Keepers Of The Gate

by E. Denise Billups

  The woods taunt and tempt me. What would befall me in this timeless place, time’s doorway, if I ever strayed beyond godly Aurora dogwood trees? Jawanda warns to keep out, or I shall wander lost an eternity. How can she know such a thing? Can her people understand its magic?

  I fear I’ve lost my Mystik for ever. Before the infernal thing gobbled her up in view, why didn’t she recognize danger with her keen feline senses? I’ve revisited the bridge several times since her disappearance. Wandered on the stony traverse at night and seen straight to the other side, a bright moon over a house, resembling my home in England. Does the water mirror one’s soul? I swear I saw myself toward the alternative end, staring back through wavering water. The woman’s brow and widow’s peak were mine. I waved, but she did not. Thus, I conclude the image was not my reflection.

  12, May 1793

  Once again, I travel to the footbridge at the time vibrations are strongest, at morn before the traveling light rises, hoping Mystik finds a way back or someone protects the poor cat on the other side. Again, a full moon emerged through the watery doorway. My double stared back. Did she want to step through as I had, or was she waiting for someone lost to eternity?

  Stepping on to the footbridge, I advanced one step at a time. A quarter of the way across, I stopped when the leaves and wind rustled, and the magnetic force began. The woman’s expression, on the other side, grew worried. Had she apprehended my movement? Lost an eternity… Jawanda’s words caused me to back right into Mingin’s chest with a gasp. As Garrentha had, he commanded, “Never enter the gate.”

  I asked if he’d ever entered. Mingin stared at the infernal space and said, “I considered it once or twice. But my mission is to protect this place from misuse.” He paused and moved toward the rocky edge of the stream, and I followed.

  Mingin revealed the place was special to three people he loved. I asked what brought him there so early. His face softened and his eyes brightened. He stared at the creek and told me he visits the Great Spirits’ waters most morns in memory of fellow warriors, Sagoyewatha, Tekakwitha, and Pilan. Mingin disclosed that tribes brought warriors to the spring to bless and to heal their battle wounds. He smiled and said, “My brother Sagoyewatha, Pilan, and sister Teka, the four of us, were anointed together as warriors in this place.”

  A female warrior. I thought Iroquois didn’t allow women to become warriors. Mingin said the tribe hadn’t until Teka proved she was the best archer in the clan. Teka could release 20 arrows before a firearm discharged a bullet. Determined to become a hunter, she snuck away from the village, trailing the men on hunts. “After several grueling tests, the hunters accepted and respected Teka as a Wolf Clan brave,” Mingin said. “She saved my life many times on hunts, showed me how to survive the wilds, and use weapons, but mostly, she showed me love.”

  Mingin spoke of Teka with affection. Had she captured his heart? When I asked, he said she’d always belonged to his brother Pilan. Sorrow filled his face, remorse, regret over his inability to save four lives. When I asked who the fourth was, he explained Teka was with child. Through his tough facade, a trace of vulnerability crossed his face. The need to touch him rose again. My husband’s nephew who’d lost his world and found another caused my heart to sink with his pain and for the unborn child. At that moment, I wondered what happens to a nascent soul.

  Mingin strolled toward the water, removed his clothes, and stood stark bare. This man has no shame. I blushed and turned away. His voice enticed me to enter the water. The wind changed, and the creek’s babble whispered. I turned as a whirlpool curved and rose over Mingin’s body, dropped, and spread as rippling wings, coursing beyond him. Wide-eyed, both creek and man astonished me. He saw my fear and said the water recognized his soul. I laughed but could not reply.

  “Try it,” he said.

  Torn between curiosity, lust, and respect for my husband, I exclaimed, “Taunting a married woman is sinful.” Mingin did not reply, and I wavered, self-conscious under his steadfast gaze. He sank beneath the crystal water and sprang above as he’d done in the lake.

  Mingin’s pleading gaze lured me forward. Removing my top garments and leaving my shift in place, I drifted into the creek. Like the balmy atmosphere around the footbridge, the brook’s temperature was unseasonable, too warm for early May. A breeze played over the water, forming ripples. I gasped and stood still when the stream came to life, bubbled beneath my feet and whirled around me. Fear raced through my rapid heart; afraid the creek might wash my desirous soul downstream. Water circled from the rocky floor around my legs to my chest and flowed out around me. Every sense heightened, fear and worries vanished. I felt vigor as never before, alive, and unafraid of the man I desire. I glanced at Mingin with my mouth agape in astonishment. He glided toward me, and passion gained control.

