The Forbidden Doors Box Set

by Cortney Pearson

  “I wish I knew what to say,” Joel says. “Times heals all wounds. There are more fish in the sea. All the normal, consoling things are really pointless when you’re hurting this much.”

  I tip my head in agreement.

  “But I do know that keeping active helps. Find something to focus on, something you’ve maybe needed to take care of for a while but have been putting off. Start there. Start small. Let yourself wallow for only a small amount of time. If you let it last too long it will settle in and never leave you. So stay active. Stay moving. It will get easier.”

  I sniff, wiping a tear from my cheek. He presses his lips together and reaches over to squeeze my hands. Layla beams at him, and my heart warms for her, happy that she found someone so amazing.

  He slaps his hands on his knees. “And on that note, we have some news.”

  “Oh?” Layla sits up. Piper beams again, her feet bouncy.

  “I came to tell you I got a new job, in Shady Heights. Piper wants to be closer to our mom.”

  The giddy, adoring gaze slides from Layla’s face in an instant. She puts her feet on the floor. The blanket slips from her lap. “What?”

  “I know it sounds like a shock. But I’m out of my internship, and there’s nothing keeping us here.”

  “Nothing keeping you here?” Layla makes it to her feet. “Nothing keeping you here?”

  He rises too. “Us! I said us—” He glances behind at me. “Didn’t I say us?”

  “I thought you meant you and Piper!” she says.

  “You’re included in my us,” Joel says, reaching for her.

  She slaps his hand away, incredulity in her face. He doesn’t relent, and her shoulders sag in relief. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  But he’s laughing, pulling her to him. He presses his mouth to hers. She only fights for a millisecond before giving in. I can’t help laughing too.

  Joel pulls away just enough, securing his hands around her waist. “You can do your online coursework anywhere,” he says. “You can finish your degree.”

  “Move to Shady Heights?”

  “Why not?” Joel says. “What’s keeping you here in Cedarvale?”

  Layla glances over at me. I keep my eyes on her.

  “You should come too,” Piper says, responding to our gaze. “It’s your home. You belong there.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I lie. “I’ll find a new job. Next week I’ll be eighteen. I’ll find a new place.” I gesture to my stack of boxes. “I’m already packed and everything,” I say humorlessly.

  But really, I don’t know where I fit anymore. Not Shady Heights. Not Cedarvale, either. I’ve traveled through time. I fell in love with a boy from the 1920s. And after having someone so intriguing, so courteous and complicated and amazing, so everything I didn’t know I wanted, no one else can ever measure up again.

  Layla squeaks and leaps into Joel’s arms, wrapping her legs around his waist. He spins her a few times. “You know this means commitment, though, right? We’re talking long term. Maybe even marriage, Joel Crenshaw.”

  Joel grins at her. “I can handle that.”

  Layla laughs and kisses him, long and hard. So long that Piper’s brows raise and I avert my eyes, glancing down at Sherlock.

  “Can you believe those two?” I ask the cat.

  He blinks at me, and Piper and I share a smile.

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  thirty

  Sherlock purrs, keeping my stomach warm, and I’ve never been more grateful to have him by my side. I’ve never had a pet before. I can see the appeal now. Companionship. Silent, adoring, purring companionship. Pets understand things people can never hope to. They know sometimes all you need is a warm body and a friendly nose.

  Forget school. I haven’t gone for days, why start again now? Layla peers in to tell me she and the Crenshaws are scoping out living arrangements in Shady Heights, and do I want to come?

  Lemme check.

  I’ve had all the awkward I can stand for a while. So I wallow, soaking in misery and snuggling with Sherlock while the events of the last few weeks replay over and over. First my parents, then Jerry, now Nikolay and even Layla is leaving me. I lose everyone I care about, just like Rosemary.

  “Hello, Everly.”

