The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  “I forgot to check my schedule before I left yesterday, so we have to make a quick stop first.”

  “Do you think they’d hire me?” I ask as Layla unbuckles. Not that I know a thing about kickboxing. Then again, I wouldn’t have to teach the way Layla does. Maybe there’s an opening at the desk.

  “You could come in and see,” Layla suggests.

  “No way. If I come in with you it will look like I’m expecting it just because you work there already.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  When I don’t answer she laughs.

  “I’ll check on any openings while I’m in there. Be right back.”

  She exits, scurrying to the door in her pink sweater, vest, and jeans. She wears no coat despite the snow varnishing the ground and the soft fluffy flakes drifting lazily down.

  The Prius idles silently. The quiet is strange, especially compared to my beater or Dad’s noisy Buick. I ram the thought away, ignoring the brewing, inner sickness at the thought of my parents. It’s been weeks. I’ve got to get over this.

  I use my sleeve to wipe some dust off the dash and scan several of the surrounding buildings. Chiropractic Care, Brushtip Lighting and Heating, Gowns Galore. This isn’t looking promising. Still, I have to work somewhere.

  Cold seeps in the longer I wait. Clearly, whatever Layla needs to take care of is taking longer than a sec. Sitting here makes me antsy.

  I wait a few minutes more. Several cars pass, but there’s no motion anywhere in CrossYo! With a sigh, I glance down the opposite side of the street.

  Then I see it.

  The building is just like all the others—old, worn and decrepit. But its architectural differences are subtle. The decorative eaves curve that much more, the windows have an aged blur to the glass, the paint is flaking along the doorframe, and even the handle stands apart from the more modern rectangular ones on the all-glass doors like the one to CrossYo!

  A wide, black sign, flush with the store’s brick, announces the words Terekhov and Son Books.

  Anticipation builds in my chest. An inexplicable pull emanates from the building, the way a familiar face appears in a room full of strangers, though I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen the place before. I kill the ignition and pocket Layla’s keys. Mesmerized, I give into the pull and scale the few steps to the shop. A cold wind flurries, but I hug my arms around my chest, approach the window, and peer in.

  Shelves stand guard along the walls and fill the floor in a haphazard here-and-there kind of way as if at their best angle for the lighting. And each shelf is filled to the brim with books.

  That same powerful draw tingles along my arms and down to my fingertips, enticing me to enter. I glance back at Layla’s Prius. No sign of her. My hand finds the old-fashioned knob with its click-down handle, and I press it open.

  The ceiling stretches upward, and in this one step I’ve gone back a hundred years, back in a pocket of time where books were revered and a bookstore was a secret that told something different to each person who entered.

  Books collect in their various communities along the dark, mahogany shelves. A hushed reverence settles over me like the calm of a first snowfall. There’s something about books that muffles sound—something instilled in all of us as children by that one librarian who demanded books be shown the respect they deserve. It’s not just the books, though—everything about the place, the dark, somber wood, the scrolled railing with its curled iron along the balcony above, and even the sun sneaking in through snowy windowpanes insists on quiet.

  The store is empty, not a single person in sight. I wait near the gilded, antique register on a mahogany, square desk central to the surrounding shelves, but despite the bell that tinkled when I entered, no one comes.

  “Hello?” I call, scanning the upper level of the store where more shelves slumber. A spiral staircase in the shadowed back corner leads upward, and I make my way toward it.

  A feeling builds between the shelves; they’re my own personal book ends, inviting me to take my time, promising they’ll hold me together and upright as long as I’m here. I notice the heights of various spines, the titles of a few familiars, but the books are mostly strangers to me, beckoning, promising discovery and a different life within their pages.

  Without realizing it, my fingers stroke the books on the lower shelves as I pass. They seem to reach back, telling me it’s okay. I stare up the circular metal planks that rise to the upper balcony, at the various sections of books, at the sculpted woodwork along the ceiling and above the shelves, and suddenly I never want to leave.

  “I have got to work here,” I whisper as I make my way up the wrought iron, spiral staircase. Its narrow black steps coil, matching the swirling designs molded along its banister. I can picture it, checking ISBN numbers, stocking shelves, sneaking in a page or two here and there as I go.

  A cozy sitting area greets me at the top of the landing. It’s perfect for a customer meeting a book for the first time and needing more of an introduction before making a purchase.

  The shelves break to make room for an office door and an opening labeled, Employees Only, but there’s still no movement. I glance out across the rest of the store, getting an aerial view of the shelves and the opulent marble floor.

  Something moves in the corner of my eye, and I jerk, knocking into a display of pencils and school supplies. An extremely fluffy, white cat with a small face and ice blue eyes prowls on the balcony, rubbing itself on the banister toward the stairs. I give off a small laugh, resting a hand over my pounding heart.

  “Hello,” I tell it. “Are you the only one who works here?”

  The cat slinks its way past one of the leather chairs, paws padding softly on the ground. I crouch down and scratch it behind the ears. It rubs feverishly against my hand, and I pick it up. Arms full of purring fluff, I peer around once more.

