The Doorway and the Deep Read Free Page A

frustration, closed her eyes, and tried again. Her hands were clasped around a smooth stone the size of her fist. Mr. Wilfer called the stone a training token, and in the past few weeks of training, he had instructed Lottie to hold it, focusing all her thoughts on its presence, and do nothing more than clear her mind. It had become an extremely tiresome exercise.
    â€œI
am
clearing my mind,” Lottie grumbled, gripping the stone harder.
    â€œIf your mind were clear,” Mr. Wilfer said, “then you would not concern yourself with conversation, and your grasp would be relaxed.
Clear . . . your . . . mind
.”
    Lottie inhaled deeply, from her stomach, like Mr. Wilfer had taught her during her first lesson. Slowly, she crept into the deep, white space of her mind, where thoughts and memories could not touch her. She continued to inhale deeply, exhale loudly. In, out, in, out. The whiteness expanded, and a calm cold descended on her limbs.
    Then memory grabbed her, tearing into her calm with sharp talons.
    Grissom stood before her, Northerly vines winding up his body, constricting around his chest, turning his enraged face an unnatural shade of purple. Two words rang like an echo in the air:
Vesper Bells
.
    Lottie shrieked. She threw the training token with wild force.
    â€œI can’t,” she said, opening her eyes. “I
can’t
!”
    Beyond Mr. Wilfer, Eliot sat wide-eyed, one hand in midair, clutching the stone Lottie had hurled.
    She blinked. “Did—did I throw that at you?”
    Eliot dropped his hand. “Um, yeah? But I’m okay.”
    Mr. Wilfer was rubbing his temples, his back to Lottie.
    She was afraid to say anything, afraid that Mr. Wilfer was upset and—far worse thanupset—disappointed. Lottie made a careful study of her shoes, then of Mr. Wilfer’s front door.
    Mr. Wilfer did not work inside the glass pergola, but just beyond it, inside a cottage made of tightly woven willow reeds. According to Silvia, the house was created as a resting place for Northerly visitors—traders, diplomats, and friends of court—who were too spooked by the prospect of sleeping in the yews. Mr. Wilfer had converted the cottage into his laboratory, where he spent most of his time poring over old books and mixing strange ingredients in vials, in an attempt to find a cure for the wisps. Lottie’s sharpening lessons took place outside the cottage, in a small clearing of chopped grass and two fallen yew trunks.
    Lottie now sat on one of the trunks and buried her chin in her hands. Beside her, Eliot whistled a pop song Lottie had heard on the radio back in the human world.
    â€œEliot,” said Mr. Wilfer. “Please. If you’re going to be a spectator, you must be a silent one.”
    Eliot promptly hushed up. Mr. Wilfer crossed to where Lottie sat.
    â€œDon’t take it out on Eliot,” she said. “It’s me you should be mad at. I can’t do it, Mr. Wilfer. I’ve been trying the same stupid thing for a month now, and I just
can’t
.”
    â€œYou can,” said Mr. Wilfer. “You simply don’t have the patience.”
    â€œI’m patient!” Lottie snapped.
    Mr. Wilfer raised a brow.
    â€œFine,” Lottie muttered, defeated.
    â€œI understand. Of course you’d like your keen to sharpen faster. What happened with Eliot was rather . . . unprecedented.”
    Mr. Wilfer and Lottie had already spoken at length about what had happened that night at the Barmy Badger, when Lottie had given way to what she’d thought was one of her “bad spells” and healed Eliot in a way that shocked the doctors back home—in what even here in Albion Isle was considered a very rare display of power.
    Lottie had not had a single bad spell since that night. Now, for the first time, she found herself longing for one. She’d stubbed her toe on purpose. She’d upset herself