Lock the Doors

Vincent Ralph

Front Cover

Also by Vincent Ralph

14 Ways to Die

Title Page

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Books. Change. Lives.

Copyright

Cover design by Stephanie Gafron/Sourcebooks

Cover image © Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel

Internal design by Michelle Mayhall/Sourcebooks

Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Sourcebooks Fire, an imprint of Sourcebooks

P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

(630) 961-3900

sourcebooks.com

Originally published in 2021 in the United Kingdom by Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

Front Cover

Title Page

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

III

IIII

IIII I

IIII II

IIII III

IIII IIII

IIII IIII I

IIII IIII II

IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII

IIII IIII IIII I

IIII IIII IIII II

IIII IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII IIII

IIII IIII IIII IIII I

IIII IIII IIII IIII II

IIII IIII IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII I

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII II

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII I

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII II

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII I

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII II

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII I

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII II

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII III

IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII IIII

Part Four

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Back Cover

For Rachel

Part One

1

Home is where the hate is.

I was eight when I figured that out, watching from my bedroom window as my mother and her boyfriend argued in the garden. His name was Gary, and he drank a lot. And not because he was thirsty.

Mum’s words were screeches, Gary’s were slurs, and, for a little while, they were only fighting with their voices. Then he threw the garbage can lid at her, and she crumpled, her knees cracking on the path. Picturing her now, I see her arms held tight against her belly and tears dripping on the flower bed.

Mum says most memories are Post-its on the fridge door of your life. But a few, she says, are tattoos on your soul. This is one of those memories. What I learned is that anything can be a weapon if you know how to use it.

The lid was metal and dented. Gary held it over her, casting a shadow across her pleading face. He yelled things I didn’t understand. Then Mum caught my eye, and Gary turned and smiled and waved.

The worst part? I waved back. I still hate myself for not doing anything—for not knowing what to do.

When bad things happen miles away, it’s easy to say you’d be a hero. But, when it happens to you, especially when you’re eight, it’s not so easy.

Gary’s arms stiffened, then he brought the lid down hard and fast, my mother screaming as it stopped inches from her face. He laughed, tossed it aside, and went to the pub.

All night, Mum made crying noises, tiny ones she whispered over, like she was shushing them to sleep. I lay awake, too scared to touch her, because, sometimes, the easiest things in the world, like a hug or a smile or an “Are you okay?” feel impossible.

In the morning, I watched her secretly, in between cereal bites and toothbrush brushes, and, when she caught me, she smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

My mum had a lot of boyfriends, but some were worse than others.

2

Four tiny holes in my new bedroom door. That’s the first thing I notice.

And then a bigger one on the frame, flaking at the edges, and a curve where the dark wood turns light, a crescent just deep enough for a bolt to slide back and forth.

My stepsister’s door has eight holes, each set of four not quite level, as if whoever drilled them was fixing a mistake. I hunt for holes and find them everywhere, except for Mum and Jay’s room. Their door is perfect, the frame untouched, and that’s when I realize what happened here. Our dream home, the house Mum fell in love with the moment she saw it, was someone else’s nightmare, because these holes aren’t where you’d expect them to be. The locks weren’t on the inside to keep people out.

They were on the outside, keeping someone in.

3

“They’ve taken it off the website,” Mum says, looking up from her phone.

“I should hope so,” says Jay. “We own it.”

“Still, it’s nice that it’s official.”

Jay stares at the piles of boxes, then jangles the house keys. “It’s been official for a while.” But Mum’s not listening. She’s spent so long looking at the place online that she can’t stop.

Although we finally got our “dream home,” no one seems that happy. Mum prefers the tidy house in the pictures, Jay looks exhausted from shifting all our stuff, and my stepsister, Nia, is already moaning about reception and how long it’ll take to get, like, anywhere.

New house, same life. Except that’s not totally true, because this life is a lot better than our old one, before Mum met Jay.

“We should leave the unpacking until tomorrow,” he says, and, even though Mum looks disappointed, she agrees.

