Hannah Pittard - Listen to Me

“Straight for half a mile,” she said. “That’s what the sign said.”

She turned forward in her seat, her hand mechanically covering her heart. She waited.

Sure enough, in less than half a mile, the tree cover broke, and they found themselves at last at a four-way intersection. The traffic light overhead was out, but it was a real-live intersection with a real-live traffic light.

Maggie let out a deep breath.

The sky overhead — mercifully without rain — was a deep shiny purple. To the left was a dark two-story building and a small parking lot. To the right was a series of smaller dark buildings. Straight ahead, the road appeared to dead end into a cul-de-sac. There were no lights anywhere, just the limited luminosity of the cloud-covered moon. They were on top of a mountain, one that had been shaved bald and poured with concrete.

“So where’s the hotel?” Mark said.

Maggie looked down at her phone. The screen flickered, then went black. “It’s dead,” she said.

“But the sign said half a mile? Straight ahead?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Maggie, and she was.

“Maybe it’s a little farther.”

“Maybe,” she said.

Mark drove slowly through the intersection. Rain puddles— pshhh pshhh pshhh —splashed gracefully under their tires. But what Maggie had guessed was right: it was just a large cul-de-sac on the other side.

“Is this a power plant?” Mark said. He parked the car halfway around the circle. The headlights shone onto a chain-link fence. Behind the fence was yet another building, this one low and long and also dark. “I think it’s some kind of power plant,” he said.

“Just keep going,” she said. “Go around the circle one more time. But go slowly so I can get a look at all these buildings.”

Mark put the car in gear and started to creep in the direction of the intersection.

“Oh my god,” she said.

“What?”

Maggie couldn’t believe it. It was so obvious.

“What?”

“That,” she said. She pointed at the two-story building. “That’s the hotel.”

Mark shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s dark.”

“Exactly,” she said. How had it taken her so long to put it all together? “There’s no power.”

“But all the hotels have power.”

“All the other hotels have generators. ”

“But Gwen made a reservation,” said Mark. “You said so.”

Poor Mark. He wasn’t catching on. But to Maggie, it made terrific and immediate sense. She nearly wanted to laugh. Gwen had made them a reservation online, at the only hotel with a vacancy. And it was the only hotel with a vacancy because the website wasn’t communicating with the hotel. Because the hotel didn’t have power. Of course. And when Gwen tried calling, no one had answered. The phone lines were probably down too. Of course, of course. Oh, what idiots they’d all been!

“Pull in,” said Maggie. “Let’s see what the deal is.”

“But we can’t stay here.”

“Just pull in and let me see.”

Mark inched the car into the parking lot. There were ten or so cars parked side by side. He pulled up to the entrance, which was lit up by a few paper bags with tea candles inside them. How had Maggie not noticed these when they’d driven by the first time?

She opened the passenger door. The air felt swampy. “Just wait here, okay?”

“But if they don’t have power, then they don’t have—”

She didn’t bother letting him finish. She was ready to be out of the car, ready to be stationary for a few hours. She needed to lie down and sleep safely behind a locked door. Her body demanded a break from the world. It was nearly four in the morning. Did it matter that there wasn’t power? Not for a minute.

Inside, the lobby was muggy, humid— close, thought Maggie — and the front desk was lined with more tea candles. The room had a homey glimmer about it, but there was no one actually manning the desk.

Maggie stepped closer; her armpits were damp. She was aware of a slight funk drifting up from her shirt. Somewhere behind the desk, in a back room, there was music playing, something soothing and familiar. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She stepped closer still and saw that, on the counter, there was a little silver bell on top of a small sliver of paper. Ring me, it said.

Hesitantly, Maggie held out her hand. She’d seen little bells like this before, but she’d never actually had to ring one. They’d never been on the road this late, and there’d never been a time when any lobby had been totally deserted.

She was nervous, but she was also determined. She believed she was mere moments away from lying in a bed, mere moments away from sleep.

She brushed the bell once with her ring finger.

“You don’t need to do that,” a woman’s voice said.

Maggie jumped a little.

“I’m right here,” the voice said.

Maggie looked around, but still she didn’t see anyone.

“I see you,” it said. “Just give me one second, please.”

The voice was coming, Maggie realized, from some place low behind the front desk. She leaned over to look.

There, sitting cross-legged on the floor, was a very small woman. Her arms, from wrist to elbow, were lit up with glowing plastic bracelets. Around her neck was a clunky glowing necklace. She appeared to be going through the open cabinet in front of her.

Maggie retreated to her own side of the counter. “Sure,” Maggie said. “Take your time.”

The song from the back room was an instrumental version of something that Maggie usually associated with lyrics. What was it? It was organ-heavy, maybe even a bit ritzy, out of place for a secluded hotel in West Virginia. Was it “Spanish Harlem”? Was she making that up? It sounded like “Spanish Harlem,” or at least a version she’d once heard at the Green Mill back in Chicago. She turned her head to the side and angled her ear toward the music. She listened.

It was another minute before the woman on the other side of the counter finally stood, during which time Maggie was able to see that the lobby — which she’d already gauged as quite large — was even larger than she’d first understood. And now, Maggie’s eyes adjusting, she began to make out little glow sticks, similar to the ones the woman was wearing, tied, for light, to various lamps and fixtures all around the room. In the planter at the entrance, she now saw, someone had stuck several dozen of them decoratively around a fern.

“You got to replace them every hour is the thing.”

Maggie jumped again, but only slightly.

Even standing, the woman was not much taller than the counter. She gestured toward the fern. “Pretty much I finish getting them lit up and they lose their light and I have to do it all over again. Passes the time, though.”

“The glow sticks?” asked Maggie.

“We been like this for three days.”

“Like this?”

“No power.”

“For three days?” said Maggie. They’d only heard about the storms that afternoon.

“Tornado number one took out the power lines and the phone lines. We were first in line for help, but then the real cities got hit by the second storm and, you know, they’re cities, so our dumb-fuck governor redirected the assistance. More people equals more need.” The woman held up a small neon bag. “You know how they work?”

Maggie shook her head.

The woman tore open the bag and pulled out three dim sticks. She handed one to Maggie. “Bend that till it clicks.”

Maggie looked down at the little piece of plastic in her hand. “Like this?” she asked.

“Yep, but keep going until—” The glow stick clicked and came instantly to life in Maggie’s hands. “And voilà,” said the woman. “You’re a natural.”