100 Cupboards

A hand slides an envelope into Henry’s box next to the postcard. The person walks away. Henry stares and listens; he hears the person moving about and whistling, but nothing else happens. He pushes the envelope out into the bright room, and the person comes back and peers into the box: “It was a man’s face, long and thin, with a biggish gray mustache” (103). The man puts the letter back into the box and walks away. Henry stares at the box for a while and falls asleep.

When he wakes, the box has gone dark. He retrieves the postcard and envelope. On a hunch, he opens the rainy box, just above the mailbox, and reaches through both boxes as far as he can, trying to touch his hands together. He can’t. The boxes lead to two entirely different places.

Henry falls asleep again. He dreams he’s on a mountain slope covered with huge trees. He walks up the slope to the top, where a large stone slab lies next to one of the trees. A big dog sniffs and paws at the slab and the tree, then stares at Henry and says it’s not time to tell him. Another voice disagrees and says it’s about his parents. The dog says, “Frank, they’re not even his parents. Are you going to tell him that, too?” (108).

Henry wakes and hears Dotty and Frank talking about him just outside the attic. In the morning, Frank wakes him and tells him a government agent called and said Henry’s parents are alive, and there’s been a ransom demand. Henry asks if they’re really his parents; Frank says, “Nope.”

Most of the family leaves for a trip to a nearby city, but Henry and Henrietta stay behind. They study the cupboard mail over breakfast. On the postcard is a picture of a crowded two-story boat with a paddlewheel in the front. There’s writing to a Simon from “Gerty” that says the two children are ill and it’s cold, and she’ll give him “electric catfish” when he visits. Henrietta says Grandfather’s name was Simon.

They open the long envelope: Inside is a handwritten letter that says the sender knows the cupboards have been reopened, and the owner of the mailbox must “Wake the old daughter of the second sire” or face the consequences. It’s signed by “Darius, First amung the Lastborn Magi, W.D. of Byzanthamum” (117).

Somehow a smaller envelope got into Henry’s mail. It’s sealed with green wax. Henrietta can’t get it open; Henry says maybe it’s like Grandfather’s door. He touches the seal, and it splits with a pop. It unfolds into a letter.

The typed letter is from the “Central Committee of Faeren for the Prevention of Mishap” (120). It declares that certain “gates,” believed destroyed, have somehow been re-opened, and they’re guarded by a “Whimpering Child” who shall be held responsible for any evils that escape through those gates. Henry realizes the cupboards are the gates and he is the Child.

The two cousins go back upstairs and study the cupboards. Henrietta notices a black door near the bottom, pulls on it, and the door falls off. Henry suddenly throws up and passes out.

When he wakes, Henrietta shows him a key from the black cupboard. She thinks it might be a spare to Grandfather’s door. They go to the door, where Henry puts the key in the hole left by the lock and turns it. With a click, the door opens. Inside is a tidy bed, a ticking clock, a vase of fresh flowers, and walls filled with books.

Henrietta is leery of the room because it should be dusty and the flowers long dead. Behind the door is a purple robe that reminds Henry of something. He struggles to remember and recalls an image of a short man in a robe coming out of the bathroom. He asks if Grandfather was short; Henrietta says he was very tall.

One of the books lies open, face down. Henry picks it up: It’s a journal that contains information about the cupboards.

The journal includes a diagram of the cupboard wall with each of the boxes numbered. Number 77 is the mailbox, the same number as written on the long envelope. The rainy box, 56, is “Commonwealth/Badon Hill/Same” (132). The black box, number eight, is “Endor.”

Henry thinks this whole project is a bad idea, but Henrietta says he’s just scared. He points out that Henrietta was afraid of Grandfather’s room, to which she replies that she entered it anyway. They take the journal and leave the room. Henry pulls the door closed and retrieves the key. The door is locked again.

At the cupboard wall, they transfer the box numbers to pieces of paper that Henrietta tapes to the box doors. Henry flips through the journal, which contains descriptions of the house and notes on wind and the grains in wood, but nothing else about the cupboards.

