Keepers Of The Gate

by E. Denise Billups

  I gave up and strolled back to the house, pondering where George went. Despite the forbidden sign and unfounded fears, my curiosity intensified. It’s strange George entered the woods at night. What’s beyond that path? My mind spun with ideas as I passed the old garden shed. With a ladder and Ian’s help, we could see where Old George ventured, I thought.

  March 24, 1959

  Ian and I watched the caretakers as I had last night. When Young George entered the cottage, we raced with a ladder from the garden shed to the gate. Ian climbed the gate without a hitch, jumping to the other side. I scaled the gate to the arch without iron spikes, straddled the top, and panicked a second. Ian held my leg as I slid over the rail and into his arms. His face grew near mine, and I blushed and sped away.

  In pursuit of George, we followed a path made of stone slabs straight to a moss-lined stairway carved of the same stones as the path. Gushing water echoed from below as we descended the hill through murky woods, stumbling upon a scene too summery for late March.

  Warm air filled the space. Dark, lush flora and vines ran along moss-covered stones and trees. Two dogwoods stood at the other end of a footbridge with green and white petals, different from the blossoming pink dogwood near the gate.

  Ahead, Old George peered over the noisy creek, mumbling muted words. He puffed on his pipe and moved toward a Native Indian statue, rubbing its head as he stepped on to the footbridge. We snuck behind thick undergrowth flanking the bridge, close enough to view George’s profile. When he advanced across the traverse, the dogwood’s foliage shook alive. Elastic trunks creaked and tilted in opposite directions. A magnetic force charged the atmosphere, tilting sedge, rushes, ferns, and shrubbery along the creek and our hair in the footbridge’s direction. The air and brook quietened, echoing my sharp gasp.

  Just as a liquid rift opened between the trees, George glanced over his shoulder and lifted his hand with a stop warning before the opening absorbed him within its watery fold. When the force strengthened, I grasped Ian’s waist as he held on to a tree. My high-pitched scream reverberated as the dogwoods moaned into place. The watery doorway fused, easing the magnetic tug and freeing the breeze and stream.

  I screamed and fled to the top of the stairway with Ian in tow, climbing the gate too fast. A spike snagged my jacket, ripping as I struggled, falling on my back to the other side. For a moment, I lay stunned on the ground with Ian’s face hovering above me, calling my name. I must have smiled or warranted his actions because he lowered his lips to mine. Lost in the moment with my first deep kiss, I welcomed his mouth until fear crept into my mind again. Afraid someone might see us, I pushed him away, although it was the best kiss I’d ever experienced. We collected the ladder, sped toward the shed, and dropped it when Young George moved toward us in the distance, racing inside the house.

  Mercy Dox is right. There’s wizardry in those woodlands. When the dogwood trees awakened, the same horror that Mercy felt engulfed me. We raced up the back stairs, into my room, and promised never to mention what we had discovered to anyone. But our brief fright soon altered to acute curiosity.

  Where did the aqueous chasm take George?

  24

  Two Bodies, One Soul

  Twyla turns the page. “That’s it,” she declares, wondering if Young George ever scolded them. “Grams and Papa snuck back over the gate and found the answer to their question. I just wish I knew what she wrote on the torn-out entries.” Twyla strokes Grams’ inky words and smiles. “I teared up reading their first date. Grams never told me Ian was her first and only love. Gee, that’s…”

  “Impressive,” Jayson says, ending her sentence.

  “And admirable,” she replies with a fond tone and glances at Jayson clutching a book near the trunk. “It’s obvious they’ve known the portal existed since their teens. Jase, I followed Grams and Papa the eve of my 10th birthday to the same footbridge. Ahh… Now I understand.”

  “What?”

  “Papa Ian rushed on to the footbridge and pulled Grams away for the same reason Old George grabbed my shoulder. To restrain her from entering the portal. God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the dogwood trees are the entry.”

  “That’s the way it sounds,” Jayson says, walking back to the sofa. “Hmm, I just realized George has been Twilight’s caretaker since Tessa’s teens. How old is this guy?”

