Beyond the Door Read online

  Souls were not anything Timothy gave much thought to. When he was younger, his parents had started taking him and Sarah to Sunday school, but the concept of a soul never seemed adequately explained. Deep down, he assumed that everybody had one. But as to the old stories of people selling their souls to the devil or trading their souls for some unusual talent, well, he wasn’t convinced. He had read somewhere of an experiment in the early 1900s that concluded that the weight of a human soul was twenty-one grams. But, as far as he knew, no one had ever scientifically verified a soul; it couldn’t be seen, tested, or duplicated. So why did the thought of Herne hunting souls seem so terrifying? He was still stuck in the web of these sticky thoughts when he heard a voice over his shoulder.

  “I know why you were at the library.” Jessica Church sat down next to him. Today her hair was a cloud of ringlets with something that glittered all over her curls.

  His friends backed away, far enough for safety but close enough to listen. They’d all been her victims at one time or another.

  Timothy turned to look at her. “What did you say?”

  Jessica lowered her voice so his friends wouldn’t hear, but Timothy noticed that Caleb and Jay had stopped talking and were leaning in. “I said, I know what you were looking for at the library. The man at the reference desk told me.”

  This was the last thing Timothy wanted Jessica to have, ammunition against him. He certainly didn’t want to discuss his research with her. What about his right to confidentiality? How could Julian the librarian give him away?

  Jessica widened her eyes innocently. “I just told him that we were working on the same project, and I needed to know what part you had already looked up.”

  “Why do you care?” Timothy felt more annoyed than intimidated by her.

  It took her a long time to respond, and then her voice was so quiet that Timothy almost missed the answer.

  “Because of the note.”

  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.

  MYSTERIOUS LETTER

  ESSICA OPENED HER BINDER and slid a perfectly folded piece of blue paper from an envelope bearing her name. Timothy thought of the crumpled wad of papers in his binder and knew he was dealing with an altogether different species of person. A faint smell of something familiar rose from the paper as she unfolded it. It reminded him of the woods, damp and earthy. The penciled writing was small and cramped, as if the person writing had difficulty forming the letters. He made sure his back blocked the curious stares of his friends as he read.

  Time out of time

  the horned man rides

  with the forest queen,

  the Greenman dies,

  the heavens bear witness,

  the great wolf flies,

  and Timothy James stands alone.

  Timothy stared without speaking. The sight of his name on the pale blue page sent his heart racing.

  “So what does it mean? Is it some kind of joke?” Jessica looked him directly in the eye.

  Timothy stared back into the mosaic of green and brown in Jessica’s eyes and almost lost his train of thought. “I have no idea.”

  “Then why were you looking up stuff about British mythology? And why is your name there?” The old belligerent tone crept into Jessica’s voice.

  “Tell me where it came from, and maybe we can figure it out. And keep your voice down unless you want everyone to hear.” He glared over his shoulder at his friends until they reluctantly moved away. Then he pulled out one of his mechanical pencils and began copying the words on a crumpled piece of paper he pulled from his pocket.

  “Well, that’s what makes it so strange. It was just there with the rest of our mail. But the envelope didn’t have any postmark.”

  “You didn’t show it to anyone, did you?” Somehow Timothy knew that the strange poem was not intended to be read by just anyone.

  “Of course not! I’m not that stupid! I picked up the mail. But I want to know how it got there.”

  “Did anything else strange happen that day?” Timothy asked casually and thought of his own unexpected visitors. Could they have come to Jessica’s house, too? Was she testing him in some way?

  She wrinkled her forehead. “No, nothing—unless you call my great-aunt Rosemary strange. She comes to visit pretty regularly, but she wouldn’t be writing mysterious poems. And it does have your name in it! So what’s the deal?”

  Timothy wondered just how much he should tell her. Maybe he could stall and talk it over with Sarah. He looked up at the clock and realized with relief that the bell was about to ring. “Look, I didn’t write the note, but I might be able to find out more about it. I want to show my sister the poem. We’ve had some weird things happening at our place, too—” The bell shrilled. “I guess I’ll have to tell you about them later.” He shoved his copy of the poem into his front pocket and hefted his backpack off the floor. “Gotta go. Don’t want to be late for class.”

  Jessica frowned and carefully refolded the blue paper, tucking it neatly in the envelope before slipping it in her binder. Timothy could tell she was curious about what else he had to say, but she didn’t press him. Probably, he thought, because she didn’t want to be seen walking with him to class.

  Math. Science. He puzzled over the poem through every subject until lunch. He’d come up with a few more questions about the note and decided he might even feed Jessica a little more information. But as soon as he walked into the cafeteria, he knew any communication would be impossible. Jessica and Tina sat at the table with the popular kids. Timothy walked past, making sure to avoid eye contact with them. It was a survival skill he had learned early. Andy, the tallest boy in the seventh grade, put his thumb and forefinger to his forehead in an L for “loser" just as Timothy passed. He thought he could hear Jessica’s laugh above all the others, high, tinkling, and cold.

