The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  “My what?”

  He steps back just enough to dig something out of his pocket. And there, in his hand, is a folded piece of thick parchment paper. My heart pounds anew at the sight of it. He hands it to me, and I pry it open, hungry for the words.

  I stare in stupefaction at the frantic message I scribbled in my frustration after he disappeared.

  “This—I wrote this. In your book.”

  His mouth curves into a smile. His hand strokes my jaw. “I told you I made it for you. Looks like I made it for me, too.”

  One edge of the paper is torn as surely as if I’d done it myself. I stare up at the crow, which caws and rises, spreading its wings to flap off into the cool dusk.

  “How did this happen?” Tears sting my eyes. Layla. If only I’d thought to write one for her too.

  “I don’t know,” he says, sniffing and glancing in the direction I keep looking. “I’ve never been able to free myself from my father’s hold before. But this time, with your letter, I could.”

  “Where were you? What do you mean, your father’s hold?”

  “I’m on another…track of life, you might say. And even though I don’t live on that plane of existence, it’s still a part of me. My father sends me there sometimes, to study things…or as punishment.”

  “A different plane of existence?” Does he mean the ostium nexu?

  “Like Garrett’s timeline?” Todd’s voice makes me jump. I didn’t realize they followed me out here. Todd, Joel, and Piper congregate behind us. Todd presents Garrett’s journal to Nikolay, prying it open to a certain page. He points to a drawing Garrett made.

  “Garrett said time exists all at once, not just in sequence,” Piper adds, tiptoeing up as if she can see it from where she stands beside Joel.

  “Yes, just so,” Nikolay says, nodding appreciatively at Todd. He sniffs, his cheeks and nose flushed with cold. “It is called ostium nexu. In Latin, it means door connection; it is the pathway across time and it connects each of the doors. It was frustrated when two of the doors in the connection were destroyed. Everly and I walked through the pathway. She followed me through the door at my shop and discovered for herself just how dangerous it can be.”

  “I walked through time on a different plane?” Like a different world? I suppose it makes sense, but I never thought of it like that.

  “Can that plane bleed into our world sometimes?” Piper asks.

  “I suppose it can,” says Nikolay. “Especially for those of us in places closest to it.”

  “So there is access to one in Piper’s house,” I say.

  “Not necessarily in her house,” says Nikolay. “The door in my shop is the only direct way we have to access it.”

  “Why your shop?” Joel asks. “Why do you have it there?”

  Nikolay swallows. “My father has done extensive research in trying to reach my mother since her death. He discovered the alternate plane and also a way to access it. To my knowledge there is no other way to it.”

  Todd whistles. “So you can reach the dead? Is there like…hell and heaven after all?”

  “It isn’t the world of the dead,” Nikolay says. “It’s the line of time that we all travel. My father accessed it and discovered how to use that access to T-off the road we’re all on.”

  “To death,” I say. “The road to death.”

  “We’re all heading that direction,” Nikolay says with a shrug. “Whether we like it or not. My father offers a detour.”

  “A detour it’s time we correct,” says Joel. A threat burns in his gaze.

  “I agree,” says Nikolay.

  Todd’s brows jump. “You do?”

  “Why?” Piper’s shorter stature holds no sway. The demand in her voice could make anyone cower.

  Nikolay gives her his attention, unperturbed at her accusatory glower.

  “Why go against this? This is your father we’re talking about. You’ve been doing this for years, killing people to create doorways for others. This is serious stuff, and I just can’t buy that you’re willing to stop it, just like that.”

  “I haven’t killed anyone,” he says, betraying unease for the first time. It’s definitely a sore spot for him.

  Piper’s smile is anything but pleasant. “But you have. You’ve sat back and let it happen while our family—” She gestures to herself and Joel, who steps forward, cocking his head back in a menacing way. “Had to suffer for years and do the bidding of a man who should. Have. Been. Dead.”

