You are going to seize the metaphorical crabhammer in your fist and use it to...
Use it to...
Well, what? What is there to do? There are a lot of very pretty fish, and so on, but no clear goal and no clear end in sight. And here you are with a snake.
All it does is look at you blankly. You try talking to it softly, as if it's shy and needs coaxing. You try threats, except they don't seem very effective, somehow. (What stakes are there, for a snake? What does a snake hold dear to its heart? If Richard's there— and if he is, he is doing an excellent job of pretending— well, that doesn't make any difference. You can hardly hold a knife up to your own throat. And he'd laugh, anyway.) You spit the vilest invectives you can summon up, which granted aren't all that vile. You are a lady.
But it doesn't respond. There's not even the ghost of a fanged smile on its frankly ugly little po-faced snout. It mocks you. It glows.
"Did you hear that?" you complain. "I think you're tacky."
"Tacky?" you mimic back in your closest approximation of his even voice. It sounds like you're being choked. You find this adds to the character acting. "Charlie, tacky isn't a matter of style. It's grace. For example: not blundering, oxenlike, into situations you're unprepared for."
Charlie. It's a nickname you've never used and never liked. Is it any wonder Richard latched on?
You pace near the edge of the room, far from the pools. "That's not the point," you say. "The point is— you have snake cufflinks. They're not even subtle snake cufflinks, it's just— it's just brass snakes."
"You can't expect me to have any sophistication. I probably—" You cough. This is grating on the throat. "—uh, I probably have no actual sense of what cufflinks are. I'm just a snake. So it's actually 100% your fault I have these, and..." You're losing the plot. "It's all your fault, not mine."
There we go; back on track. But you don't like that he's right.
"You never like it" you rasp. "But it's always true. You can't do this by yourself. You can't do this without me. For God's sake, the minute I leave you're pretending to be me. Did you consider how pathetic that is? What if somebody sees you?"
You stop walking.
"What are you doing? Honestly? Did you have a plan when you arrived, or were you hoping for the answer to be delivered by courier? Carrier gull? That's not how things work, Charlie. Go down the stairs."
The stairs are on the ceiling. "I can't," you mutter to the snake— to yourself.
"If you can't..." You don't even attempt the voice anymore. "...what's the point of you?"
That does it. You storm back past the mirror and collect the bookcase as you go. It's featherweight in your grip. The snake follows behind. You drag the case all the way to below the stairs, give yourself a running start, and smack face-first against a row of binders.
Less enthusiastically, you step up onto the first shelf and pick your way up. The wood under your fingers has a new, strange quality: it's waxy, almost slimy. You look down and the floor swims.
But there's nowhere to go but up. By the time you perch precariously at the top, your arms ache.
The stairwell is dark.
That's your first and only impression: it's dark. The stairs are narrow and concrete and lead steeply into darkness.
You cast a regretful glance behind you at the gentle fish, the charming pools of blood, and so on. But now there's nowhere to go but down.
So that's where you go. You clutch to the handrail, at first, until there is no more handrail. The snake's throat provides a faint and unsettling light, until it's gone— has been digested (you assume; you do not ask). You're not exactly tired, nor are you scared. All there is to do is walk down.
And then there is a door. It's large and squareish and oak. There's a keyhole and a peephole. There is a handwritten note tied to the handle in red ribbon.
"GOT HELD UP
SORRY
JUST STAY PUT
- ELLERY"
Ah. The second most ridiculous thing you've heard all day.
>[1] Write-in.
The ribbon's the nice kind. It's an aggressive brand of vermillion. It has wires in. If you can just finangle it off (it twists once, where the note is attached, and otherwise forms a perfect loop tight to the handle), you'll own it.
(Is this all you are? A petty loiterer and part-time ribbon thief?)
You end up using your pocketknife, which cuts like butter through the ribbon and ribbon wire and part of the handle. (You slipped.) What pocketknife? The one you keep in your pocket, you'd rationalized. It's in the name. And apparently that was just logical enough to get by.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
You fidget the newly-amputated ribbon between your thumb and forefinger. You like it when everything just falls into place, but you've never quite worked out what to do afterwards. Tie up your hair, you suppose. Or... you eye the snake with sudden feral malice. It would go nicely.
There is a decision to be made.
>[A1] Tie up your hair. Finders keepers!
>[A2] Dress up Richard(?). Carpe diem!
>[A3] This is slander. You didn't collect the ribbon because you liked it, you collected it because... evidence. Right? Pocket it (for now).
...As you expected, the snake doesn't appreciate your generous donation of ribbon. After several ill-fated wrangling attempts, both of you are in high dudgeon.
"It's not polite to bite people!" you admonish. (You are nursing several pinprick wounds on your hand.) "You ought to know better!"
It hisses from a spot just out of your reach.
"I could die, you know. Your venom could course through my bloodstream and stop my heart, killing me instantly! I'd foam from my mouth! And how would you like that?"
From the murder in its eyes, it would like that very much.
"Okay, well, I won't die. I'm probably immune. Because if you killed me, where'd you be, huh?"
