The Seven

"It's the Seven!" they whisper, behind not-quite-closed doors, watching and waiting for the blue door at the end, the one covered in vines, to swing open.

"I've seen it open," boasts one of the oldest, who has seen all the doors open, though, being just a child when the Seven appeared, can hardly remember it. Still, she boasts, swinging her cane and speaking with her hands to anyone who will listen.

The Seventh door is the last in the line, the least frequently opened, the most overgrown with vines. Until yesterday, when the warning - the missive had come. The Seven shall arrive tomorrow. Prepare your children. Two will be chosen.

One is a place for children of good learning, where they disappear and return with secrets and inside jokes and a skill they have honed for years. Two is an honour, those who return become scholars. Three is slightly more dangerous. Only a certain number of children return, and half of them are unrecognizable, mad and haggard and relegated to street corners where they spout half-nonsense prophecies. Half of them come true, but they are never pleasant, and the villagers prefer to listen to pleasant things. The fourth door is for musical children. The Fourth produces children with the skills to draw whole flocks of sheep through gates with a few notes, to chase snakes from the hutches, to send children to sleep. The door to Five collapsed long ago. Some say it began the way Seven did. The door had opened less and less often until it had stopped opening altogether. It was had splintered and nearly come off its hinges and the villagers had decided to leave it be, that the higher powers would fix it if it was their intention. It has stayed that way for years. Six is a place for athletes, the ancient Sparta of the doors. Those that are spit out years later are rigid with muscle, nimble with their fingers, and generally not the kind of people one wants to anger.

But Seven, oh Seven is a different door altogether. And the Seven, the person-teacher-thing beyond it calls for only one or two children, at irregular times. No one has ever returned from Seven.

The children of the village are groomed and combed and perfumed and wrestled into itchy lace and uncomfortable trousers and pinching shoes. When the time has come, when the clocktowers are arguing noon across the rooftops, they are put into a single file line, before the door.

They begin at the first chime. They wait only seconds to see if the door opens. There is no movement from it, not fo the first child, nor the second. There goes the baker's son, the butcher's boy, the mayor's daughter, the farmer's twins from down the lane, the woodcutter's son, the orphans from the orphanage, looking particularly grey in their worn clothes. The librarian's son steps forward, meeting the number on the door with his calm, green gaze. He feels as though it is looking back at him. Very slowly, it opens. Just a crack, enough to cast a small shadow on the wall it is set into, but the villagers see it. The librarian comes to stand with his son beside the door, holding back tears.

The humber of children in the line dwindles. Villagers hold their breath until the door rejects their child, relinquishes them for some other destiny. The Seven does not want their children today.

It opens again for the cobbler's daughter, a tall red-headed girl with shining shoes and her hair loose, though most of the girls have tied their hair in ribbons for this occasion. She does not seem to believe at first that the door has opened, not until her father takes her shoulders with his shaking hands and steers her toward it.

The Seven swings open. Beyond it is immediate darkness. A cold gust of wind blows the librarian's son and the cobbler's daughter a step closer. The Seventh is getting impatient.

The librarian gives his son a quick kiss on the forhead and a pat on the shoulder. The cobbler embraces his daughter for the last time, kisses her cheek, and pushed her gently ahead. She steps into the darkness, just before the boy. They are swallowed by it immediately. The door swings shut. There is no noise. No sound. The Seven has made its claim.

Art by Anonymous

Text by Lucie MacAulay