Beyond the Door

by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

  Timothy changed his pencil lead, all the time wondering what these stories had to do with him. He knew nothing about hunting, had never heard of Windsor Great Park, and didn’t believe in myths like the wild hunt. Still, the story made him uneasy. Who were the Bent? It was easy to imagine his horned visitor, with his roving eyes, chasing animals and humans across the sky with a pack of killer hounds … He closed the book with a snap.

  Perhaps Mrs. Torres, the reference librarian, could direct him to the book he had been unable to find; she was very helpful when he needed information about sulfides for his science-fair project last spring. But the person behind the desk today, with his long, narrow face and shaggy hair, was someone Timothy didn’t recognize. The nameplate just read: Julian. He was, Timothy thought, approachable. Not all people were, but Julian seemed as though he wouldn’t mind being interrupted in the middle of whatever he was searching for on the computer.

  “Excuse me. Could you help me find this book?” Timothy thrust the call number toward Julian. “Its shelf seems to be missing.”

  Julian looked up and raised one eyebrow until it was hidden by a thick lock of curling hair that had tumbled down over his forehead. Timothy thought he detected Julian’s lips twitching as if he were about to smile, but he carefully looked at the call number and then at Timothy. “Oh, I see. Celtic mythology.”

  A low-pitched giggle Timothy would recognize anywhere broke the silence of the library. It was the giggle of Jessica Church, a sound he had heard too often and usually at his expense. What was she doing here on a Saturday? He felt his face flush tomato-red and turned away from the reference desk, muttering “Never mind” under his breath. He tried to slink away, but it was too late. Julian was already on his feet, saying, “If you’ll just follow me.” So Timothy followed, head down and examining the slate-gray carpet, desperately hoping that (a) the glow had disappeared from his face and (b) Jessica had not heard Julian’s declaration of “Celtic mythology.”

  Julian led him between stacks of books, through the periodicals, past the audio books, to a far corner of the library. They stopped in front of a small, plain wooden door that Timothy had never noticed before. Over the door a bronze plaque read Special Collections. Jessica’s giggle faded from his mind. His heart began to dance. An undiscovered, secret library room!

  The small room was lined from floor to ceiling with wooden bookshelves, some so high that an oak ladder on rollers was needed to get the books down. In the center of the room were four empty library tables with wooden chairs. Timothy followed Julian into the small room. He was in the very heart of the library; he could almost hear the heartbeat of books. Two overstuffed chairs commanded opposite corners of the room, one empty, and one occupied by a man with a bristly brown mustache. He wore a blue sweater over a blue-striped shirt with blue pants and even, Timothy couldn’t help noticing, electric-blue socks. He tried not to stare, but the very blueness of the man was so deliberate and startling that he could hardly pull his eyes away. He noticed with satisfaction that while everything else matched completely, the socks had a touch more green.

  Julian was pointing to the labels on the shelves: “Architecture, Art History … What we have on the subject should be here.” He indicated the mythology section. Timothy nodded, but Julian didn’t move. The blue man cleared his throat and noisily flipped a page. Julian ducked his head and looked directly at Timothy. “Is this a school project?”

  “No, not really.”

  “I thought not.”

  “I’m just kind of interested.” Timothy again remembered Jessica and was glad she was nowhere in hearing range. Kids didn’t just do research for the fun of it.

  Julian seemed to be reading his mind. “Of course, if you want even more information you might talk with Mr. Twig over there. He’s quite an expert on mythology.” Julian paused. “And quite approachable as well.” Again Timothy suspected that he was about to smile but at the last minute changed his mind. Julian quietly shut the door, leaving Timothy alone with the special books and the very blue Mr. Twig.

  The book Timothy had been looking for was there on the shelf. He was able to get it down without using the rolling ladder, which he found disappointing. Immediately, he could see why the book was housed in Special Collections. The edges of the pages were gilt, and the pages themselves were thick and creamy. He closed his eyes and discreetly held the book near his face, breathing in the inky smell of it. Throughout the book were illustrations by various artists. Timothy pored over a delicate drawing by Arthur Rackham. He stared at the pictures for a very long time, imagining what it would be like to be able to draw that well. Then he remembered that he had a mission.

  Flipping to the index, he located the section on Cernunnos. Once again Cernunnos was listed by various names, but it was the illustration of him that made Timothy catch his breath. Staring back at him from the lower corner of the page was the same bearded face, burning eyes, and curling hair that he had seen in his own house just a week ago. The same rack of antlers sprouted from the man’s head, but the mouth was open wide with laughter. The caption underneath read Herne, the Hunter. And Herne was surrounded by a pack of wolflike dogs called the yell hounds. Timothy could tell that the dogs loved the hunt just as much as the laughing man and reveled in the pursuit of whatever they chased. He looked at their mouths bursting with sharp teeth and knew he would never want to be their prey.

  The text said that Herne and his hounds pursued souls across the sky to the very ends of the earth. That any beast left untethered on the nights Herne rode would be driven mad or chased unto death. Timothy shivered; his arms prickled. In the corner, Mr. Twig noisily turned a page in his book. Suddenly, Timothy was very glad he was not alone in this heart of the library. When he looked up, he was almost sure he caught Mr. Twig staring at him over the rim of his silver reading glasses.

