Prologue: The Gate
August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon
I was seven when my mother was taken.
Moments before it happens, my parents and I sit on the couch in front of the TV. Daddy lounges on one side of me, Mom on the other. My mother has her legs curled up beside her, sitting in her favorite spot in the corner of the couch. Once in a while, without looking away from the television, she runs her hand over my long, brown hair. Her palm smoothes it out in slow, loving strokes that, a long time after, would seem less like a mother reveling in her child’s presence, and more like an on-edge parent reminding said child that she’s there.
Or, perhaps, reminding herself that I’m still with her.
My mother has given the servants the night off. They needed it, she’d said, since most of them rarely ever took time off except to see their families on special occasions. In retrospect, I realize that reasoning was bullshit. My dad should have clued in that something was wrong, too. I think he was too happy that she wasn’t working through the night for once to think about why she sent everyone away.
While we vegged in front of the TV, I remember vividly how my father kept tossing up popcorn and trying to catch it in his mouth. He kept missing the mark, and each time he did, Mom would glance over to watch the fluffy, white clusters bounce onto her immaculately clean, embroidered red carpet.
“Sorry,” my dad mutters with a sheepish grin, when one of the wayward kernels hits the floor and Mom gives him one of her trademark scowls.
Dad has one arm around me so that I’m snuggled into the warmth of his side, the soft cotton of his white dress shirt against my cheek. He smells of peppermint and Armani Black Code. I’d always love that smell. Years after, the scent of either would catapult me back to this night, to the point where, for months following, I couldn’t brush my teeth without remembering.
Remembering the night my life went to hell.
I pop a kernel into my mouth, and my mother smiles at me, strokes my hair, and nabs one of her own. Ironically, for all the little details of that night that always leaped out at me, I don’t remember what we were watching. This moment, the moment before everything changes, wraps itself around me, a single nanosecond that’s gift-wrapped in warmth and tied with a bow made of love and family.
Back then, I’d thought my mother seemed as happy and content as her warm smile conveyed. It wouldn’t be until years later that I’d look back and realize differently.
In those times that my mind flashed back to this moment, I’d see the fear behind her eyes, fear I somehow didn’t register that night. It was there, hidden in plain sight, barely visible in darkness broken by the white-blue glow of the television that reflected off her face like the kid in the old Poltergeist movie, sitting with her palms on the TV screen. I’d remember this, and the awareness would hit me with the force of a cartoon anvil.
She knew. She knew something was coming.
Whatever we’d been watching must have ended, because Dad takes his arm from around me and picks up the controller to change the channel. And that’s when it starts.
The portrait of my grandmother on the wall above the fireplace mantel begins to shake. It’s just a quiet rattling at first, barely audible over the sound of late-night movie gunshots. Then, the rattling quickly grows louder until the portrait is banging violently against the wall. The lamp on the end table topples with a crash. The light blinks out. The television flickers and goes out with a flash of sparks and a zap.
For a fraction of a second, darkness. Then a horrendous boom resounds through the house, making me scream.
In the same instant, punctuated by that thunderous boom, a gaping hole snaps open in the middle of the living room, as if it’s been punched through the fabric of reality itself by the fist of some angry and unforgiving god.
As tall as my dad’s six feet and wide enough for two people to walk through shoulder to shoulder, the giant hole swirls like a whirlpool, emanating with the unnatural blue light of a thousand otherworldly suns.
Thinking back, while I screamed bloody murder, I’m sure my parents must have been screaming too, and frantically leaping off the couch. I’m not sure; time seemed to have stopped when the portal opened, because the next thing I remember, my mother was at the door to the living room, pushing me behind her.
Standing between me and that monstrous hole in the world.
Dad tries to pull her from the room with me, probably to get us out of the house. She shakes him off and whirls on us.
“Get out of here, Marshal!” I don’t hear her so much as see her mouth form the words, while my mind fills in the sound of her voice. “Take Sam and go!”
Dad reaches for us both again. She shakes him off once more. Then she pulls us both in for a bear hug that nearly breaks my ribs.
“I love you,” she shout-whispers to be heard over the thundering gateway to hell behind her. “Go. Be strong, Sam. Marshal, take care of her. I’ll find you. Go!”
“Mom, no!” I shriek.
Before either of us can stop her, she shoves us both toward the front hall of the mansion. It’s a wordless command for us to go, to save ourselves.
My dad doesn’t listen.
Clutching my hand in a white-knuckled grip, he grabs hers and tries to pull her from the room, but it’s too late.
As though an imaginary hand has reached out from the portal and yanked on her from behind, my mother’s body flies backward toward the vortex. I scream for her.
Dad tries to pull her back, clinging to her for dear life. “Let go of her!” His voice booms over the vortex, obviously shouting at whatever unseen force is pulling her in. “Don’t let go, Beth! I’m not letting you go!” He refuses to release her even when she disappears through the glowing doorway. “Nooo!”
I’m pulling on his arm hard, but the force of the gateway is too strong. His hand slides out of mine, and he flies in after her.
“Daddy!” My own voice rings in my ears, muted and useless and small.
The moment my parents vanish into the roaring light, the portal slams shut. With a single crack, the light and the pounding sound cut off, leaving the big house deathly silent.
“Mom! Dad!”
No one answers.
1
Thief
Thirteen years later, Pennington City, Oregon
As soon as I arrive at work, I know something’s wrong.
Hell, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been keenly aware that something was off long before showing up here.
Almost from the moment I woke up that morning, I could feel it. Alone in my bedroom in the small house I share with three other girls, what I can only call a sense of wrongness skitters across my thoughts. It’s there, pulsing at a nearly unconscious level, yet somehow so intensely it feels like icy fingers crawling up my spine. The sensation comes and goes throughout the day, seemingly without reason, yet each time refusing to be ignored.
It comes again while I sit on my couch drinking my caffeinated breakfast before heading to work at the county library for my morning shift. An awareness of danger, it’s a single flash that disappears as suddenly as it had come.
Without knowing why, I look outside the living room window at the street, half expecting someone to be there, watching me. I don’t see anyone, but like unseen eyes in the shadows, the feeling persists that I’m being watched.