The In-Between Page 12

  “Where’s Dad?” Jess asked as Grandma Stewart turned toward the kitchen.

  “Your father was called in to the hospital.”

  Jess sagged. “Really?”

  “Jessica, it’s not as if your father can plan when some unfortunate soul has a heart attack. You should be thankful that he is there to help them.”

  Jess stared at her feet.

  Cooper, on the other hand, exhaled in relief. He felt a hundred pounds lighter as they walked to the room next to his grandmother’s study to change. That weight, however, appeared to have slid off him and landed squarely on top of his sister.

  Cooper was out of the changing room fourteen seconds later, and he stood waiting for Jess. He took in the familiar doorway that led to his grandmother’s office, a room that was like something out of a BBC miniseries with its leather, dark wood, and meticulous organization. Except this time, there was an out-of-place bright blue envelope lying on the floor halfway to the desk.

  Cooper squinted slightly and saw his father’s name in the return address corner. He peered around the hallway to see if anyone was coming before stepping into the study.

  The envelope was addressed in a calligrapher’s curly, fancy script. His father’s name wasn’t the only one in the upper left corner. It said Dr. Robert Stewart and Dr. Janice Brown above his dad’s new address.

  Cooper bit down hard on his bottom lip as he found himself breathing quickly, heavily. Who was Dr. Janice Brown? The only envelopes he had ever seen like this in the past were for important invitations, like bar mitzvahs and weddings. Was his father getting married again? Surely he wasn’t allowed to remarry when the divorce wasn’t even official yet.

  Cooper picked up the envelope with numb fingers and turned it over. The flap dangled open, and he gripped the thick paper within. It stuck a bit as he tried to slide it out. He ripped the envelope to get it free, not caring that he was leaving evidence that he’d been snooping.

  Cooper blinked. Staring up at him from the card was a photo of a baby.

  It was swaddled and smiling in a towel with cartoon yellow rubber duckies and bubbles floating around the edges. The words at the bottom read: Rub a dub dub, there’s a new baby in the tub! Robert Mitchell Stewart Jr. is here!

  Cooper understood that his parents’ marriage was over. He had started to wrap his head around the idea that he would have to spend time between two different houses, one for Mom and one for Dad. He was even a bit relieved that the arguments and tension in the house had moved out with his dad.

  But Dr. Janice Brown?

  Robert Stewart Jr.?

  “What are you doing?”

  Cooper snapped his head up to see his sister at the door. “You need to get out of there!” Jess whispered. “You know Grandma doesn’t like us in her office.”

  Cooper looked back down at the card in his hand. There was more written below the name.

  Born June 3. 6 pounds 10 ounces, to proud parents Robert and Janice.

  Last month.

  “Children?” Grandmother Stewart’s voice came from the end of the hallway. Jess’s head snapped to the side. She turned back to Cooper with eyes like saucers and backed away from the door to make room for the old lady to swoop into the room.

  “What are you doing in my office?” she demanded as she rounded the corner.

  He clutched the envelope in one hand, the announcement in the other. Despite standing red-handed before his grandmother, he wasn’t nervous or afraid. All he felt was anger. Breaking house rules didn’t matter. Being disrespectful didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except what was in his hand.

  He held the announcement up like a soccer referee presenting a red card. Foul play! Serious offense!

  Grandma Stewart squinted, crossed her arms, and leaned against the doorframe. “You don’t mean to tell me your mother hasn’t told you about this, do you?”

  Cooper’s hand began to shake, and he pursed his lips as hard as he could. His throat felt like it was closing. He couldn’t breathe.

  Behind his grandmother, Jess—still clueless as to what they were talking about—was looking back and forth between the two of them.

  “I shouldn’t be surprised,” his grandmother went on. “Your mother has always preferred to live in some dream world rather than the real one the rest of us live in. Did she honestly think you’d never find out?”

  “Find out what?” Jess squeaked.

