The Gateway Read online

  Copyright © 2016 by Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

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  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

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  The images in this book is used with the permission of: © iStockphoto.com/Ainis (forest); © iStockphoto.com/ltus (woman); © iStockphoto.com/mustafahacalaki (skull); © iStockphoto.com/Igor Zhuravlov (storm); © iStockphoto.com/desifoto (graph paper); © iStockphoto.com/Trifonenko (blue flame); © iStockphoto.com/Anita Stizzoli (dark clouds).

  Main body text set in Janson Text LT Std 12/17.5. Typeface provided by Adobe Systems.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Beherns, Kathryn J., author.

  Title: The gateway / by Kathryn J. Beherns.

  Description: Minneapolis : Darby Creek, [2017] | Series: The Atlas of Cursed Places | Summary: On a class field trip to a cursed bog, three best friends discover a gateway between the living and the dead.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015044798 (print) | LCCN 2016021806 (ebook) | ISBN 9781512413250 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512413533 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512413540 (eb pdf)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Blessing and cursing—Fiction. | Dead—Fiction. | Best friends—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B445 Gat 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.B445 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015044798

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-39784-21322-3/29/2016

  9781512419474 ePub

  9781512419481 ePub

  9781512419498 mobi

  To all of my former students

  Chapter 1

  Mia and Hannah sprinted down the hall, slid around the corner, and reached the Earth Science classroom. Too late. The last bell of the morning rang out. Tardy for their very first class of their sophomore year. This year was off to a rough start.

  They entered the room hoping Mr. Crapsnik wouldn’t notice. Of course he did.

  “So glad you could join us.” He talked like he was pinching his nose. “Take a seat, ladies.” His nasally voice continued, “Sooooo like I was saying. Our Big Bog was born about two and a half billion years ago. Today you will be going to the library to research the biodiversity, or living things, that call this bog home. Alright, peoples, let’s go to the library.” Mr. Crapsnik was your typical science nerd: high-waisted corduroys and a sweater vest—tucked in.

  Mia and Hannah were the last ones to leave the classroom. Then, all of a sudden: Thump-scrape! Thump-scrape! Thump-scrape! Strange footsteps echoed from somewhere behind them. Mia and Hannah froze mid-step. Mia gasped as she turned to find her other best friend, Jasmine, almost nose-to-nose with her.

  Jasmine could hardly breathe she was laughing so hard. “Got you! You were totally about to crap yourself!” Jasmine said. She was wearing heavy black boots with awkward heels. She looked very different from last year, when she’d mostly worn sweatshirts and jeans. She had dark makeup on around her green-brown eyes. Jewelry on her wrists. High heels to make her look even taller.

  “I thought I was gonna be mugged by bigfoot,” Hannah said, grinning at her friend. She’d missed Jasmine over the summer. Hannah, Mia, and Jasmine were usually inseparable, but this summer Jasmine had left Mia and Hannah to stay at her cousin’s lake cabin.

  “I thought I was going to have to lay the smack down.” Smiling, Hannah wrapped her arms around Jasmine. “We missed you, lady. Where were you this morning? Knocked on your door, but no one answered. I think this might be the first time in like eight years we haven’t walked together on the first day of school.”

  “Sorry, Mom. It will never happen again.”

  “It’s just that we’ve been walking to school together since like second grade,” said Hannah. “It felt weird. Like, wrong.”

  The hall was empty. Everybody else in Mr. Crapsnik’s class was already at the library. But Mia, Hannah, and Jasmine weren’t ready to break up their reunion for studying just yet. “Bathroom break, girls!” announced Hannah.

  The girls’ restroom had three primary purposes: 1) The obvious 2) a place to escape the outside world 3) a gathering space for gossiping and catching up. Some of the school’s most important conversations took place among the white porcelain thrones. Hannah, Mia, and Jasmine migrated to the restroom.

  “I missed you guys sooo much,” Jasmine said, putting her arms around her friends. “But this summer was kind of good for me. Even being away from you two. It’s like I got to try on someone else’s life. And I liked it.” She was trying so hard to make them understand. “I met new people, tried things. My cousin took me places. She showed me how to dress and do makeup. I like looking good. And that’s good. I feel like I grew up more. Ya know what I mean?”

  Hannah was distracted by the jangling sound of Jasmine’s thin, gold bracelets. “Uh-huh.”

  “I know this sounds stupid, but I was actually scared to tell you that the reason I didn’t walk with you this morning was because I’d just finished doing my hair and I didn’t want it to frizz,” Jasmine confessed.

  Mia laughed a little. “Don’t be silly. I don’t care if you decided to gain four hundred pounds to become a sumo wrestler. You’re our friend.”

  “Thanks, Mia,” said Jasmine. “So, notice anything else different about me?”

  “Your wrists jingle?” Hannah said.

  “No, silly! I pierced my ears. Don’t die of a heart attack or anything!” Jasmine wanted to take the words back as soon as they left her mouth.

  Mia had had one of the worst summers of her life. Her grandma had died suddenly of heart problems. The grandma who baked her cookies every first day of school and would come to every basketball game, even when Mia’s parents weren’t there. Mia’s eyes pooled with tears.

