The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  Ada shakes her head. “He doesn’t bargain, he manipulates. He gives favors and then holds them over a person’s head so they have to continue giving in to his whims.”

  “What is he asking of you?”

  She swallows, the tears flowing endlessly the more she thinks of it.

  “Ada?”

  “He gave me money once, to help save my mother’s life. And he has held it over my head ever since.”

  “Money in exchange for…services?”

  Ada’s face blanches. “Good heavens, no! No, he came across me on the street one day while I was delivering laundry. The parcel slipped from my hands and was sullied in the sludge of the street. He took pity on me because he found me beautiful. He helped me that day. And he has made me live to regret the fact that I ever accepted it. I am eternally indebted to him, and soon I will have no other option but to accept his offer.”

  “He hasn’t asked you to marry him,” Thomas says in disbelief.

  Something in his tone strikes her very heartstrings, and it worsens when she catches the look on his face. The sheer disbelief in his brown eyes.

  “I would be a fool to refuse him,” Ada says. “It is true, he is a wealthy man of a good name, well-liked among the town. We would frequent the grandest parties and be accepted everywhere we went. Assuming his secret dabblings remained a secret.”

  “You cannot accept him.” Thomas’s fist clenches on the horse’s haunches.

  The pain in Thomas’s eyes is unbearable. “He as good as threatened me. If we remain here I will have no other choice. But if we leave, we will be penniless. We will be back on the streets.”

  Thomas turns hastily and swears under his breath. “I hoped we had more time. A few more days at least.”

  “Do you have a plan?”

  “I’ve been working on one,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “We will need to leave town, and the midnight train rides only on weekends. I have been saving some money, but I don’t have enough for two passages. It is why I will pay your way, Ada, I will pay for you to leave and I will follow after.”

  Ada begins shaking her head before he finishes. “I can’t take your money, Thomas. What will you do? He’s speaking of living forever. What if I leave, and he makes it somehow impossible for you to do so?”

  Thomas stares at her. “Living forever?”

  “That is what he promised me. He said there is a way, that the killings he’s been overseeing apply to that, to doors created by a man named Terekhov.”

  Thomas exhales. “This is so much worse than I thought.”

  “Thomas? What if we were to tell him of our…” She can’t believe how forward she is being, but Mr. Garrett has left her with no other choice.

  His gaze slowly turns back to hers. She expects him to smile in that way of his. Instead his voice is hoarse. “Our what, Miss Havens?”

  “Suppose you and I already had an understanding.”

  His eyes darken. “We have no understanding, Ada.”

  She steps closer, fighting the hurt his words bring on. The betrayal stings fresh and sharp, considering the past nights they’ve spent in one another’s company. “But I thought—”

  His fist clenches. “So did I. But I don’t want to be used. You would treat me as he is treating you? Using you for gain?”

  Her mouth drops. “I would never! Thomas, I don’t want an engagement with you for this only.”

  “If we are to be engaged,” he goes on, “it will not be because of Augustus Garrett. It will be because we love each other.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, confusion spilling over her and drying her tears. “It’s been some time that I have come to care for you, and I thought you cared for me. Excuse my forwardness, I should never have spoken like—” She pauses, her feelings purging from her without control or hindrance. “His words have driven me to desperation, and the very thought of him touching me in any way, with those hands—those bloody hands…”

  She shivers.

  “Ada.” He places a hand on her elbow, drawing her closer to him.

  “Thomas, the only one I want is you. To think of joining myself with him is revolting in the vilest way possible, and it’s only made worse because I cannot think of being with anyone else but you.”

  Thomas presses her against him. “Ada.”

  “I cannot help it. I have felt it almost since the moment we met, since you took me to my old home to gather my belongings. You were so kind to listen to me—I’ve never had anyone seep into me as you have done with one conversation.”

  He laughs, gripping her tightly to his chest.

  “Ada, I have cared for you since that same day. It’s a wonder Garrett hasn’t noticed before now. I worried sometimes, when the heat of just being in the same room with you was enough to knock me from my feet. You struck me Ada, a spear right through the heart, and you left yourself in there, so full that there is no room for anyone else to make an impression.”

  “Thomas.” He doesn’t let her say anything more before his lips are fire against hers, firm and desperate, as though this will be their final kiss. They must grasp this moment while they’re in it. They must savor it, latch on and never let it go.

  “We must be careful,” she says a few moments later. “We must not let him know how we feel about each other or I worry what he will do.”

  Ada carries an armful of splintered wood into the library. Two levels of books fill the walls, accessible by sliding ladders connected to railings a third of the way up from the floor. Another man is in the room, mustached and wearing a tweed vest, coat, and loose-flowing trousers different from her master’s tailored look. The man holds a leather bound volume in his hand and converses in low tones with Mr. Garrett.

  Ada lowers her head, doing her best to remain invisible. She would leave it for later, but the fire is dying. The room is turning chilly.

  The man in tweed rests a hand on what appears to be a newly installed door, closing off the space near the window. Like the one accessing the basement, the door is adorned with swirling designs carved into the wood.