  Cooper couldn’t say it. He wouldn’t say it. He knew that Jess still thought there was a chance their father would waltz back in the door, plant a kiss on their mom’s cheek, and announce he was home to stay.

  Grandma Stewart shook her head. “Jess, your father and his soon-to-be-wife have had a baby. You have a wonderful new little brother.”

  Jess gaped. She looked to Cooper to see if their grandma was joking. “Like, a real baby?”

  The old woman sighed. “Of course it’s a real baby. Honestly.” Grandma Stewart walked forward and plucked the announcement from Cooper’s hand. “Oh, now see what you’ve done! You bent it.”

  Bent, wrinkled, crushed. Ruined.

  She looked at the card with a tenderness Cooper couldn’t recall ever being aimed at him, then showed it to Jess. “See. This is little Robert Junior.”

  Cooper didn’t realize he had made a muffled groaning sound until his grandmother turned back to him with a disapproving glare. “You know, your father wanted to name you Robert Junior, but your mother wouldn’t allow it. Not that I was surprised. That family of hers has never had much of a sense of tradition.”

  “But,” Jess sputtered, “Dad only moved out six months ago.”

  How’s that for a sense of tradition? Cooper thought. Betrayal! Pass it on!

  He dropped the envelope and walked out of the office. He went straight out to the pool and fell beneath the surface of the water. Three years later he still felt like he’d never truly reemerged.

  “Okay, he’s done,” Jess said now, scurrying away from the kitchen window. Cooper took a deep breath as Gus pocketed his phone and returned to the house.

  “You ready to go?” Jess asked.

  Cooper had to take a moment to remember where they were even going.

  “Okay,” Gus announced, closing the back door behind him, “I can stay until six.”

  “Sweet!” Jess said.

  They all checked the kitchen clock; it was 5:12. A bit longer would have been better, but they would make do. Jess looked back at Cooper. “You okay?”

  “Yeah . . . yeah,” Cooper said, shaking his head to clear it. “You guys ready to do this?”

  Gus shrugged with a grin. “Dude, I haven’t been ready for anything that’s happened so far today. Why start now?”

  They all nodded. They all nodded some more. No one moved.

  Gus was the first to laugh, sending Cooper and Jess into nervous giggles. Two deep dimples that Cooper had never seen before appeared in Gus’s cheeks. “This is crazy,” he said.

  “Yup,” Cooper agreed. He gave one final huge nod, stepped to the door, and opened it wide.

  The yellow house looked as bright and cheerful as ever, but Elena was nowhere to be seen. Cooper and Jess moved down the driveway quickly, but Gus stalled halfway. “So, should we worry about that black cat in our way? ’Cause that sure seems like a bad omen to me.”

  Sure enough, lying in the middle of the alley like he owned the joint was Panther. His piercing yellow eyes were trained directly on Gus.

  “Oh, this is just Panther,” Jess said, reaching down to scratch his furry head as she passed him. “He lives next door. He’s harmless.”

  “Uh-huh,” Gus said doubtfully. He gave the cat a wide berth as he caught up with Cooper and Jess.

  The trio stopped at Elena’s gate and stared at the unoccupied backyard.

  “I really don’t want to go up there,” Jess whispered to Cooper. She grabbed his hand and squeezed tightly.

  “It’ll be okay,” he told her. He pushed open the gate and pulled Jess
with him. Gus followed as they climbed the porch steps and glanced through the window into the orderly, well-decorated scene within. Sweat collected between his and Jess’s palms despite the chill in the air. Cooper was terrified at the prospect of entering the house again, but Jess and Gus needed to see the truth.

  “You guys ready?” Cooper opened the screen and held up his fist, anticipating the damp thud of the rotten wood that lay beneath the supernatural facade, but before he could land his first knock, the door swung open.

  Elena stood in the doorframe, her usual placid and watchful gaze replaced with a piercing glare, like she’d been taking lessons from Ms. Dreffel.

  “What do you want?” she snapped.