  The text said Herne typically rode on May Day and again in the fall on Samhain, around the time of Halloween. Then why had he been in my house in March? Timothy wondered. And then his mouth grew dry. What if Herne was searching for his soul? Was Timothy Bent? He didn’t want to read any more and shut the book with a firm thump. Mr. Twig cleared his throat and looked up.

  “Had enough, have you?”

  Timothy startled. “Excuse me?”

  “I asked if you have had enough history for the time being.” He looked directly at Timothy, and Timothy, managing to ignore the man’s extreme blueness, stared back right into Mr. Twig’s gray eyes.

  “I wasn’t reading history, just some mythology,” Timothy replied.

  “Same thing. Where do you think myths come from? History, of course.”

  “Myths are just stories people make up to explain the way the universe works.” Timothy had known this ever since third grade, when he read all the Greek mythology books in the children’s section of the library.

  “Most people believe that, but I’m surprised you haven’t seen through it. Did you know that every culture has some common elements in their mythology? Oh, they might call the creatures by different names, but the same things are at work. For example, almost every mythology has dragons—Chinese, British, Norse, even West African legend. Why do such common images exist across cultures and time if there isn’t an element of truth?” He took a deep breath and his mustache bristled. “And ‘little people,’ as the Irish call them: faeries, sprites, and brownies, what have you. Obviously, there must be some reality behind that story. We just choose to lock them up in books because it’s safer that way. Besides, we all have a very hard time believing that things now are not the way things have always been.” And Mr. Twig shut his mouth with such finality that Timothy didn’t know whether to respond or not.

  It was certainly one of the most interesting conversations he’d had in a long while. The word enigmatic popped into Timothy’s mind. It was a word he had just discovered and been longing to use. It seemed to fit Mr. Twig very well. He’d just decided to tell Mr. Twig about his strange visitors when the man rose from
his chair and walked out the door.

  “But—” Timothy snapped his pencil lead in frustration. Mr. Twig was a primary resource, and Timothy had missed his chance.

  He hurried to the door. A small white rectangle on the seat of Mr. Twig’s chair caught his eye. It was a business card embossed with gold letters: Robert Twig, Professor Emeritus, Mythology. A phone number and an e-mail address were listed. Timothy slipped the card into his pants pocket and checked his watch. Sarah would be home soon.

  He was well beyond the periodical section and almost to the front door when he passed a table with a familiar-looking head bent over an open book. Jessica Church sat at one end of the long table, surrounded by a clutter of books. Timothy remembered their latest research assignment, a report about a U.S. state, but it wasn’t due for another week. He walked quickly, hoping to sneak by the table without being seen, but Jessica stretched and raised her head just as he passed. He felt himself shrink into his jacket and despised himself for it.

  “Oh, hi.” Jessica looked up in surprise.

  “Hi,” he muttered.

  “You’re in the wrong section. Nerds are under N.”

  Timothy slouched deeper in his jacket and kept walking. Didn’t she ever let up?

  “Tim, wait.”

  He paused.

  “Have you started the state project yet?” She looked at him with a small furrow between her eyebrows.

  He wondered if it was a trick question. “No, it’s not due for another week.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought I might get a head start.” She looked slightly embarrassed. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  Timothy remembered that Jessica was the only other person in their middle school to pass the state math challenge. But being smart definitely wasn’t considered cool. “What state do you have?”

  “Rhode Island. My dad was born there.”

  “I’ve got North Dakota, but I don’t know anyone who’s ever lived there. I haven’t started yet.”

  “So, why are you here, then?”

  He had been hoping to avoid that question. “Looking up some information for my sister.”

  “What kind of information?”

  Now Timothy frowned. Why did she care? “Nothing important.”

  Jessica bit a fingernail. “Never mind.” She didn’t continue.

  His backpack slipping off one shoulder, Timothy stood awkwardly. He didn’t know what to say next. “Well, bye.”

  Jessica looked down, but as Timothy walked away, he was sure he heard her say, “Good job on the chess tournament.”

  Timothy shrugged. He thought no one but other nerds ever paid attention to the chess scores. He and Jessica had just finished a conversation about normal things like school projects, and still he felt awkward. Maybe it was because they had never had a conversation before that didn’t leave him feeling humiliated. His hand slipped to the card in his pocket. Mr. Twig’s number was still there. Timothy wasn’t sure which event was more surprising, the conversation with Mr. Twig or his exchange with Jessica.

  As Timothy walked toward the door, his notes safely stowed in his pack, he noticed that Julian had left the reference desk. Even his name card was gone. Mrs. Torres was there, busily thumbing through a catalog.

  Sarah sat on her bedroom floor, bandaging her right foot. It was the second time she had lost a toenail in the last month. Timothy couldn’t bear to watch. Her feet were long and knobby, red and sore. Ballet had made goblin’s feet of them, he thought. The audience watched dancers gliding across the stage as if it were no effort at all, but Timothy knew their feet hurt and that dancers sweated just like other athletes. At least, he thought, pirates had decent feet. He noticed with satisfaction that the Jolly Roger still hung on Sarah’s bulletin board, although now surrounded by a flurry of dance pictures. Two long-stemmed red roses hung above them, dried and desiccated mementos of a recital.

