“Maybe there are other reasons.” Mr. 314 didn’t brush the question off for once. A strange mix of novelty and inexplicable regret crossed his face.
He didn’t seem at all bothered by being scooped up princess-style by another man. In fact, if Ode hadn’t heard the waiter complain earlier about how picky the guest in 314 was, he might have thought the guy was actually pretty laid-back. “You can’t imagine how much I regret not being able to see what you look like—”
“Really. Truly very regretful.” He bit out the words, repeating himself for emphasis. “I’ve never regretted anything quite like this.”
“. . .” Despite the fact that the man was lying docilely in his arms in such a vulnerable position, those deep blue eyes unfocused and seeming so small and helpless, Ode inexplicably broke out in goosebumps. A chill crept up the back of his neck.
A strange illusion gripped him: it felt as if countless invisible vertical eyes were peeling open their lids one after another all around, encircling him, peering at him, extending unseen tentacles toward him. The moment they touched him, they would mercilessly coil around and claim his life.
Ode stiffened for a few seconds, feeling the stiff, rough fabric of the man’s suit scraping against his bare skin. But he quickly composed himself, setting the bizarre Mr. 314 upright on the ground. He turned toward the landlady, who was rushing over with panicked shouts, though he kept watching the man from 314 out of the corner of his eye. “What the hell happened? I was in my room taking a shower. I didn’t even have time to dry off before the whole place collapsed.”
The surrounding clamor had quieted at some point. Pairs of eyes peeked out from behind doors or piles of rubble, wide-eyed at the midnight gift from Mother Nature: a naked man fresh from his bath.
The landlady’s pace slowed as her gaze trailed down Ode’s lean waistline to the towel below. She nearly lost control and crashed into his pale chest. “You—you—”
Ode steadied her by the shoulders with one hand. He had no desire to draw even more attention, especially when he was exhausted, sleepy, and clad in nothing but a towel. “I’m not going to hold you responsible for the accident, but I can’t stay in Room 214 anymore. You need to get me a new room . . . please. All I want right now is to sleep.”
.
For someone with Ode’s personality, saying he wanted to sleep was rarely to be taken at face value. The real meaning was more like, “Time to do some behind-the-scenes homework!”
Throughout the process of heading back to his new room, showering, and getting into bed, Ode mulled over how to handle Mr. 314 and his questionable motives. Once he had a plan, he fell into a deep sleep. The next morning, he woke up, immediately changed into the new clothes the landlady had kindly provided, and knocked energetically on the door across the hall, feeling refreshed.
After switching rooms the night before, Ode was now in 326, while Mr. Peacock occupied 327. They were right across from each other—perfect for a visit.
Room 327 was deathly silent, as if politely refusing visitors.
But after last night’s forced entry, Ode had no intention of respecting that. His knocking went from a polite tap-tap-tap to a resounding bang-bang-bang. “Not awake yet, Mr. . . . whoever’s in 327? That book you gave me last night was so good I couldn’t put it down. I’m dying to chat about the plot with you. Want to head downstairs for breakfast together?”
He was bound to wake people up on both sides of the hall. After a long pause, a terrifying, low rumble emanated from the room—something ominous and guttural. A few seconds later, heavy footsteps thudded irritably toward the door, paused abruptly, and retreated grudgingly toward the bathroom. Only after several minutes did they return, steady and powerful this time, approaching the door and yanking it open. “It would be my honor.”
Ode’s smile was utterly genuine—he could detect a faint undercurrent of annoyance in the man’s unsteady tone at the end, as if silently demanding, “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
That put Ode in an exceptionally sunny mood. He even leaned in playfully close, tilting his head to lightly sniff at the side of the bedhead Mr.’s neck. “Still wearing yesterday’s cologne?”
No scent of monsters, Ode noted to himself.
“. . .” Bedhead Mr. paused, his left hand twitching on the cane as if itching to swat Ode away with it. In the end, though, he simply turned his face aside, those unfocused sea-blue eyes sweeping toward Ode. “What plot points did you want to discuss?”
“Oh! I forgot.” Ode’s tone was light and cheerful, playing the card of, “Whatever attack happened last night didn’t kill me, so even if it was you, I’m not scared.” “Shall we head downstairs? Here, let me help you. We can talk about some other interesting stuff instead—like, do you believe there are monsters in this world?”
