Beyond the Door

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  “Come with us, Timothy,” Mrs. Clapper urged.

  High above the storm’s moan, Timothy caught the faint sound of a voice, singing. It was the same voice he’d heard before in his front yard and in Mrs. Clapper’s apple tree. Then he saw the girl. She was standing across the lawn, under the hawthorn tree. Her hair, caught by the moonlight and wind, swirled around her in a silver mist.

  This was his chance to talk to her.

  Keeping his distance from Mrs. Clapper and the wolf, Timothy crossed the lawn. Walking was harder than he thought. It was like stepping into a swiftly moving river. The wind was the current, and it took all of Timothy’s effort to move against it. Behind him, he heard Sarah calling, but he had to reach the girl before she disappeared again. Then Mrs. Clapper was at his side. How did she get there so fast?

  “Don’t mind my dog, Timothy. He won’t harm you.”

  Timothy shot a glance at the beast loping at her side. She could call it a dog, but it looked like a wolf to him. His heart revved.

  “Who is the girl under the tree?” Timothy shouted into the wind.

  “She is a star, one of the Pleiad sisters. Her name is Electra, but she is known by other names, too. She’s come to bear witness to the events of this Beltane.” Mrs. Clapper moved agilely through the storm.

  A star! So she really was a star girl? Timothy decided that described her perfectly: her cold remoteness, her silvery hair, the fine dust of her footsteps.

  Up ahead, Electra, the star girl, stood still, watching as they approached. She didn’t try to leave. Her face, Timothy thought, showed no emotion.

  “We mustn’t lose your sister, Timothy James.” Mrs. Clapper put a hand on his arm to slow him. But Timothy kept his distance; he had no intention of getting close to the beast. “Your sister has a role to play, too,” she said as she waited for Sarah to join them.

  “Is that a wolf?” Sarah’s face was pink with the cold wind, and her eyes shone.

  Mrs. Clapper only said, “He is Gwydon, and he is very wise.”

  Timothy hurried forward until he stood face-to-face with Star Girl under the hawthorn tree. He had no idea of what to say to a star. She was beautiful in a terribly cold way.

  When Sarah and Mrs. Clapper reached his side, the girl spoke:

  “Time out of time

  the horned man rides

  with the forest queen,

  the Greenman dies,

  the heavens bear witness,

  the great wolf flies,

  and Timothy James stands alone.”

  “Hey, that’s the poem in Jessica’s note! How do you know it?”

  But the girl didn’t answer.

  “Yes—Jessica,” Mrs. Clapper said. “She is part of our business tonight. It seems that she could use a friend or two right now. Perhaps we should head in that direction.”

  “What do you mean?” Nothing was making any sense to Timothy.

  “She isn’t at home,” Star Girl spoke again. “She’s out in the storm.”

  Jessica was out in the storm? She had said she was going to a party. And why did she need a friend? She had lots of friends.

  Mrs. Clapper and the others had already moved on. As the clouds hid the moon again, Timothy suddenly felt lost. He hurried to catch up. The landscape had changed. There were more trees in the distance than he recalled.

  When he reached Sarah, he grabbed her hand. If they were going to follow a star and a crazy old woman with a wolf into a storm, they’d do it together.

  Jessica had her plans worked out. The party started at nine but would go on for hours. Her parents were already in bed. She’d wait to make sure they were really asleep and then climb out the window and down the rowan tree. Tina and her older brother would meet her and he’d drive them all to the party. She’d be back home before her parents ever woke up.

  She had used the tree as an escape before. She was good at climbing, but tonight the weather was bad. She looked out her bedroom window. A tree branch had broken off and was now lodged on her windowsill. She opened the window and impatiently tossed it off. A cold wind blew in. She’d need both hands free for climbing. She looked at her new sandals. Silver with two-inch heels. She couldn’t climb in them. She held their straps with her teeth and looked regretfully at her purse. No way to carry that, too. Then she leaned out and circled the nearest limb with her arms, and threw one leg over the branch. Careful not to rip her new jeans, Jessica pulled herself up to standing. Then, using her bare feet and hands to balance, she picked her way down through the branches, her sandals swinging from her mouth. She swung from a low branch and dropped the last few feet to where Tina and her brother, Jimmy, waited at the base of the tree.

