In the House of Mirrors (19 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“
The house is the doorway,” L said.

They were sitting in the common room, where all the other crazies wandered about, some of them banging their heads into the wall softly, others crying for no reason at all. The nurses were running around frantically, attending to the patients, feeding them their medications. Some laughed at the others while they went nuts, as if they weren't just as nuts themselves. It was around sundown, the time when—for some reason—everyone acted the weirdest.

“The house is the doorway,” Geoffrey repeated.

“
And the camera is the key,” L said.

“
And the camera is the key,” Geoffrey repeated.

“
I have the key,” L told him. “I need someone to open the doorway. Someone with money. Someone like you.”

“
I'm sure I can convince my father. He's been looking for a place.”

“
Good,” L said, smiling in approval. Geoffrey had proved to be a faithful servant, just like Master said he would. L looked across the room. He spotted a kid, not much older than Geoffrey. He was alone, using his finger as a pencil to write something on the table. “What's his story?” L nodded to the kid.

Geoffrey turned toward him. “Oh, that's Jackie, or Johnny, or Junie. Or Johnson. It might be Woodward. I don't know.”

“Be friends with him. When the time comes, you'll know what to do. Understand?” L asked.

He nodded. “The Master will guide me.”

“That's right.” L looked up at the clock, as if his time at Benton had expired. “One more thing. If I'm not around—if I fail—there will be another to take my place. He might not be like me. He might not know what I know. He might not hear what I hear. The Master might not be able to communicate with him as he does you and I. But he will hold the key. Understand?”

Geoffrey nodded once more.

“Good. You'll probably have to kill him. Or someone close to him.” L shook his head. “Nevermind. You'll have to do whatever it takes to get the key to the doorway. You'll have to unlock the doorway. That is the Master's wishes. Understand?”

Geoffrey nodded once more.

“Remember. All can see—”

“
In the House of Mirrors,” Geoffrey finished for him.

2

The Master was right; Johnny Anderson was perfect.

“
We almost there?” Johnny said, as the two of them walked down a small path surrounded by the endless forest. Enormous conifers covered the blue sky above them. In the distance, Geoffrey could just barely make out their destination.

“
Five minutes.”

“
You said that five minutes ago,” Johnny huffed. He stopped to ignite another cigarette. Where he was going, he wasn't sure if they had any. 

After the five minutes passed, they reached the battered house. Johnny almost laughed. “This is
it?
This is your portal?” He took another drag from his cigarette, sucking it down to the filter, before stamping it out in the dirt.

“
It might not look like much on the outside,” Geoffrey told him, “but the inside is beautiful. Haven't you ever heard the expression never judge a book by its cover?”

It had been a long time since Johnny read a book, but he knew the expression well. “They're gonna come looking for me.” He was referring to the psychiatric hospital he had just escaped from. “If they haven't started already.”

“They have,” Geoffrey said. “That mighty-fine looking sister of yours is leading the hunt. What was her name, Amelia? Ophelia? Aurelia? Indonesia?” Geoffrey asked. Johnny told him which one it was, but it wouldn't matter. He'd forget it anyway. He wouldn't remember her name when he saw her again, almost two years later, when she started attending her father's masses. He'd forget who she was completely. She'd be another pretty face that looked vaguely familiar. Very vague. He'll think she was a nurse at Benton at one point in time, or someone who served him coffee at the donut shop down the street. Maybe someone he used to pal around with during his childhood.

Geoffrey walked with Johnny up the porch. The front door had a single two-by-four barricading the entry. The other three had already been pried off and set aside. Geoffrey picked up the crowbar and started to go to work on the last one. It took him several minutes, but he was able to jar the thing loose. He did the other side of the door the same way, and tossed the two-by-four behind them. Geoffrey turned the knob, and pushed the door open. They peaked their heads in, careful not to break the plane of the doorway with their feet.

“Full of mirrors,” Johnny said. “Just like you said.”

“
I wasn't lying to you, sugartits,” Geoffrey said.

“
So...” Johnny said, “what are we waiting for. Let's go in. Let's get out of this world.”

“
Yeah... about that,” Geoffrey said. “I'm not going with you.”

Johnny's face wrinkled. “What are you talking about?” He shook his head. “No, you said you were coming with me. I ain't going in that place alone.”

“Uh, I said I'd take you here,” Geoffrey said. “Which I did.”

Johnny shook his head again, this time furiously. “No. Fuck this—”

He did not get to finish that sentence. A cold feeling entered his skull. Pain rushed the back of his neck and down his spine. He lost focus, and his footing, and he fell on the porch. The world around him faded to black. He wouldn't find out that his head was bleeding until he woke up several hours later. The wound would require stitches.

Where he was going, there were no stitches. Only the Elduronds.

Geoffrey Boone cleaned Johnny's blood off of the crowbar and buried it deep in the woods after he placed his buddy's seemingly lifeless body inside the entrance. He was still unconscious, and would remain so considering how hard Boone had clocked him. When he awoke, he found himself within the House of Mirrors.

He never came out.

3

You've done well,
Master said.

“
Thank you, Master,” Geoffrey said. He was standing before the house now, long after Johnny Anderson had gotten lost inside, vanishing forever.

I need more.

“Oh, I already have a plan for that. Don't worry, Master.”

Good. Don't keep me waiting.

“Never, Master.”

Before Boone left the house that day, he swore he saw an old man looking down at him from a window on the second floor. He swore he saw a giant claw pulling the curtains apart.

