by N. D. Wilson
Henry stared at his sandwich. “I know. But I still don’t want to do this. I don’t want something bad to happen. We’re not going to try and open any more.”
“But I haven’t even seen the post office yet,” Henrietta said. “And what about Badon Hill? Those were both good places.”
Henry thought about this. “Okay,” he said. “Tonight you can come to my room and look in the yellow Byzanthamum place. But not till tonight, and I’m in charge.” He looked at her. “You have to do what I say even if you don’t want to.”
It was Henrietta’s turn to think. “Okay,” she said.
“Good,” Henry said into his glass. He took a long drink and thumped it back onto the table. “Don’t ever open the black cupboard again.”
Henrietta didn’t say anything.
CHAPTER NINE
Henry spent the early afternoon covering the unlabeled cupboards with paper name tags. Henrietta had obviously wanted to come up to his room, but she just as obviously hadn’t wanted to ask Henry’s permission. As for Henry, he was in no mood to extend an invitation. She would come tonight, and that was more than soon enough. He didn’t know where Henrietta was or what she was doing, and he didn’t care. Grandfather’s key was in his pocket, and that meant she wasn’t getting into any more trouble. She’s probably in her room, Henry thought. Bored and angry. Or angry and bored.
He was right.
Occasionally Henry shivered and rubbed his still-chilled wrist or sucked on his knuckles. His body felt strange. He’d never experienced as much adrenaline as he had that morning, and now, with all of it gone and only cold memory remaining, shivers turned into wobbles and his joints felt soft.
Eventually Henry stood up and shook himself, knowing that he had to get out of his little room. Out of the house and into the sun. He nestled the key to the mailbox, Grandfather’s key, the journal, the two confusing letters, and the postcard in a drawer, beneath his socks. He thought about telling Henrietta where he was going, but after a moment’s hesitation near the landing, he moved on quietly. She could figure it out.
He walked into town and stopped at Zeke’s house. Then he followed Zeke’s mother’s directions to the field where Zeke and his friends were playing. Henry joined in without fear. The sun was on his back and warmed his neck. The shivers were gone.
Henry was not the worst batter, nor was he the worst fielder. He was in a group of very average boys. Most were too lazy to do things right, and only a few diligently pursued proper technique at the plate or in the field. Zeke was one of those few, but he had long ago grown comfortable with the apathy that surrounded him—the perpetual foul balls, pop-ups, overthrows, and errors.
Henry successfully kept his mind on the game, which might seem strange for a boy who slept beside a wall of magic. But baseball was as magical to him as a green, mossy mountain covered in ancient trees. What’s more, baseball was a magic he could run around in and laugh about. While the magic of the cupboards was not necessarily good, the smell of leather mixed with dusty sweat and spitting and running through sparse grass after a small ball couldn’t be anything else.
Henry played until he was worried that his aunt and uncle would get home and wonder where he was. He made his farewells and started back through the empty, potholed streets of Henry, Kansas, toward the Willises’ side of town. It was as far as he had ever walked by himself, and the freedom of it smelled as good to him as the mitt string he chewed on.
“Wait up!” Zeke’s voice was followed by a whistle. Henry turned as Zeke jogged to catch up to him.
“Hey,” Zeke said.
“Hey,” said Henry.
Zeke swung his bat down from his shoulder and pushed his hat back on his head. “Thanks for coming out,” he said. “We play most days. Come back.”
“Sure,” Henry said. “But I’m not great.”
Zeke shrugged. “You see the ball. Most guys pull their heads. And you stayed on the breakers pretty good.”
Henry glanced at his feet. “You struck me out three times.”
Zeke laughed. “That’s because you swing at cheese and can’t get around on a fastball. Skip the stuff outside the zone, get a little bat speed, and you’ll be fine.” He started backing away. “Tomorrow?” he asked.
Henry nodded. “Sure.”
“I’ll come by and grab you for a little batting practice before we play.” Zeke kicked the end of his bat and turned, whistling.
