Beautiful Redemption
Page 5
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Lena. Think about Lena. About home. This is the only way.
Still.
This wasn’t Gatlin anymore. Who knew what was behind that door? It could be anything.
I stared down at the knob, remembering what the Caster Tunnels had taught me about doors and Doorwells.
And portals.
And seams.
This door might look normal enough—any Doorwell looked pretty much like the next—but that didn’t mean it was. Like the Temporis Porta. You never knew where you were going to end up. I’d learned that the hard way.
Quit stalling, Wate.
Get on with it.
What are you, chicken? What do you have to lose now?
I closed my eyes and turned the knob. When I opened them, I wasn’t staring at my street—not even close.
I found myself on my front porch in the middle of His Garden of Perpetual Peace, Gatlin’s cemetery. Right in the middle of my mother’s plot.
The cultivated lawns stretched out in front of me, but instead of headstones and mausoleums decorated with plastic cherubs and fawns, the graveyard was full of houses. I realized I was looking at the homes of the people buried in the cemetery, if that’s even where I was. Old Agnes Pritchard’s Victorian was planted right where her plot should have been, with the same yellow shutters and crooked rosebushes that hung over the walkway. Her house wasn’t on Cotton Bend, but her little rectangle of grass in Perpetual Peace was directly across from my mom’s plot—the spot where Wate’s Landing was sitting now.
Agnes’ house looked almost exactly as it had in Gatlin, except her red front door was gone. In its place was her weathered cement headstone.
AGNES WILSON PRITCHARD
BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER & GRANDMOTHER
MAY SHE SLEEP WITH THE ANGELS
The words were still etched into the stone, which fit perfectly into the painted white doorframe. It was the same at every house as far as I could see—from Darla Eaton’s restored Federal to the peeling paint of Clayton Weatherton’s place. All the doors were missing, replaced by the gravestones of the dearly departed.
I turned around slowly, hoping to see my own white door with the haint blue trim. But instead I was staring at my mother’s headstone.
LILA EVERS WATE
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
SCIENTIAE CUSTOS
Above her name, I saw the Celtic symbol of Awen—three lines converging like rays of light—carved into the stone. Aside from being large enough to fill the doorway, the headstone was the same. Every nicked edge, every faded crack. I ran my hand over the face of it, feeling the letters beneath my fingers.
My mom’s headstone.
Because she was dead. I was dead. And I was pretty sure I had just stepped out of her grave.
That’s when I started to lose it. I mean, can you blame a guy? The situation was a little overwhelming. There’s not much you can do to prepare for something like that.
I pushed on the gravestone, pounding on it as hard as I could until I felt the stone give way, and I stepped back inside my house—slamming the door behind me.
I stood against the door, breathing in as much air as I could. My front hall looked exactly the same as it had a moment ago.
My mom looked up at me from the front stairs. She had just opened The Divine Comedy; I could tell by the way she was still holding her sock bookmark in one hand. It was almost like she was waiting for me.
“Ethan? Changed your mind?”
“Mom. It’s a graveyard. Out there.”
“It is.”
“And we’re—” The opposite of alive. It was just starting to sink in.
“We are.” She smiled at me because there wasn’t really anything else she could say. “You stand there as long as you need to.” She looked back down at her book and flipped a page. “Dante agrees. Take your time. It is only”—she flipped a page—“ ‘la notte che le cose ci nasconde.’ ”
“What?”
“ ‘The night that hides things from us.’ ”
I stared at her as she continued to read. Then, seeing as there weren’t that many options, I pulled the door open and stepped out.
It took me a while to take it all in, the way it takes your eyes a while to adjust to sunlight. As it turns out, the Otherworld was just that—an “other world”—a Gatlin right in the middle of the cemetery, where the dead folks in town were having their own version of All Souls Day. Except it seemed like this one lasted a lot longer than a day.
I stepped off my porch and onto the grass just to be sure it was really there. Amma’s rosebushes were planted where they had always been, but they were blooming again, safe from the record-breaking heat that had killed them when it hit town. I wondered if they were blooming in the real Gatlin, too.
I hoped so.
If the Lilum kept her promise, they were. I believed she did. The Lilum wasn’t Light or Dark, right or wrong. She was truth and balance in their purest forms. I didn’t think she was capable of lying, or she would’ve sugarcoated the truth for me a little. Sometimes I wished she would have.
I found myself wandering across the freshly trimmed lawns, weaving between the familiar houses scattered throughout the cemetery like a tornado had lifted them right out of Gatlin and dropped them here. And not just houses—there were people here, too.
I tried heading toward Main Street, instinctively looking for Route 9. I guess I wanted to hike to the crossroads, where I could take a left up the road to Ravenwood. But the Otherworld didn’t work that way, and every time I reached the end of the rows of graveyard plots, I found myself back where I started. The graveyard just kept going in circles. I couldn’t get out.