  I straighten my body beneath the covers and open my eyes. As if appearing at the thought of her, she’s there, at the edge of my bed, in her familiar drop-waist dress and cloche hat. She’s enchanting, even in the see-through state she’s in.

  “Rosemary?” Sluggishly, I sit up.

  She lowers herself on my bed. The blankets curve around her form, though I don’t feel the movement. “Have you ever heard of a poet named John Donne?” she asks. “He once said no man is an island, that we are all connected. A part of the main.”

  I blink a few times, allowing her words to penetrate this ridiculous depression I’ve allowed myself to sink into.

  “You aren’t alone, Everly. You have your family, your friends. And your parents. Just because you want to live your life as you choose doesn’t mean they cannot be a part of it.”

  “If they even want to,” I say.

  “She is your mother,” Rosemary says. “No amount of fighting or disagreement can change that. You are a part of her.”

  “How much do you know?” I ask her. “Do you see my life from wherever you’ve been?”

  “You’re my long lost granddaughter,” Rosemary says with a proud smile. “I never got to see my daughter after I died, not until you freed me from the door. I found her, Everly. I found my Evelyn. Named after her father, Everett Crenshaw.”

  The names are disconcertingly familiar. Too similar. “My mom told me once that she got the idea for my name from a family name.”

  “Your great-grandmother was my Evelyn Cauthran,” says Rosemary.

  I suspected it about Piper, and again while standing in the star. But hearing it confirmed is another matter. “Whoa.”

  “I’m proud of your courage. It wasn’t easy for you to give up everything to restore the balance. But it needed to be done, and you’ve paid the ultimate sacrifice for that, my love. It isn’t easy to lose someone so close to us.”

  The truth of her words, the realization of everything she lost, hits hard.

  “You lost your love,” I say. “And your daughter.”

  “But not forever,” says Rosemary, smiling. “Thanks to you I can be with them now. It’s natural for people to fear death. But death is a part of life.”

  “Nikolay said the same thing,” I say, pushing away the covers and Sherlock’s tail at once. “Do you see him?” I ask, instead of asking the question I desperately want. Can I see him?

  “I have, yes. We are granted a few favors, Everly. This was one of mine, that I was able to come to you now. To thank you. You are my family. It is such a gift, to know your family.”

  She reaches toward the glass perfume bottle on my nightstand.

  “That was yours, wasn’t it?” I ask.

  Rosemary nods. “Everett gave it to me. It wasn’t until you found it that I found you.”

  My nightmares. “I was so afraid.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I knew I had to prepare you. To give you the option to defend yourself if you needed to.”

  “How was that possible?” I ask, remembering all too clearly the changes that were happening as my body shifted and contorted into a bird. “For me to change like that?”

  “Think of it as planting a seed,” Rosemary says. “I marked you so you could change if you needed to. As I said, I’m given small permissions within the paranormal realm. I doubt it will work a second time.”

  “I doubt I’d want for it to,” I say, remembering the pain that followed when I tried shifting back. “But thank you. You saved my life.”

  “We
all did what needed to be done,” she says.

  “I’m related to Piper, aren’t I?” I say, shifting back to our original topic. “Everett is her ancestor.”

  Rosemary smiles. “Distantly, yes. You are related.”

  I can’t helping thinking of Layla and Joel. “And my cousin?”

  Rosemary smiles again. “Not related. She is your cousin on your mother’s side. She does not share blood with the Crenshaw line.”

  Well, that’s a relief. The smile brewing on my face is completely genuine, restoring the gaps inside of me. “Thank you, Rosemary. I’m sorry for how your life ended.”

  “Things happen how they must,” she says with a shrug. “Do not let your sorrow consume you, Everly. It’s all too easy to let it take over. Be certain you remain in control of yourself.” I nod, trying to absorb her advice. “Death is a part of life. None of us knows when it will strike, so live your life as free of regrets as possible.”

  “Is that the message you were trying to give me? You were my crow, weren’t you?”

  Rosemary gracefully inclines her head.

