“The MTGYA?” The key felt like it was being drawn by a magnet.
“Yes. That device right there.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Not meaning to be rude, but do you think it wise to remain here gaping? Let’s keep moving,” I said. As if in struggle, he tore his eyes from the evil mechanism, and followed me ahead. With my hand around the key, I could feel it burning to get to the MTYGA, but it longed less and less as we went on.
The next room was the one I had searched for. Tables sprinkled the ground under the moss-laden ceiling and the glittery (but filthy) chandelier that hung off of it. The grimy tablecloths hung off the edges of the booths and extended to brush the floor. I lead Absalom amid the small tables built for two, some overturned, until we halted in front of one in a corner of the vacant room, with the most lichen of them all.
Swinging my head around, checking, just making sure we weren’t being watched, I took the hem of the tablecloth, and pushed it up over the tabletop, revealing a hole in the wall that was about three feet tall and four feet wide. Absalom gasped. “So this is the way out?”
“No.”
“What? What is it then?”
Stooping down, I crawled in on hands and knees, scooting to the very back of the five-foot crevice. “It’s a place to hide while the Stings pass.”
At once, Absalom had clambered in after me. I told him to pull the tablecloth back down, and he reached back up to slide the cloth off of the table.
“While the Stings pass?!” he hissed.
“Yes.”
“I thought they don’t come this way anymore!”
“They don’t. But don’t you think they’d figure out that we’re gone by now? They’d more than likely search here, too.”
“Yes, but . . .”
He was interrupted by footsteps, and I have to admit, he can make his breath quieter than a mouse’s. Well, at least quieter than mine. We huddled close together, crouching in the minute hiding-place, squeezing each other’s hands and flinching as the footfalls drew near.
“If you’re in here, come on out, or else we’ll have to come get you! We’re going to look under every table until we find you. When we catch you, we’re going to kill you!”
Absalom and I didn’t have to speak, because we were both thinking the same thing. There’s another guy Sting?
“Aw, come on, there ain’t no one in here, let’s go, Felice.”
“Okay. So how do we know they aren’t here?”
“They’d have come out or jumped or started crying or screamed or wouldn't even have been able to hide at all. They didn’t know we were coming.”
“Okay.”
Their footsteps went on to another room. Absalom let out the breath he had been holding. “So now what?”
“Now we wait.”
“For what?”
“For me to fall back asleep and for my dream to lead us on.” Absalom’s face was in a mask of annoyance, but under his clear, pastel-green eyes stirred something else. As if in a trance, my head became heavy and I closed my eyes as my head fell onto Absalom’s shoulder, and I knew no more.
*
The Mississippi Kite looked up at me, its head tilted near to my knee, its beady eyes almost glowing. After two shadows passed over the table we were hiding in, it hopped to the edge of the tablecloth, and then out. I pushed Absalom out of the hole in front of me because he was asleep. He awoke, and I emerged from under the table as well, with him behind me.
The Kite, on a table, took off and went through a doorway opposite the way the Stings took. I hastened after it, going along the corridor with hurried steps, eager to get out.
Then we rounded a corner and were hit with a blinding blast of light…
“Geez, Aigneis, could’ve warned me; that hurt my eyes,” Absalom grumbled. I turned to him and laughed; we were out.
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