  “The perplexing question I’ve pondered for ever!” She exclaims, dropping her head back on the settee. Staring at the ceiling, she states, “Young and Old George never change. I’d assumed good genes and arduous labor on the property kept them young. But it’s something else I can’t explain,” she says, raising her head and gnawing her bottom lip in thought. “Around the time I started third grade, I recall Young George entering the kitchen for coffee. Mom and I were sitting in the kitchen and she asked him his age. Her abrupt question appeared interrogative, suspicious. He hesitated before answering, “Nineteen years old,” and then he threw me a wink. Although he appeared adolescent, his demeanor always struck me as older. Grams and Young George often gave me affectionate winks, winks with innuendos I’m just grasping today.”

  “So, you were nine in third grade. Fourteen years ago,” Jayson states with a calculating frown. “That makes him 33 today.”

  “Yeah, but he looks 20, and Old George will always be ancient.”

  “It’s unlikely your Young George and the man who tended the grounds during Tessa’s teens breathe through the same lungs. He hadn’t been born yet.”

  “I came to the same conclusion. I saw the two only on weekend visits and holidays. But during college, when I was here more often helping with guest relations and running errands for Grams and Papa, I noted that the Georges hadn’t aged. I suspected my childhood memories were faulty and approached Grams to ask about their ages. As always, her reply was vague and witty.”

  “I bet she said they’re ageless.”

  “Yes,” she replies with a nod. “But not in those exact words. She threw me one of her intense stares and said, ‘He will outlive both of us. George will forever guard this property.’ I thought she was joking because she winked and chuckled. But now, given the weird events of the last 24 hours, I wonder if she was speaking the truth,” she says, gazing at the journal. Twyla shakes her head with a wry grin. “That’s ridiculous. It’s impossible unless he’s immortal, and immortals are pure fantasy.”

  “So is time travel, but we’re considering it.”

  “Oh, wow, I just remembered what Grams said to me right before I left for college.”

  “What?”

  “You will find your history a stone’s throw away on this property,” Twyla murmurs. “I assumed she meant I’d discover my career here at Twilight Ends.”

  “That’s an obvious assumption given she knew your career aspirations. After reading the journals, there’s no doubt she meant the portal to your history is a stone’s throw away. I suspect your Grams wielded verbal cues because she understood you’d want answers one day to mysterious events around Twilight. You sensed she wanted to spill her guts when Ian shut her up often. Well, it was time travel she couldn’t mention. She bequeathed you the key to her secret. The sketches, photos, and diaries she left behind to answer your queries.”

  “I figured she willed the key to me and not Skylar for a reason,” she says, tapping the locket around her neck. “What’re you holding?”

  Jayson turns the pocket-sized book over in his hand. “A diary. I discovered it hidden in the trunk’s side sleeve while you were reading Tessa’s journal. I presume it belongs to Mercy Dox, one of several diaries from the metal box Tessa uncovered. As with Tessa’s journal, someone tore out most of the pages. They must have contained important information they didn’t want other people to read.” He takes a seat and hands Twyla the book. As Twyla had a moment ago, he rests his head back on the settee and closes his eyes.

  “I didn’t see a metal container in the trunk.”

  “Neither did I,” replies Jayson.
>
  Twyla peers at the leather-bound book. “From Grams’ writing, Mercy’s box contained many diaries. Where are the others?”

  “I can hazard a guess,” replies Jayson, gliding his hand across her back. “The individual or individuals who tore pages from the journals may have taken Mercy’s box. I suspect Tessa hid one in the inner compartment for you,” he says, feeling the rise and fall of her silent sigh. He scoots closer and folds his arms around her shoulder. Her beloved Grams entrusting her with a fantastic secret must be overwhelming. “Are you OK?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she murmurs and throws him a smile over her shoulder. “You’re amazing for going along with this. You don’t have to pretend to believe for my sake.”

  “Have I ever lied to make you comfortable?”

  “No.”

  “If I thought these were the rantings of a madwoman, I’d tell you your Grams was crazy,” he says with a grin. “As I’ve said many times, there’s more to life than what we perceive. Tessa’s discovery intrigues me, Twinkles. I believe she wrote the truth.”

