Through Gates of Garnet of Gold

Check out our episode here! Through Gates of Garnet and Gold by Seanan McGuire

The Doors have existed almost as long as doors have existed. When doors were created, flaps of leather or strips of grass, the world changed. Doors changed things, too. At first, nearly anyone could use them, but as time passed, the Doors became more discerning about who they would allow to pass through. Some passed through and stayed on the other side. Some came back, either because their quest was complete, or they missed what they left behind, or they had a moment of weakness and doubt. Eventually, someone came along who gathered those who went through Doors and came back. Eleanor West opened her school for anyone who used a Door, whether they wanted to go back to the other side or if they wanted to stay.

Nancy has been in the Halls of the Dead for years. It's a beautiful place not actually filled with dead, though there are dead there, but with people who came through the Door and wanted to stay to worship the Lord and Lady of the Dead. They stand motionless for hours, hearts beating only once and breathing only once or twice as each hour passes. For ten hours each day, the living statues choose a pose and hold it, and the Lord of the Dead loves how Nancy holds herself. At the end of the ten hours, and for another four, the living statues test out new ways to stand throughout their days. 

Originally when the Halls of the Dead began, it was mostly the dead there, and ghosts, and the ghosts were frightening. Holding still will generally cause them to pass by, but it wasn't always that way. Ghosts charged through and frightened visitors to the Hall until one day, someone stood still, hoping the ghosts would pass. Now, Nancy hears screaming. She holds her pose as the screams come closer. Another living statue beside her loses his position ever so slightly, not enough to fall, but it is enough for him to be devoured and turned into a mist of blood. Nancy still does not move, though a tear tracks down her cheek. 

At Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children, Christopher is sitting in his basement room, reading a textbook, when a Door opens and Nancy steps through. She is still very still and it takes her a moment to speak, but she tells Christopher that everyone was dying and the Lady of the Dead told her to leave to find help. She came here, knowing that the school would still exist no matter how long she had been gone. To her it was about a decade, but to the school, maybe a year has passed since Nancy left before. Kade is more in charge now, though Eleanor is still running things. Kade had a crush on Nancy and she him before she left. Christopher hasn't had any crushes since leaving his Skeleton Girl behind. He's ready for the day he can go back to Mariposa and peel off his skin and join his love.

Christopher takes Nancy to see Eleanor in her colorfully mismatched office. She is getting on in years and most of the school's duties have been passed to Kade, but Eleanor still has her wits about her. She is excited to see Nancy again, but when Nancy explains why she is back even though she was Sure where she wanted to be, she decides to send for Kade. Nancy describes how she was Sure she wanted to stay in the Halls of the Dead until the ghosts there started killing her friends. The Halls have changed and Nancy has come back to Eleanor's for help.

Christopher leaves Nancy and goes to gather Kade and Sumi. Kade is easy to find, he's in his room. Sumi on the other hand could be literally anywhere. They decide to make a list of places where Sumi is likely to be and not at all likely to be and search both. They find her in a room with Talia who is tending her moths and letting Sumi enjoy the space with her. When they tell Sumi they are going on a quest, she jumps to help, and Talia says she's going, too. Everyone knows the way to get your Door back to where you belong is to go on a quest with Kade. Everyone who wanted to go home and has gone on a quest has done so so far, including Nancy, Jack, Cora and Antsy. Talia needs to get back home to write the next Great Song of her people, so she's questing.

Christopher leads the group back to Eleanor's office where they are surprised to find Nancy. Christopher recaps why Nancy is there and they decide that they will all help on Nancy's quest. Christopher will be the shield against the dead who are killing the living statues, playing them away with his bone flute. Sumi will be the sword and fight with all the knowledge she has gained by going through so many Doors. Kade will keep Sumi in line, which may be the most difficult duty of all. Talia will go because she wants to go back home and believes a quest will allow her Door to open. She can talk to moths, she can weave a silk thread into anything if she tries hard enough, she can see in the dark, and she's a poet. It's settled. She's going.

After a meal of everyone's preferred foods, Sumi takes Nancy back to the room they shared when they first arrived so she can rest. Sumi chats with Kade because she thinks he's feeling glum. She doesn't mention her own fear of traveling and dying once already and being surrounded by the dead when she was in the Halls that Nancy loves so much. They discuss Nadya being there, which Sumi didn't know. She didn't know they left Nadya there in exchange for her and now they're both worried that she might've been killed by the ghosts that killed Nancy's friends. In addition to that worry, Kade also worries about what being Sure even matters if Nancy is back, because she was and is definitely Sure of where she wants to be. 

Meanwhile, Christopher goes to Talia’s room to perhaps try to convince her not to go with them, or at least that's what she thinks. He watches for a moment as she works with the silk from her moths and then starts to warn Talia of going to a place called the Halls of the Dead, but he says it's not up to him who lives or who dies as long as he gets to go back to Mariposa and see his Skeleton Girl again. She replies that that's good because she's going. Christopher wishes for a moment that he had paid more attention and been an actual friend to Talia and knew more about her since he wasn't expecting her to insert herself into their quest. Instead he notices there are many dead moths all around. They are short-lived creatures unfortunately. He offers to help clean up the dead moths, playing them outside with his flute.

