Arriving at the bottom step, every image she’d seen in her vision comes to life. Twyla creeps across the bridge, heedless of imminent danger ahead. God, she can’t imagine her horror if she awakens when she steps through the portal or wakes in a past life. She won’t let that happen. Not after promising to protect Tessa’s family, a family she considers her own. But her heart races, her feet adhere to the ground. She’s not brave enough to charge onward and enter the bridge.
Twyla advances at a steadier pace toward the arching center.
STOP HER! Yells Cristal’s panicked mind, though there’s not a cat in hell’s chance she’ll make it to Twyla before she walks through the gateway.
Her feet root in place with paralyzing fear as her conscience berates her cowardly inertness. Do something, Cristal. MOVE! But she can only open her mouth and scream, “TWYLA, WAKE UP,” hoping the ear-piercing cry jolts her from sleep.
“TWYLA, STOP, PLEASE!” she screams with a resounding boomerang of her voice throughout the mystical grounds.
When the dogwood trees writhe and part sideways, she swallows her words.
“It’s real,” she mutters in awe. “Snap out of it! You’re wasting time.”
The admonishment provokes her sensibilities and fires her feet. She tears around the carved trail circling the creek toward the bridge, the slap of her wet boots on ancient stones reverberating off trees and the rapid stream.
Twyla nears the other end of the footbridge at an even pace, never faltering.
“I won’t make it,” Cristal mumbles.
The dogwoods’ pink leaves flutter a multitude of wings, twists, and dip their heads over the stream. The doorway emerges with a magnetic force, drawing everything in its vicinity. There is a thrust that reminds her of an airplane engine’s slow acceleration, gaining speed for takeoff. The propulsion whirls around her, tugs at her scalp, batting hair against her cheeks and eyes.
Twyla’s hair and arms, everything loose on her body, lifts and sweeps forward beyond her face. The sweater stretches and wings forward, revealing the outline of her shoulder blades. The key thong hovers, snaps, and flies from her neck into the portal.
Damn it, Cristal! Do something before it’s too late.
JOLT HER AWAKE!
Cristal stoops and picks up three stones, throwing one at Twyla’s hip. The rock veers left, sucked into the passage. She moves to a closer angle and pitches the second stone harder. A magnetic hand reaches out and snatches it before touching Twyla.
You don’t have a choice, move it!
Adrenaline fuels her mind and body with bravado. She hurries along the path on to the traverse, alarmed when the magnetic drag catapults her forward at greater momentum. She throws the last pebble at Twyla’s back, hoping her frame blocks the pressure. The stone swerves before hitting her posterior, nicks her arm, and orbits her chest into the portal.
“DAMN IT, TWYLA. WAKE! UP!”
Cristal reaches out, grasps the tail of her long sweater, hooks her fingernails in the ribs, but the force rips it from her hand just as the portal engulfs Twyla. The pressure yanks Cristal’s arm, eliciting a deep gasp and “No!” from her mouth. She glances side to side for a buttress, something to grip, a tree, a branch, but the magnetic force draws sprigs and vines from her reach.
Her heart hammers in her breathless chest as she debates jumping into the creek, but the boulders under the shallow stream will injure or kill her on impact. She grunts, digging her heels into the footbridge’s stone crevices. Her flesh, a tense rubber band, tries to snap back but slackens with the incredible pull. No matter how hard her feet fight for traction, the smooth, frictionless riding boots drag against ancient ashlar.
She attempts to turn, drop to her knees, and clutch the stone slabs, but any movement draws her closer. Soon, she’ll weaken and succumb to Twyla’s fate. Cristal dreamt of this moment, passing through a similar doorway with no memory of the other side when she woke. Only a black chasm emerged.
In her horror, she thinks of Tessa. She traveled through many times and returned intact. Tessa’s voice whispers and tempers fear in her mind. “At Twilight, you can always return to your present existence, before day dawns and when night falls, when the moon and sun align with the horizon, never at day.” With nothing else to hold, she grasps Tessa’s words.
Twyla’s gone. There’s nothing she can do but hope she read Tessa’s diaries and understands what’s happened when she wakes to her past life. Will she arrive somewhere safe?
