The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  Go to prison.

  He doesn’t even blink. “You know I will.”

  fifteen

  My mother.

  Today is the day I see her.

  I avoid Joel as much as possible. I don’t want to risk him asking what I’m up to. I even stayed up in my room instead of joining him for lunch.

  I take a slow tour through my parents’ room, sifting through drawers, lying on their bed and staring at the swirling designs in the wooden canopy above. Mom’s clothes still hang in the armoire, and I press my mind, trying to remember her in the pink sweater, the black and white striped dress, the button-up coral shirt with long sleeves. I run a hand down the fabric, dip into the lofty smell of oak now embedded in the material.

  I dig through my mind for more memories of her. Something to help brace me for what I’m about to do. For some reason, the only one I can conjure is the fight she and Joel had. And I don’t even know what it was about.

  “I’m not your little boy anymore, Mom. And I’m not stupid. I saw it—why won’t you believe me?”

  “Just because you think you saw something—”

  “Why are you covering for him?”

  I wonder what it had been about. What had Joel seen so long ago, and who was Mom covering for? Dad? It had to have happened back when we lived in Shady Heights. And it kills me that she never gave him a straight answer.

  “Just because I have answers doesn’t mean you need them on you.”

  Whether she wants to or not, I will be getting answers out of her today. I have to.

  By the time school ended yesterday, I’d talked myself out of going. Fortunately, Todd met me at my locker, and the sight of him sent my pulse into an unsteady rhythm and gave me courage all at the same time. He told me he had practice and that would have put us too late getting to Shady Heights. The prison probably would have been closed to visitors. So we decided to go this morning.

  Mom’s jewelry rests in its case by the dresser. I sieve through the glittering gems and necklaces, trying to imagine times when she would dress up enough to wear them. And I pass the wall of photographs. The same one that stole my attention in the parlor downstairs is also on their wall. The girl in it is Ada after all.

  I recognize those almond eyes and her rosebud mouth. My stomach lurches with nausea at the thought of her being forced to go with that Garrett guy. I slam my eyes shut at the influx of images and take several shallow breaths before my phone buzzes.

  Be there in 10, Todd texts.

  Here we go.

  I slip into my shoes and snatch my purse before plodding downstairs. I make it to the bottom step, and Joel strides through the front door, surprising me. I didn’t know he’d gone anywhere. It’s rare to see him in jeans and a T-shirt, but the casual look suits him.

  Only he’s not alone. Of all the people who could follow in behind him, it’s Jordan Warren.

  “What’s he doing here?” I say before I can stop myself.

  Joel scowls at me and closes the door behind Jordan.

  “Cool it,” Joel says. “He’s just here to pick up something for his dad.”

  Jordan, wearing a white shirt and jeans and a cocky sneer, struts behind my brother. My feet seem to be connected to a Lazy Susan, and I spin slowly, not stopping until Joel turns the squeaky knob of the library’s French doors. I can’t fathom what Jordan’s dad can possibly need from our library.

  My toe catches the edge of the rug. Shivers creep up my back and into my hair.

  The door is open.

  I’ve been upstairs all morning, and Joel was gone. Neither of us could have opened it—I can’t think who did. The first few wooden steps within are visible across the room, making it all too easy to picture the rest of them climbing up only to be blocked off without leading anywhere.

  Joel hasn’t noticed, and I’m too speechless for the moment to say anything. Plus, I don’t want to draw attention to it. The last time one of Jordan’s group was in my house, word leaked about my mom and they created a horrible profile about me. Who knows what a mess he’ll make this time.

  I fold my arms, digging my nails in. Stay calm. It’s all I can do to not dash over and shut the door. Joel bends at Dad’s desk and digs through drawers. After a few moments, he stops.

  “It’s not in here,” he says. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask, wondering if he’s trying to find a deposition or something.