Still.
This wasn’t Gatlin anymore. Who knew what was behind that door? It could be anything.
I stared down at the knob, remembering what the Caster Tunnels had taught me about doors and Doorwells.
And portals.
And seams.
This door might look normal enough—any Doorwell looked pretty much like the next—but that didn’t mean it was. Like the Temporis Porta. You never knew where you were going to end up. I’d learned that the hard way.
Quit stalling, Wate.
Get on with it.
What are you, chicken? What do you have to lose now?
I closed my eyes and turned the knob. When I opened them, I wasn’t staring at my street—not even close.
I found myself on my front porch in the middle of His Garden of Perpetual Peace, Gatlin’s cemetery. Right in the middle of my mother’s plot.
The cultivated lawns stretched out in front of me, but instead of headstones and mausoleums decorated with plastic cherubs and fawns, the graveyard was full of houses. I realized I was looking at the homes of the people buried in the cemetery, if that’s even where I was. Old Agnes Pritchard’s Victorian was planted right where her plot should have been, with the same yellow shutters and crooked rosebushes that hung over the walkway. Her house wasn’t on Cotton Bend, but her little rectangle of grass in Perpetual Peace was directly across from my mom’s plot—the spot where Wate’s Landing was sitting now.
Agnes’ house looked almost exactly as it had in Gatlin, except her red front door was gone. In its place was her weathered cement headstone.
AGNES WILSON PRITCHARD
BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER & GRANDMOTHER
MAY SHE SLEEP WITH THE ANGELS
The words were still etched into the stone, which fit perfectly into the painted white doorframe. It was the same at every house as far as I could see—from Darla Eaton’s restored Federal to the peeling paint of Clayton Weatherton’s place. All the doors were missing, replaced by the gravestones of the dearly departed.
I turned around slowly, hoping to see my own white door with the haint blue trim. But instead I was staring at my mother’s headstone.
LILA EVERS WATE
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
SCIENTIAE CUSTOS
Above her name, I saw the Celtic symbol of Awen—three lines converging like rays of light—carved into the stone. Aside from being large enough to fill the doorway, the headstone was the same. Every nicked edge, every faded crack. I ran my hand over the face of it, feeling the letters beneath my fingers.
My mom’s headstone.
Because she was dead. I was dead. And I was pretty sure I had just stepped out of her grave.
That’s when I started to lose it. I mean, can you blame a guy? The situation was a little overwhelming. There’s not much you can do to prepare for something like that.
I pushed on the gravestone, pounding on it as hard as I could until I felt the stone give way, and I stepped back inside my house—slamming the door behind me.
I stood against the door, breathing in as much air as I could. My front hall looked exactly the same as it had a moment ago.
My mom looked up at me from the front stairs. She had just opened The Divine Comedy; I could tell by the way she was still holding her sock bookmark in one hand. It was almost like she was waiting for me.
“Ethan? Changed your mind?”
“Mom. It’s a graveyard. Out there.”
“It is.”
“And we’re—” The opposite of alive. It was just starting to sink in.
“We are.” She smiled at me because there wasn’t really anything else she could say. “You stand there as long as you need to.” She looked back down at her book and flipped a page. “Dante agrees. Take your time. It is only”—she flipped a page—“ ‘la notte che le cose ci nasconde.’ ”
“What?”
“ ‘The night that hides things from us.’ ”
I stared at her as she continued to read. Then, seeing as there weren’t that many options, I pulled the door open and stepped out.
It took me a while to take it all in, the way it takes your eyes a while to adjust to sunlight. As it turns out, the Otherworld was just that—an “other world”—a Gatlin right in the middle of the cemetery, where the dead folks in town were having their own version of All Souls Day. Except it seemed like this one lasted a lot longer than a day.
I stepped off my porch and onto the grass just to be sure it was really there. Amma’s rosebushes were planted where they had always been, but they were blooming again, safe from the record-breaking heat that had killed them when it hit town. I wondered if they were blooming in the real Gatlin, too.
I hoped so.
If the Lilum kept her promise, they were. I believed she did. The Lilum wasn’t Light or Dark, right or wrong. She was truth and balance in their purest forms. I didn’t think she was capable of lying, or she would’ve sugarcoated the truth for me a little. Sometimes I wished she would have.
I found myself wandering across the freshly trimmed lawns, weaving between the familiar houses scattered throughout the cemetery like a tornado had lifted them right out of Gatlin and dropped them here. And not just houses—there were people here, too.
I tried heading toward Main Street, instinctively looking for Route 9. I guess I wanted to hike to the crossroads, where I could take a left up the road to Ravenwood. But the Otherworld didn’t work that way, and every time I reached the end of the rows of graveyard plots, I found myself back where I started. The graveyard just kept going in circles. I couldn’t get out.
