The next morning it was cold and overcast, but dry. After breakfast, but before opening the shop, Cal and Max went outside, into the backcourt. They wanted to learn more about the abandoned lot next door, and they figured they could begin by having a look through the back window.
They’d not spent much time out here since the snow had melted. Cal looked around, seeing the lumber and general junk that filed the space. He felt less guilty now about having flung all Darkworth’s broken furniture and trash out of the shop into the backcourt when he’d first moved in, because everyone else seemed to do the same thing.
There were big metal municipal bins out here, on wheels, so that general waste could be put out for collection, but most of the space was filled with broken furniture that looked like it had been there for years. Cal saw chairs, tables, sofas, beds, an old cast-iron bath, and something that looked like a broken wood-fired oven with a massive hole in the side. There were sections of rusted metal piping, planks of wood, bags of rubble, piles of slates… Cal pulled his eyes away from the trash and moved over to the window of the abandoned next-door lot.
Max was already there, peering through. “This is interesting,” he said, “there’s no paint on the back window, so you can see right in.”
Cal came over to look. “You’re right!” he said. “The front windows were painted with black chalk paint, but they’ve left the back windows clear.”
“Still can’t see much,” Max said, moving aside to let Cal peer through. Cal had looked at the outside of this empty lot from front and back, and as far as he could tell it was much the same layout as the Emporium. Having seen inside Maddie’s shop, and the bakery next door, all the shops in this block had much the same layout.
Looking through the dirty glass of the back window, Cal could see a similar set-up again; a big back room and a smaller front area with a shadow that suggested a counter in the front. There was something that might have been a hearth in the back.
“It’s got an internal stairway!” Cal said, pulling away from the window in surprise.
“Dreams come true, eh?” Max chuckled.
Cal grinned. “It makes sense. I’ve not noticed any other street doors that would lead into this lot. Wow, a completely self-contained shop and upstairs apartment. What possible reason could it have been all closed up for so long?”
He stepped away and looked up, gazing toward the back window of the upstairs apartment. There wasn’t much to see, except that the window looked to be in good condition, but the guttering was perhaps a bit blocked. Trailers of fern and grass overhung the edge of the gutters, and at one point there was a steady drip drip of muddy water that stained the stone wall below. It must have been left unmaintained for a long time to get into such a bad state as that.
Cal moved over to the back door that led into the downstairs of the empty shop. It was positioned in the same place as the back door of his own shop was. He stepped up to the wood paneling and placed his hand against the door, thoughtfully, not expecting anything to happen.
The door opened.
“Woah,” Cal said, stepping back and almost treading on Max’s foot. “I hardly touched it!”
“The handle turned,” Max said in a hoarse voice. “Didn’t you see? The handle turned…”
He trailed off, looking at the dark bar of empty space that had been revealed by the opening door. The whole effect was extremely creepy, but what was even creepier was the fact that the door didn’t open the whole way. Instead, it stopped about a third of the way open. If it had just been loose on its hinges, there was no way it would have done that.
“I didn’t see the handle turn,” Cal said. “Are you sure?”
Max nodded. “I was looking right at it.”
The door handle was a round design, fitted to a big square metal lock that had been painted a bright and cheerful red at some point in its life, but was now more red-brown rust and scraped silver than paint. Still, it looked solid. There was no reason it should have just opened like that.
“Okay, this is weird,” Cal said. “I think we should probably just close the door and go away. I want to find out a bit more about this place before going in.”
“I agree,” Max said immediately. He stepped past Cal, put his hand on the handle, and pulled.
It didn’t move.
“It’s stuck,” Max said, pulling harder. Then he looked at Cal. “It won’t budge!”
Cal looked up at the sky. It was early, the morning light gray in the sky. They’d deliberately got up nice and early so they could get the shop prepped to get open for the morning foot traffic that they’d missed yesterday.
“I don’t feel like going in,” Cal said, “and we’ve got stuff to do, but it seems wrong to leave the door sitting open like this. Hold on, I’m going to get my light. There must be a rational explanation for all this. We’ll go in and get this door unstuck if nothing else.”
“Woah, don’t leave me here,” Max said. “If you’re going back into the emporium to get your light, then I’m coming with you.”
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Cal smiled. “Fair enough,” he said.
A moment later they were back, Cal armed with his portable spirit light and Max with a flickering candle that he’d lit from the fireplace.
“We’ll just go in and unstick the back door,” Cal said firmly. “I’m sure there’s an explanation for this, and we’re just letting our imaginations run away with us.”
“I’m glad you’re sure!” Max said, sounding unconvinced.
They hesitated for a moment then stepped inside. An intense sensation of changing from the real world to somewhere very different flooded them both. One moment, they were standing in the courtyard in the gray morning, and the next they felt like they had plunged into the night of some other world.
Cal caught his breath. The space smelled musty and damp, but there was another smell, strange and unexpected, a fresh, sweet smell like honey and summer flowers. Then it was gone, and all Cal could smell was the dust and mildew of an old building that hadn’t seen the sun for too long.