  Twyla grips and releases the locket several times and narrows her eyes. “I have this mental image of Grams sneaking into the cellar, locking the door behind her, devising a safe place to hide the diary, and praying I’d find it one day. Ian stopped her from telling us, but why?”

  “From what you’ve told me, Ian strikes me as a sensible man who tried to live his life in the present, not the past. Not everyone’s brave enough to journey to an unknown past in Iroquois territory during a perilous war. Ian may have destroyed the pages to protect his family from danger, and to prevent others with ill intent from entering the portal.”

  “You might be right. But why leave the trunk to me?”

  “It’s obvious she trusted you’d do the right thing with this information.” Jayson glances at the journal. “Isn’t there another entry in Tessa’s diary?”

  “Yes, a last entry made 33 years later,” she says, placing Mercy’s diary on the sofa, picking up Grams’ journal, and turning to the last entry with a sigh. “I love the sound of your voice, Professor Sundown. Can you read it for me?” She asks, placing the journal in Jayson’s hand.

  August 17,1992

  Since my last entry, I vowed never to venture into the forbidden grounds again. But I grow restless, yearning to return. I’m not finished yet. When I buried the choker and tomahawk under the maple tree, the place I discovered them, I was sure I’d made peace with their death. I tried to save Tekakwitha and Pilan, my beloved daughter and son-in-law.

  The place near the gate terrified me as an adolescent but brings much comfort in mid-life now that I understand its history. Teka and Pilan loved that tree and died at its base too soon. As my past embodiment, Jawanda, I frequent the maple to be near their energy. The Seneca shaman foretold Teka’s rebirth through my daughter, Skylar. I hope I’m alive when my granddaughter finds her love, Pilan, again.

  Today, I grew restless and left Ian and Skylar in the kitchen with Cora. I fastened a leather leash to Mystik’s collar and explained I was going for a walk. The moment I leashed her, Ian shot me a disapproving scowl, knowing my walk was to the footbridge. It’s time to take Mystik home. I can’t keep her away from her grieving owner too long.

  Ian’s never stepped across the footbridge, believing the portal intended for immortal George, not mortals. Years ago, when we attempted to enter the gate a second time as teenagers, Old George apprehended and dragged us by the collar to his cottage. He knew we’d seen him enter the portal and didn’t hesitate to answer our questions. He told us about our ancestor’s wish to keep others from discovering the footbridge, to protect lives and prevent anyone with evil intentions from entering. George answered a question I’d mulled over a long time. Old and Young George are one. He’s guarded these grounds since the Iroquois Confederacy. A human warrior, now an immortal sentinel. His secret our ancestors kept, and the Newhouse family will always protect. A secret Ian and I share.

  I’ve pondered Ian’s statement often. If meant for immortals only, why does the portal allow me to pass its gate? Is it because I’m of Iroquois lineage? I suspect Anson Dox met death when he discovered and entered the portal because he was not of my family’s blood.

  This need to protect past and future family drives me toward the property’s boundary where the maple and brother dogwood shield the obscured ivy-covered iron gate. The entry to hallowed ground our ancestors preserved, where the ruin stems. Half a mile inside the entrance, dynamic coursing water sounds. The Great Spirit’s medicinal waters. As I led Mystik toward the grounds, she meowed, aware she was approaching the stone stairway carved into cliff ages ago. The steep, forested trail toward the never-languishing babbling brook.

  I’ve taken these steps many times with my Seneca clan to bathe in pure, magical waters. They built the footbridge and merging stairway and path. And sculpted native effigies, statues immortalizing two warriors who guarded the bridge with bow and arrows, Pilan and Sagoyewatha, protectors of the eastern and western doors. But the sculptures bear no likeness to the powerful fighters I know. The stone used to build this place is the same as that beneath Twilight. Two dogwood trees stand at the footbridge’s western end, rooted together, leaning north and south, forming a gateway to our history.

