Graham Masterton - The Doorkeepers

“So what do we do? Light the candles, and say a few words, and hope that it mysteriously changes?”

“Why not?”

Josh opened the box of candles, shook out three of them, and stuck them on to the spikes of the candleholders, in front of the niche. Several passers-by glanced at them curiously, but nobody stopped to ask them what they were doing. That was one thing that Josh liked about England: at least people pretended that they were minding their own business.

He lit the candles and stepped back. “Still doesn’t look any different,” said Nancy, shading her eyes with her hand.

“Maybe there’s a special ritual.”

“Maybe we should just recite the rhyme.”

“OK,” said Josh. He stood in front of the niche, with the three candles flickering at his feet, and raised both hands, palm outward, as if he were giving the benediction.

“Six doors they stand in London Town. Six doors they stand in London, too. Yet who’s to know which way they face? And who’s to know which face is true?”

He repeated the rhyme three times. Nothing happened. The niche remained solidly bricked up.

“I’m beginning to feel a little stupid here,” said Josh.

“Let me try,” said Nancy. She stood in front of the niche in his place. She crossed her arms high in front of her, closed her eyes, and repeated the rhyme three times. Then she said, “Great Spirit, if there is a way through here, show it to me, guide me, that I may discover the white man’s Happy Hunting Ground. Show me the way, so that I may find answers for my questioning mind, and peace for my anxious heart.”

She recited something else, in Modoc. Then she bowed her head and stepped back.

“What did you say?” asked Josh.

“I appealed to the Great Spirit’s pride. I said that He could open any door, even a white man’s door.”

Josh waited beside her, but still nothing happened. Five minutes passed, and the sun went in.

“Nothing,” said Nancy.

“Well … I guess that’s it. No door. No parallel world. I never really believed in it, did you? Not in my heart of hearts. Not one hundred percent. All I can say is, it was better than thinking that some sadistic bastard had her locked up in a basement all that time.”

Nancy looked down at the candles. “What are we going to do with these?”

“Leave them there. It’s not much of a shrine, but it’s better than no shrine at all.”

They waited for a moment longer, and then they began to walk back down Star Yard toward Carey Street. A gray cat came around the corner, a gray cat with green eyes and sharply pointed ears. It had a black leather strap around its neck and a small silver cylinder was dangling from the strap. It walked up the yard at an odd diagonal, crossing in front of them.

“Here, puss,” said Josh. It glanced up at him disdainfully and went on its way.

“That must be a first,” said Nancy. “An animal that ignores you.”

Josh stopped to watch the cat go on its haughty way up Star Yard. “What does it mean when a gray cat crosses your path? You’re only going to have moderately bad luck?”

“Maybe it’s lost,” said Nancy.

“It didn’t look lost.”

“You never know. It had something around its neck. Maybe we should check it out.”

Josh stuck two fingers in his mouth and let out three slurred whistles, like a California quail. “Here, boy! Here, Smokey! Let’s take a look at you!”

“How do you know its name?”

“Because I know owners. Black cat, Lucifer. Tabby cat, Tabitha. Gray cat, Smokey. And for some reason, stick insects are always called Randy.”

The gray cat ignored him and continued to walk up the yard. When it reached the candles, however, it stopped for a moment and regarded them with narrowed green eyes.

“Here, Smokey!” Josh called it. But without any warning the cat jumped over the candle flames and disappeared into the niche.

Josh and Nancy waited for a moment. “What the hell is that animal up to?” said Josh.

“It’s probably doing its business.”

“Great. So what I thought was the door to a parallel world was nothing more than a cat’s toilet?”

All the same, Josh waited a little longer. Nancy said, “Come on, Josh,” but Smokey still didn’t reappear.

“So what’s taking him so long?”

“How should I know? Maybe he’s found something interesting to read.”

“Jesus, Nancy, I’m being serious.”

He walked back to the corner and looked into the niche. He turned back to Nancy and shrugged. “He’s not here. He’s vanished.”

“You’re sure he’s not hiding under all of those leaves?”

“No. He’s vanished.”

Nancy looked up. On all three sides of the niche, the soot-stained walls rose more than seventy feet, up to roof level. Josh said, “He couldn’t have climbed up there. Not without ropes and pitons.”

“So where did he go?”

“I don’t know. He just jumped over the candles, and he—”

They looked at each other. “He jumped over the candles,” Josh repeated.

“Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick. You didn’t do that, did you? You didn’t jump.”

Josh looked around. Star Yard was quite busy now with people walking through it on their way to Chancery Lane – solicitors’ clerks and secretaries and superior-looking barristers with their book-bags slung over their shoulders. The last thing that he wanted to do was hurl himself over the candles and collide with a solid brick wall, right in front of an audience. Especially such a stiff-upper-lip audience.

“Are you going to try it, or what?” asked Nancy.

“Sure. Sure, I’ll try it.”

“Well, go on then. Try it.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“Then you’re wrong, that’s all. Look – if you don’t want to do it, I will.”

“Maybe I ought to say the rhyme again.”

“The cat didn’t say the rhyme, did it? The cat just jumped.”

Josh took a step back, ready to jump, but before he could do so, Nancy said, “For God’s sake, Josh,” and jumped herself.

“Nance!” Josh shouted. But Nancy didn’t hit the wall. She landed on the other side of the candles, among the leaves, and in some extraordinary way the wall seemed further away, even though it wasn’t. She turned to him and smiled. “It’s all right” she said, although her voice sounded watery and strange, as if she were trying to talk to him through a diving mask. She started to make walking movements toward the wall even though she must have already reached it. She walked six or seven paces before she turned around again.

“It’s here!” she called. Her voice sounded even more distorted. “There’s another alleyway, here to the left!” She lifted her arm and pointed and her hand disappeared from sight, right into the brick. “It’s here, you can make your way through!” With that, she took a step sideways and disappeared too.

Eleven

Josh shouted out, “Nancy! Nance! Wait up, will you! Nance!”

Several passers-by stared at him. He was shouting at a brick wall, after all. Three young secretaries in short skirts looked at him and burst into fits of giggles.

There was nothing left to do. He prayed to God that his faith in the jumping-over-the-candle ritual was as strong as Nancy’s, and jumped.

He landed in the leaves on the other side, holding out his hand to balance himself. Nothing seemed to be different, except that the wall at the end of the niche appeared to be much further away than it was before. He turned around and looked back, and Star Yard was just the same. He could hear the shuffling of feet and the bustle of traffic and he could even feel the warm morning breeze.