by Abby Smith
“It depends on how much power they have. They can take some pretty ugly forms on some of the worlds—let’s hope you never see them. Here on Earth they don’t usually have enough power to take their own physical form. They are shadow beings, and would appear to you more as a darkness or a grim feeling. Here they gain power by either influencing people to do their work for them or, if someone is stupid enough, getting a person to enter a contract with them.”
“What does that mean, to enter a contract?” I asked.
“The sslorcs have a type of dark power which they can temporarily transfer to a person. If someone is stupid enough to take it, this power can help them accomplish some goal their ego wants. But the transfer of power isn’t free. Usually without the contractor knowing it, the sslorcs are actually feeding off that person’s own, intrinsic power—power they had all along but were unaware of, or unsatisfied with. In the end, when the sslorcs have drained that person of their power, they will cut them loose. At that point, whatever temporary power that person gained from their association with the sslorcs will be gone, and they will be left desolate and confused, not understanding what happened. The sslorcs, meanwhile, increased their power and then look for another person to feed off of. In this way they spread like a virus through the worlds.”
I shivered. “Then why would anyone do something like that?”
Vala sighed. “People can be so stupid. For many people, that type of dark power is enticing. Often they are tricked by the sslorcs into an alliance. They don’t see or understand the consequences of what they are doing when they do it,” Vala replied.
We reached the edge of the woods and could see the cottage. The sun wasn’t even directly overhead yet. Instead of following the path, we cut through the yard on the eastern side of the cottage toward the barn. The alpacas were outside in their paddock, standing so close together that their bodies appeared to be a single mass of fur with three long necks sticking out akimbo, inquisitive faces perched on top.
All of Aunt May’s alpacas were huacaya alpacas, with fluffy crimped hair that reminded me of giant poodles. Taos was the biggest, and the only male. He was white with golden brown shading on his withers and the tips of his ears, like a lightly toasted marshmallow. He stood protectively in front of the other two. Suzy, the oldest, was black with tan markings, warm chocolate eyes and long black lashes. Sunshine, the one who had come up to me at the funeral, was fawn colored, younger, and smaller than the others.
Vala walked up to the fence and leaned against it, one foot on the bottom-most board, arms folded across the top. The alpacas trotted over, honking and humming, then crowded around him, pressing their noses against his face and snuffling his ears.
Bob came out of the barn, wiping his hands on an old towel as he walked. When he saw Vala he froze, eyes wide. He threw the towel to one side, clasped his hands in front of him and bowed.
“Vala, when… when did you get here?” he stammered, as he straightened up.
Vala pushed himself up from the fence. He gazed into Bob’s eyes like he had done with the rest of us.
“Just now,” he said. “The alpacas were telling me what a fine job you have been doing taking care of them.”
Bob’s face turned scarlet underneath his patchy beard. He bent his head down and put one hand behind his neck, hiding his face with his arm.
Vala ran his hands through the fur on Suzy’s neck, then began pacing back in forth in front of the paddock, his gait slow and meandering. Bob retrieved the rag he discarded earlier and climbed over the fence to join the rest of us.
Finally, Vala sighed, folded his arms and leaned against the fence, facing us.
“A lost gnome and a Contractor, huh,” he murmured, then addressed Mrs. Widgit and the Professor directly. “This is a mess. Even with May here, you would have been in trouble, but I suspect you know that. We don’t have a lot of time.”
They didn’t answer.
“So, Allie,” Vala said. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
He looked at me, but not the way he usually did. His eyes were as hard as diamonds, and they flashed once, like kaleidoscopes turning into place. He pulled his mouth into a devilish grin, his gaze electric and intense.
“Are you ready to become my new Gatekeeper?”
“What? You mean right now? I didn’t think…” I gestured toward Professor Theopolous, unable to finish the thought.
“You said you would help me. We made a deal.”
“Well, yeah, but I mean, I didn’t know exactly…”
Professor Theopolous exhaled slowly as though he had been holding his breath. “Ah, yes, Allie, perhaps I should have warned you about making deals with a Guardian.”
“Warned me? About what?”
“Oh, about the eternally binding nature of such deals, things like that,” Mrs. Widgit said airily, waving a hand in front of her face. “Yes, I suppose in retrospect, we probably should have mentioned something about that.”
“In our defense we really didn’t know that she would be in a position to be conversing with the Guardian, let alone making deals on her first meeting,” Professor Theopolous was addressing Mrs. Widgit as if I wasn’t even there.
I abandoned them as hopeless and turned to Vala, terrified.
His grin was gone. He was looking at me soberly with a gaze so penetrating, I felt he could probably see into the structures of my cells. For a long time, he just looked at me, his expression serious. My knees started to shake.
“You have a lot to learn,” he said. Then, mercifully, his expression softened, and old Vala seemed to peek out from behind the new stone facade. “Quite a bit to unlearn as well,” he said gently and finally turned away.
Andie stared at me with something of the same horror in her expression that I was feeling. I didn’t know what to say. What had I done?
“Right, I better go get baking,” Bob said briskly and hurried past all of us toward the cottage.
