actions. More than anything else, they needed to stick together.
'Where did Billings go?' Daniel asked.
Norton shrugged. 'I don't know. One minute he was there and the next minute he was gone.'
Stormy snickered. 'Was he wearing his PJs ?'
'I don't think he sleeps,' Norton said. 'He was wearing his uniform. As always.' He paused. 'Only ... he looked different. Tan. Happy.'
'He's been looking better ever since I got here,' Daniel said.
Stormy smiled. 'I guess we've been charging his battery too, huh?'
Daniel grinned at him. 'Speak for yourself, nancy boy.'
There was another low rumble, more sound than movement this time. Lights in the House began switching on and off: the candle-shaped bulbs on the wall of the landing above them extinguishing, the swinging chandelier in the sitting room flicking on, the globe light in the hallway winking off, a light in the dining room flaring brightly.
It should not have been that scary. They'd all been through much worse, and the fact that they were together should have offered some reassurance and comfort.
But Daniel's pulse was racing, and more than at any time since he'd walked through the front door into the House, he wished he were out of here. The rapidly flickering lights had the effect of a strobe used in a Halloween haunted house, darkening everything around them, making the building--particularly the upstairs-- seem much bigger and more vast than it was.
Noises accompanied the sudden light shifts.
Whispers from the shadows.
High-pitched laughter from above.
There was another low rumble, and as quickly as it had started, everything stopped. The lights that were on stayed on, the lights that were off stayed off, and there was no more noise. The House was silent.
'Come on,' Laurie said, taking charge. 'Let's check out the den.'
She started down the hall, lit now by only a brief sliver of yellow that spilled out from the partially open pantry door. Daniel quickly fell into step behind her, the others following.
The den door was closed. Laurie tried to open it, Daniel tried, Stormy tried, Mark tried, even Norton tried, but it was locked and nothing they did could get it open.
Stormy attempted to kick the door, warning everyone to stay back in typical movie fashion, but his cowboy boot had absolutely no effect and even the sound of contact was flat, muffled, and ineffectual.
'Billings!' Norton called, pounding on the door with his fists.
Stormy took up the cry: 'Billings!'
A door opened slowly at the far end of the hallway.
Daniel stared, trying to ignore the feeling of fear that filled him as he watched the slowly opening door. He racked his brain, trying to remember what was in that room, but he had no childhood memory of it, he had not made it to that end of the hall in his earlier explorations, and he could not for the life of him figure out what was in there.
The door was now open all the way, and through the rectangular entrance dark tangled shadows were visible against pale bluish light.
This time, he was the one who took the lead.
He realized what lay behind the door even before they reached it.
It was a solarium.
Or a lunarium .
For the plants in it were obviously night-blooming.
Daniel entered the room and stopped just inside the door. They were on the west side of the building, though he could not recall ever seeing anything like a greenhouse in that location before. The ceiling, a skylight, was two stories above their heads, the wall of windows opposite them frosted, translucent, letting in light but not offering a view. The plants, on rows of shelves and oversized pots, were all impossibly exotic, comprised of shapes and colors that did not match.
He found himself wondering where they had come from.
And who tended them.
Slowly, the five of them began spreading out, drawn by their individual eyes and interests to particular flowers or shrubs. Daniel stood by a sort of cactus that looked like a headless human skeleton covered with yellowish skin and spiny needles.
Stormy had walked over to the wall of windows and was gingerly touching the glass. 'Feels solid,' he said, looking back. He knocked on the glass, and Daniel heard a recognizable clink-clink-clink sound. 'Might as well try.' Stormy glanced around him, picked up a decent-sized potted plant, and threw it at the window.
It disappeared.
Reappeared.
'What would happen if someone kicked one of those windowpanes?' Daniel wondered, walking over. 'Would his foot get caught in that . . . whatever it is, and then show up again in here?'
'You want to try it?' Stormy asked.
Daniel held up his hands. 'Not me. I'm just wondering.'
'I guess you'll keep on wondering. I'm not trying it either.'
'Hey, guys!'
Both of them turned to see Norton standing before a peculiarly sparse bush with unusually large dark leaves.
They walked over and saw as they drew closer that even though there was no wind in the greenhouse, no air conditioning, no breeze, the leaves of the bush were moving, twitching, twisting in the air.
There seemed something obscene about the plant's movements, an unnatural and aggressive sexuality to the motions that reminded Daniel of Doneen He looked over at Norton, Stormy, and saw the same look of recognition in both of their eyes. Laurie and Mark were heading over as well, and he could tell from the expression on their faces that they had the same reaction to the plant.
A branch reached for him, drew back, reached again, drew back, its strange leaves curving in on themselves invitingly. At the tip of the branch was a small round berry.
Eve and the apple.
That's what it reminded him of, and for the first time, he thought that perhaps their earlier talk of God and the devil wasn't that far off.
'What's the point of this?' Laurie asked. 'Why were we led here?'
Daniel shrugged. 'You got me.'
Behind Laurie, another plant was moving, a series of skinny stalks topped by orchidlike flowers. Following his gaze, she turned. The red engorged stamen of the closest flower wiggled at her, lengthened to its quivering full extension, a drop of dew dripping from its tip.
'Let's get out of here,' she said disgustedly.
'Fine by me.'
'Let's hit it,' Stormy agreed.
All five of them moved back out the open doorway the way they'd come, Daniel bringing up the rear, keeping his eyes peeled for anything unusual, but nothing happened, even the plants had stopped moving, and when they were all back in the hallway the door slammed shut.
'What was that all about?' Stormy asked. 'Obviously we were supposed to go in there. Obviously we were supposed to see something. But what?'
No one had an answer.
It was still the dead of night--two o'clock according to one watch, three-thirty according to another--and they were all pretty tired, so after a short discussion in which they vowed to confront Billings in the morning and demand to know what had happened tonight, why the House had been sealed off, they returned to their rooms.
'Anything unusual,' Laurie said as they walked up the stairs, 'call for help. Don't try to take on anything alone.'
'Anything unusual!' Stormy asked.
