Ghost of Doors (City of Doors)

by Jennifer Paetsch

  Cans of food lined the inside of a small pantry, and Raphael muttered, “I hope you like beans,” as he found a can opener and worked the lid, beans rushing forth in a sticky river into a pot retrieved from its storage place under the stove.

  “I was expecting better,” Marie admitted.

  “Expect nothing and never be disappointed,” Raphael said.

  “Expect nothing,” Marie said, peering warily into the pot, “and get it.”

  “I sincerely hate to disappoint you,” he said, “but there isn’t much in the way of human food around here.”

  “At least it’s something,” Leonie said, not the least bit disturbed by the implications of his remark. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank him yet,” Marie said. “You haven’t tasted it.”

  “Har, har.” Raphael gave her a glare that Wolfgang took to be amusement.

  Wolfgang grimaced. The way Raphael prepared the food reminded him of a pet owner readying a meal for his animals. He was jolted from his thoughts when Raphael said, “Remember when we used to do this, Wolfgang? Your mum would ask us to help her by making our own dinner and I would heat up the soup because I was older.”

  “You mean because you could reach the stove better.”

  “That too. Now that’s laughable, huh? You’re like a head taller than me.”

  “Strange to see you nostalgic. I figured your past was dead and buried and you liked it that way.”

  “Yeah, well,” he mumbled. “It would have been stranger for me to forget everything, wouldn’t it? The only way I could forget all of my teen age years would be for me to have amnesia.”

  “So why are you letting me join your team, anyway? MOON must be having serious problems.”

  “I was never against you becoming eldritch.” Raphael reminded him. “You were the one against it the whole time.”

  “Then you’ll take me on?”

  There was no more snark, no banter. Raphael was as serious as Wolfgang had ever seen him. It was almost frightening. “We can use every one we get.”

  Wolfgang felt his pulse quicken in spite of himself. “I thought that MOON was winning.”

  “I thought so, too.” Then Raphael turned his head toward the hall as if hearing something that called his name. Or an unfamiliar sound that warranted investigation. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment. Enjoy.”

  Moments after the vampire had left, Marie turned to Wolfgang and put her hand on his shoulder before slipping away invisibly into the dark end of the hall. He knew what that meant. If she said anymore she might be overheard, but he understood she wanted him to stay here. She was most likely going to follow Raphael to try to learn more about what was going on with MOON. That left Wolfgang alone with Leonie. He took over cooking the beans and tried to think of something to talk about that wouldn’t make him crazy enough to be the Wolfgang she had read about on the Internet. He thought about Marie and what he liked best to talk about with her. He decided it was easy enough to be honest since there was so much about the lands beyond the city of Doors that he didn’t know. If only he could muster up the courage needed to tell a total stranger how he felt, and what he wanted most in the whole universe.

  "I've never been to the human world," Wolfgang confessed. His excitement bled into his voice—the excitement of potentially having a human friend again, and she was so real and pretty, her winter clothes shed and her T-shirt gray and fitted, showing off her curves. After adjusting her glasses, Leonie smiled at him with lips like a thick rosebuds.

  "Never? Not even for vacation?"

  Wolfgang chuckled, not sure if she was joking. He stirred the beans thoughtfully with one hand as a way to quell his nervousness while holding the pan over the gas flame with the other. He supposed he just wanted her to like him so badly that he needed to get that energy out. Her eyes were drawn briefly to the stirring spoon, then back to him, but her smile did not change. Maybe she just liked him, too, and wanted to show him. He hoped that was the case.

  "I’ve never gone on vacation, either."

  "Me neither. Not really. My parents never had time." Her glasses shrunk her eyes, but just over the rim Wolfgang could see them arching, broad and sparkling like new sapphires. Her voice reminded him of the little birds that peppered Doors with chirping, not lyrical and silky like Marie's voice. Marie's voice was deep and rolling and soft like ocean waves, whereas Leonie twittered and tinkled, little bells that rang in his ears pleasantly, tumbled but punctuated, little chips of stone clattering down a cliff side. “So, that guy on the Internet, that other Wolfgang Schäfer, you don’t know him?”