“. . .” Bedhead Mr.’s voice dropped several octaves. “I thought you wanted to talk about the sea—”
“Let’s just assume there are for now.” Ode seized bedhead Mr.’s wrist without hesitation, barreling ahead with his own agenda. “Maybe I’m a time traveler who suddenly looped back from June 2, 1980, to last night in Dreamcatcher Town.”
“Strange things happened—”
“. . .” Bedhead Mr. fell abruptly silent, whether from giving up the struggle or for some other reason, Ode couldn’t tell.
Ode considerately supported him as they headed downstairs, continuing all the while. “Before I reversed time, someone told me that one of his subordinates had died clutching a notebook with my name written in it. But last night, I gnawed that undercover agent of his down to bones, and there was no notebook. What’s up with that?”
Ode’s fingertip slid gently along bedhead Mr.’s wrist, resting on his pulse.
The man’s heartbeat remained remarkably steady, unchanged. He responded coolly, “Am I a suspect, sir?”
“Of course not, dear . . . uh, I haven’t caught your name yet?”
“Cavendish,” bedhead Mr. said. “Just call me that. And what should I call you?”
Ode waved it off as unimportant. “Ode is fine—come on, let’s pick up the story where we left off.”
He already had a theory about the missing notebook. “Maybe the first time I ran into that subordinate of yours, I had no idea he meant me harm, so he tied me up easily?”
Cavendish turned his face toward Ode, seeming intrigued at last. “You said ‘first time’?”
Ode studied Cavendish’s expression closely, hunting for any slip-up, but the man’s face showed only faint interest—no other tells. It was impossible to tell if he was playing dumb. “Yes. Think of my journey here as having looped twice already.”
“Anyway, if we follow my theory, here’s how things went the first time: I arrived in Dreamcatcher Town—got nabbed by the undercover agent—he took me along to retrieve the notebook—then who knows what happened next, but the whole town ended up in flames. The undercover guy burned to death, and I escaped alone.”
Cavendish listened with growing absorption. He didn’t look like someone in the know at all—like this was the first time he’d heard such a twisty tale. He didn’t seem to care about the town burning down, either; maybe he wasn’t afraid of the disaster, or maybe he didn’t believe it. He merely offered an objective suggestion. “In that case—you should find that notebook.”
It was one of Ode’s plans, but he arched a brow anyway. “Why?”
Cavendish seemed happy to explain. “First off, that notebook definitely exists now—or else how do you explain someone who wanted to harm you taking the time, after grabbing you, to go buy a new one just to jot down your name?”
“It must’ve been in his everyday notebook, where he’d already written your name before deciding to grab you.”
“Second, what if it’s his diary? It might have all sorts of useful information.”
Ode’s eyebrows shot up even higher, his smile wry. “Anything else?”
“What more do you want?” Cavendish shot back.
They paused at the second-floor landing. Half of Ode’s face was shrouded in shadow, his green eyes gleaming wolf-like in the dimness as he stared at Cavendish. “If the notebook already existed, why didn’t the undercover agent have it on him when he came to grab me?”
Cavendish’s posture remained relaxed, showing no sign of knowing the answer already. “Why?”
Ode stepped closer, leaning in slightly until his nose nearly brushed Cavendish’s neck. “Because just like any normal person heading to a new place would first find a safe spot to crash . . . the undercover agent stopped by his safe house. He left the notebook there because he figured it was impregnable—no one would steal it—”
Ode sniffed lightly, searching beneath the cologne for any trace of the Deep Ones’ scent. “Think there might be any of his buddies at that safe house? How many?”
Cavendish stayed perfectly still, that faintly novel expression crossing his face again. “I don’t know.”
“Is that ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I won’t say’?”
“Is your trust always this low?” Cavendish arched a brow slightly, lifting his cane to push Ode away.
But Ode didn’t back off. Instead, he grabbed the cane and used it to pull them even closer.
He watched Cavendish intently as he slowly, inch by inch, pried the cane from the blind man’s unseeing grasp. “Can’t afford not to be . . . Last night, someone shoved a gun in my face to make me open the door for a book. What does he have planned for tonight?”
Cavendish let out a mocking chuckle and opened his mouth—probably to point out that in the current situation, it was Ode who seemed eager to do something to a poor blind man—
Bang!
The sound of the inn’s front door being violently slammed open echoed from downstairs.
They heard the waiter they’d dealt with before, breathless and terrified, shouting, “A body—a monster—someone else got eaten in the woods!”
