world.
She'd even attempted one of Josh's silly astral projection exercises in a vain effort to contact her brother. But nothing had worked, nothing had come of any of it, and she'd just about given up, resigning herself to the fact that the House was more powerful than she was.
But with five of them . . .
Five heads were better than one, as the saying went, and between them, they might be able to come up with an escape plan. She felt a renewed sense of hope as she looked at the men in front of her.
With a theatrical flourish, Billington introduced them, moving clockwise around the table. 'This is Daniel Anderson, this is Norton Johnson, this is Stormy Salinger, and this is Mark McKinney.'
They all smiled at Laurie awkwardly, acknowledging her nodded greeting.
Billington bowed in her direction. 'This, everyone, is Laurie Mitchell.'
Nods again.
The assistant looked happily around the dining room, and his smile broadened in a way that she found extremely unnerving. 'We're all together at last.' He bowed again. 'I will prepare tonight's repast and leave you kiddies alone to get acquainted.'
He retreated through the swinging doors into the kitchen, and the second he was out of the room, the five of them started talking. None of them were under the impression that they had really been left alone, that they were not being watched and spied upon, but that took a backseat to their more immediate and pressing concerns.
It was Stormy who was the first to articulate the question at the forefront of all of their minds: 'What the fuck is going on here?'
They all began talking at once, and after several loud confusing minutes Laurie raised her hands and said, 'Quiet! One at a time, please!'
The others shut up, looked at her, and with that she was thrust into the role of de facto leader. She didn't mind--if there was one thing she'd learned in business it was that if anything was ever going to get done there had to be only one person in charge--but she felt just as lost as the rest of them and singularly unqualified to take control of their efforts to ... what? Escape? Find out what was at the heart of the House? She was not sure what the others wanted.
Still, she could preside over the discussion, she could maintain some semblance of order and bring some organizational skills to the table, and she looked from one face to another. 'All right,' she said. 'Who wants to go first?'
They'd all, it seemed, known Billington or Billingsly or Billings or whoever the hell he was when they were children. As Stormy described his experiences in New Mexico, there were nods of recognition all around.
While the specifics of his story might have been different from hers, the underlying thread of it was not, and Laurie knew exactly what he had gone through.
The same was true for Mark, hitching throughout the West; Norton, in Iowa; and Daniel, in Pennsylvania.
Then she told her story.
And everyone understood.
She felt an immediate kinship with the others. It wasn't quite as if they were siblings separated at birth who had suddenly found family, but it was along those lines and there was a definite connection between them.
Only Mark stood apart. He was younger than the rest of them and although that could have accounted for it, she didn't think so. He seemed . . . different somehow, more unfazed by it all, as though he accepted, even, on some level, understood what was happening. None of this seemed to be as alien to him as it was to the rest of them, and while she did not doubt his loyalties, while she knew he was as much a victim as the rest of them, he was the only one whose story she did not entirely believe. She did not think he was lying, but she had the feeling he was keeping something back, not telling the whole truth.
And that kept him at arm's length.
They were no closer to knowing what was going on after they'd spilled their guts than they had been before.
They could empathize with each other, they could sympathize, but understanding eluded them. Their stories might all be similar in tone, but on the most basic level, the narrative level, they were contradictory and did not mesh.
In addition to the obvious disparities of location, there were the times of arrival. Daniel had been the first to pick up on that, and after Mark had finished his story, he asked, 'How long have you been here?'
Mark shrugged. 'Since yesterday.'
'What day was that?' Daniel pressed him.
'What are you talking about?'
'What day did you arrive here?'
'Saturday.'
'It's Friday,' Daniel said quietly.
'What's the date?' Stormy asked. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a plane ticket. 'To me, it's Thursday. I flew into Chicago yesterday.
September ninth.'
'It's Friday the eighteenth,' Daniel told him.
'Oh, shit.' Mark sat down hard on the couch.
'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 well: 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.