  “Then why attack Layla?”

  “I couldn’t speak to you—not in any meaningful way. It was the only way the others could think to warn you of what might happen. And they are freed now. It is over.” Her eyes glance away, taking in the memory now instead of what’s before her. “How foolish I was to think an image in the mirror could determine my future,” she adds inwardly.

  Something flutters from her hand to the floor. I recognize it as the postcard from the Halloween party she attended so long ago. It fades almost the instant it lands. “Superstitions are only made real by our belief in them. If I had not been so stubborn to see a life with Everett, I never would have lost my life that night. We make things real by our pursuit of them. So take care what you’re pursuing, Everly.”

  An item materializes in Rosemary’s lap. To my surprise, it saturates with color until it’s real enough for her to pass to me. I recognize it at once.

  “Where did you get this?” I ask, brushing my hand across the book’s familiar leather. “I thought it was destroyed.”

  “Nikolay asked me to pass it on to you,” she says.

  I close my eyes against the pain of realization. He was holding it during his spell, down in his basement. “Thank you. You don’t know what this means.”

  Rosemary rises and drifts to the center of my room. “I freed him once, but only because I had your note as a message to deliver. I won’t be able to do it a second time. He is not on the path as he was before.”

  I remember the feeling, seeing him before when I thought he was lost to me. And he somehow appeared with a paper from my book in hand.

  I rise in sudden agitation. “You—you gave him my note? Can I get him out? Where is he? Rosemary!”

  “This time he left you a message, I believe.” She gestures to the heavy tome in my hands. “I’m happy to know you, Everly. And proud to share blood with you—to share life. Take care.”

  “Rosemary, wait.”

  “Goodbye, Everly.”

  Like her postcard, she fades, drifting to where she’s belonged all along. On the other side of this life.

  I sniff, both comforted and confused by her words. “Goodbye, Rosemary.”

  Hands shaking, I open the book to find everything as I left it. My drawings, my scribblings, every thought I wrote in here still intact. Even the page that was torn, the letter I wrote to Nikolay, has been returned.

  But the final pages contain writing that doesn’t match mine at all. Instead, there is a graph of symbols, large and circular, inked in with drawings, shaded and swirling like zen art. And below it, writing sends my pulse hounding so hard the book nearly slips from my grasp.

  Come find me. Bring the hitch.

  -NT

  thirty

  one

  Nikolay is alive. And not only is he alive, but there’s a possibility to get him back. The realization floats softly over me like snow and yet all at once like a tsunami.

  I’ve pictured so many scenarios, different answers to questions about why he didn’t bring the book back to me himself, why he ended up wherever he is, why Rosemary spoke with him.

  I wasn’t sure what to do after she left. I helped destroy the very books that could answer every one of my questions. They’re nothing but ash now. But I did realize one thing.

  Death is intrinsic to life. And much in the same way, some people are also inescapably meant to be together. Rosemary and Everett. Todd and Piper. Even Layla and Joel are obviously perfect for each other.

  And Nikolay. He is intrinsic to me.

  Rosemary mentioned my parents. And if I’m doing this, if I’m going after him, I have one final thing to take care of.

  Sherlock sits on the passenger seat, a quiet, purring companion. I don’t turn any music on, just let the road noises dull my senses and take over.

  I don’t see the countryside or the other cars. I’m directed by instinct, by the lines on the road, and by the sun fading behind the trees. And it isn’t until the Shady Heights exit comes into view that Sherlock’s soft, wet nose against my arm startles me back into full-on awareness.

  “Hey,” I tell the cat, petting his fur. He paws across and purrs on my lap, resting warm and reassuring near my stomach, and I pull off and follow the familiar road, past the penitentiary, past the cemetery and elementary school, the stores and other establishments, deeper onto roads I know like my own heart. A few months haven’t affected the town much. The signs are the same, the same gas station, the same homeless man living near the old Presbyterian Church.

