Beyond the Door Where Evil Reigns

Chapter One

Jack had grown a lot over the summer, for which he was thankful. He wouldn’t have appreciated going to his new school in Connecticut short and underdeveloped, less than his sister who was the same age as he. Still, he was gawky among the students of the school – there was no way that their life here would be any better than life anywhere else.

School had been in session for a little over a week, and Jack’s twin sister, Jade, had already fallen into a crowd. While Jack was the more intelligent of the two, he was usually more awkward then Jade was – long, lanky and lacking muscle, he sometimes stuttered his speech or hung in the shadows. Jade, on the other hand, was witty and sarcastic and always had some sort of comment to throw in. She was highly political and always was found debating with one person or another.

For example, Jack could always be found donning some sort of jeans and some sort of plain and solid T-shirt (usually ratty and worn). He had bought all of these items at the thrift shop. In fact, Jade’s clothes, as well, were all from either the thrift shop or her friends. But her clothing was usually ripped, written on, or carrying chains.

They had to shop at the thrift shop because it was the easiest way to cut money out of their family budget. Their father worked at many various places before in New York City, most of them low-paying, and when he had trouble finding work there, they moved to Connecticut, where he could claim a rather hellish job in a factory.

It had not always been like so, for Jack’s mother had once held an executive position in New York City. She had earned enough money to support the family, and their father had worked small jobs on the side. It could have easily continued with life like this if Jack’s mother, on one day in late November, hadn’t passed away.

It had been rather sudden. It happened about six years ago, when Jack and Jade were both nine and their little sister, Esmeralda (whom they had all come to call “Mera”), was only six. Jack could distinctly remember sitting in the hospital next to Jade, while Mera had perched herself on Father’s lap. After Father had come back from visiting their mother and talking to the doctors, he looked shaken. He had gone back and talked with the doctors a couple more times, until one of these conversations had become an argument.

Jack’s father, an olive-skinned and gruff-faced man, had been up in some poor doctor’s face, screaming, while spit flew from his mouth. Jack could distinctly remember the way the doctor had said “Calm down, sir, please calm down.” He remembered thinking how the doctor could make such a request when it was not his wife lying there in a hospital bed and he was the one not being permitted entrance.

So, eventually, Jack and his sisters had visited their mother.

And then they understood why they weren’t being allowed to see her.

Their mother’s usual deep-colored skin was slightly wrinkled, she was drained and her hands were bony and shaking violently as they reached out to caress each child’s face. Her lips attempted to mutter words, but they seemed to be far too bloated and dumb to form much. Even when they could understand her, she didn’t say much of anything that made sense. A couple of disconnected phrases, a name of a loved one or someone none of them knew, and then her head would sag back on the pillows again.

Jack could remember staring into her eyes. Their mother was always such a strong, sensible and right-minded woman. Her eyes always had a rigid tone to them that was hard and, yet, kind. But now they were pale and wearied, confused and even…pathetic. His mother had only managed to squeeze a few tears out of them in the time they were in there.

While sitting around the bed in that cold, white hospital, Jack listened more to his father talking with the doctors again more then lending an ear to his incoherent mother. They explained that someone had broken into their apartment while their mother was there. They had gotten in through the window and, since her mother was standing directly by the window, some of the glass had gotten lodged in her feet. The intruder had, undoubtedly, beaten her, and when the TV had landed on her head and knocked her out, she had suffered some brain damage.

“She’s suffering from internal bleeding and we’re not able to stop it. She’s loosing it too quickly and it seems that the circuits in her brain are shutting off, one by one. Soon, even if we could save her, she, herself, will be gone.”

And so it seemed so. No matter how many times Father talked to the doctor, no matter how many times Mera cried because Mother wouldn’t talk to her, and no matter how many times, days later, they had badgered the police for information that left with dead ends and lines, it was confirmed: their mothers was not coming back.

After she had died and they had bought a new TV and moved to a new apartment, their Father had…given up. He began drinking heavily every day, loosing job after job because of his drinking disorder, and he attended various AA meetings to no avail. Once or twice he had beaten them, particularly Jade when her tongue was let loose. After a few years, the three children learned to avoid home and their father as much as possible.

So the three children had all already gotten library cards from the local library and Jack, himself, spent most of his time in there. It was located next to a very nice, cheap convenient store that Jack could visit to buy some things; usually groceries that their father had forgotten to purchase or other necessities that had a continuous absence at their home. Jack was even considering getting a job there until Jade had claimed a position. After that had happened, Jack decided it was best for him to look elsewhere for employment.