Then we all sit in the gaps between the boxes and eat takeout pizza, pretending this isn’t a massive anticlimax. Mum looks at her photos, the ones she took when we visited to measure, and Jay doesn’t try to stop her because that’s how arguments start. Instead, he looks at me and says, “So…what do you think?”

“There are holes in the doors,” I say. “It looks like they locked people in.”

Jay doesn’t respond like I want him to. He just says, “We’ll fix that when we decorate.”

He does that a lot—asks questions and ignores answers. If he could pick a stepson, he wouldn’t be anything like me. Sometimes I catch him giving me the look, and I know what he’s thinking. Why can’t he be like every other person? Why does he have to worry so much and say weird things? It could be worse, because some men get angry if you’re different. Jay just changes the subject.

“When are we getting Wi-Fi?” Nia asks. Because this is far more important, Mum puts her phone down, and the three of them discuss it while I go upstairs.

The doors are brown with swirls and dark knots, but I don’t see the patterns anymore.

I only see the holes.

4

I listen to music until Mum comes in and says, “We’re going to bed, now, if you want to…you know.”

I nod, but don’t reply. It’s better when she doesn’t say it out loud.

She doesn’t ask if I’m okay. We just stare at each other while I watch her settle on a suitable smile. When it comes out, it’s awkward and sags at the edges, but at least she tried.

Jay comes up behind her and says, “Good night, mate. You cool?”

I’m most certainly not. But I sigh and say, “Yep.”

“Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

They stand there a second too long…and then a few more…until, finally, Mum breathes out and says, “Sleep well, sweetheart.”

Their bedroom door closes, and I hear mumbling behind the wall. I could try to listen closer, but I don’t want to know what they’re saying about me. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before. Instead, I go downstairs, feeling my way through the darkness.

It always takes a while to get used to a new house. But, eventually, if we stay long enough, I’ll be able to move from room to room with my eyes closed. I prefer doing this in the dark.

I feel for the front door and push the handle down once, twice, three times. Each time it holds firm, but only after three can I clap. That’s how I know it’s locked.

Moonlight hovers over the kitchen counters, empty except for a kettle and a microwave. I check the back door four times, then clap. Then I touch the windows one by one. On my way back upstairs, I check the front door again, because, sometimes, the clap doesn’t work. It’s supposed to stop my doubts, to remind me I’ve already done this. But it doesn’t always work.

“Clap,” I say out loud.

Then I take a deep breath, go back to my room, and imagine who slept here before me.

5

Mr. Trafford comes into the common room and asks for a tour guide.

“We have a potential new student,” he says. “She’s here with her mother. Who wants to show them around?”

I keep my head down, hoping someone else volunteers. But they all have the same idea, and, when Mr. Trafford looms over me, I know I won’t be able to escape.

“Tom,” he says, “would you mind?”

Teachers at our school like asking rhetorical questions.

“Mrs. Pearce,” Trafford says, “this is Tom. He’ll be showing you around this morning.”

The girl has her head down. Her mother smiles and says, “Pleased to meet you.”

“You too,” I mumble, but I can’t shake the feeling that I know her.

She looks too neat and tidy, like she’s missing all the messy parts that Mum used to hide until Jay said he loved them.

When the woman frowns, I know I’ve been staring too long.

“You look familiar,” she says, but Trafford talks over her.

“Ready to go?”

I look at the girl, and she glances at me, her eyes filled with a sadness I haven’t seen for a long time, then back at the floor.

“Amy’s a little unwell today,” her mum says.

I suddenly feel an extra layer of nerves on top of the usual ones, but I can’t get out of it, now.

“Have you just moved into the area?” I ask.

“Not exactly,” says Amy’s mum. “She’s repeating a year. We’re looking for a fresh start, aren’t we, love?”

When she doesn’t reply, her mum says, “Amy goes to St. Gregory’s. They’ve suggested that a change of scene could bring out the best in her.”

Amy shivers, then stiffens as her mother touches her arm. When she catches me staring, she says, “Don’t worry. Amy can speak for herself.” But she doesn’t. She stays silent for the whole tour.

Sometimes I look at her, then away. “Stolen glances,” they call them, which is a nice way of saying you’re a wuss. Afterward, the woman shakes my hand and says, “You’ve given us a lot to think about.”