  27

  Murder?

  “Damn! We need to find that creek,” Jayson exclaims.

  “Teka was pregnant,” Twyla murmurs and clutches her abdomen, wondering what happens to an unborn soul.

  Recognizing the inappropriate timing of his remark, Jayson tightens his jaw and wraps his arms around her shoulders, wondering if the soldier was aware of Teka’s pregnancy. Did he know or care? “Tessa was desperate to go back to save the baby,” he says, running his hand across her collarbone and thumbing the locket’s gold chain. “War is cruel,” he whispers.

  “And life’s not always fair,” Twyla replies.

  “Did you figure out who Mercy Dox’s reincarnation is?”

  “It’s as crystal-clear as the babbling stream. The passage on Mercy’s widow’s peak and Grams’ sketch confirmed my suspicions. Cristal Whelan is Mercy’s living incarnation.”

  “So, who’s Mingin?” Jayson asks.

  Twyla rises from his lap and retrieves the sketch of Mingin from the portfolio. Although a few facial features differ, his blue eyes, ebony hair, and expression are unmistakable. Grams captured his soul in his eyes. The man in the picture is the same man she’d had a crush on as a teenager. Though more rugged, it’s him. She hands Jayson the painting. “Who does he resemble?”

  “Minus the buckskin clothes, ponytail, and brawniness, Mingin could be Dante’s brother,” Jayson says, studying the sketch closer. “The resemblance is uncanny. Mingin is Dante?”

  “Yep. It explains why Grams was so fond of him. She always said Cristal and Dante are special, and one day I’d understand. As Grams predicted, they found each other again, right here at Twilight Ends 15 years ago.”

  When Twyla picks up Grams’ journal, it slips from her grasp, falling open to a welt on the inner back cover. She lifts the book and runs her finger across the bump. “There’s something between the pastedown and cover,” she says, carefully peeling the paper with her fingernail from the board, revealing a folded page. “An entry from Grams’ journal,” she says, wide-eyed, as she unfolds the sheet. “She listed family names with their antecedents.”

  Jayson moves closer and stares at the list.

  “What does ëshádöhe’t, and de’gë:eyös mean?” Twyla asks.

  “Tessa categorized everyone under ëshádöhe’t, which means he will come back to life. She listed the only immortal, George, under de’gë:eyös, meaning lives for ever.”

  “The ink’s darker than the other entries, so this must be recent,” Twyla comments, turning over the page. “Hmm, there’s no date.”

  “Tessa hid the passage well, perceiving someone might destroy the entry with the others,” Jayson states. He pauses, stares over the names, and reads aloud.

  Ëshádöhe’t

  Billy – Ian

  Garrentha – Skylar, my daughter

  Tekakwitha – Twyla, my granddaughter

  Jonathan – Charlie, my son-in law

  Pilan – Jayson (A name I was told by the village shaman) – Teka and Twyla’s husband

  Mingin (Grey Wolf, Kane Dox) – Dante Whelan

  Mercy Dox – Cristal Whelan

  Captain William Dox – Harrison Dox
r />   Jawanda – me, Teresa

  De’gë:eyös

  Sagoyewatha – Old and Young George

  “Wow,” Twyla and Jayson say in unison. Twyla turns the sheet over to Grams’ last entry, leans into Jayson’s side, and reads.

  Sagoyewatha, a warrior of the Wolf Clan, was to wed Garrentha before Sullivan’s Expedition in September 1779, the date of his death. Warriors of the Wolf Clan, along with Sagoyewatha, were Pilan, Mingin, and Tekakwitha. Jawanda (me) and Billy (Ian) were once clan mother and sachem (chief) of the Newhouse longhouse. My husband, children, grandchild, sons-in-law, and dear friends are my destiny. I will know them again, and perchance an eternity as our never-ending lives continue aligning.

  Sullivan’s Expedition destroyed my village, my people, my precious family. War stole the lives of my daughter, Tekakwitha, and her husband, Pilan, before their child was born. A tragedy with significant pain as their union was short, three months wed and three months with child. Sagoyewatha (George), taken as he tried to protect them. Now he forever guards the doorway to history.