“Once you cross over, the portal takes you where you need to be,” Tessa’s voice echoes again. Need to be… Where’s my destination? Cristal’s heart beats quicker, realizing her past might not merge with Twyla’s.
Dante… She pictures him in the bridal suite, worried when she doesn’t return. She should have told him. If I can’t get back, he won’t know what happened.
Cristal gasps. Her body grows weightless as she nears the doorway. The passage alters from a waterfall to brilliant, sinuous beams in aquamarine, purple, tangerine, and white. A light show she’d seen in the northern skies, an aurora borealis. The beams emit a high-pitched frequency, a mesmeric hum. No longer fearful but entranced, she doesn’t hear advancing feet.
“Stop!”
She struggles to turn her head from the drag, craning her neck over her shoulder at Harrison striding toward the footbridge.
No! The gate – she forgot to close it when she entered.
Tessa’s warning resounds in her mind. “Harrison must never see this place. If he has ill intentions, George will sense it and restrain him from leaving, just as they had with his great grandfather. I fear he might meet the same fate.”
Harrison watches with a shock-riddled expression, doing nothing as she had moments ago.
Old George treads stealthily behind Harrison.
Neither is racing toward her to help. Even if they tried, she’d vanish before they could reach the center of the bridge. While she has the chance, she screams, “George, tell Dante…” The portal inhales her through its watery artery, silencing Cristal’s voice.
Harrison jumps back. “Shit! What just happened?” he squeals, angling away from the bridge, eyes fixed on the monstrosity ready to consume him. He turns to run, but Old George moves close and stands, arms akimbo, blocking him from leaving the footpath.
“Are you serious? Old man, piss off,” Harrison snarls.
George stands his ground and grins.
“Get out of my way, old man. I don’t want to hurt you,” Harrison says, jabbing his elbow into Old George’s side without even succeeding in making him budge. “Asshole, what’s your problem?” Harrison sneers, pushing him harder.
Old George tilts his head with flames in his eyes. He drives his arms forward, knocking Harrison on his back on the footbridge and driving the wind from his chest.
Dazed, Harrison clutches his rib, glaring up at the unyielding caretaker. He grits his teeth, springs to his feet, ramming his body into Old George’s trunk.
Steady and grinning, Old George marches on, a nonstop train shunting Harrison ahead without a blink.
Shocked by the old man’s strength, Harrison peers into his eyes, burning orbs, and back at the open magnetic door, sensing its tug. “Who are you? What the fuck is that behind me?”
“Ëhsénöhdö’ da’jíuh, you will know soon,” Young George says, stepping from the portal.
Harrison whips his head around and up at the Indian with a mohawk and arrows over his shoulder. “What the hell!” he exclaims, twisting his head back and forth at Old and Young George, struggling to no avail.
“Haníshéónö’geh të’ëh ne’hó:gwa:h, hell not in that direction,” states Old George, shoving his nemesis into Young George’s arms.
Harrison slings booming expletives at his captors, kicking and thrashing his legs as his face darkens to a frightful red.
“Hush now, Hahsowanëh, big mouth,” Young George commands with a grin and drags Harrison by the shoulder toward time’s doorway.
The dogwood trees groan and straighten, closing the gateway. The wooded grove returns to normal with just the babble of the brook and Old George’s footfall across the footbridge. He moves through the wooded passage toward the gate, closes and secures the lock and trudges toward the bed-and-breakfast as if nothing had happened. He won’t mention this to Dante or the family, knowing Young George will take care of the mishap. Time will align itself, as it often does.
31
Unknown Destination
“George, tell Dante what happened!”
A faint wind hisses around Cristal. A crystalline arm sweeps from the void’s edge with lightning agility, adheres to her body and snaps her forward, knocking the wind from her chest. Her heart rages. Her breath escapes ragged as the pressure sucks her in with a resounding pop. Harrison, George, the footbridge, and dogwoods grow miles away in a spatial pocket or sphere connected to the advancing tunnel. The wingless, wheelless, God-forsaken aberration carries her from the present on a blind nightmare.