  Garrett circles the door, chin in his fist. Ada swallows. He said something about the doors being the key to his new project, but she doesn’t understand how.

  What’s more, she doesn’t wish to understand.

  “You are the first,” the man in tweed says in an accent Ada can’t quite place, with heavy emphasis on the Rs.

  “But it will work?” Garrett clarifies, admiring the door.

  “Theoretically. With your potion, it will bind you to the timeline.”

  Garrett tucks a hand in his pocket, still admiring the scrolled door. “Ideally, Terekhov, I’d like a few people with me.”

  “That is your business,” says the man, Terekhov. The name pricks Ada like a misplaced stitch. “If that is the case, write their names into the book as well, though I do recommend acquiring their permission first.” Terekhov laughs as though making a joke.

  The thought sickens Ada’s stomach. This is the man Garrett mentioned. The one helping him live forever.

  Suddenly the walls close in around her. She drops the wood onto its pile near the hearth and scampers outside, nearly tripping on the rug near the door. The snow blinds her, glittering and lustrous in the sunlight. Bare trees line the street, beckoning her to go, to leave now, while she still can.

  The door opens behind her. Terekhov exits, shrugging into a fur-lined coat and bowler hat.

  “Good day, young lady,” says Mr. Terekhov in his thick accent.

  “Sir,” she begins, not knowing what she’ll say, but knowing she must do something. “My name is Ada Havens. Forgive me for being so forward, but I am who he was speaking of. I am who he would like to bind with him.”

  Terekhov pauses. Comprehension crosses his gaze. “I see. Yet you do not wish the same fate he wishes on yo
u.”

  She wrings her hands.

  “You must tell me what to do,” she says, pleading for something. Any kind of an answer.

  “I’m afraid my bargain is with your master, Miss Havens,” says Mr. Terekhov, securing the buttons on his coat. Pity swells in his eyes. “I cannot offer you any solutions.”

  She glances back at the house, the pleasant but formidable house. A sense of helplessness sinks straight into her gut. “Then you are dooming me to this fate.”

  “My hands are clean. I find my patrons tend to doom themselves. They cannot blame me when it’s not my place to dig them out of the pit they are in. My services are of a certain sort, and I’m not sure you’d be interested in what I can offer you.”

  She sniffs, raising her chin, uncertain exactly what he means by services. “No, I suppose not.”

  Mr. Garrett’s and Mr. Terekhov’s words haunt her all through the night. What did he mean, to live forever?

  A lifetime of lifetimes. She can hardly bear the one she’s living now—why would she possibly want to extend it? The idea of spending eternity with Augustus Garrett is a plague in her soul, tearing through her, making sleep impossible.

  What is she to do? They need money. They need some way.

  A thought wriggles its way in, unbidden. She cleans his personal chambers. She’s seen the notes of money lying on tables or left in pockets. Could she? Could she rob her master?

  She shakes at the thought and rolls over in a huff. If he were to catch her, she’s not sure what he would do.

  She will talk to Thomas about it tomorrow, she finally decides. Everything will be better tomorrow.

  nine

  Hands grasp Ada’s shoulders. Her lids flash open to find Mrs. Tidmouth in her night cap and dressing gown, hovering over her with a candle in the darkness.

  “Wake, will you?” the older woman hisses.

  “What is it?” Ada asks groggily, pushing up from the mattress.

  Mrs. Tidmouth exhales. “We are requested to gather in the library below.”

  “Now?” Ada blinks, wondering what the hour is. No light attempts to seep in from behind the curtains. It cannot yet be sunrise.

  “Now. Don’t bother changing. Put on your dressing gown and come down.”

  Ada does as she is asked, securing her braid over one shoulder as she slips into her dressing gown and follows Mrs. Tidmouth downstairs.

  The two women enter the library through its French-style double doors. Ada’s heart trips. Thomas stands near the fireplace, wearing trousers and shirtsleeves alongside another stable hand Ada recognizes but does not know. He has brown hair tied at the nape of his neck.

  Ada’s lips thin. Questions dance in Thomas’s eyes, and she longs to go to him, to see whether or not he discovered a way out. She certainly hadn’t.

  “What is this about?” Mrs. Tidmouth asks, joining the men near the fireplace. Ada can’t help noticing how black the bricks are, how large the pile of ashes to be shoveled and cleared.

  “I have a proposition for you.” Mr. Garrett’s voice travels from behind them. He enters, closing the double doors behind him. Unlike the others, he is still dressed in his suit, though it’s decidedly more wrinkled than usual, his collar flapping loose above his left shoulder. Again, she wonders what the hour is.

  “A proposition, sir?” Mrs. Tidmouth asks.

  Ada’s heart climbs into her throat. He can’t be announcing their engagement, can he? She never gave her consent.

  “I mean to bind my house. To this year, to 1865. And I mean to keep you with me, through every passing age. You will have one day a year to wander, to see what the future brings. Every other time you will be here with me, doing what we’ve been doing these past weeks.” He stops near one of the leather armchairs and bends across its back, facing them.

  Ada’s muscles tense. A lifetime of lifetimes. Trapped in 1865 for all the years to come.

