The boy nodded. Tess picked up the key. And put it in her front jeans pocket. “I’ll race you,” she said.

Tess knew there’d be a real fire burning in the fireplace in the library and “Max” or “the person who used to be Max” was so cold. She grabbed the blanket off his cot and went to race him. She was very relieved when he ran after her, so relieved, she shut the hotel room door and forgot to lock it.

~ CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE ~

strange exit

The library wasn’t any warmer. No one had built a fire there either. It looked different somehow. There were definitely more books on the shelves, maybe someone had restocked them, and there was a pair of slippers on the carpet in front of the comfortable wingchair upholstered with beige silk fabric dotted with pale pink flowers. Everything seemed to have been fluffed up, an expression her mom would use, the cushions placed just so on the sofa, the mahogany coffee table shiny, with a slight hint of the scent of lemon oil in the room, as if all of the wood had been polished, too, including the bannister that led down to the lobby.

It was cold. So cold. Maybe the heat was out. That must be it. Tess wanted to tell someone at the desk, but she hadn’t seen anyone in the lobby when they walked through it. Strange.

The chess board was set up. “Sit there,” she said. “You always like to play black and give me the white advantage as you should. You’re so much better at chess than I am.”

The boy nodded at her. That was how she was going to think of him now. Just as “the boy.” She tried to convince herself that Max was in there somewhere, if she could only reach him. Max. Max!! She and Max used to think they had almost psychic communication. But the boy just sat there in the chair where she directed him to sit down.

He was so cold. Tess wrapped the blanket around him. And rubbed his hands, the way their mom would do in New York in the winter sometimes when they’d come home from school. Tess wished she’d brought a blanket for herself. She saw a small, soft gray blanket folded over the arm of the sofa and wrapped that around herself, like a shawl, and sat down across from him.

He was so pale.

She moved her Queen’s pawn up. That was the safest move. At least that was what Max had told her.

He picked up his left knight as if he was going to move it but instead he seemed to almost freeze. It reminded her of what Colin had done when Max had played table hockey with him. He sat there frozen in mid-air.