  “I bet it’s with the stack in my room.” His steps thunder up the stairs, serving me to Jordan on a platter. Of course Joel doesn’t know about our mutual hatred. Why would he?

  “I’ve never been inside your house before,” Jordan says, brushing a hand along the back of a leather armchair.

  I force my lids shut. The last time I talked to him was when he handed me that beer, right after asking about the floating door outside. He’d been somewhat nice then. Might as well not sully his good record. Besides, I just want him out of here.

  He gives Dad’s globe a whirl. “Doesn’t it creep you out that you’re living in the house where your mother murdered someone? That you eat above the trap door where they found his body?”

  “Can you just not talk?” Come on, Todd. Hasn’t it been ten minutes?

  Jordan’s mouth fidgets, like he knows he’s bugging me. “Is it true? Do you really have a staircase leading to nowhere?”

  “Who told you that?”

  In spite of myself, my eyes drift to the open door in the crevice beneath a sort of bridge on the second level of the library. I give Joel a mental urge to hurry up.

  Jordan’s stupid face breaks into a grin. “Is that it?” He points and heads toward the open door.

  “Uhh, that’s probably not—”

  I dart over to block his way, but Jordan is too fast. Prickles skim the base of my neck, but I stand behind him and peer over his shoulder.

  It’s all dark wood—the walls, the ascending steps, even the ceiling amputating the top stair. And the stairway’s narrow ascension gives me the feeling of going someplace without the hope of ever returning.

  I want to ask how Sierra is. To ask something that will distract him. Instead, the words pour from my lips, and I voice the fear I’ve felt my entire life.

  “What if it really leads somewhere?”

  “Have you ever gone up it? Wait, who am I kidding? You won’t even leave the porch when we party.”

  He mounts the first step, and with the clump of his heel, the faded golden haze shifts on like someone changing a slide in an old projector. Jordan’s hand rests on the wall, but in the aged flashback, the stairs are unfinished, not yet reaching the top.

  Mr. Garrett, with his graying brown hair and a hammer in one hand, kneels on the fifth or so step up. Blood stains his white shirt, and the sleeves are rolled to his biceps. The room spins. I glance at Jordan, wondering if he can see this.

  Moans sail on the air, and I support myself on the door. The darkness beyond clears enough for me to realize someone is in there. On the other side of those unfinished steps.

  Thrashing noises join the moans, and Mr. Garrett holds up a flickering lantern, illuminating the space behind the steps he’s building. A girl’s face comes into view.

  I gasp. “Ada!”

  Jordan glances behind his shoulder at me. “You say something?”

  Ada bites against the gag tied across her mouth, and my jaw quivers. “Wait, Jordan. Don’t.”

  “What, scared?” My eyes stray from Jordan in the present, to the ghostly, flickering images of the unfinished stairs. He’s there in the middle of it, nearly to where Garrett kneels! He’s got to see it.

  “Yes, I am, actually.”

  Ada crouches in the corner, her wrists tied, tears staining her pallid cheeks. For a small second I wonder if she was the ghost I saw in the library the other night.<
br />
  “Maybe you should come with me so you’re not alone down there,” Jordan says. My brain hurts. I can hardly grasp his climbing while watching Mr. Garrett in the past, lifting another board and hammering it in place.

  “I’m serious. Come back. Please.” The door supports me now. Sweat pools in my palms, and my knees shake. Garrett sneers and I jolt at the smash of his hammer against a new set of nails. “Holy crap,” I say with realization. “She was boarded up alive!”

  “What? Who?”

  My dad must have known. No wonder he forbade Joel and me from opening this door.

  Jordan keeps his attention on me, but I hardly care about him because Mr. Garrett speaks.

  “You sealed your fate, Miss Havens.”

  Ada whimpers through the gag in her mouth. Her eyes cry out to him.

  “Don’t,” I say. “Stop it!”

  Garrett stops for a swig from an old glass bottle. Steam rises from the opening, and then he chucks it, shattering the glass on his half-finished stairs. I jump at the impact.

