Beyond the Door

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  The man continued filling his pockets. The light in the living room dimmed even more. Something rustled in the doorway. Timothy clenched his hands.

  A girl came in, and with her came the smell of snow. She was a little older than his sister, Sarah, and moved with the grace of a dancer.

  Timothy was leaning so far forward now that he almost lost his balance and tumbled down the rest of the stairs. The girl, shining with a faint light, walked through the living room, picking up books, flipping the pages, and setting them down again. Every now and then, she ran her fingers through her white hair—hair even longer than Sarah’s—and Timothy heard a faint tinkling sound. Wherever she walked, she left footprints of silver-white dust on the blue carpet. Timothy bit his lip. This really couldn’t be happening.

  By now, the man’s pockets were full of light and the room was almost dark. Timothy inched farther down the steps. What should he do next? Suddenly, dogs howled in the yard.

  Timothy didn’t move. Mrs. Clapper must hear them. She’d be here any minute. She didn’t come. His heart beat wildly.

  A large head thrust itself into the room, a man’s head with thick curly brown hair and a disorderly beard. The rack of antlers that sprouted from his hair scraped across the door lintel. A silver hunting horn swung from his belt. His eyes roved back and forth. Timothy made himself as small as he could. A cold sea sloshed in his stomach. Something about the man felt dangerous, unpredictable. Timothy shuddered and tucked his chin into his chest.

  The howling was closer; he could hear claws clacking on the porch. The wolves of his nightmares, rangy beasts with glittering eyes and snapping mouths, popped into his mind. Timothy began to sweat. Why didn’t Mrs. Clapper wake up? The situation was definitely out of control. The dogs were sure to have very large teeth!

  The horned man spoke in a rumbling voice. “You’ve summoned the hunt early this year.” Once more, his eyes raked the shadows. Then he leaned forward and sniffed. Adrenaline surged through Timothy. If he moved, he’d be discovered. With every clenched muscle, he wished for the horned man to go away.

  “There are rumors that Balor and the Dark are on the move again. Events are unfolding that require haste. The Filidh must discover his role and his strength. Cerridwyn assures me he is ready.” The pale man’s voice rustled like the branches of trees in the wind.

  Timothy ran his moist palms down his jeans. What he was hearing made no sense at all. The Dark? Was this the same Dark from Mrs. Clapper’s story?

  The horned man nodded his great head, the antlers knocking a lamp shade sideways, clattering a picture to the floor. “Dark or Light, you know that the hunt takes no side in the battle. Who is the prey?”

  At the word prey, Timothy flinched. Why did the man ask Who instead of What?

  “It remains to be seen,” the pale man answered. “I don’t know what choices will be made, but you and your hounds are free to hunt lawful prey. Know this: I will do whatever it takes to defend the Filidh. And Balor will do whatever it takes to destroy him.” The pale man was standing taller now. He opened one of his pockets. The light inside glowed. “I have captured some of the light of his house. It will call him to me.”

  The girl said nothing. She watched and listened.

  The horned man turned to leave, ducking his antlers under the door. The baying of the hounds receded. Then the glowing girl followed him out the door, trailing the fine silver dust like the tail of a star.

  Timothy pressed his face against his hands. He didn’t like the word prey. The pale man looked around. His pockets bulged with light, and his green eyes peered into the shadows. They settled on the stairs where Timothy hid, as if he sensed his presence. Then the man turned and left, taking most of the light from the room with him.

  In the dimness, Timothy leapt from the bottom step. He slammed the door shut and locked it. He leaned against the familiar solid wood while his breathing slowed. Should he get Mrs. Clapper, or call the police first? But what would he tell them? No one would believe his description. What did the man plan to do with the light? And how could light call someone?

