The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  “Are you?” I ask.

  Nikolay visibly swallows before peeling himself away and rising from our nest on what I now see is an old couch. The pipes and underworkings of the building are exposed above our heads. A string of large bulbs weaves along the low ceiling, zigzagging one way then another, providing dismal light to the space.

  A rug covers the bare cement, while a series of old bookshelves stands along the far wall. A long table is pushed against the other, laden with boxes, along with scissors, sticks of wax and a few other tools I don’t have names for. A half-assembled book, sheaths of paper being sewn with thick string and what looks like beige ribbon, almost the same color as the paper. There’s also some kind of press, a frame of boards held together with large wooden knobs, a hammer nearby, and the smell of glue.

  “Is this where you make your books?”

  Nikolay grunts in the affirmative. He crosses to a series of bookshelves with arches over the top of each set, the wood carved and elegant like everything else here. Bricks show through above the tops of the spines, as though the shelf were attached directly to the building itself.

  I take a few minutes to breathe and allow rationality to override desire, especially at the sight of him in his jeans, rolled-up cuffs on his buttoned shirt, and suspenders.

  “These are the selection,” he says, one hand tucked into his left suspender. He gestures to the two shelves, to the various spines. Some are splitting at the top, their colors faded, the print barely visible on several.

  “They look so old.”

  “They are,” he says.

  “These are the books you studied from?” I rise from the couch for a better look. One book declares, Thaumaturgy, another The Marvel of Energy. Others have titles in languages and strange characters I couldn’t begin to comprehend. “Nikolay, can you do these things?”

  He doesn’t answer. With effort, he removes a crate from one of the larger, bottom shelves. Tiny particles of dust sift to the floor.

  “These are the smert zhizn for the doors. I have never looked at these without my father’s permission.”

  “You’re not a child,” I remind him.

  His eyes flick to mine. “That I’m not.”

  With a trembling hand, he lifts the first volume in the open crate. Its cover is worn along the edges. The pages are thick but brittle, the ink long ago scratched in.

  “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to a round symbol, darker in color than the other writing.

  He turns the book for a better view. In the page’s center, the symbol appears to be some kind of stamp the size of an apple. Two waving lines intersect between tiny crosses and are enclosed by a blotched circle, as though the stamp wasn’t able to lie completely flat.

  “I’ve seen that before,” I say, though I can’t remember where.

  He pulls open another book. Inside its first pages is another symbol, similarly stamped in with dark ink. The patterns on it are unique. This time, a beehive.

  “Do you still have the knob from upstairs?” I ask. “The one you got from the ruins of Piper’s house?”

  Nikolay unearths it from his pocket and hands it to me.

  “Oh my gosh, look.” The pattern from the first book doesn’t completely match the face of the knob, but they’re similar enough. I slide it from Nikolay’s grasp and scan the scattered writing beside some kind of cypher on the opposite page.

  “Rosemary Cauthran?” I read aloud. “She was killed in a vaudeville theater in 1917 in Boston. The Beringa. Look, it’s right here.” I point to where the details are written.

  “I’ve heard her name before,” he says, taking the book from me. “It says this is Harold Meiser’s book.”

  He pronounces it like I should know who that is. “You don’t know your father’s customers?” I ask.

  “My father handles the business dealings. I only make the books.”

  “You’ve been making books for one hundred years?”

  Nikolay closes the volume and angles his head. “Everly. I am only twenty.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  His left eyebrow tics. “I’m not.”

  I rifle back through recent events and conversations. I assumed he was somehow preserved like that time traveling serial killer back in Piper’s house. Especially when he told me his birthdate.

  “How?”

  His shoulder tugs upward. “You saw how we travel.”

  “You mean—you’re really from back in the 1920s? Like, you moved here from…then?”

  He grins. “In 1921, my father received a commission and an alert about a few…disturbances in your time. We did what was necessary and came to investigate. Our store has only been open in 2017 for a matter of weeks.”

  My knees buckle, and I can’t manage to stay upright. Nikolay helps me back to the couch. “You’re telling me,” I say, gripping his forearms, “that I just kissed someone from the 1920s?”

  I’m not sure what makes this so different from him telling me earlier. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s essentially jumped several decades, from the 20s to now. He’s from 1920.

  Nikolay laughs, kneeling before me. “And you may kiss him again, if you play your cards right.” He noses in, tucking his hand to the base of my neck.

  I hold him back. “Are you saying we could go forward from here? See the…future? And wait. Are you—is there another version, an older version, of yourself living somewhere right now?”

  Nikolay smirks and pecks a quick kiss on my lips before crossing to a drawer, removing a small silver object. He offers what looks like an old geometry compass, the kind where we had to stick little pencils in and draw circles with. Certain parts of the tool are different though; it has a handle like a gun and is small enough to be held in one hand.

  “This grounds me,” Nikolay says. “It makes sure the only life I’m living is the one right now. It’s called a hitch. This is why you needed to hold onto me while in the door.”

  “Whoa,” I say, overwhelmed. “Can I…?”