  Cooper’s mouth hung open as he scanned the room through the doorway—a beautiful living and dining room lay behind her. His mouth closed and opened like a fish on a hook as he took in the photo of the cityscape hanging over the mantel and the ceiling fan twirling lazily from the ceiling.

  He shook his head and sputtered, “This was . . . but . . . this . . .” He turned to Gus and his sister, pointing an unsteady finger toward the room. “Guys, I swear, this isn’t what this house really looks like.”

  Jess’s reaction was unreadable; Gus gave him a shrug.

  Cooper dropped his hand, took a deep breath, and said, “Hi, Elena. We were wondering if we could come in and talk.”

  “Now’s not a good time,” she said curtly, and started to close the door.

  Cooper stuck his foot in the jamb.

  “Um, Cooper,” Gus began. “I don’t think she wants—”

  “No, seriously,” Cooper said. He wasn’t going to let Elena slip away again; they needed to know what was happening. “Now’s the perfect time. We need to talk.”

  “No. You need to leave,” Elena said, pushing the door harder, painfully pinching Cooper’s foot.

  “Look! I’m not leaving until you give us some answers. We know that there are people who can’t see you, Elena, if that’s even your real name—”

  “Cooper . . .” Gus spoke over him, a fearful caution rising in his voice.

  Elena’s eyes narrowed more with each new word, and her features sharpened like a bird of prey ready to strike. Cooper’s gut twisted with fear, but he continued. “We also know this house is some sort of hologram or mirage, and that terrible tragedies happen wherever that crest shows up.” He pointed at the delicately stitched Vigilantes Unum crest on her jacket.

  Elena swatted his hand away with a loud slap.

  Jess put a calming hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “Elena,” she said softly, “we don’t understand what is going on around here, but the three of us are really worried that people may be in danger. You may be in danger. We just want to ask you a few questions.”

  Elena blinked at Jess, her face softening. Jess stood a little taller under Elena’s gaze and took a small step forward. “Please,” she added, “if you could tell us more about the things you wrote in that letter, it would really help us make sense of it all.”

  Any blooming warmth on Elena’s features iced over instantaneously. “What letter?”

  “Uh . . .” Jess faltered. She looked to Cooper, her eyes saying oops, sorry, and help! all at once. She then said slowly, “The letter to your mom?”

  Elena suddenly reared back and kicked Cooper’s foot with such force that it bent his toes back and shifted his foot enough for her to slam the door in his face.

  Cooper yelped in both pain and frustration.

  “Well,” Gus said, turning around and heading down the steps, “this has been a resounding success.”

  Cooper pounded on the door. “Open up, Elena! You have to talk to us!” But even as he said it, Gus was already halfway across the yard, Jess speeding ahead of him.

  “Elena, please!” Cooper knocked a dozen more times. No response. He slowly took a few steps away from the door, staring at it as if he could open the latch with his mind.

  “Come on, man! This isn’t the way to do this,” Gus yelled from across the alley. He was at Cooper’s back door; Jess had already gone inside.

  Cooper looked up at the yellow house. He sidestepped to the window and peered inside. Elena was nowhere to be seen, but his eyes caught something that gave him pause. The front door, across the living room, stood ajar. That door had been shut a minute ago.

  “Cooper, seriously!” Gus shouted. “She’s not going to talk to you. Get off her porch before she calls the cops or something.”

  She won’t. Cooper knew. All of this was far beyond the reaches of the law. He returned to the back door and opened the screen. Then he reached out and turned the knob.

  It clicked open.

  “Dude!” Gus yelled. “What are you doing?”

  He pushed the door to Elena’s house wide, and without looking back, he walked inside.

  20

  Abandoned.

  When Elena had opened the door, Cooper had wondered if everything he’d seen the last time he was here had all been some dream. Now he was both terrified and giddy to see the dust and decay of the dark and dilapidated interior. It was exactly what he’d said it was.

  “Elena!” he called out. The only response was the cooing of two pigeons in the rafters. Cooper took one step to the side to ensure he wasn’t in their drop zone.