It doesn't answer. It undulates warily.
"Sent back to rot in... in Snake Hell, I wager. Or at least eternal nothing at all. Same thing."
It also doesn't seem to notice the hand at your side inching out steadily.
"So really, we're both stuck with each other. I'm sure there's a word for it— AHA! GOTCHA!"
Once you judged yourself in range, you whipped out, quick as a... well, a snake, and pincered it in your left hand. It now hisses and wriggles indignantly in your grip.
With your free hand, you loop the ribbon around the snake's neck and tie it in a dashing bow. The amplitude of its wriggles vastly increases, so you do your best to dodge the powerful tail and primp the bow as best you can. You think it looks rather handsome, actually. You're not certain it agrees, but with the absence of thumbs there's not a whole lot it can do.
Good job! You've successfully set several goals for yourself, and accomplished them, and if there's a little nick in the handle and an imagined scowl on your snake’s face that's just how it goes these days. You don't need help, obviously, no matter what somebody says. You're good!
("There's still a door," you say, almost by accident. It's just so quiet here. "All you did was get a ribbon and put it on me.")
Well, it's— it's one step at a time, right? So there is a door, and nothing else around the door, but that's okay. You just open it, that's all.
Well, you should look first.
Should you knock?
No. No. And you shouldn't try to bust it down, either, because... you don't know. You can only bust down so many doors in a day, else it gets too predictable.
Try the handle first? No, you haven't looked yet. You kneel by the keyhole and stare through it.
It's nothing. It's just darkness, like everything else.
The peephole, instead? It's drilled straight into the wood— there's still shavings around it. You have to squint to see.
It's... it's the entrance room. It's just the entrance room, except a fire crackles in the fireplace behind the empty armchairs. You can't see the mirror, if it's there. There's no sign of hellish mind-beasts, or Richard, or anybody.
You would have perhaps liked to see hellish mind-beasts. This whole business has been lacking some fizz, some pop, some— well, it's been just a little boring. Probably informative. But if not hellish mind-beasts, maybe some alligators?
But regardless. You try the handle.
It clicks unhappily. The door is locked.
>[B1] Just kind of wave the snake at it. That's basically what worked the last times, right?
>[B2] Well, OPEN it, obviously. If a door shatters... it's not locked anymore, is it?
>[B3] GOOD THING you have a KEY right HERE, as it can see, RIGHT HERE IN YOUR POCKET (You don't. But you ought to be convincing.)
>[B4] Knock?
>[B5] Bust it down? (Maybe with your shoulder, to keep up the variety.)
>[B6] Write-in.
>OPEN the door - 77, 62, 20 vs. DC 55 - Success.
"[OPEN]," you say casually, and are greeted with the welcome surprise of the door creaking ajar. You are also greeted with a wave of powerful nausea and an angry prickle up your spine. You slump, pale and wan, onto the ground.
>[-1 ID: 6/10]
The snake is trying to hide in the shadow of the stairs. This was already ineffective when its underbelly was reflective and off-yellow, but the bright scarlet bow makes the effort completely meaningless. It's a nice distraction from the thought ransacking your head: damn it, what did you do this time? Because surely something went wrong— the only thing you felt when you [OPEN]ed the mirror was mild anxiety. Is this a bad door? A bad pronunciation? Is there just a physical or metaphysical limit on how much you can handle?
And for that matter, what did you do right? This was the first (not the last, you hope) time you've ever gotten it on the first try. It had a different mouthfeel, this time— smoother, more natural. Like rainwater versus filtered. Are you just that good, or is there foul play at—
"The door is open. It doesn't matter how you feel. Go in it."
Fine. Fine. If it wasn't so quiet, you wouldn't be forced to talk to yourself. How does Ellery cope? He should install a gramophone or something.
There's a hallway behind the door, so short and nondescript you wonder why it bothers to exist at all. There is a room behind the hallway.
It's the entrance room near-exactly as you first saw it: fireplace, armchairs, light fixture, two doors, papers littering the walls. But there's no longer a mirror in the corner— instead, spiderwebby hairline cracks center on where it used to be and extend through the wallpaper the length of the room. The whole place smells moderately burnt: there's a fire raging in the fireplace. You close the door to discover another note tied to the handle in red ribbon.
"THOUGHT SO
DON'T THINK YOU LIKE RULES SO I'LL JUST GIVE A GIDELINE
DON'T STAND IN FRONT OF THE DOORS YET!
- ELLERY"
"Why?" you say aloud. The snake twines begrudgingly around your neck. Its bow tickles.
You get your answer two seconds later, when the door hits you in the face. "—chasing rabbits, Charlie," a man says, as he steps into the room. You step in after him.
No, you're here, cradling your swelling cheek. (You didn't realize how hard Richard opened doors.) But you— an hours-younger you, a you in sunglasses, with a lighter heart and lighter pockets— are surveying the entrance room. You haven't noticed a thing.
You have, you calculate rapidly, another couple of seconds before Ellery bursts in to the right.
>[1] Write-in