  She trembles, visibly shaking at the confrontation. Again, I think about Rosemary, about Everett and his words to her on Piper’s porch, when Rosemary begged to be with him. I can’t subject you to this.

  “I’m sorry for what your family have gone through,” Nikolay says, his voice soft. “Truly. There is nothing I can say that will make it right in your eyes—only you can do that.”

  “Excuse me?” Joel says, huffing.

  “I did not force your family to agree to Garrett’s terms. I did not know about Garrett’s terms. I was a student in the basement of our shop when all of this was happening. I came above stairs to sell books to customers, and in the evenings I went down to learn the trade of book binding. My father made these agreements, Piper. It’s only recently I’ve learned the extent of everything that’s been entailed in the work I’ve been pursuing.”

  “You’re saying you never even suspected anything sinister,” Joel says skeptically.

  “I was learning to manipulate energy and time. I didn’t learn until recently the price that went along with such power. It seems my father wanted to shield me from it. I don’t expect you to believe me,” he says. “But I am going to do everything I can to stop it.”

  “Why?” Joel asks again.

  Nikolay turns to me and offers a hand. I slide mine into it.

  “Because they deserve it,” he says.

  I already hear them. Rosemary. Ada. John Talbot, the college student; Bohai Chang, the gardener. Nikolay nods to Piper, Todd, and Joel, each in turn. “I understand if you don’t want to help.”

  “What about Layla?” I ask, gripping his hand. “Does your father have her where he kept you? Can we get there?”

  Nikolay jerks his head back, glancing at Joel. “She is missing?”

  “Since this afternoon,” Joel says.

  “It’s happening all over again,” Piper adds inwardly, twisting her hair over her shoulder.

  “What?”

  “The house!” She points behind her without actually looking at it. “The same thing happened to me. Joel went missing—he was going to be used as the next victim to maintain Garrett’s loop. The house is back. Now they’ve chosen Layla instead.”

  “The paranormal plane is in uproar. Nothing is aligned as it should be,” says Nikolay.

  Again, the image of Rosemary hanging from the theater balcony scalds my brain. I wheel around, searching the horizon, unable to believe all of this is happening.

  “Nikolay.”

  “I know,” he says, stealing everyone’s attention.

  “You said you’re going to stop it. How do you plan on doing that?” Todd demands.

  Nikolay removes a small cloth bag from within his coat. He hands it to me. “I made a few stops before I came here,” he says in explanation.

  I open it carefully. Four skillfully decorated doorknobs sit clustered together in the bottom of the sack, each unique in its design and in the ornamental carvings adorning it.

  “You got them?”

  Nikolay grins. “I used my father’s hitch. And I got them.”

  Unable to help myself, I press a kiss to his cheek.

  “What do we need now?” Joel asks. “How much longer does Layla have?”

  Nikolay glances up at the lowering sun. “Not long. We should hurry. But you will each need to stand as proxy for the proces
s. One person to represent each door. I cannot do it, as I will be performing the ritual. We need one more person.”

  “Proxy?” My thoughts skim, trying to think of who else we could convince to join in without scaring them off.

  “I know someone we could ask,” I say. “She will want this to stop as much as the rest of us.”

  twenty

  six

  “This better work,” Sierra says, sneering down her nose at the state of Nikolay’s basement. Cobwebs lace the corners, and the space is vacant save for the empty bookshelves and the dusty old couch Nikolay guided me to during our first kiss.

  Sierra, Jordan, Nikolay, and I keep our coats on. The store entrance above remained shattered from my last encounter with Andrei, and the vacant, dusty space is freezing as a result.

  “It will,” Nikolay says from within the pages of an open book.

  “Is your father here?” I ask, shuddering and cradling the book Nikolay made for me. He suggested I bring it, in case we might need it, though the only reason I can think of is for the protection he mentioned.

