by N. D. Wilson
“Are you sure it was yellow in here?” Henrietta asked.
“Yes. But I think it might be in a different time zone. That’s why it’s dark now.”
Henrietta sat up. “I’m going to come watch with you tonight. I hope Anastasia and Penelope sleep hard. Have you tried all the ones near the floor? I want to see those. Let’s pull the bed back.”
Henry got off the bed, and the two of them pulled it as far away from the wall as they could, which was only about a foot and a half. Henrietta pulled a rubber band out of her pocket and began twisting her hair back into a ponytail. “I like that one by the floor,” she said. “The black one.” The door was about nine inches square and extremely dark. The dust from the plaster stood out against it like chalk on a blackboard.
“Are you sure? You don’t think it looks sad?”
“No. It looks magic.”
“But it’s black.”
Henrietta smiled. “That’s why it looks magic. It’s more ebony, anyway. That’s a nicer black.”
Henry looked at the black cupboard more closely. For some reason, he had avoided looking at it before. Of course, it had been late and he had been tired when he first chipped the plaster off it, but he hadn’t really liked it then, moving on quickly and not looking back. He didn’t know why.
“Did you try it?” Henrietta asked.
Now that she’d asked, Henry knew he hadn’t.
“I don’t remember,” he said.
Henrietta looked at him. “Well, try it now.”
Henry didn’t want to. In the center of the door was a very small metal knob. He reached down and felt it. It was cold. He tried to turn it.
“It won’t turn,” he said, and stood back up.
“Is it supposed to?” Henrietta asked. She squeezed past Henry, draped herself over the bed, gripped the small knob, and pulled. The door came off in her hand. A gold chain attached to the back rattled out behind the door.
Henrietta looked surprised. “I got it open,” she said.
Henry desperately wanted to leave the room. “I don’t think it’s a good door at all,” he whispered. A lump was forming in his gut. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Henrietta wasn’t listening. With her other hand, she pulled on the chain.
“It’s attached inside the cupboard,” she said. “The whole thing just comes off and sticks back on. Oh, look at this.” She slid farther off the bed and reached into the dark opening.
Henry threw up on the floor beside the cupboards. Then he passed out.
When he came to, he felt much better. Henrietta was sitting on the bed looking down at him.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You threw up on the floor. I dropped an old towel over it. You can clean it up later.”
“I don’t like that cupboard,” Henry said. He was between his bed and the cupboard wall. He didn’t try to sit up. “It made me sick. Did I pass out?”
“Yeah. You were still breathing, so I wasn’t worried. Anastasia used to hold her breath until she passed out all the time.”
“Did you close the cupboard?”
“Yes. I don’t think it was the cupboard, though. I still like it. Look what was inside.” She held up a key. It was much bigger than the last one, and older, too, a skeleton key. “I think it might be the key to Grandfather’s bedroom. Dad has other keys like it, and they look like this. I waited for you to wake up to try it.”
Henry propped himself up. A ratty green towel sat in a lump at his feet. “But why would Grandfather’s key be in there?” he asked. “The doors were plastered way too long ago. You’d remember if it had only been two years.”
“Could be more than one key. Plus, they’re magic cupboards. If you can see a mailman’s face in your wall, then I don’t think a key is that big a deal.”
“I don’t think a key will work. I think something is keeping it shut.”
“Well, let’s try.” Henrietta stood up. Henry stood up after her, wondering if he would be sick again. He looked back at the towel.
“It’s just a little puke and the towel kind of hides the smell,” Henrietta said. “Come on.”
The two of them pushed the bed out of the way, then walked down the attic stairs and around the landing. They stepped over the hole in the floor and the tangled and shredded carpet and stood before the old and now-defaced door.
“You do it,” Henrietta said, and held out the key.
“You found it,” Henry said.
“Yeah, but I want you to do it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think you should.”
Henry took the key and found the hole in the wood, which had once been protected by a brass cover plate. He stuck the key in and twisted. It caught on something, and then clicked. He stepped back.
“There’s not a knob,” he said.
“Push it.”
Henry reached out and touched the mulched surface of the door. He pushed. The door swung wide open without a sound.
“Oh my goodness,” Henrietta said. The two of them peered in.
The large bed was made. A clock on the nightstand ticked beside an open book, face down to save someone’s place. Behind that was a clear glass vase, with fresh flowers. One of the windows was open, and the curtain ghosted in the breeze.
“Are they fake?” Henrietta asked.
“What?”
She pointed. “The flowers. In the vase by the bed.”
“Doesn’t look like it. There’s water in the vase.” Henry stepped forward.
“Don’t go in, Henry,” Henrietta said.
“Why?”
“There shouldn’t be flowers. Grandfather died two years ago, and the door’s been locked the whole time. There shouldn’t be flowers. And look, the window’s open. The window isn’t supposed to be open. It’s always shut from the outside.”
Henry looked around the room. “The flowers have some brown spots.”
