Chapter 7: The Gallery of Glass

Ben barely slept that night. Every time he closed his eyes, he could hear the phantom footsteps growing louder, more insistent. But it wasn't just the sound that kept him awake—it was the growing certainty that something had fundamentally changed after their confrontation with the founding families.

They'd managed to reach Elara's bookshop by mid-afternoon, only to find it locked up tight with a hastily scrawled "CLOSED" sign in the window. Ben had pounded on the door until his knuckles bled, but there was no answer. The apartment above the shop was dark, and Elara's phone continued going straight to voicemail.

"They got to her," Ben had said, staring up at the empty windows.

"Maybe," Daniel had replied grimly. "Or maybe she's smart enough to lay low until this is over."

But Ben couldn't shake the image of Sandra Rosenthal's cold smile, or her casual comment about making sure "the Brennan woman understands her role." If the founding families were willing to threaten children openly, what would they do to someone who'd spent years documenting their secrets?

Now, lying in his bed at three in the morning, Ben found himself drifting in and out of a restless doze. The house around him creaked and settled, normal sounds that his hyperaware mind transformed into approaching footsteps. Every shadow seemed to hide watching eyes.

It was in that liminal space between sleep and waking that the vision began.

At first, Ben thought he was dreaming. The walls of his bedroom dissolved like morning mist, replaced by something that made his skin crawl with wrongness. He stood in a vast hallway lined with towering windows, their glass surfaces reflecting not his image but something else entirely—scenes that moved and shifted like living paintings.

The floor beneath his feet was polished marble, white as bone and smooth as silk. The air tasted of antiseptic and old roses, sickeningly sweet. And from somewhere in the distance came the sound he'd been dreading—the measured click of dress shoes approaching.

This isn't real, Ben told himself. It's just a nightmare. Just stress and fear playing tricks on my mind.

But the vision felt more solid than reality, more vivid than any dream he'd ever experienced. When he tried to move, his feet responded. When he touched one of the window-walls, the glass was cold and real beneath his fingertips.

"Welcome," said a voice like autumn leaves scraping across stone.

Ben spun around and found himself facing the Collector. Here, in this place of endless windows and marble floors, the entity seemed more substantial than ever before. Its black suit was immaculate, its silver-topped cane gleaming with an inner light. But it was the thing's face that made Ben's breath catch—or rather, the absence of one. Where features should have been, there was only smooth darkness, broken by a single monocle that reflected not Ben's image but his deepest fears.

"Where am I?" Ben managed to ask.

"My gallery," the Collector replied, gesturing with one impossibly long hand at the windows surrounding them. "The good place, where my chosen ones spend eternity in perfect beauty, free from the chaos and pain of mortal existence."

Against every instinct screaming at him to run, Ben approached one of the windows. The glass surface rippled like water at his touch, and suddenly he could see through it into what lay beyond.

The space on the other side was a child's bedroom, frozen in time. Toys were scattered across the floor exactly as they'd been left, books lay open on a desk, clothes hung neatly in a closet. But it was the figure on the bed that made Ben's heart stop.

A boy, maybe fourteen years old, lay perfectly still atop the covers. His eyes were open but empty, staring at nothing with the glassy perfection of a doll. His skin was flawless porcelain, his hair arranged in neat waves that would never grow or change. He was beautiful in the way that only dead things could be beautiful—all pain and imperfection stripped away, leaving nothing but an empty shell.

"Tommy Rodriguez," the Collector said, appearing beside Ben with that unnatural, gliding movement. "Class of 1991. He was quite artistic, you know. Spent hours drawing pictures of the mountains around your little town."

Ben pressed his hands against the glass, and for just a moment, Tommy's eyes seemed to flicker in his direction. But there was no recognition there, no consciousness—just the hollow echo of what had once been a living boy.

"You monster," Ben whispered.

"Monster?" The Collector's voice carried what might have been amusement. "I preserve them. I give them peace. No more worry, no more fear, no more of the terrible uncertainties that plague mortal existence. They are safe here, Benjamin. Forever safe."

The entity gestured, and the window changed. Now Ben was looking at a different room, a different child. This one was younger, maybe twelve, with red hair and freckles. She sat at a tiny tea table, pouring nothing from an empty pot into empty cups, her movements mechanical and precise.

"Sarah Mitchell," the Collector said. "She loved tea parties. Now she can have one every day for all eternity."

Ben wanted to look away, but the vision held him transfixed. Room after room, window after window, each containing a child frozen in a moment of false perfection. Some sat reading books they would never finish, others played with toys that would never break, a few simply stared into space with those terrible, empty eyes.

"This is what you call a good place?" Ben's voice cracked with horror. "They're not alive. They're just... dolls. Pretty decorations for your collection."

"They are beyond suffering," the Collector replied. "Beyond loss, beyond disappointment, beyond the thousand small cruelties that make mortal life so... unpleasant."