  These three lives forever entwined. They were superior warriors, sentinels of the sacred gate, chosen by Billy and Jawanda, as protectors of the land. A woman warrior was rare. But Teka, endowed with a warrior’s heart, sharp with skills, bow, and arrow, surpassed her brothers. She became one of them on hunts and in battles.

  I could not return to the era when Iroquois Confederacy was strong, a time when Seneca Village thrived before Sullivan’s Expedition. The portal allowed me to move only forward to postwar Geneva. It is during this colonial period that my friendship flourished with a young English woman named Mercy Dox. As she had no farm skills, and was unsuited for harsh woodland terrain, Mingin, Garrentha, Billy, and I became her helpers, her guides, her friends and her family. After her husband William’s death, Mingin and Mercy married.

  Years later, after Mercy’s death, Mingin inherited the land, then transferred the title back to the original owners, the Newhouse family. What an ironic twist of fate that William Dox, a Revolutionary War soldier, purchased land he’d destroyed during Washington’s scorched-earth expedition, only to have his nephew, warrior of the Wolf Clan, blood of the Dox family, return the land to its rightful owners, the Newhouse family.

  Mercy Dox, born to a wealthy family, spent her fortune on creating the grand Queen Anne Victorian and spectacular gardens on the property during her marriage to Mingin and her last years. Her passion for gardening grew stronger with time. Parcels of yew and special plants arrived from Europe to design the spectacular garden surrounding the home. The babbling creek on sacred grounds was precious to her and Mingin. She closed off the land with fences, making sure no one ever discovered the place beyond the dogwood and maple trees.

  Karma righted an injustice. One evening, months before William’s death, Mingin listened to a repentant William’s drunken prattle of misdeeds as a soldier. He burned Iroquois territory and led a path of retaliation to our village. He sought three warriors who fled the bloody ambush of his men and trailed Pilan, Teka, and Sagoyewatha to their village. Captain Dox waited until dawn for more soldiers to arrive and struck their longhouses while they slept. Boasting about arrows that damn near took his life, William pulled up his sleeve and shirt, showing two scars from arrows on his forearm and side. Mingin realized William was the soldier who killed Teka, Pilan, and Sagoyewatha. He swore vengeance for his sister and brother’s lives. But retribution came at the most unlikely hand, Mercy Dox.

  Although William’s death was accidental, others may consider it murder. It was not. William’s drunkenness and abusive behavior came to light over several months, ways Mercy hadn’t known before the marriage. One day, William followed Garrentha on one of her excursions for herbs and roots in the woods and assaulted her. He grew violent when Mercy stumbled on the scene. As they struggled, Mercy delivered a single blow with a stone to his head, unwittingly killing him. To protect her from the punitive colonial judicial system, Mingin and I (Jawanda) disguised his death as a fall from the roof during construction. The precise cause of his death remains a secret, one that forever strengthened my bond with Mingin and Mercy.

  My poor Garrentha carried William’s child to term, but she refused to mother an infant of a man who took her sister’s life. She gave the child to Mercy, who had miscarried several births. She claimed the infant as her own, later adopted by Mingin when they wed.

  Karma is a comedian and a bitch with a divine heart. She brought me to Mercy’s time to see justice done. I do not revel in the man’s death, but he was pure evil to kill and rape. William Dox’s death brought relief from years of grief and peace to my troubled mind.

  A year ago, history reappeared to haunt me anew, and I fear it forever will. Harrison Dox, Anson Dox’s great-grandson, showed up with an offer to buy the property. The moment he spoke, I recognized his soul. A darkness in his eyes bespoke the devil incarnate himself, William Dox.

  I shall conclude this note to you, my granddaughter. There’s no doubt you will find this folded page, given the tenaciousness, determination and curiosity I’ve seen since you were a child. You will be in disbelief as you read this, but soon you will perceive the truth. I’m sorry I couldn’t divulge this sooner. Both Ian and I have tussled with this marvelous secret for years. Diaries may not be the best means to discuss such complexities as time travel and reincarnation. But I hope you’ll understand I made a promise to Ian never to speak these things to anyone, not even family. But as the new proprietor of Twilight Ends, you must know what exists beyond the private gate. And it’s crucial now that an unruly weed, Harrison Dox, has cropped up in our lives again.