  “Ready for a little partying?” Jimmy asked.

  A thrill shot through Jessica from the top of her curly head to her bare toes.

  “Can’t wait!” She’d never been to a high school party before, and she hoped she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. Nervous and excited. Jimmy, with his short dark hair and teasing eyes, looked good in his tight black T-shirt. She leaned one hand on Tina’s shoulder and pulled on her sandals.

  She ran her fingers through her hair as she slid onto the bench seat of the pickup truck, next to Tina. Jimmy didn’t say much, but he hummed during the drive. Tina chattered with excitement. Jessica was glad she didn’t have to say anything. When Tina talked, nodding was enough. She didn’t exactly know whose house they were going to, but that didn’t really matter; what mattered was that she was attending her first real high school party.

  When they arrived, it was just as she imagined it would be. Music throbbed through every door and window. People were jammed into the front room, laughing and talking in a smoky haze. Jimmy disappeared almost immediately, leaving Tina and Jessica to look around.

  “So, who are all these people?” Jessica had expected to see more people she knew.

  “It’s not just people from Jimmy’s high school. There are people here from everywhere—that’s how you can tell it’s a good party,” Tina said. But she wasn’t really looking at Jessica. She was busy checking herself in the entryway mirror.

  A tall redheaded boy came by and handed them each a drink in a large plastic cup. “Welcome to my humble home.” He laughed and melted back into the crowd.

  Jessica took a careful sip and tried not to make a face. Maybe if she just held the cup, people would think she was drinking.

  She and Tina wandered through the rooms, clutching their drinks and looking for familiar faces. Tall bookcases lined one room where several couples were trying to dance. They had pushed back a couch and were crowded into one corner while a noisy group sat playing cards in the middle of the floor. As Jessica watched, a girl gestured widely, spilling her drink on an Oriental rug. The room smelled of incense and sweaty bodies, and something sweeter that she couldn’t identify. She found a table under a large family portrait to put her cup on. There was the same redheaded boy, posed with two younger sisters, who appeared to be twins, and his parents. His mother had hair as red as his. Jessica wondered where they all were now as the party filled their house. For a while, Jessica and Tina watched the card game, and then they continued to wander from room to room. The crowded house began to give Jessica a headache. Someone had handed her another drink, but other than that she was ignored.

  “Tina, this is really boring. Let’s go,” Jessica said.

  Tina looked at her curiously, as if she didn’t know her. “You’ve got to be kidding. This party is the best! See that guy over there? He’s been watching me since we got here.” She patted her hair. “Well, what do you think? I think he’s pretty hot!”

  Jessica looked across the haze of smoke at a blond, pimply faced boy with a snake tattooed on his forearm. He was weaving ever so slightly as he stood there, but he was definitely looking their way. Well, Tina could have him. Jessica tried to look unself-conscious and sloshed down the drink in her cup. This one tasted like soda, but it was mingled with another taste. It made her tongue
curl. Tina walked—no, slithered, Jessica thought—across the room to the snake boy. There seemed to be couples everywhere she looked: on the couches, in the hallways, on the stairs. There was nothing worse than being alone in a group of people who weren’t alone. Suddenly, the room felt oppressively stuffy. She fled back to the card game and sat watching until she could stand it no longer. Not a single person talked to her.

  Jessica found the kitchen. It was one of those dark-toned, high-tech kind of kitchens she saw in pages of magazines. At last, there was someone she knew. Jimmy sat on a granite counter, surrounded by a group of guys all trying to balance spoons on their noses. On his head he wore a wreath of leaves taken from a table centerpiece. Every time one of the boys got a spoon to stay, the group cheered and handed the boy another drink. The air was humid and sticky the way it gets before a storm. Jessica lifted her hair off her neck; she could see the beads of sweat on Jimmy’s upper lip. His black hair shone as he carefully placed the spoon on the end of his nose. It stuck. The group cheered and handed him a drink. Jessica began to giggle and couldn’t stop. Several of the boys turned to look at her and Jimmy scowled, his wreath askew. “The kindergartners are in the other room. Isn’t it past your bedtime?” he asked, straightening his leafy headpiece.