When it is time for the quest to begin, Nancy opens the Door, Sure she can do it. They all pass through into the pomegranate grove of the Halls of the Dead. They come across a garden statue and Nancy asks him to update her on what has happened in the two weeks of their time she's been away. He says that after the Unquiet Dead started sweeping through the Halls that the Lady of the Dead started offering her statues the opportunity to try to find their Doors home, but that time often moves differently in other places and suggests she should have known that. He describes the killing of many of the interior statues, but doesn't seem terribly upset by it because the interior statues had a sense of superiority about them compared to the garden statues. The Unquiet Dead are led by one who was so angry to be there that they began killing the others and have become a sort of angry shade of their former self, even remembering their name, which shouldn't be possible.

They go into the Hall, Talia followed by moths from the gardens, to find the Lady of the Dead. She is happy to see Nancy still alive because she is the only one who was able to escape. Christopher looks around to see a mist of blood still covering the empty statue plinths even though someone clearly tried to clean up. As they pass through the Hall, Sumi looks behind and yells for everyone to run. Sumi can see the Dead coming for them, but luckily they are slightly distracted by eating Talia’s moths. Christopher can feel them, so he begins to play them away. They make it to the Lady of the Dead’s private rooms where no one is allowed entrance unless she permits it.  The Lady beckons the Shade leading the Dead to her to speak. 

The Shade is a teenage girl with pale blonde hair and a choker. She tells the Lady she was a girl who died wrongfully and that she enjoys drinking the blood of the living. There are plenty of them here, ripe for the taking, so why shouldn't she? The Lady demands that the Dead should not eat the Living because soon there will be no Living left, but the Shade doesn't care. The Shade is Jill Wolcott and Kade greets their old classmate. Sumi taunts Jill, after all, Jill is the one who killed Sumi and sent everyone on what was possibly their first quest. Sumi is alive now though, and Jill is not. Christopher stops playing and the forms of the Shade Jill and her angry dead dissipate, though they all know they are still there. 

They go from the Lady's room to find the Lord of the Dead, and along the way, Sumi questions why they don't call the Living Statues into their rooms to keep them safe and what follows is a long conversation about people living their lives differently but not really answering why they didn't try to keep everyone safe. They eventually make it to the library where they find the Lord of the Dead and tell him about Jill leading the Unquiet Dead. They discuss what everyone can do, particular Christopher controlling the dead with his flute, Talia commanding moths and them distracting the dead earlier, and Kade’s ability to lead and direct, and the Lord suggests leading the Unquiet Dead back to the room where they are supposed to be waiting for their next lives. If they can lead them there, they can bar the door.

In order for Talia to help, she and Sumi go to the gardens for her to summon moths. As they slowly make their way there, Sumi always on the lookout for the dead, they discuss Talia and the Door that she went through. She went to a place where her great-grandmother once went as well called The Garden of Moonlight, a world where everything was built around moths and was full of histories and traditions. Talia became a poet there but wanted to visit her great-grandmother one last time to tell her about her own journey in the Garden of Moonlight, so even though she was Sure she wanted to stay, she also didn't want to miss out on that opportunity. Unfortunately her great-grandmother passed away while she was traveling and so she never got to tell her about their shared adventures.

Talia and Sumi return to the Lord and Lady of the Dead and their friends absolutely covered in moths. They all discuss their idea of using the moths as a distraction for the Unquiet Dead to keep them locked away and not eating everyone. They would theoretically stay in one location eating the moths instead while they stop Jill, but no one knows what to do next. They turn to Sumi, thinking she'll have an idea, but she mentions that just because she's resurrected doesn't mean she knows everything. The Lord of the Dead well-actuallys her to tell her she wasn't resurrected because she wasn't put inside her own dead body again or someone else's, but a new body was created for her using the pieces that remained. This gives them the idea to maybe make a new body for Jill, but Jack probably wouldn't appreciate that much.

Talk turns to why the Lord of the Dead hasn't done anything to keep his subjects safe and then he wonders why Nancy is still allowed to grace his halls when she's becoming so obstinate and insubordinate. The Lady stands up for Nancy and tells her husband she should have questioned him too. They are not gods but came through Doors just like many of the others. The Lord of the Dead is what's called a genius loci and has to remain to keep the world going, just like the Baker in Sumi’s world and the Scribe in Talia's, but he should still help his people. He relents a little and offers to take the group to the room where they can trap the Unquiet Dead with the moths, but will definitely run away if they come for him instead. 