9
“I should probably go help him,” Mrs. Widgit said cheerfully, as if nothing dire had just happened. “I know where May kept things. Theo, care to join me?” They set off for the cottage.
“Don’t worry, Allie,” Pettikin said, sliding down my arm and dropping to the ground. “I’ve spent a lot of time traveling through the Gateways. I’ll help you. It will be OK.”
Vala stood very still, staring off into the distance, but moved now, as if we had called him back from some faraway place.
“Yes, don’t worry Allie. I’ll help you too. And with a gnome and a Guardian behind you, how could you fail?” His smile was warm and friendly again.
“But Vala, there’s still something I don’t understand from before. Back at the pond it sounded like you know who Mr. Cutter is. Do you really think he made a contract with the sslorcs?”
“He may have,” he said. “Before you were born, Allie, when your Aunt May was still young, there was another Gatekeeper here. That Gatekeeper was Harold Cutter, Jim Cutter’s uncle.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“No. Your Aunt May knew Harold because she worked for him after school. Both she and Jim trained as his apprentices.”
“Mr. Cutter was an apprentice Gatekeeper?” If he had told me Mr. Cutter was a zombie, I would have been less amazed.
“That surprises you? You can’t always tell the sum total of a person by the surface you currently see.”
“So a Gatekeeper can have more than one apprentice?” Andie asked.
“It’s unusual but not unheard of. Initially, both Harold and I thought Jim would succeed him. He was sincere and talented enough when he was young. But as time went on, he became obsessed with power. For someone whose business is exploiting the Earth’s finite resources, you can imagine how tantalizing the prospect of gaining access to the resources on an infinite number of other worlds would be. He started to see the Gateways as something he could use to his own advantage to gain more wealth and influence here on Earth. May, on th
e other hand, impressed both Harold and me with her intelligence and work ethic, but even more so with her compassion. She was protective of everyone and everything around her. I watched them both for a long time, and, in the end, I was the one who chose to empower May instead of Jim to become the next Gatekeeper. Jim has resented it ever since.”
“I can’t believe this. I mean he’s the last person I would have expected to be involved in something like this.” I said.
“Yes, it’s often like that. Life can be strange that way. At any rate, I can worry about Jim Cutter. Your only job, for now, is to become my Gatekeeper so you can take Pettikin home.”
“Ah, yeah, about that, is it true what Mrs. Widgit and the Professor just said? About deals with a Guardian being eternally binding, or something?” I tried to sound really calm and disinterested.
Vala laughed. “Well the relationship you have with a Guardian is going to be very different from any relationship you have ever had with a human, but you don’t need to take what they said so seriously. I would never force you to do something you didn’t want to do. In fact, I couldn’t. It’s not in my nature. At any rate, there is still one more obstacle that we have to overcome before you can be my Gatekeeper.”
“What obstacle?”
A car door slammed up at the main house. My folks had arrived home and were unloading groceries. Vala watched them.
“You may find out sooner than you think. Maybe you should go back to the cottage before your parents notice anything…unusual,” he gestured toward Pettikin.
“Oh! Right. C’mon Pettikin, let’s get you in the house.”
Pettikin was already halfway up to my shoulders.
“Aren’t you coming with us?” I asked.
“I’ll join you in a bit. I have a few things to take care of out here.”
“Aren’t you worried my parents will see you?”
“No, I’m not worried. They won’t see me unless I want them to.”
Andie followed me to the cottage. A wash of warm, fragrant air greeted us when we opened the front door. Someone had turned on Aunt May’s stereo and the Air from Bach’s Orchestral Suite in D Major floated through the house.
“Something smells delicious,” Andie said.
We kicked off our shoes and headed for the kitchen. Bob had tied one of Aunt May’s old, checkered aprons around his waist and was whisking ingredients in a large red bowl tucked into the crook of his arm. He squinted down at a stained and crumpled handwritten recipe on the kitchen counter, a large smudge of flour streaked across his left cheek. When we entered, he glanced up at us with a distracted, almost frantic expression.
“Oh, hey, Allie.”
“Hey Bob. What are you baking?”
“Snickerdoodles. They’re easy and don’t need a lot of fancy ingredients. We’re kind of on a budget here on such short notice.”
“I found some chocolate chips and walnuts!” Mrs. Widgit emerged from Aunt May’s pantry brandishing two bags like trophies. “I’ll get started on some basic chocolate chippies. It’s not a lot, but it should be enough.” She set the bags down on the counter and rummaged through one of the cupboards, humming along with the music.
Professor Theopolous was seated at the kitchen table with three open books and an array of graph paper in front of him. He alternated between squinting through his monocle at the pages of the books and quickly drawing patterns of interconnecting lines on the graph paper using a pencil and a ruler.
“If I may ask the obvious question,” Andie said, “not that anyone will give me an answer that makes any sense, but what are the cookies for?”
Bob stopped stirring and looked at her like she was crazy. “For traveling through the dimensions!”
“Like I said,” Andie replied.
Mrs. Widgit was creaming together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla in another large bowl with the same gusto as Socrates digging a hole in our back yard.
