The Door to the Lost

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Heath got up from the table and wandered over to the fireplace, standing with his back to the flames.

  “I know that pose,” Danna said to him. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m thinking if Dozana’s that powerful, and if we can’t make her see reason, then the element of surprise is all we have,” Heath replied, his face pale in the light of the fire. “I hope it’s enough.”

  A thought occurred to Rook. “If you were able to sneak into Talhaven, does that mean there are a lot of other wizards here in hiding?” she asked. “Do you know them? Would they help us?”

  Heath grimaced. “I’ve searched over the years, but if there are other wizards here, they’re very well hidden,” he said. “It’s entirely possible that Dozana and I are the only adult wizards left in Talhaven. You see, my power isn’t just shapeshifting. When wizards use their magic, the animus gives off an aura that’s visible to other wizards—those who are trained to look for it, anyway. I’m able to dampen that aura so that other wizards can’t sense me. That’s how I was able to stow away on board the ship without anyone noticing me. As I understand, it’s a rare enough talent that I might be the only one to possess it.”

  Rook was disappointed but not surprised. “But do you really think you can use your power to sneak up on Dozana?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” Heath said, exchanging another glance with Danna. “Because one way or another, we have to stop her. The portal site is too unstable to support the kind of magic she wants to unleash. Which is why I think it’s best if you stay here, Rook, and open a door for me to go and rescue your friends.”

  “What?” Rook couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Of course I’m not staying here. I have to go back for Fox and Drift. I promised them I’d be back, and you need me to escape the Wasteland.”

  “She has a point,” Danna said. “A quick escape is always best. Of course, that’s the pirate in me talking.” She winked at Rook.

  Heath shook his head. “I don’t like the idea of delivering Rook back within Dozana’s reach,” he said. “If we do that, she will almost certainly try to get Rook to use her power to open the portal.”

  That gave Rook pause. Heath was right. She and Drift had fought about that very thing before they’d parted. Dozana had tempted Rook with her promise that she could open a door home to Vora. It was what Rook wanted most, and despite knowing the risk, a part of her still wanted it. The longing was an ache inside her that wouldn’t go away.

  Rook stared at the crackling fire while Heath and Danna watched her. Finally, she worked up the courage to meet Heath’s steady gaze. “I do want to help Dozana,” she confessed, bracing to see his reaction. “I know it’s dangerous, especially when my magic goes wrong so often, but when she said that all I needed was more power, I thought…” She ducked her head. “I thought it was worth the risk.”

  Heath didn’t seem surprised by her confession. “You thought you’d finally found a way home,” he said, “after all the time you spent trying and failing.”

  Rook’s head jerked up. “How did you know?” She hadn’t told him about all her failed attempts to get to Vora over the past two years.

  “It’s written all over your face,” Heath said, smiling sadly. “You have the power to open doors to anywhere you want. Of course you’d try to use that magic to take you to the most important place of all.”

  He had guessed what was in her heart without her saying a word. The idea that he saw through her so easily…for some reason, it woke the anger sleeping inside Rook, stoked it like a fire. “That doesn’t mean you know me,” she said, setting her empty glass on the table so hard a crack spidered up the side. Abashed, Rook folded her arms, pressing them against her stomach. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Heath said, taking the glass from the table in front of her and setting it aside. “What I mean to say is that I can see you’re frightened and exhausted. You’re fighting so many different things—your magic, the people of this world—and I’m willing to bet that every time you open one of your doors, some part of you is hoping that maybe, just maybe, you’ll find your parents waiting for you on the other side.”

  Rook flinched and stared down at the table, refusing to meet the wizard’s gaze.

  “That’s why your powers get twisted up and fail you,” Heath went on, his voice gentle, but the words bored into Rook. “It’s because your heart’s wishing for one thing while you’re trying to use your magic to take you somewhere else. But some doors are closed for a reason, Rook. They’re not meant to be reopened, no matter how much we wish it were otherwise.”

  Rook blinked, and tears dripped onto the tabletop, staining the wood dark. She hated that Heath and Danna were seeing her cry. She clenched her jaw, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “You don’t know anything,” she repeated, “and neither do I. Don’t you see that’s the problem? Not knowing. Not knowing if my parents are still alive, not even remembering what my world looks like. And if I don’t get back there, I’ll never know!”

  Heath nodded, and the sorrow in his eyes was almost too much for Rook to bear. “I wish I could help you remember, but that’s beyond my power. I can tell you that I’ve seen what uncontrolled magic can do,” he said in a rough voice. “I’m not talking about the portal explosion either. I was there for the first few years of the wars in Vora. In a short time, it reshaped the world—destroyed entire cities and devastated the land. That’s why our people began reaching out to other worlds. It’s why I stowed away to this one. I had no family, nothing keeping me in Vora. It wasn’t safe, and it certainly wasn’t a home anymore.”

  Rook was struck by Heath’s words. “You mean Talhaven wasn’t the only place the wizards traveled to?” she asked.

