Page 50 of The Little Shop of Curiosities Cursed Object 1, The Music Box

“Portal?” I blurt out. “What portal?”

“You might as well tell them, Tristan,” Death says as he leans back comfortably in his chair. “You’re going to need their help.”

“There’s a portal in the back room of the bookshop,” Tristan explains. “It’s a… What did Bruce call it?” he asks Dusty.

“An in-between place,” she murmurs.

“That’s it.” He nods. “It’s an in-between place, a doorway between the world of the living and the world of the dead. It allows lost souls to cross over to the afterlife.”

I stare at him and my mind races. It’s filled with fragments of the dreams I’ve had and the strange visions, the first one when I touched the door handle to the shop and the second outside the restaurant in the pouring rain.

A portal to another place…an in-between place. Does this have something to do with why my mother gave me up?

“Okaay…” Danny winces as he shifts his broken leg uncomfortably. “He guards a doorway. Why does it need a guard?”

“To stop souls coming back through, I imagine,” Tristan answers, looking to Death for confirmation.

“Or something worse,” Death adds.

“What do you mean?” Danny tilts his head and studies Death carefully.

“There are things out there far more dangerous than me,” Death says quietly as the rain hammers against the window and another loud rumble of thunder crashes overhead.

“Such as?” Chan asks, glancing up when the lights flicker.

“Things that dwell in the darkness, things that should never see the light of day… Things that would use an unguarded doorway as a conduit into your world, and chaos will follow in their wake.”

His words chill me to the bone. Just what exactly is it that my mother and her family are bound up in?

“So, if I understand this correctly”—Danny shifts in his seat—“if Bruce’s bones are the ones we uncovered and his unfinished business is resolved, he’ll cross into the light or whatever it is spirits do?”

“Usually,” Tristan murmurs. He turns back to Death and adds, “But didn’t you say Bruce would have a choice? That he could stay?”

“In Bruce’s case, yes.” Death inclines his head. “He can choose to remain earthbound, but he will still be tied to the portal.”

Just who is this Bruce Reyes, I wonder. How is it that he’s haunting the bookshop? Did he die there or is he connected to my birth family somehow?

“And if he chooses to cross over?” Danny asks. “What happens to the doorway then?”

“You’d better pray that he doesn’t,” Death replies ominously.

“Why?” Dusty suddenly interrupts. “Why does it have to be Bruce? Surely someone else must’ve guarded the doorway before he died.”

“It’s complicated,” Death admits.

“So, un-complicate it.” Dusty stamps her foot and fists her hands on her hips. “Because from where I’m standing, all this is pretty fucking unfair to Bruce.”

Death stares at her coolly, making no attempt to explain further.

“Death.” Tristan rubs his temples, wincing as if in pain. “Dusty does have a point. Why does it have to be Bruce?”

He sighs. “We’ve been over this before.”

“Yeah, but at the time I thought it was some freaky dream.”

“All I can say is that the portal and its location are different from other doorways.”

“I don’t get it.” He shakes his head in frustration “What’s so special about an old run-down bookshop in Whitechapel?”