Ending of Chapter Six:
I sighed and said, “Let me look at what is on the other floors, though I am pretty sure I know what I will find there.”
With that, we headed back to the elevator. What greeted us on the middle floor was anything but what I expected.
Day 2: Chapter Seven
The elevator door opened and both Alden and I stared at a room so unlike the first floor that it took my breath away. It felt like the belongings of a hundred lives had been dumped in the room. The table and candelabra were barely visible.
My voice was only a whisper as I asked, “What on earth happened here?”
“Life,” Alden responded. “Life happened here. It didn’t go well, but if you step carefully, you can find some happy things.”
While I had felt the room calling out to the doors on the lower floor, this room seemed to be warning those in the rooms to not enter. Determined to find the happy things Alden had assured me were there, I began to step over random objects to look.
It was certainly an odd assortment. There were papers and books, alongside an old electric typewriter. Scattered across the floor were clothes, purses, and shoes. In one corner a discarded baby carriage was visible and as I walked toward it, I almost tripped over a jar with a large label that identified the contents: TEARS. A wedding dress was hanging in the only corner that seemed unscathed by the chaos, but as I got closer, I saw that it was soiled around the hem—as if the wearer had trudged through the mud.
The only thing consistent with the previous floors was the table and candelabra. At one end of the table, there were stacks of photo albums that seemed to have their contents strewn about as if a strong wind had come through the room. I noticed the candles in this room were also burning—it seemed like a fire hazard among the piles of discarded life.
I noticed a brightly flowered chair in a corner alongside a bookshelf filled with books. Stepping carefully over the debris, I sat in the chair and realized the books were all children’s stories—which seemed oddly out of place in a room full of the discarded life of an adult. It was then that I noticed the room numbers 20 to 39. Glancing again around the chaos in the room, I was not sure I wanted to meet the occupants whose lives had been discarded here on the middle floor of Hotel Candelabra.
Realizing I had left Alden at the elevator, I began to pick my way back across the room only to spot him sitting on what appeared to be a church pew.