  Hannah grabbed Mia’s hand quick for a comforting squeeze, as if to say, “Everything is going to be okay.”

  “Oh crap. I’m sorry, Mia,” Jasmine said. “That was bad—really bad.”

  “I’m fine,” Mia said, trying to hold back her tears. “It’s just still kind of hard. I saw her the night before the three-on-three tournament. Then Grammy just never woke up. I didn’t get to say how much I loved her, or what she meant to me.” Mia’s voice started to crack. “I just want to say good-bye.”

  “I thought you didn’t enter the tournament this year,” said Jasmine, who now had her hand on her friend’s shoulder in a gesture of sympathy.

  Jasmine, Hannah, and Mia had dominated the tournament for two years.

  “We couldn’t this summer.” Hannah could feel the anger rise up. “Remember? You were busy trying on ‘a new life.’ ”

  “We volunteered,” Mia said, very quietly.

  Hannah had been at the tournament when Mia got the news about her grandma’s death. She was there to catch Mia when she fell apart between games. She was there all summer to help put Mia back together. Through it all, Mia and Hannah grew even closer.

  “I’m sorry, Mia.” Jasmine felt a little like the odd girl out. She wished she could find the right words to make Mia feel better.

  “There you are!” Suddenly a fourth voice entered their conversation as Jayden from their Earth Science class came into the bathroom. “Mr. Craps-Himself is starting t
o notice that some ‘peoples’ are missing. You better get back before he figures out who.” Then, she glanced down at Jasmine’s boots. “Nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  Chapter 2

  “Be sure to pick your group for the field trip before you leave this library,” Mr. Crapsnik droned just as Mia, Hannah, and Jasmine snuck in. They were trying to blend in by some magazine racks.

  “You will be responsible for your safety and getting the assignment done. You will be graded on both.”

  The library smelled of old books, dust, and stale coffee. The librarian, Miss Jones, looked like she had been around since the dinosaurs. She always had a mug of coffee in her hand as if it were attached to her body. “You girls look like you’re searching for something very important. Can I help you?” she asked Mia, Hannah, and Jasmine.

  “Ummmm, yeah,” Jasmine said, relieved the librarian wasn’t busting them for being late. “We’re looking for information on the Big Bog.”

  Miss Jones was a small woman with crystal blue eyes that seemed to be hiding something. “I have the book you must read. It holds the bog’s truths.” She stepped so close the girls could feel her hot, coffee breath on them. She whispered as if possessed, “Beware of the jeweler’s son!”

  Then she backed away. “The book you are looking for is in the old part of the library through that door. It will be the one you bang your knee on.” She was pointing toward an arched door that had lions carved into its wood.

  “Did you ever notice that door?” asked Mia.

  “Never,” replied Hannah. “It’s like it showed up out of nowhere.”

  “I think you and Miss Jones have lost your marbles,” Jasmine said.

  No one saw the girls walk through the arched doorway. They entered an eerily silent room filled with rows and rows of ancient books. These books were titled things like Conjuring Magic from the Earth and Potions for Everyday Living.

  Mia ran her fingers down the rows of old books until she came across one that stuck out about four inches past the bookshelf. Miss Jones was right; she would have hit the book with her knee. The cover was scratched. Its corners were rounded from use. It was blood red with gold letters: The Atlas of Cursed Places. Mia wiped the dust off and lifted the cover. The first page of the book was a map with skulls on it. Suddenly, the pages began to turn themselves. Page after page whirred by, finally stopping at a chapter: “The Big Bog: Gateway to Death and Life.”

  “Whoa! This just got real!” Hannah said. Goosebumps popped up on her arms.

  “It sounds like something an old lady with too much time on her hands made up.” Jasmine didn’t take her eyes off her phone. Had she even seen the pages turn themselves?

  Mia and Hannah sat at the only table in the room. They could hear their classmates in the main library, but they sounded a whole world away.

  “Are you reading this, Mia?” Hannah asked. “It says here that in the 1800s a woman named Melanie Zurner went for a walk by the Big Bog. Witnesses said she was wearing what looked like a wedding dress. She was never seen again. Two hundred years later, no body has been recovered. She was lured through the gateway into the land of the dead.” This sounded more like fiction than like something found in any atlas.

  They continued reading:

  The bog is but a gateway between the world of the living and the land of the dead. At twilight the living and the dead merge and unite. Say these words and the Gateway opens, “Death to life you must cross through. Into the Gateway we summon you.” In your hand provide an object the deceased person once held dear.

  “Do you believe this, Mia?” asked Hannah.

  “I don’t know,” replied Mia. I want to, she thought. She was gripping her grandma’s butterfly clip that she had kept in her pocket since the funeral. What she wouldn’t give to say, “I love you” one last time. To truly say good-bye to her grandma. She wondered if Grandma would still smell of strawberries and fabric softener.

  “You don’t actually believe this crap,” Jasmine said, looking up from her screen. “It sounds like a practical joke if you ask me.”

  “Well, what’s the worst thing that could happen?” replied Hannah. “We get muddy.”

  They looked over at Jasmine who had completely checked out while she stared at her screen.

