Door of Bruises (Thornchapel Book 4)

by Sierra Simone

  Auden’s eyes remain hazel, as they have since that night, when the dark crimson bled out of his irises just as the life bled out of the invading roses. By the time All Saint’s Day dawned, the canes and bushes had crumbled into a fine dust, which would be completely blown away before the end of the week. The petals lingered longer, shriveling into dry, dark husks that skittered over the drive and gathered in the crevices around the cists, a fragrant dredge of dead blooms that drifted around the estate until the snows came and they finally rotted back into the earth.

  The trees still move when he’s sad or restless; storms come when he wants them. Rebecca still grows flowers when she presses her hands to the earth. Sometimes they grow under her bare feet as she walks, small and tender, springing up under her footsteps.

  These things follow them elsewhere, but they are strongest at Thornchapel, and the strength of them fades the farther away they get from it. And with the resonance between the valley and the door in a kind of stasis, there is no reaction to Rebecca growing flowers . . . other than there being flowers everywhere.

  Auden hasn’t cried a single rose petal since that Samhain.

  The feasts are celebrated still, although hope becomes a ghost, an imprint of itself. A photo-negative now only recognizable by its absence. The anguish of this absence is potent. They mourn the death of hope now too.

  They miss her. They miss her. They miss her.

  The wheel turns and turns again. Their bodies change, the missing piece of their hearts doesn’t. They cling to each other like Paul the Apostle clinging to pieces of his ship after a shipwreck.

  Upstairs, tucked into Jennifer Martinez’s Bible, is a letter from a lab, containing test results. Auden doesn’t know if it’s ever been opened, and Saint never says. But sometimes Auden finds him staring down at the Guest ring on his left hand, as if expecting it to speak to him. As if expecting a different kind of answer than alleles can give.

  Whatever the results say, Freddie has thoroughly adopted Saint as his son, and they have a warm, if more fraternal than paternal, relationship.

  The official records still list Richard Davey as Saint’s father.

  The one time Auden asks Saint about it, just after Saint’s thirtieth birthday, Saint presses his left hand to Auden’s exposed chest, hard enough that Auden can feel Saint’s wedding ring against his skin. “I’m a Guest now anyway,” he says softly.

  Auden covers Saint’s hand with his own, knowing that’s all the answer he’ll get. But he’s never really cared about the answer, only about St. Sebastian. “You’re mine now.”

  “I always was. I wouldn’t have it any other way, Auden, just so you know. I’m here to stay.”

  That’s all that Auden needs to know.

  And the wheel turns.

  And turns again.

  After Saint leaves for work, still grumbling about his thwarted orgasm, Auden goes up and starts his call. He’s in the middle of discussing the benefits of a sod roof for an Icelandic modern arts centre when he sees Rebecca through one of his office windows. Coming up the lawn past the labyrinth she finally built; running not walking.

  From the direction of the chapel.

  Instinct surges through him, clear and sharp. Instinct—and something he hasn’t felt in so long that he’s afraid to name it to himself.

  Auden turns off the camera on his call and sends a quick private message to Isla that something urgent has popped up and he’ll be back when he can. And then he runs down the steps to the ground floor, practically vaulting over Hilda Davidson snoozing on the landing.

  He meets his friend just as she’s coming to the terrace steps, her brown eyes bright and pinning him with exigent joy. Behind her, the low turf of the labyrinth gleams with dew, and the tombs incorporated into the switchbacks and circuits of the path are still wet from a pre-dawn shower. At the center of the labyrinth is the now-empty king’s grave and the rose-carved chamber.

  In a way now, anybody can walk to the door.

  “I thought you and Delphine were still asleep,” Auden says. “I didn’t realize you were awake—”

  “It’s back,” she interrupts him, breathlessly. “Auden. It’s back. The door is here. It’s open again.”

  The door is back.

  Just like eighteen years ago, it is a thing of old wood and dull metal, and just like eighteen years ago, it looks out onto a clearing that seems cloned from the one outside the chapel.

