Every Heart a Doorway (Wayward Children #1)

Kade dreamt a world in all the colors of the rainbow, a prism of a country, shattering itself into a thousand shards of light. He dreamt himself home and welcomed as he was, not as they had wanted him to be, and of the three, he was the one who cried into his pillow and woke, cheeks wet, to the sound of screaming.

It was a far-off sound, coming from somewhere outside the window; Nancy and Christopher were still asleep, which only made sense. They had come from worlds where screams were more common, and less dangerous, than they were here. Kade sat up, wiping the sleep from his eyes, and waited for the screams to come again. They did not. He hesitated.

Should he wake them, take them with him when he went to investigate? Nancy was already under suspicion by most of her peers, and Christopher would be too, if he kept getting involved. Kade could go alone. Most of the students liked him, since he was the one who kept the wardrobe in order, and they would forgive him for finding another body. But then he’d be alone, and if either Nancy or Christopher woke before he got back, they would worry. He didn’t want to worry them.

Kade knelt and shook Christopher by the shoulder. The other boy groaned before opening his eyes and squinting up at Kade. “What is it?” he asked, voice heavy with sleep.

“Somebody just screamed out near the trees,” said Kade. “We need to go see why.”

Christopher sat up, seeming instantly awake. “Are we taking Nancy?”

“Yes,” said Nancy, sliding out of her bed. Screams hadn’t been enough to wake her, but speech had: in the Halls of the Dead, no one spoke unless they wanted to be listened to. “I don’t want to stay here alone.”

Neither of the boys argued. All of them shared the same fear of being left alone in this suddenly haunted house, where the ghosts were nothing they could understand.

They walked quietly, but they didn’t creep, all of them secretly hoping someone would wake, come out of their room, and join the small processional. Instead, the doors stayed shut, and the trio found themselves walking alone toward the shadowy grove where Nancy and Jill had sought shelter from the unforgiving sun. There was no sunlight now: only the moon, looking down from between the patches in the clouds.

Then they stepped into the trees, and the moonlight became too much to bear, for the moonlight was enough to show Lundy, lying small and silent on the ground, her eyes open and staring into the leaves. She still had her eyes and her hands, and seemed to have everything else. Her clothes were unbloodied, her limbs intact.

“Lundy,” said Kade, and moved to kneel beside her, reaching for a pulse. The motion caused her head to roll to the side, revealing what had been taken.

Kade scrabbled away, shambling to his feet, before running to the other side of the clearing and vomiting noisily into the bushes. Nancy and Christopher, who were less disturbed by gore, looked at the empty bowl of Lundy’s skull and stepped a little closer together, shivering despite the warmth of the night.

“Why would someone take her brain?” asked Nancy.

“I was about to ask you the same question,” snarled Angela.

Nancy and Christopher turned. Angela was standing at the edge of the grove, a flashlight in her hand and several shadow-draped students behind her. Shining the light directly in Nancy’s eyes, she demanded, “Where is Seraphina?”

“Who’s Seraphina?” asked Nancy, raising a hand to shade her eyes. She heard footsteps a moment before Kade’s hand settled on her shoulder. She took a half step back, letting him shelter her. “We came out here because we heard screaming.”

“You came out here to hide the body,” snapped Angela. “Where is she?”

“Seraphina is the prettiest girl in school, Nancy—you’ve seen her. She traveled to a Nonsense world, high Wicked, high Rhyme,” said Kade. “Pretty as a sunrise, mean as a snake. She ain’t here, Angela.” His Oklahoma accent was suddenly strong, dominating his words. “Go back to your room. I have to go wake Miss Eleanor. Odds are good she’s let Seraphina through her door.”

“If she hasn’t, you better give her back,” said Angela. “If you hurt her, I will kill you.”

“We don’t have her,” said Christopher. “We were asleep up until five minutes ago.”

“Who’s that with you?” asked Kade. “Have you just been roaming the campus looking for someone to accuse? You’re out here as much as we are. This could be your handiwork.”

“We went to good, respectable worlds,” said Angela. “Moonbeams and rainbows and unicorn tears, not … not skeletons and dead people and deciding to be boys when we’re really girls!”

Sudden silence fell over the grove. Even Angela’s supporters seemed stunned by her words. Angela paled.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said.

“Oh, but I believe you did,” said Eleanor. She stepped around Angela and the others, walking slowly to where Lundy was sprawled in the dirt. She was leaning on a cane. That was new, as were some of the lines in her cheeks. She seemed to be aging by the day. “Ah, my poor Lundy. I suppose this may have been a kinder death than the one you were looking forward to, but I still wish you hadn’t gone.”

“Ma’am—” began Kade.

“All of you, go back to your rooms,” said Eleanor. “Angela, we’ll speak in the morning. For now, stay together and try to survive the night.” She braced both hands on her cane and stayed where she was, looking down at Lundy’s body. “My poor girl.”

“But—”

“I am still headmistress here, at least until I’m dead,” said Eleanor. “Go.”

They went.

Their tiny group managed to stay together until they had reached the front steps. Then Angela turned on Kade, and said, “I meant what I said. It’s sick, how you pretend like you’re something you’re not.”

“I was about to say the same thing to you,” said Christopher. “I mean, you always did a pretty good job of pretending to be a decent human being. You had me fooled.”

Angela gaped at him. Then she turned and stormed up the stairs, with her friends at her heels. Nancy turned to Kade, who shook his head.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Let’s go back to bed.”

“I would prefer if you didn’t,” said Jack.

The three of them turned. The usually dapper mad scientist was standing by the corner of the house, drenched in blood, clutching her left shoulder with her right hand. Blood trickled from between her fingers, bright enough to be visible in the gloom. Her tie was undone. Somehow, that was the worst part of all.

“I seem to need assistance,” she said, and pitched forward in a dead faint.





10

BE STILL AS STONE, AND YOU MAY LIVE

KADE AND CHRISTOPHER gathered Jack up; Kade and Christopher carried Jack away, while Nancy stood, frozen and temporarily forgotten, in the shadows on the porch. She knew, in an academic way, that she should hurry after them—that she shouldn’t stand out here alone, where anything could happen to her. But that seemed hasty, and dangerous. Stillness was safer. Stillness had saved her before, and it would save her now.

She had forgotten how much like pomegranate juice a bloodstain could look, in the right light.