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The woods carpeting any part of the lower Rocky Mountains are beautiful, but it's hard to appreciate their beauty when everything is pitch black. The stars when viewed miles away from any source of light pollution are also beautiful. Less so when they’re concealed by a canopy of pine. The wildlife encountered far removed from civilization is beautiful as well. Unless you can’t see it, and you’re perfectly aware that it can see you.
The woods are unfamiliar and frightening for a young boy lost and alone. His clothes are stained with mud, his shins are lathed with scrapes, and vegetative scraps roost in his goldenrod hair. He is exhausted, starving, half-frozen, and all in all dead on his feet. He wants more than anything—except perhaps a nice cup of tea—to sit down and have a good cry. But he knows that crying will get him nowhere and with his luck, it might attract a few famished animals looking for a late-night snack. So he lifts his chin, tells himself to have courage, and marches on. And on. And on. And on. And if this boy wasn't half so naïve or knew a single thing about wilderness survival, he would have stopped wandering around and built a shelter hours ago. Sadly, this boy is a simple city child who thinks it best to walk.
Fortune takes great interest in this boy. She is by no means benevolent towards him—in fact, most of the time she’s quite harsh on the poor soul. But just this once she decides to give him a break and deliver just enough luck to equalize some of the woes she regularly heaps upon his shoulders. Which is why, against all odds, this boy stumbles across the only building for miles around. The sort of occurrence that only happens in fairy tales.
The trees and uneven ground pull back with the suddenness of a raised curtain, and the boy looks on in wonderment at a four-story colonial majesty with warm light streaming through the windows. A wall with foliage peeking over the top indicates a garden out back, and beyond that, he can see the entire estate rolling down to a lake reflecting the previously hidden stars. The building appears to have aged gracefully, without any crumbling stone or grimy glass, and there’s a dirt road leading to a roundabout in front of the entrance.
The boy follows the road and knocks on the door. Despite the late hour, it is opened by an elderly gentleman in a formal suit who invites him inside. Despite the boy's usual luck, this man is not a pedophile, a murdering sociopath, or an escaped asylum patient. He is the hotel’s maître-d', and he knows how to make an excellent cup of earl grey.
Once upon a day before this story began, there was a bus of screaming children.
“Alright, settle down now!” their teacher commanded, fighting to be heard over the cacophony of two dozen third-graders talking at the top of their lungs. “I said settle down, I have to finish taking attendance! Um, class? Class!
“HEY!! Listen up you little pre-pubescent shits!!!” To no avail. The bus driver took a deep breath and prepared to intervene.
“SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!!!”
Silence reigned.
“Erm, yes, thank you, Mrs. Crabtree.” The teacher shuffled the papers on his clipboard and continued with attendance.
“Millie Larsen!”
“Here Mr. Garrison!”
“Stanley Marsh!”
“Here!”
“Kenny McCormick.” A loud imitation of a fart had the whole bus rioting, and once again required the driver to screech at them. “Thank you very much Kenny, I’ll be seeing you in detention. Any of you little bastards who want to join him, please feel free to waste my time. Peter Mullen!”
A timid, “Here Sir!”
“Thank you, Peter, that’s how it’s done. Pip Pirrup!”
…
Cricket-silence. A distinctly different type of silence than screaming-bus-driver-induced silence.
“…I said Pip Pirrup!” No one answered. The children began looking around and whispering among themselves. “Class, has anyone seen Pip?”
A wave of comments that could essentially be reduced to, “No Mr. Garrison!” resounded. In their seats near the back, four particular boys shuffled with guilt.
“Oh for fuck’s sake—IS PHILLIP PIRRUP ON THIS BUS!?!” The teacher suffered a moment of clarity in which he realized that Phillip Pirrup was not on the bus. “Aw, jeez…”
The next morning, Phillip Pirrup is still not on the bus. Phillip Pirrup is in a musty, forgotten hotel halfway up the Rocky Mountains, having been abandoned by his classmates while on a school field trip to the closest national park—and he’s loving every second of it. The prideful antiquity ingrained into this place reminds him of home. So do the hats, the shoes, the building’s architecture, and the mannerisms of everyone who dutifully maintains these grounds for absolutely no discernable reason. Pip wonders from time to time how on earth they stay in business, considering they never seem to get any guests. Excluding lost orphan boys who show up in the dead of night and one eccentric old lady in room 410C who spends her days in a rocking chair by the window, slowly swaying back and forth among the dust motes.