  “Where’s your boss?” I ask the cat. The shelves branch farther down the balcony, and, furball in hand, I head in their direction, when the cat leaps from my arms.

  Tail up like a plume, the cat trots to the left, past the chairs and the balcony’s iron-fenced ledge. Curious, I follow.

  “Looking for someone?” I ask, wondering where the cat is heading and why the owners bothered opening the store if no one is around to man it. A person could nab a few volumes and book it out of here—no pun intended—and no one would be the wiser.

  There’s a break at the end of a section of romance novels with steamy covers portraying half-dressed men and women gazing longingly at one another. Thinking it’s another hallway—just how deep is this place, anyway?—I head toward it only to be stopped short.

  It’s no hallway. It’s a door, thick and adorned with designs carved into the black wood. A lighter color curls and exposes each design’s chiseled edge.

  “Whoa.” I examine the meticulous detail of the circles etched into the wood. They’re large, as big as dinner plates, connecting at the edges like Venn diagrams. And halfway down, a blonde circle of wood corks the hole where a doorknob should be.

  The air tingles, swarming around me and drawing me closer. My fingertips prickle, and I lift my hand, unable to help myself. “A door with no knob?” I say under my breath.

  A hum rises from the wood the nearer I get. A line of cool sweat trickles down my spine, and the rest of the store blurs at the outer rims of my mind.

  The wood heats beneath my touch, like metal left under the sun, luring me to press my full palm to it. My lids flutter. I sink closer to it, inhaling its oaken smell…

  The bell tinkles below. My lids fly open, and I retreat, stumbling into the shelf behind me and knocking over a few books.

  “Hello?” Layla calls out from below.

  I shake off the trembling in my fingers and tear my gaze away from the intricate door.

  “Layla!” I call, rushing to the spiral staircase to find
my cousin, cheeks red and fire in her eyes.

  It’s harder than it should be to walk away from that door, but I do my best to shrug off the mesmerizing effect it had over me and hurry back down. “Can you believe this place—?”

  “Where the heck were you? You can’t just take off with my keys. I’m in there asking about work for you, and you take my keys and lock me out!” She stomps snow off her shoes and gives me a withering glare.

  I hurry down the stairs toward her, past the shelves, past the antique register with its pop-out keys. Her lips thinned, she opens the door and gestures for me to go first out into the thickening snowfall.

  “Sorry,” I say, tucking my hands into coat pockets. “I just wanted to grab an application, and I guess I got distracted in there. I figured you’d be pissed if I left your keys in the car, so I took them with me.” I offer them to her.

  “You’re right, I’d be pissed.” She grabs her keys. “Now come on. Forever 21 is on the other end of town.”

  The locks click open, and I slide in, setting my messenger bag at my feet. She turns the ignition and heat blasts in my face, leaving an instant cloud on the windshield. I peer down to get a view of Terekhov and Son Books out the window.

  My pulse won’t slow. I can’t get over the feeling that enveloped me near that door. It was hypnotic, and part of me wishes I could go back. That I could try to open it.

  “I talked to the girls. They think you might be able to work in the daycare at CrossYo! if you’re okay watching people’s kids.”

  I barely hear her, I’m still so preoccupied with what happened near that door. A silhouette moves near Terekhov and Son’s front glass window. I squint, trying to capture a glimpse of whoever it is. Sure, they weren’t around today. Who’s to say they won’t be there the next time I stop by?

  I give her what I hope is a grateful smile. “I’m glad you checked for me. But actually—” My attention pins to the bookstore as she backs the car from the curb. A hand flips the sign in the window from Open to Closed. “I think I’m done looking.”

  two

  Monday dawns, bright and chilled. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that bookstore, but despite multiple phone calls, I haven’t managed to get ahold of anyone there either.

  Besides, I’m forced to think of something else this morning. After two weeks of putting it off, I’ve finally been transferred to Vale High.

  The cool morning air seeps in, and I step onto the landing connecting our apartment with number thirteen next door. I close out the cold just as the door to thirteen opens and a girl steps out.

  She pauses, giving me a small smile. She’s about my height, with long strawberry-blonde hair, and very pretty despite the small smattering of pimples covering her forehead and cheeks.

  “Hi,” she says.

  “Hey. I’m Everly. What’s—?” Before I finish my question, a red truck pulls up and putters at the base of our stairs. Its exhaust steams even more in the cold, and bad rock music blares through the truck’s metal frame. The boy with curly brown hair driving it honks a couple times.

  “My ride,” she says to me with an apologetic grimace. “I’m coming!” she yells, trundling down the stairs.

  “Okay, then,” I mumble, making my way down the single flight of stairs.

  Halfway across the lot, my phone gives off a little tock like the last half of a clock chime. Jerry’s face fills my screen, and I swipe to answer his FaceTime call.

  Even on a small screen his face is amazing and despite my recent resentment toward him, the sight squeezes my chest. His dark hair is slicked back, tied at the neck to give me a better view of his soulful brown eyes, full lips drawn into a smile, and the patch of goatee on his chin.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he says.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, the view changing so I’m now staring up his neck. The trees behind him flick in and out of sight between snatches of sky.