  “It was the first,” Heath said, “but not the last. Each world we contacted had a specific resource we wanted. With Talhaven, it was basic necessities—herbs and medicines because our forests had been decimated, and red heartstone from your quarries to dampen destructive magic. But I think near the end it was about more than resources. I think our leaders knew Vora was becoming unlivable. I wasn’t there to see it, but I believe they were planning to relocate as many people as possible to other worlds. To give them a chance at a new life and to preserve what was left of our people.”

  They sat in silence for a time, each of them lost in thought. Rook felt exhausted and numb. Deep inside, she knew Heath—and Drift—were right. She couldn’t help Dozana with her plan. But she didn’t know how to let go of her dream. She didn’t know how to keep that door in her heart closed for good, not when it hurt so much.

  “It wasn’t just for me,” she whispered. “I wanted to help everyone else. I wanted to save the exiles.”

  “But you did save some of them,” Danna said, folding her hands on the tabletop. “Rook, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, Rook met the gaze of the former pirate who had married a stowaway wizard and adopted over a dozen exiles. There are stories in her eyes, Rook thought, incredible tales that had to be lived to be believed.

  But the woman’s eyes were soft and kind as she gazed at Rook. “What about your two friends?” Danna asked. “You made a home with both of them. To hear you talk, it sounded like you were happy together. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “Of course it does!”

  Danna’s question jolted Rook. Drift had said something similar to her before they’d parted in the Wasteland. Drift and Fox meant everything to her. How could Drift not know that?

  But had Rook given her any reason to be certain of it? How could she, when Rook spent so much time hidden in the back of a closet, opening door after door, keeping secrets, not confiding in Drift? Then, when Fox dropped into their lives, had Drift thought the boy was pulling her even further away? Rook remembered the look she’d given them that night when Fox had made the paper birds. She finally realized what Drift had been feeling in that
moment. It was the same feeling Rook had seeing Drift and Dozana together as mother and daughter.

  Like she was losing her best friend.

  Rook swallowed a lump that had risen in her throat. More than anything, she wished she could talk to Drift right now, to tell her that she was sorry. Sorry she hadn’t noticed that she was leaving Drift out. The truth was she relied on Drift for so much. Rook imagined she could handle anything this world threw at her, as long as Drift was with her. She should have told her that more often.

  Things were going to change, Rook vowed. Somehow, she’d make everything right again.

  “I have to go with you,” she told Heath. “I have to save my friends, no matter what.”

  Heath looked unhappy, and Rook’s hope faltered. Would he refuse to let her come? Panic gripped her at the thought. He couldn’t deny her this. He just couldn’t. She’d find her way back, with or without his help.

  Danna spoke up again. “Heath,” she said, catching her husband’s eye. “This is her choice. Her future. Remember?”

  Heath let out a sigh, and his face slackened. “All right,” he said. “I still don’t know if it’s a good idea, but all right. We’ll leave in the morning, after you’ve had some sleep.”

  “No, we have to go now!” Rook insisted. “The longer my friends stay in the Wasteland, the more likely the monsters will hunt them down. You didn’t see that spider.” She spread her arms to show him the size of the beast. “They won’t last till morning!”

  Heath laid a hand on her shoulder. “Rook, think. Remember the time distortion. For every day that passes here, it’ll be minutes or hours at most in the Wasteland. You’re exhausted, and I need time to prepare. We’ll only get one chance to rescue your friends.”

  “But…even in that time, something could happen,” Rook pleaded. She imagined Fox in his weakened state, trying to survive in the Wasteland.

  “All the more reason we need to plan carefully,” Heath said. “But I promise you, we’ll go first thing in the morning.”

  His tone told Rook that he wasn’t going to budge. She could only nod and try to push aside her misery, but she would never be able to sleep.

  “We have an extra bed upstairs with the rest of the children,” Danna said, “or if you’d be more comfortable down here, you can sleep on the sofa in front of the fire.”

  “Downstairs, please,” Rook said. As much as she was curious about the other exiles, she didn’t think she could handle the avalanche of questions they’d have for her tonight.

  Danna nodded and stood up. Rook followed her back into the living room while Heath tended the kitchen fire. Danna retrieved an extra pillow from a closet in the front hall and arranged some blankets on the sofa.

  “You’re safe here, Rook,” Danna reminded her. “Try to get some sleep.”

  “Thank you,” Rook said. She took the pillow, noticing as she did a pair of crisscrossing scars on the back of Danna’s right hand. “You’re really a pirate?” she asked, staring at the old wounds.

  A crooked grin spread across Danna’s face. “One of the best that ever sailed.” She raised a finger to her lips, then turned and headed up the stairs.

  ALTHOUGH SHE’D BEEN CERTAIN SHE wouldn’t be able to sleep, Rook’s exhaustion had the last word, and she was out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  She dreamed of the paper birds again, the ones she’d seen on her journey from the Wasteland to the deck of the Chase.

  As she floated in darkness, the flock encircled her, messages dripping from their white wings, but no matter how hard Rook tried to read them, the letters were too blurry to make out, the words just out of reach.

  Please, come back! Rook shouted after the flock. What are you trying to tell me?

  She woke to the sound of logs shifting on the fire. Sunlight streamed in the front windows of the house, and pleasant breakfast smells trickled in from the kitchen.

  There was a stuffed elephant sitting on her chest.