  “I don’t know,” he says, stepping toward the empty shelves. The carpentry table where he makes his books appears to be untouched. Wordlessly, he delves beneath the table. I crouch beside him.

  “Why did it all disappear?” I ask. “How did you get it to be so…instantly abandoned?”

  Nikolay bends his head, searching for something. “Papa can transfer our things back to the original site, in St. Petersburg. Fortunately, I can do the same. Just know that it will alert him we have returned. We won’t have much time.”

  “Then let’s hurry. We have to get Layla back.”

  Nikolay pulls at his collar, his hands tightening and loosening again at his sides. Before I can ask what’s bothering him, voices tunnel down from the top of the basement stairs.

  “It’s not the same,” Todd soothes from above.

  “Piper?” I call up. “Everything okay?”

  “We’ll be down in a second,” Todd says.

  “I wouldn’t linger long,” Nikolay says. A noise follows, a scrape, and he retrieves a small tool from below the table.

  Memories flood through the barren room, of kissing him down here, of having his body against mine, the flickering spur of discovery, of hearing his story and connecting to him. We share a glance that lets me know he’s thinking of the same thing I am.

  Now this space will be even more significant if it means we save Layla.

  Nikolay continues fidgeting as Piper and Todd appear at the bottom of the stairs. She folds in on herself, arms hugging tight around her torso. Todd continues his soft, encouraging words.

  “If you please,” says Nikolay, gesturing them back. “I’m about to restore the store to this location, and it will only be a matter of time before my father interferes. The further along we are, the better.”

  He ventures over to the shelves he showed me before and, using the skinny tool, removes a few bricks, muttering some words in Russian. Nikolay reaches in the bricks and touches something.

  “I’d stand back,” he says. The four of us gather in the room’s center while the walls quake as if from a storm. In a trick of light, the shelves are once again filled with books, and a crate appears on the bottom shelf.

  “Sick,” Jordan mutters.

  “What can we do?” I ask.

  Nikolay dives for the crate and returns with a stack of books piled like logs in his arms. He gestures, and Sierra and Jordan follow. Piper turns away, her eyes pinched shut, letting Todd guide her.

  “Here,” Nikolay says, brow pinched in agitation. He circles around to place a thick, antiquated volume at each of our feet. In exchange for the one at my feet, he slips my book from my hands.

  I touch Nikolay’s arm before he can turn away. “What’s bothering you?”

  Sweat breaks along his temples, and he swallows, leaning in to speak under his breath. “The only name listed in conjunction with the door in Piper’s house was Ada Havens. I found its knob, but I don’t know who was for the second door in her house.”

  “Maybe there’s another book,” I suggest.

  He shakes his head. “If there were two doors, they would have been inked in. I’ve checked its pages—” He gestures to the journal on the ground. “Augustus Garrett only had one of our doors in his house.”

  “Then who had the last one?” I ask as Piper, Todd, Joel, Sierra, and Jordan close in.

  Nikolay gestures in greeting to them before turning back to me. “I don’t know. The final book wasn’t here with the others.”

  My throat constricts. We need that other book in order for this to work.

  “What now?” Todd asks before I get the chance to voice it.

  Nikolay faces each one in turn. “Each of you will represent one of the doors,” he says, more confidence in his countenance than I know he feels. “You will each stand as if at the five points of a star. You’ll hold the book, and the knob coinciding with that book, until I finish the rest of the spell.”

  “There are only four books,” Piper says, searching the ones he’s laid out for us. “There should be five, right?”

  Nikolay wets his lips and flicks a glance at me. “I don’t know where the fifth door is.”

  Joel’s chest bulges. “What does that mean?”

  “Joel,” Piper chastises.

  “No.” Joel silences her with his tone. “Layla could be dying, and you’re telling me you don’t have all the pieces to bring her back?”

  Nikolay holds out a hand, warding him off. “Four should be enough,” he assures.

  Joel inches in, getting in Nikolay’s face. “Enough to do what?”

