“I hope you’re right,” she says. Her fear diminishes a meager fraction. Regardless of her doubts, his words do indeed offer solace. Come what may, they will find a way to break this. No matter how long it takes.
After all, they have eternity to figure it out.
epilogue
2015
It takes Ada several years of being trapped in Garrett’s time spell before she discovers all the horrific aspects of the exact process it takes to maintain it.
Thirteen parts from thirteen victims. Pieces of others’ lives, combined in order to prolong theirs.
Horrifying. Sickening. Heart wrenching.
It is during these years her love for Thomas grows out of comprehension or reason. It is during these years Mr. Garrett’s obsession with her becomes nigh to unbearable. And it is during these years that she and Thomas again discuss their departure before Mr. Garrett discovers their amour, before he tragically acts out his revenge on Thomas and builds the staircase to the ceiling, trapping Ada beneath it to her own demise.
Though her body was gone, her spirit lived, bound to the house that was her prison. After over a hundred years, she thought she found a way to fix everything. It was a perfect solution.
Piper Crenshaw, the stable hand’s distant progeny, was so pathetic, so desperate and helpless. Yet, Piper had proven that wrong in so many ways. She stopped the spell, preventing Garrett from being able to drink his life-prolonging potion. She stood up to the bullies who tormented her for so long, including Ada, the worst bully of them all.
Guilt racks through her. Though she no longer has a body, the feelings embedded in her soul are as rampant as ever, and she looks back with shame. The answer was so simple. If only she had known—she would never have fought Piper as she did. She would never have tried taking Piper’s body to be with Thomas.
Ada relives it all in one moment, every careful step of the way. Plotting it with Thomas, using the hitch on Piper just when Piper accomplished what Ada always thought she wanted and destroyed Augustus Garrett. Taking Piper’s body. Trapping Piper in the house instead.
Ada stands on the curb outside now, staring in wonder at the once-exquisite house that was her prison. She preserved it over the years—part of her duties as she returned to relive the year 1865 and its ghastly aspects over and over. But it is no longer beautiful.
“If only Thomas could see it like this,” she muses aloud.
A wind brushes along her ethereal arms, and she shivers, hugging those arms against herself. And when she turns, he is there.
Her Thomas, with his sweet, vibrant eyes and playful smile, wearing the same vest and trousers he used to wear when tending horses.
“It is done, my love,” she tells him, staring at the transformation of the house. It’s broken, reminiscent of the hovel she once lived in before her mother died all those years ago. Segments near the tower have caved in. The collapsed porch, the patches of the house’s lath and plaster. The stable Thomas lived in was cleared years before, with the advent of automobiles. The grounds shrank substantially as portions were sold off, allowing for neighbors to build. And then everything changed anew when the house itself was moved to a new city after Piper’s mother was sent to prison.
Thomas takes her hand. “Thank you for what you tried to do for me.”
“Can you ever forgive me for stooping so low?” she asks. “I cannot believe I lowered myself to Garrett’s level, to take another’s life for my own gains.”
Thomas squeezes her hand, and she feels it shoot straight through to her heart. “I am also to blame. I was willing to go along with it as well. Can you forgive me? For not simply leaving with you that night, the night before he trapped us all?”
“How can we have known what would happen?” she asks with a sad smile.
His arm finds its way around her, bringing her to his chest. She inhales though she doesn’t really need to. Some things never leave you, she supposes. Natural things, like breathing. That is how being held by him is. Natural as a heartbeat, as pumping lungs, though she no longer has either.
“I can’t believe it is over, after so long.” His voice rumbles through his chest, directly into her ear.
“I know, my darling. It is over. It is over.”
He holds her until the sun sets. He holds her while Piper and her friends emerge from the house. He holds her all through the night and even during the next series of days when Piper and her brother empty the house of its salvageable contents and finally return to place a space heater too near a set of moth-ridden curtains.
And Thomas holds her while the house—the miserable, wretched, beautiful house—bursts into flames.
“We must speak with her, Thomas,” Ada says as Piper, Joel, and their friend stand watching the structure burn as well, each unsuspecting how closely they stand to their predecessors. “We must set things right.”
“We will,” Thomas says. “We will.”
After a while Joel Crenshaw leaves, and Ada nods to Thomas that it is time. Hand-in-hand, they appear, pressing through the invisible barrier between this world and the next. Piper staggers to her feet from her place beside Todd on the curb. Her eyes boggle wide in astonishment. Ada suppresses a smile.
