Days pass. The jars of peaches remain. The rats do not come.

He tips the tabletop onto its side. He drags it over to block the bathroom door. The flag drags across the floor, turning gray. He unties the flag from the table leg, carries it to his mother, draping it across her calves.

There are keys to be collected. He has been told that he should collect keys. He will collect keys.

He is at the outer edge of the intersection, near the spool, holding a ring of keys. He follows the fishline back, trying the keys at each door, without avail.

He listens to his own footsteps. He stops abruptly. Behind him footsteps continue an instant, stop. Whirling around, he sees nothing.

He continues forward. Behind him, a light sputters out. He turns his head, peering backward into the fresh darkness. He feels the fishline vibrate. He starts to run.

He lumbers forward, crossing dusty intersections. He reaches the spool of fishline, stops long enough to heave it up and struggle on. The fishline plays out through his legs, shuttling to and fro across the spool. On one side of the spool appears a strip of exposed wood, growing wider as the fishline plays out. He crosses three dust-filled intersections and enters clean halls. He stoops to pick up a set of keys, hurries to the next intersection. He plucks up another set of keys and lumbers forward, the keys hooked awkwardly over two fingers. He stumbles, breathing hard, shifting the spool's weight to one side, to the hand without keys in time to scoop up a final set of keys.

The fishline pulls stiff between his legs, spool growing solid before his thigh, drawing him up short. The line breaks, he is thrown forward. Keys jingling, he tumbles down. Brey has run out of fishline.

[THREE].

Brey, at Rest.

He lies splayed near the spool. He rolls his body over, stares up at the ceiling. He lifts a hand to his face, tracing a crack running from the upper edge of the mask down to his eye. He draws a deep breath.

Perhaps it would be best to pretend to be dead. Perhaps it would be best to deceive the rats. Perhaps it would be best to wait until the rats approach his body, thinking it a corpse, and then kill them.

He has memorized the rat books. He has begun to think like a rat.

He hears the sound of footsteps at some distance. He lifts his head, straining to see through a mask gone skew. "You are lying in the middle of the hall, Brey."

Craning his neck, he glimpses the upper half of his father.

"Me?" says Brey.

"Is there anyone else?" says his father.

"You?" says Brey.

"Lying down, for God's sake," says his father. "Is there?"

Brey looks across the level of the floor. He turns his head to the other side, looks. He turns back to his father, shakes his head.

"Get up," says his father.

Brey does not move.

"Don't be difficult, Brey."

His father straddles him, reaching down to slide his palms under his back. Straining, he drags Brey to his feet.

Brey lets his knees turn to water, refusing to support his own weight.

Grunting and staggering, his father hugs him to his side with one arm. He strikes Brey in the throat with his other fist. He bares his teeth, bites Brey on the ear.

He lets go. He moves back his bloody mouth. Shaken, the boy stands.

The moment his father is out of sight, Brey lies down. He is not afraid of rats. He is protected by his boots, his keys, his mask.

The only thing he fears for are his eyes. The eyeholes of the mask are large enough to allow snouts. As he kills rats, he must remember to shield his eyes with one hand.

He lies in the hall, alone. The rats are clever. They have not come. They plan to starve him.

He turns his face to the floor. He pulls himself to the wall. Bracing his hands against the wall, he rises to his knees, sways to his feet.

His bones are sore. His tongue cleaves as if his mouth were packed with dust. The keys hang heavy upon him. He can feel his father's teeth still clinging to his ear.

He gathers the scattered keys, hanging them upon his hooks. Leaving the spool on the floor, he follows the fishline back.

If the rats are waiting in the darker hallways, he can do little to avoid them. It would be safer to take another route back, but he will not leave the fishline. Despite his father's misgivings, he must keep to the fishline.

The path turns away from the terminal wall. He follows the fish-line as it runs straight, turns, turns, continues straight, turns again. The path is not as he remembers it. Yet there are no keys in the intersections of his path. He is following the right path.

He continues. He stops when he reaches a dust-filled intersection. The dust was not here before. Perhaps the dust has been moved here. By the rats, to torment him.

