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She found herself sprinting down a dark stairwell, leading into blackness.
12
SETH ENDED UP playing the white side, like some kind of really bad joke. Maybe he had a sense of humor. He probably did, Coco decided. He’d laughed hard enough at tricking Ollie through the mirror. She tried not to think about the things the smiling man would find funny.
Each chess piece, white and black, was laid out neatly in its place. Coco ran her fingertips over her ranks of black pawns and knights and bishops, feeling them icy under her hand. Part of her wondered where the chessboard came from. I didn’t see it. And then I did. Is that magic? Is there such a thing as magic?
She didn’t know. There was too much she didn’t know. Suddenly she was desperate to win, if only to be able to get out, to go back, to find a library, and to learn everything she wished she knew.
She wished she knew how good Seth was at chess. There was a chance he’d be way better than her, that he’d know impossible combinations, that she’d be checkmated in five moves. If that happened, then Brian would pay the price.
Don’t think about that, she ordered herself.
Coco was good. She knew that. But she wasn’t—whatever the smiling man was—old and mean and clever. And so, she was afraid. She licked her lips, wiped her sweating palms one more time. White always goes first. Seth moved his queen’s pawn, sat back and smiled at Coco.
Here goes, she told herself. Clenching her free hand, she made her first move. To her surprise, her hand didn’t shake.
He was good. Really good, even. But the opening gambits became the middle of the game, and they were still trading pieces. Coco was still playing. She wasn’t beaten. Slowly, the smile fell off his face.
They played in silence, fast, and it was the hardest chess game that Coco had ever played in her life. For one, there were a lot of things she had to force herself not to think about. She couldn’t wonder if Ollie was all right, for example. She couldn’t wonder what would happen to her mom and Ollie’s dad if they woke up the next morning and Ollie, Brian, and Coco were all gone.
Coco couldn’t even look up
and meet the eyes of the player across from her, because every time she did, her courage shriveled up to nothing. Every time he moved his hand, she saw the two forefingers, thin, spidery, the exact same length, a reminder that he was older than her, nastier than her, that he was enjoying himself. It was all actually a game to him. But it wasn’t to Coco.
So she stopped looking at his hands. She only watched the pieces as he moved them. She pretended she was back in school, playing Ollie again in the middle school chess championship. She imagined it so hard that she could almost smell the cider and marker smell of Mr. Easton’s classroom.
The battle raged across the board. They traded pieces. She set traps, and he evaded them; he set traps for her that she barely saw in time. Finally, they were at the endgame, still matched, and finally Coco advanced her queen, took a deep breath, then advanced her pawn.
This is it. Please, she thought. Oh, please. She heard Brian beside her make a soft sound of protest, seeing the move she’d made. But Coco didn’t even look at him.
Seth captured her queen, sat back, and grinned at her. “So much for that,” he said.
Coco didn’t answer. Instead she advanced another pawn. “Check,” she said.
“Last defiance?” he asked, moving his king out of danger. Out of the corner of her eye, Coco could see Brian clenching his hands so hard the nails were actually cutting into his palms.
“Check,” Coco said again, doggedly, moving her bishop, and this time Seth actually frowned, and, while Coco held her breath, he put his queen in between his king and her threatening bishop. And Coco let out a quavering breath, moved her knight, and said, “Checkmate.”
Brian put his head in his hands. He said a couple of very bad words. Then he said, “Coco, that was amazing.”
Coco said, “Thanks.” Her eyes were still on the person across the table.
Seth’s hands had gone still. A thick, ominous quiet hung over Hemlock Lodge. He stared at the board. He stared at Coco. This time she dared meet the faint red gleam in the dark of his eyes. She found herself asking, ridiculously, “Did he win? The knight by the sea?”
“He lost,” said Seth. He stared at her a minute more.
And then he laughed, a high, terrifying sound, and Coco said, “Stop it!”
“Why?” he asked, still chortling. “The last time I was so excellently entertained, there was plague in Europe.” But he did not look entertained. He looked angry.
Coco said, “You’re horrible and you lost. You lost. Give me Ollie’s watch.”
He didn’t do anything. Coco shot to her feet. “You promised!”
He got to his feet too then. “I did promise,” he said. “There is a way to win, but you won’t find it. Not even with this thing.” But he didn’t move to take off the watch.
“We’ll take our chances,” said Coco. She waited.