“How can we ever thank you?” Thomas begins.
Todd’s mouth parts, and Ada hurries to make the reason for their visit completely clear.
“I’m so sorry, Piper,” she says. “I had no idea I would be released—that it all would have ended—if the house were destroyed. I beg for your forgiveness.”
Piper holds out a hand. “Whoa, no begging,” she says in that clipped way modern teenagers have, a way Ada has never completely accustomed herself to. “I know why you did it.”
Ada’s fingers squeeze Thomas’s before releasing them. Unwittingly, she steps forward and pulls Piper into a hug.
Her ghostly form still has substance, and Piper doesn’t pull away as Ada suspects she might. So Ada holds her closely, imaging this might be what hugging a daughter is like.
“I’m sorry too,” Piper says. “Sorry for your death.”
Ada pulls back, glancing at Thomas. Her breath quickens, and a persistent fluttering takes over her chest. That will never grow old. A shiver thrills anew at the realization that it truly is all over with. That she can be with him now, without any obstacles.
“That’s what Garrett didn’t understand,” Ada says. “Death isn’t the end. It’s only a doorway.”
With a few more parting words, Ada and Thomas leave Todd and Piper to enter that doorway, hand-in-hand, ready to never be separated again.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
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ALSO BY CORTNEY PEARSON
The Stolen Tears Series
One girl. One vial of tears. One epic journey that will defy the bounds of love, loyalty, and destiny.
Such a Secret Place
Excerpt
“Are you sure about this?” I ask Gwynn over the roaring music. I wonder if she realizes I wasn’t there the whole time. “We don’t even know if they’ll work.”
It’s a risk we both said we’re willing to take, but I can’t help trying to stop her. Once she gets her tears, she’s leaving. I hate to admit it, but I don’t want to lose my best friend.
“They’ll work,” Gwynn says, not looking at me. “They’ll at least get me out of my house.”
“But—you could do something better with that money.” I point to the small purse around her shoulder. “You could move out and get your own place.”
“I know this will work, Ambry,” Gwynn says, her eyes glimmering in the dim light.
She looks down. “It has to.”
I don’t blame her. And I don’t know what to say.
“If I moved out, he could still find me. These, though,” she inclines her head toward the gypsy woman, “with these tears I’ll be stronger.” Fire glints in her gaze. “I want to feel. Not just after a dream. But always. Maybe I’ll become a different person. Have a different life!” And she turns back to the woman.
What can I say? Whether I believe they’ll work or not, Gwynn has to hope for something.
The man scrambles from Isabel’s side, and the gypsy pockets his payment. Slowly, her eyes lift to me. Her thin lips spread into a toothy smile.
“You’ve come,” she says, her features relaxing.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never met the woman. I dart glances all around me, as if these hobnobbers can answer why she’s acting like she knows me. I wonder if she has some type of foreshadowing magic, but as far as I know, only wizards can see the future. And they’re all dead.
The incense isn’t as strong in this corner of the warehouse or whatever we’re in, and I breathe in a flowery, powdery smell, like baby’s breath. The gypsy snags my hand with her too-soft skin and leads me to where the man had knelt.
Gwynn’s mouth drops as if to say, “Hey!”
“No, you don’t understand.” I move for Gwynn to take my place, though it’s like ripping myself away from the sunlight after living in perpetual darkness. But Gwynn needs this more than I do. “My friend. Talk to her first.”
The gypsy cocks an eyebrow, tilting her face. “Very well,” she says, casting Gwynn a fake-looking smile. “What can I do for you?”
“I wondered about your, um, I mean, do you have some—”
Isabel waves a crooked, ringed hand in Gwynn’s face, spreading more of the overpowering baby’s breath smell. “Don’t trouble yourself, dearie. I know what you want.”
Sure she does. And then her glance veers back to me in a pointed way. What did she do that for?
“I’m not sure you could afford it,” Isabel says.
“But I can,” Gwynn argues. She shovels out a wad of notes from her purse all mashed together like cabbage. Isabel’s mouth curls, and her eyes widen with hunger.
My gut sinks. I only have about sixty moyen left after paying for the ID. How much are these tears going to cost?
“So it seems. Very well, then. Which would you have?”