  "No. The Wolfgang that was in your world is a changeling. I was switched at birth. Well, I guess you could say we were switched at birth. With each other."

  "You're kidding," she said. "Like in the stories, you mean? Faerie tales?"

  Wolfgang didn't know what she meant by that. Too embarrassed to show his ignorance, he said, "Changelings let human parents raise their children," hoping to better make his point. "And usually, they do this by switching a baby with theirs. Like a newborn baby, too young for the parents to realize there's been a switch."

  "Oh, now I see," she said, taking off her glasses with both hands. She kept watching him even though he imagined he was just a blur to her now, and she shook back her night-dark hair before settling the glasses on her slender ears and nose once more. He got a better look at her eyes for a brief moment, and they gleamed a navy blue, like two ripe berries, or the deepest stones in the earth. "How does he look just like you, though?"

  "A changeling baby needs to look like the people they're living with." He’d never had to explain this before, so he hoped it made sense. "They take on the form of the first baby they touch. The parents need to be careful that they do this correctly, or it could ruin the child's entire life."

  "You mean, they could look like the wrong child?"

  "Sure. They could even end up the wrong gender." Leonie stared at him blankly for a long moment, and Wolfgang worried that he'd rubbed her sensibilities the wrong way. "But most changeling parents are more careful than that."

  "This magic stuff is a lot more...serious than I thought." Everything here is probably more serious than you thought, he told her in his head. He hated and loved at the same time what he took for her naivete. It was attractive in its innocence and repulsive as it took so much for granted. In her world, peace and comfort were a given. The only thing given here to humans was hardship and lots of it. "I have an idea. Ask me something and I'll answer as best I can." He figured she wanted to change the topic and he decided it was a good idea to take her up on it.

  "Why do you want to become a monster?"

  She looked as if he'd slapped her. "I...thought you were going to ask me something about the human world."

  "I know about the human world. My father is human. He told me lots of things about it. So have the other eldritch who have been there." That wasn't a hundred percent true, but he figured she wouldn't know that. It was important to change her mind, and to do that, they needed to talk about her or he couldn't show her the folly behind her reasoning. He realized he hadn't smiled at her at all. That was probably not good. Wolfgang was not used to smiling, but it was probably a good idea to smile at the girl you liked to let her know how you felt. "What I don't know much about is you," he said, and pulled the corners of his mouth up as naturally as he could muster. He wiped his brow with the back of his arm. She smiled back, but hers was better than his. Hers looked so natural, like a part of her, like it was something she did often. Wolfgang hoped she had reasons to do it often. He hoped that he would become one of them. "Do you want to tell me why? Or is that too personal?" He began to look around in a cupboard for a bowl to put the beans into while hoping that looking away would make his questions and attention less intense.

  Her smile fled quickly and he was sorry to see it go. Turning off the heat, he poured the beans into a bowl he’d found and kept his eyes on what he was doing to give her time to talk. "Ah,
well, it...it didn't seem real at first. I met Raphael, and he said he was a vampire. I didn't believe him, and he said that he would show me proof if I followed him." As her words trailed off, Wolfgang was surprised how easily Raphael had trapped her in Doors. Just how many humans had MOON recruited over the last few weeks? And all as easily as Leonie had been? Wolfgang's feelings must have shown on his face, because she hastily added, "I didn't know he was taking me to another place. I just thought we were going to the TV Tower because he wanted show me something there."

  "So you've changed your mind? About becoming a monster?"

  "I'm not sure," she said, but he was sure that was just said to appease him. Her eyes, her dark blue eyes, shining like mica, told him something else. They said no, she didn't change her mind, even though she was afraid to say it. "What do you know about the monsters?" she asked, her voice lilting with excitement. "What can you tell me about the vampires here? Or the changelings? You must know everything about this place."