Nobody asks any questions about him. Not important ones. When Pip was about to remark that he came from South Park, the maître-d' stopped him with a raised hand and explained that as soon as they knew where he was from, they would have to send him back. Thus, Pip happily kept his mouth shut. He likes to think that he’s a good deal better at keeping his mouth shut than anyone gives him credit for.
However, Pip Pirrup is not one to take advantage of his host’s hospitality, good heavens no! There is plenty of work to be done around an estate of this size, so he makes sure to help however he can. It’s the least he can do as payment for this safe haven. He washes dishes in the kitchens, sorts laundry with the maids, listens in on the bellhop’s idle chitchat as he shines boots in a corner. He polishes waxes sweeps and wipes, he dusts and dashes sews and mends, runs messages and errands from end to end. He reads to the eccentric withered lady in room 410C.
“Did you know young man,” she tells him with a creaking voice and a cataract-filled gaze, whenever she seems to be aware of his presence at all. “That here, there be devils?” Her paisley cotton dress is yellowing, she’s worn it for so long.
“I’m sure there are Mame,” he replies, and he turns the page.
“I mean it youngun!” she insists, rocking with a bit more purpose. “Yous better be careful now, and make extra sure not to go talkin’ to any strangers wearing hats! That’s how they hide their horns.”
“I'll keep that in mind Mame,” he reassures her. She leans back with a feathery sigh.
“Such a sweet boy. It'll be a right shame…”
What a sweet old bat! She's helped Pip get over his fear of ancient ladies who look like they’ve already got one foot in death’s door!
When he's done with his reading and his chores, Pip spends his time exploring.
The courtyard is easy to see but difficult to find, and it has a dried-up fountain with red ivy steadily consuming it. The attic is locked, for now. He’ll start spending more time in the library once he’s finished poking around everything else.
There’s a mole in the garden. Just one. It doesn’t act like any ordinary mole, and it’s driving the gardener out of his mind. Unusual mole aside, the gardens are one of Pip’s favorite places to sneak. There are plants ranging from purely ornamental to functional, although the head cook tells him every plant can be functional if you know how to use it properly. The garden isn’t designed to be viewed in its entirety; you’re meant to engage with it, to venture down its paths and discover it piece by piece.
He runs, runs, runs (it’s more fun to run everywhere, especially barefoot across lush grass) to the lake-house to see how cold the water is, unbearable or just freezing. If it’s freezing he’ll sit on the pier and dip his toes in, make tiny splashes and watch the ripples spread. The water is crisp, it’s nature’s mirror. Pip has never seen water quite like this. This lake feels special. The lake feels special, the gardens feel special, the hotel—the entire estate feels special. Pip often wonders if he’s fallen into a magical world, if he’s in one of those strange tales about rabbit holes and musty attics and wardrobes, about paupers who aren’t what they seem. Pip would know the feeling, considering he’s lived that sort of story before.
Pip dreams of a room that can only be found by climbing inside the dumbwaiter and riding it all the way down. In this dream, he tears up its floorboards for no particular reason. He simply knows that he should in that mysterious way one knows things in a dream. Under the floorboards, he finds an abandoned dirt cellar. With that same unexplainable dream-logic, he finds a rope, a door-less handle to tie it to, and lowers himself down into the dark.
He hits the ground. The earth is warm. There is something about waist-high in the center of the room. He approaches and sees that it’s a well. Peering down into bottomless depths, he can see nothing. But he can faintly smell sulfur and hear rustling leaves. It grows louder and louder until suddenly, red ivy bursts from the well. The well is now the fountain in the courtyard, and the ivy gushes forth and twists itself into dancing, humanoid shapes.
He wakes from this dream and thinks nothing of it.
“Did you have a good sleep dearie?” the old woman asks him the next morning.
“Perfectly lovely, thank you for asking Mame,” he responds, the strange visions already forgotten.
Amid the exciting discovery of a spacious ballroom, Pip is unaware that he's being watched by a shadowy figure. This figure has been observing him ever since he arrived at the hotel. It is short, red-eyed and humanoid, but most definitely not human.
This figure has been a feature of this place since before the beginning. Back when there was nothing here but untamed wild, he would treat the valley as his playground. Hunting things down, ripping them apart, and then maybe putting them back together. If he felt like it.
Then humans came. There had been humans around before, of course, but they were always smart enough to stay away. These humans were an infestation and they wanted to burrow into his favorite place on this pitiful planet.
He had free reign to terrorize them as they came for a while, which was good fun. But his fun abruptly came to an end when one of the humans made a deal with his father, and this building sprung up overnight.