Right now Jack was in between the library and the convenience store, clutching an armful of books. Most of them were cheap paperbacks, one of them a classic novel and another was a poetry book. Jack had always wanted to look into poetry, and seeing this old dusty novel on a bookshelf, he had been so tempted to grab it that he snatched and dropped some books next to it in the process.

The wind blew at his hair, which was deep brown, messy and slightly overgrown. Keeping his head down, Jack began the steady march to the store, reaching into his pocket to see what change he had. One dollars, six quarters and one dime – not nearly enough to buy a pack of batteries. Maybe with Jade’s employee discount he might be able to scrape it, but he doubted it. What was the discount, again? Five percent? And all that for a measly minimum wage?

Jack pushed open the door or the store and listened to the loud beeping sound that resulting, announcing his entrance to the store. He drifted through the detectors and, immediately, they started to beep. The first time this had happened Jack was confused and distressed – he had, of course, just entered the store, so he couldn’t have stolen anything. But he had later found out that the alarm was old and malfunctioned and went off randomly. Shaking his head and clutching his books, he made his way up to the counter.

A sullen-looking teenager was standing behind the counter, donning an employee’s shirt and a name tag that read, in bold black letters, the name JADE.

Jade’s hair, which was usually chopped in odd fashions by her cheap seven-dollar hairstylist, was drawn back in a ponytail. She was ringing up a series of very adult magazines for a man who was well over fifty years old. When he had finished paying, he stuffed the bag inside another one from another store and made haste to hurry out the door.

Jack leaned against the counter and looked up at his sister. Jade clicked her black tip nails together and looked down at her brother impatiently. Her eyes bore an unnecessary amount of black eyeliner and mascara, which, as Jack always joked, made her eyes far too heavy to keep open and caused her to blink incessantly.

“What?” she snapped.

“I need batteries,” he explained. “But I only have two bucks. Do you have any change on you?”

Jade strictly shook her head. She looked around fervently, hoping that someone would come and demand service in line. But all the occupants of the store seemed to still be browsing. “No, I don’t, but Mera might. Where is she, anyway? She was supposed to be with you.”

Jack shrugged and hastily glanced over his shoulder to make sure that there was still no line. “Jade, she’s twelve years old. She can be on her own for a bit. I suppose she’s probably still in the library. At least, that’s where a saw her last.”

Jade tapped her nails on the counter for a few seconds, looked at the ceiling and then sighed heavily. “Go find her, Jack. She was talking to me a couple of days ago about some guy and I don’t want her to do anything she’ll regret. Anyway, you need the money for the batteries. Three bucks won’t cut it – they aren’t on sale.” She paused, and then continued in a more accusatory tone. “What do you need the batteries for, anyway?” she demanded.

“CD player,” Jack explained. “It’s old and sort of broken so it eats up batteries like crazy.”

“You listen to music too much,” Jade snapped, sounding an awful lot like their mother used to sound. She looked up to see some tired looking woman in her young twenties standing next in line and twitched her head toward the door, her ponytail whipping about, indicating that Jack should leave.

Jack scooped up his books and walked out the door. This time the alarm did not go off and he exited the store in peace. Turning and facing the wind, he made his way back to the library.

When he was in between the two stores again, he looked down the small, trashy alleyway that separated them. There was an assortment of boxes, a trashcan that was sure to never be used, and a rusty door that had not been open in years upon years.

But it was neither the rusty door nor the trashcan that had drawn Jack’s attention. His attention was drawn to a young girl who was sitting on one of the unstable boxes, completely covered by a boy. They were making out viciously, and, from what he could see, the boy’s hands were all over the girl’s body. Jack looked away, mildly disgusted, and walked on to the library.

While pushing open the library doors something came to his mind that Jade had said about Mera. It was something about a guy. Jack thought back to the girl in the alleyway and felt even more disgusted. He should find Mera right away. She was foolish and he didn’t want her to wind up like some street trash like that little girl with that much older boy.

Jack gathered his books up tighter in his arm and set off to search for Mera. He looked up and down the aisles of bookcases, his head rotating left and right. When he did not see her, he began to pace the aisles, looking more carefully. After ten minutes his heart pace began to quicken just a step. Where had Mera gone, anyway? She had been over in the Nonfiction section, looking for something for a school project, but she wasn’t anywhere over there. Nor was she near the CDs, the magazines, the videos, the Fiction books, the children books or the help desk or the main desk.