Cristal, locked in an invisible protective grip, accelerates forward in a gravitational slingshot, aiming her toward an unknown target. Her flight decelerates, leaving her suspended in stasis, hovering in slow motion. Darkness alters to a vast soup of red, blue, and bright fleeting stars, speeding backward, rewinding the galaxy’s clock. The portal glides through cosmic debris as if through water, into a blue rainbow and glittering constellation.
As the continuum speeds backward, the imperceptible grip fixes her in place with arms spread open like wings, legs straight below her waist, and hair hovering above her head. Her body vitals and gestures are slow, infinitesimal, though her thoughts race in warp speed with the portal. She tries to close her eyes when a brilliant orb bursts into glittery dust. Not even a blink is possible.
When will it come to a stop?
What if it doesn’t?
I’ll vanish, lost in time, arriving nowhere. Her subtle heartbeat rises.
“Once you’re in, there’s no turning back,” Tessa’s letter disclosed. “The portal detects where your heart lies in the past and takes you there.”
What’s my destination?
Wherever she arrives, she hopes the moon sits over evening skies. Otherwise, she must wait an entire day for the doorway to open. The thought of spending 24 hours in Iroquois territory’s wooded terrain filled with wild creatures is alarming. Will it deposit Twyla amid savages or, worse, a bloody war? Is that where she’s going?
Terror grips her mind again.
This can’t be happening!
It’s not a dream she can wake from as she’d done trillions of hours ago in her present, now her future. But she holds the slightest hope she fell asleep while reading in the carriage house and soon she’ll awaken from this crazy premonition to Dante’s voice in the next room.
Pixels form in her vision, and her eyes blur with the percussive momentum. Time speeds by, surreal, multicolored heaven.
It’s breathtaking.
As her past grows closer and the future remote, she braces herself for the portal’s arrival. Could she stay inside, go back to the point of origin as she had in the frightening ski lift ridden to the highest slope as a girl? When the T-bar arrived at the mountaintop, fear froze her to the seat. She didn’t jump but remained until it looped and descended to the base. At least she knew the dangers of that ski lift if she’d jumped, a hard fall on her rear or a smooth glide away on her skis, but not this unfathomable destination. Will the portal return her to Twilight Ends if she refuses to exit?
Colors darken to midnight black again. The force slackens its hold. She fears release and an eternal fall through the obsidian, bottomless void beneath her feet.
How and where did this aberration originate?
Is it a natural scientific occurrence or a divine creation of the gods?
How frightening.
“It will always guide you home. I promise.”
Tessa’s words don’t quell her fear, now that she’s living an unimaginable reality. The portal’s hum amplifies and pressure builds, pulsing around her. Momentum speeds up, snatching breath from her lungs, her consciousness wiped in a supernova flash.
The Year 1793
Astral speed slows to a whistle. A glitter of heaven explodes, brilliant beams dwindling in Cristal’s silver-latticed consciousness. Between wakefulness and sleep, surreal Nirvana wings lift, exposing a new reality. The metronome of her rhythmic heart fades as shrill keening and trilling of insects and birds seep then split her torpid senses. On the damp forest floor, she shivers, knees curled to her chest, runoff trickling from drooping evergreen ferns on to her pulsing temple. Crisp air fused with conifer pines, piquant turpentine, earthy rain-soaked moss, and wild mushrooms suffuses her nostrils. She slaps at creepers and wipes dewdrops from her cheeks.
“Woo-hoo-hoo. Woo-hoo-hooooo,” hoots an owl.
Cristal lifts and widens her sluggish eyelids on two yellow balls considering her from a hemlock tree. Navy-blue skies glitter above a soaring timber canopy. She drops her gaze to a greenish-brown, moss-lichen forest carpet stretched out around her, bewildering her mind for a moment. She slowly rolls on to her back and a dewy web oscillates between creeping vines as its weaver spirals to her forehead.
Alarmed, she springs upright, swats the spider and crawling insects from her hair with a shudder, peering between rows of trees with no idea where she is. Her memory is a blank, holding no recollection of how she got there. Noticing the plump moss tussock coating a boulder where she’d lain, she runs her fingers through her hair, over her skull, searching for a bump, gash, soreness, peering at her hand for blood, believing she fell and hit her head. Nothing. Her gaze roves to the damp white-laced shift adhered to her thighs, to her bare feet flecked with woodland debris.