Henry watched him go, a little unsure of what exactly Zeke had meant by “cheese.” Or “breakers.” He wouldn’t ask. He knew he would figure it out if he kept listening. It was probably obvious.
Henry moved on, and a few minutes later he stepped onto the Willises’ road. Henry, Kansas, was to his right, miles of fields sprawled on his left, and half a mile ahead, the house sat in front of the looming barn. Henry’s room and his wall crowded back into his mind. He glanced down at his hand. He had forgotten the cut across his knuckles.
Henrietta had already put Aunt Dotty’s casserole in the oven and set the table. She smiled at Henry when he walked in and he smiled at her, but neither of them said anything. Henry climbed the stairs to the second floor and splashed water on his face in the bathroom. While he watched the muddy water splatter on the counter and swirl down the drain, the thunder of Uncle Frank’s truck rattled the mirror. A minute later, Frank, Dotty, and the girls poured loudly in through the front door. Henry went downstairs to listen to his cousins describe the city.
After dinner, Henry climbed back up to his little attic bedroom. He stretched, then checked his sock drawer. At some point, Henrietta would come upstairs to look into the yellow Byzanthamum post office.
Blake the cat was sleeping at the end of the now-dry bed. Henry sat down beside him and ran the cat’s tail through his hand, looking up at his identical posters. He was very used to the man who covered his wall. He knew every inch of his leg and thought his knee was strange. He didn’t like his nose. Still, Henry appreciated him. The man was good at pretending that there weren’t any cupboards in the wall behind him. He was much better at that than Henry was.
Henry sighed as he took the posters down, rolled the sheet the best he could, and shoved it in the corner. He stared at the cupboards and felt a little ill. Why was he going to let Henrietta mess around with things she didn’t understand? And why was he always afraid? He hated being afraid.
At school, Henry had run away while a girl had her glasses stolen. He’d refused to jog a lap in PE because his ankle hurt. He remembered sitting on the top bunk of his bed, wanting to jump off but always using the stupid little ladder instead.
Henry pulled his bed as far away from the wall as he could. There, looking up at him sideways, was the black cupboard door. Refusing to think about it, Henry bent over, grasped the cold metal knob, and pulled. The door popped off, and the short chain attached to the back rattled out behind it.
There, inside, was his knife, all clean and folded up. He got down on his knees and peered into the cupboard. There was nothing else—no flashlight, no shirt, no periscope.
He reached in and picked up his knife. Something tugged on it. He grabbed around behind the knife. A fine thread grazed his finger, so fine he could barely see it flicker in the lamplight. Henry pulled it and heard, very faintly on the other side, the sound of a small bell ringing.
Henry’s throat tightened in panic. He jerked hard on the knife and heard the bell clatter in response. He jerked harder, and the thread broke.
Henry dropped to the floor, slammed the door back in place, kicked it tight, opened his knife, and sat on his bed panting. Blake now stood, with back arched and tail twitching. He stared at the little door, then looked at Henry.
“I know,” Henry said. “I’m stupid.” But he didn’t mind. So what if someone knew that he’d gotten his knife back? What did it matter? He’d rung a bell on the other side. There was nothing they could do to him. He forced himself to stay on his bed, resisting the impulse to drop to the floor and brace his feet a
gainst the small door. Instead, breathing heavily and waiting to hear Henrietta’s footsteps on his staircase, he lay down with his head in the corner and turned off his light. He didn’t let go of his knife. And he was glad when his other hand found Blake.
Nothing happened while Henry lay there. Nothing at all. And when anyone lies in the dark at the end of a long day with nothing happening, no matter how scared they might be, no matter how scared they are telling themselves not to be, they will eventually fall asleep. And Henry did.
The dream began, as many do, with a memory of sorts. Henry was in the upstairs bathroom. He was much younger, and the towels were a different color. He was also shorter, and he had cornered the cat. Blake was looking at him with his back to the bathtub. His white coat was the same, the gray spots were in all the same places, there just wasn’t as much belly. Henry remembered what happened next. He remembered his final and surprising success as he dumped a towel full of cat into the toilet and tried to shut the lid. But he didn’t get to see it again. The dream moved on.
