The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  Adrenaline surges through me. 1902. I stand—I can’t sit through this.

  “What else would you like to know about me?”

  “How?” The word rushes out in a breath. I gesture to the hallway, to him. “How is this even…possible? Don’t take this wrong, but why are you still here?”

  Nikolay licks his bottom lip. “I have never had to explain this to anyone before, so I hope you will excuse my hesitation.” I’m struck at how polite he is, at how collected he seems. How strange this must be for him. He’s never had to explain this to anyone else?

  “Germany declared war on Russia in 1914,” he begins. “I was twelve years old. I remember it so clearly because it was also the year my mother’s illness took a turn for the worst. The chaos of that time felt like a reflection of my own life.

  “Then a year later, my mother died. Workers were going on strike, things were building up to a revolution in my country, and I was ready to go to war.

  “My father didn’t want me to join the fighting. I was only thirteen or fourteen by this time, but many young men were lying about their ages in order to fight. But Papa said he’d been working on something that would give my sense of patriotism and duty a new target.”

  “What was that?” I ask, hardly daring to speak, to interrupt this memory he’s lost in.

  “My mother.”

  “Your—your mother? But…”

  Nikolay looks stricken. “My father was heartbroken to lose her. He’d been researching for years since her illness settled in, since he first knew she would die from it. And when he couldn’t save her life, he looked for a way to preserve her instead. He’d been studying science and alchemy—we’d just opened a new but secluded section on divination and necromancy.”

  The vehemence in his words whisks me away to his pain, to their pain, their twisted way of coping with something no one can avoid.

  “It was with my mother that my father created the first libro vitae. The smert zhizn.”

  “You mean she’s preserved in a book? Can you speak with her?”

  His eyes sadden. “We cannot. But she is at peace. No more illness. No more pain, but living in the resplendent world my father created for her in ink. She is not lost to wherever it is souls go. She is a form of consciousness, safe, and protected.”

  I’m not sure how to respond to this, or what I feel about life after death. I’ve always thought spirits were at peace anyway, and they lived on in their own kind of paradise. But I don’t tell Nikolay that.

  “Soon word among the back alleys of Russia spread. People wanted the death life.”

  “Death life,” I whisper.

  “Smert zhizn. Sicut in vita, in morte.”

  “That last one—that had a different peal to it.”

  “Latin,” he says. “As in life, so in death. Unless they ask for a different reality. We can ink anything in they’d like, thanks to our access to the pathway.”

  That explains Victorian England. His version of death definitely sounds more appealing, if a person could preserve themselves in any time period they chose.

  “Just how many languages do you know?” I ask.

  He gives me a mischievous smile. “A few, zvyozdochka.”

  “Then,” I begin, trying to ignore how much I love hearing unknown pet names being applied to me in his native tongue. “How is this possible? Piper said her house’s time loop was clear back in 1875. How could Augustus Garrett create that with you before your father even developed the books?”

  “My father met Garrett before I was born, in the late 1800s when Garrett visited the store in search of a way to postpone his death. I told you we had the most extensive collection of books on alchemy and the craft. And though it was little known, people traveled far to patron it. Garrett helped my father with the books at first and then commissioned Papa to create one for him as well.”

  “How did your store end up in Cedarvale, Ohio, of all places? I thought you lived in Russia?”

  “We sensed when the ostium nexu was broken. We relocated to find out why.”

  “Ostium nexu. That’s—?”

  “The link between the doors. The star, you could say. It is also the path you and I took back to Piper’s house.”

  The broken star. A path between space and time. “You moved a whole building?”

  “It wasn’t difficult, nor was it the first time. Everything on this street was nearly vacant anyway. People barely noticed when a new establishment was in it.”

  “So alchemy drew Garrett to you in futuristic—for him—Russia?”

  Nikolay nods. “Later, my father helped Garrett spread the life spell he and his servants were absorbed in to his house, which then got Piper Crenshaw’s family involved. Then the house, and her ancestors in it, went on until Miss Crenshaw found a way to end it. The thing is, I can’t quite figure out why she would want to. I presume it’s because of her ghost.”

  I stare at him, suddenly appalled. “You’re kidding, right? Why didn’t you do anything?”

  He frowns. “About what?”

  “You speak of Garrett with fondness, but why would your father help someone like that stay alive forever?”

  “What do you mean, someone like that?”

  “He was a psychopathic killer!”

  He rubs his temple and adjusts his weight on the bed. “Mr. Garrett? That can’t be.”

  “Piper told me.” My throat grows embarrassingly tight, and I have to choke out the words. I explain everything she said, about Garrett, about the murders, the thirteen victims.

  Nikolay shakes his head, his mouth slackening in shock.

  “Did you know about it?” I ask.

  “I—no, I didn’t.”

  “How is that possible? How can you not have known?”

  He’s shaking his head, over and over, staring at the floor and muttering, “He can’t have—he, no. It hasn’t been in the agreements, it hasn’t—”

  “Nikolay,” I stammer, demanding his attention.

