by Sage Short
The young man had soil under his fingernails, as if he had been digging around in the dirt, and he had a few grass stains on his knuckles. She noticed after a second that he had only four fingers on that hand.
“What happened to your pinky?” Dakota asked. It was instinctual. Her mother always said she should be a cop or a journalist. Dakota could still hear her mother’s voice, saying. ‘You ask too many questions, young lady.’
“I’m Bear,” the man said, avoiding the question as he introduced himself before walking away without another word. Dakota wanted to call out to him but she thought against it. Why bother him? He must have better things to do than amuse her with answers to useless, time consuming questions, even though she had so many: “Where was he going?” “Where was he coming from?” “Why did he only have four fingers?” She had many questions, but she pushed them aside as she walked back into the house to try and finish the rest of the book she didn’t want to read.
Chapter Four
DAKOTA SAT BACK DOWN at the desk and looked at the book that sat before her. She hesitated once again, but it wasn’t long before she turned to chapter two and began to read again.
Chapter Two: Beyond the Seven Doors
Door One - Here Piggy Piggy
Connor and Kate held onto each other as they traveled down the dark well. The light from above could still be seen, but it was slowly getting farther and farther away. The rope and bucket creaked as they traveled downward into the earth. Kate’s stomach began to ache and she began to feel motion sick from the constant swaying. Connor, on the other hand, kept his gaze on the light above their head.
They slowed to a stop when a new light could been seen from below. The well seemed to be slowly expanding as they traveled downward. It was now wide enough to fit a tiny door resembling a typical front door to a house. The small light bulb that hung from a chain swayed as the bucket came to a stop.
The woman tied the rope to an iron hook beside the new door. She led the children out of the bucket and onto the platform that reached outward. She took the ring of keys out of her pocket and handed them to Kate, who examined them before looking at the woman who stood beside her.
“Key number one,” she said. “Look for key one for door one.” Her voice had an eerie tone when she spoke. It made Kate afraid to go against the woman’s wishes.
Kate slid the first key into the wooden door and turned it until the door opened to reveal a dark room. The woman rushed the children inside and closed the door behind them, leaving them in complete darkness. The woman reached her hand up and pulled a chain, lighting the room with the flicker of a light bulb. The children blinked rapidly as their eyes adjusted.
There was a long table in the middle of the room, a straight wooden table lined with food; variations of cupcakes, cookies, candies, tarts, and tiny cakes sat on the table, and in the center was the largest cake the children had ever seen. Connor’s and Kate’s eyes widened and they ran to the table. It looked like a page ripped out of ‘Hansel and Gretel’.
They put their hands on the table and looked onto the top table, for the table was high. They could just barely see over it, and they had to hold themselves on the tips of their toes to reach anything upon it.
Connor, who was taller, reached to the top of the table and took a cookie off the plate near the back. He took a bite while his sister stuffed her face with cupcakes and any other sweets she could get her hands on. Kate mainly worked around the edge of the table. Both would take a bite of one treat, claiming it before the other could, before moving on to something else.
The woman watched the two run around the table, grabbing handfuls of whatever they could reach, while smiling to herself as she touched the keys in her pocket.
Chapter Five
DAKOTA CLOSED THE BOOK and looked at the clock on the wall above her desk: 7:45pm. She sighed at the sight of it. She pushed the chair out from under the desk and stepped onto the floor. When she’d first arrived, she hadn’t noticed the carpet that lined the ground all the way to the door. Dakota walked over to her bag that still sat on the floor and reached into it. She searched for her notebook before walking back over to the desk with it in her hand.
Placing the notebook on the desk, she opened to the center. She turned the pages in search of a blank one. Each one was covered in scribbles of black pen or lead pencil. When she finally found a blank page, she wrote something down:
GATE ONE: PIGGISHNESS
She turned to the previous pages and looked down at the clippings from newspapers and scratchy notes from her mother’s files that filled the pages. Each clipping read something like:
Dakota turned to the page before that one. It was filled with more notes from the same case. She read the headings over and over again.
Dakota closed the notebook quickly and pushed it away from her. The memories were flooding back to her again. She could imagine everything through her mother’s eyes; the sleepless nights, the faithless moments, the moments of hate, of defeat. And the moments of anger.
Dakota looked at the hardcover book that rested a few inches from her fingertips.
“You can do this,” she told herself.
She opened the book again and looked down at the page with her notebook still open. She intended on taking notes.
Chapter Three: Beyond the Seven Doors
Door Two - Through the Glass of Inner Beauty
The woman patted the children on the back as she put them back into the bucket. All the food had made them grow tired. They ventured down further until the bucket stopped again. The light of a lantern lit the faces of the children. The number two was carved into the door at this next landing.
Just as before, the three climbed out of the bucket and stepped onto the platform. This time, Connor opened the door, but this room didn’t have a light bulb, instead it had multicolored circus lights. A few paces from the door was a hallway that resembled the entrance to a funhouse. Kate was the first to venture inside.
