Beyond the Door

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  “Right … a horned man and a glowing girl.”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true! You saw the scratches on the door!”

  Sarah raised both eyebrows and folded her arms across her chest. Timothy knew that skeptical look too well. “That’s where the scrapes came from, his antlers?” she asked. “Were you scared?”

  “Yeah, at first. But then the pale man started grabbing light, and I forgot about being scared until the horned man showed up. And his dogs.” His voice faded out. “They were vicious dogs. At least, that’s how they sounded.”

  Sarah frowned in concentration. “Like wolves. No wonder you were scared. Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “And tell them a man was stealing light?”

  “You’ve got a point. Timothy, you’d better not be lying to me.”

  “I swear this is absolutely true. Besides, I have evidence.” He dashed into his room to retrieve the bag of silver dust from the pocket of his jeans. But the jeans were gone! He looked under the bed, in the back of his closet, and even in the bathroom hamper. Dread settled like a weight on him. He raced into the laundry room. On the top of the washing machine was a neatly folded stack of laundry, his jeans on the top. Grabbing them off the pile, he thrust his hand in one pocket and then in the other just to make sure. Nothing.

  “What took you so long?” Sarah demanded when he returned empty-handed.

  “I saved some of the silver dust the girl tracked in. I put it in a bag in my pocket, but Mom must have done the laundry and washed my jeans.”

  Sarah rubbed lotion on her feet. “Well, I need more evidence than scratches on the door. You have to admit, this is pretty hard to believe. Did these people of yours say if they’d be coming back?”

  “I told you, they didn’t talk to me. How am I supposed to know if they’ll be back? And there is more evidence. I swept the rest of the silver stuff off the floor and put it in a garbage bag. The only problem is, the bag’s buried in the trash. But I can dig it out. We can get it right now.”

  “It’s too late. Besides, Mom and Dad will wonder what we’re doing. You can get it first thing in the morning.”

  Timothy expelled a long sigh. He had counted on the evidence to impress her. “Sarah, have you ever heard of the ides of March?”

  “Sure, in Julius Caesar.” She ran a brush through her hair and gathered it up into a ponytail. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing important—just something the Clapper said, that’s all.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back? And what did they mean about the Dark?” Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the curtained window.

  “I don’t know, but it reminded me of one of Clapper’s stories.” Timothy picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “We could try another experiment: open the door and see if they’ll come back.”

  He looked up to gauge Sarah’s response.

  She raised her eyebrows.

  She hadn’t written him off completely, he thought. Sarah really was an okay sister.

  “I’m going to assume this actually happened and it wasn’t a dream or something,” Sarah said.

  “It did.”

  She nodded. “Remember that gallery opening where Mom is showing paintings in a couple of weeks? That’s when we can try your experiment again. With both of us home, we won’t need Mrs. Clapper. Now, get out of my room. I want to sleep.” She slid down under the covers. As Timothy left, she called out, “And I want to see that garbage bag in the morning.”

  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.

  UNDESIRABLES

  HE MORNING STARTED OFF badly. Timothy had never paid attention to the trash schedule, but it seemed they picked up garbage early, very early, Monday mornings. So when he and Sarah hurried out to the driveway, all they found was an empty can.

  Timothy insisted on showing Sarah the evidence in the flower beds, but the paw prints, according to Sarah, could have been left by any very large dogs. Deflated again, Timothy had left for school without breakfast.

  “Hey, Timothy!” Kenny Anderson was already at the bus stop, his trombone case resting against one leg. “We’ve got a band concert tonight. Are you coming?” He ran his tongue across his new braces.

  Timothy shrugged. The bus rides to and from Enterprise Middle School were not his favorite times of the day. In fact, the twenty minutes seemed interminable now that Sarah rode an earlier morning bus to take French classes. For the first time, he was forced to find a seatmate. At least Kenny got on at the same stop, which gave Timothy someone to talk to while he waited, but Kenny was considered as much of a nerd as Timothy. Once on the bus, they followed the unspoken rule of separating and searching for empty seats. Because they were one of the last stops on the route, every available seat had at least one other person already in it. Timothy dreaded the inevitable eye roll from the older kids—or worse, their condescending sneers.