  There is no sign of Proserpina or Becket.

  “Will you go through it?” Rebecca asks. She and Auden stand shoulder to shoulder in front of it, watching the breeze play over the grass on the other side. “You could go tonight, Auden. You and Saint could be with her tonight.”

  Auden lets out a long breath. The idea is tempting—beyond tempting. To think that he could see her, hold her, smell her, kiss her. That the three of them could finally share a heartbeat once again.

  But.

  “There are things that must be done first,” he says, forcing himself to think rationally. “We’ll do it at Samhain.”

  “And if the roses come?”

  “We will pray that they don’t.”

  Rebecca is convinced the door has something to do with entropy and thermodynamics, with ordering and transformation. If this is the case—and if this is what causes the sickness in the valley when it comes—then Auden is not sure there will ever be a cure as such for the sickness, other than moving people out of the valley. He and Rebecca have talked about the various different ways to do that, if the time comes.

  Gemma Dawes still weighs heavily on his mind.

  “It’s strange,” Rebecca says after a moment, her eyes on a vine-wrapped tree in the door-world’s clearing. “If I hadn’t watched the wren die that night, everything would be different now. I wouldn’t have felt the need to protect Delphine, to keep her close while she was here. I wouldn’t have realized how powerfully I still felt for her or that I still thought of her as mine. Without that wren’s death, I could very well be alone and miserable, with a trail of wasted years behind me.”

  She turns and gives Auden a small, sad smile. “I wish Becket were here so I could tell him so. He’d want to know that the wren was a blessing too.”

  That night, when he tells St. Sebastian that the door has returned, his husband starts crying. There is hope and terror both in his face. “What if it doesn’t work?” he asks Auden. “What if this is when we find out that we truly are separated forever?”

  “Shh,” Auden says, kissing him, pushing him back onto the bed and kissing him more. “Shh now. We cannot know until we try.”

  “What if something’s happened to her over there?” Saint whispers. “What if we can cross over, but when we get there, she’s dead or moved on?”

  Auden has thought of this too. “Then you and I will be together still, only over there,” he says firmly. “We will have each other, just as we do here and now.”

  “Are you”—Saint’s lips twitch in a small smile against Auden’s mouth—“Are you saying going through a magic door is a lateral move for us?”

  Auden laughs a little. “Yes. I suppose I am.”

  “And if we do find her? Will things be as they were?”

  Auden kisses St. Sebastian again. “I doubt they will be the same, because we are not the same. But I have to believe she’s held on to us as we’ve held on to her. Perhaps even more than we have . . . she was the one who recognized what the three of us were, remember. The first one who spoke it aloud.”

  How foolish he’d been then, how young and prideful, obsessed with all the ways he felt he’d been hurt.

  Saint seems to be thinking along the same lines. “Nothing will be wasted ever again. Not this time.”

  “We won’t waste a moment,” agrees Auden. “Not a single moment.”

  Auden’s prayers have been partly answered, and while the roses return, they bloom only in the clearing, climbing up chapel walls and snaking around standing stones. Rebecca postulates that the double
sacrifice of Poe and Becket has dissipated a good store of whatever energy the door seems to bring with it when it appears. There had been no pollen record of the roses when the Kernstows were in charge, after all. Maybe something about the Kernstow style of sacrifice creates a positive feedback loop, making the door easier and easier to live with.

  Whatever the reason, Auden is grateful. No one sickens this time, not even the sheep. No one has to be peremptorily displaced from their homes for their own safety. He hopes the combined sacrifice of him and Saint walking through the door today will be enough to keep any illness at bay for a very long time.

  As for what happens after they walk through: while Auden insisted the door remain a secret until it returned because he couldn’t abide the possibility that its discovery by the wider world might compromise his chance to get back to Poe, Thornchapel is now officially and legally the property of Rebecca Quartey and Delphine Dansey to do with whatever they will. Auden can’t say what will happen then, but hopefully it will be the beginning of something new for Thornchapel, something new for its secrets. It has been in its own world long enough.