  My house looks the same too. A single-level brick wonder from the 1970s my mom has slowly been reviving over the years, with modern touches like granite countertops and a sliding barn door over the pantry. Snow banks over the grass and flowerbeds, caking its way up either side of the walkway leading to our brief, covered porch.

  Sherlock hops out of the car and trots along toward the front door, a miniature winter lion. His fur is the perfect camouflage for this weather. He sits on the mat, waiting for me to reach him.

  I crouch down and scratch him behind the ears. “I’m glad you’re here,” I tell the cat. Even if Nikolay can’t be.

  I swallow the sense of purpose at the thought of him and ring the doorbell to my own house.

  My dad answers. Shock overtakes his handsome face. Streaks of gray collect at his temples. A new white patch mixes in with his dark goatee. His look of surprise is quickly replaced with a smile.

  “Evie?”

  I’m in Dad’s arms before I get the chance to reply. He smells the same as he always has, sawdust and aftershave. His hair is wet, telling me he had his evening shower after coming home from work at his cabinetry shop.

  Tears brim in my eyes. A hug. Not the reprimand I expected.

  Rosemary’s words reverberate. Family is everything; family and love. It’s when people lose sight of that that things go wrong. It’s when people forget that we’re all connected, that everything we do affects someone else, whether we know it or not, that our lives move out of balance. My heart warms to my mom. A mother who lost a daughter, like Rosemary, if only for a time.

  The arguments we had, the hurtful retorts, they weren’t out of anger. They stemmed from her pain, from the realization she was losing me. Or losing the idea she had of me. I was looking at her pain for weeks now, pain in the form of those boxes, never realizing what it took for her to let me go. Never realizing my part in all of it. But I saw Rosemary’s pain. I saw her relief at being reunited.

  Mom appears behind Dad, a struck look of disbelief on her face. I push my way into her arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I say in a half sob.

  Her arms wrap around me. She strokes my hair, soothing me as she hasn’t done since I was a child.

  “Shh,” she say
s.

  “I’m sorry about the fights. About sneaking out, about not listening to you. For lying to you about Jerry. I’m sorry for leaving you.”

  Mom grips me tighter, and from the sniffling I realize I’m not the only one crying. She holds me, and warmth spreads between us, everything that separated us destroyed in an instant.

  Mom, Dad, and I go out to dinner and then come back home. We cluster on their king-sized bed and talk well into the night; I tell them about Nikolay, about my job at the bookstore, about dropping out of school. I omit everything supernatural, though I do tell them about Layla moving here with Joel Crenshaw.

  It means a lot that they’re here, listening to me, after all I’ve put them through. And I tell them so.

  Dad chuckles. Even Mom smiles. “We were teenagers once,” Mom says, winking at Dad.

  My brows raise. “That’s not something I thought I’d ever hear from you.”

  They laugh, Mom playfully socking Dad with a pillow.

  I want to keep this. To bottle this moment up, store it in my heart and draw on it when things get hard. Because I’m about to leave them. I’m about to find Layla and figure out how to travel through time and get to Nikolay. It’s unsafe. It’s reckless. I may not even make it.

  But I have to try.

  “I love you both,” I tell them. And from the sadness in their eyes, I know they hear my silent goodbye.

  thirty

  two

  I call Layla, only to find that she rushed back to Cedarvale so I wouldn’t be alone. I hurry back as well, the two hour drive passing in a wink, mostly because I’m so lost in my thoughts I don’t realize I’m to the Cedarvale exit until I nearly miss it.

  I pull into Crestwood apartments and steel myself for what needs to be done. The key is the ostium nexu. A path between the living and the dead, a metaphysical realm leading to anywhere in time a person might want to go. Though the doors were destroyed, the path itself can’t be. It’s still there. Andrei accessed it without doors once. He had to have done, to go back in time and meet Augustus Garrett in the first place. Which means I can do it too.