“Nothing,” Max said.
“Nothing? Nothing what?” Cal asked.
“The door,” Max explained. He was holding his candle up and pointing at the door frame. “There’s nothing jamming the door. Nothing in the hinges, nothing on the floor, nothing to explain why it won’t move. Cal, I don’t like this.”
Cal felt oddly calm. He could see objectively that the situation was weird and creepy, and earlier he’d felt afraid, but now he just felt curious and interested.
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about here, Max,” he said slowly. “I get that it’s all a bit weird, but I think we’re okay here. Come on, let’s at least take a look a little further inside.”
Max was unsure, and glanced back out the door at the bright courtyard. The courtyard seemed far away, the light dimmed, as if it was being seen down the length of a long corridor, not through a doorway a few feet from where he stood.
In the lobby area that they had stepped into, there was a bathroom door in front, but to the side a wooden stair led up to the upper storey, but now Cal moved a little deeper into the ground floor space of the building. Much the same as in his own shop, there was a space at the back with a big hearth, and in the front a smaller area for serving customers, with a long wooden countertop.
Unlike in his shop, the walls of the front area were lined with small shelves, and the room at the back was full of furniture, all piled up on top of itself as if the room had been used as a dumping ground.
Cal walked forward, his eye caught by something in the front part of the shop. On the shelves in the front, there were small objects.
“Scrolls!” he said in surprise, holding up his light. “Look, Max, the shelves here are covered in scrolls! I wonder what’s written on them?”
Max had reluctantly followed Cal into the dark front part of the shop. Now that they were here, they could see that indeed all the shelves in the front of the shop were covered in rolled-up paper scrolls, each tied with neat little ribbons.
The shop was dark, the windows covered in the heavy black chalk paint that was used when buildings were abandoned, to stop curious passers-by looking inside.
Cal reached toward the nearest scroll, when there was a quiet but very firm click. Both Cal and Max whirled round to see where the sound had come from, even though they both knew what they would see.
The back door had closed.
There was a figure standing there, a tall figure, taller than either of them, and giving an impression of extreme thinness. The inside of the shop was in deep gloom despite their lights. They could see the newcomer standing in front of the back door, a gray, upright figure standing very still, and apparently staring at them through the dark.
The sound of labored breathing reached their ears.
“Please,” the figure said in a hoarse, distant voice. “Please do not touch the scrolls.”
“Ah, very well,” Cal said. “Of course not, if you don’t wish it. I was just admiring them.” He tried to speak brightly and cheerfully, to sound unconcerned, and he was pleased and rather surprised to hear very little tremor in his voice as he spoke.
“Er, do you live here?” he said after the gray figure had stood staring at them through the dimness for some time in silence. “We didn’t mean to intrude. We live next door, you know. I bought the shop next door.” Cal jerked his head in the direction of the emporium. “Not long ago, er, just moved in! Neighbors, you see?”
He was babbling, but he couldn’t seem to stop. The fear that he’d not felt a moment before had now all come on at once. “We came to have a look at the next door building, but we didn’t realize it was, er, occupied. When I pressed the door, it just opened, and so we thought, er, that is, I thought, that it wouldn’t do any harm to just take a look… Do you live here? Is this your shop?”
There was another long silence. Then, the gray figure moved to one side and the door behind him opened a third of the way without any sign of him touching it. The gray, distant light of the courtyard was visible again through the open door.
“You may leave now if you wish,” the gray figure said in his distant voice.
“Ah, got you, right,” Cal jabbered, and then Max took his arm firmly and marched him toward the door.
Cal tried not to look too closely at the gray figure as they passed. There was no doubt about it, though, the figure was as transparent and immaterial as a wisp of mist. There was a face there, a very old, lined face with a long beard and two piercing gray eyes that shone with a remote light. The figure’s eyes moved Cal passed, his gaze staying fixed on Cal’s face.
Max and Cal were about to step through the door when the distant voice spoke again. “You asked if I live here,” the voice said. “You ask if the house is occupied.”
Cal turned, and for the first time he looked straight at the gray figure, straight into the strange, distant, inhuman gleam of his eyes.
“The house is occupied,” the figure stated. “But I do not live here. I have not lived here for a very long time. But still I occupy the house. Strange, don’t you think? I do not understand it. But I get so few visitors, when I heard you outside I thought I would open the door. You may visit me again if you like, so long as you do not touch my scrolls.”
“A pleasure,” Cal said. “Er, good to meet you. See you again some time!”
Max pulled him through the door, and there was a strange rushing sound in their ears as the door clicked shut behind them. Then, like a bubble popping, they found themselves back in the courtyard, back in their normal reality again.
“What in the…?” Cal began.
“Let’s get back into the shop,” Max said firmly before Cal could say anything more. They went back into their shop. Just as Cal was about to step through, he glanced up at the upstairs window of the next door lot. There, against the dark glass, he thought he caught a glimpse of a gray, old face.