  “Even in death you shan’t be rid of me,” he growls at Ada.

  In a rush the vision disappears, and I gasp for air and sink to the floor, letting my senses readjust. Jordan stares at me like I’m loony. He shakes his head and turns to climb.

  “Are there really thirteen stairs?” he asks.

  “Jordan, stop!”

  “One…two…”

  Voices pound in my skull and blood pops along my veins. I sense every step he takes, like the soles of his shoes sink into me instead of the wood.

  I dash up the stairs and pull him down so hard he trips. The two of us roll and hit each stair edge like bumbling barrels.

  Jordan’s arm smashes my cheek, and he pushes himself up. “Damn, Piper, you are a freak.”

  I grovel on the floor, desperate to get to my feet. “Don’t leave me alone here.”

  Jordan whirls back, his forehead stern. “This is your house, Piper. Why do you live someplace you’re terrified of?”

  “I’m not afraid of all of it,” I say, bustling out before the door can shut on me of its own accord. “Just parts of it.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Joel says, coming back in just as I slam the door. “You know not to open that!”

  I stare at my brother, barely seeing him. My thoughts are a jumbled muddle, and my breathing can hardly keep up. He boarded her in. Alive.

  Joel slams the file of papers at Jordan’s chest. “Get out of here, Warren.”

  Jordan raises an eyebrow, and his glance jumps from Joel to me, and back again. “Geez, your whole family is screwed up,” he mutters on his way out.

  “That door was open when you guys first walked in here,” I hurry to tell Joel before he can jump down my throat. Ew, I wonder if her bones are still hidden under those stairs.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Joel paces between the leather chairs. “You should have shut it.”

  “Yeah, in front of Jordan Warren? The kid already gives me enough flak at school.”

  “There’s more to life than school, Piper,” Joel says, tapping a hand to his forehead.

  “What do you know about that? All you care about is your stupid job!”

  “The only reason we make it by is because of my stupid job! I have to work so we can have money for food. For clothes. Don’t you dare start in on—”

  “Why didn’t we move, Joel?” I ask, cutting him off. I want answers to my questions. “When it first happened. Why?”

  “Family house,” Joel says, starting to pace again. “People who aren’t family just don’t understand.”

  “I’m family,” I say, “and I don’t understand. Why didn’t we leave it in Shady Heights? Why didn’t we just sell it? Or better yet, why don’t we sell it now?”

  The house gives a torrent of creaks like huge chunks of metal being bent, and both Joel and I look up. The color leaves his face. A few seconds of eerie silence beat by before he mumbles, “Because Dad would roll over in his grave. He said he had a responsibility to the previous owners.”

  “What responsibility?” And what previous owners? I thought our family had been in this house for like, ever.

  “And Mom needs to know she still has somewhere she can call home.”

  Is he insane? “She committed murder, Joel! She’s never coming home!”

  “You think you have it bad?” Joel yells. “I was in high school, Piper. People stopped talking to me. They spray painted my locker and put superglue in my jockey shorts. At least we moved so people don’t even associate it with you anymore.”

  Duly chastised, I let his words sink in. “Everyone at school does now,” I say eventually.

  “I guess we couldn’t hide forever.”

  “You don’t even care, do you?” I shudder, remembering the feel of Jordan’s boots sinking into me with every step he took up those stairs. Maybe I should tell Joel about seeing Ada. He probably wouldn’t believe me either, though. “You don’t care that I’m going through all this crap right now.”

  “I’ve got my own problems to deal with,” he says, marching off. I catch him before he leaves the room.

  “Joel, I opened the door yesterday.”

  He pauses. Thumbs the doorframe’s edge.

  “And I think I released something from it.”

  Joel’s complete silence is unnerving. Especially because the news doesn’t seem to faze him. He doesn’t give the slightest reaction.