  “We don’t watch our customers at all times, Everly. I don’t know everything that goes on—I only monitor the books and doors. You could consider it maintenance.”

  “But you knew about the murders year after year.”

  Nikolay stands in effrontery and begins to pace. Patches of color climb his cheeks. “Murders,” he says in wonder as if he’s never heard the word.

  I follow his progression from one end of the room to the other. “I can handle you being from a different century. I can handle the fact that you can travel to different periods in time! But if you—if you’re involved in murder, Nikolay, I—”

  His eyes finally drift to mine, brimming with pain and a kind of astonishment, as if surprised I could even suspect it of him. He’s thrown off. Sitting. Then standing. Then sitting again. Confusion wrinkles his forehead.

  “Murder has no part in this,” Nikolay mutters. “My father—he wouldn’t allow that.”

  Doubt seeps in, distinct and clear. “Can I believe that? Everything about you is a mystery.”

  He sighs, as if lost for words. “I admit, I have a fascination with the dark, Everly. I was an avid student, enticed by the education my father offered that I could get nowhere else. But there is a line even I will not cross, and taking the life of another is no part of this. We are not murderers.”

  “Piper told me though. She said her dad, her ancestors—that they had to do it for Mr. Garrett.”

  He rubs a hand across his jaw and rises, perplexity wrinkling his brow.

  “I knew Miss Crenshaw was being haunted,” he says. “But it was a strange situation—she and her family accepted it. It was just part of living in that house. We’d also commissioned many books to that family over the years to preserve their ancestors,” he speaks as if reading off a mental list. “Mr. Garrett only asked us to help him preserve
his life. We did so by attaching his house to the ostium nexu. The rest we had nothing to do with.”

  “So you don’t keep tabs on what happens with the doors you sell?”

  “It is just like any other commodity,” he says. “We don’t check in when a customer purchases a copy of Wuthering Heights. Nor does a carpenter keep continuous checks on a house he constructs.”

  “Maybe you should.” Then crows wouldn’t be haunting me right now.

  He walks the floor, agitated. “I’m sorry for how things are evolving. We create the books under the assumption of a kind of lifetime warranty. My father and I enter into an agreement with these people. We do not interfere with the methods, nor the incantations in the books they use once they have their doors.”

  Silence follows this admission, and he waits for my reaction.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” he says.

  I close my eyes, attempting to grasp it all. He only just found out about Garrett’s murders? He seemed genuinely taken aback when I brought up the accusation.

  “I’m not sure,” I reply.

  “Seatbelts were not installed in the first cars. They were only added after the need for them manifested itself,” he says as though thinking it through. “It seems we will have to do a better job of monitoring our wares.”

  My ankle fidgets. “Why did you and your father create the doors at all? I understand about your mother, and wanting to prevent her death, but why did you continue after that?”

  “Five were needed to seal the pathway, like the circle sealing the pentagram. So I do what my father tells me to seal them,” he says, peering behind the window shade to the street below. “That is how a child should behave.”

  “You’re not a child, Nikolay.”

  He glances over his shoulder, his eyes flashing with something obscure and yet humored. “No, I’m not.”

  “You do everything he tells you?”

  Nikolay faces me, one hand in his pocket. “He wants me to stay away from you. To not get attached.”

  “Attached? Is that…a possibility?” The words fight their way out, wanting an answer. Dreading an answer.

  His feet tread toward me, shrinking the space between us. The proximity is a force all in its own, a gentle impact searing straight through to plant me right where I am and make me never want to move again.

  “I think by now it is more of an actuality.”

  My mouth parts, my heart rocketing in my chest.

  “I have been honest with you, Everly. I did not have anything to do with the murders, nor did I know about them.”

  “And you’ll speak to your father?”

  “I will,” he promises, his voice low. “Do you believe me?”

  My gaze shifts between his eyes, from one to the other, back and forth.

  He has a fascination with dark things. Right now, so do I.

  Nikolay is a mystery, a hallway I know I shouldn’t go down. A book I shouldn’t read, a staircase I shouldn’t climb. And yet in that darkness there is a raw truth to him, something real, something I can touch and not be judged by, something I can connect with. I feel a part of me shift and latch onto him like the railing of a rickety bridge, where holding on to him is the only way I’ll get across.

  “I believe you,” I breathe out in a whisper.

  “Thank you,” he says, stroking a hand across my jaw. “I am no murderer.”

  His breath strokes my cheek. Heat spills from him, calling me to move closer. We’re caught in a tide, not yet to deeper waters, but not willing to swim back to shore and safety either.

  I shudder, remembering how he almost kissed me back in the pathway, and how the crows interrupted us. Their rasping caws replay in my mind, and I purse my lips. “We need to fix that pathway, with or without your father. Can we do it? Can we make a new door?”

  His eyes grow distant. He brushes a hair away from my forehead. “We will have to consult his book selection. Would you like to see it?”

  It takes me several moments to remember what he’s talking about. The discreet, exclusive books he said his father sell. “You mean you still have it?”

  His lips twitch. “Oh yes. Many still come from great distances to access it. It’s not something available to the…general public.”