  The group laughed loudly and Jessica felt herself flush red. Suddenly, her new clothes seemed overdone. In the corner of the kitchen, one boy sat alone. His hood was pulled low over his head, keeping his face in shadow. He smiled at Jessica’s discomfort.

  Without turning, Jessica backed into a large boy in a stained T-shirt. Laughter erupted even louder as he made kissing noises at her retreating back. Her head began to spin and she looked frantically for Tina, the sound of the boys’ laughter still in her ears. But Tina seemed to have disappeared with snake boy, and Jessica found herself alone, her face hot and her head throbbing. She made a dash for the front door and fresh air.

  Outside, the wind howled and tore at the house. The smell of rain was in the air. The hooded boy followed her out and onto the porch. Jessica watched him nervously, but he didn’t stop. He walked down the steps and paused to look at the sky. As his hood slid back and the streetlight illuminated his face, Jessica noticed a strange tattoo. A single eye right in the middle of his forehead. The boy jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and sauntered into the storm. Jessica watched him as long as she could, past the parked cars, past the last streetlight, until he disappeared into the dark.

  She shivered through her thin blouse. It was after midnight, and she wanted to go home. She would walk; there was no way she would ask Jimmy for a ride—or for anything ever again! If she called her parents, they’d be angry. No, they’d be furious. They’d pick her up, but she’d be grounded for the rest of her life. She reached in her pocket for her cell phone. Nothing. She’d left it at home in her purse.

  The walk home would be long, but she could do it and get in before her parents discovered she was gone. She looked down at her jeans and high-heeled sandals; better to be off in the storm than stay here where she was unappreciated. With a vague idea of the way home, Jessica started out.

  It was time. The dogs were prancing with anticipation, and their master eagerly watched as the storm grew. As Herne blew into a silver horn, raising the cry of the hunt, his horse strained and pawed the ground. Herne urged it forward. Horse, rider, and dogs burst into the night with the wind at their backs. The white hounds yapped their delight. Together, they swooped through the sky, low over the hills and down into the valleys. People in the outlying farms who knew the old legends kept their livestock sheltered on Beltane. When they heard a noise like the cry of geese passing overhead, they knew the hunt was abroad. Only in towns where the old stories were forgotten did stray dogs or prowling cats feel the fur rise on their backs and run panicked, until they were caught up in the swirl of the wind. In the Maxwells’ kitchen, Prank cowered under the table, every sense alert. The wind screamed its fury. Herne shouted with delight, the wind in his antlers, and the world swept before his hounds.

  By using the key provided here, you can decipher the Ogham script that appears in this chapter. Zoom in or increase font size to see code more clearly.

  GREENMAN

  ALKING WAS IMPOSSIBLE in the noise of the storm, so Timothy trudged along silently beside Sarah. With each stride, the streets of his neighborhood became less and less familiar. Trees crowded close, obscuring the sidewalks, and he ducked his head to avoid being scraped by low branches. By now they should have reached the mountain bike trails that ran through the woods on the edge of town, but the trails had disappeared. They followed the faint glow from Star Girl through the shifting dark.

  Timothy was afraid to go farther but even more afraid to stop. What if the changes around him were real and not part of his imagination? Geese cried harshly overhead. Sarah barely seemed to notice. Her face held that grim look of determination she wore when practicing a difficult dance combination, with all her energy focused on the task ahead.

  Timothy stumbled and looked down. The sidewalk crumbled into a dirt path, uneven and rocky in places. It was like being caught in a really bad dream. But in dreams he was never so tired.

