ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS wakes up long ago and far away, or at least that’s what it feels like.
Disoriented and woozy, his mind a second behind his body, like pulling himself through crystal-clear mud. As though he’s still drunk but doing it wrong.
The only other time he felt similar was a night he would prefer to forget that involved too much chardonnay and he associates the feeling with that, a bright, crystalline white-wine sensation: tingling and sharp and a touch oaky. Getting up not remembering that he has fallen down.
He rubs his eyes, looking around at the blur of the room, confused because it is too large and remembering he is in a hotel and as the events of the night before find their way through the haze the room congeals in his blurry vision and he remembers that he is not in a hotel at all and he starts to panic.
Breathe, the voice in his head says and he listens, thankfully, and tries to keep his focus on inhale and exhale and repeat.
Zachary closes his eyes but reality seeps in through his other senses. The room smells of a formerly crackling fire and sandalwood and something dark and deep and unidentifiable. There is a far-off chiming noise that must have woken him. The bed and the pillows are marshmallow soft. His curiosity wages a silent war with his anxiety making it more difficult to breathe, but as he forces his lungs into taking slow, steady breaths, curiosity wins and he opens his eyes.
The room is brighter now, light comes through panels of amber glass set into the stone above the door, filtering in from the hall. It’s a light he associates more with late afternoon than morning. There is more stuff in the room than he remembers, even without his glasses he can make out the Victrola by the armchairs, the dripping candles on the mantel. The painting of a ship at sea hanging over the fireplace.
Zachary rubs his eyes but the room remains the same. Not knowing what else to do, he pulls himself reluctantly from the marshmallow bed and begins an approximation of his morning routine.
He finds his discarded clothes in the bathroom, stiff with paint and dirt, and wonders if this place has laundry services. For some reason laundry concerns drag him back to the reality of the situation, dreams or hallucinations probably don’t involve such mundane problems. He tries to recall a single dream that ever involved thinking “I might need new socks” and fails.
The bathroom is also full of more stuff than he remembered: a mirrored cabinet contains a toothbrush and toothpaste in a metal tube and several neatly labeled jars of creams and oils, one of them an aftershave that smells of cinnamon and bourbon.
There is a separate shower next to the tub and Zachary does his best to wash the gold paint out of his hair, to scrape the last of it from his skin. There are soaps in fancy dishes and all of them smell woodsy or resiny, as though everything has been tailored to his scent preferences.
Wrapped in a towel Zachary inspects the rest of the room, looking for something to wear that is not his sweaty, paint-stained suit.
A wardrobe looms over one wall next to a non-matching dresser. Not only is there something to wear, there are options. The drawers are filled with sweaters and socks and underwear, the wardrobe hung with shirts and trousers. Everything looks handmade, natural fibers and no tags. He puts on a pair of brown linen pants and a collarless moss green shirt with polished wood buttons. He takes out a grey cable-knit sweater that reminds him of one of his own favorites. In the bottom of the wardrobe there are several pairs of shoes and of course they fit, which bothers him more than the clothing since most of it is loose-fitting and adjustable, everything fits but that could be explained away by him being on the slim side of standard but the shoes are scary. He slides on a pair of brown suede shoes that could have been tailor-made (cobbler-made?) for him.
Maybe they have elves who measure feet and make shoes while you sleep, the voice in his head suggests.
I thought you were the practical voice of reason, head voice, Zachary thinks back, but receives no response.
Zachary puts the room key and his compass and, after a moment’s hesitation, Dorian’s sword back around his neck. He tries to push the worry about what has occurred up there while he has been down here to the back of his mind. He distracts himself by looking around the room, even though he can’t see it all that well. Up close things are clear enough, but it means exploring a few steps at a time, taking in the space in small gulps.
He takes a book from one of the shelves, recalling a story that was probably a Twilight Zone episode: so much to read and no eyeglasses.
He flips the book open to a random page anyway and the printed words are crisp and clear.
Zachary looks up. The bed, the paintings on the walls, the fireplace, everything has the distinct fuzziness his ophthalmological cocktail of nearsightedness and astigmatism casts on the world. He looks back at the book in his hands.
It’s a volume of poetry. Dickinson, he thinks. Perfectly legible, the type sharp even though the font is small, down to the pinprick periods and minuscule commas.
He puts the book down and picks up another. It’s the same, perfectly readable. He replaces it on the shelf. He goes to the desk where the brown leather book he procured from the Collector’s Club for Dorian rests. He attempts to see if whatever trick this is will focus the illustrations and the Arabic as well but when he opens the book to the title page not only are the curling illuminations clear, the title is in English.
Fortunes and Fables
it reads, clearly, obviously, in a fancy script but definitely in English. He wonders if it is printed in different languages and he didn’t notice before but as he flips through the pages each one shows the same familiar alphabet.
Zachary puts the book down, light-headed again. He can’t remember when he last ate. Was it at the party? Was that only the night before? He remembers the Keeper mentioning something
about the Kitchen near the fireplace.
By the still-fuzzy fireplace (though he can tell from this distance that the ship in the painting above is captained and crewed by rabbits in an otherwise realistic seascape) is a panel set into the wall, like a cabinet door fitted into the stone, with a small button next to it.
Zachary opens the door to find a space that could be a dumbwaiter, with a small thick book and a box inside, a folded note card perched on top. Zachary picks up the card.
Greetings, Mr. Rawlins. Welcome.
We hope you enjoy your stay.
Should you require or desire refreshment of any sort, please do not hesitate to use our service system. It is designed to be as convenient as possible.