Excerpt: Dreams in Regret

They crashed landed, or so it seemed at first. After a moment getting their bearings, Callisto noted they had crashed against a wall, not a floor. Another wall was closely followed on the other side of them.
“We’re stuck in the walls?” Callisto said in disbelief. “Does this House have a certain magical frequency or something?”
Astrid wasn’t listening, as usual. He snatched off her headphones.
“Don’t mean to be a bother, but we’re sort of stuck in the walls.”
“Secret Pathway.” Astrid called.
“You think this Is a secret passage?”
“I thought when it was in my head. I knew when it was out of mouth.”
“Ok, well do you know why Oliver saying…” He leaned in and whispered ‘get lost’ before backing away, eyeing the walls suspiciously. “…would make the house teleport us?”
“Some Houses are Magically Augmented. They follow the commands of their owners.”
“And this function decided to work now, why?”
“Do you usually speak in the Entrance Hall?” Astrid asked, tilting her head for answers.
“Not really, no – we move to another room.”
“Then you probably never got the chance to speak a voice command unto the house. I presume the entrance hall is the base for command.”
“Great, and all I wanted to do was see the pigs.” He began moving forward, ignoring the pink insulation poking fun at him.
“Are you O.K.?” Astrid asked slowly as they walked.
“What?”
“Are you feeling all right? I was emotionally bereft.”
“Oh – oh – you mean the kidnapping!” Callisto said, knocking on wood, metaphoric aside. “Yeah, I’m good. It happens.”

“And another person bites the dust.”
“They’re not dead.”
“Sorry, I only have death metaphors.”
“Go figure.”
Oliver and Death were having a nice chat whilst climbing the fifty-five stairs of the House of Fives.
It was at this moment that they realized that they were walking back down to the entrance hall.
“All right, clearly this house doesn’t want us to find them.” Oliver concluded. He stepped down and fell up.
That is to say, his foot hit the entrance hall floor and a sudden shift in gravity made him fall against the ceiling of the house.
“I think I found another staircase.” He said, standing up. Death was staring at him from above.
It appeared to Oliver that there were actually two staircases, just one of them took the ceiling and the other took the floor.
“Want to come down – I mean up – here?”
“Sure.” Death floated upwards, or was it downwards?
He was pressing against the ceiling with his head.
“I think you needed to fall like I did.” Oliver said, a little hopefully. Death tilted himself until his feet were planted on the ceiling.
“Nope.” He replied and started stepping up the stairs. Oliver followed.
“Why do you think the House is acting up?” He asked, somewhat absentmindedly.
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but strange things have been happening.”
“Yes, blah…sounds so dramatic.” Death looked behind him, at Oliver, before moving onward.
“Just saying,” Oliver continued, “Whoever is causing this loves a good story.”
“Yes, we’re all a part of some book, and at an author’s whim.” Death said, sighing heavily.
“If you ask me, one of us is dreaming.”

“It’s locked.” Susan said, trying the library door. Elle leaned against a table, holding her belly.
“But I really got to pee!” She said.
“Sorry, mommy, but you’ll have to wait.”
Susan walked over to the nearest shelf and started tossing books on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Eleanor asked, ducking just in time not to be thwapped in the head by Theodore Roosevelt’s autobiography.
“This is a Library in a big house.” Susan said, tossing Hamlet to the floor. “Naturally I would assume a secret passage is to be found here.”
“Oh, yeah!” Elle said, as if in revelation. She moved to the other side of the room and gently tossed Oliver Twist to the ground.
“What do you think is causing these phenomenon?” Eleanor asked, peering at 101 steps to better health.
“I have my theories.” Susan said, who was reading the back of ‘Picture of Dorian Gray’ with interest.
“Like what?”
“Why should I tell you?” Susan snapped, shoving the novel to the ground.
“Well I was just trying to be nice, but nevermind.” Elle snapped back, tossing the 101 steps to better health ‘accidentally’ in Susan’s direction.
It didn’t make it pass the table. Step zero-one, don’t annoy the pregnant woman. She thought bitterly.
“Nice?” Susan repeated incredulously, “Let’s be honest with ourselves. We’ll never get along. It’s quite simple.”
“Isn’t that the truth.” Eleanor mumbled, pretending to peruse the bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
She was actually thinking. If you hadn’t dated my boyfriend, perhaps we could be friends.
“Gah, maybe there is some methodology in this madness?” Susan said, Douglas Adams in both hands.
“What do you mean?” Eleanor turned around to face her enemy.
“Well this isn’t alphabetically organized. It seems incredibly random – but maybe it isn’t. Maybe the titles slowly point to the book that opens the secret passage.”
“If there is a secret passage.” Elle said, akimbo.
“Hey, you agreed It was a good idea.” Susan pointed out with So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.
“Yes, but I doubt Ella Enchanted is pointing us in any direction other than to elves.”
“Well, all of that spells E. Is there an X nearby?”
“What?”
“Just trust me – look for an X book.”
“All right.” Elle said, facing the shelf again. Sure enough, to the far left were books like ‘X-ray machine manual’ and X-men issue 24’, and so on.
“Ok, I see them.” She said.
“Great!” Susan shouted, and then pointing, “Look for I, and then T.”
“Ah, I see now.” Eleanor found the Death of Ivan Ilyich and the Iliad even farther to the left.
She was standing near the spiral staircase now, ascending up to the second floor.
“Hey, I think we need to go upstairs for the t. Come up with me.” Eleanor called. Susan was all ready standing by her. She jumped in surprise.
“Sorry, I’m good at walking silently.” Susan said.
“Is that a Minoveo trick?”
“Not sure, just know I can do it.”
“Ah.”
They stepped up the steps and confronted the shelves above. Titanic, Twilight, and T is for Trespass stared them in the face.
“And that spells exit…” Elle said, pulling T is for Trespass off the shelf.
There was a click and the noise of something moving to the side. Susan leaned over the railing.
“Down there, where I was.” Susan said, pointing.
“Come on!” Eleanor said, all ready halfway down the stairs.
They made it to the chasm and stared into the darkness. It was a dark corridor that seemed to stretch forever.
“Please tell me we have a flashlight.” Susan said.
“We have a flashlight.” Elle said sarcastically.
“Thanks.”