  "I know enough to know that I will never become a monster." He found several more bowls to use to divide up the beans. He wanted to slam each bowl against the wall but he knew that nothing good would come of it. Control of yourself, of your feelings, was the best counter anyone could have against the creatures of Doors, human and not. "I would rather die first." The way the corners of her mouth turned down disappointed him. He wanted to see that smile again, felt like he would do anything to make it happen. But she needed to understand how wrong her desires were, how misguided and dangerous. "Most times, that's the way it happens. You have to die first to become a zombie or a vampire, or any other undead. Not as romantic as you thought, I guess."

  "I'm sorry," she said. Wolfgang wasn't sure what she was sorry for.

  He said, "Just remember that everything here was human once, was just like you. Every zombie. Every stone. Except for the fae. They are the rulers here."

  "What do you mean?" She stood up, her long hair falling behind her like a shadow. "What does that mean, every thing was human once? That doesn’t make sense." There was a slight wave to her hair that made it float behind her, around her, a dark halo that blazed. She'd worn it up when he first met her; he didn't realize how long it really was.

  "I mean I'm not exaggerating. The fae own everything, made everything. Whatever you see here is what it is because some powerful fae wanted it to be that way." Wolfgang had a hard time keeping the anger out of his words. He didn't want her to think the anger was directed at her, because it wasn't. She seemed kind of sensitive that way. He wanted to learn more about social customs in the human world, but he didn't want to get off track. This was important, and she needed to understand. He hated the way things were here, wished he could change them with all his heart. "You’re right, I should be clearer. When I say 'made,' of course I don't mean that they actually build things. That's for the slaves to do. They make everything, with their bodies and souls. And this place is just a copy of a human city. None of the buildings here serve their real purpose. Most don't serve any purpose. They're hollow things, just like the fae. No soul to them. Never was. Why the eldritch copy human cities I don’t know. I used to think it was to make their prey feel more at home, but now I’m not so sure they have complete control over the shape the city takes. Or maybe it’s being done by the most powerful eldritch, the few god-like, unmatched. That’s certainly possible. Humans like us wouldn’t have any way to know.”

  "Wait. Stop. This is Berlin," she said, "isn't it?"

  "No," he replied. "This is Doors." He wasn't exactly surprised that Raphael had not bothered to explain anything to her. That would only frighten her off, make her change her mind, just as he was doing now. He continued, "It's only been a model of Berlin for about fifty or sixty years. Before that, it was some other place. Are you from Berlin?"

  "Hold on a minute. If this isn't Berlin..." The tremor in her voice and outstretched hand proved to Wolfgang that she had to have an answer from him, because the answer that she came to herself was horrifying. "Where are we?"

  "Some people call this the Land of the Dead," Wolfgang told her. "But it's not. Not exactly. It's sort of a stop on the way. The eldritch—the ‘Fair Folk’, the monsters—all call this place the 'Land of Youth.’”

  "Land of Youth?" she asked in a tone that said she wanted to make sure she understood.

  “Yeah,” Wolfgang said, chuckling to himself. “It’s because they don't age. They never get old. They grow up and stay young forever." Her eyes wide in wonder, Wolfgang wasn't sure if she misunderstood him or understood him only too well. He turned away from her briefly, stirred the beans idly just to be doing something. The warm smell made his stomach growl but they both ignored it. The conversation was making him lose his appetite anyway. "They can't die. They don't have souls. They can only be destroyed." Her expression became so alarmed that Wolfgang felt compelled to ask, "You knew that, right? I mean, you came here to join them, I thought."

  "I—sure, I knew about the not dying. Not so much about the 'no soul' part." She rubbed her bare arms; Wolfgang noticed the goosebumps and wondered if they were from cold or fear. "What happens to it?"

  "I'm not sure," he admitted. But Dad knows, he thought, and felt sick.

  "So what you're saying is, this is where the people belong who die and can't go to heaven or hell. Like a purgatory."

  Wolfgang scratched his head. It was beginning to get warm in the kitchenette from the stove and hot food and their body heat, and he'd started to sweat. "I don't know about that. I've never seen a heaven or a hell. But then again, I can't exactly leave Doors."