After a few decades of sulking, he'd come back out of curiosity only to find that this hotel was an interesting little bubble to explore. Men in hats and coattails escorted ladies in dresses stiff from all the layers of fabric. They rumbled up the mountain in shiny automobiles and stayed a day, a week, a month; time was slippery here. Humans liked to keep their secrets, and he liked to ferret them out. The man who'd sold his soul for this dream hadn't aged a day. He was still charming, serving, and overall very successful.
Things only got more interesting with time as the dresses got shorter, the liquor became illegal, and the bigwigs who needed messing with less uptight.
Then poverty struck the whole nation, and war came after that. You can imagine what might happen. The hotel never recovered its splendor, and neither did its owner.
Damien Thorn kept coming here though. No one bothered him here, and it was a nice change of pace from the hellfires. After all this time he still considered this place his own, to a certain degree.
And now this chipper young boy is waltzing in here and poking around.
The only question now: Is this intruder worth keeping? Is he someone with secrets that could be fun to unearth, someone whose torment could be entertaining? Or is he just another ordinary, revolting human whose presence is bemiring this establishment and should be evicted immediately?
Damien adjusts his hat and steps out of the shadows.
Pip notices the boy with blood-red eyes and, like an idiot, smiles in a friendly manner. None of the old lady's warnings about devils comes to his mind.
“Hello there!” Pip greets. “And here I was just thinking that this dance would be a great deal more fun with a partner! Care to join?” Damien does not particularly care to join, but he doubts he’d get anywhere by refusing. He steps forward and wordlessly pulls them into a box step. The human is surprisingly adept. He even follows when Damien leads him into a spin, laughing all the way around.
The more he pays attention, the more Damien becomes aware of—he doesn’t have a better way to put it—an innate purity to this boy’s soul. Fuck, he sounds like his father’s advisors, not even Satan talks like that, but it’s true. The antichrist has no idea how this kid had ended up here, but he can tell that he doesn’t have a resentful bone in his body. It would be so easy to use him. Damien also senses that somehow, this is an old soul. Displaced from time, more suited to the solemn halls of this hotel than the conveniences of the modern era. That, the son of Satan can understand.
The song ends, the record in the corner slowly circling to a halt, and the boy continues to smile unerringly bright. “My name’s Phillip, although most call me Pip,” he says. “What’s yours?”
The demon opens his mouth, brow furrowing when his voice comes out quieter than he intended. “Damien.” Fuck. Maybe he’s just out of practice regulating his volume. He has a habit of screeching at various people in hell. Maybe he’s temporarily forgotten how to talk normally.
“Jolly good to meet you, Damien!” The boy—Pip says, extending his hand.
Damien stares at it until Pip lowers it again, looking unsure. Then, for reasons he can’t even begin to understand, he runs out of the room.
That boy, Pip. He shines with single-minded optimism. It repels Damien. He fucking hates it and doesn’t want to be around it.
Well no, actually. Maybe he just doesn’t understand it. And a very small part of him wants to. And the larger part of him won’t admit how much that attachment scares him.
That boy, Damien. Pip is quite sure that he suffers an extraordinary case of shyness. Pip will see him around the halls and the garden when he looks over his shoulder. He’ll wave and round whatever corner the dark-haired boy is hiding behind only to find that he’s disappeared.
He doesn’t talk much when he does stick around. The few times he has he sounded a bit like a squirrel on helium, so maybe that’s why, but Pip isn’t going to judge. He is determined to draw Damien out. Who knows, perhaps they could even be friends?
Pip is being annoying. He’s running around the hotel shouting Damien’s name, and he will not shut up. It gets to the point that the maître d’ pokes his head through the doorway, eyes the corner where Damien is lurking, invisibility as good as useless on him, and sends him an entreating if stern look. Kindly do something about this ruckus.
Damien sighs and reveals himself. “What?” he snaps. Pip whirls around and bursts into a grin like it isn’t the least bit suspicious that someone appeared out of thin air behind him.
“There you are! I’m headed down to the lake to try and catch some of those little miniature lobster-things—”
“You mean the crawdads?”
“Yes exactly, those! Would you come with me? I could use an extra hand, they’re quite slippery little fellows.” Damien considers. He’s been borderline-stalking Pip for ages, and it’s gotten him nowhere. Surely, he can put up with him for an hour. Maybe something entertaining will happen?
They catch fifteen crawdads. Pip gets soaked and mud-stained and he can’t stop giggling. They build a little rock maze only to realize that the crawdads will climb right over the walls. So Pip lets Damien set them on fire instead, and brings them back to the cook as a surprise.
Try as he might, Damien can’t deny that it was a good day.
