I examine Mom, not just eager to find bits of myself in her, but to know her face the way I know my own. The sun spots on her high cheeks and lines tracing her mouth, her eyes. Still smiling, she wipes a tear away. The insanity is drained from her eyes, and now they’re bright and blue and full of hope.
“You knew about Ada, didn’t you?” I ask her. “How?”
Her hand reaches out and squeezes mine for the tiniest second before she pulls back. She glances back at the guard, and I know it’s because she’s not supposed to touch anyone while we’re in here.
The motherly gesture nearly over-exhilarates me, and I open my mouth as if I can breathe better through it than just through my nose. She looks to Joel, apology dripping from her expression. I’m startled at the resemblance between them. The long face shape and their thin lips.
“I knew your father was up to something, but it wasn’t until I stumbled across Hunter in the basement that I really became suspicious. I was hauling some bags of your baby clothes down there. Ada appeared, warning me. And I threatened your father I’d divorce him if he didn’t tell me what was going on.”
“You did?” Joel asks with humor.
“Dad must have really loved you,” I add.
Mom nods, her lips a straight line. “Once I learned the truth, I wanted to divorce him. But divorce wasn’t as common back then as it is now. Ada showed me the journal and newspaper articles—she just pulled them out of the wall like a magic act.” Mom flares her hands as if doing a trick. “I knew what I had to do.”
“So you did kill him, then,” I say. Even though I know it’s true, my heart is at a lower spot than usual in my chest. There had to be something else she could have done than murder. Too late now.
Mom stares at her fingers on the table. I grip my clarinet tighter.
“I went to sneak Hunter Morgan out, but by the time I got down there again he was dangling from hooks in the basement. So while Garrett’s back was turned, I stabbed Hunter. If he couldn’t use Hunter’s living parts, his elixir wouldn’t work and it would end.
“I dragged Hunter up, and Ada did her thing and covered the blood. I was going to dispose of him that night, but Garrett attacked my mind. And then you found him a few days later, Piper.”
I fight away the images of my mother stabbing someone in cold blood, for whatever reason. I’m itching to ask the question that’s been on my mind since I was trapped in the walls. I tilt in and speak softly.
“How did you know, Mom? How did you know the trap door was immune or whatever?”
Mom’s brows crinkle. She looks to Joel first, who shrugs, then back to me. “It—it wasn’t immune. It was just a place to hide him.”
Joel seems to be just as confused as I am. His brows crease and create wrinkles on his forehead. He leans back in his chair and rests his arm on the back of it, evaluating me.
“But Ada cleans everything up—” I shake my head. “It was the only place with a bloodstain.”
Mom examines the table as if thinking it over. “Ada left things alone that were under the surface of the walls.”
“Like the cobwebs.”
“She only cleaned up what people could see, and she knew no one ever opened that trap door.”
“The bloodstain!” I say as if I’m struck with inspiration. Joel and Mom watch, clearly stunned at my exclamation, and wait for me to go on. A few of the other people in the large room glance over at us, and I lower my voice. Probably not a good thing to be talking openly about in a prison.
“It has to be. Garrett prepped his victims, right? Ada never cleaned up that guy’s blood in the trap door. It must have sealed that spot or something, right?” It’s the only explanation I can think of.
That must be how Todd was able to come through the Friend Space too. He said Sierra saw the murder. She saw Mom do it, then panic, blood on her hands, trying to dash out through the old servants’ entrance to wash it off because she didn’t want to get any on the doorknob. Ada must have not gotten it all from there either.
Ada must have given Sierra more than she meant to, too. That’s the only plausible answer Todd or I could come up with. I’m just glad she didn’t pass that memory on to me in the process. I’ve got enough in my head—I didn’t need that one.
I look up at Mom now, relieved again to find sanity in her blue eyes. The memory of her madness is bad enough, let alone seeing her here now. Yeah, Sierra can keep it, although who knows how many of my memories she got a glimpse of before we switched back. I wonder why I never got any of Sierra’s. Not that I’m complaining, because yuck, who wants those?
Mom analyzes me. Then she wraps one hand over the other, giving an answer to the question I forgot I’d posed.
“I guess we’ll never know for sure, will we?” she says.
Joel and I stand on Hemlock Avenue, staring up at the sad remains of the house we’ve known our whole lives. The axe mark hacks in the floating door, right where it should have landed. Part of the roof beside the tower on the left is caved in. The porch has collapsed, and patches of lath peek through the siding. And with the shattered windows, the place looks pathetic, especially in the gleaming sunlight.
A miserable sort of emptiness chisels through me, seeing it this way. Pity coils from my stomach and into my chest, now that I know its sad history. The people it’s seen, the lives it contained, the horrors it hid. I grew up in this house. And even though it was weird, it was my weird, alive house.
The screen door from the two-story brick house next door slams. Todd trots down his front steps, hands in his pockets. He’s got on a maroon shirt with rock, paper, and scissors each holding the other at gunpoint.
“Has it started yet?” he asks, giving me a grin that fizzles in my belly.
“Any minute now,” Joel says, a fresh bandage snug around his head.
