his left there is a meow and Zachary turns to see the ginger cat sitting in the doorway of the Keeper’s office. Beyond it, the Keeper sits at his desk, writing, though despite the continuing motion of his pen against paper he is watching them intently over the top of his spectacles. Zachary almost lifts a hand to wave but decides not to.
“Oh,” Mirabel says, ignoring both the cat and the Keeper and considering Zachary’s linen pants and turtleneck sweater. “Probably, let’s find you one. You should leave your bag.” Zachary puts his bag down while Mirabel takes a quick turn down the hall nearest the elevator and opens a door to reveal a gigantic mess of a closet, piled with coats and hats and typewriters, boxes of pencils and pens and odd pieces of broken statuary. She grabs a hunter green wool coat with brown elbow patches plucked from the chaos like a perfect-condition vintage-store treasure and hands it to Zachary, nimbly stepping over a crumbling bust on the floor, a lone plaster eye staring forlornly at her boots. “This should fit,” she says, and of course it does.
Zachary follows Mirabel through the door to the glowing antechamber. She presses the button for the elevator and it lights up obediently. The arrow shifts its attention downward.
“Did you drink it?” Mirabel asks as they wait.
“Did I what now?”
She points to the wall where the small glass of liquid had been, opposite the dice.
“Did you drink it?” she repeats.
“Oh…yeah, yeah I did.”
“Good,” Mirabel says.
“Did I have another option?”
“You could pour it out or move the glass to the other side of the room or any number of things. But no one’s ever stayed who didn’t drink it.”
The elevator dings and the doors slide open.
“What did you do with it?” Zachary asks. Mirabel sits on one of the velvet benches and he takes a seat opposite. He’s pretty sure it’s the same elevator but he’s also pretty sure he dripped paint all over it and the velvet benches are worn but spotless.
“Me?” Mirabel says. “Nothing.”
“You left it there?”
“No, I never did any of it. The dice or the drink me bit. The entrance exam.”
“How’d you manage that?” Zachary asks.
“I was born down here.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. I hatched from a golden egg that a Norwegian forest cat sat on for eighteen moons. That cat still hates me.” She pauses for a second before adding, “Yes, really.”
“Sorry,” Zachary says. “This is all…this is a lot.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Mirabel says. “I’d say I’m sorry you got dropped into the middle of this but truthfully I’m grateful for the company.” She pulls a cigarette case from her bag and opens it, offering it to Zachary and before he can clarify that he doesn’t smoke he sees that the case is filled with small round candies, each one a different color. “Would you like a story? It might make you feel better and they’ll only work while we’re on the elevator.”
“You’re kidding,” Zachary says. He takes a pale pink disk that looks like it might be peppermint.
Mirabel smiles at him. She puts the case away without taking one herself.
Zachary puts the candy on his tongue. He was right, peppermint. No, steel. Cold steel.
The story unfolds in his head more than in his ears and there are words but there aren’t, pictures and sensations and tastes that change and progress from the initial mint and metal through blood and sugar and summer air. Then it’s gone.
“What was that?” Zachary says.
“That was a story,” Mirabel says. “You can try to tell it to me but I know they’re hard to translate.”
“It was…” Zachary pauses, trying to wrap his head around the brief, strange experience that did indeed leave a story in his head, like a half-remembered fairy tale. “There was a knight, like the shining-armor type. Many people loved him but he never loved any of them in return and he felt badly about all the hearts he broke so he carved a heart on his skin for each broken one. Rows and rows of scarred hearts on his arms and his legs and across his chest. Then he met someone he wasn’t expecting and…I…I don’t remember what happened after that.”
“Knights who break hearts and hearts that break knights,” Mirabel says.
“Do you know it?” Zachary asks.
“No, each one’s different. They have similar elements, though. All stories do, no matter what form they take. Something was, and then something changed. Change is what a story is, after all.”
“Where