“You could think of the dimensions as each having their own vibrational frequency,” she said, her curls bouncing up and down with each stroke as she stirred. “It can be very different from the vibrational frequency one is used to living in.” She threw several handfuls of flour into her mix without even stopping to measure it properly. “It can be quite jarring to experience these shifts in energy, especially for someone who isn’t used to it. The right cookies help one adjust to the energy shifts between the dimensions and maintain the proper stamina for interdimensional travel.” She tossed aside her wooden spoon and began kneading the cookie dough with her hands like it was bread dough.
“Snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies,” Andie said skeptically. “Breakfast of interdimensional champions.”
Bob had already spooned the first batch of snickerdoodles onto a cookie sheet and was headed for the oven. “Well what do you expect on such short notice?” he said tersely. “They’ll have to do.”
Mrs. Widgit threw more flour into her dough. It seemed to me like more dough was stuck to her hands than was in the bowl at this point. “They’ll do,” she said mildly.
“What are you doing Professor T?” I asked.
The Professor didn’t look up at me when he answered. “I’m drawing up some charts for you of some likely routes and markers you might encounter in the initial dimensions.”
“Likely routes?” I walked over to the table and peered at the graphs he was drawing. I felt Pettikin lean forward from his perch on my shoulders. “What do you mean might encounter? Aren’t there, like, fixed paths or routes or something we’ll take?”
Pettikin giggled.
I twisted my head toward him. “And what’s so funny about that question, Mr. Brave-for-a-Gnome?”
“The Professor can’t draw out an exact path for you because the secret dimensions are different for everyone who experiences them.”
“What?”
“The gnome is quite right. There is no way for me to know what your exact experience of the dimensions will be. But there are some general energetic markers that will be there. I should be able to help you orient to those,” Professor Theopolous said.
“I don’t get it.”
“The dimensions are weird,” Pettikin said without a trace of irony in his voice.
Professor Theopolous sat back in his chair and removed his monocle. “That’s about as good an explanation as any.”
“Oh come on, you’ve got to give me a little more than that,” I said. “How is it possible, if you’ve been to these dimensions before, or at least if someone has, that you can’t tell me how to get through them?”
“It’s difficult to explain Allie, because you are used to thinking of the world around you as solid and real.”
I was about to protest that it was solid and real, and had nothing to do with my thinking it, but he cut me off before I could say anything.
“You are familiar, I suppose, with Albert Einstein?”
“A little. Sort of. I read The Universe and Dr. Einstein last summer. E equals mc squared.”
“Do you know what that means?” he asked dryly.
“No, not really. I know it means matter can be converted to energy and energy to matter, and I remember something about relativity—a twin who flies off into space at the speed of light and comes home to find his brother an old man while he’s still young—” I broke off. That book also said things like color and form didn’t really exist except in our minds, that everything was just different frequencies of energy that we perceived as being real—almost exactly what Pettikin and Professor Theopolous were hinting at now. When I read it, it just seemed like some abstract idea someone had, not something I could experience. If it were true…
I shivered.
“The world around you seems solid but is really made of energy,” Professor Theopolous was in full Professor mode. “It’s how we perceive the energy in a dimension that creates the things we think of as solid and real. All of the dimensions are just different bands of perception, and how they will be perceived… well, that
is greatly influenced by who is doing the perceiving.”
“But, wait,” I felt off balance, like when you climb up a tree too fast and your foot misses a branch. “If this world, Earth, is one of the dimensions, well, I mean, you could draw me a map of how to get around here.”
“Yes, because here we are experiencing things together with the rest of the people, and we all hold very strong, common perceptual beliefs about how things operate. It’s like that in some other dimensions as well, my dimension or Pettikin’s for example. In those dimensions I might be able to draw you some more useful maps once you have been there. But in some others,” he pulled one corner of his lip up, about as close to a smile as I had seen from him, “well, not so much.”
I didn’t totally understand, and I hated that feeling. “But aren’t we going together, Pettikin? Will we be able to see each other, and will we see the same things?”
Pettikin hesitated. “I think so. I think for the dimensions we’ll be going to that will be true. If we’re together we’ll perceive them the same way.”
“For the dimensions we’re going to? Are there some where that wouldn’t be true?”
“There are a lot of dimensions out there,” Pettikin said. “Just about anything is possible. There are some we wouldn’t ever want to go to.”
“You know, just when I start to feel OK about this stuff someone says something like that, and it doesn’t exactly give me the warm fuzzies…”
A low, rumbling noise, like distant thunder, rolled toward the cottage. The whole room began to shake as if a train were roaring by. Professor Theopolous clamped his hands down on his books to keep them from sliding off the table.
I reached one hand up to hold Pettikin and put the other against the counter to steady myself. Andie was bracing herself in the doorframe between the kitchen and the front hallway. Mrs. Widgit was halfway to the oven, balancing a tray of chocolate chip cookies between her hands, her eyes wide with alarm.
A shimmering ripple appeared at the far end of the room and moved toward us like a wave. I felt a little dizzy as it washed over us. Once it passed the rumbling faded and the shaking stopped. For a moment no one said anything. Then Mrs. Widgit cried, “Vala! Oh no, I have to stop him!”