  A loud honk comes from outside, slicing right through the tension between us. Joel stalks to the front window and draws back the curtains. Todd’s red pickup idles at the curb.

  “I’m sorry,” Joel says with a sigh. “I’m just so swamped with this case at work. I never thought you were struggling. You have no idea how hard it was for me. I had to go to school for six months before Dad found a company who could move the house. Six months, Pipey. Six months of ridicule, of pranks and near deaths. Did you know someone tried to run me over?”

  I have no words. He was my age when Mom had…well, when this had happened. My age. Fifteen. Here I was thinking he and I were so different. Maybe he understands me better than I thought.

  “I’m going with Todd for a while,” I tell Joel, the fire in my chest dousing. “I’ll see you later.”

  For some reason I feel emptier than ever inside. Especially when he leaves the room. Joel’s apology doesn’t take away from the fact that my house is alive, I’ve apparently switched skin with The Girl I Hate Most in the Whole World, and now I’m seeing visions of dead people. Not to mention my dead father’s voice coming from the TV.

  Joel has got to know more than he’s letting on, but I’m running out of time before something else unexpected happens. I have to know what’s going on. And since no one else can tell me, I have to visit her.

  sixteen

  “Shady Heights, here we come,” Todd says when I climb into his truck. The Cure plays, relaxing me somewhat. Everything about Todd is relaxing. His love for eighties music, his long, lanky legs and fingers, his crooked smile and rock star eyes.

  “This was a great idea, Pipes. Once we visit your mom, there’s this sweet pawn shop I want to check out.”

  I soak into the conversation, more than eager to forget what I just saw. To forget Jordan and his dumb nosiness. Why do you live someplace you’re terrified of? I need to redirect my thoughts.

  “Looking for more Pez?” I ask, scooting to the middle seat so I can rest my head on his shoulder. My veins jitter and race. I try to erase it, but the open terror in Ada’s face troubles my mind.

  “You can never have too many Pez.”

  “You can when they take up shoebox after shoebox in your closet,” I argue. Without thinking, I wrap my hand around Todd’s arm. After what I just saw, I need the closeness.

  Todd pauses, and The Cure sings on
about being in love on Fridays. Slowly, deliberately, Todd moves the arm I’m clinging to so it rests on my leg. My heart beats harder than ever, but for different reasons this time. Is Todd hitting on me?

  “You know Joel would crap a brick if he knew about this.”

  If he knew about what, your hand on my leg?

  My stomach won’t stop fluttering. The sound of Todd’s voice sends shocks through me, and comprehension hits. My comfort-seeking gestures have transformed into something else entirely. And I like it.

  The Cure saves us from saying anything for a while. Todd’s arm sits on my leg, his hand cupping my knee, while my palms on his skin grow clammier. Feelings stir in my chest, a skittish disbelief in this accident-turned-awesomeness. I wonder if Todd likes me, or if this is all still a friendship thing for him.

  Visiting my murderous mother in prison isn’t exactly a prime dating opportunity. Especially since I’ve never been on an actual date.

  Two hours pass in a blur of skin, touch, and meaningless conversation. My nerves snap when Todd slows and pulls off on the Shady Heights exit.

  A gazillion thoughts crack through my brain so it’s impossible to focus. I haven’t been back here since it happened. I don’t recognize any of the scenery out the windows, except for the old Garber’s grocery store, and the only reason I remember it is Joel used to make fun of me because I could never say Garber’s correctly.

  Todd’s gaze is directed out the windshield, but he slides me a look that corks my insides and shakes them up until I fizz like I’m ready to burst. I squeeze his arm, which still rests along the length of my thigh.

  “I’ve sworn them off, you know,” he says matter-of-factly. His attention returns to the road, and his voice is so low I blink a few times to make sure I heard him.

  “What?”

  “Jordan and the others. After that profile. I can’t believe they did that. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  So he did see it after all. I didn’t delete it in time. “I didn’t think it would make a difference. You really liked them.”