  He ran one hand through his hair and looked around his perfectly ordinary living room: a layer of fine silvery dust powdered the carpet, the lamp shade hung askew, and a picture lay on the floor. Nothing else, except the dimness, gave a clue that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

  If he woke Mrs. Clapper, he’d have to explain. She’d tell his parents. The questions would never stop. And he’d be doomed to having babysitters for the rest of his life. Nothing had been stolen. Timothy straightened the lamp shade, hung the picture back on the wall, and looked at the footprints with dismay. He’d sweep the silvery dust up. But first, he scraped some of it from the floor into a plastic bag, which he slipped into his pocket. Evidence. He’d save it to show Sarah. She could keep a secret. Then he hurried to the broom closet. In the distance, the dogs bayed. Timothy thought he could still smell their damp doggy odor. The silvery dust came up easily, leaving the floor just as it was.

  For a long time, Timothy gazed out the living room window, his heart still tap-dancing in his chest. Question after question bubbled up. He felt like a shaken bottle of soda, about to explode. If only Sarah were home!

  Reluctantly, he climbed the stairs to bed, but it was many hours before he fell asleep.

  Rosemary Clapper sat on the edge of the guest bed, looking at her watch. March 15, way too early for the horned man to be out and about, she thought, unless there was something unusual, something worth hunting. She had watched Timothy and Sarah grow over the years, and now it appeared the time had come. She got up and pushed her feet into a pair of pink slippers. She shivered and tightened the flannel bathrobe. The temperature always dropped by at least ten degrees after a visit from a star.

  By using the key provided here, you can decipher the Ogham script that appears in this chapter. Zoom in or increase font size to see code more clearly.

  EVIDENCE

  HEN TIMOTHY AWOKE, the sun had already slipped under his bedroom shades and crept across the foot of his bed. He looked at the clock and sat bolt upright: 11:00! This was absolutely the latest he had ever slept. Sleeping late made Timothy feel like he was missing something. He remembered it was Sunday and that Mrs. Clapper was still there. Sarah and his parents wouldn’t be home until evening. And then he remembered them—the strange man stealing light, the silvery girl, and the threatening man with his hounds. In an instant he was wide awake, heart pounding. He pulled on jeans and a crumpled T-shirt from the pile on the floor, then bounded down the stairs, the plastic bag of evidence still in his pocket.

  In the morning light, the living room was undisturbed. The carpet showed no remnants of the silvery dust from the girl’s feet, and the front door remained firmly closed. Timothy exhaled and went into the kitchen.

  Mrs. Clapper was seated at the table with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. She was wearing the same green sweatshirt she had on the night before, and on her feet were a pair of fuzzy pink slippers.

  “I’m glad to see you’re finally awake. I always think morning is the best part of the day, although night can have its own charm.” She got up from the chair and began to beat some eggs into a frothy mixture. “I hope you slept well.” She poured the eggs into a large frying pan.

  Timothy found that he couldn’t meet her eyes, and once again his heart danced to a staccato beat within his chest. “I slept fine.”

  “That’s good because there’s a lot to be done today. Your mother asked me to get you started on raking the winter debris out of the flower beds to get them ready for spring. Right after the ides is the best time to start.”

  “What are the ides?” he asked, munching a piece of cold toast.

  “Hmm, and I thought you were so advanced.” Her eyes twinkled as she scooped a steaming pile of scrambled eggs onto his plate. “The ides of March were yesterday, March fifteenth. It’s the day Caesar was betrayed.”

  “I know who Julius Caesar was— emperor of
Rome.”

  “I should hope you know. A soothsayer warned him to ‘beware the ides of March,’ but he must not have taken her seriously because the senate happened to be meeting that day, and his good friend Brutus stabbed him in the back at the foot of Pompey’s statue. Anyway, the ides are a day when you need to be careful because surprising things can happen.”

  The toast stuck in his throat. “What do the ides have to do with raking the flower beds?”

  Mrs. Clapper began washing out her coffee cup in the sink. “I like to think of them as the end of the winter. It helps me remember when to get started cleaning up the yard.”

  He thought that this year the ides had proved more surprising than she knew, and pushed his eggs around his plate. “Why didn’t he believe the soothsayer?”