  “Please,” he says, sitting beside me. I take the small tool, no heavier than a pencil, and weigh it in my hands. “What does this have to do with the books? With the ostium nexu, and the one you just found—Rosemary’s book? Do you use this hitch to get the doorknobs to…do whatever they do?”

  “That is a little more complicated,” Nikolay says. “The doorknob has to be from both the time the owner wishes to remain in, and from today, the farthest point in time reached so far, or in other words, 2017.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “Meaning, it can’t be made today and tied to an old door. It has to be from that time and pass through time itself, to be lasting the way we need it to for a spell. My father casts them, as he did with the hitch. I take them back to our time—or farther, in some cases—and then I return to the present day to find the knob again.”

  “Okay…” Complicated was right.

  “I find the knobs, cobwebbed, but preserved. It is much like cheese or wine that needs to age to obtain the desired flavor. An object that has withstood time for that long can be manipulated with the right power. I suppose it is why antiques hold such an interest with people.”

  “That’s for sure,” I say. “There’s a different feel about them. Maybe it’s because they’re so much older than the person holding them.”

  “Just so. My father uses his ability to tap into that storage of years and divert it to another use.”

  “Amazing,” I say. I’ve always loved antiques, but I had no idea they could hold such power. “Could you do it with something else? Something besides a doorknob?”

  Nikolay shrugs. “I suppose so. But only doorknobs can open the access we created. As for the hitch—” He gestures to the tool in my hand.

  “This is so complex,” I say. “Why would the knobs be stamped into the books? And what a
bout that name—Rosemary Cauthran?”

  Nikolay opens each book and splays them on the floor so we can examine the symbols side by side. One name says John Talbot. Another has Chinese writing I can’t read, and the name Bohai Chang.

  “I don’t know,” Nikolay says. “Perhaps they worked with the proprietors.”

  A few other books remain in the crate. “Are all five of them like that?” I ask.

  Nikolay files through the two remaining books in the crate before removing the one standing upright near the crate’s edge. A puzzle furrow creases his brow.

  The book’s leather binding is comparable to the one he gave me. The edges are solid and unfrayed. The leather is dark and almost polished.

  “What? What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “I made this,” he says, opening the binding. The stiff front cracks, reminding me again of the one he gave me not long ago. Its inner lining is marbled and swirled, a mixture of gray and green.

  “Didn’t you make them all?”

  He shakes his head. “I only work with those for ordinary customers.”

  “Then why is this one down here?”

  He turns the page, not answering. A low Russian phrase slips from his mouth, sounding like some kind of curse. He holds the book out to me.

  A new symbol is stamped in. “What does this look like to you?”

  The circular stamp is filled with a new design, rippling lines like waves and squared off by tiny flowers. But it’s not dark ink seeped into the parchment. It’s fresher. Redder.

  “If I didn’t know any better,” I say as ice tangles up my spine, “I’d say that was blood.”

  “This was done very recently. This is a new book, Everly.”

  He holds it toward me again. Sure enough, it’s different from the others. A fresher binding, no signs of age on the leather, the pages a blank crisp.

  “What does that mean?”

  “A new book means a new door.”

  “You said the damage was the reason you came back,” I say eagerly. “That means your dad is already fixing it!”

  Relief is so near, crushing along the shore of my hopes like a wave. Andrei told me he would do what he could. I haven’t heard anything else from my phone; there have been no further communications, not beyond the crows attacking us inside the pathway itself. What if it’s not blood? It could be anything—it could be red ink.

  Nikolay looks anything but pleased by this. “It doesn’t make sense. If my father is making a new door, why wouldn’t he tell me?”

  Footsteps resound, clattering directly above us. Nikolay’s hesitation shifts into something like fear from the way his eyes widen. He rises to his feet. “He’s back.”

  I place a hand on his arm. “Let’s go!”

  “No.”

  His hesitancy cements me in place. With careful haste, he places each book back into the crate. First this newer version and then those he laid out on the floor, and returns the crate to its shelf. Lost in thought, he and I tread back up to the store’s main level. I forget the hitch is still in my hand until we’re already up, so I stuff it into my pocket.

  He pauses at the spiral staircase to the balcony before sucking in his lower lip.

  “Everly, do you trust me?”

  Confusion returns. Something is bothering him about the new book, though I don’t know what. “I told you I do.”

  Nikolay’s brow remains knitted. He kisses me, hard and fast. “Then wait here. I will speak with him. I have a few questions for him.”

  I capture his hands. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No. It is better I do it in a private conversation. He may not like that I’ve shared with you as much as I have, and I should…” He strokes my cheek. “I need to prepare him first, before he knows.”

  “Okay…” I say, my earlier relief flattening.

  “Please. Please wait for me.”

  I want to insist, to demand to come. That image’s fresh, red ink and its location in a brand new book has really thrown Nikolay. His father is keeping something from him. I want answers as much as he does. But I meant it when I said I trusted him.