Children possess the greatest capacity for cruelty while playing pretend. Pip knows this well. The cycle starts when you ask the others if you can play with them. They say yes, and you start to get your hopes up, only to get saddled with the role of villain or victim. And then you must choose: Play along and try to convince yourself that the harassment doesn’t hurt, you’re just glad to be included. Or go home alone again. And do it all over the next day.
So when he hears Damien’s suggestion Pip feels a pang of nervousness. But surely, it will be different this time. Damien isn’t like those other children. He’ll never admit it and threatens to set you on fire if you point it out, but he is secretly kinder.
“I,” the red-eyed boy proclaims, hat noticeably absent, “Am the powerful Demon Prince. And you—” he points at Pip, “Are the hapless maiden I have dragged down to hell.” Pip bites his lip and shuffles his toes, head down.
“Damien I—” He hesitates but manages to squeeze the words out regardless. “Do I have to be the hapless maiden?” Damien scowls at him.
“What’s wrong with being the maiden?”
“Well I don't mind too much but, couldn’t the Demon Prince drag down a boy instead?” A litany of hurtful remarks spring into Damien’s head: Gross, that’s gay, you’re ruining the game, did I say you got to pick what you get to be, I’m not going to play with you if you’re such a loser about this—
“Fine. Sure.” Pip brightens considerably and practically bounces towards the door.
“Jolly good! Shall we go find the cellar?”
“No,” Damien says sharply, “Not the cellar.”
“But… wouldn’t it make sense for Hell to be in the cellar?”
“Hell doesn’t have to be cold and dark. I’m the Demon Prince, remember? I’m taking you to my gardens. There are trees that eat the souls of the dammed and flowers that will put you to sleep forever if you smell them.” After this brief and somewhat arrogant explanation, Pip looks more than happy to play outside. Which is good. It wouldn’t do if he discovered the actual entrance to Hell in the cellar.
The most melancholy part of his establishment, the maître-d' thinks, is its silence.
He polishes the silver as he contemplates how few and far between guests really are. There are some nights on blood moons, on grim days, on evenings so black even the stars don’t shine that guests come from below. But the dead can only bring so much. There is a certain amount of… zestful spirit to be spread among the living.
The maître-d's mustache turns up in a smile as the children go running by, shrieking and laughing. They’ve found some tennis gear and they’re using rackets to ricochet balls from room to room with abandon. The maître-d' deftly moves a delicate vase out of the path of a ball and decides not to get too worked up about it. Vases can be thrown out, portraits moved into storage, windows repaired. For now, let them have their fun. The joy they bring to this fading place is well worth whatever damage they could cause.
The moon is half-full and swinging low when invisible feet pad into Pip’s room. They stop, seeing the blond wide awake and sitting up in bed, staring motionless out the window. The invisible figure retreats through the walls and knocks properly.
Pip opens the door. “Damien,” he says with a yawn, unsurprised.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Damien says. This is a lie.
“Neither could I,” Pip sighs. This is the truth, and Damien knows the reason for it. On this sort of night, things wander in the woods. Things that would lure you out of bed and across the lawn until you disappear forever between the trees. Pip is far too gullible and trusting for his own good. Damien just wants to make sure he doesn’t get any stupid ideas like deciding tonight is the night to follow the road back home.
He tugs on the edge of Pip’s pajama sleeve and starts down the carpeted hall on stocking feet.
“Where are we off to then?” the blond asks, still half asleep and rubbing at the corners of his eyes.
“I want to show you something.” They would be fine so long as they stayed on the hotel grounds.
He leads Pip down the stairwell and through the ballroom, out over the patio. Across the lawn, the lake is a mirror and the moon a wide grin on the far bank. He hears Pip inhale slowly and then hold, like what he’s seeing might fall away if he breathes.
He walks to the shore in a trance, and Damien keeps holding onto his sleeve. Pip is grateful because when they reach the edge and he takes in all the stars in the heavens below as well as above, he half fears he’ll pitch forward and fall forever. Up or down, it wouldn’t matter. He sits on the cool grass to anchor himself and stares for a long time. Eventually, he looks around for a pebble and casts it as far as he can. Even the ripple is perfect in how it shatters the illusion.
The lake becomes still again. Damien pries a rock from the mud and washes it off. When he gives it to Pip it’s glowing, like he’s holding a chunk of the moon. The boy cradles it reverently with wide eyes.
“It’s too pretty to throw away,” he murmurs. Damien puts a hand over the stone and looks at him gravely.
