Chapter 22 #3
Finally, Jaime looked up. The fake parents froze.
Her eyes widened. The expression on her face was difficult to read, something between shock and hope.
She ran over to the window and pressed her hands up against the glass.
‘Don’t stop – I love it when you ruffle my hair. I only pretend it annoys me.’
‘You broke out of the illusion.’ Heather pressed her hands against the glass too, only the barrier stopping their palms from touching.
‘Well done, Jaime. You’ve passed the test of Greed.
See? There’s a door behind you.’ A new white door had appeared in the dining-room wall.
A hint of light peeked out from the crack.
‘I didn’t exclude you from the dream because you did anything wrong,’ Jaime said.
‘I thought you didn’t want to be trapped here with me.
It would have felt wrong to keep you in this hotel forever, even inside an illusion.
I know what it’s like to be trapped. Yet I wished that on you.
I shouldn’t have . . . I should have been more supportive about you taking your test.’ She flinched.
‘I’m ashamed of myself. I’m ashamed of everything that you’ve seen here. I must seem utterly pathetic to you.’
‘Not at all,’ Heather said. ‘Everyone wants to be loved. You’re worthy of love. You don’t need to win spelling bees. You just need to be you.’
‘I’m not worthy,’ Jaime said hoarsely. ‘You have no idea.’
‘Yes, you are,’ Heather said. ‘You’re worthy of being loved unconditionally like every other kid.
You’re important to me. Is this about you being sent to Purgatory?
Because I’ve met a lot of good people who ended up here.
Myself included, I like to think. Your billboards didn’t hurt anyone. Honestly, they were funny.’
‘I don’t want to talk about this right now.’
Heather heard the ‘right now’ part very clearly. ‘Okay. I won’t bring it up again. But whenever you want to talk I’m here.’
Jaime turned away, plunging through her door.
After everything Jaime had suffered in the past, no wonder she had abandonment issues. Heather wished she’d been more understanding when she’d raised the subject of taking her test. She could have handled the situation more delicately.
There was no point in regrets; she could only do better in the future. Next time, she would wait for Jaime to come talk to her first. Heather would avoid bringing up the trial because Jaime clearly felt embarrassed at having her dreams seen. Any other kid in her place would have been mortified too.
The illusion was fading away again. As the colours swirled around her, Heather grabbed a disembodied doorknob and turned it.
As she stumbled through the doorway, she hoped to get back to her own test so she could finally get out of here. She’d been through enough emotional trials for one day.
Instead, the door opened to the maintenance floor. It looked so familiar that for a moment Heather truly believed she’d somehow ended up on a different floor without taking the lift. This must be the trial of the only person she hadn’t encountered on Floor Greed yet.
Sure enough, John sat on the break-room sofa with his legs crossed. The other employees surrounded him, fanning him and rubbing his shoulders.
‘You’re the best head of the maintenance crew that we’ve ever had, John.’
‘We’re so lucky to have you!’
‘We’re honoured to be your friends.’
Godfrey stepped forward, bowing his head. ‘I made this for you, sir.’ He offered John a cup of coffee.
‘Uh, thank you . . .’ John hesitated, then reached for the coffee.
‘Don’t! It’s a trap!’ Heather shouted. ‘If you accept any offerings from Floor Greed, then you get lost in the illusion and fail. You might even forget that this isn’t real.’
John jerked his hand back. ‘Never mind,’ he told the fake Godfrey. It didn’t matter – the illusions had all frozen.
Heather sat down next to him. ‘So this is your dream? Head of the maintenance crew?’
He hung his head. ‘It must seem ridiculous.’
‘I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. If there was an election for head of the crew, I would vote for you.’
‘You’re only saying that because you hate Godfrey.’
‘That’s part of the reason I’m saying it,’ Heather admitted.
‘I haven’t known you for very long, so I don’t know your skills in maintenance, but at least you’re here.
While everyone else in the crew is relaxing in the break room, you came to try to sabotage us.
I don’t exactly agree with that goal, but at least you did something.
Godfrey does nothing except sit on his arse all day.
I’m sure you’d do a better job as head of the crew than him – you couldn’t possibly do worse. ’
‘I’ll accept that faint endorsement.’ He smiled. ‘It will never happen, though. I don’t have the courage for leadership.’
‘Godfrey doesn’t have courage – he just has bluster.
You’re the one taking the trials. In my eyes, that means you have more courage than him.
It’s been interesting, hasn’t it? I think I’ve learned about myself from taking these trials.
I also find it interesting that greed has many different forms – not only greed for money, but also for power or influence. ’
‘I don’t think of myself as ambitious, exactly. I’m not the right kind of person to be a leader.’ John rubbed the back of his neck. ‘But it would be nice to be respected.’
‘You’re preaching to the choir.’ Heather chuckled. ‘I’ve put up with enough abuse from customers over the years. I’d love to be the one in charge for a change.’
‘You stepped up as acting hotel manager when no one else knew what to do,’ John said. ‘I respect you for that. What are you doing in my test, anyway? Did I take so long that everyone is about to leave me behind?’ His legs jittered.
‘That’s me, actually,’ Heather said glumly. ‘I keep failing my test. I can’t figure it out for the life of me. Mine seems very easy: I ended up in a dragon’s hoard’s worth of gold. I never tried to steal the gold, yet I keep failing.’
‘Odd.’ John squinted. ‘There’s something gleaming in your hair.’
‘There is?’
He reached over and yanked a gold coin off her. ‘This got caught in your collar.’
‘It must have happened when I knocked over a pile of gold!’ The coin had been tucked behind her hair, not easy for anyone to see.
‘This must be why you keep failing. You were accidentally carrying some of the gold with you whenever you left the room.’
‘Aargh! I should have realised before.’ Heather slapped her forehead. She counted to five instead of ten, because she was more annoyed than properly angry. ‘Thank you.’
‘It was nothing.’ He glanced down. ‘You helped me too, after all.’
‘You could have just let me fail, since you were originally sent to sabotage us, but you saved me instead.’ She grinned. ‘See? You’ve got some courage, after all.’ She hesitated, then realised she had to say it. ‘I’m sorry I wished for you to be eaten by a demon.’
‘Nah, you’re good. I was the one acting all unreasonable.
I’m sorry I came to make you fail when you’re the only person trying to save this hotel.
’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘To be honest, I don’t understand why we’re striking.
We have a good deal here. Everything we need is already free.
The others barely do any work at all. Their demands are ridiculous.
And you were right about us having no leverage or reason to strike.
It was a dumb idea. I only went along with it because I didn’t want to become an outcast from the group.
I’m the newest. It’s hard for me to argue with the rest of them.
I couldn’t even bring myself to ask them why. ’
‘It’s probably just Godfrey being Godfrey.’
‘I’m sorry that everyone was so rude to you too.
Even if they didn’t want to negotiate or if they had some dissatisfaction with their jobs, that was no reason to take it out on you.
It’s not your fault. Especially that wanker who insulted your looks.
He was wrong too. You’re drop-dead gorgeous.
’ He jolted. ‘Sorry, was that inappropriate?’
‘In this context, you were merely correcting someone else’s inaccurate statement.
You’re safe,’ Heather said, deeply amused and perhaps flattered too.
‘Thank you.’ She patted his shoulder. ‘Come on, we should both get out of here before the fake Godfrey starts talking in his obnoxious voice again. Man, I’m tired of him showing up in the trials – I get enough of him in real life. ’
John laughed and followed her out into the waiting room.