The scene shifted again, and Ben found himself looking into a room he recognized. Mikey's bedroom, exactly as it had been the night he was taken. His best friend sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by comic books and action figures, but his movements had the same mechanical quality as all the others. When Mikey looked up, his eyes were as empty as glass marbles.

"No," Ben breathed. "Not Mikey. Please, not like this."

"He was chosen fairly," the Collector said. "According to the terms of the pact your ancestors made. Just as you will be chosen. Just as your brother will be chosen."

"Allen's just a kid. He doesn't deserve this."

"None of them deserve it. That is precisely the point." The entity's monocle gleamed with cold light. "Innocence is what makes them valuable. Purity is what makes them beautiful. Your brother will make a lovely addition to my collection."

Ben felt rage building in his chest, hot and bright. "I won't let you take him."

"You misunderstand the nature of your situation, Benjamin." The Collector began walking down the endless hallway, and Ben found himself following despite his desire to run. "This is not a negotiation. This is not a battle you can win through force or cleverness. This is a debt, collected according to the terms agreed upon by your bloodline over a century ago."

They passed more windows, more rooms, more children trapped in eternal stasis. Ben recognized some of them from the photographs in his father's hidden box—faces that had haunted missing person reports and family tragedies going back generations.

"But you're bound by rules," Ben said desperately. "The pact mentioned loopholes. Ways to break the agreement."

"Ah, yes. The worthy substitute clause." The Collector paused before a particularly large window that seemed to show not a room but a vast underground cavern. "Your father has been quite industrious in his research. Tell me, do you truly believe you can find the Heart of the Mountain? Do you think you can somehow use it to bargain for your freedom?"

Ben's heart sank. "You know about our plan."

"I know about everything that happens in my domain. Every whispered conversation, every desperate scheme." The entity turned to face him, and in its monocle, Ben saw a reflection of his father and brother, huddled over maps in their kitchen. "Your founding families are correct about one thing—the crystal's power sustains their prosperity. Remove it, and your precious town will wither and die."

"Maybe that's what it deserves," Ben said fiercely. "Maybe a town built on child sacrifice isn't worth saving."

"Perhaps. But are you prepared for the consequences? When the mines run dry and the tourists stop coming, when businesses close and families lose their homes, will you be able to live with the knowledge that your selfishness caused such suffering?"

The vision wavered around them, and Ben felt himself being pulled back toward waking. But the Collector's voice followed him, cold and implacable.

"I will give you one final gift, Benjamin Carter. One last act of mercy before our bargain is fulfilled."

The marble hallway dissolved, but the entity's presence remained, pressing against Ben's consciousness like a weight.

"Come to me willingly," the Collector whispered. "Walk into the darkness with your head held high, and I will spare your brother. The debt will be considered paid with your sacrifice alone."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I will take you both. And your father will spend the rest of his miserable life knowing that his stubbornness cost him everything he held dear."

Ben jerked awake in his own bed, gasping and disoriented. Pale morning light filtered through his curtains, and for a moment he could still smell that sickening scent of antiseptic and old roses. His hands were shaking as he reached for his phone—6:47 AM on June 25th.

Six days until July first. But the Collector's ultimatum had given them even less time than that.

Ben stumbled downstairs to find his father already awake, sitting at the kitchen table with the leather-bound pact open before him. Daniel looked up as Ben entered, and his face immediately creased with concern.

"You look terrible. Nightmares?"

"Not nightmares," Ben said quietly. "Visions. The Collector showed me his gallery. Showed me what happens to the children he takes."

He described what he'd seen—the endless hallway, the windows showing preserved children, the horrible emptiness in their eyes. Daniel's face grew paler with each detail.

"They're not dead," Ben concluded. "They're not alive either. They're just... trapped. Forever."

Daniel closed the pact and rubbed his eyes. "In all my research, I never found any firsthand accounts of what happened after the taking. I always assumed..."

"That death would be a mercy compared to that place." Ben slumped into a chair across from his father. "Dad, we have to find that crystal. We have to end this. I can't let that thing turn Allen into another doll for its collection."

"The mines," Daniel said grimly. "If we're going to do this, it has to be today. Before the founding families realize what we're planning."

"What about Elara? We still haven't found her."

Daniel was quiet for a moment, then pulled out his phone and showed Ben a text message that had arrived while he slept: Safe. Will meet you at the old mining road at noon. Bring everything. —E

"She's alive," Ben breathed.

"And apparently one step ahead of us," Daniel replied. "Which means we might actually have a chance."

Ben thought about the Collector's offer—his life for Allen's freedom. It would be so easy to just walk away, to spare his family the pain of fighting a battle they might not win.

But then he remembered Mikey's empty eyes, Tommy Rodriguez's porcelain perfection, all those children trapped forever in the entity's twisted idea of paradise.

Some prices were too high to pay, even for love.

"Come on," Ben said, standing up. "Let's go break a curse."