Dorian Gray.
Daisy Buchanan.
FromThe Great Gatsby.
“They must have belonged to Simon, and this girl.” With my mind abuzz, I flip the page and keep reading. Entry after entry, she fills the page. Entry after entry, he is utterly infatuated. And intense. Exactly what you’d expect from a boy drinking cognac, smoking Djarums, and readingDorian Gray—a book about a doppelgänger and a cursed portrait, a connection that isn’t lost on me or Jude. I read quickly, ferociously, unwilling to skip orslow down. Because in three months, then two, then one … Simon Vandenberg will disappear.
In an entry marked March 12, I come upon a phrase written in all caps.
“The air tore open,” I read aloud, my breath catching in my throat. “It’s the only way to explain it. A slit of a doorway, floating in space. It opened right there in the hedge maze. It’s the only thing that could have distracted me from her beauty. Daisy took my hand and we stepped through. We were there in the maze. And yet, it wasn’t the maze. It was something more than the maze. I don’t have words to explain. Only to say that we ran into Lily. She was crying. Daisy tried to comfort her, but she couldn’t see us. Nor could she hear us. Not even when I yelled her name. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever experienced. Somehow, we found our way back out again. I’m so glad Daisy was with me. If she hadn’t been, I would think myself crazy.”
I look up, eyes wide. “The trapped teens!”
Jude has no idea what I’m talking about.
So I tell him the story.
Season two, episode two onAccounts of the Uncanny. In 1998, a pair of teens trespassed onto the Vandenberg property. This was before Tulane moved back into the home. And they went missing for two whole days. When they finally showed up, they told police they’d been there the whole time, but nobody could see them and everything was strange looking. “The girl refused to do an interviewwith us, but the guy agreed. He chalked it up to being high. But what if it had nothing to do with drugs? What if they went through this same doorway?”
“Oh my gosh.” I bring my hand to my mouth. “What if this is it? What if this is what happened? This doorway opened, the whole family went inside, and they got trapped. Holy crap, Jude, what if they’re still in there?”
I don’t give him time to answer. I return to the pages, where Simon’s handwriting becomes more compact, more frenzied. His words bristle with fear, longing, and confusion as the doorway appears again.
He and Daisy argued before it happened—angry words, slammed doors. But then, suddenly, they were kissing. Like they knew the end was near. Like they were trying to hold on to something already slipping away. That’s when it opened. They went inside and it was a frightening place. An evil place. With shadows and monsters and everything off kilter.
He hates it, but Daisy has grown obsessed with the doorway. With this other world.
Then I reach it.
The final entry.
Written one day before they vanished.
April 12, 1995
We found it again. The doorway. Daisy calls it The Rift. She says she can feel it when it’s near. This time, we were playing pool in the billiard room, trying to escape the tension. The house has been seething with it lately. Low-level. Constant. Like a storm brewing just out of sight. But there was no escape to be found. And I started to wonder if the tension wasn’t in the house at all … but in me.
That’s when the air above the table began to shimmer. Daisy beckoned me to come with her. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t let her go in by herself. So in we went. This time, we weren’t alone. Something was following us. A dark entity lurking in the shadows. Then we heard my parents arguing in their bedroom. I thought it was about Lily. But it was about me. And Daisy. Theydon’t like her. They said awful things about her. Daisy heard all of it.
I hate them for what they said. I hate them entirely.
I make a beeline to the last known place the rift was open—the billiard room. A masculine retreat with the lingering scent of old cigars. I search every nook and cranny like a woman on a mission. I don’t even know what I’m searching for. A secret button? A lever to pull? By Simon’s account, this rift just magically appeared at random. But still, I search. And when I find nothing, I move into the dining hall.
Jude silently follows.
“I saw someone in the window in Simon’s room, which brought me to Simon’s room.” The goosebumps on my arms might very well be a permanent fixture, growing in quantity and size. “It was almost like the figure was leading me to that loose floorboard. It couldn’t have been Simon, could it? If he’s stuck inside the rift, I don’t think I’d have been able to see him.”
I move to the sideboard and start opening drawers.
The way Simon described it, the doorway leads to another dimension. Superimposed over ours. And the last time they ventured inside, a dark entity was with them.
I think about the town of Foggy Hollow, riddled with strange phenomena. The Woman of the Woods. The Night Beast. The Flash of 1757. The Fire of 1822—an eruption of unexplainable flame that devoured a whole town. What if this rift is the reason? If Simon and Daisy could go in, what would stop forces on the other side from coming out?
My goosebumps quadruple.
I open more drawers, searching like my life depends on it. A full believer with zero doubt. Zero skepticism. Fully primed for something just like this.
Jude, not so much.
