Three Days in the Amaranth Hotel

Chapter 1: The Bulging Wallet

The faceless clock chimed midnight.

The sound seeped through cracks in the building's foundation, piercing the roof that had sheltered more strangers than friends over the decades. It crawled down the oak trees whose trunks inched closer to the walls every year. It kept moving, running across the clearing clotted with fallen leaves toward the road that carved a switchback path down the mountain. The chime seemed hell-bent on bursting past the treetops that blocked out the horizon and flying on for all to hear.

But instead it died in the ears of a woman stepping out of a car in the darkness.

Other chimes dutifully followed the first, announcing to all who cared to listen that it was now a cold Friday morning in the Amaranth Hotel.

The woman wore a long green coat that failed to shield her body from the chill and a hat that barely concealed strands of unwashed hair. Her shoes were so worn she could feel every piece of gravel beneath her feet.

The woman appraised the sagging three-story building. It wasn't much. The hotel was isolated, hard to get to, and—judging by the few cars parked outside and the few lights in the windows—unpopular. In other words, perfect. She glanced back at the driver tapping at his GPS. He had driven a long way through the Appalachian foothills in the last few hours—his only instructions to keep his foot on the gas till city lights were only a memory—and was clearly eager to get back to civilization.

She handed him an extra wad of bills for the unusual distance he'd been asked to cover. And, her eyes made clear, for his discretion should this trip ever be brought up in the future. The woman slung a canvas bag over her shoulder, crossed the parking lot, and yanked open the door to the Amaranth Hotel.

The arched entryway probably seemed stately back in the hotel's heyday, but any sense of luxury in the wilderness had diminished long ago. Threadbare rugs were layered across the floor, piles of jackets weighed down the coat racks by the door. The reception desk was scratched from years of suitcases knocking against it, and the handrail of the sweeping marble staircase hung crooked on one side.

The only real grandeur left in the lobby came from the grandfather clock against the wall, which was still chiming its midnight announcement. The clock was remarkable not only because it was beautiful—intricately carved from top to bottom—but because it had no face. No circle of numbers marked the hours, no hands moved around in their customary circle. A soft ticking did accompany the passing of seconds, but the time itself was indiscernible until the hourly chime rang out. It was a seamless pillar of wood, broken only by a pendulum that had not for a moment stopped swinging in over fifteen years.

The clock finished its final chime as the woman passed. She didn't notice the ticking. It only blended in with the similar sound measuring out the moments in her head, her own internal clock always aware of how many hours had passed since the incident she came here to escape. Her feet kept silent time against the tile as she crossed to the reception desk.

A red-headed boy lay face-down on the desk, drooling on a stack of papers. From his pocket protruded a beer bottle that threatened to spill its last drops across his ill-fitting uniform.

The woman rang the bell on the desk, and the boy jolted awake and squinted up at her. But before he could blink the sleep out of his eyes, a round, middle-aged man hurried into the lobby from the hall, tying a robe over his pajamas.

"Oh! Uh, good evening, ma'am. Or, I guess..." He glanced at the faceless clock out of sheer habit, for it was just as unreadable to him as it was to his guests. "...good morning might be more accurate? If you could wait one second, we'll be right with you."

He turned to the boy behind the desk, who tried to push the beer bottle deeper into his pocket. The robed man leaned down and spoke in what he must have thought was a whisper.