The door slammed closed.
The roses in the wood of the door, only seconds before vibrant and wild, looked dead.
The raven was gone.
“Glamour,” Robbie said, reaching up to touch the mark between his neck and shoulder. “It’s a glamour.”
Kelly took his hand, holding on as tight as he could.
We moved as one past the doors. I tried as hard as I could to stare straight ahead, not to let myself become distracted. But I could feel the pull, the urge to go to one of the doors and look inside, to see what I could see.
Robbie said, “Mom?” and it crumbled and cracked.
He stood in front of another door. A pair of glasses sat on the top of it. They looked like the ones he wore.
“I’ll eat you up, I love you so,” a voice crooned from somewhere inside. “I’m not crying. I promise. We’re all right. West, Robbie. We’ll go west. Where the wolves run with humans and nothing can hurt us ever again.”
He took a step toward it, but Kelly pulled him back.
He blinked as if waking from a heavy sleep.
He said, “Kelly, I….”
“I know,” my brother said. He kissed Robbie sweetly. “It hurts. It makes us bleed. But we’re together.”
The door closed.
The glasses resting on the top disintegrated, the motes of dust caught in a soft breeze. They swirled up into the air and were gone.
So many doors.
So many voices.
They called to us.
They said, “Candy canes and pinecones. Epic and awesome.”
They said, “I popped your coming-out cherry. That didn’t sound any better.”
They said, “Choose me, Mark. Pick me. Love me.”
They said, “Jessie, this is Dominique. She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”
They said, “You got weird white-boy arms? My dad says that you must have weird white-boy arms. That’s why you wear sweatshirts all the time.”
They said, “Hey, Tanner? Okay, stick with me here. This is going to sound ridiculous. But what if we…. I love you, you know? You’re my best friend. What if we did what the others have done? We could just… you know. Bite each other. Mates. You don’t have to say yes. But there’s no one else I trust more.”
They said, “Lizzie? What’s wrong? Is Carter kicking again? Here, let me rub your back.”
We wanted to see what was inside almost more than anything.
But we always had someone there to pull us back. To keep us from getting lost.
“Ox,” Joe muttered, looking stricken as the voice of our father called to him from a red door, telling him that he was going to be the Alpha. “We have to find Ox.”
“Yes,” my mother said dreamily. She shook her head. “We must hurry.”
We pushed on.