  As they climbed up the steps of the bus, Steve, the ponytailed bus driver, greeted Kenny and Timothy with a hearty “Morning, boys!” and the doors shut with a groan behind them.

  Jessica Church sat in the front seat with Tina Salcedo. Jessica always sat in the very front, which as everyone knew, was the second-most desirable spot on the bus. The most desirable spot was the back, but that was the special province of the eighth-grade boys. Timothy tried to slink past Jessica without being seen, but this was impossible. Jessica had curly brown hair; round hazel eyes; a small, perfectly shaped nose; and breasts. Several of the seventh-grade girls had magically changed shape during the last few months, while everyone else was going about their daily business. The girls had transformed into different beings who talked about makeup, clothes, and boys, giggling in a way that let you know you were excluded from their discussion. Jessica made Timothy extremely nervous.

  “Brain boys have arrived. How are the alien implants doing?” Jessica smirked. This sent Tina off into a fit of giggles. Tina, Timothy noticed, had somehow missed the transformation, but she wore an enormous amount of jewelry and black fingernail polish to compensate.

  Fortunately, there was a seat open halfway back in the bus. Unfortunately, it was right in front of Justin and Trevor, the sixth-grade spit-wad kings. Timothy pulled up his sweatshirt hood and prepared himself for another day of school, that alien planet where he had difficulty even breathing the air. The other inhabitants knew a secret language that he could never master. It was a certain way of joking, of moving, of carrying your head, a code he could not crack, and this was strange because Timothy James could break almost any real code he had ever encountered. It was just this human code that gave him problems.

  At school, Timothy headed straight for the library. Twenty minutes until the first class. If he hurried, he could see if the new book on magic tricks was in. He’d been practicing the ones he knew on Sarah, but her cooperation came at a high price, usually taking her turn at cleaning the kitchen.

  “Timothy, just the person I was hoping to see. Look what we got in.” Mrs. Goldberg, the school librarian, held up a glossy new hardcover. Chaos Theory.

  “Thanks.” Timothy tucked it under his arm and looked for an open chair. No one bothered you if you were reading. Teachers found reading an acceptable activity and never interrupted you with pep talks. Even other students ignored you for the most part. Books were like a magic invisibility cloak.

  As he made his way to the last open chair, Jessica and a large eighth-grade boy rounded the stacks. The boy raced Jessica to the chair, trying to pull her into his lap.

  “Don’t, Brian!” Jessica squealed, and then she caught sight of Timothy with his bulging backpack and Chaos Theory displayed prominently under his arm.

  “Nerd alert! Nerd alert!” She pointed one glittery fingernail in his direction. Several heads turned to watch. Brian threw his head back, guffawing so loudly that his baseball cap fell to the floor. Timothy could hear snickering spreading like
fire as he stood clutching the oversized book, wishing he could sink right through the floor and out of sight.

  Now was the time for retreat, he told himself, a dignified retreat. Don’t let them smell fear or shame, ever. His legs wobbled. He stumbled awkwardly to the back of the reading room and sank to the floor. Sitting against the wall, his face prickled with heat. He opened the book as a shield. For a few minutes, the words squiggled on the page like snakes refusing to come into complete focus. When the letters formed more conventional shapes, he found himself reading a definition:

  Chaos theory is finding the underlying order in random data or events. Just a small change in initial conditions can potentially result in huge transformations.

  Underlying order in random events … What if there was no underlying order? Timothy wondered. What if random was just, well, random? He forgot about his recent humiliation as he puzzled over the last few days. Maybe there was a pattern that he couldn’t see in the series of random events happening in his own life. But no matter how hard he thought, he still couldn’t see one.

