Through Gates of Garnet and Gold

This book in the Wayward Children series takes place in a universe where magical portals called Doors transport children to other realities where they feel they truly belong. The Doors' only requirement is absolute certainty: Travelers must be sure of where they belong, and any wavering can expel them back to their world of origin. Eleanor West, herself a returned traveler, established Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, a school and sanctuary where returned children can recover and support one another. The school operates under three rules: no solicitation, no visitors, no quests.

In the Halls of the Dead, a supernatural Underworld realm of silence and teeming life, Nancy stands frozen on a stone plinth as a living statue. A former student at Eleanor's school, Nancy traveled to the Halls years ago through a Door in her parents' basement and has spent her time mastering absolute stillness. The Halls house both living and dead: Pomegranate groves burst with life while ghosts from countless worlds pass through on their way to rebirth. The living statues, children brought by the Doors, survive by holding themselves so perfectly motionless that the angry, hungry ghosts cannot detect them. A scream shatters the silence. A spectral wind tears through the corridors, and a fellow statue flinches. His heel slips, and the ghostly wind dissolves him into mist. Nancy watches without moving, a single tear on her cheek, as the ghosts sweep past.

Nancy's certainty once wavered, expelling her to her parents' basement. Her parents sent her to Eleanor's school, believing it a boarding school, where she met other Door-travelers and regained her conviction. She returned to the Halls through a second Door, expecting never to come back. Now, however, the Lady of the Dead, the female ruler of the Halls, warns Nancy the realm is no longer safe and urges her to flee. Nancy steps through a door into the basement bedroom of Christopher Flores, a student whose Door leads to Mariposa, a world of living skeletons, and tells him the statues are being killed.

Christopher brings Nancy to Eleanor West's office. The elderly headmistress is overcome at seeing the girl she considered her first true success story. Christopher catches Nancy up: fellow student Sumi, murdered by former student Jill Wolcott, has been resurrected; their friend Nadya stayed behind in the Halls during a previous quest; and fellow student Cora found her Door home. Eleanor, who has been ceding daily operations to her nephew Kade, a former traveler to Prism, a Fairyland world, asserts she is done stepping back and concedes another quest is imminent.

Christopher recruits companions. He coaxes the withdrawn Kade downstairs, and they find Sumi in the conservatory among moth cocoons tended by Talia, a student whose Door led to Yuemingyuan (the Garden of Moonlight), a moth-centered world where she trained as a court poet. Both volunteer. Talia argues that students who go on quests find their Doors home, and she needs to return to continue writing the Great Song, a living poetic history of her world.

Nancy explains the crisis: Something enraged the ghosts, who tore through the Halls devouring every statue showing signs of life. She assigns roles: Christopher as shield, with his bone flute to command the dead; Sumi as sword; and Kade as leader. She believes she can summon a Door through sheer certainty. After she rests, Sumi confronts Kade about his unhappiness. He admits Nancy's return shakes his faith: If the person most certain of her Door has come back, how can any of them trust their own certainty? Sumi argues Nancy still knows the Halls are her home; she simply does not want to die.

In the root cellar, Nancy focuses, and a glowing door opens onto the moonlit pomegranate grove. The five travelers step through. Nancy leads them to gardens filled with living statues, where a statue named Lief explains that a newly arrived spirit has rallied the unquiet ghosts into an army. Fully half the interior statues are already gone. The group follows the Lady of the Dead toward her warded chambers, but Sumi, who can see the dead because she was once among them, spots ghosts and shouts for everyone to run.

Safe inside, Christopher plays his flute, drawing the ghosts' silver motes into the transparent figure of Jill Wolcott, who murdered Sumi and a former teacher named Lundy before being killed by her twin sister Jack on the Moors, a Gothic horror world. Jill demands resurrection and a return to the Moors, then vanishes. The group seeks the Lord of the Dead, the male ruler of the Halls, found in his library. He admits he fears Jill's army might devour even him. The Lady rebukes him, declaring they owe their statues better. Together they plan: Christopher will pipe the ghosts into a line, Talia's moths will serve as lures, and the Lord will seal the containment door. They also learn Nadya likely found her Door home weeks after staying behind; the group reacts with anger that this was withheld.

As they move through the halls, the unquiet dead attack again. Nancy, caught between her instinct to freeze and the urging to run, stops where she stands. Jill materializes to taunt her, then has the silver motes drag Nancy into the void behind the golden door, the space where the unquiet dead are meant to be contained. There, Jill reveals her deeper motivation: She was young, she did not deserve to die, and she wants life. Nancy refuses to cooperate and retreats into silence.

The remaining travelers seek the silver door, behind which the peaceful dead reside. The ghost of Lundy, the former teacher murdered by Jill, agrees to rally the peaceful dead. A former statue named Iason confesses he caused the crisis: After his lover Aleksy died from the strain of holding still, Iason opened the golden door and offered his blood to the unquiet dead, believing they would restore Aleksy. Instead, they consumed him, gaining enough substance to begin attacking other statues.

Gilded with protective starlight by the peaceful dead, the group confronts Jill at the golden door. Lundy's peaceful dead clash with the unquiet ghosts. Sumi, Kade, and Christopher slip into the void and find Nancy curled up, barely glowing, nearly drained. The Lord of the Dead carries her out. The peaceful dead drive the unquiet ghosts back through the golden door. Lundy asks Christopher to tell the Archivist of the Goblin Market, another Door-destination world, that she paid fair value and will return to be reborn. Sumi seals the bottom of the door with chewing gum, and Talia packs the remaining gaps with silk thread unwound from a silkworm cocoon. The Lord confirms the seal will hold.

In the library, the Lord and Lady promise to care for the unconscious Nancy and acknowledge they must do better by their statues. The Lord opens a door back to the school. Talia stays an additional hour to sing the fallen moths' verses of the Great Song to the surviving eclipse of moths in the pomegranate groves. Six months later, a door appears on the school's basement wall, and Nancy steps through. She whispers her thanks to the Halls, calling them her home forever, then lets the door close without looking back. Nancy grasps the bannister and begins climbing the stairs toward her future, looking forward all the way.