by Sonya Clark
“Three somethings, specifically,” Chet confirmed. “At different places around the world there are gateways to…well, to other places.”
Eve swallowed, trying to keep her breathing calm. There was nothing she could do about her heart rate. It pounded in her chest almost painfully. “What other places?”
“Bradbury is unusual in that there are three gates here.” He moved to stand beside her, using his coffee cup to point at the first painting. “That represents the gate we call Above.” He moved his hand slowly to the middle painting. “This one is Below.” He paused for a moment, then indicated the last painting. “And that’s Sideways.”
“Okay.” Eve grabbed her apple charm, rubbing her thumb across its cool surface. She wasn’t even sure what kind of questions to ask.
Chet said, “The Above gate is closed, from the other side. There’s never any activity and the energy levels always read low. It’s very stable. The Below gate is closed from our side, we keep it closed. Sometimes there are energy spikes. That’s what happened last night.”
“Above and Below, what do those names mean?” She had an inkling but didn’t want to say it. Couldn’t say it. It was too much.
Chet touched her elbow, guiding her to meet his eyes. Eve hated roller coasters. The out of control speed, the feeling of being flung to and fro and up so fast her eyes couldn’t even take in her surroundings. She hated that brief elastic moment of hovering in mid-air, knowing the drop was coming and unable to do a thing to stop it. Most of all she hated the drop itself, that feeling that everything solid had been ripped away. She was never ready for it.
“Heaven and Hell,” Chet said.
She gasped, the roller coaster drop knocking the breath out of her. Recovering quickly she said, “You’re telling me Heaven and Hell exist? That they’re real? And out in the forest there’s a doorway to each?”
“Yes.” He took a seat at the table, gesturing for her to do likewise.
Eve took a sip of her coffee as she sat, more to give herself time to think than anything else. She barely tasted the beverage. “You’re talking about the Christian version of Heaven and Hell? They’re real?”
Chet cleared his throat. Perhaps he was as uncomfortable with questions of theology as she was. “If it makes you feel any better there’s a gateway to Asgard in Memphis, behind the parking lot at Graceland. The gatekeepers there have to get visitors from the other side to dress like tourists when they cross over.”
Asgardians at Graceland, now she’d heard everything. “Are they Elvis fans?” She laughed, tension evaporating like air out of a balloon. “Is that the only gate to Asgard and these two here the only gates to Above and Below?” She had no trouble understanding why the institute used other names for the gates. It was much less intimidating.
“There are other gates to each place, and gates to lots of other places. Above and Below just happen to be what’s here. The Board of Directors that Bradbury answers to oversees many of the gates, making sure access is controlled. You know, make sure nothing crosses over that shouldn’t.”
Eve had heard whispers of this mysterious Board but little definite information. “This location is the only place that’s known as the Bradbury Institute?”
He nodded. “Using different names is part of the Board’s strategy to keep us hidden. There’s no way to trace us back to them or vice versa.”
She drew her eyebrows together. “That sounds very James Bond.”
“The Board is a very old and paranoid organization. When you’ve had to rebuild after having your membership decimated by the Inquisition or Nazis I guess you get really freaking careful.” He finished the last of his coffee, setting the cup on the table. “But we’re not here to talk about the Board.”
Eve folder her arms across her chest. “Which means I’m not allowed to know anything about them?”
“It’s not that. Those details aren’t really important to your work here, not right now. Judith is the one who has to deal with them,” he said, speaking of Bradbury’s director. “Aren’t you going to ask about Sideways?” A hint of a smile tugged at his mouth.
Above and Below had been pretty self-explanatory but she had no idea what Sideways could mean. “Okay, tell me about Sideways.”
Chet stood and strode to one of the shelves. He searched the books, fingers running over the spines. “It’s known by a few different names. Tir Na Nog. Faery. Never-Never. It’s the closest of the Otherworlds, the one most likely to bleed into our reality. Sometimes it can seem like the two fold into each other. I think that’s why someone decided to call it Sideways.” He found the book he was looking for and returned to the table. “This will tell you about it. It doesn’t strictly follow the mythology we’re used to.”