  “Well, that’s a good question, Timothy. Sometimes people only believe what they want to believe, and sometimes people have trouble believing anything they can’t see for themselves. It could be that he just didn’t know what to beware of, or whom to trust.” She cleared his plate, clicking her tongue over the wasted eggs. “Now, go get the rake while I put on my shoes.”

  Timothy didn’t really mind yard work. He liked being outside, but today he wanted to be at the computer, looking up information about the strange horned man. He was sure that he had seen the horned man’s face before as an illustration in a book. It had given him the same thrill of dread he felt last night, when the rough antlers scraped above the door and the shaggy head appeared. The door frame! Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? The antlers would have left a mark on the painted woodwork. He rounded the side of the house at a run, rake in hand, but Mrs. Clapper was on the front porch, washing windows. He’d have to wait to check that, too.

  As he dragged the rake through the flower bed, he tried to convince himself that it had all been part of a very realistic dream. The dirt, still soggy after the last of the snow had melted, muddied his shoes and the cuffs of his pants. Dead leaves were caught in the spiny branches of shrubs lining the bed, and some had formed wet piles covering the bulbs he and Sarah had planted last year. Sarah was wild for flowers, particularly daffodils. They had spent hours digging bulbs into the beds all across the front of the house.

  He wished she was home now, so he could show her the bag of silvery dust. He stopped, the rake still poised in the air. In the mud of the flower bed were the prints of hounds. Very large hounds. The bed had been crossed and recrossed by several large dogs. He could hear their baying as clearly as if they were still in the yard, and with a shiver remembered the scrabble of their paws on the porch. Worst of all, he pictured their sharp teeth and slavering mouths. Timothy knelt in the mud and spread his hand across one of the paw prints. It measured almost the same size as his hand.

  “Timothy!” Mrs. Clapper called from the porch. “It looks like a neighbor’s dogs got loose last night.”

  Timothy stood up and walked over to the porch steps. He should have thought of the paw prints before Mrs. Clapper found them. She poured the soapy water left in the window-washing bucket over the wooden boards.

  “They appear to be unusually large dogs.” She peered at him over the top of her glasses.

  Timothy felt as if his tongue were stuck to the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say in response. Mrs. Clapper had just removed an important piece of evidence. He shrugged in her direction to let her know he heard, and then he returned to the flower bed and began raking furiously, stepping carefully so that he didn’t muck up another piece of evidence.

  Half an hour later, when he finished raking and walked in through the front door, Timothy was not surprised to find two ragged scrapes in the shiny paint above the door. The marks were visible only when the door was open; maybe no one would notice them before he could find some paint in the garage. On the other hand, they were more evidence for Sarah. In the meantime, there was one more thing he needed to do. He slipped cautiously into the kitchen, no Mrs. Clapper in sight. He opened the trash can and took out the garbage bag. He couldn’t chance Mrs. Clapper discovering the silver powder and asking questions. And he still had the small bag of dust in his pocket as evidence for Sarah.

  Timothy dipped his finger into the fine powder in the garbage bag. It clung to his skin, coating it in silver. What was this strange stuff made from? He sniffed it. There was no odor.

  “And just what are you up to?” Mrs. Clapper stood in the doorway of the kitchen, hands on ample hips, a dish towel flung over one shoulder.

  Heart pounding, Timothy dropped his hand and thought fast. “The garbage is full, and I just thought I’d take it out.” He didn’t sound convincing even to himself.

  “Very thoughtful, Timothy.” Mrs. Clapper opened the dishwasher, still shaking her head.

  But Timothy was already out the back door. To be extra sure that the bag wasn’t discovered, he held his breath and rooted down under soggy paper sacks, old cardboard boxes, and a putrid bag of chicken leftovers. Gagging on the smell, he stuffed the garbage bag underneath the trash. The bag of chicken was wet and gooey. It came apart as he was holding it and left long, smelly streaks when he wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans. He sighed. Now he’d have to change his pants. Being sneaky was complicated.