His feet worked their way through thick, wet grass. Wind rolled around him; stars and an enormous orange moon hung over the tops of equally enormous tossing trees. Henry stopped. In front of him loomed the great slab of stone. Behind him, he knew, was the ancient cracked tree. For a brief moment, his waking mind processed another thought—through the tree behind him, he was sleeping in his bedroom. Then his dream self started doing something that hurt his foot. He was digging. He did not know where he had gotten the shovel, but his bare foot pressed against it, shoving the blade into the soft, mossy earth beside the stone. He pried, scooped, and tossed. In the grass beside him, the great black dog slept.
He did not dig long. When only a small hole had been dug, the shovel disappeared and he got down onto his hands and knees. Almost wondering why, but not quite, Henry shoved his head through the hole and into his bedroom. He was looking down on his room, his head sticking out of one of the higher cupboards. He couldn’t tell which. His room was dark, but he could hear breathing. Even in his dream, Henry felt sick. Something cold was pulling at his insides. He knew the black cupboard was open. Something terrible was going to happen. He was asleep in bed and something horrible was coming. He tried to yell, to wake the breathing body below him. He tried to push through the cupboard, to drop in and wake himself, but his shoulders wouldn’t fit. Something soft brushed his face. He tried to scream.
“Shhh.” The voice was soft, only it wasn’t a voice, it was a thought inside his head. Someone was speaking inside his head. “You are strong, a dream walker and a pauper-son. But you left your body, and I can keep you out. You can watch yourself die.”
Henry strained. His mind twisted and rolled, pushing out the voice.
He opened his eyes. He was flat on his back in his bed, breathing hard. His stomach was constricting up into his throat. He was going to throw up. Then a light flicked on. A very thin beam of light shone from the mailbox to a spot on one of his doors. Something soft brushed his cheek. He froze, only moving his head to look. A cat’s tail curled before his face, switching from cheek to cheek. The cat was sitting on his chest. It was Blake. Blake was looking at something.
Henry leaned his head until he could just see past the cat. There was the mailbox with its small light, and near it, sitting on Henry’s legs just above his knees, was something else. Something dark. Now that he could see it, he could feel its weight on his legs. Henry tried not to choke. Instead, he dropped his head back onto his pillow and reached over for his lamp. He flicked it on. The cat on his chest didn’t move. Henry leaned his head around again and there, staring at Blake, was another cat. It was very thin. Where it had fur, it was black. On its shoulder and chest were large bare spots, red, furless, and infected sores.
The black cat shifted its eyes from Blake and stared at Henry. When it moved, Henry saw something else move as well. A small string was tied around its neck. The string ran off the bed toward the wall. Henry couldn’t see, but he knew where it went. He knew which cupboard was open—his stomach and throat told him that—and he knew where the cat had come from. What he didn’t know was what to do.
The cat on his chest tensed as the black cat stood up on Henry’s legs. Henry heard a small rumbling from Blake. He wasn’t hissing or spitting, he was growling, like a tiger would. Henry did not want a catfight on his chest. Neither did he want to sit up and knock Blake off. He couldn’t kick, because the black cat was above his knees. Where was his knife? He must have dropped it. The black cat took another step forward.
Without deciding anything, Henry sat up, grabbed Blake to his chest with his right arm, and swung at the other cat with his left. He hit it. There was a high-pitched cat noise of pain as the cat flew off his bed toward his bedroom doors. Then the string pulled taut and the cat jerked in the air and dropped to the floor. With another jerk, the cat hit the side of Henry’s bed and slid back to the top. It dug its claws into Henry’s blanket and fought the string’s pull. Henry watched the string strangle the panicked cat before the creature let go and hit the cupboards. For one second, its claws held on to the cupboard wall, and then it hit the floor. Henry jumped up, still clutching Blake, as the black cat was pulled, spitting, writhing, and clawing, back into the black cupboard. Henry held still for a moment, then dropped Blake and lunged for the cupboard door. He shoved it on as firmly as he could, then pushed the bed up against it.
