Beyond the Doors Read online

  Grampy sighed, then shook the melancholy away. “But enough! It’s good to see you. All of you!”

  The children were sitting in the front row of a pew in a small church. Their grandfather sat on the steps to the altar in front of them, his two daughters on either side, with Dimitri sitting next to Aunt Gladys. Alexa grinned when she saw their fingers were intertwined.

  “It’s good to see you, Dad,” said Mommy. “It really is.”

  He smiled at her, then looked over at Aunt Gladys, taking her in as well. Finally, he leaned forward to address the children. “I’m still fuzzy on how it worked, though. You made Dimitri walk back and forth through the door you purchased for Gladys?”

  “It was brand-new, and she only went through it a couple of times,” explained Zack. “Sydney marched Dimitri through it something like ten times—”

  “Twenty-seven,” interjected Dimitri.

  “Right, whatever—”

  “Is lot of times.”

  “Yes, okay—” continued Zack.

  “Is very boring,” added Dimitri.

  “But it worked!” said Sydney, glowing with pride. “Going through it that many times made the door yours, so when we hooked it up, we entered your memory of that awful scene and not Grandma’s. We went in, we shoved you out the second time, and suddenly you remembered coming out both times.”

  “Yes. Is freaky weird.”

  “Which meant no part of you remained behind, which made Memory Dimitri vanish! My idea! I rock!”

  Everyone laughed. Alexa thought her sister was being a bit of a show-off, but figured that was okay. Just this once. Besides, Alexa still had her super-awesome secret.

  “Dad,” said Mommy, “this whole experience…it was…”

  “Terrifying,” finished Grampy. “I know.”

  “Too dangerous,” admitted Mommy. “Things are wrong in the MemoryVerse.”

  “MemorySphere,” corrected Grampy.

  “See, that makes no sense.” Alexa hid a smile as her mother and grandfather fell into the pointless argument. “It’s not a sphere.”

  “It’s not a verse,” countered her grandfather.

  “Hello? Short for universe?”

  Grampy shrugged. “I discovered it. I get to name it.”

  “The point, Dad,” interrupted Aunt Gladys. “There’s a point. Memory hopping can’t continue.”

  “Memory hopping?” asked Grampy.

  “My own term,” said Aunt Gladys.

  “Not bad.”

  “You like that?” asked Mommy. “Over MemoryVerse?”

  “We’re shutting it all down,” said Zack. Alexa was glad he interrupted because she’d been growing tired of the bickering. “Destroying the equipment. Getting rid of the doors. Everything.”

  “Yes,” said their grandfather. “I understand.”

  “Do you?” asked Mommy. “No more doors. No more visits. The MemoryVerse might cease to exist.”

  “MemorySphere,” corrected Grampy again, and Alexa thought she saw the hint of a smile on his face. “And it’ll exist. It’s its own reality. It can’t be unmade.”

  “Will you come out with us?” asked Janice, even though they all knew the answer.

  “No. Outside I would go hopelessly insane,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” asked Sydney. “We were able to fix Mom and Aunt Gladys. Why can’t we fix you?”

  Grampy sighed and sadly shook his head. “Their memories were altered by Memory Dimitri. Once you got rid of him, he never existed to alter their memories in the first place.”

  “But you altered your memories yourself,” said Zack.

  Grampy only nodded.

  “Then…this is goodbye,” said Mommy. She stood and opened her arms. Grampy rose to his feet as well and embraced his daughter.

  “I want a hug, too!” squeaked Alexa, jumping up and barreling into her mother and grandfather. One by one, everyone else joined in, until the entire family was in one big group hug, even Dimitri.

  “Is sad,” he mumbled. “I cry now.”

  Everyone was crying, to the point where Alexa stopped crying because she didn’t like being a follower. She looked up at Zack, eager to spill her secret, but he was busy hugging their grandfather.

  “There is one more thing,” said the children’s mother once everyone had hugged it out. “We opened one last door.”

  Alexa felt the secret bubbling up from her tummy.

  “Oh?” said their grandfather. “That explains it. I noticed another memory open. Just before this one. I assumed it was a mistake. I’ll explore it later.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake,” said Zack.

  Now Alexa felt they were dangerously close to spilling the beans, so she threw caution to the wind and jumped in. “We found Grammy!” she cried.

  Her grandfather looked at her blankly. “You…what?”

  “The old garden shed,” explained their aunt. “She went in there. All the time. Not me. Not a gardener. And not you, either. Right?”

  A sudden energy infused their grandfather as he shook his head. “Your mother was the green thumb, not me.”

  “That’s what we figured,” said Zack. “We hooked the door to the shed up to the machine, opened it for the briefest of seconds, and closed it again. So as not to spoil it.”

  “Then we broke the door,” added their mother. “It can’t be used again.”

  “Mommy’s waiting for you,” said Aunt Gladys. “If you go in there and stay, it won’t spoil.”

  Grampy was speechless. A tear rolled down his cheek, followed by others. Alexa gave him a second hug.

  “You’re welcome, Grampy,” she said. “I love you.”

  Edward Rothbaum opened his eyes with a slight groan.