  The legalities have been arranged, jobs gracefully resigned. Saint spends a last few weeks in Texas, and then makes his farewells with Freddie.

  Auden asks David Markham, who—along with the other parents—was told the full truth of Poe’s disappearance after it happened, if he’d like to come through the door with him and Saint. Auden already knows that the answer will be no.

  And it is no. Not because he doesn’t desperately miss his daughter, but because he has a life on this side, a new life with Samson.

  Auden tells him he understands. And he offers to bring a letter to Poe when he crosses over, which is an offer David gratefully accepts.

  And then . . .

  And then they are ready.

  Samhain comes with a glittering frost.

  When dusk encroaches, the four of them walk through the eerie chill to the chapel. Unlike that night eighteen years ago, no clouds darken the sky. A sunset of red and orange is fading below the hills, and purplish shadows are creeping between the trees.

  They have no lanterns this time, no cakes and ale. There is no agenda, no schedule or order of events, nothing to propitiate the spirits of the place. The only thing Saint and Auden carry are small bags. Auden has David Markham’s letter to Poe tucked safely inside his, along with a letter from the Hesses, who also chose to stay here—although not without plenty of struggle and doubt.

  Rebecca, Delphine, Saint, and Auden process down the stone row and into the chapel, where darkness has already pooled in the corners and around the altar. Dry leaves rustle from all around the chapel walls.

  Through the door, Auden sees torchlight.

  “Make sure Hilda gets a walk every day,” Auden tells Delphine. She and Rebecca are adopting her, which Rebecca pretends to grumble about, even though she is the worst about sneaking Hilda bites from her plate during dinner. “She won’t want to do it, but she needs it.”

  “Of course,” Delphine says. They are very close to the door now. He pulls her into a tight hug, gives her a soft kiss on the lips.

  “Take care, Delly,” he whispers. “And take care of Rebecca for me. Force her on holiday now and then.”

  “I heard that,” Rebecca says sharply, stepping forward for her own hug. She and Auden also kiss, firm and quick. “You take care, please. I can’t help from over here if anything goes wrong.”

  “I know, Quartey.” Auden runs his knuckles along her jaw. “And I have something for you.” He reaches into the pocket of his coat and then presses something cool and heavy into her hand.

  She looks down. Gold glints in the crepuscular light. “The torc.”

  “You’re the king now, the wild god.”

  Emotion trembles in her mouth. “Auden . . . ”

  “I couldn’t be leaving Thornchapel in better hands,” he assures her.

  “Even though I’m the first owner in fifteen hundred years who’s not a Guest?”

  Auden grins. “Especially because you’re the first owner in fifteen hundred years who’s not a Guest.”

  She smiles, and then with a flash of her eyes, she fits the torc around her slender neck. Auden feels a final weight lift from his shoulders—though it means nothing to the outside world, and to the outside world, this was sealed weeks ago with signatures and deeds—in the argot of this place, Thornchapel is now really, really hers.

  And he is free to leave it.

  St. Sebastian makes his farewells with Delphine and Rebecca too, and then there is nothing left to wait for, nothing holding them back. They step closer to the door, which is framed with full, fragrant blooms, and adjust the bags on their shoulders.

  “Are you sure you don’t need to eat or drink anything, like Poe did?” Delphine asks.

  Auden shakes his head. “Poe drank that tea so she’d have a reason she could never come back. But we already have our reason.”

  “You do?”

  “She’s our reason,” Saint says. “It’s her.”

  Auden finds Saint’s hand, laces his fingers through Saint’s fingers, and then looks back to see Rebecca and Delphine on the other side of the altar, Delphine tucked under Rebecca’s arm. They are both crying, Rebecca only a little, swallowing and swallowing to keep her tears back, and Delphine quite a lot, her entire body shaking.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Auden asks a final time.

