The Constant in Yellow

For most of my junior year, I lived in a fog of formulas and prime numbers. My tutor, Mr. Aldous, was a wiry man with glasses that magnified his eyes into dark pools, and we spent every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon in the school’s library, bent over quadratic equations and calculus limits. But we shared a secret vice: a fascination with the macabre. Between problem sets, we’d trade tales of aswang and kapre, of haunted balete trees and the white lady of the old bridge. It was our escape from the tyranny of integers.

One humid October afternoon, as the ceiling fan clicked overhead, Mr. Aldous slid a worn book across the table. It had a cracked leather cover, the title embossed in faded gold: ‘The Constant in Yellow.’ I’d never heard of it. He said it was a collection of mathematical paradoxes with a twist—each theorem supposedly corresponded to a real place where something ‘inexplicable’ occurred. He opened it to a page marked by a yellow ribbon. There, in elegant script, was a theorem: ‘The Inversion of the Infinite Loop.’ The accompanying note described a building where the staircases never ended, and the corridors folded back on themselves. The location was given as ‘The old Mercado residence, now a boarding house on Rizal Street.’ That was three blocks from my house.

I laughed. ‘You’re joking. That’s where my cousin lives. It’s a normal, creaky old house.’ Mr. Aldous didn’t smile. He simply said, ‘The theorem suggests it’s a gateway. But only for those who seek it.’ He closed the book and returned to derivatives, but the seed was planted.

That Saturday, I decided to visit my cousin Lita. The house was a relic of the Spanish era, with thick adobe walls and a staircase that spiraled up to a second floor. Lita was away, but her landlady, an old woman named Aling Nena, let me in, saying I could wait in the parlor. As I sat on a velvet sofa that reeked of mothballs, I noticed a small door at the back of the room, half-hidden by a dusty curtain. I’d never noticed it before. My curiosity itched. I pushed the curtain aside and turned the brass knob. The door swung open onto a staircase that descended into darkness, not leading up. The air smelled of old paper and something else—like ozone and ginger.

I should have stopped, but the memory of the yellow book pushed me forward. I took out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and started down. The stairs were stone, narrow, and the walls were lined with shelves of books, all bound in yellow leather, all with titles like ‘The Geometry of Silence’ and ‘The Prime of Fear.’ I walked for what felt like minutes, but the staircase kept going. I counted steps: 42, 43, 44… At 100, I looked back. The door was a tiny square of light far above. At 200, the light vanished. I was in complete darkness except for my phone, which flickered. I stopped, my heart hammering.

That’s when I heard the giggle. It was high-pitched, like a child’s, but warped, as if played at half speed. I spun around, the flashlight beam slicing through the black. A figure stood at the bottom of the stairs—a girl my age, but her face was blank, smooth as an eggshell, and she wore a yellow dress. She didn’t have a mouth, but she smiled anyway—a curved line that seemed painted on. She raised a hand and crooked a finger, beckoning me to come down.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. My legs moved on their own, carrying me down the last few steps. I found myself in a vast hall with an impossibly high ceiling, lit by floating candles. In the center stood a mathematics chalkboard, and on it was written a single equation: 1 + 1 = ∞. The girl pointed at the board, then at me. I realized she wanted me to solve it. I looked at the chalk in my trembling hand. I felt a compulsion to write something. I wrote ‘0.’ As soon as I did, the board dissolved and the hall began to spin. The girl’s smile widened, and her face split open, revealing rows of needle-like teeth. She lunged.

I shut my eyes, and when I opened them, I was back in the parlor, slumped on the sofa. Aling Nena was shaking my shoulder. ‘You fainted, child. You were gone for an hour.’ I looked at the curtain, but the door was gone, the wall smooth. I stumbled out of the house, and never told anyone, not even Mr. Aldous. But the next Tuesday, he saw the look on my face. He just nodded and said, ‘You found the constant. It’s always seeking. You were lucky you chose zero—the neutral element. But it remembers you now.’ He never tutored me again.

Decades later, I still dream of that yellow dress. And sometimes, in the mirror, I see a flicker of a smile that isn’t mine. But what terrifies me most is the equation that has since branded itself into my waking mind: 1 + 1 = ∞. I’ve come to understand it now. It means that every time you enter a place you think is real, you might be the one entering its infinite loop, and there is always another you, on the other side, waiting to take your place. That girl—I saw her face mirrored in the black board. It was mine.