The cover read Crossing the Bridge Between This World and the Otherworld by Captain George Francis Irvine. The name tripped Eve’s memory. “GFI? That’s the initials on the broken compass I worked with when I first got here. Did it belong to him?”
Chet grinned. “The compass isn’t broken, just altered. Magically, of course. It points to Sideways. Captain Irvine left it here years ago.”
Eve flipped through the book. “He was an explorer?”
“He wound up in Sideways by accident. Sometimes people fall in by accident, down the rabbit hole, you know. But he took to it. He’s very much like those great old explorers from history. If he hadn’t fallen into Sideways his name would probably be in the history books alongside theirs. But he’d also be dead, so there is that.”
The book was dated in the eighteen hundreds. “He’s still alive?”
“Time doesn’t work the same way in Sideways as it does here. He’s aged but nothing like he would have if he only stayed on this side. Every now and then he visits and that’s one reason why I had to tell you about the gates.”
She waited for him to elaborate.
“Pete mentioned Midwinter to you?” She nodded. Chet said, “Captain Irvine will be coming for a visit during the holiday. Which means the Sideways gate will be opening. That’s always, uh, tricky.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Chet tapped the book. “Read this and decide for yourself. The Sidhe are mercurial. Their moods are like shifting sand. One moment you’re safe with them, the next you’ll be counting yourself lucky if you get away with all your body parts intact. Not that we’re expecting any of them to cross over with Irvine but it’s best to be prepared.”
He picked up his empty cup and stood. “Start with that book. If you want to know more you’re welcome to read anything down here. Just don’t take anything outside the grounds and try to be careful, none of this stuff has been digitized yet.”
Eve followed him back up the stairs. “Pete doesn’t want me to stay. Does he think it’s dangerous or is he just afraid I’ll do something stupid?”
Chet stopped, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Pete doesn’t like Sideways, I don’t know why. He’s not big on sharing details. Sanngrid’s not a fan either.” Judith’s assistant, who was more like a bodyguard than a secretary, was the person at Bradbury closest to Pete other than Chet. Eve wasn’t surprised to hear they shared the same attitude about something like this. Chet said, “I don’t want you to assume the worst about the Sidhe. They’re different, very much so. You have to take them as they are. It’s always wise to be cautious but the same could be said for dealing with humans.” He continued climbing the stairs.
At the top he stopped again, this time facing her. “There’s something else you need to know. There are people here of mixed parentage.”
“Wow, who?”
“Maura’s grandmother was Seelie.” Maura, the amazingly talented chef whose food seemed to almost have healing qualities. Maybe there was no almost to it. “Her partner, Niall. His grandfather was Seelie too.” Niall tended the gardens, both ornamental and the vegetable and herb gardens. Everything he grew was bigger and tasted better than anything Eve had ever had before.
“Anyone else?” Eve half exp
ected Pete to be named though she couldn’t articulate why.
“Bettine. Her father is from Sideways.”
Chet’s – girlfriend didn’t fit, perhaps paramour – had an otherworldly beauty and poise. Bettine could also come across as cold and brittle. Eve didn’t get the two of them as a couple. According to Franny, nobody did.
They reentered the main room of the Archive and Chet closed the door behind them. “Just read the book,” he said. “It’s really good. A great adventure story.”
“Will I get to meet Captain Irvine while he’s here?”
Chet laughed. “Oh, I guarantee, there’s no way he’d pass up a chance to get to know you. He’s an incorrigible flirt and everybody’s fair game to him. Franny can tell you more about that.”
He headed for his office. “Look, work is pretty much done for the year. Most of the staff will be gone in a day or two. The only ones left will be ones who know about the gates. You wanna go curl up in a corner somewhere and read that book, go ahead.”
