The Gatekeeper Trilogy

by Scott Ferrell

  “You were glad when they left. You always felt like you had more freedom when your aunt watched you while they were gone.”

  I turned slowly back to her. “How did you—”

  “When they told you they were going for a drive, you were happy. You had big plans to have fun with your aunt. You were going to stay up as long as you could, eating as much junk food as possible.” The wooden necklace that hung at her chest began to glow a soft purple.

  My jaw hung a bit. “Who are you?”

  “Somebody who can help you.”

  “I don’t need any help.” I shook my head again, trying to pull my eyes from hers. They only dragged me in deeper.

  “You don’t blame yourself at all for their accident? You don’t tell yourself that if you would have asked them to stay, they would have stayed home instead of going out on that drive?” She took a step closer. “Haven’t you wished that you had gone with them, that you would have died with your dad?”

  Anger cut through my confusion and stormed to the surface. I stepped forward, looming over her. She barely came to my shoulders. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but you don’t have any right digging through people’s lives. You must have some kind of sick, twisted sense of humor. What happened was a car accident, plain and simple. There was nothing I, or anybody else, could have done. Stay away from me.” I turned but came up short again.

  “I can help get your mom back to the way she was.”

  “How? Magic?” I snorted. “If this is some sort of sick joke…” I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Magic? Well, yes.”

  I turned. Her eyes glowed the same purple as the amulet. They pulled me in. I couldn’t turn away from them even if I wanted.

  “I can help her, Gaige. I can help you. I can give you purpose.”

  “Purpose for what?” I muttered.

  “To live.” She stepped closer, her face angled up to mine. “Isn’t that what you want most other than getting your parents back? I’m offering you both, sort of. There’s nothing that can be done about your dad, but I can help get your mother back.”

  “How?” I asked again.

  “Let me show you.” She held out her hand to me.

  I looked at her extended hand and back to her eyes. They flashed a harder purple and I felt my hand slide into hers. When she wrapped her fingers around mine, I felt a warm tingle slide into my arm, traveling to my shoulder and neck, into my spine, then to my brain. Vivid images flashed through my mind.

  I saw high mountains with snow deeper than the tallest man, deep valleys with gentle brooks winding through them. I saw the driest deserts with nothing but red sand as far as could be seen, fields that stretched uninterrupted for miles and miles, and caves that dove so deep into the ground I would have sworn they came out on the other side of the world. Lastly, I saw forests with trees that towered overhead, higher than many of the buildings in downtown Denver.

  The images faded, along with the warm tingle. I blinked, looking at my empty hand. “Those were the Redwoods, right?” I looked up to find myself standing alone. “Hey!” I called out. “Seanna?” I turned, looking for her.

  Gaige.

  I spun to my right in the direction the voice came from, but the trail was empty. “Seanna?” I called out again.

  I can help you.

  The voice came from my left, along the path heading up the side of the cliff. I caught sight of a shadow moving, then a flash of purple, before it disappeared around a bend.

  “Hey! Stop!” I ran after the shadow. “Seanna!”

  I turned the corner to find the path empty.

  You feel it, don’t you? The voice floated down from the dark.

  “Feel what?” I asked the growing shadows. I hurried up the path, moving faster than the rocky terrain deemed safe, but I couldn’t catch up to her. I saw the shadow of movement a few more times, but always as flashes of purple glittering at the edge of my vision. It kept me moving.

  I stumbled into a clearing with level ground surrounded by boulders. It looked like the type of place “troubled” teens would go to hang out, but it was surprisingly devoid of the spray paint graffiti that marred other areas. I skidded to a halt and looked around, but Seanna was nowhere to be seen. “Hello?”

  Gaige .

  I spun toward the cliff face.

  Do you feel it now?

  “Feel what?” I squinted at the cliff face rising up in front of me. “Seanna?”

  Come closer.

  My heart thumped in my chest, and my head swam in confusion. But I took a step closer to the wall of rock. The shadows had grown deep by then. The sun had sunk below the horizon, but there in the rock, I saw a dark slice along the face, much darker than the shadowed stone around it. I peered into the narrow cave. Something tugged at me from deep within my chest. It took my breath away.

  You feel it now.

  A statement, no longer a question.

  “Seanna?” I peered deeper into the cave, but the dark was complete. “This isn’t funny anymore.” Not like it was to begin with.

  Closer .

