A person finds themself at the building through one of three means.
One: They walk in. This used to be the most common ground by which new residents arrived at the building. They would be strolling along, enjoying a beautiful day, when suddenly their feet would take them on a new path, through grass a little browner and more dried up than the surrounding lawns, down brick lanes that felt out of place in the city or suburb or rural area that they had previously been strolling through. It doesn’t matter which of the latter is true; the brick lanes always feel out of place. Then, rising before them like a beacon out of the mist: a towering structure with gray paneling and darkened windows. And an allure, a call, a feeling of rightness that leads them up the endless steps, through the opaque glass doors, and into the lobby within.
No one finds the building who isn’t supposed to.
Two: They are brought in. This is a feat far more easily accomplished when the person being brought in is a child: smaller, lighter, more easily convinced to get into the van with the strange man because, hey, do you want to have an adventure, young man? When this is the method of transport, they usually do not have the opportunity to see what the outside of the building looks like as they are brought in (usually because they are in some phase of unconsciousness), so all they know is what they see inside: gray walls, small rooms, endless hallways.
Three: They are born in the building. In the history of the building—which is both unfathomably long and hardly anything at all—this has only happened once.
Chapter Five
She was being followed.
Everly could think of no other reason why the man from her father’s funeral would appear here, in her neighborhood park. He was even in the same outfit he had worn at the funeral—the same outdated bowler hat and faded tweed coat. The only difference from their first noninteraction was that now she knew he was looking at her. Not twenty feet away from where she stood, the man had halted in the middle of the path, his eyes unwavering as he watched her. Everly knew she should have been more alarmed at his repeated appearance in her life—knew that she should have run, should have called someone, should have hidden. But against her better judgment, Everly instead found herself pulled toward the stranger, and she didn’t know why.
No. That wasn’t quite right. She did know why, or at least she thought she did. Now that she was seeing the man again, and much closer than before, when they had been separated by a church’s worth of mourners, she could see his eyes. They met her own, and she felt like she knew them—like she knew him, despite the undeniable fact that before the funeral she was certain she had never seen him before.
She also had that terrible sense of déjà vu again—the same as she had felt at the funeral. It nagged at the back of her mind, like a string begging to be pulled, like static wanting to settle into place, like an itch needing to be clawed out. It was more than feeling like she knew him—it was feeling like she had spent her whole life with him, like she knew his darkest secret. Like he knew hers.
But not even Everly knew her darkest secret.
For a minute the man only stared at Everly, and then he smiled. It was a slow smile, a kind smile—almost even, one could say, timid. He removed the bowler hat, held it between both of his hands, and took a tentative step forward. All the while, Everly didn’t blink. She stood frozen and waited while the strange man approached her, curiosity now taking over in the roots of her mind, overruling any lingering sense of unease.
The man paused about two feet away from Everly and stood looking at her for another moment before he began to speak. “You look just like her,” he said, and his voice was far softer than she had been expecting, full of a warmth that nearly caught her off guard. Everly was so mesmerized by these observations that she nearly missed what he said.
She scrunched up her brow. “Like who?”
“Like your mother,” he said.
Now Everly knew the man before her was mad. Or a liar. Or both. No one knew her mother, and if they did, they would know that Everly looked nothing like her. “No,” she said back to the man. “I don’t. My mother was fair and blond. She was petite, and beautiful. I’m none of that.” She knew all of this because of the smattering of memories that she still retained from her early childhood, those which she hadn’t lost or closed away over the years since her mother’s passing. She didn’t really remember her mother anymore—not in any tangible sense. But she remembered enough to know that the man was wrong.
“No,” the man agreed. “You’re not. But you have her eyes. And her spark.”
“Spark?” Everly bristled, wondering if this was a snide remark against the reddish auburn of her hair.
“Your life,” the man said. “The energy you radiate. I can see it now. It’s vibrant, just like you. Just like her. You’re marvelous, my dear.”
This made Everly pause, at a momentary loss for words. “How did you know my mother?” she finally asked, once she found her voice.
The man seemed to hesitate for the first time, but only briefly. He looked Everly directly in the eyes, and it gave her a chill—that same uncanny sense of déjà vu. “Your mother,” he said slowly, “was my daughter. Everly, my name is Richard Dubose. I’m your grandfather.”
Everly took a step back. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t be. My mother didn’t have any family.”
“She did,” the man said, almost sadly. “She does. Though, I’m afraid, you and I are nearly all there is left.”
Everly kept shaking her head, backing away from the man and his words, his impossible statements. She knew her mother hadn’t had any family because her father had told her so, and if someone had been out there, they would have found her long ago. She would have known.
The man’s presence in front of her was irrefutable, however, and now Everly began to realize why his eyes seemed so familiar, so much like a ghost from the past. They were her eyes—the exact same deep blue, with a hint of green around the irises.
Her mother’s eyes, if what the man claimed was true.
Everly’s breath caught, and she looked closer at the man, searching for further clues, further proof that this unlikely miracle might be true. That someone else may abide within the nonexistent circle that she could call her family.
The man didn’t say anything else while Everly examined him. “How?” Everly finally asked.
Again, the man hesitated for the span of a heartbeat before speaking. “When your mother . . . we weren’t on good speaking terms, when I last saw her. She blamed me for many things, most of which she probably had a right to be angry over. Your father, too. I wasn’t a very good parent, and so I figured it would likely be for the best if I stayed away from you and your father in your grief. Better if you didn’t have me interfering in your life as I did for your mother.”
Everly, still not convinced, crossed her arms over her chest. “So why now, then? If you thought it would be better if you stayed away, why did you come here?”
The man searched Everly’s eyes. “Something has happened,” he said quietly. “Or something is going to. We’re going to need each other, very soon.”
She couldn’t understand any of this—couldn’t understand why this man whom she had only just met could need her help, could need anything from her at all. Keeping her arms crossed, Everly cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “What could you possibly need me for?”
He opened his mouth, closed it. Pressed his lips together in a firm line, furrowed his brow. “I think,” he said slowly, “it may be easier to show you. I want you to understand, I want you to be able to see the whole picture, and I don’t think I can do that right here.”
“You want me to go somewhere with you?” A twinge of alarm flared through Everly. With it came the familiar flash of a headache—quick and fierce, like a sharpened fork being jabbed between her eyes. Everly grimaced; she’d been getting more and more of them recently.
“I want you to meet me somewhere,” he said, still twisting his bowler hat between his hands.
Everly wiped her face blank, trying to banish any evidence of phantom pains as she considered the man, considered his proposition. She thought about what her dad would have said, if he could have seen her with the man and all the impossibilities he had presented. Her dad would have told her not to go. Would have said to stay home, to stay safe.
But her dad wasn’t here. She probably had dozens—hundreds—of reasons why she should say no. But in that moment, she really couldn’t find it in herself to care about any of them.
Slowly, as her headache abated, Everly began to nod. “All right,” she heard herself say. “Where do I meet you?”
Chapter Six
In the building, buried two levels beneath the ground, was a dark room hidden on a dark floor. The room wasn’t very large—few rooms in the building were—but it was full.
