The Key of Lost Things (Hotel Between) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sean Easley started writing in third grade because he was looking for adventure. He’s worked with kids and teens for well over a decade, listening to their stories, and somehow ended up with a Master’s degree in education along the way. Now he’s a full-time writer living with his wife and son in Texas, where he stubbornly refuses to wear cowboy boots. Visit him at SeanEasley.com and on Twitter and Instagram @AuthorEasley.

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The Key of Lost Things

1

Holy Cats!

Doors don’t always lead where you think they will. When you live in a hotel full of enchanted doorways, you have to get used to your life being a little . . . weird.

For instance, this morning I walked through a door in New York that took me directly into a bakery in Germany, where I picked up some spaetzle for a woman whose grandmother used to make it. Then I ferried a lovey-dovey couple from Venice, Italy, to Buñol, Spain, so that they could attend a festival where people throw tomatoes at one another. After that I took a door from South Africa to a pink-sanded beach in Indonesia, where I ate grilled bananas with dark chocolate syrup and worked on my most recent assignment: a list of awards to give my hotel staff at the end of the summer—things like Tidiest Bellhop, and Most Likely to Crack a Joke with Guests, or Most Creative Use of Binding.

But the door before me now—the one I do not want to go through—leads to cats. Lots and lots of cats. And I’m the one who has to fix the situation.

I swallow hard and ease open the door.

“I came back from dinner, and there they were,” a guest with pouty lips tells me. Her neck drips with pearls, and her earrings cast rainbows against her brown skin. “Where could they have come from?”

When I took this job, no one said anything about animal control. If they had, I’d have told them about the time when my aunt’s cat peed in my suitcase. And yet, here I am somewhere in South America on the twentieth floor of the Hotel, faced with more cats than I’ve ever seen in one place. They’re all over. Sharpening their claws on the king-size bed, drinking from the bronze fixture of the bathroom sink, climbing the complimentary bathrobes like pirates swinging from the rigging.

One of the cats is licking at a playing card that’s stuck to its back with the magic glue that comes from a source of power everyone here calls “the binding.” All the cats have playing cards like this one attached to their fur, and those cards tell me exactly who sent these felines to terrorize the guests of The Hotel Between.

Nico. He’s the one with all the tricks. It was his cards that first lured me into the Hotel seven months ago, and now he’s using them once again to send me a message. Only, I can’t quite figure out what the message is.

A yellow-striped tabby with a three of hearts scurries past, followed by three others. I reach to grab the last one, but it wriggles free and races down the hall. Ugh. It’s hard enough being Concierge-in-Training without having to deal with Nico’s endless pranks. This isn’t the first—malfunctioning equipment, missing furniture, minor changes to the decorations—but this clue finally drives home who’s responsible.

I ask the guest to step back into the hall and shut the door on the shrieking cat den, but not before the seven of spades squeezes past, tail whisking back and forth as the cat chases down the hall after the first escapees. That’s one more we’re going to have to track down, and quickly, preferably before the Maid Service finds out.

“We’ll have your room cleaned up as soon as possible, madam,” I say, flattening the vest under my coat. A concierge must be dignified at all times, or so the Old Man keeps telling me. Of course, I’m anything but dignified. “Until we get your room in order, may I invite you to dine at our finest restaurant, the Four Corners? Complimentary, of course—order anything you like.”

“Did you not hear me?” the woman says with a pointed stare. “I just had dinner. I don’t want to have dinner again.”

I wish the Hotel would invite some nice people for once. Seems it only ever invites those it wants to change. Then again, I guess that’s kind of the point—changing the hearts of the world, one vacationer at a time. . . .

“Maybe you’d like to take advantage of our spa service instead? The stones are bound to volcanic pumice, so they’re always toasty.”

She groans. “Why am I speaking with a child? I’d like to talk to your supervisor.”

I squish my lips together to hold back my tongue. That’s the third time today that someone’s called me a child. I’m almost thirteen—definitely not a child anymore. “I am the supervisor, ma’am. I can handle whatever needs you have on my own.”

“No wonder this place is falling apart.”

I clench my fists behind my back. Keep it under control, Cam. You can handle this. “You’re welcome to lodge a complaint when you check out. We take guest feedback very seriously.”

I pull the pad and pen from my pocket, lick the pen tip to infuse it with my binding, and write out a royal-treatment voucher for the spa. As a source of magic, the binding works itself out in many ways, but they all involve connections—the gluing of two objects together, the invisible bonds that link people, the rules that hold everything safely in place. Signing my name to the page with my own binding in this way seals the message, like a contract. It’s an agreement that links me to the magic that runs this place—and that agreement must be followed, or else we risk breaking those bonds. And violating the treaty we’ve made with the magics of the world is something none of us ever wants to do.

“Our masseuse will take good care of you,” I tell her as I hand her the voucher and start down the hall.

Fifty-two cards in a normal deck. That means there are probably fifty-two cats that Nico has loosed on the Hotel. As long as he didn’t include jokers—

“Wait,” the woman calls. “Where are you going?”

I turn to face her. “I have five more guests experiencing the same issue, and reports of cats all over the Hotel.” I give her one last bow. “Good evening, madam. I hope you find your destination.”

• • •

The next few guests aren’t any happier to find their rooms overrun by squatters of the feline kind. I thought people loved cats? After all, tons of folks spend hours and hours watching videos of them online. Though, I guess it’s a little different when cats take over the vacation of your dreams.

A small gray calico marked with the queen of clubs galumphs past me down the sixth-floor hall.

“Grab her!” Sev yells as he stumbles behind the cat, struggling to keep his bag over his shoulder.

The queen rounds the corner, and I dash to follow.

We pass under a wooden arch, and my ears pop as the décor changes, teal-and-white floor tile giving way to plush green carpet with amber swirls. Nearby, a timber-framed window displays a grand view of the Swiss Alps, topped with snow like the frosting on the mini Bundt cakes served in the dining hall. The air inside is thick and dry despite the cold landscape outside, and there’s a slight rotten smell coming from one of the nearby vents. One more thing I’ll have to check on once I’ve taken care of this problem.

The cat sprints through another arch and down a set of ancient-looking stone stairs.

“Is that one of the cats from 2332?” I shout as Sev rounds the corner behind me.

He pulls up next to me, huffing and wiping a bead of sweat...