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painted DEATH HOTEL in big black letters; and over the years, local kids had
repainted the inscription whenever it got too faint, in order to preserve the
place's "charm."
Death Hotel had a story behind it. In fact, it had many stories, but only one
I actually believed. Once upon a time, the place had been built as a mausoleum
for some well-off family. Something went wrong folklore suggested many
possibilities, from believable problems like the family going broke, to
extravagant hypotheses like a Romany curse or a prophetic vision warning of
dire consequences if the tomb was ever used but whatever happened, no corpse
was ever interred within those thick gray walls. Instead, the place became a
popular spot for transient workers to sleep while they waited to get hired in
the local harvest. Those workers called the place Death Hotel... and
eventually one of them painted the name on the outside.
For several years, the hotel grew in fame; on rainy nights, dozens of people
took shelter inside, a few sleeping in the wall niches meant for coffins but
most just lying on the floor. They never caused any trouble... and most Simka
residents were amused by the idea of people sleeping in an empty mausoleum.
Alas, a handful of loud-voiced fuddy-duddies called it a "desecration of
sacred ground," especially since many of the transients had dark skins or
foreign accents. In the end, the party-poopers prevailed upon authorities to
brick up the entrances with cinder blocks; and the bricklayers had done such a
good job, no one had got inside since.
That didn't end the hotel's popularity with visitors. Folks continued to drop
by and write their names on the walls. A few even claimed to see ghosts in the
neighborhood. It didn't matter that the place had never contained a single
corpse: a mausoleum is a mausoleum even without dead bodies, so why shouldn't
people see phantoms there?
Before that night, I'd laughed at yokels who thought Death Hotel was haunted.
But after my experience in the music room, I wasn't so ready to smirk... and
the closer we got, the itchier I felt. What bothered me most was that we
wouldn't be able to see the mausoleum until we were almost upon it there were
tall stands of spruce on both sides that shielded the site, even in winter.
For all I knew, an entire un-dead orchestra could be planted on the snowy
front lawn, just waiting for us to come into view before they struck up the
funeral march from Beethoven's Third.
A hundred meters short of the hotel, I caught myself clutching at Ibn's mane,
grabbing so hard the poor horse turned his head to look at me, wondering what
I wanted him to do. "Sorry," I whispered, letting go and giving his neck what
I hoped was a reassuring pat. Of course, there'd be no ghosts at the
mausoleum as a man of science, I could prove it by probability. The odds of
seeing a single ghost must be a million to one, so the odds of seeing two in a
single night were so immensely astronomical...
At that moment, something filmy and white streamed down from the sky.
It was a creamy tube of light, glinting with colors like the Aurora Borealis.
Green. Gold. Purple. As it shimmered in the darkness, I could see the stars
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behind: the tube was like glowing milky smoke. It stretched so high it
disappeared into the blackness as if it soared beyond our planet's
atmosphere but that was just as terrifying as if the thing were simply a
ghost. A ghost could only go, "Boo!" Mysteries from outer space could
causereal trouble.
I couldn't help thinking of Opal's story. A Spark Lord. A Lucifer. An
Explorer from the galaxy at large.
The upper body of the tube flapped and fluttered like a banner in a stiff
wind, but the bottom seemed rooted in place. Though the trees blocked our
view, I knew the spectral tube had attached itself to Death Hotel. I could
imagine it like a phantom lamprey, mouth spread and locked onto the building's
ugly dome; or perhaps the tube was a pipeline that fed ethereally into the
sealed-up interior, and even as we watched, it was pumping down a horde of
aliens. Or spirits. Or worse.
"Oh look," said Pelinor, pointing at the tube. "Isn't that pretty." Pause.
"What is it?"
Nobody answered. The horses stopped one by one, either reined in by their
riders or halting of their own accord as they saw the tube twinkling in the
sky. The thing fluttered in silence the whole world had hushed, as if even the
horses were holding their breaths. Then, without a whisper, the ghostly tube
snapped free of the mausoleum like a broken kite string, and in the blink of
an eye it slithered up into the night.
Deep dark quiet. Then, beneath me, Ibn gave a snort that filled the cool air
with horse steam. The other horses snorted too, perhaps trying to decide if
they should worry or just shrug off what they'd seen. In front of me, Myoko
cleared her throat... but before she could speak, an ear-shattering
ripped the silence.
I had an instant to register that the noise came from the hotel: like a
cannon being fired. Then there was no more time for thinking, as Ibn went wild
with fear. He reared up whinnying, nearly bashing into Annah's mare, who was
doing exactly the same thing. For several seconds, we were swept up in
six-horse chaos, the animals trying to bolt, the humans trying not to get
tossed off. My leg was slammed hard between Ibn and some other horse, but I
couldn't tell whose it was dark and confusing, voices yelling, "Whoa!" and
"Easy!", horses neighing, Ibn lurching in panic as I tried to hang on.
Somehow Ibn got himself turned around and started galloping back toward
Simka, his eyes bulging white. I had no choice but to let him run: if I tried
to rein him in, he might rear and throw me off. The pounding of hooves behind
me suggested the others were in the same situation, letting their horses run
until the first burst of terror burned itself out.
Thirty seconds after he'd bolted, Ibn slowed a notch. He still had gallop
left in him; but as I pulled lightly on the reins, he didn't resist
completely. He didn't stop either: it took another half minute before he let
himself be cajoled to a panting halt. Annah cantered past me, still working to
slow her mount she was always very tentative on horseback, just as in life.
The other four, however, had got their animals under control; when I turned to
look, they were stopped on the road behind me, bending over their mounts and
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