Henrietta opens the rainy Badon Hill box and reaches through. She decides that they can see into that world with a periscope she got as a handmade gift from her father. They put the periscope through the Badon box and see a bright, sunny day, tall trees, and a large stone with a skeleton lying against it. Henry realizes this is the place about which he dreamed.

Henrietta wants to explore the black Endor box. Henry doesn’t, and he walks out. When he returns, the bedroom is cold. Henrietta lies on the floor, her arm stuck inside the box. Henry reaches into the box and finds a hand gripping her arm. The hand then grabs at his arm, but he gets away. The hand retakes Henrietta’s arm, so Henry pulls out his knife, reaches deep into the box, and stabs wildly. Something screams and releases Henrietta; he pulls her arm from the box, slams shut the door, and pushes against it with his feet. His hand bleeds from the knife.

The house cat, Blake, suddenly appears, stares at the black door, then licks Henrietta’s face. She revives and sits up. Henry tells her what happened, but she doesn’t believe it. Angry, he bans her from the room. He sulks awhile, then goes downstairs for food. Henrietta is in the kitchen; she apologizes for being stupid, and he apologizes for saying as much. Henry doesn’t want to deal with the cupboards anymore, but Henrietta talks him into visiting just the good ones, like the mailbox and Badon. He insists they never touch the Black Endor box again.

To clear his mind, Henry walks into town and joins Zeke and others playing baseball. He plays well enough—the others aren’t that good to begin with—and when he finally leaves, Zeke asks him to join them regularly. He agrees.

It’s the longest he’s ever walked, and he enjoys it. As he heads home, the cupboard wall crowds his thoughts. After dinner, he goes upstairs and opens the black Endor cupboard. Inside is his knife, cleaned up. He takes it, but a thin thread tugs the other way, and he hears a bell sound. He yanks the knife, breaks the string, and shuts the cupboard door. Blake the cat, watching, arches his back.

Henry falls asleep and dreams about a memory of himself trying to flush Blake down the toilet. Then he dreams he’s back at the great stone slab, digging next to it with a shovel, the huge black dog asleep nearby. The shovel falls through the hole, and he peers through it to see himself sleeping in his bedroom. A voice in his head says he’s “a dream walker and a pauper-son” (162), who must now watch himself die. Henry pushes the voice away and wakes up on his bed.

Blake sits on his chest, staring past his legs at a mangy black cat tied to a string that leads to the Endor box. Grabbing Blake, Henry strikes at the cat, which yowls and then gets dragged by the string back into the box. Henry slams shut the Endor box.

While Henry was in town, Henrietta snuck into his room, retrieved Grandfather’s door key, and explored that room further. She found more journals about the cupboards and learned five boxes are unlocked. She hurries to Henry’s bedroom and shows him the journal. Henry is annoyed at her brash behavior. He tells her about his recent adventures with the Endor box, including the black cat. She agrees that door should remain closed and the bed pushed against it.

Box 24 is supposed to be unlocked, and Henry manages to get it to open on its hinges. Nothing’s inside except a back wall; Henry pushes on it, and it opens. Inside is some hair. Henry pulls on it and Henrietta yelps. They realize that his hand had entered Box 24 and come out through the nearby Box 49, next to Henrietta. They put Blake into Box 24 and his nose pokes out of Box 49. He sits, his head sticking out of one box and his tail swinging at the other.

The last unlocked door is number three, on the other end of the wall. It’s a pull drawer, and Henrietta pulls it all the way out. Inside are some mouse droppings, small-animal bones, and a few dead bugs.

They hear Frank moving around downstairs. Henrietta remembers that she left Grandfather’s door open and hurries down to close it. Henry waits for several minutes and, worried, goes downstairs. Grandfather’s door is still open; he enters the room and finds an open cupboard big enough for a person to enter. He crouches down and crawls into it.