  I felt my foot slide closer to the slit in the rock face. The tug inside me yanked at my heart and lungs, pulling me closer. “What’s going on?” My voice sounded far away to my ears. I took another step.

  Reach into the gateway .

  “Gateway?” My mind fuzzed in and out like spinning the dial on an old-fashioned radio, trying to pick up a station. There were just bare flashes of a coherent song before it was lost to white noise.

  My hand rose toward the dark. My shaking fingertips hovered an inch away from the opening. I pushed them forward into the darkness, half expecting the dark to be solid, but my fingers passed into it. My hand disappeared in the hole. Darkness traveled up my arm, thick like motor oil, tugging me deeper into the cave. I tried to pull back, but the dark held onto my arm. It began to tingle up the line of black until it reached my shoulder. A yank pulled me completely into the cave like a spider sucked up by a vacuum. Blackness consumed and blinded me. I felt myself begin to fall apart like a block tower. My entire being split into a million pieces.

  6

  Cold Confusion

  Where am I? He couldn’t see. No lights, no color. Not even darkness. He wondered what he was. Am I at all? He decided he was everything and nothing. He was the universe and yet he wasn’t. The universe was him. He decided to let go, to become the universe. He would let it swallow him and he’d become infinite.

  But, in that moment when he let go, he felt his body begin to pull back together. His particles collided with the force of asteroids slamming into each other to create the beginnings of a planet. Like a new solar system, his very being took shape in a violent whirl.

  His living consciousness returned.

  He wasn’t the universe. He was Gaige Porter. He had a body. That body was rebuilt one molecule at a time until he was complete and spat out of the gateway.

  A cold hit me like a slap to the face, dragging me back into my body. I staggered into a light that pierced my eyes. I clamped them closed and stumbled on soft ground, my head weightless. Wooziness turned my stomach inside out and I lost all sense of balance. My head shifted and I tipped forward. My arms didn’t react quite as fast as I would have liked and I ended up face planting onto something hard and cold. It was the kind of cold that seared the skin like a burn. The kind that both hurt and numbed at the same time.

  I gathered my trembling arms under me and tried to push myself up, but I couldn’t find the strength. My whole body trembled and I thought I might vomit.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I recognized the voice as Seanna’s. It sounded like it came from another room, distant and muffled, like I had cotton shoved in my ears.

  “I forgot how disorienting the first time is,” she said, the lilt in her voice more pronounced than I remembered from class.

  “First time what?” I croaked. Even my voice sounded distant to my ears. “Why’s it so bright? And cold?”


  I tried to work spit into my mouth. It felt like I had been eating sand and washing it down with ocean water. With eyes still squeezed tight, I worked up the strength to push myself to a kneeling position and rubbed the cold palms of my hands on my pant legs. I felt a hand hook under my arm, helping me to my feet.

  I tentatively opened my eyes, but the bright light stabbed at them like icicles. I squeezed them shut again and rocked back on my heels. If it weren’t for Seanna’s hand on my elbow, I would have fallen over again.

  “Take it easy.” Her hand tightened on my arm. “Give yourself a moment.”

  I nodded while explosions of light popped like fireworks projected onto the insides of my eyelids. “I think I passed out,” I said. “How long was I out?” A gust of icy wind whistled through my clothes and I shivered. “Did I hit my head? Why’s it so cold?” I asked again.

  “Oh, sorry!” she said. “I have a cloak for you.” She let go of my arm. I felt her presence a moment longer, as she paused to make sure I wouldn’t tip over again before she hurried away.

  I lifted a shaking hand to my forehead to shade my eyes and forced them open to slits. Everything was a painful white blur. I swayed on my feet and closed them until the surge of dizziness passed. I took a deep breath before prying them open again. Nothing but white.

  “Seanna?” I covered my eyes with a hand, leaving a tiny slit open between my fingers to peer out. I turned and caught a blur of red, faded out by the glaring whiteness. Slowly the spot began to take shape and I recognized it as her sweatshirt. The rest of her—light skin, blond hair, and light blue jeans—was so washed out she blended into the background. I wrapped my free arm around myself and tried to take a step toward her, but my foot slid underneath me. I managed to stay on my feet by flinging my arms out and flapping them around like an injured bird hopped up on an energy drink. I decided it’d be best if I stayed where I was, arms around myself.

  “Seanna?”

  “Just a moment,” the red spot called back to me.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  She didn’t reply.