  The color has drained from Mrs. Tidmouth’s face. “What if we wish to leave?” the older woman asks.

  “Leave?” Garrett’s eye twitches. He rises, and the mood of the room darkens in an instant. Fear seizes Ada’s chest. Her nails dig into her palms. “You work for me. You do as I say or you will not like the consequences.”

  Mrs. Tidmouth hesitates. Argument flickers in her eyes, until eventually she lowers her head and steps back. “Yes, sir.”

  “Any other complaints?” Garrett’s glower travels first toward Thomas, then to the other stable hand beside him, before slowly, agonizingly, settling on Ada.

  She flinches under that gaze. To make matters worse, Thomas’s intense eyes are penetrating enough to make her skin itch, but she does her best to keep from returning his attention. Capturing it now could burn a hole through her on the very spot.

  As if sensing it, Garrett’s eyes slide back to Thomas as well.

  “Everything must remain as it is now. Time will go on everywhere but here. We will last. We will endure.”

  “How, sir?” Thomas asks.

  Ada closes her eyes, dreading that he spoke at all. Do not question him! Do not draw attention to yourself.

  “I’m pleased you asked, Thomas.” Garrett reaches into his suit pocket and retrieves a small device, the likes of which Ada has never seen. It is palm-sized, with strange, scientific angles.

  “This is called a hitch. It will bind us to this year. We shall repeat our lives. We shall live on. Crenshaw is the only one who will not live on as we. He has made a different bargain.”

  He gestures to the other stable hand. Crenshaw straightens his shoulders and grips his lapel. “Yes, sir.”

  Ada doesn’t completely understand, but she dares not ask questions. She dares not draw any more attention than what he already pays her.

  Garrett turns his back to them and treads toward his desk. Ada gets that familiar urge to run, to flee. But where will she go that he cannot find her? And what of Thomas? A bead of sweat trails down her spine.

  “You must sign this book,” Garrett says, resting a finger on its open page atop his desk. “Just your name.”

  “And if we refuse?” says Thomas. His body is taut, his neck stiff. Fear mingles with the challenge in his eyes.

  Garrett’s lip curls. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Thomas’s gaze skims to Ada, brimming with warning. With regret. She shakes her head, begging him to cease speaking. They had their chance to leave. They missed it.

  One by one the four servants bend over Garrett’s desk. Ada chews her lip, watching Thomas’s thick scrawl mark the blank page. She steps up after him, mind searching but finding no other solution. Garrett didn’t say as much, but he didn’t need to. If they refuse, none of them leaves this room alive.

  Ada takes the quill from Thomas. Her tongue presses to the roof of her mouth to prevent her from being sick.

  Garrett glowers at her, folding his arms across his chest. “Do it,” he growls.

  Hands trembling, she dips the quill into his tiny ink bottle, spilling a drop on the parchment’s corner. Quivering like a storm, she scratches her name in as close to Thomas’s as she can manage. An invisible arm reaches from the page, coiling around her skin. Ada finishes her name and pulls back in astonishment, meeting Thomas’s somber gaze.

  Garrett’s brow furrows as he inspects each signature. With a smile of approval, he dips the quill to inscribe a final notation.

  The quill scratches against the paper. Simultaneously, the floorboards beneath her feet begin to rumble, shaking as surely as a quake. Vases judder, tipping off the edges of their mounts on the mantle, shattering into hundreds of pieces.

  Ada gasps, flinching at the impact. Mrs. Tidmouth screams and dashes to the door. Drums continue pounding beneath her, the floor trembling with such tumult Ada loses her balance and tumbles to the ground.

  Thomas reaches out to steady her, help
ing her to her feet as the quaking beneath them ceases. The room echoes with a silent pulsing. Mr. Garrett steadies himself on the back of a leather armchair and glances around. Did he not know what would happen?

  Without another word, Mr. Garrett gives a definitive nod, closes his book, and leaves the room. With a calculating look, Crenshaw follows after.

  Pain clamps in Ada’s chest. She stares, seeing nothing. What just happened? What have they just done? “We should have left,” she says breathlessly. “We should have just gone.”

  “We would never have made it.” Thomas keeps his arm around her. His hands are unusually cold. “It is done,” he says, staring around the room, the strange, silent room. “He’s bound us to this house.”

  Ada’s knees grow weak. “That won’t be enough for him. He will still try to convince me to be with him, Thomas. He could still hurt you.”

  Thomas’s brow knits. “I don’t know what else we could have done. With one signature we are trapped here, destined to relive 1865 over and over.”

  “A signature and all is done,” Ada says, unable to help her skepticism.

  “You think there is more to it?”

  She shakes her head and sweeps a hand against the sweat collecting at her forehead. “I don’t know. But I refuse to believe it is too late for us, Thomas. There is a way out of this. We will find a way.”

  His hands tighten around her. She is surprised to find she isn’t the only one trembling. That realization sends a jolt through her. She must be strong. For Thomas. For herself.

  “At least we are together,” Thomas says. “If we do our best to keep what we feel hidden, we will be all right.”