He and I emptied the few belongings we wanted to keep. My clarinet. Joel’s papers. Clothes. I would have wanted the dollhouse too, but its damage was irreparable. Joel and I made arrangements to auction off the antiques in the house. The furniture, the beds, the china; even the rugs, despite the decaying state of the house, remained in pretty good condition.
It gave us enough money to find an apartment. A modern one—something built within the last fifty years. And Joel has agreed for me to get a job once I turn sixteen next month.
Minutes earlier, we brought a space heater and placed it strategically close to a piece of dry, sagging wallpaper that peeled away from the wall and hung toward the floor in the dining room.
“You knew what was going on, didn’t you?” I asked Joel as he plugged it into the wall and turned the knob to high.
He kept his sight on the crippled wainscoting. “Dad told me. But I didn’t want to do it.”
My father. The type of man who promoted murder. Who consigned his son to do the same. The thought gave me icy shudders regardless of the cold, desiccated house.
“Don’t blame you,” I said.
Joel’s head stayed bent toward his chest. “I’m sorry, Pipes. I should have told you. But I thought like Dad—the less you knew, the better. Dad told me some of it before he died. And then Ada appeared to me after his death. She got me to go downstairs to talk to Garrett.”
It didn’t surprise me in the least. I waited for him to go on, staying silent, enjoying this newfound camaraderie between us.
“After I heard what Garrett wanted me to do—what he had Dad do, I threatened to burn down the house.” Joel lifted his eyes to mine, striking me by the glossy sadness in them. “Garrett said he’d kill us, Pipes. Both of us. And that Ada wouldn’t allow the house to burn because she wanted to keep living. Dad couldn’t destroy the house either, but he wouldn’t subject somebody else to the life he was forced into since he was a kid. So he moved the whole thing.”
Hmm, maybe my dad wasn’t as deranged as I thought. Still, I wondered how
Garrett could follow up on a threat to kill us when he needed one of us to get his final victim for him. I wasn’t about to mention how the threat was probably an empty one.
Joel straightened, and I rubbed a hand along his back. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “Sorry you had to deal with all of that.”
Heat quickly filled the room, making it impossible for us to say anything else. The two of us did a sort of jump-and-roll across the decaying porch which had threatened to collapse on our way back in.
Excitement bubbled up my throat. I couldn’t believe we would be rid of it. I glanced back at the wilted vines crawling along the gazebo, to the once vibrant patch of roses that were now barren and skeletal. The sight brought up my last reservation. “Kick the house, Joel,” I said.
“Uhhh—”
“Just do it.”
I closed my eyes. The sun beat red under my lids, but I wanted to be sure. After a few ticks I peeled one eye open.
“Did you do it?”
“Yeah, I did.” His brow was creased.
“Do it again.”
I kept my eyes open that time. I had to see, to know for sure. Hands in his pockets, Joel strode over and whacked the fallen porch with his foot. The entire wooden entry swayed. And I didn’t feel a thing.
“Time to torch it,” Joel and I said in unison, and then laughed.
Together, we moseyed back out front to the street, where Todd now joins us. Todd slings his arm around me, and the three of us stand. And wait. Lives and memories—and not just my own—are about to go up in flames.
Joel’s forehead pinches in concern, and I know he’s wondering the same thing I am—if this is really going to work. Things inside are so decayed and dried. It shouldn’t take much. And with the space heater it should look like an accident. Todd wears his adorable grin, ready for the show.
I gaze up at the intricate, lacy eaves, the shutters hanging on by hinges, the edge of the roof peering back down at me. The house gives off no warnings, no groans of disapproval, but even if it did, I doubt I would care.
A brief hint of smoke tickles my nostrils, and orange light gleams through the dining room window. The sight lifts me inside, and I look to Joel, who beams back at me. Yes!
It isn’t long before heat hits my exposed skin. The three of us huddle and wait, watching the orange flames pierce the sky. Ravenous, they rise and devour the exterior, licking their tongues through windows and back into the center. And a short time later sirens wail and cry, and firemen stand guard with their hoses, ready to suppress the powerful inferno.
With a great, shuddering screech, the upper level collapses, giving in to the hotness. Smoke fills the air, swarming, and I gaze at its upward trail to the sky. The neighbors have stepped out and watch with us. I wonder what they’re thinking, how much they know. A few of the small children let out catcalls and shouts. And I want to join them, though mine chime off inside my chest.
It’s done. It’s over. And we’re free and safe.
I stand, linked at the elbows with Joel on one side and Todd on the other, and watch the giant bonfire devour my house. The neighbors only last a few minutes after the firemen begin squirting, and soon the sun is higher in the sky, the flames are doused, and it’s just Todd and me, sitting on the curb in front of a black pile of rubble.
“Party tonight?” Todd asks, nudging me with his leg. I nudge him back and lower my head to his shoulder.
I don’t stay long there, though. A supernatural breeze gushes across the air, pricking goose bumps down my skin. One look at the motionless branches tells me the breeze affects only us.