Jack rushed up to the main desk. “Hello, miss?” he gasped.

The librarian looked up and smiled at his. “Yes?” she asked in a sweet voice. It was almost sickly sweet on such a dreary and windy day as this, and Jack’s rushed feelings did not promote her sweetness at all. Nevertheless, he was rushed and worried.

“Did you see a girl in here? She was about twelve, tall for her age, really long brown hair…. She was wearing a gray sweater and a nice long skirt….”

The librarian stopped and looked at Jack for second, then furrowed her brow in obvious concentration. As if coming to a sudden epiphany, she nodded and smiled. “Yes, dear,” she said. “She left here about fifteen minutes ago. Actually, I think not long after you left.”

But Jack did not need the librarian to tell her where and when his sister had left anymore. He thought back to the girl he had seen in the alleyway. She had worn a gray sweater, yes, and that girl’s skirt was long and black, even if the boy’s hand had pushed the fabric all the way up to her upper thigh.

Enraged and without another word to the librarian, Jack dashed out of the library and sprinted to the alleyway. They were both still there, in basically the same position, except now Mera was no longer sitting on a box and now was up against the brick wall of the library.

For a few seconds, Jack just stared at the scene in front of him. Mera was twelve years old, his sister, and some boy who might even be older then Jack himself was sitting there with his hands on her. Jack’s first thought was to go over and rip that boy from his sister’s body and tear him limb from limb. But, dumbstruck, Jack stood there in the windy street and simply observed.

Their slobbering lasted for only a couple of seconds longer before Mera, her lower lip droopy and wet, turned and stared straight at Jack. The boy stared at him, too – he was taller, more muscular and older than Jack, as he had assumed. Jack twitched his arm slightly and gave an odd-sounding groan.

“Oh,” Mera said, her voice dead. “Hi, Jack.”

Jack considered charging the boy, again, but his feet seemed planted in the sidewalk. “I…uh…I think we should go, then,” Jack stuttered. His voice sounded weak and shaky, and he longed to control it.

“Jack!” Mera whined. She shook her body to dislodge the boy’s arm from her waist, but stared at her older brother pleadingly.

Body stick straight, Jack said, slightly stronger now – “Fix your skirt, its cold out. And we’re going. That’s final.” With a final glance at the boy, he pointed his arm awkwardly away. “Leave.”

The boy stumbled and then sprinted out of the alleyway and out of sight.

Jack awkwardly walked down the alley to his sister, who sniffled. “What…” Jack squeaked. He cleared his throat deeply and then restarted – “What were you thinking? I don’t even know who that kid is. And he looked like he was five years older than you. This is stupid.”

Now snorting and wiping her nose, Mera spluttered a couple of words. “We were only kissing,” she gasped. Her voice broke and she started sobbing softly.

“Oh, come on!” Jack groaned. He threw his hands in the air and looked away.

“Shut up…,” Mera sobbed, and began to hiccup.

Jack didn’t say anything after that. He listened to Mera cry for a bit until she began to breathe normally and she finally slowed down to the point where she was simply sniffling. He knew that any boy interested in a girl so young was bad news. In fact, he would think any boy interested in her, period, was bad news. This was all besides the fact that she was just twelve years old and not even a teenager.

“C’mon, Mera, let’s go.” Jack eventually managed to say. He noticed that Mera was not looking at him but the old rusted door that, it turned out, was not rusted but just a very mangy wood. It was unusually tiny but still bore the words EMPLOYEE’S ONLY on it. Knowing that Jade didn’t go in this door meant that it was probably for whatever company had previously owned the building.

After a period of silence, Mera spoke up. “I hate you,” she muttered.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jack snapped at her. He took some deep breaths and then reached to take her hand. Mera slapped it away. Heaving a sigh, he began to walk down the alleyway and was glad to find that Mera was obediently following him. She walked with her head hung. Her hair was still messed up on one side from where the boy had run his fingers through it.

“You…won’t tell dad?” she asked when they emerged onto the street. Jack shook his head. He knew that if he told his father the results could be disastrous. He would probably scream and demand to see Mera. And when he did…well, the punishment would surely be a bit more then a usual grounding.

“No, I won’t tell dad,” Jack assured his little sister. “But I will tell Jade. And you will be punished.”

Mera gave out a little whimper but quieted herself further as they walked into the store. Her eyes were burning red and she was still sniffling. The line was long up to the counter, where Jade still stood, oblivious of the fiasco that had taken place outside. As they waited on the line, Jack tried to calm himself further so he wouldn’t say anything else to make his sister burst out in tears. Every time he thought he had come to a reasonable state of mind, though, the image of his sister entwined with that boy popped in his mind. He couldn’t help feeling guilty about not handling the situation better.