  He moved toward the open front door. With each step closer, what he saw through the opening made him blink in disbelief. There were supposed to be cars and bikes wheeling past on Poplar Street; hydrants, trees, a dog or two on leash. What he saw instead defied understanding or explanation.

  He walked to the entry and opened the door wide.

  Framed by the doorway, Elena was walking away from him—across a vast open field. Knee-high prairie grass brushed against her legs and closed seamlessly behind her, as if her footfalls hadn’t damaged a single blade. Small foothills rose on the horizon where downtown should have been, each banded with stripes of orange and brown; in the distance, only a lone tree stood. The landscape smelled of fresh-cut sweet hay and was lit by a blazing red-orange setting sun low in the cloudless sky.

  It could have been Arizona, or Australia, or another planet entirely. All he knew for certain was that they were not in Chicago anymore.

  With one hand, Cooper tapped at the air ahead of him as if testing a hot surface, to make sure his skin didn’t shrivel or meet some terrible fate on the other side of the threshold. Warm, humid air hugged his fingers, comfortable and welcoming. He looked at his feet, still rooted firmly in the dusty house. He swallowed and took a step forward.

  One foot and then the other parted the grass and sank slightly into soft, rich soil. He let go of the doorframe, releasing his last anchor to anything familiar, and took three faltering steps forward into a canvas of amber, rust, and olive. Glancing side to side, he saw that the house was the only structure within a seemingly endless space extending on all sides.

  The only other object that looked man-made was a freestanding door, sticking up from the ground twenty yards to his left. It was no average door—it was more like something stolen from a king’s castle or a czar’s palace, intricately engraved wood embellished with ovals, twists, and whorls covered in gold leaf. The door alone looked like it would cost more than Cooper’s entire house.

  “Elena!” he called after her; she was now almost a football field away. “Elena, wait!” Cooper started to run after her. The rhythmic swooshing of the grass against his legs was punctuated by the sounds of crickets chirping all around.

  He slowed, however, when Elena turned to him with a look of utter terror on her face.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled. Her voice, incredibly, was as loud as if she were standing right next to him. She rushed toward him, hands outstretched.

  Cooper stopped and looked back, scared something dangerous must be approaching from behind—but there was nothing.

  There was nothing.

  The house he had come out of only a few moments earlier now stood an inch tall in the distance, miles
behind him. If anything, the house appeared to be retreating even farther, while the gilded door stood pegged to the exact same spot on his left. Any hopes Cooper had that Jess or Gus had changed their minds and followed him as backup were dashed. Whatever this place was, Cooper was in it alone.

  Well, not totally alone.

  He turned back toward Elena to find her so impossibly close they almost knocked noses. “Jeez!” he shouted, jumping back.

  Elena grabbed him by the shoulders. “You can’t be here!” She was shaking and had become even paler than normal; her eyes were wide, lips blanched. She began looking all around, as if searching for something in the wide-open sky.

  “Where are we?” Cooper said, the words catching in his pinched throat.

  “No, no, no. We have to get you back.” Elena grabbed his hand, tugged him toward the house in the distance, and they began to run. Her panic was infectious, and Cooper’s pulse raced from far more than physical exertion. He searched the air around him, unsure what Elena was so afraid of.

  A raven had appeared overhead—from where, Cooper had no idea, as there were no trees or clouds anywhere nearby—and was keeping perfect pace with them. Cooper cringed and held up his free hand, ready to defend himself against the bird attacking, but the creature soared peacefully, high in the sky above them.

  They ran and ran and ran. The house, however, came no closer. The strange door moved no farther away.

  Cooper’s sense of time stretched out and looped back again, playing hide-and-go-seek with his mind. Minutes turned to hours turned to minutes again. All the while, the setting sun didn’t budge. The raven stayed pinned to the same spot overhead in the orange sky, soaring effortlessly without a single flap of its wings.

  Elena finally slowed to a walk before stopping completely, shoulders slumped. She pulled her hand out of Cooper’s fiercely. “I told her this was a mistake! What have you done?”