Dark Doorways by Kristin Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

the redbuds and lilacs
were in bloom. Mom always said that fairies lived in the hawthorns, the short
trees with the white flowers. But some days, like that day, the fog billowed
over everything and concealed any beauty. Why then, could the fog not hide
Eliza’s house too?
    I couldn’t say how long I
stood there gaping, whether it was three minutes or three hours. I only
remember Michael showing up, joking around as if nothing had changed between
us.
    “Sarah! Sarita! What, did you
forget how to walk?”
    “Michael? What are you–
What’s–”
    “Where are you headed?” His
face was the same one that had haunted my dreams, those lips that had kissed me
so tenderly just months ago.
    “I was on my way to meet
Swanson, but why–”
    “Swanson? Again?”
    “Yeah, we, uh, we apparently
are related. It’s a long story. Anyway... So... what are you–”
    “Why am I here?” His fleece
jacket looked comforting, fuzzy, like an old blanket. I wanted him to embrace
me just so I could feel its solace.
    “Well yeah. I mean you missed
prelims, right? I thought you moved back home or something.”
    “Swanson said I could just
postpone them until the fall. So, I’m back!”
    “Well where have you been?
And why were you acting so oddly before?”
    The fact that we were
standing outside of Eliza’s house seemed to have slipped my mind in that moment,
in the reunion of two lost souls. The fact that Michael had returned and seemed
to be back to his old self was far more interesting. Or maybe it was just less
frightening than confronting Eliza’s house.
    “Something happened to me,
Sarah.”
    “Well, yeah. You weren’t even
humanoid; you were unresponsive that last night I saw you. What the heck was
that?”
    “ Heck ? We’re using that word now?” His laugh was its own comfort, a cheeriness that I hadn’t realized I
missed so much. He glanced up at Eliza’s house, the structure still slightly
veiled by the fog, and his smile disintegrated. “It was this house.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I came to check up on it, to
see what was going on here. Call me a protective, macho guy.” His frowning
countenance rose from its fixation on the sidewalk. As our eyes met, I could
see he was changed. He was aurorean, exuding morning light when everything else
absorbed the fog.
    “You came here? And you found
the house, not the park?”
    “Yeah, the house was here.
Eliza was here too. She invited me in.”
    “ What? You didn’t.”
    “I did. I wanted to see what
had spooked you, you know, to try to protect you.”
    “Oh Michael. So what
happened?”
    “Do you remember that boat
trip?”
    “Remember?” I scoffed. “How
could I forget? You totally flaked out on me New Year’s Eve because I wouldn’t
go on that damn boat with you.”
    “I know. It was weird,
right?” He scratched his head, the way he always did when he was excited. “I
think that Eliza girl had done something to me.”
    “You didn’t drink her tea,
though, did you?”
    “Yeah! I thought tea is
tea, right?”
    “No!”
    “Then there was the
boat–”
    When he suspended his story,
when he stared down at the sidewalk again, I realized he had really been
through something. He was more than unnerved; he was petrified. The animosity I
had been feeling toward him melted away, leaving me standing there, on Eliza’s
sidewalk, longing to console him.
    “What about that
boat?” I whispered, clasping his hand.
    “I don’t think I can ever go
back there. I–”
    “ What happened?” I was
whispering, grasping for truth where I knew it was hidden.
    He stood in silence for
several moments, watching the fog twist in between our legs. “Sarah, that boat
wasn’t meant for anything living.” Michael’s head was shaking back and forth,
as if the movement would change the past.
    “I have to ask. When you got
on the boat, did it have a– oh, it sounds ridiculous– a dark
doorway?”
    “Yeah. It was weird. It was
one of the first things I noticed.