  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.

  WISHES

  HAT NIGHT, SARAH AND TIMOTHY sat in their pajamas on the slope of the roof under a wide band of starlit night. It was their favorite place, right outside Sarah’s bedroom window, the one place where they could talk in absolute privacy.

  Sarah’s quilt was tucked up around them, but they could still feel the last bite of winter right through the blanket, and they huddled close for warmth.

  “That’s Orion’s Belt, and over there is Betelgeuse.” Timothy held his flashlight over the star chart.

  “It doesn’t look like a belt to me,” said Sarah. “It looks like part of the Big Dipper. Did you know that you can have a star named after you? A girl in my class got a star named for her on her birthday. It came with a certificate, and everything said ‘Amanda Jane’ on it. Somewhere out there is a star named Amanda Jane Robbins.”

  “That’s crazy. Stars shouldn’t be named after people. Stars don’t have human names.”

  “What kind of names should they have, then?”

  Timothy thought seriously for a while. “Cold names, faraway names like Trillium or Evealene.”

  “Timothy, did you wish on the first star tonight? I did. I wished I could be Clara this year in The Nutcracker.”

  Timothy shook his head.

  “Well, wish something now. What do you wish?”

  Timothy didn’t take long to answer, and when he did, Sarah was surprised by the sincerity of his voice. “I want to be wolfproof.”

  She knew that this was not a time to laugh. “What do you mean ‘wolfproof’?”

  “Well, wolves are dangerous beasts.”

  “Go on.” Sarah thought she knew where this was heading. After all, it was her bed that Timothy used to visit after one of his bad dreams.

  “Wolfproof, so that I wouldn’t have to dream about them anymore. I could look wolves right in their fierce eyes and tame them. But it’s more than that. You know how when something is waterproof, it’s resistant to water? The water just beads up and runs off?” Sarah nodded. “Well, I want to be resistant to scary things. I want to be brave.”

  “That’s a weird wish. Most people wish for things that they want or for lots of money,” was all Sarah said.

  “Well, I’m not very brave. I’m tired of having wolves in my dreams, chasing me, and I don’t want to worry about their teeth,” said Timothy, remembering the mat of paw prints in the flower beds. “But then, I’d also like to fly, and I really wish I was taller. I hate being one of the shortest kids in seventh grade.”

  “I think one wish would be all we’d get,” Sarah replied. “I’d want to be the best ballet dancer in the world, and dance in New York, and have everyone throw roses at my feet.”

  Timothy nodded. He felt slightly disappointed that her wish had nothing to do with pirates, but he could understand wanting to do something very well. If he was that good at something, anything, then people like Jessica Church would respect him. He might even be able to sit on the backseat of the bus.

  “The gallery opening is in two weeks and we can try your experiment again when the parents are out of the house. I just wish it was sooner,” Sarah said.

  Timothy looked thoughtful. “I went online and looked up the horned man.”

  “And?” Sarah knew it was pointless to hurry Timothy along when he wanted to explain something, but she often tried.

  “There are lots of horned men in different mythologies from different countries. Cernunnos and Herne are both from Celtic mythology, Pan is Greek, and then there’s Pashupati and he’s Hindi. They’re all hunters, but I’m not sure what exactly they hunt. Herne and Cernunnos hunt with dogs. So maybe our horned man is British. I don’t know about the others. Some of them were even worshipped.”

  “So, why was he at our house?”

  Timothy shook his head. He could still hear the horned man’s rumbling voice. “He was looking for prey. He asked the pale man who the prey was.”

  “What prey could be in our house?”

  Timothy was silent.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would anyone want to hunt you? Tell me again what the pale man said.”

  Timothy’s voice cracked. “He said, ‘It remains to be seen.’” But Timothy didn’t tell Sarah the thing that was bothering him the most. The way the pale man had looked directly at him before he left.

