Hotel Candelabra: Chapters Five & Six
Bonus chapter included today! Watch for new chapters every Monday and Friday!
Ending of Chapter Four:
“The doors won’t just open for you. But there is someone who also has a room in The Flame who figured out how to open them. She agreed to meet you on the landing after you finish your breakfast.”
Day Two: Chapter Five
I opened the door to my room and saw a woman around my age sitting at the table. I introduced myself while taking a seat next to her. She smiled in return and said, “I know who you are, and I think I can help you.”
The woman who called herself 69 seemed vaguely familiar, but I was most interested in figuring out how to get out of Hotel Candelabra so I asked, “How can you help me?”
“There are seventy of us here now, plus Alden, but he doesn’t count.”
It seemed rude, but I waited.
“I mean he matters, but he doesn’t count in the seventy, does that make sense?”
I wondered how anything could possibly make sense, but I waited.
“I figured out that the doors would open if I knew the story of the person behind the door. That is why Alden can go in and out. He knows all the stories. I guess he leaned them when each one arrived. I have spent years convincing, tricking, and demanding that he tell me the stories one at a time. And when I walk up to the door and say, ‘I know what happened to you’ the door opens. I can go in, but they still can’t come out.”
I was trying desperately to understand. “So, if I walk up to the door and say that I know their story then the door will open?”
She laughed, which I again felt was rude, but realized that what I said was more of a hope than a plan.
“No,” she said, looking a bit apologetic for her laughter. “You don’t know the story. It only works if you do know the story.”
“So, you can tell me the stories and we will just go from there?” It seemed logical.
Suddenly, Alden was standing across the table from us. “It isn’t that easy. Yes, she can tell you the story, but knowing the story still didn’t allow them to leave their rooms and escape from the Hotel Candelabra. I thought it might. She was so determined, but 69 stories later, we are all still here.”
I looked at the woman and said, “So you are in room 69 and you know all the stories.”
Both Alden and the woman smiled. I felt we were making progress.
Suddenly, the air seemed to be sucked out of the room as the other eight unopened doors flew open in unison and eight more women who looked a lot like the two of us at the table walked over and sat down.
The arrival of the eight seemed to surprise both Alden and the woman called 69.
Looking around the table, I asked, “Who are you?”
The woman at the far end of the table who identified herself as the occupant in room sixty-one answered, “We are you. We have worked for ten years to understand our stories, but it still doesn’t allow us to leave Hotel Candelabra.”
This did not explain why they all came out of their rooms when I had just been told they could not do so. I would have thought I didn’t understand if 69 hadn’t asked, “How did you get out of your rooms?”
Looking at each other in surprise, as if recognizing for the first time that they truly had walked out of their rooms, the one who identified herself as 60 said, “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get out since I got here and suddenly the door just opened.”
Everyone else murmured in agreement as she continued, “We got out of our rooms, but we still can’t leave Hotel Candelabra. You are our last hope for figuring out why—because the hotel is full and our candles are burning and if we don’t figure it out before they snuff themselves out, we are doomed.”
Sure enough. The candles were now burning. In a feeble attempt at humor, I said, “At least they aren’t burning at both ends.”
No one laughed. They all stood up and returned to their rooms leaving Alden and me alone to stare at the candles.
Day Two: Chapter Six
Through the fog of confusion in my head, I heard Arlen say, “I can give you that tour of the hotel now. Before you came, 69 could go from floor to floor, but now you are the only one who can.”
Why did it all need to be so complicated?
“I was hoping she could take me and introduce me to everyone. What you are saying is that I am on my own unless I am on this floor?”
“Well, you do have me.” Arlen stated sheepishly and headed toward the elevator. I still couldn’t get past the feeling that Willy Wonka was going to pop out of the elevator when it opened.
When the doors opened on the lower floor, I was not surprised to see another table and candelabra—this time with more candles. What was surprising was how the room was decorated. It felt like I had gotten off the elevator in the pediatric unit of a hospital. The doors were labeled 1-19. I didn’t need to ask who lived here. The answer would be the same—it was me.
It was a room intended for children to enjoy and the silence felt eerie. The walls were covered with bright murals and two large shelves—one filled with books and the other with toys—stood on either end. There was a lounge area for teens and a small play area for the younger ones. It felt like the room was begging the children to come and enjoy the space.
“Alden, they can’t come out here, can they?” I knew the answer before he said no.
Reflecting out loud, I continued, “But just like on the top floor, it is important that we help them come out of the rooms and at least be able to live out here—like they did on The Flame. But that still keeps them in the hotel. Why can’t we all leave?”
Alden’s smile was gone. “That is what we cannot figure out.”
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.