is closed but the door to the Keeper’s office is open, widely now, the ginger cat visible on an armchair, staring at him.
“Good morning, Mister Rawlins,” the Keeper says without looking up from his desk before Zachary can knock on the open door. “I hope you slept well.”
“I did, thank you,” Zachary replies. He has too many questions but he has to start somewhere. “Where is everyone?”
“You are the only guest at the moment,” the Keeper answers but continues to write.
“But aren’t there…residents?”
“Not currently, no. Is there anything else you need?”
The Keeper hasn’t moved his eyes from his notebook so Zachary tries the most specific question he has.
“This is kind of random but do you happen to have spare eyeglasses around here somewhere?”
The Keeper looks up, putting down his pen.
“I am so sorry,” he says, getting up and crossing the room to reach one of the many-drawered cabinets. “I do wish you would have inquired last night, I should have something that will suit. Nearsighted or far?”
“Near with astigmatism in both eyes but a strong nearsighted should help.”
The Keeper opens a few different drawers and then hands Zachary a small box containing several pairs of eyeglasses, mostly wire-rimmed but a few with thicker frames and a single pair of horn-rimmed.
“Hopefully one of these should suffice,” the Keeper says. He returns to the desk and his writing while Zachary tries on different pairs of glasses, abandoning the first for being too tight but several fit fine and are surprisingly close to his prescription. He settles on a pair in a coppery color with rectangular lenses.
“These will be great, thank you,” he says, handing the box back to the Keeper.
“You are welcome to keep them for the duration of your stay. May I assist you with anything else this morning?”
“Is…is Mirabel back yet?” Zachary asks.
Again the Keeper’s face falters into something that could be mild annoyance but it passes so quickly Zachary can’t be sure. He guesses that the Keeper and Mirabel might not be on the best of terms.
“Not yet,” the Keeper says, his tone betraying nothing. “You are welcome to explore at your leisure while you wait. I ask that any locked doors remain locked. I will…inform her of your presence when she arrives.”
“Thanks.”
“Have a pleasant day, Mister Rawlins.”
Zachary takes his cue to leave and returns to the hall, noticing the details now that he has corrective lenses to assist him. It looks a breath away from being a crumbling ruin. Held together by spinning planets and ticking clocks and wishful thinking and string.
Part of him wants to interrogate the Keeper but most of him prefers to tread lightly given their interaction last night. Maybe Mirabel will be more forthcoming about…well, anything. Whenever she turns up. He remembers the masked king of the wild things and can’t picture her here.
Zachary picks a different hall to wander down, this one has shelves carved into the stone, books piled in irregular cubbies along with teacups and bottles and stray crayons. This hall has paintings as well, a number of them possibly done by the same artist who painted the seafaring rabbits in his room, highly realistic but with whimsical details. A portrait of a young man in a coat with a great many buttons but the buttons are all tiny clocks, from the collar to the cuffs, each reading different times. Another is a bare forest by moonlight but a single tree is alive with golden leaves. A third is a still life of fruit and wine but the apples are carved into birdcages, tiny red birds inside.
Zachary tries a few doors that don’t have name tags but most are locked.
He wonders where the dollhouse is, if it is real.
Almost as soon as he thinks it he spots a doll on a shelf.
A single rounded wooden doll painted like a woman wrapped in a robe of stars. Her eyes are closed but her simple painted mouth is curled up in a smile, a few strokes of slivered-moon paint creating an entire expression of expectant calm. An expression like the closing of the eyes before blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. The doll is carved in a style that reminds him at first of his mother’s kokeshi collection, but then he finds a well-disguised seam around its rounded waist and realizes it is more like a Russian matryoshka. He carefully turns the doll and separates the top half from the lower.
Within the lady in her robe of stars is an owl.
Within the owl is another woman, this one wearing gold, her eyes open.
Within the golden woman is a cat, its eyes the same shade of gold as the woman who came before.