Free Dark Doorways by Kristin Jones Page A

is… fading . I can’t just leave you here.”
    “Sarah, Dear, I’ve already
left you .”
    The words hit like a bag of
bricks, knocking me back into the pleather seats like I was already defeated.
“Then how am I seeing you, talking to you? I mean, I can hug you.”
    She wrapped an arm around my
shoulder, pulling me closer so I could rest my head on her shoulder. I had
forgotten what a bony shoulder it was, and how disappointing it was when the
fashion world stopped loving shoulder pads. Still, the comfort of her closeness
was enough to help me close my eyes. I might have been able to make that moment
last forever if she hadn’t kept pushing.
    “Do you remember that summer
when you fell off your bike and got hurt?”
    “When I had to get stitches
on my shin?” I laughed and looked up at my mom, so thrilled to be sharing my
childhood with her again. “You were so mad that you had to take me to the
hospital.”
    She ran her fingers through
my hair, the mane that she had so carefully groomed and trimmed for over a
decade of her life. I could have let her braid my hair more often when I was a
teenager. I could have done a good many things differently.
    “No! I was mad that you were
being so fearless with your bike after I kept asking you to be more careful.
You were always so adventurous, dangerously so.”
    “Was I?”
    “Yeah. I remember you always
made new friends with such ease. It scared me the way you’d walk up to complete
strangers and want to be their friend. What was that little girl’s name who
always had you over for tea?”
    My blood turned cold as I
bolted up straight in the seat. “I never went to anyone’s house for tea.”
    “Sure you did! You were
really little though, maybe three or four. You just don’t remember. She lived
over on Maple Street. What was her name?”
    “ Eliza? ” I whispered.
    “Oh, so you do remember!”
    “Mom,” I hissed. “ Eliza? Are
you kidding me? Eliza? Creepy Eliza who runs this boat?”
    “Wha–” Mom’s confusion
was getting me nowhere. Perhaps Eliza hadn’t introduced herself yet.
    “Okay, so dark doorways.
Eliza’s house had one. Parker’s house, your old house, had one. The university.
The boat. But how are they connected? Mom, this doesn’t make sense to me.
You’ve got to know more than you’re letting on.”
    When Mom’s confusion turned
to frowning, I knew there was something she had been hiding. Somehow, in the
midst of the boat’s continued dismantling, or liquifying you could call it, she
finally decided to talk openly.
    It began as a whisper, her
voice sharing these secrets. “I didn’t know Eliza was one of them. I never
would have let you play there.”    
    “One of who, Mom?”
    “They steal light. They take
light and distort it into something repulsive.”
    “Uh, darkness?”
    “Worse.”
    Her eyes wondered toward the
corridor, to where the mysteries of the boat could have consumed us any moment.
    “It looks like darkness, but
it’s them. It’s them just taking away all the light.”
    “Mom, you’re not making
sense.”
    “Darkness belongs here; it’s
part of life. But them, those things–” She halted abruptly and shifted
her gaze out the window. “We don’t have time. That bridge? It’s the last one,
number seven. You need to get off. Now!”
    “Then I’m taking you with
me.”
    Gabi’s little treasure map
that had remained silent all this time finally began to flutter and work its
way out of my pocket. Much like the night it broke all the jade glass, it went
straight for the boxcar’s glass window.
    “Genius.”
    “What?” Mom was still staring
at the map, unsure of where it came from.
    “Just watch,” I assured her.
    Sure enough, the map hit the
glass repeatedly until a small crack formed. Soon, the crack spread, weblike,
and I knew it would collapse any second.
    “Michael, wake up!” I was
shaking him by this point, though it didn’t do much good. So I resorted to
shouting. “ Michael!