“But they’re not dry. And where’s the dust?” Henrietta leaned into the doorway, nervously pulling at her ponytail. “Grandfather?” she asked. “Are you there?” She stepped back on the landing.
“I think we should go in,” Henry said.
Henrietta didn’t answer. Henry stepped across the threshold. He looked around.
“Anything?” Henrietta asked.
“He’s not here,” Henry said. “Just lots of books.”
“Look behind the door,” Henrietta said. She was biting a nail.
Henry did and found a purple robe hanging on a peg. He stood very still, staring at it.
“What?” Henrietta asked. “What’s back there?”
“I’ve seen…,” Henry began, but a wall went up in his mind. The robe was just purple. And dirty, and long. Irritated, Henry reached out and clenched the fabric in a fist. He threw himself against the block in his mind.
Henrietta stepped into the room and looked at him. Her face was worried.
“Henry?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
Henry let go of the robe. He licked his lips. “Was Grandfather short?” he asked. “I had a dream—maybe—where someone was wearing this purple thing. A short old man. Coming out of the bathroom.”
Henrietta stared at him. “Grandfather was tall. Really tall. You saw someone in the bathroom?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said. “Maybe not. But I’ve got a picture of him in my head. I don’t know why.”
Henrietta walked to the bed, looked out the window, crossed her arms, and shivered. “This is weirding me out, Henry.”
Henry picked up the book on the nightstand and turned it over. “It’s a journal.”
Henrietta looked at him. “Grandfather’s journal?”
“It’s full. It looks like he was just reading it.”
“I don’t think he was. Dad says he was reading him a book about an old war when he died. Somebody else must be reading it.”
“Who?” Henry asked.
She looked right at Henry, her eyes wide. “W
ho’d you see in the bathroom? I don’t know.” She shivered again and rubbed her arms.
Henry looked back at the purple robe on the door and then down at the journal. He began reading.
“Henrietta,” he said. “This is about the cupboards.”
“What?” She looked over his shoulder. The page on the right was covered with a drawing. The ink was blotchy, but there was no doubt what it was. It was Henry’s cupboard wall. There was an outline for every cupboard door, and in the middle of all but one was a number. The page on the left had two columns of numbers, 1 to 98.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Why are there only ninety-eight?” she said. “I thought we counted ninety-nine.”
Henry cocked his head and scrunched his lips. “I think the door with the compass locks doesn’t have a number.”
Henrietta leaned closer. “What does it say by the numbers? Does it tell you how to get through?”
“I don’t think so,” Henry said.
“But what does it say?”
“About which one? There’s ninety-eight of them.”
“How about the mailbox?”
Henry looked around the diagram and found a little rectangle about where he thought the mailbox was. It had the number 77 written on it. He looked over to the other page and found 77. Beside the number were three words with slashes between them.
“‘Post/Byzanthamum/When?’” Henry read.
“I don’t know what that means,” Henrietta said. “Do you?”
“‘Post’ means mail. Byzanthamum is a place. It was in one of the letters.” He looked up at her. “I left the letters on my bed.”
“I’ll get them,” Henrietta said. Henry could hear her running up the attic stairs while he looked over Grandfather’s diagram.
She was breathing loudly when she stepped back into the room with the letters in her hand. “The crazy handwritten letter is addressed to the master of the seventy-seventh box,” she said. “Read what it says for the black cupboard.”
Instead, Henry looked at the one above the mailbox, the door that had rained on his bed. Its number was 56. Beside the 56 on the other page were the words “Commonwealth/Badon Hill/Same.” Henry put out his hand, and Henrietta gave him the two letters. The top of the typed one said it had been delivered by the “Island Hill of Badon Chapter.” He shivered. Someone must have dropped the letter onto his bed from the other side while he was sleeping.
“What’s the black cupboard?” Henrietta asked. Henry found it on the bottom row. Or he thought he did. He couldn’t be quite sure how many in from the end it was. Then he looked back at the list of numbers and found number 8.
“‘Endor,’” he said. “That’s all it says, and it doesn’t sound nice at all.”
“It doesn’t have to sound nice,” Henrietta said. “Just exciting. What do you think it means?”
“I think it’s a place. Badon Hill is a place. It’s where the worms came from and the rain and the second letter. Endor’s a place. They’re all places on the other side of the cupboards.”
“Do you think we can get through?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We’re too big.”
Henrietta thought about this for a moment. “There has to be a way we can shrink.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about the other cupboard?” Henrietta asked. “What did it say again?”
“It says ‘Post/Byzanthamum/When?’.”
“The ‘Byzanthamum’ part sounds like a flower,” she said. “It would be nice if it was a flower place.”
“It’s a post office.”
“But what about outside the post office? If you went to the post office, you could go outside, and then where would you be?”
Henry had not thought of this. His mind had grasped, as far as it could grasp such a thing, that the cupboards in his room led to different places. But he had thought of those places like anyone else would think of a secret room in a house. He had only gotten as far as thinking of Badon Hill as a place with trees and Byzanthamum as a yellow post office. It had not even crossed his mind that these places could in turn lead to other places, which might lead to other places and to other places, as many places as there were stars or people or breaths in the wind.