  He felt horrible. And weak. And sore. And thirsty. And horrible. And was that his wife standing next to the bed?

  “Ch…Char…?”

  “It probably maybe isn’t best for you to try to talk,” said Nurse Hallabug. “Your body may need perhaps some more time to maybe heal up.”

  “Welcome back, Dad,” said Zack.

  Edward turned his head slightly to the side (moaning in pain from the effort) to see his four children standing together on the other side of his bed.

  “Do you remember anything, Ed?” asked Charlotte, leaning down and taking his hand.

  He took a breath to answer and felt a mild rush of pain in his chest, causing him to gasp. Which hurt even more.

  “Oh! Sorry!” She quickly let go of it, as if holding it had somehow caused the pain.

  “There’s a very good chance that probably his lungs are maybe going to be perhaps a bit sore for a little while,” cautioned Nurse Hallabug. “But don’t quote me on that.”

  “Do you remember?” repeated the woman who, while technically still his wife, had been gone for over six years.

  Did he remember? Remember what? How he had ended up in a bed? In a hospital? He closed his eyes and took stock of his situation. His entire body was sore, he felt utterly wiped out, and his lungs ached every time he tried to take a breath. What had happened?

  “It is so miserably glorious to see your father alive and awake!” moaned a voice he did not recognize. “To think he survived that fire! Oh, it’s too terrible to contemplate!”

  Smoke. Burning. Yes, that fit. He’d been in a fire.

  Ow.

  He opened his eyes again to look at his children. Then he gingerly turned his neck to look at his wife. She looked different. Older (he supposed he looked older, too, under all the bandages), calmer. And also extremely guilty. He wondered what that was about.

  “Char…,” he began.

  “Shhhh.” Charlotte softly pressed a finger to his lips. “There’s a lot to talk about—and I’ve a lot to apologize for—but this isn’t the time. Just rest. And know that…I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

  There were tears in her eyes, which made Edward tear up as well. He still couldn’t believe it. His wife. Right here. Next to him. This was real. She
was real.

  “Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive me?” she asked.

  “You have to forgive her, Daddy!” cried Alexa. “She saved Aunt Gladys! But then Aunt Gladys needed to be saved again and so did Mommy, and Grampy wasn’t going to save her, so we saved her and now we’re a family again!”

  He had no idea what his youngest daughter had just said, but it sounded sincere. Particularly the bit about being a family again. That would be very nice. But could he forgive his wife for abandoning them like she did?

  “You…left,” he managed to whisper.

  “I did,” she sighed, then cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “In my defense, I did say I’d come back. So…I’m back.” She smiled, looking like a little girl hoping to charm her way out of a scolding.

  She was back. And all it took for her to return was for him to almost die.

  “So can she, Dad?” asked Zack. “Can she stay?”

  He slowly swiveled his head to look at his children again. The four of them looked so hopeful, almost bursting with expectation. They obviously wanted her back.

  And so did he. It wouldn’t be easy, but if they could make it work, it would be worth it.

  He gave the briefest of nods before wincing in pain. Everyone cheered. He was pretty sure they were cheering his nod, not his pain.

  “How soon before he can come home?” asked Charlotte.

  “He’ll never go home!” moaned the unidentified voice. Man, whoever it was was a real downer.

  “She means my house,” said another woman, whose voice he didn’t recognize but who looked a little bit like his wife. Didn’t Charlotte have a sister? Was her name Gladys? He couldn’t remember. “The family’s temporary home. For now.”

  Wait. Temporary home? Why did they need a temporary home? What was wrong with the one they had?

  “I really couldn’t say,” said Nurse Hallabug. “I would maybe suggest you think about asking the doctors, as that might perhaps be one possible way to maybe find out.”

  “Yeah!” Little Alexa clapped. “Daddy’s coming home! We don’t have to move to Uruguay!”

  Uruguay?

  “You don’t remember, do you?” asked Charlotte again.

  Remember what? Uruguay? No. Wait. Smoke. Temporary house. Sweet mother of pearl, his house must have burned down! And he must have been caught in the fire! He quickly swept his eyes back to his children, but they all seemed fine.

  Did he remember his house burning down? Did he remember being caught in the middle of it?

  No.

  Thank God.

  He couldn’t imagine visiting that memory over and over again in his head.

  It would be like living in a nightmare.

  Thank you to my editor, Emily Easton, for pushing me over the finish line, and to my agent, Eric Myers, for making it possible. Thank you also to my early readers Jerry, Judy, Bonnie, Jackie, Heather, and Antonia for poring over the initial draft as I doled it out in chunks—your comments were invaluable. Thank you to the Warner Library in Tarrytown, New York, for giving me the perfect place to write and edit. I know there are other people I need to thank, but for some strange reason I can’t remember….

  David Neilsen is the author of Dr. Fell and the Playground of Doom. He is also a classically trained actor and storyteller, a journalist, and a theater and improvisation teacher. During the Halloween season, David can be found telling spooky tales to audiences of all ages or performing his one-man shows based on the horror author H. P. Lovecraft. David lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with his family and cats. Visit him online at david-neilsen.com.

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