Kade suggests adding salt to the room as an additional barrier and they discuss going to see Nadya, who came from a water world and might know how to get salt from water. She should still be hanging around somewhere since she stayed behind when they came through trying to put Sumi back together, so they go to get her help too, but the Lady says she moved on just a couple of weeks after they passed through. Everyone gets upset here and blames everyone else for Nadya leaving since visiting her was part of the reason they came here anyway. 

They stop bickering and move on through the Halls, passing empty plinths and statues still living. They learn that there are non-living-statue people in the Halls of the Dead, workers who take care of the statues and cook and clean, too, but they have all been moved to safety, unlike the statues. Unfortunately they soon get swarmed by the Unquiet Dead. Talia, lost in her memories of being in the Garden of Moonlight and how the moths keep the histories there and sing songs about everything, heard the moths here sing about the dead coming, but it was too late. They swarm for Nancy who stills herself into her statue form as Jill materializes in front of the group. 

The Lord of the Dead tries to assert his lordliness over Jill, but that doesn't work. He tries to tell her that her own Lord in the Moors won't care for her anymore, but she knows he will always love her. She demands they go back to the Moors and create a new body for her so she can be with her Lord again, but Kade points out that they can't just open a Door, they don't have that ability. Jill says that sounds like a you-problem and is petty and mean and Sumi calls her out, but Kade tries to stop her from antagonizing their enemy. Christopher, who has been playing his bone flute to keep the Dead away from Nancy, stops playing, and Jill and her Unquiet army swarm away, taking Nancy with them. 

Kade questions why Christopher stopped playing and he mentions that Nancy in her statue form is safer than any of them, but Nancy can't remain a statue forever or she'll just calcify and die. The swarm carries her to a room behind a golden door and she finally allows her heart to beat. The room she finds herself in is a void. Jill materializes in the room, which turns out to be a place outside of time and life, to tell Nancy that she wants what Nancy has been so callously trying to give away. She wants to live! Nancy wants to live, too, but there are different ways of doing that. Jill goes on and on about how she was so innocent and just wants her life back but how in the universe was she innocent?! She has killed so many people! She says if she still had her innocence, she wouldn't have had to kill anyone. 

The group continues through the Halls led by the Lord of the Dead and are taken to a room with a silver door and they step through. Soon they are surrounded by gentle silver lights and Sumi excitedly greets them all. These were the Dead she met when she was Dead! The Lord calls to the lights, asking for their aide and Lundy, their former teacher who was murdered by Jill, materializes in front of them. Another appears, too, and proclaims that everything happening now is his fault. He laments his love being taken from him by the Unquiet Dead and shares his anger about being forced to always be still being the reason why his love was taken. He sought out the Unquiet and they told him they needed blood, so he thought he would be sharing his blood in exchange for the return of his love, but no. He gave the Unquiet enough power to escape and kill all the others. This has led to their unfortunate current circumstances.

They discuss with Lundy the idea of the Quiet Dead, those simply waiting for their new lives to begin like Lundy and all the silver lights, assisting them with their fight against the Unquiet and they agree to help, but not for the sake of the Lord. He hasn't done anything for them other than giving them space to exist while they wait, so they don't need to give him anything in return, at least according to Lundy’s fair value system of living put upon her by the Goblin Market. She wants to stop Jill since Jill murdered her. The group leaves the room and finds themselves covered in silver light which should protect them from the Unquiet.

They travel to the golden door where the Unquiet wait and pass through. The Lord summons them, demanding they stop their feasting and go back to waiting as they did before, but Jill materializes and tries to fight. Lundy materializes then and holds her at bay. The Unquiet are held back by the Peaceful, allowing the Lord to retrieve Nancy. Everyone passes back through the golden door unscathed and Sumi and Talia work together to seal the door as the Lord of the Dead is unable to do that. Talia creates a barrier with her moth silk ability and Sumi adds used chewed gum, grossing everyone out. 

The Lord of the Dead carries Nancy to the library where the Lady of the Dead is waiting. Nancy sat unwilling to move in the room with the Unquiet, which, like with the lovers before, caused great harm. They feasted on her energy and now she's immobile, but her heartbeat and breathing are normal, meaning she's not just in her statue form. They promise to care for Nancy and they also promise to care more for their statues since obviously them being forced to remain unmoving has caused lots of trouble. 

With their quest complete now that the Unquiet Dead are sealed away again and the Halls of the Dead are safe, Kade asks how they will get back home, and the Lord simply summons a Door for them back to where they came from since they are not meant to be with him yet. Talia asks to stay behind for just a little while longer so she can go back to the pomegranate grove and tell the remaining moths the story of the ones that are now gone, just like she would do in the Garden of Moonlight. The Lord of the Dead assures her that the Door back to Eleanor's will remain long enough for her to complete her task. 

Soon enough, Christopher, Kade, Sumi and Talia are all back at Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children. Six months later though, a Door opens in the basement of the school and Nancy walks through, thanking, presumably, the Lord of the Dead, telling him that she will always belong there. Now, she walks out of the basement and up the stairs.