“You can’t keep it.” Pip doesn’t understand, but he listens. He throws the rock and they watch it glow as it sinks. Even after the ripples clear, it continues to descend until it becomes indistinguishable from the stars.
Pip settles back in next to his friend and breathes deep. He doesn’t mind the cold at all. This moment is too good to be spoiled by icy toes. Slowly, his head drifts against Damien’s shoulder. And slowly, he drifts off to sleep.
When he wakes, he’s safely tucked away in his room, dawn creeping back over the window.
Pip’s bedroom has been hit by a whirlwind, the destruction of the enthusiastically lived in. The bed itself is enormous for one small child, with a fluffy duvet that stretches on for miles and a mattress that towers like cliffs. Even so, it’s having trouble containing the debris of the afternoon. Shavings from where they’d tried—and mostly failed—to make carvings out of the scented soap that re-appears in the bathroom regardless of whether it’s used or not. They probably should have found something better than basic cutlery as a carving tool. The dirty plates from room-service lunch are there too. Several packs of cards are scattered everywhere, different decks with different art styles. Damien is good at card games. They’re trying to make up their own game but inventing unique rules is surprisingly difficult.
It is amidst this quiet, comfy chaos that a knock sounds at the door. The maître-d' opens it before they can answer. The Do Not Disturb sign dangles futile.
“Pip,” he says softly, “There’s a policeman here to see you.”
Officer Barbrady is quite proud of himself. He’s found the little boy that’s been missing for more than a month. So long that nobody really expected to find him anymore.
Well, nobody tried very hard, least of all Officer Barbrady. Most of South Park has forgotten about him at this point. But Barbrady took a couple wrong turns on account of not being able to read the street signs, and instead of finding himself at Jimbo’s cabin all of a sudden he was outside this big old fancy house up in the mountains. And then a man in equally old and fancy clothing came out and asked if he could help him, and Barbrady didn’t want to admit that he’d gotten lost. So he stammered out the first excuse that popped into his head and, low and behold, it turns out the kid is actually here.
Who woulda thunk?
Yes, the police officer is quite proud of himself indeed. Maybe the Mayor will give him a medal. Although, the Mayor is more likely to give him a medal for the services he offers under her desk than finding some little blond twerp, but he can hope.
Pip looks miserable as the officer escorts him down the steps to his patrol car. He came here with nothing, so he hasn’t a bag to pack or an excuse to linger.
“Wait!” Pip looks back, and Damien is standing at the front doors with the maître-d'. Pip doesn’t need to be told twice. He breaks away from the officer’s hand on his shoulder and races back up the steps.
Damien hands him a playing card—the ace of spades—with ten numbers penned across the back. “This is the number for the front desk.” Pip knows the phone he's talking about, he’s seen it many times. It is a beautiful contraption, a rotary phone made of polished wood and copper. But then he realizes something and his heart falls.
“Damien, I don’t have a cellphone and—well you see, nobody uses a landline anymore—”
“Is there a pay phone in South Park?” Pip tries to recall ever seeing one and nods. There’s just one, littered with graffiti and stickers across the street from Skeeter’s Bar. “Hang on.” Damien runs back inside. From the clanking and clattering and protesting cha-ching!’s that follow, and the way the maître-d' eyebrows slowly elevate, it sounds like he’s raiding the cash register. He runs back out with a bag full of quarters. “Here. Now you have no excuses. You’ll call me.” It’s a very bossy request, but Pip takes the bag with a grateful smile.
He thanks the maître-d' for all his kindness, as is proper, and the old man tells him to think nothing of it, he’s been a delightful guest. Then he hesitates, only to throw caution to the wind and fling his arms around Damien in a hug. He’s surprised to find his friend hugging him back a little too tight for comfort. It almost feels like there are claws digging into his back instead of fingernails.
“I’ll call,” he promises. And then there are no more words to be had. Not any they’re ready to give up.
Pip blinks back the stinging in his eyes when he sees the hotel disappear around the bend. He realizes that he’s forgotten to say goodbye to the old lady in room 410C.
Pip is going back to South Park, and he’d never dreaded anything more. After spending so long in a place that seemed too good to be real, going back to that toxic, miserable little town seems almost more than he can bear. There's nothing for him there. Nothing he wants. And yet it refuses to let him go.
But Pip clutches the ace in his hand, thinks of his devil, and smiles. At least he’s leaving with a little more hope and a lot more happy memories than he had when he arrived. South Park will wreak its absurd designs and its citizens will scramble with their weekly struggles, but Pip has his own adventure to keep now.
He tucks the card into the inside pocket of his jacket and resolves to keep it well.