  Rook locked eyes with the toy, then turned her head, craning her neck in search of its owner. The little girl—Henrietta—had to be nearby. Judging by the worn patches around its neck, the elephant was never very far from the girl’s hands.

  A blur of motion caught Rook’s eye. Dust motes swirled in a sunbeam in one corner of the room, as if something had just been standing there and then streaked away.

  Rook sat up, cradling the stuffed animal in her lap. “Thanks for keeping me company,” she said to the empty room.

  A nervous giggle echoed from the front hall, but when Rook turned to look for its source, Henrietta was gone.

  Rook hugged the stuffed animal. The strange dream was still fresh in her mind, along with the feeling that she was missing something. It was almost as if her mind was trying to tell her a secret, using all those paper birds and their unreadable messages.

  Messages. That was what Fox had called them when he was folding the birds’ delicate wings and tails. A shiver of premonition brushed the back of Rook’s neck. Why had she seen those things in her dream? Why did Fox make all those paper birds?

  At a loss, Rook hugged the little elephant tighter, rubbing her cheek against its soft, worn fur. She could only hope that she would figure things out eventually.

  Heath and Danna came downstairs soon afterward. Danna showed her to a washroom so she could clean up and change into a set of fresh clothes they had found for her. Rook thanked her and stepped into the closet-sized room.

  She looked at herself in the washroom mirror, and as she stood there, she gathered her hair up in her hands to expose the white roots at her neck. The dye was starting to wear off, so there were more of the pale strands visible now.

  Something flickered at the back of her mind. It wasn’t a memory—nothing so clear as that. It was just a feeling that she’d done this before. She’d stared into a mirror with her hair gathered up in her hands.

  White hair is good luck, you know.

  Rook gasped and dropped her hair, letting the strands fall around her face. Where had that come from? She had never believed her hair was good luck—quite the opposite, in fact. And Drift had never said anything like that to her. But at the same time, she knew as surely as she knew there was magic inside her that someone had spoken that sentence to her, sometime in the past.

  Rook was shaky and sweating when she came out of the washroom and headed for the kitchen. Heath and Danna sat at the table, sipping tea. They both looked up in concern when she entered.

  “Are you all right, Rook?” Heath asked. “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. She wasn’t ready to tell them what she’d just experienced, not when she didn’t understand it herself. Maybe she would tell Drift, when she saw her. Yes, Rook decided, she would definitely tell her friend. No more secrets.

  But what a secret it was, if she was right.

  Hey, Drift, you know I can’t be sure, but I think some of my memories might be coming back. Giddy warmth spread through Rook’s chest at the thought.

  “Are you ready to go?” Danna asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  Rook snapped her attention back to the present. “I’m ready,” she said.

  “Once we’re in the Wasteland,” Heath said, “I’ll transform and stay out of sight so we can sneak up on Dozana without her being able to sense my magic. But, Rook, no matter what happens, if you get the chance to open a door and escape with your friends, I want you to take it.”

  “And what about you, love?” Danna asked, raising an eyebrow at her husband. “You’ll be left behind in the middle of the Wasteland. How will you escape and get back here?”

  “The same way I did once before,” Heath said, grinning at her. “I’ll make my way to the docks and stow away on a ship going across the sea. It might take me some time to get back here, but I’ll make it eventually.”

  “Or perh
aps I’ll come collect you myself,” Danna said. “I do have a very fast ship, you know.” She leaned forward to kiss her husband on the cheek. “That means good luck and hurry back, in case you didn’t realize.”

  He pressed his forehead against hers. “I will,” he said softly.

  Rook shifted uncomfortably, wishing she could melt into the floor so she wouldn’t interrupt their private moment.

  She was saved by thundering footsteps on the stairs. Seconds later, the kitchen was full of children, laughing and greeting Rook and the others. The exiles crowded around Rook, demanding to know if she’d slept well, asking for stories of where she lived and what the Wasteland was like. Rook didn’t know where to begin answering their questions.

  “We’ll go outside to make your door,” Heath said, interrupting the excited chatter. He raised his voice above the cacophony in the room. “Danna, if you could—”

  “I’ll keep this bunch indoors,” she promised. The children objected in a loud chorus, but she held up a hand. “That’s way too much whining and groaning for this early in the morning. Time to wash up, then breakfast. When Rook gets back with her friends, you can pester them for stories to your heart’s content.” She glanced at Rook, and her stern features softened. “We can also talk about your future, Rook. Heath and I didn’t get the chance to tell you last night, but we’re both prepared to offer you and your friends a sanctuary here, if you want it.”

  Now the children oohed and aahed and stared at Rook wide-eyed.

  “Say yes!” shouted the boy who’d turned into a crow yesterday. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  The others agreed, but Rook’s head was spinning, and she couldn’t answer them.

  A home with Heath, Danna, and the other exiles, far away from Regara? They wouldn’t have to worry about the Red Watchers anymore, or the Frenzy sickness. They’d never have to be afraid of going hungry.

  It was too much. It was a dream.

  “It’s a lot to take in, I know,” Danna said. “First things first. Rescue your friends. When you’re all safe, you can think about what’s next.”