“I think I’ll do just that.” Relishing the idea of diving in, she ran her hand over the cover. Faery was real and in her hands she held an account of its exploration. That was much easier to think about than the fact that working and living at Bradbury meant dealing with occasional energy spikes from a gateway to Hell.
Chapter 3
I must confess, a great deal of strong drink had been imbibed in that last night. The John Company men wanted to send me and my fellows off with a rousing evening of food, drink, and entertainment. Of course I acquiesced to this. We had no idea when, or even if, we’d be returning, and we faced a long perilous journey through a hostile war-torn land. What I remember of that last night is the stifling heat, the sweet scent of rath-ki-rani flowers blending with incense and hookah smoke, the sitar and flute wrapping around each other in a dance equaled only by the spell of the courtesans. It made for a heady brew and I found myself in need of cool, cleansing air. My intention was but to walk just far enough away from the house to find a breeze untouched by smoke, perhaps some water to dilute the wine. I found myself gazing up at the magnificent field of stars above, ambling rather aimlessly. I do not recall exactly how far I walked, out past the city walls and the river and into the dense jungle. I know that I sat on the ground for some time, against a massive banyan tree, listening to the rush of the water, the calls of nocturnal creatures, and the music of sitar and flute that stayed in my thoughts. At some point I closed my eyes. When I opened them it was to blink at bright morning light as it glittered across a frozen desert of ice that stretched as far as I could see.
I stood in a hurry, taking in my new surroundings with a great deal of incredulity. As the cold began to creep into me, I suddenly heard a voice behind me call out, “Are you a lost fellow?”
- Captain George Francis Irvine, from the first chapter of Crossing the Bridge Between This World and the Otherworld.
Eve flipped to the back and front of the book searching for some sort of about the author section. There was nothing of the sort. She was curled up in a comfy chair in the study two floors above the Archives. It had become one of her favorite places in the institute as soon as she’d first found the room. More of a quiet break room than a study, the shelves were lined with fiction, the seating so comfortable it was close to nap-inducing, and heavy carpeting that swallowed sound. Most of the staff preferred to take their breaks in the Oracle, or perhaps they all had little hideaways like this one. Either way, no one else had ever entered the room while Eve was there.
The next several hours passed unnoticed as Captain Irvine’s adventures held Eve in thrall. Chet wasn’t kidding when he said Sideways was not like the Faery of popular myth. It consisted of five territories that bordered, overlapped, and folded in on each other. Apparently space as well as time worked differently there. Eve loved the names of the kingdoms. The Court of Water and Autumn, Twilight and West. The Court of Fire and Summer, Noon and South. The Court of Air and Spring, Dawn and East. The Court of Earth and Winter, Midnight and North. The fifth was a mysterious place called The Valley Below that was mentioned several times in the text but hunger forced her to stop reading before getting to the section of the book about it.
As Eve walked to the Oracle she considered the ways in which Sideways was similar to the myths she was familiar with. There were two kinds of Sidhe, Seelie and Unseelie. Irvine’s descriptions of them were similar to other things Eve had read. The Courts were primarily Seelie territory, even Winter, something that did run counter to popular myth. Unseelie were present in the Courts but it was intimated that The Valley Below was where most were found.
Eve paused at the door of the café. Chet specifically said Maura and Niall were half Seelie, but when he spoke of Bettine he just said her father was from Sideways. Her father must have been Unseelie. That put a whole new spin on Eve’s view of Bettine, a new and slightly scary one.
Franny and Rami were at a table in the center, heads together over a book. Pete sat at his customary table against the wall with a newspaper and a cup of coffee. Eve tucked the Irvine book under her arm and marched to Pete’s table.
As she slid into the seat opposite him she said, “So why don’t you like Sideways?”
“You are incredibly nosy.” He raised his newspaper higher.
“This book I’m reading makes it sound perfectly charming.” She placed it on the table in such a way as he’d be able to read the spine.