  On Thursday, an assembly was held in the gym during sixth period. Timothy tried to avoid pep assemblies whenever possible; the pushing, yelling crowds of students gave him a headache. He knew he was supposed to like the adrenaline rush as each grade tried to out shout the other grades. He wasn’t sure he even knew what school spirit was. It had something to do with sports, winning, being the best. He thought of a National Geographic special he had watched as the members of a tribe shouted, shook spears, and banged on drums to frighten away evil spirits. He pictured the bleachers full of spear-shaking students and felt a little better. At least the school week was almost over.

  Timothy walked as slowly as he could toward the gym, hoping for a seat at the edge of the crowd. In the general jostle of bodies, Jessica appeared at his side and whispered to him quickly, without ever making eye contact. “Come over to my house today at four. We need to talk, because you know something you’re not telling me.” And without waiting for an answer, she flowed on in the current of students carried toward the gym. Timothy ran his hand through his hair, took his glasses off, put them on, took them off again, and eventually stopped walking altogether. People like him were never invited to the homes of popular people. It was an unspoken rule; the way things were. He knew where she lived, definitely biking distance. But, whatever would he say one-on-one to Jessica Church?

  Timothy crowded onto the edge of the nearest bleacher. His friends were scattered somewhere in the sea of bodies. As soon as he sat down, he realized he had chosen exactly the wrong spot.

  “Did I just see you talk to Timothy Maxwell?” Tina’s voice hovered high and sharp a few rows behind him.

  Timothy’s heart sank. He strained to hear Jessica’s mumbled reply but couldn’t catch it.

  “No way! Timothy Maxwell wrote you a poem?”

  Timothy closed his eyes in resignation, scrunching down as far as possible. Maybe nobody would notice him here.

  “Was it a love poem? Read it to me!”

  “It was a dork poem. I threw it away.” Jessica’s voice was clear and
biting. “Pathetic what some people will do for attention.”

  Timothy hunched his shoulders as a volley of guffaws and whistles were launched from behind.

  By the time Timothy arrived at Jessica’s on his bike, he was sweating. Anger and fear warred in his stomach, creating the same kind of knot he always got before giving a presentation in class. Why visit his tormentor? He’d said he would help her, and then she had lied to everyone about the note. She couldn’t be trusted. He hated her. But he had to know about the poem. It was tied, he was sure, to the strange happenings at his house. And information was the most important thing.

  Jessica, sitting on a rope swing, was waiting for him on the front lawn as if she had never considered that he wouldn’t show up. This made Timothy even madder. He had decided on the way over to explain just enough about the mysterious visitors to keep her interested, get the information he needed, and then he’d be out of there. After dropping his bike on the grass, he walked straight up to her and began with, “This is what I know.”

  Jessica listened while the scowl on her face deepened. “I don’t believe you. You’re crazy.” She scuffed the toe of her shoe into the lawn. “There are no people like that.”

  “I’m not making this up!” Timothy felt his voice crack in frustration.

  “You don’t believe in fairy tales and things you can’t see. You’re smarter than that!” she retorted.

  He sat down on the grass next to the swing. “I believe in all kinds of things that I can’t see. I can’t see electricity, but I believe in it. And so do you.”

  “I’m not talking about the kind of things you learn in school.”

  “Okay. Are you scared of the dark?” Timothy asked.

  “What do you mean?” A note of suspicion crept into Jessica’s voice.

  “Just what I said. Does anything in the dark scare you?”

  Jessica twisted a long, brown curl between her fingers. “Not anymore. Maybe when I was a little kid, but all little kids are afraid of the dark.”

  “You’d walk through the graveyard on Hollis Hill by yourself, at night, without a light?”

  She was frowning now. “So what’s your point?”

  “It’s just that it’s not an intellectually honest position to take. If you’re afraid in the dark, it’s because you believe that there’s something scary there that you can’t see, even if you only believe it until you turn the light on. And ghosts are definitely not something you learn about in school.”

  She ignored his explanation. “If you really saw these people, what did they want and why did they come to you?”

  “You tell me. You’re the one who got the note. You still didn’t tell me how you got it.” Timothy felt his confidence growing. So far, talking to Jessica had not been as bad as he’d feared.

  She pushed off with one foot from the tree trunk and swung away from him in a slow arc. Her brown curls blew back from her face, and she didn’t say anything at all as she swung back again.

  For a moment, even though he despised her, Timothy thought Jessica looked almost pretty, with her wild hair flying behind her and her cheeks flushed in the breeze. The thought caught him off guard. He reminded himself of what she had said at school.

  “I found it Monday. There was nothing special about that day at all except that Great-Aunt Rosemary came to dinner.”

  “Did she bring it?”

  Jessica shrugged as she swung by. “It was just stuffed in the mailbox with all the other mail.”

  Now she was flying away from him again, her feet pointed up toward the sun. He thought he caught a glimpse of silver at her belly button as her flowered shirt rose above her waist. Was it pierced? He stood up and climbed onto the top rail of the fence that bordered the yard.