The walls were lined with mirrors of different shapes and sizes. Kate took Connor’s hand and ran with him down the hall of mirrors. They ran together, stopping in front of each mirror.
These weren’t typical funhouse mirrors. It was unexplainable, but the mirrors at the far left showed Kate on her wedding day. The mirror across from it showed Connor at the birth of his son. The one on the far right showed Kate her daughter’s first birthday. Each mirror showed the twins as they would appear adulthood. It was strange and impossible, but in the twin’s eyes, it made sense.
The children ran up and down the hall while the woman stood with her hands folded across her chest, wearing the same sinister smile.
Kate was the first to grow tired. She had gone through all the mirrors and she was beginning to get bored of the room. She began to pace around, looking for one she hadn’t seen yet. She walked to the back of the parlor and stepped through a curtain to find a mirror in the center of the room with a thick maroon sheet draped over it. The mirror stood a few feet taller than Kate’s head.
Kate stepped before the mirror. Taking the soft fabric in her hand, she pulled the sheet from the glass and gazed up at it as the sheet slowly fell away. The mirror was lined with two temples that were identical to each other, with hand carved serpents running up the sides of the mirror. Kate was mesmerized by the mirror’s beauty. She put her hand on the glass and smiled at the face that looked back at her. She had never realized how truly beautiful she was. She had never paid much attention to how delicately her brown curls fell to her shoulders, or how her bright green eyes twinkled in the light. Her cheeks were rosy and chubby. Her skin was clean and soft. She smiled at herself, touching the face reflected in the glass. Her smiled showed off the dimples she had forgotten she had. It had been a while since she’d smiled. Her smile began to disappear when she got a closer look.
Kate saw her face slowly changing before her eyes. Her top lip slowly closed itself over her bottom lip, and now she was unable to part them. Her eyes turned
a solid black and her hair turned into what looked like straw against the cheeks that were once soft, but now looked almost like sandpaper as they lost their pink tone and were replaced with purple welts. Her lips began to peel and wither. Her fingertips began to develop a gray tint as she stared into the mirror of inner beauty.
Chapter Six
DAKOTA COULDN’T FINISH THE chapter. It was making her almost sick. She didn’t want to read any more of this chapter. She knew the outcome; they were going to travel to the next door. But she didn’t want to sit and read about the torture of this innocent little girl.
Dakota took a break for a few hours and picked it back up at 10:49pm. During her break, she’d scribbled more notes into her notebook. The only note she had written about the chapter were:
GATE TWO: CONCEDED/IN LOVE WITH HERSELF
Dakota picked the book up and took it over to the mattress that sat on a wooden bed frame across from the desk. She skipped the last page of chapter three and the first page of chapter four, as the book was beginning to get somewhat repetitive.
Chapter Four: Beyond the Seven Doors
Door Three - Jealous Little Boy
When the door closed, the woman pulled another chain and the room brightened. When the children’s eyes adjusted once again, they found themselves outdoors. The wood that was once below their bare feet was now wet and grassy, and the damp air smelled of oak and birch wood. They were in a forest.
The moon hung overhead instead of the hanging bulbs from the previous rooms, but it lit the grassy area just as well as those lights had. The woman took Kate’s right hand while her brother took her left, and the woman led them toward a tree.
Kate felt something in her pocket. Something was moving to and fro in her pajama pants pocket, something small and soft. She reached into her pocket and pulled a mouse out by its long pink tail. She screamed and dropped the mouse to the ground, then looked down at it as it scurried into a hole in the ground.
The woman dropped to the dirt and put her hand in the grass.
“These are friends,” she said, then whistled.
Another white mouse came out of the hole and scurried up Kate’s leg and into her pajama pocket. She felt another run up her back, its tail sliding across her skin. It tickled her, sending chills down her spine. She wanted to swat it away, but she believed what the woman had told her.
“They are friends,” she told herself.
The woman took Connor’s hand, attempting to pull him away from his sister.
“They like me,” Kate said, laughing. It started with the two running up and down her back. Three more joined in, then four more followed. The little white mice ran up and down her body, tickling her with every step they took. One of them even ended up sitting on the top of her head. Connor began to grow jealous.
Connor broke away from the old woman and walked over to his sister, who was standing with her arms out, allowing the mice to run back and forth from one arm to the other. He looked at the one that sat on her head and smiled at it, but when he reached out to touch it, it snapped at his finger. Not like a mouse would, but like a dog would. He heard its jaw snap closed.
Kate laughed.
“He doesn’t like you,” she teased.
Connor looked at the deep bite that was now on his thumb. He put the tip of his thumb in his mouth, glaring at the mouse that was dancing around on his sister’s head. Georgina heard him mutter something under his breath as he glared at his sister and the mice.
Chapter Seven
DAKOTA STOPPED READING and looked down at her hand. She hadn’t noticed that she’d been scribbling circles on the wood of the desk with the pen she didn’t realize she was holding. She put the pen down with a jerk of her arm.