“Do you have any of love? Or happiness, maybe?” Gwynn asks.
“Those are the steepest. You should know that those from sadness or pain are just as powerful.”
“I’ve had enough sadness and pain.”
The gypsy inclines her head as if acknowledging the fact and turns away from us toward the box. I chew the inside of my lip. I’ll get my turn.
She drags out drawers that before were hidden from sight, and within one drawer she removes a second, drawing it out completely and presenting it to Gwynn.
The small drawer lights Gwynn’s soft features with a blue glow. Gwynn’s attention is pinned to the tiny jars in the back three sections. They shine as if each holds a single blue light inside it.
A hum spills out from the jars, thrumming, creeping its way to my ears until it blocks every other sound but the beating in my chest. My heartbeat cranks faster, pulsing at the sides of my neck. The whirring seeps through, vibrating in my skull. It draws on my saliva until I can taste the hum, until it holds every sense I possess so it’s all I see, breathe, feel.
The droning spreads to my fingers and raises my hand, hones it in toward the jars—or more importantly, toward the one in the corner with the twisted neck like blown glass. Gwynn’s fingers creep toward them as well, but that doesn’t matter.
The purr, the pulsing—it’s for me.
The drawer is snatched from Gwynn and gets slammed shut, sending a slap to my subconscious. The dark ambience of the room bursts back through, making me aware of everything else again. My widened eyes meet the gypsy’s, who leers.
I clear my throat, trying to regain my bearings. “What kind are these?” I ask. I’m not sure she’d told the truth when she mentioned it before.
Isabel winks and points to the drawer as she slides it open again. “All of happiness, of course. None for love, those are rare. Most people don’t give those up. Even if I do get them, they are the first to go.”
I have a hard time following the gypsy. The humming jar begins calling to me again, buzzing through me to my core, and I have to force myself not to stare at it.
I want them.
I want them in my hand. They’re mine. How much can they be? If I don’t have enough maybe I’ll ask Gwynn to lend me some money. She worked at a farmer’s market for two whole summers.
Gwynn’s eyelids are closed, her chest rising and falling. Her quivering hand hovers. Stops. Her fingers close around a jar—praise angels it’s not the one I want. I jerk my hand back to my lap to keep from reaching for them again, too.
“Forgetting something?” the gypsy asks.
Gwynn shakes herself with a wilted smile. “Oh, right. Sorry. How much?”
Probably something she should have asked before now. But I can’t help my own building curiosity.
“Two,” says Isabel.
Two moyen? That’s it? I feel like fluttering my lips. I figured they would be pricey. Isabel herself said they would be. Why so little?
Gwynn again plucks the cabbage roll of notes from her purse and dislodges hundreds, counting until she has a stack. She hands them to the gypsy, who gives her the same patronizing smile she gave the man before us.
“Two thousand moyen? You said they’d be expensive, but I didn’t think—”
“Will you shut up, Ambry? I know what I’m doing.” Gwynn plucks out the jar she nearly grabbed earlier, and again I flush with relief that it’s not the one I want. The one that crooned through me.
The jar illuminates her face with its pale hue, bouncing blue light into the gleam in her eyes. From across the room, the glow also points out another pair of eyes, and I know Gwynn and I aren’t the only ones admiring the jar filled with glistening, blue-tinted tears.
If you’ve liked this excerpt, you can find the full novel at your favorite online retailer. With bold twists, a riveting world of magic-powered technology, and a slow-sizzle romance, find out why readers are calling Such a Secret Place “totally original!”
About the Author
USA Today Bestselling author Cortney Pearson is a mother, a musician, and a lover of all things pink and sparkly. She is the author of Phobic and Intrinsic, about doors that shouldn’t be opened, and the Stolen Tears series, about an enchanted vial of tears and the girl chosen to wield them. Cortney lives with her husband and three sons in a small Idaho farm town. She loves chocolate, romantic books, and classical music, and believes anything can be made better with a book tucked away for those just-in-case times.
Find Cortney online!
www.cortneypearson.com
www.facebook.com/cor2ney
twitter: @cor2ney
Table of Contents
Foreward
Phobic
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty
-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Intrinsic
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Cryptic
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
What Do You Think?
Also by Cortney Pearson
Such a Secret Place Excerpt
About the Author
The Forbidden Doors Box Set Page 60
