Between The Doors. Wes Peters

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      Between The Doors

      Between The Doors

      Wes Peters

      Apprentice House

      Loyola University Maryland

      Baltimore, Maryland

      Copyright © 2014 by Wes Peters

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).

      First Edition

      Printed in the United States of America

      Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-004-2

      E-book ISBN: 978-1-62720-005-9

      Design by Katherine M. Marshall

      Cover photo by Katherine M. Marshall

      Design editing by Alex Namin

      Section icons by creative commons - attribution (CC BY 3.0) the noun project

      Published by Apprentice House

       Apprentice House Loyola University Maryland 4501 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21210 410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax) www.apprenticehouse.com [email protected]

      for my mother

      foreword

      Between the Doors is a fantasy story, replete with castles and towers, lords and ladies, magic and wizards, even zombies and “crawlies.” Passing through one door, young Andrew Tollson, armed with an old revolver he has found lying by the wayside, leaves his New Jersey home and enters a fantastic realm of good, evil, and everything in between. When there, he becomes a gunslinger with just one round of six bullets at his disposal. Accompanied by his newfound friend, Nick, Andrew then embarks on an exhilarating series of adventures, acquiring four more friends on the way, as he endeavors to save this world from the evil magic of a dark wizard who controls and corrupts it. What happens to him is full of surprises, and you’ll find his story a true page-turner.

      Like all good fantasy stories, however, this one does more than simply tell a tale of faerie adventure. In its depiction of a parallel reality, it reveals something important, even essential, about our own world. In this case, that something is a truth found in a great deal of both realistic and fantasy literature. As old as the proverbial hills, it’s the realization that, as Nick tells Andrew, home is “where we’re all heading anyway.”

      The return home is something of a literary archetype, and as many commentators have observed, fantasy literature is at heart a genre of archetypes. Ursula Le Guin, a widely acknowledged master of the genre, insists that true fantasy needs be a “journey,” with the trappings of dragons or knights, dungeons or witches, disguising the archetypes by seducing readers into participating in what she insists “are dangerous things.” The danger, Le Guin suggests, comes from the fact that archetypes bring us as readers perilously close to home—which in fact is Andrew Tollson’s story. The real journey in Between the Doors is thus not the physical one that Andrew, Nick, and their companions take, but rather the intimate, internal one that Andrew shares with us as we read.

      If this sounds heavy-handed or oppressive, be assured that Wesley Peters narrates Andrew’s tale with a deft hand. As you read, Le Guin’s dangers will never seem much of a threat, the seduction or disguise provided by the story’s fantastic trappings being simply too exciting. The plot’s twists and turns prove riveting, the characters intriguing, and you will always want to know what happens next.

      Yet all the while you also will know what ultimately has to happen next. As the book’s title announces, there is a second door for Andrew, and us, to pass through. That’s the door that passes back from fantasy to reality. Much as with J. R. Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins or L. Frank Baum’s Dorothy, going through it concludes one journey and starts another one. “Why should I go back,” Andrew asks plaintively at one point; “why can’t this be home?” The answer, proffered by the novel’s good wizard, is as profound as it is simple: “Because it’s not.”

      Paul Lukacs

      Department of English

      Loyola University Maryland

      ONE

      Affairs in This World

      chapter one

      playing truant

      I

      The boy came home to one hell of a mess that day. Stillness and heat premature in the early spring season hung like ugly tension in the air. The river beside the road to his home in the woods ran shallow. The drought had plagued the woods for almost a month. Andrew could hardly remember the last time he had slept upstairs, where the stifling heat crept in through the windows and enveloped the second floor. He had resorted to sleeping in the cellar, where it was cool enough to grab a few hours of sleep—cool enough to wake up without being drenched in sweat.

      The sleep Andrew did manage to get was spare, and would’ve concerned his parents had they time to notice. His effort in school had been, ‘lacking of late’, as his father would have said had he time to notice. He didn’t. Work with the local water treatment companies had become a twelve hour daily endeavor, thanks to the drought. Andrew’s father kept his son on track during this time of year when the weather improved and Andrew’s mind wandered from his schoolwork. Yet David Tollson had to leave at 6 in the morning and didn’t get back til the late evening. There was no one to help Andrew with his schoolwork, or ‘lack thereof’, as his father also would’ve said.

      Andrew’s father had no ‘lack thereof’ of work, however, so Andrew’s truancy had gone unnoticed these past few weeks. His mother busied herself from sunrise to sunset, saving her gardens from ruin at the hands of the drought. Patricia Tollson had the finest garden in town. Rows upon rows of orchids, roses, and blue hydrangeas transformed the small lot the Tollsons called home into a castle courtyard. Helping his mother plant and tend these flowers implanted in Andrew a fierce love for nature from a young age. Flowers, his mother said, had a way of making a small life seem grand. Perhaps, thought Andrew as he walked past the rows of flowers leading up to the front door, now that the flowers won’t bloom, that’s why mom seems so small.

      She certainly was not small today. Patricia Tollson waited patiently inside the kitchen, fidgeting with a pair of gardening shears. Andrew had heard her humming an old rhyme at the dinner table last night: April showers bring May flowers. An old rhyme had been circulating through her petite head all day: April showers bring May flowers. Well, it was May now, and she had spent all spring mourning her dead flowers and cursing her new flowers that wouldn’t grow. So what about May flowers? What if there are no April showers? As the front door swung open and young Andrew walked in, Patricia looked up and met her son’s eyes.

      “Andrew, dear,” she said. Andrew froze. “Won’t you come sit with me?” The boy treaded slowly over to the high table where she sat.

      “What’s up, mom?” he asked, forcing a small smile. She didn’t return it.

      “Oh, just lovely, Andy. Do you know Mr. Scalza? Do you know Mr. Scalza, darling?” Andrew’s stomach dropped to his shoes. Mr. Scalza was Nayreton Middle School’s truancy officer. All of the days he’d skipped school and wandered along the banks of the Warren River were about to catch up with him. He had stopped going once the heat settled in and the drought started, in April. There was no point in sitting through school, which lacked air conditioning. The rooms baked in the valley below the White forest.