  A peculiar tingling spreads over me, a curiosity I can’t deny hooking into the deepest part of my chest.

  “It’s downstairs?” I ask. “In your fancy display room?”

  He offers me his hand. “Not exactly.”

  The gesture itself is a question, gauging my declared belief in him. His body is warm, his blue eyes soften, and a crease appears in his cheek, not quite a smile.

  His hand is outstretched, inviting me. He wants me to. I suppress a shudder and slide my fingers over his smooth palm, somehow sealing the shift that came over me earlier. There is no going back from this feeling. The line that once separated us now keeps us standing closer than we ever have before.

  His fingers close over mine. He guides me to the dark underside of the stairs where a small square segment concealed in shadow is a door. Not etched or decorated, not looming, just a regular door.

  “The stairs are dark and narrow, so do not let go of me,” he says, twisting the knob open.

  A tremor runs through me. Dark and narrow—just how badly do I want to see this private collection of books?

  Very much.

  Nikolay raises our hands as if reminding me, and then flicks a switch on in the dark abyss below. The light is thin, veiled to give just the smallest hint of a gleam. The stairs descend so far I can’t tell what’s at the bottom.

  “Do not fear, solnyshko. Your crow will not find you down here.” And he takes the first step down.

  seventeen

  Nikolay’s hand is tight on mine. He glances up several times as if checking to make sure I’m okay, and I smile in response, wonder and worry skipping through me all at once.

  It grows drafty as we descend. The walls are narrow on either side, and I can’t help the fear in my chest, increasing the farther down we go.

  “Are you all right?” he asks in that accent with the heavy Rs.

  He’s reached the basement level, but I’m still a stair up, putting me eye-to-eye with him. My pulse quickens. His irises dart to mine, back and forth. With a warm breath he leans toward me. I burn with the heat of him, bracing a hand on the wall, my lids weak as his chest brushes mine.

  I hear him flick another switch behind me. Light fills the room behind him, yellow and faded.

  “I forgot that,” he says, drawing away once more, his voice husky.

  My breathing heats faster and faster, as though my chest realizes just how close I’m standing to him. “Yeah,” I say, voice shuddering. “We might need light.”

  Nikolay’s jaw twitches, his eyes taking me in. “You are that for me, you know,” he says.

  “What? Light?”

  His hands circle my back. The newness overwhelms me for a moment. The gesture is calculated, tender, deliberate. “Yes,” he says. “Light.”

  It’s his hands so close to me. His chest against mine. We’re standing within a stroke of each other, and the realization that he doesn’t mind in the least steals my breath.

  His eyes rove, exploring mine, scaling their way across my face. And mine do the same, searching him, examining and taking every tiny detail. The scruff trailing his chin, the shape of his nose and his shadow-played cheeks in this dim light, his blue, entreating eyes so open and vulnerable.

  “I suppose I should move,” he says. “But it seems now that I know I can hold you, I don’t want to do anything else.”

  “You don’t hear me complaining, do you?” I reply with a soft smile, my fingers finding their way to the back of his neck.

  I see just how thick and long his lashes are, and then the world is spinning
as his mouth presses to mine. His mouth opens, he breathes my breath, and a connection I’ve never felt before surges through like a storm. He’s so gentle, so careful, taking his time to cover all the angles, as though this will be our first and last kiss. There’s finality to it, and yet a gripping desire leaves me wanting more. When he pulls away, I pull him closer.

  His lips are soft through the stubble along his jaw. They press slowly to mine, coercing and exploring, his hands skimming up my spine and adding tingles as he deepens his kiss, pulling me tighter, his head tilting one way, then the other.

  He steps back, blindly guiding me down the last few steps. We move in a sightless dance—he kicks something out of the way—until he sinks down, pulling me with him. I don’t know where we’re sitting; I haven’t seen anything where the stairs we took lead to. But opening my eyes to catch more than a brief glimpse of his eyelashes is too diverting. All I know is that I want to kiss him and keep him with me like this as long as I can.

  Despite the chill down here, warmth courses through me, and even more so at the supple expression in his gaze, his half-closed eyes dreamy and lost in the moment. He holds my face in his hands, breath racing, his thumbs caressing my skin.

  “I brought you down here for something, but I’m afraid it’s slipped my mind,” he says with a quirked smile, drawing his mouth to mine for another enduring kiss.

  “Mmm,” I mutter, gripping his wrists, not wanting him to pull away and yet needing him to all at once.

  “You were going to show me something,” I say just as softly.

  “Ah, yes.” His eyes swallow me in one glance. A glance that says I’m completely accepted, wanted, and longed for, pouring liquid fire through my veins. He hesitates, his fingers skimming along my elbow.

  “Everly, you do realize you are down here alone with me.”

  “Wasn’t that the idea?” I ignore the tingling, the thrill channeling through every inch of me, and my hand finds his. His fingers slide apart to make room. “But I trust you. And that’s why I’m down here, alone with you.”

  His lips form a tender smile. “Just wanted to make sure you were still sure about this.”