  “Hold this.” Sarah thrust a wad of gauze into Timothy’s hands. “Put it right here against the toe.” She began to wind tape around her foot to hold the toe in place. “Tell me again what that book in Special Collections said.”

  Timothy sighed. They had been over this already. He had shown Sarah his notes, told her about the color-coordinated Mr. Twig, but left out any mention of his encounter with Jessica. Now she insisted on going over every detail meticulously, in case he had forgotten something important.

  “That’s what detectives do in books. They make witnesses repeat their stories for accuracy, in case it jogs their memories.”

  “There was a picture of Herne in the book. He definitely was the horned man that was here, in our living room. In the picture, he had his dogs with him, big white wolflike dogs with red eyes.” He didn’t know how to explain that even in the picture the hounds’ ears glowed transparently. “They were hunting.” His voice faltered there, and Sarah looked up.

  “Okay, what bothered you about the picture? Was it that the dogs looked like wolves?”

  “They hunt souls across the sky. The souls of traitors.” Timothy felt the same sense of dread in his stomach when he said these words as when he first read them. He thought of Scrabble and the word anxiety with its lovely eight-point x. “I’m not sure whose souls they hunt or why, but one of the books said something about traitors.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Wait a minute! The Twig man left this.” Timothy pulled out the crumpled business card from the lint of his pocket.

  “Why didn’t you show this to me right away?” Sarah snatched the card from his hand.

  “I forgot about it.”

  Sarah nodded with satisfaction. “Good thing I made you explain it all again.”

  Timothy held his tongue while she continued. “We’ll have to call him. He must have left it for you to find.”

  “Maybe we should just forget about it all, pretend it never happened.” Timothy hated calling people he didn’t know.

  “I’ll call him tomorrow,” Sarah said decisively. She had finished bandaging her foot and did a few hamstring stretches for good measure. “I think we should do it soon, before he has time to forget you. Let’s see what happens when Mom and Dad are at the gallery opening. We might have more to tell him.”

  “I think we should set up everything just like last time. I want to see if this experiment is reproducible.” But Timothy hoped his sister didn’t hear the hesitation in his voice as he worried about what exactly Herne did with souls and why the pale man was stealing his light.

  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 GIRL ON THE LAWN

  HICH DO YOU THINK? The first one is maybe too loud. This seems more suited to a gallery opening.” Timothy’s mother held a flowing black blouse in front of the lime-green shirt she was already wearing and peered into the living room mirror. Sarah sat perched on the sofa arm, her brow furrowed in concentration.

  “Elegant … You want to look elegant yet artistic, and the black one does.” She nodded with a certainty that amazed Timothy. Where had she learned this secret language, this strange assurance? He looked at her thin shoulder blades protruding through the back of her sweater as if they were the beginning of wings. He would never have thought to offer his mother the word elegant to help make her decision. Elegant was only an eight-point word in Scrabble, unless you could command a double-or triple-scoring letter space. Timothy thought hard: stylish. The same number of letters but worth thirteen points. He could see the warm toffee-colored tiles spread across a table and pictured being able to hand them to his mother as a gift to speed her departure.

  The magic word seemed to work. His mother cast one more anxious glance at the mirror and then disappeared into the bedroom, murmuring, “If you really think so,” as she shut the door behind her. At the same moment, their father walked in, adjusting his tie. “Time to go! Elizabeth! Don’t want the famous artist to be late for her show!”

  Timothy checked his watch. He p
redicted it would be at least ten more minutes before his parents were safely out the door. Sarah seemed to be waiting calmly, but his insides turned crazy somersaults. They had gone over their plan in detail, but what if something went wrong? What if the horned man came again, peering through the doorway, searching for Timothy’s soul, or what if the snuffling pack of hounds broke into the house? Timothy fidgeted and scratched his back. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. On the other hand, it was the only way he could make sure Sarah believed him. It had taken quite a bit of convincing to get his parents to agree to leave them home alone.

  “We won’t be too late. You’re sure you’ll be all right?” His mother’s anxious gaze scanned the room as if checking for potential threats. The black sleeves of her blouse floated gauzily as she reached out to give them both hugs. Timothy thought, sophisticated, more letters than elegant, and was about to add up the points when he realized that his father was addressing him.

  “Remember that Sarah is in charge. What she says goes. You’ve got our cell phone number, right?”

  “Of course we do. You need to go or you’re going to be late,” Sarah replied firmly. And then, in a swirl of perfume and aftershave, they were out the door.

  Sarah collapsed in the rocker. “I thought they’d never leave. What time is it?”

  “Don’t worry, we have a little while before it gets dark.”

  “Good, because I need to find the camera.”

  Timothy looked at her in alarm. “The camera? I never said anything about taking pictures!”

  “We need a record of them … if they come.” Sarah already had her head buried in the nearest cupboard, rummaging through binoculars, old umbrellas, and crumpled winter scarves.