Chapter 74 Taylor
Taylor
In the basement hall area, the air is less hazy, but Rose is bent over, still coughing. Taylor gasps, trying to catch her own breath. She eyes the stairwell, leading up to the Knox’s first floor. Is that the best way out, to reach Vivian? The only way? She’s feeling a little fuzzy.
A sudden movement near the still-open scroll startles her: Protective glass walls rise from beneath the ground to form a seal around the table.
Taylor stares, momentarily entranced as the table itself then caves inward, in a V-shaped formation, causing the scroll to roll itself together.
The bottom of the table splits open, revealing a gap, and in it drops the scroll.
The table flattens back out, and continues to transform, growing smaller and more compact beneath the glass.
Whoa.
“We should go,” Taylor says, snapping to. “C’mon, Rose, we need to get out of here.”
But Rose remains huddled over, as if she’s trying to crawl into herself.
“Rose?” Taylor taps her urgently on the shoulder. “Rose?”
She looks up at Taylor, her face like a wilted flower. “Oh, Tara, what have I done?”
“Rose, we need to go.” Taylor glances nervously at the room with Michael. She feels his hand grasped around her ankle, as if he were still holding it.
“I…I shot my own son.”
The gun, Taylor suddenly realizes, is still in the room with Michael. Shit. What if he musters the strength to come after them?
Another sudden movement around the scroll startles her: an extremely thick metal wall now emerges from the ground to form a second protective enclosure. She’s never seen metal casing on any of the other scrolls before. Is initiation over?
Is Taylor too late?
She crouches down in front of Rose and takes her hands, which are like slivers of ice. Rose is unfocused, her eyes glazed over. “Rose,” Taylor says, shaking her to no avail. “Rose, look at me,” she pleads. “I’m Taylor—not Tara. I need your help.” She hastily pulls off her wig and both masks. “See?”
“Taylor,” Rose says, comprehension flooding her face. “Where’s Tara? Where did Tara go?” She starts hacking again.
“Here,” Taylor says, offering her the KN95 mask. “You should take this. I’ll…I’ll use the phoenix mask.” But the acidic air is already hitting her hard; she stifles a cough. Throwing a quick glance at the room with Michael, she’s relieved to see the door remains closed—for now.
Rose fumbles as she tries to slip on the mask, and when Taylor goes to help, Rose suddenly clasps Taylor’s hand.
“You’re a good girl, Taylor. I knew it the minute you asked to take off your shoes.
I knew you didn’t know anything about Vivian.
I knew she didn’t say anything to you in the hospital.
I told Oliver, too. I said, you let that girl be. ”
Taylor sharply inhales, and with it comes another gust of that acidic smoke smell. She wrangles her hand away from Rose’s to cover her cough. “What?” she manages, once the cough passes. But Rose has folded back into herself, her gaze distant.
Taylor should have known; of course shady Oliver would be behind whatever’s happened to Vivian. She shakes Rose’s arm. “Rose, do you know where Vivian is? Rose? Rose?”
“The quarters,” she mumbles.
“Whose quarters? Can you take me there?”
“Quarters and nickels. Or is it nickels and dimes? Things sure change on a dime.” Rose suddenly starts laughing.
“C’mon.” Taylor tugs her toward the stairs.
“Where are we going?” Rose asks, between cackles.
“Upstairs, to get Vivian.”
“Vivian’s not with the guests; she’s with the servants for once,” she says, still laughing—but now it’s a bitter kind of laugh.
“The servants? Wait—you mean, she’s in the servants’ quarters?” Of course, Taylor now thinks. Clever of them to hide her there—who would suspect that?
Taylor quickly pivots, now dragging Rose back toward the boiler room.
But Rose’s laughter has dissolved to crying—full, body-racking sobs that make it difficult to pull her along. “What did I do?” she laments. “Oh no, Oliver. Oh no, oh no.”
Taylor, too, feels overcome with emotion.
Will they make it in time? Is Vivian even still there?
She must be, Taylor reasons in the next second.
Otherwise they would have encountered her being brought through the connecting basement space to the opium den, where Michael was clearly doing some pre-sacrifice ritual.
Suddenly, the door to the renovated room bursts open and in pours hot, smoky air. It feels like someone has just opened a burning oven. Michael emerges, limping toward them. He has the gun.
Taylor hastens her pace.
“Taylor!” he bellows. “Taylor, wait! I’m not going to hurt you! Don’t trust Rose—she’s unhinged!”
Taylor hesitates for a moment, a seed of doubt planting in her mind.
What if Michael’s right? Rose did shoot him, after all, thinking he was Oliver—her son.
But Oliver clearly deserves to die; he seems to be the one behind Vivian’s abduction.
So where does that leave Michael? Isn’t he in on it, too?
Besides, Rose called him a murderer…. But who was she calling that, Oliver or Michael?
And who was murdered?
Taylor shudders. Vivian, she thinks. Vivian.
She has to get to Vivian. That’s all that matters.
An overhead smoke alarm starts blaring, startling her and Rose—and spurring Taylor into action.
She gestures wildly to the boiler room. “C’mon, Rose!
” Taylor shouts, as she again grabs hold of her arm. “We have to save Vivian!”
A look of disgust rolls over Rose’s face. “Why would we do that? She’s an interfering little bitch!”
Oh my God. Taylor feels sick. Is Rose involved, then? Oliver—and Rose? And maybe Michael?
Taylor becomes acutely aware of the surrounding basement space. Four walls restricting them, like the barriers enclosing the scroll.
“Taylor!” Michael is advancing, the gun waves in his hand. “Rose, get the fuck away!”
There’s an entrance and an exit. There’s an entrance and exit. Entrance and exit. But is there? The thick haze makes it increasingly difficult to see. Michael nears, and Rose starts to scramble away.
“I wished she died when I pushed her down the stairs! To hell with her little friend. I want Vivian dead!” Rose shrieks.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Sparks crackle all around as the fire spills into the hall. Time moves like a strobe light. Taylor’s eyes stinging, she can vaguely make out Rose climbing the first few stairs to the Knox on her hands and knees.
Taylor starts inching her way forward in what she thinks is the right direction, the way to the boiler room. To Vivian. She feels a little woozy, shapeless, like a piece of putty. Where is this entrance-exit? Or exit-entrance?
Which one is it, anyway? Maybe it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps it’s okay that the place is burning down, she thinks, because I am a piece of putty.
“Taylor!” Michael screams.
He should become putty, too, she thinks. Then he wouldn’t worry.
Or is it Oliver, not Michael? She can’t remember.
She moves, haltingly, and then stops. Which way to her mother again?
No—that’s not right. It’s Vivian she’s trying to save.
But everything is becoming gummy, logic softening.
The crackling is all around now, the air so milky and hot she can barely keep her eyes open.
She feels like she’s walked directly into the pit of the fire.
Her skin burns like it’s crisping; her eyes—even her eyeballs—feel singed.
Claustrophobia has finally arrived; she’s late to the party but she’s come in full force, wearing a suffocating ball gown that she dramatically fluffs. With each preen, she further crowds out Taylor’s thoughts until there’s just one left: I’m going to die.
But, to Taylor’s surprise, she finds that’s okay. Yes, she’s growing tired, but it’s a nice kind of tired, a peaceful one. All along, all these years, Taylor’s been worried, and she didn’t need to be. She wonders: Is this how my mother felt?