  Mia leaned into Hannah so that Jasmine wouldn’t hear. “I have to do this, Hannah.”

  “Tonight, at twilight,” Hannah whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” asked Jasmine.

  “Didn’t want to disturb you while you were on your phone,” said Mia. She meant it as a dig, but after a few seconds Jasmine just shrugged and went back to her cell. Mia picked up the ancient book and slid it into her backpack. “I have a lot of research to do tonight,” she whispered to Hannah, the friend who actually cared about her.

  Chapter 3

  Mia came running into Hannah’s house. “Sorry I’m late! Jasmine wouldn’t leave me alone. She kept wanting to hang out.”

  Hannah looked up at the clock. “Crap! We can take my mom’s car. She’s working late, and my brother is at football practice.”

  “If you think it’s a good idea.” Mia was nervous. Hannah only had a provisional license. One driving ticket would ruin her chance of getting her driver’s license any time soon.

  “Otherwise we won’t get out there in time. We don’t have a choice.”

  They hopped into the silver minivan. Hannah anxiously adjusted the mirrors and checked her seatbelt. Then she adjusted the mirrors again.

  “Um, don’t mean to rush you, but I think the sun is going to be down any second,” Mia said.

  Hannah backed the car out of the driveway, then popped it into drive. “You want fast, you’ve got it!” Still, Hannah’s “fast” was just a little speedier than an elderly driver’s.

  They drove beyond the neat and tidy rows of houses in town. The road followed an old creek that used to be mined for iron ore. The ore gave the water a red tinge. They were driving slightly downhill until finally the creek disappeared into a large clump of trees. The sun was starting to set behind them.

  Hannah parked and Mia leaped out of the car and ran for the row of pine trees that surrounded the bog like a giant fence. Hannah trailed close behind.

  The ground beneath them was soft like a hollow grave. A huge blackbird cawed its warning at them. Locusts buzzed and frogs croaked loudly.

  Strange-looking plants grew at the edge of the bog. Trees stuck out of the bog. Their branches seemed to be reaching out for help before they drowned in the bog’s acidic water.

  “Are you ready, Mia?” Hannah asked.

  Mia held Grandma’s butterfly clip out to the bog like she was giving it to someone.

  “Death to life you must cross through. Into the Gateway we summon you.” Mia chanted it over and over again, saying it louder each time.

  The sun dropped behind the horizon, where the earth met the sky. The animals and bugs went silent. The sky turned a bright shade of purple. Hannah and Mia had never seen a color like that.

  The bog, which had just seconds ago been lapping at their feet, began to bubble. It burped and belched up sulfur-smelling air, as if hell were breathing on them. Mia trembled, clip in hand. She wanted her grandma back more than anything, more than life or death, heaven or hell.

  Then in the distance, across the bog, a figure appeared. Mia saw it first. The figure—a woman—walked on top of the bog’s boiling surface.

  “It’s Grammy,” Mia shouted. Fear shot through her. What if Grammy was no longer in a form she recognized? What if she was a zombie? What had they done?

  The figure got closer. Hannah and Mia could see it was not Grammy at all. She was young and tall, with dark hair. This strange woman continued walking—no, running—toward them. She was tripping and stumbled over the bubbling water, but she kept coming.

  Hannah stepped back, never turning her eyes from the figure coming for them. “Oh God! She’s mad. A-a-and she’s coming right for us.”

&n
bsp; “No, no.” Mia was strangely calm. “She looks desperate, maybe even scared. Definitely not mad.”

  The two girls had no time to call out to her or to run. Before they could do anything, she was gone.

  Stunned, silent, Mia and Hannah looked out over the bog. Its bubbles and belches had stopped. The smell lingered, but there was no sign of the woman in the bog.

  “Was that real?” asked Hannah.

  “I think so,” replied Mia. “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know. Something important, based on the way she was running.”

  They turned to head back to the car. Getting to the row of trees, they saw another dark-haired figure approaching. This one was very much alive and angry.

  “Who do you think you are, ditching me like that? I thought we were best friends. I thought we did everything together! You didn’t even ask me to come with you.” Jasmine sounded really hurt. “I knew something was up when you had that stuck-up smile in the library. You couldn’t wait to get rid of me after school, could you, Mia?”

  “I just figured you wouldn’t want to come out here.”

  “How did you know where to find us?” asked Hannah.

  “Let’s just say I had a hunch. Besides, it’s not that far.” Jasmine was trying hard not to yell anymore. “Oh, and nice car, Hannah! I’m sure your mom would love to hear how you stole it!”

  Hannah got scared and said, “Jasmine, don’t. I would be grounded for life. Don’t tell her PLEASE!”

  “Whatever. I’m not a snitch.”

  “You want a ride back to town?” asked Hannah.

  “No. I’d rather bike home than be with you traitors.” Jasmine looked as though she were about to cry. She turned and started walking toward the bog.

  “Should we stop her?” whispered Mia.

  “She’ll be fine. I don’t think she will be summoning any ghosts,” said Hannah. “Besides, she needs some space.”

  Mia walked around the back of the car to get into the passenger seat.