  “Riding my bike.” He gives me a cheesy grin, directing his attention ahead once more.

  One of the reasons my parents objected so strongly to my attachment to this guy. My old arguments resurface—so what if he lost his license after his latest DUI? At least he has ambition and gets himself to work—but I can’t help the disappointment that brims at the sight of him. A disappointment that has nothing to do with DUIs.

  The sky peeks in and out, his image on the screen jerking with the movements he’s making as he pedals.

  “I wanted to catch you before your first day. I thought maybe I could convince you to come home,” he says with a laugh.

  My feet crunch the snow, and I sink against my frosted car. “I’m not coming back home,” I tell him. “Why don’t you come visit?”

  The trees above him stop shifting. He dismounts from the bike, his attention facing forward, giving me a great view of his ear. Just what I wanted to see.

  “I’d love to come visit you, Everly James, but I’m fairly certain my probation officer won’t approve. You know I can’t go more than twenty miles out. Just don’t forget me at that new school of yours.”

  “How could I forget you? You’re the whole reason I’m here.” A thread of bitterness weaves in. He can take that however he wants—it’s true in more ways than one.

  The screen bobs a few times; a shot of a bike rack and the front tire’s spokes blink into view before he looks directly at the screen. “Then why don’t you come back?”

  The truth is this battle isn’t just about him. I’m tired of being told where to go, who to see, how to talk to them when I see them, and all the mistakes I made once the conversation is over. My every move is calculated and analyzed, and I’m sick of living under a microscope.

  “They’ve got to give me some space, Jer. And until they’re willing to admit that, I’m not coming back.”

  “Looks to me like they’re giving you space.”

  “No, they’re shutting me out. That’s different.”

  The words sting, just like the sight of the boxes.

  “I’ve got to go,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll call you when I get off, okay?” He puckers his lips at the screen before his image cuts off.

  I wait to miss him. I wait for the desire to go back, for the aching longing I know I should be feeling, but it doesn’t come. Everything seems off and upside down and inside out and backwards, like the pathways in Labyrinth, and I’m trying to navigate in a pointless direction.

  Still, I’m glad I have Layla. She and my cell phone are the only things that have made all of this liveable.

  As if on cue, she exits our apartment, bounds down the stairs is baggy t-shirt, leggings, and sandals, and gives me a hug.

  “I forgot to wish you luck today,” she says, her sweet pea perfume swirling around me. “Knock ‘em dead.”

  I return her grin when another door creaks open. A guy with dishwater blond hair steps out from the same door the girl who rushed off had. He’s dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, carrying a stack of papers in one hand and a briefcase in the other. He trots down the stairs, cool and casual.

  Layla gives me a nudge. “Hot guys, what?” she mumbles.

  “Morning ladies,” he says, digging the keys to an old Ford Taurus from his pocket.

  Layla tosses her hair, reeking of confidence. For all an onlooker would know, it’s seventy degrees out here instead of seventeen.

  “Did you just come out of number thirteen?” she asks.

  He glances back at the two-story brick apartment, one of many similar sets of buildings in the Crestwood complex. The brick is multi-colored, with wooden slats over the main entrances and white shutters attending each window.

  “Yes, I did. Unfortunate number, I know.”

  Layla twirls a strand of hair. “Good thing I’m living next door to you, or you’d be in serious trouble.”

  He gives her his fu
ll attention for the first time since he stepped out. His eyes gloss down to her sandals. A smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “Why, you lucky?”

  “I just met you, didn’t I?”

  They haven’t met before, and they’ve lived across from each other how long? Then again, with Layla taking online classes, it’s not like she’s an early riser or anything. If it wasn’t for me, she would probably still be sleeping.

  “Go easy on him,” I say with a chuckle, before tossing my bag in my car and reaching for the scraper in the backseat.

  Lunch time is just another word for social subjection to judgment. And because I’m still the new girl, I can sense everyone’s mental calculation as I walk past. One girl with red hair rests a hand on the back of an empty seat at her table and raises her eyebrow at me, warding me off.

  “This is the reason I didn’t want to come back to high school,” I grumble, frustration stirring in my chest. I consider ditching out, heading back to Terekhov and Son’s for a second shot at that door, and at a job. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.

  But I’m a senior. If I want to graduate, I can’t miss any more school than I already have.

  The thought brings a relief all of its own. Just a few more months and I’ll be done with high school for good. I’ve deliberated dropping out and getting my GED online. Layla could go for that. Except I don’t have a computer, and my online schoolwork would interfere with hers.

  Another girl with long hair, manicured nails, and a nose more familiar with higher altitudes than most raises an appraising eyebrow at me. She finds me acceptable and waves me over.

  “Hey there!” Several people glance over as they hear her speak, including a girl with a nose ring and a kid whose black hair covers half of his face. Her acknowledgment bumps me up a notch in their estimation, and I’m suddenly getting more attention than I’d like.

  “It’s Everly, right?” says the girl, resting a hand on the leg of the cute blond boy sitting next to her. He’s too busy chewing and staring at his phone to notice her affection. “I’m Sierra. This is the gang—Jordan is my boyfriend—”