Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1)

“If we take her to the basement, I can mix up something to strip the flesh from her bones,” said Jack. “The skeleton will still appear fresh to any forensics tests, but it’s a start.”

“Once she’s a skeleton, I might be able to find out what happened to her,” said Christopher, sounding almost shy.

There was a pause. Finally, dubiously, Jack said, “I’m sorry, but it sounded like you just confessed to being able to talk to bones. Why have we never heard this before?”

“Because I was there when you said you could raise the dead. I saw how everybody reacted, and I enjoy having a social life at this school,” said Christopher. “It’s not like I can go hang out at the pizza parlor in town if the other kids stop talking to me. And don’t say you and your sister would have talked to me. The two of you don’t talk to anybody.”

“He’s got you there,” called Kade from the porch.

Nancy frowned. “They talked to me.”

“Because Sumi made them, and because you went to a world full of ghosts,” said Christopher. “I guess that was close enough to living in a horror movie that they were cool with you. And they talked to Sumi because she didn’t give them a choice. Sumi was like a small tornado. When she sucked you up, you just tightened your grip and went along for the ride.”

“We keep to ourselves for good reason,” said Jack stiffly, adjusting her grasp on Loriel’s shoulders. “Most of you got unicorns and misty meadows. We got the Moors, and if there was a unicorn out there, it probably ate human flesh. We learned quickly that sharing our experiences with others just drove them away, and most of the social connections at this place are based on those shared experiences. On the doors, and on what happened when we went through them.”

“I went to a country of happy, dancing skeletons who said that one day I’d come back to them and marry their Skeleton Girl,” said Christopher. “So pretty sunshiny, but sort of sunshine by way of Día de los Muertos.”

“Maybe we should have talked to you a long time ago,” said Jack. “Let’s get Loriel to the basement.”

They carried her around the side of the manor, walking until they found the ground-level doors that had once been used by tradesmen delivering coal or food to the house above. Their hands were full, and so Nancy twisted to look over her shoulder as she called, “Kade? We need you.”

“This I can do,” said Kade. He jogged past them and opened the cellar doors, releasing a rush of cool, sepulchral air. He held the doors until the others were through, and then he followed them, closing the doors with a final-sounding clank that left them in near darkness. Nancy had dwelt in the Halls of the Dead, where the lights were never turned above twilight, for fear of hurting sensitive eyes. Christopher had learnt to navigate a world of skeletons, none of whom had eyes anymore, and many of whom had long since forgotten about the squishy living and their need for constant illumination. Jack could see by the light of a single storm. Only Kade stumbled, managing not to fall as the group made their way to the base of the stairs.

“Can you hold her up without me for a second?” asked Jack. “I should turn the lights on before one of you buffoons trips and damages something valuable.”

“See, that’s the other reason no one talks to you,” said Christopher. “You’re sort of mean, like, all the time. Even when you don’t have any real reason to be. You could just say ‘please.’”

“Please can you hold her up without me for a second, so that we don’t knock over the jug of acid I was planning to use to dissolve her flesh,” said Jack. “I enjoy having nonskeletal feet. Perhaps you do as well.”

“For now,” said Christopher. He shifted his grip around Loriel’s torso, getting his arms locked. “All right, I think I have her.”

“Excellent. I’ll be right back.” The body seemed to grow heavier in Nancy’s and Christopher’s arms as Jack let go. They heard her moving away, steps light on the concrete floor of the basement. Then, calmly, she said, “You may want to close your eyes.”

They tensed, expecting a blazing surgical light. Instead, when she flipped the switch, a soft orange glow bathed the room, revealing metal racks filled with jars and lab equipment, dressers bulging with wispy lace and ribbons, and a stainless-steel autopsy table. There was only one bed.

Nancy made a small sound of dismay as she realized what this meant. “You sleep on the autopsy table?” she asked.

Jack touched the smooth metal with one hand. “Not much call for pillows or blankets in the lab,” she said. “Jill got the canopy beds and the cushions. I learned how to sleep on stone floors. Turns out that sort of thing is hard to unlearn. Sleeping in a real bed is like trying to sleep in a cloud. I’m afraid I’ll sink right through and fall to my death.” She sighed, taking her hand off the autopsy table. “Put her here. I want to look at her before we dissolve her.”

“Is this a creepy perv thing?” asked Christopher, as he and Nancy maneuvered the body through the lab. “I’m not sure I can stay to help if it’s a creepy perv thing.”

“I don’t like corpses in that way unless they’ve been reanimated,” said Jack. “Corpses are incapable of offering informed consent, and are hence no better than vibrators.”

“I wish that didn’t make so much sense,” said Christopher. Together, he and Nancy boosted Loriel up onto the autopsy table. He let go and stepped away. Nancy remained, taking a moment to straighten the body’s limbs and smooth out its hair. There was nothing she could do for the pits that had been Loriel’s eyes—she couldn’t even close them. In the end, she simply folded Loriel’s hands over her chest and backed away.

Jack moved into the position Nancy had vacated. Unlike the other girl, she didn’t shy away from the damage to Loriel’s face. She leaned in close, studying the striations in the flesh, the way it had been torn and opened. Pulling on a pair of rubber gloves, she reached out and carefully rolled Loriel’s head to the side, probing her skull with quick, careful motions. Nancy and Christopher watched closely, but nothing Jack was doing was disrespectful: if anything, she was showing more respect to Loriel now that she was dead than she ever had when the other girl was among the living.

Jack grimaced. “Her skull’s been cracked,” she said. “Someone hit her from behind hard enough to knock her down and disorient her. I can’t say for sure whether it knocked her out. Knocking someone out is harder than most people guess. It was a blitz attack; she didn’t have a chance to defend herself or scream for help before she was down. But it wouldn’t have killed her right away. And there’s quite a lot of blood in her sockets.”

“Jack…” Kade’s voice was low and horrified. “Please tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“Hmm?” Jack looked up. “I’m not psychic, Kade, I don’t even believe that psychics exist. There is no possible way I could read your mind and know what you think I’m saying. I’m simply talking about the manner in which Loriel’s eyes were extracted.”