  By using the key provided here, you can decipher the Ogham script that appears in this chapter. Zoom in or increase font size to see code more clearly.

  SECRETS

  UNDY EVENING, SARAH sailed through the front door and did a neat pirouette in the entryway. At thirteen, she resembled one of the porcelain dolls in their mother’s china cabinet so closely that their father had started calling her “doll baby,” a name Timothy was sure he would have found disgusting if he were a girl. Sarah, as she explained to Timothy over and over, would someday be a principal dancer with the New York Ballet—if she didn’t become a pirate first. He noticed that she mentioned being a pirate less and less these days, and he found this disappointing. In his opinion, it would be much more interesting to have a pirate for a sister than a dancer.

  “I have a scholarship!” Sarah announced. “A scholarship for two weeks this summer for dance classes with the New York Ballet!” She said the words with such reverence that Timothy imagined them floating above her head in capital letters.

  “Congratulations!” Timothy jumped up, spilling Scrabble tiles across the floor. Mrs. Clapper beamed. His parents followed in close behind.

  “Tim, she was amazing! We missed you. How was your weekend?” His mother ran all the sentences together and threw her arms around him at the same time. He breathed in her minty scent and ducked out of her embrace.

  “Son,” his father said, ruffling his hair.

  The next few minutes were filled with the type of jumbled questions and answers that people share when they have adventures to relate. Somewhere in the chaos, Mrs. Clapper said her good-byes, his mother pulled a new book out of her purse and gave it to him, and his father went back out to the car for their bags.

  “What happened here?” He frowned, looking up at the frame above the door. “It looks like something scraped the paint off. Timothy, what have you been dragging into the house? Not starting any more science experiments, are you?” he asked almost hopefully. He was sure that Timothy had a future as a research scientist, especially after he won the science fair last year.

  Timothy squirmed under his father’s gaze and tried not to look at the deep scrapes in the shiny green paint. “No, I didn’t bring anything in.”

  His father only rubbed the marks and raised his eyebrows.

  When Timothy finally had Sarah to himself, it was late. Already dressed in pajamas, they were sitting among the family of toy bears on Sarah’s bed. Sarah did not pay much attention to the bears anymore. She knew, however, that Timothy still talked to them sometimes when things at school were particularly difficult—like the time when Jessica Church, the most popular girl in seventh grade, called him “genius boy” and “nerd brain.” Sarah also knew he would rather die t
han admit talking to the bears.

  Sarah had told her story, in detail, twice, and now sat stretching one leg above her head and yawning sleepily. “How was the Clapper? What exactly did you do while we were gone?”

  Timothy knew that now was the time to tell Sarah everything, but suddenly he was reluctant to let his secret go. He wanted to stretch it out and savor the importance of his news. And there was the chance that she wouldn’t believe him. After all, he wasn’t quite sure he believed it himself. Still, she was his sister, his best friend, and she was usually tolerant of his ideas, even when other people found them odd. Most important, she never laughed at him, including the times when some of his ideas didn’t work out as smoothly as planned.

  Take, for example, when he was seven and decided that he needed to simplify his normal routines so that he could use his time more efficiently. To save extra minutes, on Sunday night he put five pairs of underpants on under his jeans. He would have put on seven, but that made the jeans uncomfortably tight. Every morning he would peel one off. His plan lasted three days until his mother caught him and explained that the pants he needed to change were the ones on the inside. That night he heard her tell his father over dinner and they both laughed, but Sarah never did. She merely said, “Good thinking, Timothy. Too bad it didn’t work out.” That was what he liked about her, that and the fact that she never complained when he won at Scrabble or chess, and she never called him Tim, just Timothy.

  Now he shifted self-consciously on the bed and stretched out on his stomach so that he would not look Sarah directly in the eyes. “You’re never going to believe what happened. I don’t know if I even believe it myself.”

  Sarah listened intently, not interrupting, while Timothy described the events of the previous evening.