a noise that sounded like a child's laugh, a high continuous chuckle that did not pause for breath but went on nonstop.