100 Yellow Doors

august 22nd, 2019, 6:42 a.m.

It was early in the morning—too early, by Iman's standards—when her phone rang, buzzing against her bedside table. She only picked it up because it was her younger sister, Cam.

"Cam," she said. "I'm asleep."

"Not anymore!" said Cam, sounding more exuberant than Iman thought was humanly possible to sound at this hour. Did morning people actually exist? And if so, on what planet? "Hana and I are driving out of town soon. Can we meet up?"

Iman hesitated, sitting up and squinting in the dark of her bedroom. "Now?"

"I'll buy you coffee," offered Cam. "And a scone."

Iman sighed and flung her comforter back, the world spinning ever so slightly as she sat up. "Give me fifteen minutes."

Iman met them in the parking lot of a motel. When she arrived, Hana and Cam were loitering around Hana's SUV, which was filled to the brim with suitcases and duffle bags that seemed surplus for a two-day trip. Most of those, Iman guessed, were Hana's. Hana had always been high maintenance, ever since they were kids. Iman remembered quite vividly the time Hana had had a meltdown in the airport because she'd forgotten her favorite scented lotion.

Iman's car chirped as she locked it behind her, approaching her sisters. Cam, expectant, held out a brown paper bag and a cardboard coffee cup. Iman took the two items gratefully, wrapping her shivering fingers around their warmth. "Thanks," she said to Cam. Hana's eyes were low, focused on her phone as she tapped away at something on its screen.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," Cam said, shooting a somewhat vitriolic glance at her eldest sister. "Hana woke up this morning and decided she was done sightseeing. Packed all her stuff in under an hour."

"Under an hour?" Iman pushed out a breath between her teeth. "That has to be a record."

"Where were you yesterday?" Hana demanded, suddenly looking up. She was all bundled up in a puffy silver jacket and a black woolen scarf, her dark hair poofing out a bit around her collar. "I called and it went straight to voicemail. Even called your boyfriend, Ben—"

"Beck?"

"Sure. Yeah. Anyway, I called him and he said he didn't know where you were either," Hana asked, her eyebrows lifted. "So where were you?"

Iman opened the paper bag and recovered the cherry scone Cam had bought her. It was warm and crumbly in her hands; she took a bite, chewed, swallowed. All the while, Hana just watched her, lip twitching.

"You know where I was, Hana."

Hana opened her mouth, and closed it again. For a moment, silence brimmed between them, sour-tasting and too prolonged. To everyone's surprise, it seemed, it was Cam who broke it: "Immy, you should come home soon."

Home? Iman thought. Their twice-renovated yet still nondescript house in the DC suburbs, flat, dilapidated driveway, forest of oak trees in the front yard? That home? It had been months since she'd been back, she knew. A visit was due anyway.

But it was something about the way Cam said it.

Her head was dipped, long eyelashes towards the ground. "You should come," she said again, voice low. "I think Mom and Dad would like that."

Iman lowered the half-eaten scone back into its bag, hesitating. What was this cold feeling spreading in her chest right now? Dread. She thought it was dread. "I will soon," she said. "I mean—if everything's okay."

Iman met her sisters' gaze, or at least tried to, as neither Hana nor Cam were looking her square in the eye. Iman stood there in the billowing cold, the asphalt and cigarette-scented parking lot, and realized she had been away so much longer than she thought.

"Everything's fine," said Hana, which was not very convincing coming from her. With an exhale, she nudged Cam's shoulder gently. "Well? Let's get this show on the road, Cams. I need to be back by noon."

Cam hesitated, but nodded her head. The sisters exchanged hugs, and once Cam and Hana had squeezed themselves in amongst their luggage and started up the engine, Iman watched them pull away.

And as the SUV grew smaller and smaller, the dread in Iman's chest only grew bigger.

Three hours later, she was in class. Normally, she wanted to be there, in the upstairs lecture hall with the high ceilings and the coffee-scented air, surrounded by people just as fascinated by the past as she was (but, albeit, slightly more detached from it than she was). That morning, however, Iman's mind was elsewhere. It drifted towards Julien's bloody face the night before, towards Beck's mouth against hers, towards the dejected expression on Cam's face as her sisters had left that morning. The professor's voice was useless background noise, the presentation projected against the back wall a mere blur of light.

Get yourself together, Iman told herself, but it was futile.

She checked her phone for what was likely the one hundredth time since she'd returned from the year 1990 the day before. Call me when you get back, Julien had said, but every time she tried, it went to voicemail. Was he avoiding her? Why would he be avoiding her? Was he d—

No. She would not think like that. He was probably busy. Julien was a busy man, wasn't he?

One word drew Iman back to her senses: assignment. Her attention flickered back up to the professor, who was gesturing at something on the projection screen. Iman read the word research at the top in dark blue letters. "As your summative for the Mexican history unit, I'm issuing you a challenge."

"An optional challenge?" someone called from the seats.

"No," said the professor, allowing a begrudging smile. She turned to face the screen again, indicating something with her laser. "Select a family from the list displayed—all of whom lived in or around Mexico City in the 19th century—and research them. Give me more besides their names, what they did for a living. I want you to tell me their stories, guys."

Iman leaned forward in her seat, squinting at the screen. A murmur of voices rose in the room, but it was silent, all silent, when her eyes lit on a name towards the center of the list: Morales.

Morales, she read again. Could it be the Morales—Julien's family? She sat back, wracking her brain. Julien had never told her about his life before he was a vampire, mostly because he didn't remember much himself. She remembered, however, him telling her how old he was—how he'd awoken with a still heart and an insatiable bloodlust on a dim winter morning in 1836.

Once the class dismissed, Iman waited in the massive line of clamoring students to write her name beside the family she'd research. Iman crossed her fingers, only praying that Julien's family name had peeked no one else's interest but hers.

She saw him in the archives that day, face half-illuminated by the flashlight, fingers trembling as he turned the pages of the census. Julien was immortal, she realized, but he was not invincible. He was always aching for something more, and if this could be the very thing to ease that ache, Iman was going to chase it with everything she had.

The spot beside Morales was empty. Iman signed her name.