Pulling her notebook closer, Dakota hesitantly picked her pen back up and scribbled something down on the page. She was a little relieved that the chapter was not as bad as the ones before it had been.
GATE THREE: BEGINNINGS OF HUNGRY FOR AFFECTION
Dakota put her pen back down. She’d wanted to get to the last page of the book before the night ended, but she didn’t know if she would be able to. She looked back at the clock which read 12:09am. With a yawn, Dakota stood from the bed and placed the book on the desk. She would finish reading tomorrow morning after breakfast.
Chapter Eight
THAT NIGHT DAKOTA TRIED to get some sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she saw herself inside that bucket venturing down the hole. She saw herself as a little girl, being sent down the hole, going wherever it led. When 12:52am rolled around, she gave up trying to sleep. With tired eyes she climbed out of bed and walked over to take a seat at the desk once more.
She was tired, but when she looked down at the book, her mind started racing. She felt as if a balloon was being inflated in her chest as she opened the book to the next chapter.
Chapter Five: Beyond the Seven Doors
Door Four - Harlequin Girl
As the children traveled further down the hole, Kate began to sweat. It was getting hotter and hotter in the tight space, which seemed to grow smaller and smaller. The heat, plus the creaking of the buckets downward travel, almost began to lull her to sleep.
Connor watched Kate’s eyes slowly close as she drifted peacefully to sleep. His gaze was heavy as he glared at his sister.
“What’s the matter, Connor?” the old woman asked.
“She always gets whatever she wants.” he answered through gritted teeth. “And everyone is always so nice to her. And everybody likes her. When is that going to happen to me?”
“I think you’ll like this next door,” the old woman said as they approached door five. “This is your door.”
Dakota skimmed ahead and began to read again when she found the part where they entered through the door.
Kate was the first into the room. Connor followed a few paces behind, remembering what the woman had said. He smiled to himself as something began to scurry down the walls. Kate smiled. It was the mice from before.
The wood floor was dark and the room was dimly lit, and the mice were hard to see. Kate could hear their feet tapping against the ground, then felt one of the mice run up her ankle and onto her stomach. The mouse felt a lot longer than the others had before.
Kate felt the mouse almost begin to slither up her back and to the sides of her neck and back down her leg. A snake.
The snake slithered it’s way up her spine, up and down, while her brother watched with wide eyes. The woman told Connor that the snake was a friend of his. The snake draped itself over Kate’s shoulders and slithered up and down her arms.
Connor turned his head when the snake opened its jaw around Kate’s -
Dakota stopped reading instantly: she got the point, and she didn’t want to picture this small child taking on a giant, sharp toothed beast. She picked up her pen and scribbled something down onto the page.
GATE FOUR: JEALOUSY OF AFFECTION
Chapter Nine
DAKOTA PUT HER PEN down. She turned to the next chapter and began to read once again.
Chapter Six: Beyond the Seven Doors
Door Five - Never Forgive, But Always Forget
Connor stepped through the door with his sister trailing a few paces behind.
Dakota felt her mind fading from the words she was reading. Her eyelids felt heavy and her head began to droop until it hit the desk with a small thud and she jerked awake.
She blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked down at the page. It was as if she had missed a few minutes of her life. She hadn’t realized that she was holding her pen once again. She looked down at the page of her notebook she was scribbling on and pushed the book away as she looked at the jagged handwriting that was across the page. She dropped her pen in shock at what she had written on the page:
GATE FIVE: SLOTH IS WHAT YOU ARE
Dakota stood up and backed away from the desk. Sloth.
She flipped back through her notes and saw the pattern: Greed and gluttony at the table
of sweets; Vanity in the funhouse mirrors; Pride and Jealousy with the mice and the snake.
These were five of the seven deadly sins. Dakota scribbled into her notebook.
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
USED: SLOTH, JEALOUSY, LUST, GREED, AND GLUTTONY
NOT USED: PRIDE AND WRATH
Dakota put her pen down and placed her head on the desk. She’d studied mythology and did her first paper on the legend of the gates of Hades, and her first paper in literacy had been on the seven sins. How had she not realized this connection before? She lifted her head and looked at the clock. 1:23am. She watched the time change to 1:24am before looking back at the book.
Dakota could imagine what the other chapters contained, but in a way, she didn’t want to know. She couldn’t remember writing the word “sloth”, or even reading that chapter of the book.
She looked down at it and saw she had made it to chapter seven. Halfway finished, she reassured herself.
Chapter Seven: Beyond the Seven Doors
Door Six - Jealous Little Boys and Harlequin Girls
Kate scratched at the bites she had received from the snake behind door number five. Her brother walked a few paces behind her, trying to keep his distance. His finger still throbbed from the bite of the mouse, but his pain couldn’t match that of his sister. The twins normally walked side by side, close together, but the divide between the two was growing.