4

There was a huge argument with his father. Carter had the House of Mirrors demolished so they could start new construction, a house with a church connected to it. That way they could live there and have their “parties” and be far away from people who did not understand their beliefs. Geoffrey was furious, because Master was going to be furious. If Master
was
furious, he didn't let Geoffrey know it. Carter disciplined his son by sending him back to Benton, because he simply didn't know what else to do with him. He didn't want the little shit ruining his parties. They were more important to him than his own seed.

This time around, they gave him Clozapine. This helped take away the voices. Especially Master's. There were no orders from him the whole time Geoffrey took his medication.

When Geoffrey got out, things changed. His father had rebuilt the house in the woods. Geoffrey felt lost, although he had never seen his father so happy. There were no more voices, as long as he took his medicine. Eventually, he tried to track down L, but because he didn't know his name, or his address, or where he worked, he couldn't locate him. Geoffrey assumed if L needed to be in touch, then L would
get
in touch. When L didn't get in touch, Geoffrey thought maybe L was just a hallucination, and that maybe he really was crazy. But then how could he explain Johnny Anderson and the day he fed him to the House of Mirrors?

Unless Johnny Anderson was a hallucination too.

Geoffrey began to think everything was a hallucination, even life itself.

After all, he was just a portal.

5

When Geoffrey Boone entered the door with the number seventeen on it, his father was sitting at a desk, writing or drawing, or doing something involving pen and paper. Geoffrey was excited. He held a newspaper in one hand, a cherry-iced drink in the other. “Father, look at this,” Geoffrey said, slapping the newspaper down on the desk. Geoffrey tried to mask his gleeful demeanor.

The article was a sign of the Master. That he had returned.   

Carter Boone read the headline, then shifted his eyes to the rest of the article. His eyes grew larger with every line he read. “Dear, God,” Carter said, but to which God he addressed, only Carter knew. He had worshiped more than one in his lifetime. “Danica and Marty were good people.”

“They were adulterers,” Geoffrey reminded him.

“
But good people nonetheless. They did not deserve to be butchered.”

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders casually. “This is a sign, Father.”

“A sign of what?” Carter asked, turning back to his work.

“
We should rebuild it. The house in the woods. We should rebuild it again, only like before.” His demeanor changed. There was a hint of anger in his voice. “Before you had it destroyed. That's the way it should have been. That's the way it's always been.”

Carter did not reply. He ignored his son, like he did on most occasions when he spewed insane babble. Actually, Geoffrey didn't need to say anything outlandish for his father to disregard him; Carter did a good job of that even when Geoffrey was acting normal.

“Are you listening, Father?”

“
Mm-hm.”

Geoffrey became so frustrated, so enraged, he lashed out and took the pad his father had been jotting notes on, and threw it across the room.
“Listen to me!”
Geoffrey barked. “We. Need. To. Rebuild. It,” he said slowly.

Carter turned to his son, peering at him disdainfully. It hurt Carter to look at his son. Whenever he saw him, looked into his eyes, he saw nothing that reminded him of his wife. Nothing that reminded him of himself. It was as if he were left to raise someone else's child. This was the line he'd repeat to himself whenever he chose to send Geoffrey for help.

This is not my son.

“
Listen, Geoffrey. I'm not playing these games with you anymore.” Carter strolled over to the pad of paper.

“
This is not a game, Father. This is an opportunity.” Geoffrey paced around the room. “This is a chance to make things right. We have to rebuild it, Father. We have money. I don't understand what the problem is.”

“
The problem is, Geoffrey, that there is
no more
money.”

Geoffrey reacted as if he had been slapped in the face. “What?”

“How do you think you were able to voluntarily spend time in Benton, weeks at a time? Do you think that place runs on happiness and good-spirited people? No, it runs on money. Money from the people who are not quite sick enough, or not quite poor enough to have the government pay for their visits. A lot of my money went to you and that fucking hospital.”

“
Oh, please, Father. Like you didn't treat it as a day-care for unwanted children. You were the one who
wanted
me to spend weeks at a time in that place. I didn't want to go! I hated that place. I hated everything about it! But you didn't know what to do with me, so you sent me there. Because I had problems. Well tell me, Father—what rejected son or daughter doesn't have problems?” There were tears in his eyes. His father did not answer. Carter simply sat back down in his chair, taking in a deep breath, and exhaling. He turned back to his work. “The least you could do is build the house the way it was. And I will forgive you for everything. I'll forgive you for the beatings. I'll forgive you for not loving me.” He paused so he could wipe away the teardrops that streamed down his face. “I'll even forgive you for Mother,” he said, but his father ignored him. “Just build it back. Our Master, he wills it.”

Carter turned to him. “Our Master?
Our Master?
Let me tell you something, boy. Something it took me a good long time to learn on this planet.
There. Is. No. God
. Just like there is no Satan. No matter who you pray to, who you believe in, who you sacrifice things for, in the end it doesn't matter. Because they simply do not exist.” He stared at his son, unmoved. “They're all just bullshit things we make up to make us feel better about ourselves. To give us hope. Something to make us believe that after this life there is another one,
better
than the Hell we rot away in now.” He shook his head. “The truth is, son, we just die and rot in the ground. Or we burn up and become ash. That's all we have to look forward to. There is no life after death. Just death. No Heaven. No Hell. No other worlds waiting for us. Just us. Living today, dead tomorrow. Enjoy it while you can. And stop trying to appease the voices in your head, they're only going to want more from you and they're never going to give you a goddamn thing back. Learn to ignore them.” This statement reminded Geoffrey that he forgot to take his Clozapine today. And yesterday. And possibly the day before that. “Now get out.”