  I’ve explained William Dox’s past life to show you his genuine spirit, one now breathing in Harrison Dox. Twyla, beware of this man. He means to take our precious Twilight Ends. You mustn’t give in to his guiles, and foremost, do not let him travel past the private gate. If he sees what it protects, he will exploit this land for mere profit.

  My brave, beautiful warrior karma smiles upon you once more. Skylar mentioned you’ve started dating a wonderful man on campus named Jayson. I suspect he is your soulmate, the love of your life, the incarnation of Pilan. You two will find happiness again.

  Remember, even in death, I’m close, only a stone’s throw away.

  Twyla’s eyes well with tears. “Grams wrote this when we started dating over a year ago, before her death,” Twyla says, bridling her grief with a ragged inhale and swift exhale. “She composed the last passage for me. What if I’d never found the courage to open the trunk? Her secret might have remained undiscovered for years.”

  “No, she had faith you’d find spunk, brave warrior,” Jayson replies with a warm grin. “And from the compact entry, I suspect she knew she didn’t have much time left. She provided information ripped from her journals,” Jayson says.

  “Warriors. We were both Seneca warriors…” Twyla says, recalling the moment she’d touched the ancient bow and the exhilarating vision it brought.

  “Hmm…” Jayson murmurs in contemplation.

  “Harrison, he’s Captain William Dox, the soldier who murdered us in a past life and who his spouse, Mercy – Cristal – by happenstance killed. The fate of everyone who’s present at Twilight today entwines with Harrison. Mom – Garrentha – gave birth to his child, who Mercy, and Mingin – Cristal and Dante – adopted,” Twyla states, trying to make sense of everything Tessa wrote. “Grams explained everything in one entry. God, they covered up William’s death to protect Mercy. I presume she recorded detailed information in the torn-out pages. The reason our mystery person destroyed the entries. They concealed a crime… murder. This could damage my family if Harrison Dox finds out.”

  “But it wasn’t murder. The man raped a woman and tried to hurt his wife. It was pure self-defense,” Jayson says.

  “Garrentha bore William’s baby. Where… what happened to this child, and why didn’t Grams mention his name?”

  “Another mystery, one I’m sure y
ou will uncover,” Jayson says, turning his head toward the door and sniffing the air. “What’s that smell?”

  The smoke detector sounds above on the main floor.

  “Oh, no! Shit! The ham.” Twyla exclaims, scrambling from his lap. “Charlie asked me to remove the ham after 10 minutes.”

  “We’ve been here two hours. The ham’s toast, Twinkles,” he declares as they race from the storage room.

  28

  Harrison’s Plan

  In the kitchen, Twyla and Jayson find Charlie standing over a smoky sink, shaking his head at cinder melded to the burnt pan. Thick, black honey-glazed whorls rise from the oven door. Jayson rushes to the smoke detector and silences the piercing alarm. Coughing and covering her nose, Twyla hastens to the window, slides it open at once, closing it when a chilly blast chucks snow in her face and across the room.

  “I prefer my meat well-done but not incinerated,” Charlie quips with his gaze fixed on the charcoaled ham. “Humpf, I deserve this for turning the temperature to 450 instead of 350 degrees. Shit happens,” he says with a quiet chuckle and strolls to the refrigerator. “Cornish hen for supper,” he declares, removing four baby chickens from the freezer, setting them on the counter, and pulling an olive-green Le Creuset roaster from the cabinet.

  Twyla sighs and brushes snow from her face and sweater. “Dad, don’t take the blame for my sake. The range was at 350. I saw it in vivid red before we left the kitchen.” Walking over to Charlie, she gives him a squeeze. “Sorry. We got wrapped up in what we were doing. Time got away from me.” She wishes she could tell him Grams’ fantastic secret, but not without Skylar present. Later, she’ll tell them together.

  “No worries, Twinkles,” Charlie asserts, noticing her guilt-ridden face. “I’m just as much to blame for taking a long nap with your mom. If the smoke detector hadn’t activated, I’d still be asleep. Maybe it’s for the best. Poultry’s a better choice for our small group tonight. I’ll cook another ham for tomorrow’s celebration.” He unwraps plastic from the hen, placing three in the industrial microwave to defrost. “You two go back to what you were doing,” he suggests.