He lowered a corner of the newspaper to do just that. Scowling, he said, “Yeah, well Irvine’s off his rocker. Happens to every human who stays there too long.” He raised the paper and turned the page.
“You seem grumpier than usual. What’s the matter,” she teased. “Been too long since you got to beat somebody up or shoot at somebody?”
Avoiding eye contact, Pete folded the paper and finished the last of his coffee. “A little time in the firing range sounds like a good idea.” Without another word he left.
Eve swore under her breath. No matter what she said to Pete it was always the wrong thing. She wasn’t even sure why it bothered her, but it did. Oh boy, did it.
Shoving thoughts of Pete away, she went in search of something to eat.
***
By the end of the week only a handful of people were left at Bradbury. The research and housekeeping staff all received paid leave during the holiday. The only ones left were due in the Oracle for an evening meeting, presumably to discuss the upcoming visit. Eve sat by herself at one of the smaller tables since Franny wasn’t in the room yet. At times she felt like she was still finding her footing, not just with the institute’s work but with the people themselves. Inviting herself to join Judith, Bettine, and Sanngrid at the big center table didn’t seem the thing to do.
She didn’t sit alone for long. Niall exited the kitchen and made his way to her table. Eve didn’t see Niall often as his work generally kept him outside. Lanky, medium height, gray eyes, hair dyed a rich dark blue, he looked more like a drummer for a punk band than a gardener. “Eh, whatcha know, Evie?”
“Not much.” She wasn’t sure exactly what to say to him and it was damn hard not to stare and look for signs of his Seelie heritage. “So you and Maura are staying?”
“It’s home,” he grinned. “Not really anyplace else to go. Most of the ones left are like that.”
“The ones staying for the, uh, the holiday?”
He nodded. “Chet’s got his gran. If it weren’t for the big to-do he’d be spending Christmas with her. Course Jean-Pierre and Vickie went to her sister’s, on account a there’s a new baby in the family. But Rami, his parents died when he was a kid. Franny’s people kicked her out. Judith is a widow.”
“I didn’t know that. Any of that. Does Judith have children?” Work was so all-encompassing, she’d never realized how little the members of the institute talked about themselves and their lives outside Bradbury.
“Don’t think so but I can’t say for sure. She doesn’t talk about herself.” Niall pointed
at Eve. “How about you? It couldn’t be just curiosity that’s keeping you here.”
Eve sighed, not sure how much she wanted to tell. Did it even matter? Surely it wasn’t much compared to being kicked out or orphaned. “I messed up when I was seventeen. I read an object in front of my family. Something was going on, I thought I was helping. Everybody went nuts. I wasn’t kicked out but they’re all a lot more comfortable with me not around.”
“And you accommodate them?”
“Feeling unwelcome is always so much fun,” she said. “Yes, I am the accommodating problem child.”
Niall laughed, the sound almost as musical as his accent. “Bunch a freaks, we are.” He leaned across the table, wearing a sly grin. “I understand you’re now in the know.”
“I’ve been reading Captain Irvine’s first book.” She’d been delighted to find there were more volumes by him in the Gateway section of the Archives but hadn’t gotten to them yet.
“Chet told you about us too, right? Me and Maura? Bettine?”
“He did.”
Niall reached across the table, laying his hand atop hers briefly. “I don’t know about Bettine but Maura and I are okay with you asking questions, should you have any.”
“There is one thing I was curious about.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, Irvine’s books says the Sidhe use glamours to change their appearance. That they would do that when they crossed over so they’d look more human.”
Niall ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s a lot easier to get away with blue hair now than if I’d been around a hundred years ago. Maura likes that lovely shade of brunette she’s been sporting for a bit but her real hair is quite colorful.”
Eve liked the way his gray eyes lit when he spoke of Maura. “What about the ears?”
“Ah, yeah, well, we’re halflings. Some of us type get the ears, some don’t. It’s all hit and miss. We don’t have them but Bettine does.”