What happened?
She rises from the ground with a slight sway as conspiratorial trees and boisterous winds whisper her confusion. Swallowing a rising lump, she tips her face to a mass of trees and closes her eyes. A desperate mental query repeats, escaping as a murmur as she opens her eyes to the watchful forest. “How did I arrive here?” A nervous giggle swells her chest. If only they could tell her, point their knotty and pine-needled boughs in the direction she came, she thinks.
“Hmpf,” she grunts at her foolishness.
She recognizes winter’s retreat and nascent spring blossoms and winds, perhaps late-March or April gusts biting at her damp shift. A body-shuddering chill fires an urgent need for warm shelter. She wraps her arms around her waist, turns in a circle, lost to her surroundings. In the middle of dense woodlands, she prays to God knows what, she thinks, scanning underbrush for feral eyes, goosebumps climbing to her scalp. Panic escalates her breath, welling tears in her eyes, but she squelches fear with a rational mind.
Think, think, think…
Where were you before this happened, she queries her absent mind? She turns in circles, figuring she walked from a house nearby or a town. But she could have wandered miles from any direction. Panicked, she glances at the sky, noting fading stars and approaching dawn. With sunlight, it will be easier to locate a route from the woods.
Twigs snap behind her. She turns around with a gasp, clutching her heart. Reflected in radiant golden globes, she catches a teenage girl’s frightened, white-gowned image. Bewildered and feeling much older than a teenager, she lifts her shaky hands to her face. Her fingers glide from her neck, round breast, flat belly, stopping at her slender hips. The stag blinks its eyes and trots away, sensing she’s no threat. Fearing lurking bears, wolves, coyotes, and other woodland dangers, she takes her chance, slogs a few feet behind the stag, tiptoeing between slippery rocks along the mossy deer trail, altering to a sloped thorny path.
Ahead, moonlit water wavers through the trees. The stag advances across the rocky banks through tall cattails, bulrushes, and reeds, dipping its head in the
lake. As she nears the clearing, the moon descends beyond the hills.
“Moon…” she whispers. A vague warning and inexplicable urge disturb her mind, an important action she needs to take. But what? A stubborn fugue blocks the answer bordering her memory.
Pebbles clatter from the shore. Cristal jerks her head toward a chestnut-brown horse tethered to a tree trunk, stamping its hooves and swiping a skitter of dragonflies with its tail. Atop the log lies a coat and clothing. Next to it, a pair of boots sit on the ground. Water splashes around a nude man rising from the lake. She scurries off the shore, tiptoes through forest detritus, steps on a sharp object with a shriek of pain, muted with a quick handclasp of her mouth, rebounding in her palm. She peeks over her shoulder, relieved the man hadn’t heard.
Clenching her jaw, she leans over and pulls a sharp object from her bleeding sole. Her life’s obscure, but she recognizes the chiseled flint stone natives used as knives. Why is this familiar and nothing else? She limps behind a tree, searches for something to wrap around the bloody puncture, snapping a leaf from a briar patch beside her. With the flint knife, she carves a gash in her sleeve, gnawing and pulling the lace with her teeth, fastening a tight knot around the leaf.
For the first time, she notices the oval gold locket swinging at her chest. Standing straight, she studies hand-engraved swirling vines wreathing glimmering gilt. Inside lies a portrait miniature of six people, perhaps her family. In the dim light she strains to discern faces of a man and woman flanked right to left by two boys and two girls, one with a widow’s peak like the woman, the image she’d seen in the stag’s eyes. It’s her, but she doesn’t recognize anyone else in the painting. She closes the locket and stares toward the lakeshore.
The man saunters toward his steed and lifts the blanket from the saddle. Cristal gazes at his backside, dazed at his remarkable form as he runs the cloth from his well-defined abdomen to his long, sculpted legs. For a moment, he pauses, stares at the sky, then lowers his head toward the grunting buck. A peculiar standstill occurs between two masculine figures. Lifting its sturdy antlers, the stag struts into the woods. Cristal catches the outline of a wolf tattoo on the man’s chest, and markings on his arm as he dresses, wondering who he is.
Keepers Of The Gate Page 24