  "You can't?" she asked. "Why not?"

  "No human can," he explained. Thinking about the day before, he smiled dryly. "I guess Raphael forgot to tell you that, too. Only the monsters can go in and out of the doors at will."

  She was silent for a long time. He stirred some beans and waited for her to find her voice. "What happens if you do?" she said.

  "If I do what? Go into a door?" She nodded. He shrugged. “It depends. Sometimes death. Sometimes nothing. Of course, the portal in the Hindernis isn't like the normal doors in...Doors." Wolfgang realized he'd started rambling and got quiet.

  "So, when you say eldritch..?"

  "I mean monsters. And the fae. The Fair Folk, sometimes they're called. Elves. Changelings like Marie, or my doppelganger. But there are other kinds, too, that can do much more than change shape and disappear." Wanting to get closer, Wolfgang moved to sit beside her. Most of his red-hot anger was gone, leaving only smoldering coals of bitterness. She made room for him at the table but seemed reluctant. "Those kind are very old, but most of the ones in Doors aren't like that. Most of them killed each other off in bloody wars. The older they are, the more powerful and dangerous they are. Luckily there aren't too many of those anymore."

  "I guess I understand," Leonie said.

  "You and I can never be fae," he explained. "You are either born a fae or not. That leaves the rest of the monsters here, the soldiers in the Fair Folks' armies: Vampires, zombies, werewolves. Other things."

  "So how did you and Marie get to be friends, then?" she asked, taking off her glasses to clean them on her T-shirt. "It sounds like that kind of thing would be forbidden."

  "Oh, no. It’s not because everyone here expects the humans to change," he told her. "Being human is like uh, the larval stage on the way to the butterfly. So, even though we’re lower class, we’re still worth something. Doesn’t mean we don’t get pushed around a lot, though."

  Leonie seemed to accept this. She nodded and warily eyed the beans Wolfgang had served her. Reminded that he finally had some food to eat, hunger came back like a stray animal, and he spooned the hot beans eagerly into his mouth as politely as he could manage. He didn’t want her to think growing up in this place had made him some kind of beast. “Don’t like beans?” he asked.

  “No, I like beans fine,” she said. “I was just thinking. Isn’t there some kind of rule that if I eat the food here, I’m tra
pped here forever?”

  “Oh. Well, these beans weren’t made here. They came from a can.”

  “Ah,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking about it that way.”

  “If you really don’t want them, I’ll take them.”

  “Oh, sure.” She pushed the bowl toward him as he pushed aside his empty bowl for the moment.

  “And besides, you’re trapped here anyway. Unless you become a monster.” She didn’t reply but instead cast her eyes down to her hands. They folded in her lap, wings of a white dove resting.

  “You know,” he said, scooping up the bowl and digging in, “these are hard to come by here.”

  “Really?” She studied the bean can as if it was a hieroglyph.

  “Not impossible to get. Just that people don’t bring them in that often.”

  “So, how do you know Raphael?” His stomach twisted completely around, squelching his appetite. “It sounded like you two grew up together.”

  “Long story,” Wolfgang said. He stood up to put the uneaten beans in the sink.

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  He held up his hand. “No, it’s ok. Just sometimes— You grow up trusting someone and then—” He looked her right in the eyes, those dark blue jewels flecked with bits of silver holding his full attention. “You have to be careful who you trust, here. I guess it’s different in the human world.”

  She laughed a little and shook her head, the magnetism in their locked gaze broken but still felt. “I wish. I wish it was different. We’ve got a lot in common, Wolfgang. We both don’t know who to trust.”

  “You can trust me,” he offered immediately.

  This brought forth more gentle laughter, not the response he wanted nor was expecting. “I can’t believe that I thought you could murder someone. I’m sorry, Wolfgang.” Suddenly he was not the least bit insulted by the laughter, but was instead happy for it. It meant they were connecting, and that was what he so desperately wanted. And here he had stumbled upon it just by being himself, when all amounts of trying to make it happen had done nothing.