  At the edge of the clearing, the Greenman was fully awake, no longer living in a painful half-world; the transformation was complete. Movement was easier for him now. The stiffness of a few hours ago was gone. He leapt and swayed, moving with the assurance of wild things, perfectly at home in the forest. Spring had come! He could feel it through the storm, hear it calling to bulbs and seeds buried under the ground. The smell of it was in the blossoms—new life bursting forth. Trees mumbled at the wind, the fierce oak, thickets of alder. They were his brothers now, and he could understand their individual voices. But there was something else besides spring in the wind tonight. The small and scurrying things of the forest had all taken cover. No voles or rabbits, mice or skunks were abroad. They had burrowed deep into their dens or tunneled underground. Overhead, the clouds blew across the moon. The night became black. And the Greenman heard the first cries of hounds in the distance. Herne was riding. It wouldn’t be long before the boy and his sister arrived. The Greenman still carried the light from their house. It shone in his leaves and glowed from a hole in his bark.

  Several things happened at once, which caused Timothy to become even more disoriented. The single-lane track they had been following disappeared completely in underbrush. As he swiveled his head frantically in several directions, looking for a sign of something familiar, he noticed that the dog by Mrs. Clapper’s side had grown. Gwydon was now the size of a pony, and he turned his enormous head, fixing Timothy with gold-flecked eyes. Timothy felt all his old panic rising in his throat; he fought to hold back a scream. The wolf’s thick golden fur bristled, and his tail looped up over his back as he trotted at the woman’s side. Timothy darted a quick glance at Mrs. Clapper to see if she had noticed the wolf’s transformation. The Clapper herself had changed. She was taller, and her short gray hair had lengthened. Were his eyes playing tricks? It was difficult to see anything clearly in the darkness.

  Sarah had dropped his hand and was now several strides ahead of him. He shot another glance at Mrs. Clapper. Her hair was longer still, streaming over the shoulders of her cape! There was no mistaking it this time; the hair flowed almost to her waist. Timothy couldn’t look away. This couldn’t be real! There was no explanation for such things. Even worse, the bushes and undergrowth on the path didn’t scratch his arms or legs but parted as they walked deeper into the woods. His heart felt cold and coiled like a spring. Sarah was now far ahead of him. He tried to hurry to her side, but his legs were weighted with fear.

  As Sarah kept her eyes on Star Girl, she found it easier to move through the trees and scrub bushes. They were in a forest now, and as the trees grew denser, the bushes thinned. Wherever they were being led, it was to something important. She was sure of that. The storm, the dark, the star girl—all added to the sense of mystery. She looked back over her s
houlder at Timothy; he was far behind, but she didn’t worry. Mrs. Clapper was near him. How could an old woman like Mrs. Clapper move so easily through the storm?

  Sarah followed Star Girl to a clearing hidden by the branches of a very large tree. The tree’s trunk was gray and muscled like human flesh. Underneath the tree, the ground was bare and smooth, devoid of bushes and undergrowth, like a secret room protected by stout arms. Star Girl waited under the branches until Sarah caught up. Together they waited for Mrs. Clapper, Gwydon, and Timothy.

  When they reached the clearing under the tree, Timothy decided to do what he had been dreading. He turned and looked fully at Mrs. Clapper. He was staring at someone he did not know. She turned her face toward him. In the moonlight, he saw that the wrinkles and age spots were gone. In their place was a young, unlined face. Her glittering blue eyes appraised him coolly, fiercely. Timothy held his breath. She was taller and broader of shoulder than before, and the bow and arrows looked as if they belonged on the back of this new person. Mrs. Clapper’s dark cloak was the dim green of the deepest forest. A skirt, the color of a ripe plum, swirled when she moved, and instead of good, sensible walking shoes, Timothy glimpsed sandals on her feet. He let out a shaky breath and wondered if this was what it was like to lose one’s mind. He squirmed under the gaze of this stranger and her fierce dog. He cleared his voice to speak, but it caught in the back of his throat. And then she smiled.

  Her smile opened as slowly as the sunrise does on foggy mornings, and it dazzled him, chasing away all the confusion. At once, she was less forbidding. He noticed that Sarah was staring, too, her mouth open, in a cartoon O of surprise. Good, he thought, at least I’m not losing my mind alone.

  “Don’t you recognize me, Timothy?” Mrs. Clapper’s new voice was very clear, like an ice-cold stream. “Tonight I am—”