Audrey’s Door by Sarah Langan Read Free Book Online Page A

wearing Janus Moving Companycoveralls. WE GET YOU WHERE YOU WANT TO GO! The add in the phone book had read.
    “Hey!” she said back, then walked fast in his direction, like the room behind her was on fire.
    He pointed a clipboard at her. “Sign on the X,” he told her, so she did. He walked away before she could tell him that actually, there’d been a mistake. She was moving to Queens instead. Wherever they could find a FOR RENT sign hanging out the window—that would be her new home.
    She followed the mover out. There were four other apartments along the common hall: A, C, D, and E. As she glanced out from 14B, each of the other apartment doors slammed shut. It happened in a single, synchronistic motion. Blood rushed to Audrey’s face, and she wondered: Were my neighbors watching me?
    A few minutes later, all three movers returned. From their thick nasal accents, she guessed they hailed from the Bronx. In her mind she named the first one “Boss Guy,” and the other two “Hot Guy” and “Improbably Gangly Plastic-Man Guy.”
    “Where do we put this?” Boss Guy asked, as the other two hauled the Steinway baby grand through the door. Rolled on its side over a dolly, it just fit.
    “That’s not mine,” she said.
    Boss Guy shook his head. “Naw. The guy at the other apartment told us it was a present.”
    Sweet Saraub. She smiled. His grandmother had given him the Steinway, but he’d never learned to play it. Back at his apartment, Audrey used to sit at its bench and bang out “Chopsticks” or half of “Heart and Soul” while he gave vocal accompaniment in a Monty Python old lady’s voice, off-key and absurd:
     
    Heart and soul, I fell in love with you
Heart and soul, the way a fool would do, madly
Because you held me tight!
     
    “It’s too much,” she said under her breath, but the three movers heard her and glowered. They were skinny guys, and she was surprised any of them had the muscle to prop the jeans over their bony hips, let alone lift a baby grand.
    “I don’t wanna move this again, lady,” Gangly Plastic Man said. He was sweating so much that the floor around him was damp. It was a warm October day, and this was, after all, the fourteenth floor.
    Saraub. The man was a saint. She reached into her pocket and felt something sharp. The ring. Good. She’d never forgive herself if she lost it.
    “Please! Where do we put this?” Boss Guy asked.
    She startled. “Oh. Right. The den.”
    They followed her down the long hall, wheeling the piano on its side. When they got about halfway, the lone bulb dangling from the ceiling hissed, popped, and went out. All the doors were closed, and no light crept through their cracks. Everything got dark.
    “Hold on!” she called, feeling her way toward the den with one hand, cradling her cactus with the other. Somebody, maybe Gangly Guy, yelped, like the piano had pinned him to a wall. She thought about those four kids, and Clara. What if their spirits had never left The Breviary?
    In her mind, a hole opened up in the floor, and Clara’s wet hands reached out. Stop! She scolded herself. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Then, to the movers, “You okay?”
    “Fine! We’re fine!” someone answered. But it was so dark in here. Was that one of the movers talking, or was there someone else in this apartment?
    Breathing fast, she ran her hands along either wall as she walked. The hall ended. She slammed her forehead— bonk! —and reeled back. The den door creaked open. A rectangle of midday light shone through the turret and illuminated the hall just enough for her tosee the movers’ shapes. They blended together with the piano like a single, lumbering beast.
    She found the light and flicked it. Everything got bright. The men blinked like moles. Their faces sagged in this less-forgiving light, and she realized they weren’t as young as she’d thought.
    “Where?” Boss Guy growled. They were sweating. They were pissed.
    “Oh, right!” she said, after she