Todd’s warm eyes graze mine in wonder, and then a pair of ghostly blue apparitions appears before us. Ada and Thomas, hand-in-hand. They’re see-through like water. The car parked across the street, even the tree in the yard behind it holds a shimmery quality through them.
Ada gives me a maternal smile, and Thomas’ mouth offers a soft smirk. My pulse picks up speed, just to show it can. I stagger to my feet, and Todd joins me, his eyes expanded wide. I don’t question if the rest of the street can see them. I’m almost sure they can’t.
“How can we ever thank you?” Thomas asks. Todd’s mouth hangs open; his fingers grip so hard between mine they’re like crab claws.
“I’m so sorry, Piper,” Ada says. Her hair spills in waves to her shoulders. She looks lovelier than ever. “I had no idea I would be released—that it all would have ended—if the house were destroyed. I beg for your forgiveness.”
I hold up my hand. “Whoa, no begging,” I say. Feelings filter through my chest like they’re being filed in a cabinet, but among the pity and relief, and the sadness, I hold no anger or resentment. In fact, I wish I could hug her. “I know why you did it.”
To my surprise, she does hug me, and she’s substantial enough for the hug to work. She’s eerily stony, like embracing an ice sculpture.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “Sorry for your death.”
“That’s what Garrett didn’t understand,” she says, pulling back and sharing a steamy glance with Thomas. “Death isn’t the end. It’s only a doorway.”
Her words pour shivers over my entire body. Most people fear what they can’t see or don’t know, and sure, death is scary for those reasons. But Garrett was the worst kind of coward, unwilling to take that leap.
“And have you, like, seen him? Mr. Garrett?”
“No,” Ada says, tucking her chin to her chest.
“And he better hope it stays that way,” Thomas adds with vehemence. I meet the stern lines on his handsome face.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Todd jokes to him.
You can say that again. We all exchange smiles, and then Ada and Thomas vanish, leaving Todd and me alone on the sidewalk.
Some boys are better left unkissed. Some books shouldn’t be read. And some doors should remain closed.
The bookstore where I work harkens back to another time—one of flapper dresses and cloche hats, of walking canes and tailored suits, and of boys with impeccable manners and ice-blue eyes. Boys like my coworker, Nikolay.
But the store also holds secrets—a formidable door missing its knob, a mystery bound in magic books, and the haunted look in Nikolay’s eyes. And there are crows that follow me home. Crows only I can see.
I can’t tell whether the crows are a threat or a warning. But one thing is certain, I’m in too deep to walk away. There is something behind that door in the bookstore. And it’s the key to getting the crows to stop, before they turn into something far more sinister.
To Duane. For believing I could.
I had a dream, which was not at all a dream…
And others…look’d up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings.
— George Gordon, Lord Byron, Darkness
prologue
1917
Fall smells like change. Like the end of something.
Even inside the theater the promise of change lingers, trailing after Rosemary Cauthran with the falling leaves outside. Rosemary tiptoes through the theater; the candle in her hand casts shadows at the ceiling like ghosts escaping from the wax. A hot glob drips on her finger, but she grits her teeth to keep in the resulting cry of pain.
It’s been years since they’ve used candles at the Beringa—the electric light replaced them, and the staff spent months scrubbing smoke stains and repapering walls to cover the evidence and prepare for the new technology. Rosemary could turn on the switch now, but candles are quieter.
She reaches the end of the hall and descends the stairs to the si
lent dressing room. Candlelight surrounds her in a crowd of blackness. Shadows close in everywhere she turns, growing this way and that with the change in light. A tremor flickers through her, but she steadies her hand and takes her seat at the third mirror to the left.
The crowds left hours ago, after her last performance of The Steeple Hill Dancers. Bits of makeup, pieces of material, cards and flowers from admirers, all clutter the other girls’ vanity mirrors, but Rosemary’s mirror is tidy. The only item on her vanity is a small, delicate perfume bottle.
While the last traces have long since been sprayed, the bottle is anything but empty to Rosemary. It is a token, a promise. In fact, it’s the reason she’s here at all. He gave it to her.
She stares at her golden hair, cut sleek and short and waving in shingles just past her ears. She fingers the apple peel in her skirt pocket, shaved off and carefully stowed beneath the table during dinner, and closes her eyes, succumbing to the darkness for a moment.
“This will work,” she says, refusing to give in to the panic throttling her chest. Everett is hers. She refuses to believe they can’t be together. She would prove he was wrong—this would prove he was wrong.
Look in the mirror long enough, and you’ll see your husband’s face appear. That was the adage from the Halloween card that circulated earlier, the gossip and inanity being tossed around. The image depicted a girl standing before a full-length oval mirror, holding a candle while a man’s face appeared behind hers in the glass. It became a joke among the ladies, as they dared one another to make a go of it, to tempt superstition and see the faces of their future husbands.
But Rosemary felt something when she touched that card. Determination budded beneath her breastbone, rising in her like some kind of obsession, or possession, maybe. She hasn’t been able to think of anything else since. She knows whose face she’ll see, but she wasn’t about to do it in front of everyone else.
The Forbidden Doors Box Set Page 27