Marisha Pessl - Night Film

“Where you guys from?” the woman asked me.

She was plump, with a round friendly face. She’d been behind the desk the night before, when her husband had checked us in.

“Saratoga,” I answered.

“Not too bad a drive. You guys’re up here to go paddlin’?”

She must have noticed my car had a canoe strapped to the roof.

“It’s gonna be cold the next few days, so be sure to dress in layers.”

“About that extra key?” I asked.

“ Right. You’re in room …?”

“Nineteen.”

She unhooked the keychain, handing it to me. “Need any maps or directions?”

“No, thanks,” I said, grabbing the shopping bag at my feet.

“Our restaurant serves supper till eleven. Everything’s home-cooked. We got a mean apple pie. You should check it out.”

“Thanks for the recommendation.”

I exited through the glass door. As it dinged closed behind me, I turned back and saw the woman’s friendliness had been erased from her face and she was inspecting me carefully over her bifocals.

I waved and took off down the covered walkway.

Last night, after sizing up every roadside motel along NY Route 3 between the Adirondack towns of Fine and Moody, I chose Evening View Motel & Restaurant because of its anonymity. It was in Childwold, forty miles north of Crowthorpe Falls, and sat sulking right off the side of the road: twenty dreary rooms, each rationed one cruddy window and a brown door. The motel had a popular eatery, the parking lot crowded with cars, license plates from Michigan to Vermont. Across the street was a busy RV campground — Green Meadows, THE NORTH WOODS’ FRIENDLIEST COMPOUND, read the wood sign — so I’d guessed Evening View saw enough traffic for the proprietors not to pay close attention to any particular guest.

I was way off on that one. The woman had stared at me as if she knew within a matter of days she’d be picking me out of a police lineup.

I made my way along the walkway, scanning the parking lot. It had cleared out after lunch, leaving only a handful of cars, nothing suspicious, no one watching. A bald man exited a white sedan, stretching and yawning as he made his way toward the motel office.

I stopped outside #19—second to last on the end — and knocked once.

Hopper opened it. I slipped inside.

“How’d you make out?” He locked the door behind me.

“Fine. I had to go all the way to Tupper Lake.” I handed him the shopping bag, and he pulled out the new camera battery — this morning he’d discovered his wouldn’t charge, so I’d gone out for a replacement. “She only has one extra room key. Who wants it?”

“Give it to Nora.”

I walked over to the far double bed, where Nora was sitting, eating a protein bar, and handed it to her. She smiled wanly, her eyes lingering a moment too long on my face.

I knew what she was thinking, what we were all thinking: What if this plan we’d methodically prepared over the past twelve days was a mistake?

We had weighed the possibilities. There was no other option. If I called Sharon Falcone and told her that I suspected occult crimes had been taking place at The Peak, she’d tell me what I already knew: Police would need hard evidence for a warrant, evidence I did not have.

The one thing I did have was knowledge of a covert way to access the property. The Spider had claimed he’d cut open the fence for the townspeople along a narrow stream. Marlowe had mentioned it originated from Lows Lake.

Inspecting detailed maps of the area, I could find no such river. It was only after finding an Adirondack geological map that dated back to 1953 that we uncovered where it just might be — a frail, nameless rivulet that twisted off the lake’s north shore, meandering through dense forest, right onto The Peak grounds.

If we managed to locate this stream and covertly enter that way after nightfall, we could see what was at The Peak, once and for all — if there was evidence not just of occult practices but what the Spider had suggested, actual child killings. We’d gather what proof we could, exit the way we’d come before dawn, then get it into the hands of authorities.

The plan was a blind risk — not to mention illegal, immoral, crossing the line of even the slackest ethics of investigative reporting, totally outrageous. It could very well get one of us arrested — or injured. For me, it could mean a new low of professional disgrace. I could only imagine the headlines. Back for More: Fallen Journalist Caught Breaking Into Cordova Estate. Judge Orders Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation.

I’d explained all of this to Nora and Hopper, emphasizing that it was my decision, one that was personal, not professional, and they’d be better off remaining behind. But Hopper was as resolute as I was. He said grimly, “I’m in,” as if it were something he’d resolved long ago. Nora was also adamant.

“I’m coming, ” she announced.

And so it was decided.

Over the course of the past week, however, as we’d memorized the plan, assembled supplies, even as we’d driven the seven hours to the Adirondacks, a bleak landscape of gray sky, roads smothered with trees — the reality of what we were doing seemed to swell exponentially in magnitude. It was a mountain we’d started climbing, which grew beneath us into a rambling skyscraping ridge, pushing us back, the summit snowcapped, lost in clouds.

Every word Nora chirped in her singsong voice —Mind if we stop at that gas station? I’ll have the French toast with maple syrup —sounded doomed, made me regret that I’d even allowed her to come along.

I was concerned that as much as we’d uncovered about Ashley and her father, I still didn’t have the complete picture. Cleo had warned me of this: The truth about what happens to us in this world keeps changing … it never stops.

It was possible The Peak — and Cordova himself — was like that locked hexagonal Chinese box of Beckman’s I’d tried to pry open years ago: something that should remain forever sealed, its contents hidden from the light of day for good reason.

Though Cleo had assured me the spell inside the leviathan was not malevolent, there was little solace in this. Even if Ashley had meant to protect Sam, even if Hopper had loved Ashley, she was still a shifting cipher, her movements that night at the Central Park Reservoir impossible to fathom. The mystery of how Sam came to have the figurine in her coat pocket, the idea that Ashley had once approached her, shook me awake in the middle of the night, filled me with anxiety made all the more acute by the knowledge that it was my fault.

I’d put her in harm’s way. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had shown me my true nature, a raw view as infinite and irrefutable as two facing mirrors, the selfish blind man I was and always would be. My countless phone calls to Cynthia to check on Sam went ignored.

And then there was the question of the Spider and The Broken Door.

I went back to the antiques shop after leaving Enchantments, the same day of Samantha’s fall. I found the store locked, windows black. Nora and Hopper returned with me the next day, and two days after that, every day after. We monitored the building from the shadows of the stoop across the street, waiting for a light in an upstairs window, a curtain gently pulled aside.

Yet the building remained inscrutable and silent.