  “Back off,” I say, stepping between the two. “You’re not the only one who’s worried about her.”

  Joel’s nostrils flare, but he twitches and steps back. Nikolay adjusts his shirt and straightens.

  “I’m hoping,” Nikolay says, “that by destroying at least four, as well as the book set aside for Layla, the connection will break enough to destroy the ostium nexu and free her.”

  “So it’s not guaranteed,” Joel says skeptically.

  “We have no other option, short of going to my father. And I doubt that will help our case.”

  Joel glances at Todd, Piper, and Sierra, who all watch in concern. “Okay,” he says after a long moment.

  “You each need to stand in a circle, apart from, but facing one another,” Nikolay says. I recognize Rosemary’s volume at once and my chest pinches at the memory that my face appeared in it.

  Todd holds Garrett’s journal in his long fingers. Piper won’t leave his side.

  Joel stands across from him, and Sierra and Jordan. If someone were to connect the dots we make, a star would form.

  “Who’ll be standing there?” Sierra asks, pointing to the empty space directly across from me. The top of the star.

  “I will,” he says. He bends and begins drawing a circle around us in chalk on the concrete. Piper hugs her chest, and Todd rubs her back as though the sight of this brings back more horrible memories.

  “I don’t like this,” Sierra says, likewise disgruntled.

  Todd shushes her.

  “Each of you stand in your place. You must maintain the star,” Nikolay instructs. He then goes to each of us, one by one, and hands us all a doorknob. Joel for Talbot, Sierra and Jordan for Chang. Piper and Todd for Ada, and me for Rosemary.

  Nikolay paces, muttering words under his breath and shaking his hands. I half expect to see his hands begin to glow the way his father’s did, but he simply holds my book to his chest as though he isn’t about to let anything happen to it.

  I still wonder how it worked, how he somehow got the note I didn’t mean to write to him. The crow was there—can crows access the pathway?

  Nikolay murmurs several more words in
a language I don’t hope to understand. A cool mist settles across us. Piper clings to Todd, Jordan folds his arms, and a hum rises in the air as the books begin to thunder, rumbling from a quake only they feel. Piper screams. I cover my ears but keep my eyes open. Nikolay stands in his place across from me, still chanting his incantation.

  At once the thudding noises stop. The cool mist lifts, and as it does, several people flicker into view. Ada hovers behind Todd and Piper, looking pretty and ethereal, with her long brown hair and servants’ attire. A ghostly man in a sweater vest and trousers stands by Sierra and Jordan. Sierra whimpers at the sight of him.

  “It’s not real,” she mumbles over and over. Jordan rubs her arms, not taking his eyes from the specter.

  “Pretty sure it is,” he says.

  A chilled breeze sweeps my left arm and I turn to find a woman about my height hovering nearby as well. Her hair is bobbed with finger waves and a heavy part to the left. She wears a drop-waist dress, the skirt pieced to give the impression of movement.

  More uncanny than the fact that I can see right through her, though—is that she looks like me.

  “Rosemary?”

  I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before, but she does. The same shaped eyes, the same lips, similar nose. She smiles. My throat squeezes, and I glance down at the book.

  Her face, only her face.

  A suspicion spreads through me at the sight of her up close like this. It wasn’t me in the book at all. It was her. And if I look this much like her then that means…

  My gaze moves over to where Piper stands. Piper’s ancestor was Rosemary’s lover. The father of her child. Conclusions arrive in my brain. I open my mouth to ask her, but she merely smiles, a sad smile that tells of loss and of everything she wishes she could say.

  Nikolay clears his throat. “Each of your deaths facilitated the creation of a doorway. And for that I’m immensely sorry. And I hope you’ll help me put an end to it.”

  Nikolay waits for a response, for someone else to speak. To my surprise, other ghosts join us. An insubstantial, handsome man stands beside Ada in trousers and a vest, taking her hand in his.