Page 42 of The Staircase in the Woods

Lore stepped backward, suppressing a gag.

The wave of nostalgia that had gone through her died fast, replaced with the returning sensation of being deeply, cosmically alone.

“Fuck,” she said under her breath, cupping her hand over her mouth.

She took a step back, suddenly realizing—

The stairs—

I’m going to fall—

But there were no stairs behind her.

The staircase was gone. All that waited behind her was a small wooden door raised from floor level. Just a dumbwaiter. Like in an old house.

She opened it up. More must, dust, mold smell—and that commingling of rot. Lore quickly closed it.Where am I? This hallway doesn’t make any sense.It didn’t seem to go from anywhere to anywhere. It was a rectangular space in three dimensions with two doors—three, if you counted the dumbwaiter.

Instinctually, she reached for her phone—newest iPhone, a Pro Max model. It had power but no signal. She went to the settings, looking for any Wi-Fi signal or Bluetooth. There was nothing. “Fuck,” she said again, then slid the phone into her back pocket. As she did so—

Her skin prickled.

Behind her, she felt someone coming up behind her—that sense of presence, of shape, of weight, plus the shifting of floorboards—the feeling that they were right behind her, about to breathe on the back of her neck—

Lore turned, found no one there. A phantom of stirred air.

“Matty?” she asked, quietly at first, then louder as she called out his name: “Matty!” It felt insane, that somehow he’d be here, in this—what, house? It looked like a house. What the fuck was this? How did she get here?I teleported. I’m dead. I’m a ghost. I’m hallucinating. I’m dreaming. In a coma. This is VR.Her brain flipped through the options like fingers flicking through vinyl at the record store.

And then, there it was again:

The feeling, thecertainty,of someone standing behind her. Now, since she had turned around, from the other side.

Lore spun around—

And this time found that she was not alone.

She cried out in surprise—

At Nick.

Nick, who stood in the middle of the hallway, where she had appeared.

He faced the door, and turned toward her. “Lore?” he asked, his voice uncharacteristically small.

“Nick,” she said, the desperation in her voice radiating like a lighthouse beacon. Being here, even for the few moments between then and now, felt crushing, like she was in the cold void of space and couldn’t get air. Now someone else here felt like a lifeline. Nick, her improbable savior.

She strode toward him and threw her arms around him.

Awkwardly, he hugged her back, hard.

“Where the fuck are we?” he asked her, his chin digging into her shoulder. “Is this somebody’s house?”

Lore didn’t know how to answer that question. But she felt it again—a fresh disturbance of the world around them, the feeling of her sinuses swelling as if a storm were brewing somewhere—

Hamish crashed right into them, almost knocking them over.

And he, to her shock, was not the last to come through.

27

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