Callisto and Astrid were experiencing a similar discovery. That of a dead body. And it wasn’t Death.
“How long has this been here?” Callisto said, leaning down. It was all ready crowded enough, and now they had a dead body in the way.
“We’re going to have to step over it.” Astrid said dismally. “If I had a pad of paper I could analyze the decomposition with my abilities – in fact, I could get us out of here.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any. But Oliver does?”
“Well let’s hope we bump into him soon.” Astrid said. They slowly stepped on and over the body. By doing so they made it to a t-pass. Left or right.
“Left or right?” Callisto said, not seeing any difference between them. They both were much wider, however.
“However, since it is not smelling it may have died today…” She opened a satchel wrapped around him. “And this looks like today’s mail…”
“Are you saying that my mailman was trapped in the walls?”
“Perhaps.” Astrid replied, monotone aflame. She moved over to him.
“I wonder who else got lost in this House.” Callisto said. He heard a rumbling.
“What is that?” He called over the growing sound. Astrid looked behind them.
“A flood of dead bodies, it seems.” She said conversationally, but nevertheless in that same, dull tone. Callisto rushed behind her to see. Bodies, seeming to distort space, flushed towards them.
“Remind me never to wonder.”
And they ran.

Death heard a rumble.
“Hey, I heard a rumble.” Death said. Oliver was poking his head into the library.
“Probably just my stomach.” Oliver replied dismissively.
“If your stomach sounds like a tractor crashing through a house, then sure.” Death snapped back. His heart jumped and his face flushed. “Flood of dead bodies, four o’clock!”
Indeed, the wall on the opposite side of the library door burst and a load of bodies came spiraling out and onto the staircase.
Oliver and Death, on the ceiling, were thankfully saved from the onslaught. When they moved to examine the bodies, however, they were met with the sight of Callisto, tangled up in a thirty-year old woman and a forty-five year old man.
“Callisto!” Oliver called. Death grabbed him by the shoulder and floated up. They flipped and landed on the ground. Oliver rushed over to his comrade and pulled the dead bodies off of him.
“You dead, man?” Oliver said, nudging Callisto’s jaw with his foot.
“Maybe. There is a big cloaked fellow behind you.”
“Oh, that’s just Death.” Oliver explained. Callisto shot up.
“So I am dead!”
“No, you’re not – I meant Death our friend, not Death the soul reaper.”
“Oh.” Callisto brushed off dust he collected from the bodies. “That’s good, then.”
“Yes, good.” Death said flatly. “But what happened here?”
“Oh, I just asked how many people got lost in this house. Apparently a lot.”
“Apparently.” Death said, looking around impressed.
“Wait, you didn’t actually know?” Oliver said incredulously. Death shook his head.
“Sometimes magic interferes with our death sensors. We figured these people were just trapped in an alternate dimension.”
“And you didn’t try to rescue them!?” Oliver said. Death shrugged.
“Guess not. But here they are – there will be a lot of paperwork tonight!”
“For now, let’s find the girls.” Callisto said, stepping and then tripping over the bodies on his way to the entrance hall. The girls appeared from the living room, covered in cobwebs.
“Oh, there you are.” Callisto called, stepping over Astrid. He looked down. “And there you are.”
Astrid waited for Callisto to pass before standing. Death put a hand on her forehead to analyze her vitals.
“What are you doing?” Oliver asked.
“Analyzing her vitals.” Death said. “I only have to place my hand against her head and I can tell if she is close to death or not.”
“Oh, sweet.”
“So what happened to you, girls?” Callisto said in the background.
“What does it look like?” Susan said, “We found a secret passage way through the library – because we were trapped inside – and it was covered in webs.”
“Plus, a giant spider tried to eat us.” Eleanor added, raising a long black leg.
“We killed it, no worries.”
“Oh. Cool.” Callisto said, a little stunned.
“This was certainly odd.” Oliver remarked, joining the group with Death.
“Yes, let’s try not to repeat it again.”
“Agreed.” Said everyone in unison.