The Box by Mandy-Suzanne Wong

Author:Mandy-Suzanne Wong [Wong, Mandy-Suzanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2023-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

htl-esc

Mr. Six’s twin brother got entangled in some conflict seventeen years ago. I don’t know what kind of conflict. Not knowing people’s conflicts is a key safety precaution. Mr. Six’s twin brother refused every compromise. His obstinacy cost him everything. He felt like everybody except Mr. Six thought he was worthless.

Mr. Six’s brother found a job in a hotel called htl-esc. I’d never heard of htl-esc. Mr. Six said people didn’t know if it was hotelesque, hotel escape, or hotel E.S.C. His twin had never worked in a hotel before. He’d never been a gardener. htl-esc chose him because he was young, strong, homeless. Mr. Six’s twin pretended he’d known he’d get the job. Mr. Six felt his twin’s relief in his own chest. Mr. Six felt it even from afar.

htl-esc was far away. It had a river behind it. They’d cleared most of a great forest to build the hotel. They’d tamed the rest of the forest to make the maze. The maze was the only way from the guarded gatehouse at the huge gate to the hotel. Cars couldn’t fit in the maze. A guard took Mr. Six’s twin from the gate to the hotel in an electric cart.

htl-esc was a renovated mansion. Legend said a mad naturalist built it. It had terraces and turrets and hidden corridors in odd shapes and places. Mr. Six said the decor was modern and old-fashioned. The bar could’ve been glass with verses engraved in it in ancient alphabets. Sconces could’ve been like orchid snails, elephant snails, stivaconchs. Decorators competed to work for htl-esc. They consulted mystery writers, painters, moviemakers, sculptors, safecrackers, magicians, circus artists. The lobby had five staircases. A metal staircase spiraled through a hole in the ceiling. A wood staircase came down through a trapdoor and folded up into a hidden pocket.

htl-esc’s famous wine cellar had a soil floor. Mr. Six said the cellar was where the hotel rendezvoused with Earth. They rendezvoused inside each other like twins. Mr. Six said he and his twin lived inside each other from the moment they were born. Each brother felt the other’s feelings because that’s the way twins are. Mr. Six said they were two bodies of one mind. They were two bodies of one body like the cellar and Earth.

Mr. Six apologized for talking about rendezvous. That made two apologies.

Mr. Six didn’t know what the hospital said fifteen or thirteen years ago. They’d never seen an arm pulverized like mine. They’d never seen shattered ribs or a concussion like mine. The authorities would think I’d misunderstood a rendezvous. That’s what they said.

☐

The day manager explained htl-esc to Mr. Six’s twin. htl-esc canceled your bill if you solved a riddle. You had to pay your bill if you couldn’t solve the riddle before the end of your stay. The riddle was how to get from your room to the gatehouse. You had to turn up at the gatehouse alone on foot. A cart would take you to the gatehouse on your checkout day if you failed.

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