“Do you think these might be whole different worlds?” he asked.
Henrietta didn’t blink at the question. “I thought about that,” she said. “Some of them might be, but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“They just seem very here.”
“Oh,” Henry said.
Henrietta was reading over his shoulder. “Look,” she said, and pointed. “This one says ‘Arizona.’ I’ve been to Arizona, and it’s not in a different world.”
Henry looked. She was right. “Arizona” was written beside the number 17.
“Which one is it?” Henry asked, and they both scanned the diagram for the number 17. They found it four up from the bottom on the left side. Then they read through the list for any other names they recognized. The rest of the words meant very little to them. “Aksum” reminded Henry of something, but he didn’t know what.
When they’d read through the list, Henry closed the journal and sat on his grandfather’s bed.
“What’s wrong?” Henrietta asked. She sat beside him and took the book out of his hands. She turned it to the first page.
Henry sighed. “I don’t think we should be doing this.”
“You sound like Penelope,” Henrietta said.
“Listen to me,” Henry said. “Somebody, probably Grandfather, hid these cupboards. I don’t think they’re very nice. Especially not the black one. We should either tell your dad everything and let him figure out the cupboards or just leave the key to the room somewhere where he can find it.”
“You’re scared,” Henrietta said. She wasn’t looking at him.
“So? We’ve gotten two letters so far, and neither of them was very nice.”
“Whimpering Child?” said Henrietta. “Don’t worry. It’s not that bad. It’s normal for little kids to be scared.”
Henry glared at her. “I’m older and bigger than you are.”
Henrietta laughed and put her chin in the air. “I’m not scared.”
“Oh, come on!” Henry snorted. “You were scared to come in this room.”
“That’s different,” she said. “And I still didn’t chicken out. I came in, and I even think somebody’s been living in here.” Henry didn’t say anything, so she kept going. “I’m sure you can be as brave as a girl who is younger and smaller than you are if you try. Let’s just find out a little more about the cupboards, and then we’ll decide whether or not to tell Dad. Okay?” She grinned at him.
“Fine,” Henry said. He couldn’t have said anything else.
Henrietta looked down at the bed and around the room. “But let’s not stay in here,” she said. “Let’s go up to your room.”
Henry grabbed the letters, and the two of them stood up and walked to the door. Henrietta was carrying the journal.
Henry took the key out of the door and put it in his pocket. He pulled the edge of the door, let it swing as close to the jamb as it would go, then stuck his finger in the hole where the knob would have been and shut the door the rest of the way.
“Lock it, so it doesn’t swing open,” Henrietta said. Henry pushed on the door. It didn’t move.
“It’s already locked,” he said, and the two of them, trying not to glance back, ran up the stairs to Henry’s room and flopped onto his still-damp bed.
For a long time, they matched numbers and names to the cupboards on Henry’s wall. When they started to lose track, Henrietta wrote the name and number of each cupboard on little pieces of paper that she cut out from one of her old school notebooks. Then she taped them to the doors, always careful to avoid stepping in Henry’s little accident. When they were about halfway done, she bounced back onto Henry’s bed and announced that she was tired of
taping.
“I can tape for a bit,” Henry said.
“No,” Henrietta said. “That’s not what I meant. I meant I want to be done looking at the cupboards now. I want to go through one.”
“Well, we can’t.”
“I’m sure there’s a way. Why else would Grandfather keep all of them?”
“He plastered them shut.”
Henrietta wasn’t listening. “I wish we could see through the dark one. You could reach through, though.”
“Yeah.” Henry was flipping through the pages of the journal. Most of it looked disappointing—just a bunch of stuff neither of them understood about wood grains and wind, and lots and lots of drawings and descriptions of the house. Beyond the two pages dedicated to the cupboards, they had found nothing helpful.
“I’m gonna reach through,” she said, and sat up.
Henry tried to ignore her. He knew she would go straight to the black door, so he just kept turning pages and staring blankly at the old handwriting. She surprised him by going to the Badon Hill door first. She didn’t ask for help with the stiff latch, and eventually it slid beneath her weight. The door opened, and even though he wasn’t looking, Henry smelled the pleasant change in the room. Henrietta did, too.
“I wish my bedroom could smell like that,” she said, and breathed deeply with her face in the door. Then she poked her hand through and began feeling around.
Henry knew that she was feeling the same things he had—soft, almost-damp earth and moss.
She held quite still for a moment before she pulled her hand back. She smiled at Henry. “I could feel the sun,” she said, and turned back to the cupboard. “I think I know how we could see through.”
“How?” Henry said. He was looking now.
“It’s not dark on the other side,” Henrietta said. “For some reason, the light just doesn’t come through. I think we need a periscope.”
Henry laughed. “A periscope?” he asked. “Where are we going to get one?”
“I have one in the barn. Mom and Dad gave it to me for my last birthday. Dad made it. I’ll be right back.”