  “I’ll wait.”

  eighteen

  I climb the spiral stairs and pace the floor. The store is quiet and dark, and loud voices resound from down the hall. Sherlock greets me as I tiptoe from one end of the balcony to the other. Nikolay and Andrei’s conversation grows louder, their muffled voices leaking out from around the door, ranting in angry Russian.

  Nikolay argues back, and I pass as quietly as I can. I consider intervening, craving to know what they’re saying. Andrei is making a new door—that will set things back into place. The crows will go back; the spirits hosting them will return to their places in the door in Piper’s house. This could solve everything.

  Sherlock rubs against my legs, nearly tripping me.

  “Oof.” I crouch down to pet the cat, uncertainty building inside of me. “Do you know what’s going on here?”

  Sherlock noses the air, leaning into my hand and rubbing his head into my touch. He releases a low mew. His ears twitch, and his attention moves to the balcony.

  His purr shifts to a deep growl. Bewildered, I follow his gaze. Darkness claws from below the balcony’s edge, shrouding a silent store below.

  “What is it?” I ask the cat.

  Sherlock’s back arches. He spits out a hiss, baring his fangs as a bird flutters up from below. It lands, clinging to the iron railing with long, orange talons.

  My heart lodges in my throat.

  I straighten, my stomach turning rock hard. No movement preceded it. No traces of a door opening or wings flapping. One moment it’s just there, perched and watching me as though it knows exactly what’s going down and doesn’t want it to happen.

  Sherlock’s fur stands on end. He backs away, giving the crow another hiss.

  “I won’t let you get to me,” I tell it, backing toward the cat. “You leave me alone, you hear me?”

  It cocks its head to one side. I peer in the direction of the Terekhovs’ angry voices, weighing my options. The bird squawks and blinks its black eyes.

  “Who are you?” I ask it. Maybe it can give me something for Andrei to write in the book.

  Its wings ruffle, and then it launches at me. I whip around, breaking for the hall. The crow beats me there, flapping before me. I shield my face with my forearms, turning one direction, then another, but it’s a menace in my face, wings flapping, beak snapping.

  I run, not knowing where I’m heading. Panic blurs my vision, splotching it with streaks. I collide with a corner, and then the discord dissipates long enough for me to realize I’m no longer being chased.

  I pant and back myself against the wall, not giving the bird the chance to strike. But it doesn’t attack. It clacks its talon on the floor, wings disheveled, and produces a single squawk.

  “Now you back off?” I ask the crow. Nikolay’s time-traveling door mans its post imperiously at the end of the shelf. I consider calling Nikolay, but this time it’s different. It’s not coming after me, not stabbing me in the back as it’s done in my dreams.

  The crow takes a few more steps, cocking its head as though inclining toward the door.

  “I’m not going in there,” I tell it. “Not without Nikolay.”

  The crow caws, agitated.

  “It’s broken,” I tell the crow.

  It blinks.

  I take another step away, but something tells me this crow isn’t about to let me try it. It’s not like I can climb the shelves. I finger the knob, still in my pocket from our discovery downstairs, and think again of the fresh, red ink in that book.

  The sight really bothered Nikolay. But why?

  The door drones, reaching out to me with the same magnetism it did when I first found it. The crow takes a few more steps forward. Sh
ivers sweep down my spine.

  “You attacked me the last time I was in there,” I tell it. “Why should I go back?”

  The crow squawks in response, unsettling its wings again.

  The desire to investigate washes over the worry I know I should have. This crow isn’t trying to hurt me. It’s almost like it’s directing me.

  Andrei told me to find out what it wants. Maybe this is the way to do that.

  “If I do this, will you leave me alone?”

  The crow raises its head. Then lowers it.

  With a backward glance, I step toward the door, curiosity urging me forward. I insert the beautifully etched knob, ash still creasing within its more detailed designs. A glow begins to line the door’s edges, and an iciness spirals through my bones at the contact.

  Nikolay asked me to wait for him to finish speaking to his father. But he didn’t specify where. I’ll just be out and in. I’ll see what’s the crow wants, and come right back.

  I hesitate only a moment, pushing aside fears and hoping Nikolay will see the knob and follow me in, before I bite my tongue and turn.

  The golden haze from before splashes so brightly over my sight I can barely see. I step as if through pitch darkness, not seeing where my foot lands, and close the door behind me.

  My mind races, uncertain of what the crow meant by all of this. Flapping wings jerk my attention to the right, and I see the crow in the blinding light, flying not behind, but with me, affirming the feeling I had earlier. I can’t explain it, but the crow led me here.

  Worry filters through like smog in my chest. Nikolay warned me last time I could end up in the Middle Ages with the plague.

  The crow flaps steadily beside me. I’m on the path now, but where—or when—am I supposed to go? I look to the crow expectantly.

  It squawks, a three-syllable caw that sounds like…Beringa. The theater where that woman was killed—the one in the book. I close my eyes and think hard, as Nikolay showed me before.

  The Beringa Theater. 1917. Boston.

  The air ripples like an unsettled stream. Scenery contorts and changes in a blur before settling onto a final image.