  “Tell me about your aunt.”

  Jessica dragged one long leg through the grass to slow herself down. “Great-aunt, but not really. Her name’s Rosemary Clapper, and she’s an old friend of the family. I just call her my great-aunt. She’s ancient and wouldn’t write a note like that.”

  Timothy almost tumbled from the fence. “Clapper? I know her!”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. She used to babysit us.” Inwardly he cringed, hoping Jessica wouldn’t guess how recent “used to” was.

  “Really? Well, then, you know what I mean. A normal old lady.”

  Normal was not the word he would choose for Rosemary Clapper. Maybe conventional, seventeen Scrabble points. And yes, it did appear that Jessica had a ring in her belly button.

  She noticed him staring and bunched her shirt higher. “Like it? Tina and I got them pierced, and I thought my mother was going to have a stroke. Now I think she’s gotten used to it.”

  Timothy tried to pull his eyes away from the shine of silver against the creamy curve of her stomach and unexpectedly blushed. He needed to get the conversation back under control. “Is there anyone else who could have put the note in the mailbox?”

  “No one. It has to be some kind of joke.”

  “Well, ‘When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is possible.’ Sherlock Holmes said that.” Timothy blushed again. Jessica was right. He was a nerd.

  “I think we need to focus on what the poem means. It sounds like a riddle—that is, if you really didn’t write it. Maybe you were just trying to get my attention,” Jessica said with a smirk.

  “You were a real jerk to say that I sent you a love note at school. I told you everything I know. If you don’t want my help, just say so.”

  Jessica narrowed her eyes and then she looked away.

  Timothy pointedly looked at his watch. It felt good to stand up to her. “Let’s both think about it and try to come up with some ideas. I’ll ask my sister—she’s good at things like this.” He picked up his bike. “For now, I wouldn’t say anything to anyone else.”

  Jessica smiled and two dimples appeared. “Oh, I won’t. They’d think I was crazy. Call me if you see those people again.”

  He wasn’t quite sure if her last words were tinged with sarcasm.

  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 HORNBEAM

  OR HUNDREDS OF YEARS, the hornbeam tree, Carpinus betulus, had ruled over his part of the forest. His weathered bark was fluted and muscular, gray and hard like iron. He was an imposing sight, sixty feet tall with a trunk at least nine feet around—not the tallest tree in the forest but the strongest and broadest. His branches flexed like well-muscled arms. He had seen five hundred Beltanes come and go. In all that time, the Greenman had come to the forest. Trees have their own way of telling time. Their leaves act as sensors for detecting changes in rainfall, in sunlight, in the temperature of the air. Their roots burrow into the soil, feed on the change of seasons, drawing cold nourishment in winter, sending sap flowing in spring.

  And so Hornbeam was not surprised when the Greenman came limping stiffly to shelter under his wide branches. Already, leaves were curling from behind the man’s ears. They were the new lime green of spring, almost translucent in the sun, and they wreathed his head like a mane. The man’s fingers were thickening, growing scaled and hard like Hornbeam’s own bark. The next part, the tree knew, would be the worst: foliage bursting from the man’s mouth and ears, his eyebrows shooting out viny tendrils. Hornbeam shuddered; the transformation was always so painful for these half-creatures. To be neither man nor tree was a terrible fate.

  Sheltered under the great branches, the Greenman felt his coat split open down the back seam as his shoulders spread. Then the terrible rushing in his head began. Although he had been through this transformation many times before, he was never fully prepared for the scratchy feel of stems pushing up through his throat, out his ears. He writhed in pain. Soon, he would lose his human speech. Only when the sap ran fully through him would he be limber enough to move freely again. He shook his head, threw it back, and shoute
d with the last of his speech, “All things are made new!” The forest rippled with his words, waiting for time itself to burst into bloom, time out of time.

  Hornbeam looked out over the length and breadth of his land. Spring is a festive time in the forest. Small leaves unfurl in every shade of green. Dogwoods show off their pink-and-white blossoms, and animals celebrate with new litters. The Greenman crouched in agony, waiting for the sap to run. Hornbeam listened carefully to the wind, alert for even a faint baying of hounds. They were a faint rumbling in the distance. A storm would arrive with them, but his leaves did not yet detect a drop in temperature or an increase in humidity. Below Hornbeam’s branches, the Greenman trembled and shook. The tree knew, just as the Greenman did, that new life always required a death of some kind. Hornbeam bent low and soothed him noiselessly with his leaves.

  On the bus ride home from ballet, Sarah sat by the window and watched the familiar landscape of trees and houses pass by. She was thinking about Timothy and wondering if he had made any progress on the case. Sarah liked the phrase—“progress on the case”—and thought that maybe she should train to be a detective in case dancing didn’t work out. It would definitely be less dramatic than being a pirate, but possibly just as lucrative. She cupped her chin comfortably in her right hand and imagined the life of a private eye. For a moment, she caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the window, yellow hair slicked back into a perfect bun; a small, tilted nose; and wide-spaced eyes.