  It was time to cross boundaries to my beloved Wolf Clan, my family. Each time I travel, I know I will return to Ian and Skylar, whether because of death on the other side or by choice. If I should die, my spirit rebounds to my future, my present form, Tessa. The portal returns me to the point of entry, the exact day and hour as it has on many ventures. Although I leave my present family, I’ve not forsaken them as their souls exist where I journey, my family’s past lives. My soul, not my body, travels. I suspect my present body lingers inside the portal, for a soul cannot exist in two manifestations in the same place and time. I become Jawanda, Seneca Wolf clan mother.

  When I first ventured through the portal, I woke inside a longhouse surrounded by strangers and inside another form, Jawanda’s body. I use the word “woke”, because the momentum through time is so swift it induces sleep or unconsciousness every trip. I never arrive at the same place, sometimes in the longhouse, field or woods, and once in Seneca Lake. On arrival, amnesia strikes and lingers several minutes before fading. But with each visit, memory loss lasts mere seconds. It’s wondrous owning both future and past information. Every memory Jawanda keeps becomes mine. I own her language, knowledge, skills, and both our mannerisms. I’ve sketched them in their natural surroundings for remembrance, although there’s no need. They are the embodiment of their descendants, my present family.

  I’ve longed to travel back to a time before Sullivan’s Expedition, a time before the fire claims our village, before the death of Teka and Pilan, but the portal carries me to a different place, to postwar Geneva, New York, before Twilight Ends existed. A time where Mercy and William Dox lived on an incipient farmstead. It is here my past-life daughter, Garrentha, finds her soulmate, Jonathan, a freed slave Mercy and William Dox brought with them from Virginia. Skylar is Garrentha’s reincarnation, and I’ve long believed Charlie is Jonathan.

  On the farmstead, soulmates find each other. My adopted son, Mingin, and Mercy Dox begin a passionate affair, a complicated triangle fraught with danger as Mercy is a married woman. It’s not my place to intervene in fated love. Mercy and I forged a deep friendship, one destined as her discovery of Mingin again in a future life, here at Twilight Ends.

  It strikes me as I write this entry, I cannot change the Sullivan Expedition’s destruction of my people. The portal no longer takes me to pre-war Iroquois territory, but postwar Geneva to help my family regain their land. With the support of Mingin and Mercy, we shoulder the mission together.

  25

  Past Lives

  Jayson closes the journal with a dull thump, breaking Twyla’s astonished silence.

  “Incredible!” Jayson says.

  “It’s… I can’t… unbelievable!” Twyla says, springing
from the sofa with her fingers pressed to her lips.

  The bone choker. Mom found Grams’ relics.

  Placing her hands on her hips, she paces from one end of the settee and back, glancing at the snow-covered window. “Skylar dug up Tessa’s bone choker and tomahawk in the backyard this morning.”

  “She did?” Jayson asks in a high voice, as if her discovery solidified their assumption of time travel, erasing any lingering doubt.

  “When I woke from sleepwalking, I caught sight of her from the window. Later, I found the relics in Skylar’s office desk. Well, Mystik led me to them,” she says, pacing in front of the settee again and rubbing the raw red swelling from Mystik’s scratch earlier.

  Jayson grasps her thighs as she passes his knees, pulling her on to his lap. “You sure they are the same?” He asks, brushing her hair back and kissing her neck.

  She tilts her head with a moan, closes her eyes, and rubs his angular jaw. “Without a doubt, they’re the artifacts Tessa buried,” she murmurs as her muscles slacken. “They looked antiquated and soiled. Skylar brushed off most of the dirt with a cloth,” she explains, lifting her head before his touch can relax her entire body and whisk her to sleep in his lap.

  “But surely Skylar couldn’t have known they were near the maple unless Tessa told her?”

  “True,” she says, reclining into his chest, sensing the rapid beat of his heart against her back. “But she wandered out during a storm on an impulse or something led her to the spot…” Twyla narrows her eyes with a slow shake of her head, recalling the diary entry. “The passage clarified Grams’ constant restlessness. Twyla never imagined in her wildest dreams she yearned to time-travel. Grams’ strolls were quick because the portal returned her to the exact date, hour, and place, as if she’d never left,” Twyla murmurs in contemplation. “And as I suspected, Mystik belonged to Mercy Dox.”