He moves through three intersections filled with dust. He travels through each, stepping lightly.

He looks to one side. He sees that the intersections to either side of his path are free of dust. A second glance, and he sees that there are no keys in those intersections.

Logic: If he has not explored the intersections, there would be keys. If he has, there would be fishline. If not one, the other. Yet there are neither.

"Father?" Brey cries, turning circles. "Father?"

On Blame.

He waits in the middle of the hall for his father to come. His father does not come.

His father has lied. His father chose to collect keys. Otherwise, there would be keys in all of the intersections which Brey has not explored. His father has betrayed him.

Yet, suppose it were not his father but the rats?

Rats are collectors, according to Our Friend the Rat. according to Our Friend the Rat. If they discover a glittering object, they will bring it back to their nest. If they discover a glittering object, they will bring it back to their nest.

Keys do not glitter, but they catch light. The rats might take keys for two reasons: a) the keys catch light or b) to persecute Brey. Nothing must be blamed on his father. Everything can be blamed on the rats.

But should it? Perhaps his father and the rats are working together against him, his father's hatred of rats a cover-up for his father's hatred of his son.

Brey will return to his rooms. He will return to confront his father, to force him to reveal the truth. This time Brey will not be easily satisfied.

His Desk.

Turning a corner, he comes to the end of the fishline.

In the middle of an otherwise empty intersection stands his desk, all the drawers missing but one. One of the legs has been gnawed off, the stump of it lying near Brey, the fishline wound around it.

He winds the fishline around his hand, reeling the leg to him. It must have taken a vast number of rats to carry his desk through the halls. The two rats that have escaped his father have multiplied.

He opens the remaining drawer. Within, a canteen and three jars of peach preserves. His papers are missing, perhaps destroyed. He closes the drawer.

Leaving the desk, he follows the fishline out. Ten intersections later, he reaches the new end of his fishline.

He lifts it, examines it. The end of the fishline is neither stretched nor curled nor deformed. It has been cleanly cut. He has lost his rooms.

His Wandering.

He attaches one end of the shortened fishline to the desk. To the other, he attaches the broken desk leg. He holds onto the leg as he explores the halls, reeling and unreeling the fishline as if the leg were a spool.

The fishline reaches to a distance of ten intersections. He maps a roughly diamond-shaped area, ten intersections in each cardinal direction, less for those intersections which he cannot approach directly. He does not find keys.

Using a key, he scratches a map onto the surface of the desk. He codes "O" for intersections without keys, " " and " " for hallways. If he finds intersections with keys, he will record them with an "X."

He explores in every direction. He reaches the limit of his fishline. Within his range are no keys to collect, no new hallways, no terminal walls, no windows. He sits on the floor near the desk, eating the last of his peaches. His fingers are stained yellow, his mask glazed below the mouth. The crack in the forehead of the mask has spread wider, exposing the cloth beneath.

He licks his fingers. He stands and sets out, exploring again the same halls.

He chooses a direction, follows the fishline to its end. His father stands one intersection farther, well out of his reach.

His father cups his hands around his mouth. "Brey!" his father calls. Brey lifts the desk leg up, shows his father the fishline attached to it. His father, squinting, moves a few steps closer. "Where is the spool?" says his father. "Cut," Brey says. "Rats." "Are you sure it was rats, Brey?" "Not rats?" says Brey.

"Whoever cut it did you a favor. You must leave the fishline."

Brey shakes his head.

"Come here, Brey," says his father.

Brey does not move.

"Who gave you life, Brey?" says his father. "Is that where I went wrong?"

Brey takes a step backward. He turns, flees. His father remains motionless, watching him run.

He takes hold of the desk and pulls. The desk groans toward him, listing toward the corner missing the leg. Walking backward, he drags the desk after him.

He pulls the desk into the next intersection. Unreeling his fishline, he explores the additional hallways he can reach from there.

There are no keys in the new intersections. He returns to the desk, scratching his findings onto the surface. He pulls the desk forward an intersection, sets out.

The desktop is covered with scratches. He humps the desk forward. He travels to a new intersection, this one filled with dust.