100 Yellow Doors

september 2nd, 2019, 7:12 p.m.

Julien was standing in front of a haunted house.

    At least, it looked haunted to him. Vines crawling up the siding, red brick made pink with age, grimy, black-shuttered windows and a matching black door with a gold, lion head knocker. Julien drew his jacket tighter around himself, pulling up the address on his phone and checking it again. He was at the right place, surely. So why did everything feel so wrong?

    Before he'd even approached the stoop, the door swung open. In its frame stood Seraphine, and never had she more lived up to her name. In her silver dress, glittering like cloth-made rain every time she moved, with her bubblegum pink lips and the way her red-blond hair settled in movie star curls against her shoulder, Julien and anyone else could truly believe she was something heaven sent. "Jule," she said, tipping her head. "Don't tell me you're planning to stay so impossibly far away the whole night?"

    Julien swallowed. "You knew I was here?"

    "Why?" Sera said, narrowing her eyes at him. "Were you planning to run off, or something?"

    Maybe, thought Julien, but didn't say it. Instead, he cast a brief glance up and down the street—empty, save for a beggar crouched at the nearest bus station with a shopping cart full of ragged belongings—and met Sera at the front stoop. Standing before the door, the settling night behind him, he had a peculiar sense of déjà vu that he couldn't explain.
     Sera nodded her head as if to gesture inside; the hall behind her was shadowy. "Come in."

    Julien hesitated, but brushed past her—only to stop again when Sera caught his wrist and pushed him against the door hinge. A manicured finger ran along his chin, catching against the dark stubble that had gone unshaved. Julien sensed the faintly discomforting poke of the hinge into his lower back, but forgot about it the second Sera kissed him. He was in Paris again, for a second. Coffee and wine—Sera's white back, like porcelain—a soft French voice in his ear—Eiffel Tower a lovely golden blur—

    Julien turned his head. "Sera," he said. "You know that's not what I'm here for."

    "Serendipity."

    "What?"

    "Finding something without meaning to," said Sera, stepping back. The door was still open, the moonlight glistening in her icy eyes. "Perhaps that's what this is. Serendipitous."

    "No," Julien said, with a sigh. "I came here because I need to know who the hell I am. I'm not wasting another second."

    "Right," said Sera. Her hand still around Julien's wrist, she guided him out of the way before she nudged the door shut. They were enshrouded in darkness for a brief moment before she flicked on the lights. Julien looked up. Twinkling glass chandelier, marvelous winding staircase, royal purple wallpaper. Half palace, half house.

    Sera moved towards the stairs, stopping to glance back at Julien over her shoulder. "Julien Elias Morales Ruiz," she said, and Julien hated it, hated how he loved the way her tongue caressed every one of his names. "That's all you have, right? Your name."

    "My maker," Julien demanded, done lolly-gagging. He wanted this meeting to be done sooner rather than later; if Fritz or Iman found out what he was doing, they'd probably kill him. "Who is she?"

    "Ah-ah-ah," said Sera, wagging a finger. "Not so fast. There's something I have to show you first."

    Julien pinched the skin between his eyebrows, willing himself to go through with this. I find out who my maker is, he promised himself then, and then I book it. That was the only way he was getting out of this alive, or at least with his dignity.