  He already knows the answer before Rebecca shakes her head, smiling under her tears. “Someone has to set this place to rights.” And then she shakes her head again, as if she realizes that’s not quite the answer she means. “I want to set this place to rights. And life here is . . . ” She looks down at her wife. “Life here is beautiful too,” she finishes softly.

  Auden nods. He didn’t expect anything different, but it does hurt, to say goodbye. It does feel wrong in the sense that goodbyes often feel wrong. Especially permanent ones.

  “I love you,” he tells them both.

  “We love you back,” Rebecca says, the words a little wavery. But then they firm up. “Now go. Delphine is getting cold.”

  He’s already turning back to the door when he hears Delphine gasp. He inhales too, when he sees. Poe is at the door, just on the other side.

  “Proserpina,” he whispers.

  “Auden,” she says. “St. Sebastian.”

  They can hear each other across the threshold, and see each other too. The veil is completely parted now.

  She isn’t wearing fairy clothes, nor some heavenly robe nor the garb of the ancients. She’s not in the clothes she crossed over in, the clingy jeans and the wool coat. She’s wearing a short, flared skirt with a shirt and cardigan, with thick tights and Oxford shoes. She’s wearing the kind of thing she loved to wear on this side of the door.

  She also hasn’t aged, not at all that Auden can tell. She still looks twenty-two, still dark-haired and soft-skinned and young, and for a moment, Auden is worried. Worried that she will see the gray flecking their temples or the lines around their eyes and mouths and dislike it.

  But instead her expressive eyes rake over them, and then flare with something Auden recognizes immediately, even after eighteen years.

  Lust.

  The rejoining arousal kicks him hard in the groin, and then there’s a surge of need beyond lust, a need of power and connection. The loose braid over her shoulder should be in his fist. Those creased lips should be pressed to the top of his foot. Those eyes should be looking at him from inside the circle of his arms.

  “We’ve come to join you,” Auden says. “Can we?”

  Tears shine in her eyes.

  “Yes,” she says, voice breaking. “It’s so wonderful here, and Becket and I have been so happy, but without the two of you, I—” She wipes the tears off her face and gives Auden and Saint a helpless kind of smile.

  “We know,” Saint murmurs. “We know exactly what you mean.”

  With a
subtle flex of his fingers, Auden asks Saint if he’s ready. Saint’s hand twitches in his own. And then, with a final smile tossed to Rebecca and Delphine, Auden leads St. Sebastian across the threshold and into the clearing on the other side.

  It doesn’t feel like anything, leaving their world behind. It doesn’t feel like death or transformation or anything other than stepping through a door.

  It’s still chilly. Moors still frown down at them, and the forest still sways. The air still smells like October—smoke and cold wet leaves—and the stars above them are the same.

  He looks over at Saint, who looks back at him, a rare smile pulling at his pretty mouth. They both turn to Poe, who is fully crying now and smiling too, and she flings herself into both their arms, smelling of sunshine and books, her warm, curvy body sandwiched between theirs.

  A great gust of wind comes rushing through, and the drums pound louder, louder. Auden lifts his face from Poe’s hair and looks over his shoulder to see a chapel much like the one he just left, only whole and complete, with light blazing from windows still paned in stained glass.

  “The door,” says Saint, looking too. They turn enough so that they can watch, although they stay in each other’s arms, Poe caught between them.

  The door is closing.

  They lift their hands to Rebecca and Delphine on the other side, and Rebecca and Delphine lift their hands too, and for a moment, it really does feel that there’s only a few mundane yards between them, that all the years have fallen away and they are young together in the chapel once more, ready to light a fire and kiss each other senseless.

  “Goodbye,” he whispers.

  The last thing he sees before the door shuts is the torc, glinting faintly around Rebecca’s neck. Then, with a dull thud as ordinary as anything, the door closes. The dead leaves in the trees rattle as the drums cease.

  And the door is gone.