Henry looked at Blake, white and gray and nonchalant. He was licking himself at the head of the bed. Blake glanced at Henry, then curled up on his pillow and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
Henry heard the attic stairs before his doors creaked open. Henrietta’s eyes were wide, and she was grinning. She whispered as loudly as possible.
“Henry, I’ve found it! I found how to open more cupboards. Oh, Blake’s in here. I didn’t know you liked Blake.”
Henry opened his mouth, but Henrietta didn’t wait.
“I’ve found out everything!” She bounced up and down. “At least, I’ve found out something. I’ll know more when I read more.”
“You read Grandfather’s journal?” Henry asked.
“No. I found another one. It was under his pillow.”
“What?” Henry raised his eyebrows. “You went back into his bedroom? How?”
Henrietta smiled. “I used the key, of course. I came up and you were asleep and there wasn’t any light in the mailbox, so I took the key and the journal.”
“What?” Henry asked. “Why would you do that?”
“Well, I knew you wouldn’t let me if you were awake.” She laughed. “It’s not like you had hidden them. They were in your sock drawer. That’s the first place Anastasia always looks. Nobody hides things in a sock drawer unless they want them found.”
“Henrietta—”
“Oh, just listen to me.”
Henry stood up and put a finger to his lips.
“Fine,” Henrietta whispered. “But listen. The journals are all about the cupboards. It says there are five that don’t lock. We’ve only opened three, and one of those was locked, so there are three more. And it says something about going through the cupboards. I knew we could go through, I just don’t understand it yet.”
She dropped the old journal on Henry’s bed and held open the new one. She pointed at a long list. “See? It has something to do with the compass locks. Each cupboard has a combination that you set on the compass locks, and then you go through.”
“But it doesn’t shrink you.”
Henrietta laughed. “Well, it must, or the cupboard gets bigger. But let’s open the other three before we try it. Oh!” She knelt on the bed to examine the cupboard wall. “The light’s on in the mailbox.”
“Yeah.”
Henrietta looked at Henry. “Did you look through again?”
“No. Henrietta. Listen to me for a second.” Henry took a deep breath and described what had happened with the sick cat.
Henrietta cocked her head. “Are you sure
you were awake?”
“Yes. I was dreaming, but when I woke up, both cats were on me.”
“That was very nice of Blake,” Henrietta said. “You know he doesn’t like you.” She looked at the wall. “They can open doors from the other side? How?”
“Well, the black one just pushes on and off. It doesn’t have a latch. I pushed the bed up against it.”
“How did you know the cat was sick?”
“It had big sores and bald spots.”
“Oh.” Henrietta wrinkled up her nose. “That’s gross, Henry.”
“Yeah,” Henry said. “I think it was trying to get to my face, but I don’t know.”
Henrietta shook her head. “Don’t tell me any more. Just keep the bed against it, and don’t open it again.”
Henry felt his ears getting hot. “What do you mean, don’t open it again? You’re the one who always wants to open it.”
“It just came open?” Henrietta asked. “You didn’t open it first?”
Henry paused.
“Well, I did, and my knife was in it. I took it out and then closed the door.” He didn’t mention the string and the bell ringing on the other side.
“See?” Henrietta said. “Whoever it is on the other side put your knife there to see if you opened it again. So just don’t open it again. Now, let’s try to find the other ones that open.”
Henry flopped back onto his bed, trying hard not to be irritated. “Don’t you want to look in the post office first?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Henrietta bounced over to the little door while Henry got the key out of his dresser to open it for her. Henrietta watched for a long time, but the legs walked by only once.
“That’s neat, but let’s do the other ones now.” Henrietta looked over the wall, reading the numbers she had taped on each cupboard. “Numbers 24, 49, and 3 are the ones. Look, 24 and 49 are right here, close to each other, but 3 is all the way at the other end. I wish they were all in order. I wonder why they aren’t.”