Then I stand outside reception, waiting for Amy to turn round, to smile, maybe, or just look at me. All that happens is that her mum, one step behind, lifts her arm and goes to put it around her daughter’s shoulders. But it just hangs there, waiting, then falls back to her side.

At the gate after lunch, Mr. Trafford stops me. “Did you sell the place?” he asks.

“Yeah. I made it sound like Disneyland.”

Some teachers think everything’s sarcastic; others think nothing is.

“Excellent,” he says. “Good job.”

But, wherever Amy Pearce ends up, it won’t be here. It looked like she couldn’t leave fast enough.

And that’s when it hits me. I have met her mother before. We all have.

6

Amy lived here before us.

That’s why I recognized her mother—because she showed us around. She hit it off with Mum right away, telling her what a wonderful house it was. There was a man, too, but he didn’t say much. He hung back while she did the talking. Amy wasn’t there.

I wish I’d paid more attention, but we’d looked at so many houses. I thought this was just another one Mum would say no to, because there was always something wrong.

“It’s perfect,” she told Jay afterward. And, six months later, it was ours.

I touch my door and wonder. Why didn’t I see the holes that day? Why didn’t I look closer? I could have asked about them, but would Amy’s mum have told the truth?

I knock on Nia’s door, then again, and, when she finally answers, she stares at me until I say, “Can you remember whose room this was?”

“What?”

“When we first saw the house. Was this a girl’s room?” Billie Eilish is singing about bellyaches, and my stepsister reluctantly turns the music down and says, “What are you talking about?”

I point at the holes. “This isn’t normal.”

“You’re not normal,” she replies. She doesn’t smile, because it’s not a joke.

I look past her, at the walls already covered in posters and photos and her guitars resting in the corners. There’s no telling which of us got Amy’s room. They were both identical when we moved in.

Mum says Nia likes me, really, but I don’t think so. She’s a year older than me, and she’s never even pretended to be nice. She comes with Jay, just like I come with Mum—two people who chose to be together, and two who didn’t.

“Is that it?” Nia asks, and, when I don’t answer, she closes the door. Luckily for her, she can open it whenever she wants.

But, if I’m right, and there did use to be locks on the outside of Nia’s door and mine, it wasn’t that easy for Amy Pearce.

7

Miss Kiko asks me to stay behind after registration, then hands me a piece of paper and says, “You have a buddy request.”

“Pardon?”

“We have a new starter. And you’ve been chosen.”

Our school has a buddy system, but I can’t remember the last time they used it. We don’t get many new kids here, and my tutor must see my concern; she tilts her head and says, “Are you okay, Tom?”

I glance at the paper, and there it is: Amy Pearce’s name and the time we should meet.

So she picked our school after all, but why has she picked me? Or is this Mr. Trafford’s idea?

“I’d better go,” I say. “Thank you.”

Miss Kiko could have given me this in front of everyone, but she knows I don’t like attention. If she was picking the buddies, she would have paired Amy with someone else. But I’m not that lucky.

I feel a tap on my shoulder, and, when I turn, Amy smiles and says, “Remember me?”

“Yes.”

Except the girl I remember was a lot sadder, and, now…

“I need another tour,” Amy says. “I wasn’t paying much attention last time.”

“I noticed,” I say, and she smiles—a massive grin that reaches her eyes.

Her clothes are really smart, but “business dress” means something different at St. Gregory’s Academy for Girls. That’s where Nia goes, and she isn’t allowed into classes unless she’s “interview-ready.”

I stare at Amy, my confusion pushing out my unease. I want to know if she asked to be paired with me, but I’m scared of the answer.

When you’re a kid, they tell you not to talk to strangers. We’re used to keeping others out, and that doesn’t change in high school. The doors to most friendship groups closed years ago.

She tilts her head and says, “I know what you’re thinking.”

“You do?”

“Yep. You think I’m weird, because, last time, I was moody, and, this time, I’m…”

“Hyper?”

Amy laughs. “I was having a bad day. But I’m better, now.”

I step back and say, “I’ve got to go. You should probably ask for another partner.”