  Sarah scooted closer to him. “That doesn’t mean he was looking for you.” She looked back up at the sky. “How do we know when wishes come true? What if I do dance in the New York Ballet some day? The whole time I’ll be wondering if it’s because I wished it to happen or because I worked really, really hard to get there.”

  “Well, if you wished for something you couldn’t get yourself, like pirate treasure, and you got it, I guess you’d be sure. How would I know if I was really wolfproof or if I just got braver because I got older?”

  Sarah laughed. “Then we should stick to wishing for impossible things.”

  But Timothy wasn’t ready to relinquish the thought. “Maybe part of wishing is that it makes it easier to keep going.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like when you hear a rumor about something. If you hear a rumor that there’s a hidden treasure in your yard, you’ll work harder to find it than if you just hope there is hidden treasure. Maybe our wishes are rumors of things we’re supposed to do.” And secretly Timothy hoped it was true, that he really was supposed to be brave, as long as he didn’t have to do anything too difficult to prove it.

  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.

  THE MAN IN THE LIBRARY

  HE REST OF THE WEEK passed quickly between school, homework, and chores, but the mysterious visitors were never far from Timothy’s thoughts. Sarah left the house Saturday mornings by nine for three hours of ballet practice, and he stayed behind, with a handful of chores to do. The lawn wouldn’t need mowing yet, but he did have windows to wash and the garage to sweep out. Usually he hated these jobs, but today they gave him some uninterrupted time to think. He and Sarah had finally put a plan in place late last night, long after his parents had closed up the house and turned out the lights for the night.

  Sarah had crept into his bedroom and curled up on the foot of his bed. “I think you need to go to the library tomorrow.” She shook Timothy until he was fully awake and paying attention. “I went to the library website and wrote these down.” She pulled a crumpled sheet of notebook paper out of her pajama pocket. “These books have more information about mythology and the horned man. This one looks the best.” She pointed at a book about British mythology.

  Timothy sat up, pulling the quilt up around his neck like a sack. “Okay. I’ll go after I finish my c
hores, if you think it will help. I still want to know why they came here, and that won’t be in any book. What if it never happens again?”

  “Then I’ll know you’re crazy!” Sarah looked hard at Timothy. “If this is one of your jokes, I’ll find a way to make you suffer for years.” She yawned broadly and stood up. “I’m counting on you to get the information.”

  Saturday morning, after finishing his chores, Timothy found himself in front of the public library. He’d been going to the library for as long as he could remember, first to story time when he was quite young and then to get one of his prized possessions, his first library card. Since then he had been a regular visitor, but today was different. He was on a mission. He had supplies: a notebook, mechanical pencil, extra lead, a granola bar, Sarah’s book list, and several computer printouts stuffed in his backpack.

  He claimed a table near the reference section and spread out his notes. Sarah had listed three possible books, and his own research had turned up several others. First stop was one of the computer stations to confirm that the library carried the books he wanted. He was in luck; two of them were listed as checked in and on the shelf. One was checked out. The others were not listed in the library holdings, but might be available through interlibrary loans. He set off among the stacks to retrieve the two books. He was able to find the first one, but the second was in a different set of numbers entirely. In fact, that whole section of shelf seemed to be missing. Puzzled, he returned to the table with the one volume and began reading.

  After thirty minutes, Timothy was sure that the book would be no help at all and pushed the volume away in disgust. He had also looked at several reference books, including an encyclopedia of British mythology. These were more useful, and Timothy took careful notes of any relevant information.

  Herne, in legend a horned hunter and leader of the wild hunt, was a real huntsman associated with Windsor Great Park in England who was mortally wounded when protecting his master. He was saved from death when a strange magician named Urswick tied a stag’s antlers to Herne’s head. In return, Herne had to give up all his skills at hunting and woodcraft. Unable to live without hunting, Herne hanged himself and now rides through the park with a pack of hounds chasing his prey, the Bent, to the ends of the earth.