“Hold, please…” croaked Madge, not glancing up from a book that looked way too small in her hands. Her forelimbs were folded in an impressive display, which brought her white-caked face that much farther out into what was supposed to be the safe, neutral space of her cramped vestibule.

Jeffrey artfully sauntered backwards and around, bumping the wall a couple times. He strained his nearest ear to pick up any hints of sound emanating from beyond the gigantic black door he’d soon have to venture through. But he heard nothing. Only Madge breathing . . . a sound like a ticked-off, hissing cat choosing to exit a phone call early by mouthing static noises and claiming to be passing through a tunnel.

“What is it today?” Madge grimaced. “More dilly-dally drawings?”

“Uh, yeah,” sighed Jeffrey, unwilling to stomach the rigmarole of circling via words what had occurred in Hensler’s class.

“Tsk, tsk,” tsked Madge, unraveling her wrists some to make the traditional finger-rub shame-on-you gesture.

Jeffrey didn’t reply. Rather, he shifted his weight from side to side, attempting again to pick up on any mental signals Gel might be sending, but to no avail. It was as if the dried-lava-mountain door before him served to block transmission of their ability. Or, maybe their power just lacked a built-in messaging feature. He guessed it to be the latter, though she sure seemed able to read his thoughts at times.

After what felt like several eternities stacked on the backs of racing tortoises, the massive door cracked open. Jeffrey’s eyes met Gel’s as she strode out to where he stood. A flash of complex impulses shimmied in waves through his face and chest. He felt relieved, of course, to see she hadn’t been banished or made to vanish. He was also baffled to notice an unmistakable glint of confusing pain that muffled her features. She didn’t quite seem herself in any case. He wondered why her hair and clothes, usually kept so perfectly neat and tidy as to be unnoticeable, looked a little disheveled.

In that moment, he longed to turn and glide with her away from Finnel’s big door and the preying eyes of Madge. Nothing would have felt more pleasant than to simply leave, and find a quiet place, and just talk for as long as they might want to without getting cut short by robot-bird-shriek bells, whining lizard-faced Peck, brooding Colin looming, or anything else.

But in an instant, Gel’s face changed. Her new expression made more sense. Now her eyes told Jeffrey something close enough to: I failed. It’s up to you. Don’t let him get to you. Don’t tell him anything, no matter what he says. Don’t fall for his tricks. We have to find the hidden doorway! We must complete our mission! The greater good depends on it! It’s all up to you!

Nodding, he passed by her, and pushed through the huge black entrance into much, much more blackness.

This time, Finnel wasn’t facing away so as to spin in his chair and shock Jeffrey like a sprung jack-in-the-box on entry. Instead, the doctor stood by the door (you’d technically have to call it standing, since two limbs did touch the ground).

Finnel’s suit today was a plaid arrangement of greys just slightly more matted and less silvery than his gloopy crop of hair. He held that same turn-of-a-century pipe between two withered fingers, the smoke trails billowing up and connecting to tie together clusters of fading clouds.

The thick smell of centuries of both smoke and Finnel overpowered Jeffrey’s lungs. He choked back a cough, fighting to cut short its sound as if within earshot of a violent mob once news had spread of some new airborne pandemic.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Been seeing a lot lately, eh boy?” Finnel managed, the words a geyser gushing forth sooner than predicted before easing back to steady rounds of shaky rumbling.

Jeffrey said nothing. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness, searching every way he could think to for hints of secret passageways or clues.

“Cat’s got your tongue?” the doctor suggested, the phrase surfing waves of respiratory foam.

Jeffrey kept quiet, and continued to let his awareness carefully scan the deep, blank blackness of the walls. But he kept coming back to only nothing.

It was strange now for there to be no more to see beneath or surrounding a certain place. Attempting to use his ability here felt like trying to fly by flapping freshly clipped, defeathered wings.

He brought his attention to the simple skinny bookcase, its volumes most likely predating moveable type. Still, he found nothing particularly special about the old books to take notice of.

“Boy, let me show you what you’re looking for,” Finnel grumbled in a tone so low yet entirely audible . . . unprecedented in its human-ness.

The sound and words wrenched Jeffrey’s focus back from its failed attempts at deeper insight. “What do you mean?” he asked, succumbing at last to the conversation.

“My secret,” responded Finnel, rasping much less than usual. “Let me show you the hidden place that no one but me has seen in many, many years.”

The doctor went on to do something which would probably require whole teams of researchers (richly funded, and working around the clock) to eventually decipher and confirm as laughter. The typical unsyncopated hacks and coughs sped up, with maybe a tad more voice included in the mix. Shoulders heaved as much as a complete bend in upper back would allow. Teeth were shown, which mostly matched the suit and hair in color.

Jeffrey wondered if he might be greeted by Hunch again soon, as Finnel’s accomplishment of “laughter” drew attention to the literal hunch in position high atop the doctor’s frame.

It was funny comparing Finnel’s hunch with Hunch, since both were supposedly the same thing. Or, if the lore could be trusted, one had once been the other.

Finnel travelled gradually past Jeffrey and around the huge tri-sectioned desk. But instead of sitting as Jeffrey expected, the doctor pulled open a thin drawer that lined the underside of the desk’s largest, central portion.

Reaching in like a bird of prey might clasp at something small and frightened with its talons, Finnel clutched and produced forth a necklace made from stunningly bright, blue-and-yellow checkered gemstones.

Jeffrey almost blinked.

Even though the amazing glow might have been highlighted by the room’s empty blackness, the necklace really did seem to somehow cast forth its own light.

As he watched the doctor raise the beaming necklace high up overhead, about a third of the way to the hunch’s peak summit, Jeffrey felt as if he might be about to witness literal magic of epic fairytale proportions take place. He half-expected Finnel to cough-chant some ancient, forbidden spell, causing dusky purplish shadow beings to ascend and circle the two before a final unveiling of evil plans amidst a sudden indoor thunderstorm.

But instead of any kind of climactic build, the doctor merely muttered, “...k ...ain, ...y,” the letters and syllables interspersed with specific sorts of wheezing sputters that might, in normal humans, signify too much exertion.

“What?”

“...ook ...n, ...y.”

“Um, I’m still not…”

“Look again, boy,” Finnel fumed.

Jeffrey realized that while the necklace was held at what, for the doctor, would indeed be directly upwards, it kept about parallel to the floor. He focused in the direction the gems were pointed, their impossible light now illuminating the inconceivably black wall immediately behind the middle of Finnel’s desk. And it was oddly not surprising at all to notice a portion of the wall had become empty space, its darkness having not really changed much in appearance.

“How…?” But Jeffrey’s mouth felt glued shut.

“Technology,” answered the doctor, a look of pride interfering with much of the lower half of his face as he set the necklace down on the desk, raised his dark, thin pipe back to dark, thin lips, and inhaled so much more efficiently than whenever drags of smoke were not at stake. “Follow me,” Finnel ordered.