“Meet me at break.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

I can feel my panic bubbling like a kettle starting to heat up. I could risk it coming to boil, but it’s easier to switch it off.

“I can’t,” I say, mostly because I don’t usually spend time with girls, and partly because this one used to live in my house.

She shrugs and says, “No worries.”

I walk away, thinking of the day I met her, when she left and didn’t look back. This time, I can feel her watching. I turn and see her sitting on the top step with a book in her lap, looking at me, then the book, then back to me, scribbling like it’s the last five minutes of an exam.

Then I think of the holes in my door: the echoes of a story Amy may be too afraid to tell.

I could ignore her until she gives up and bothers someone else. Or I could talk to her and find out if I’m right.

8

You know those songs you hear in the morning and can’t get out of your head all day? It turns out some girls are like that.

In class, Amy gate-crashes my thoughts. I keep having flashbacks of her on the steps and that big smile. Most girls look at me by accident, but she did it on purpose.

I should be thinking about her because of the doors. I should see her as a mystery to solve. But I think it might be more than that. She shakes up my thoughts like the insides of a snow globe, and I need to focus.

At break, I go back to reception, and she looks relieved and says, “I’m here for the tour.”

This isn’t me. I usually avoid being sociable, but, if I want to find out the truth about the holes, I need Amy to trust me. That’s why I show her the school again, except, this time, I’m honest.

“The laptops are ancient, and they take the common room away whenever there are exams,” I say.

“If you have classes in the trailers, don’t take your coat off unless it’s boiling outside. And don’t turn left after you leave school. They mug kids in that alley. Even the teachers turn right.”

Amy nods and says, “It’s still better than my last school.” I think of St. Gregory’s Academy—the redbrick girls’ and boys’ schools standing side by side—and wonder if she’s joking. From what Nia says, it sounds like a different world—a lot better than this one.

At the running track, I point at the extra white line painted on the grass and say, “That’s Simon Marlow’s head-start line.”

Amy tilts her head, and I sneak a glance.

Some thoughts shout, and others whisper. The shout says, This girl is amazing, and the whisper says, You’ve only known her a morning.

The shout says, Who cares? Look at her, and the whisper says, Remember what happened to your mum.

Shouts drown out whispers.

The longer I spend with her, the sillier I feel about the holes. I made up a story and cast her in it before I even knew her. She doesn’t look trapped. She looks calm. Whatever issues she has with her mum, and, whatever happened at her old school, here, now, she seems happy.

“We were in eighth grade,” I say, looking at the head-start line. “It was sports day. But Simon was lightning-quick. He was always going to win.”

And then he fell, only, now, I say crumpled. And the crowd all around him—the one supposed to be cheering—was staring and crying and freaking out. Miss Suman was pushing on his chest. Thinking about it now, it was like she was trying to pump a slashed football.

The next day, in assembly, the principal said that there’s no age restriction on tragedy.

“Kids don’t have heart attacks,” I tell Amy.

She bends down and touches the line. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“When they painted it, they said Simon had a head start in heaven. That’s what the line means.”

Amy doesn’t look up for a long time. When she does, I must be staring, because she says, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t normally do this.”

“Do what?”

“Talk to girls.”

She laughs. “Do you have any more stories like that?”

“Sad ones?”

“They don’t have to be.”

I think of all the things Mum and I have been through, but say, “Not really.”

Amy stands and hugs me, and I wonder what that means. The blush spreads quickly from my cheeks to my ears and everywhere else. She notices, because it’s impossible not to. During class presentations, my face could warm the coldest room, but, today, it could heat a whole house.

The tiniest smile dances across Amy’s eyes, and my face turns a shade darker.

“Do I scare you?” she asks, and I lie.

“No.”

She sighs, looks one last time at the head-start line and says, “I will.”

9

I thought I was being stupid. I thought that, for once, there was no terrible truth, just a harmless coincidence. And then Amy said she would scare me, and I doubted my doubts.

I should have more faith in my paranoia. I’ve been practicing for years.

Does she know what I know? Is she waiting for me to find the holes in her door and ask what they mean?

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Lock the Doors

Front Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

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