Finally the two of them came before Jade. She looked at the red-eyed Mera and immediately demanded to know what had happened.

“Well,” Jack began, a venomous tone to his voice, despite all he tried to keep himself kind and calm, “I looked for Mera in the library and she wasn’t there. And I found her with a boy,” he spat the word like it was a curse, “In that alleyway between this store and the library. And he was raping her…”

Jade gasped and started at Mera, who immediately blurted “We were kissing.”

“Viciously,” Jack added under his breath. Mera shot him a contemptuous glance and Jack could’ve sworn he heard the young girl growl deep in her throat.

“And his name is Larry, not boy.”

Jade leaned low and looked Mera in the eye. Mera stood her ground and glared back for a handful of seconds, but as soon as Jade began to speak Mera looked away in shame.

“I, Jack, Mom and Dad did not,” Jade scolded, “raise you to be like this. We did not spend our time and money to feed you and educate you so that you could start to sleep around before you’re even fifteen. I mean, I can’t believe you did this Mera. It’s so not like you.”

Mera muttered something that was incomprehensible.

“What did you say?” Jade demanded.

“I said,” Mera claimed, raising her voice. “That you raised me to be an alcoholic, instead. And you guys aren’t my parents, no matter how much you act like it. You ground me and watch me constantly like I’m some sort of child.”

“You are a child,” Jack barked.

At this point Jack was well aware that everyone in the store was secretly or, even, openly staring at them in their argument. He could see some elder woman leaning around the chip aisle to stare straight at them. Grimacing he grabbed Mera’s wrist and muttered “let’s go”, rushing her out of the store.

At first he was about to drag Mera home despite all the protesting she might do, but realized that people might accuse him of trying to kidnap her or something. Already she was opening her mouth to shout accusations at him.

“Shush,” he said. “Let’s go to that Café over there and I’ll buy you some hot cocoa or something.”

Mera tried to tear her wrist from Jack’s grip but he held her tighter. Her eyes squinted in a hard glare at him for a few seconds, but then her expression softened. “I want coffee,” she insisted.

“All right,” Jack said, slipping his hand from her wrist to her hand and leading her forward. “But I’m pretty sure you’re going to hate it. It’s very bitter, you know, and it doesn’t make you look adult at all when you wind up throwing it out after a few sips.”

Mera let her fingers slip from Jack’s and gave a glance back to the alleyway she had been in five minutes ago. “I want coffee,” she muttered.

See, what I was planning on doing was introducing this aspect and then jumping foward to the main character a handful or so years later, in which this character will unravel the mysteries from there. But if you believe, still, that I should linger more on Aloysius and Prince Rhys for an effect, I'd most certainly love to abide. After all, they only happen to be my favorite characters =]

This , in a really kinda wierd way, reminded me of the mysticalness and magicel feeling i got when reading lord of the rings , but it wasent like coppy write or annything. It was acctually fun to read and i didnt just read it to give a comment .

One thing to improve on thou was his location at the begining, I mean, we dont really know what an aurona is or were it is.
And it did drag a bit , not cause of bordom or bad style but you kept doing youre sentences really long .

but other than these it was really welldone and, compared to my stuff this is like jk rowling

Okay, first off. You use too many words in sentences, they are overly long. This story, which is dragged down by those over-long sentences, would benefit from them being chopped down a bit. Also, you deliver too much too quickly. In all aspects. You have a good plot, a great world, and some awesome sounding villains and heroes all of which is ruined by this hasty writing. You should introduce all this--the guardian (a long lived sorcerer, it seems), the evil demonic beings and black magic, the other worlds to which travel is made possible--all this should be unveiled slowly while you set about making the scene and main character familiar to us, the readers. The plot twist, with the prince being a turncoat, is awesome but it has no impact as we dont know who he is, what he has betrayed, and the friend (Aloysius) he abandoned in an intimate manner. You should describe their friendship, their lives and how they are connected, then build up suspense by gradually making Aloysius piece together clues showing that theirs a traitor and further that the traitor is none other then his friend and charge, Prince Rhys.

This could benefit so much from a rewrite its disturbing. I dont want to point out the errors, grammatical or otherwise because I truly think that this will be better if rewritten and so showing the mistakes would be pointless. Tell me though, if you want me to and I'll come back and do so.

Jiggy