  I was confused, to put it lightly. It was only September, much too early for the kind of cold that squeezed the lungs when breathed. I looked at my feet. My black Converse stood out against the partially frozen snow beneath them. I shook my head. That couldn’t be right. “Did it snow?” I tried to convince my brain to believe I was dreaming. Did I fall asleep at the park? That had to be it. I fell asleep curled up somewhere in the park and the temperatures dropped when night settled in, stealing away the warmth of the day. I was just dreaming of Seanna again. “Wake up and go home, Gaige,” I said out loud.

  I didn’t wake up, but the cold did push in tighter on me. I hooded my eyes with both hands, elbows tucked in as tight as I could get them without shoving them inside my chest. I swayed where I stood.

  Seanna hurried back, holding a brown leather bag, stiff with cold. Even close up, she looked faded and washed out by all the white everywhere. The faint outline of her arm reached into the bag and produced a long, thick cloak, trimmed with fur. She shook it and held it out to me. “It’s not exactly what you’re used to, I’m sure, but it will work better than anything from back there.”

  I worked my jaw, trying to get the stuffiness out of my ears. “Back where?” I took it from her. It felt soft and not as stiff as the bag. The dark brown, almost black, material felt heavy in my hand. “What is this made out of?”

  “Put it on before you freeze,” she said.

  I grabbed the thing in both fists. Through half open eyes, I saw her reach back into the bag and pull her fist back out. She stuffed it into her jeans pocket. My mind was too muddled to ask what she had.

  I held the cloak up, trying to figure out which way was right side up so I didn’t end up with the hood on my feet. Just when I thought I had it figured out, I felt a pull from behind. It was like somebody had tied a string to my lungs and gave it a little tug. Before I could turn, something barreled into my back, sending me flailing forward to the ground. A wiggling weight landed on me, pushing the air from my lungs. Lying face down in crusty snow, trying to find a breath, images of some creature flashed through my head. I imagined a large yeti on my back, its claws eager to tear me apart, its mouth full of sharp teeth about to tear out my spine and slurp it like a noodle.

  “What are you doing here?” I heard Seanna yell through muffled ears.

  I turned my head and gaped like a fish until air rushed back into my lungs and my ears popped. In a panic, I folded my arms underneath myself and pushed up as hard as I could. Whatever was on my back flopped off to the right. I rolled to the left and swiped a hand over my face to clear it of snow. I squinted at the form lying on the ground. Turned out, the creature was a little less exotic than a yeti. A girl in jeans and a sweatshirt with a dirt bike logo on the back lay in the snow. Black hair fanned out, stark against the white snow.

  “Aoife?” My voice sounded absurdly loud with my newfound hearing.

  Seanna appeared from the corner of my vision and snatched Aoife by the front of her sweatshirt. The slight girl hauled Aoife to her feet with surprising strength and backed her against a sheer rock face. For the first time, I noticed we were surrounded by ice-crusted cliffs.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded again.

  Aoife’s eyes looked distant and out of focus. Her mouth hung open slightly, unmoving.

  I pulled myself to my feet, dropped the cloak, and stumbled to them. I grabbed Seanna’s wrist. “Hey, she’s disoriented. Give her a minute,” I said, repeating Seanna’s words to me.

  She turned an icy glare on me but let go of Aoife and stepped back. “She’s not supposed to be here.”

  I ignored her and took Aoife by the elbow, helping her sink to the snow. “Take it easy,” I told her. “Close your eyes, hang your head between your knees, and take some deep breaths.”

  She looked right at me in spite of the bright surroundings, but I couldn’t tell if she actually saw me or not. She had a far-off look in her eyes, her pupils nothing more than two tiny, black dots. Still, she must have heard me. She dipped her head between her knees. I hoped that helped. It was what coaches made players do when knocked senseless on the football field.

  “Grab that.” I indicated the cloak to Seanna who stood over us.

  She hovered for a moment before disappearing.

  I wiped a cold hand on my watering eyes. This is going to blind me , I thought. Where did all this snow come from? Again, I wondered if I was dreaming. Strangest dream ever.

  The cloak dropped in the snow beside me. I grabbed it and swung it out wide to drape it over Aoife’s shoulders. She made no move to pull it tighter to her, so I just let it hang there and stood. I spun on Seanna, a hot anger burning through the bone chilling cold.

  “What the hell is going on here? Where are we?” I demanded. I’m sure the effect of my anger was mostly ruined by the fact that I had to squint at her.

  She opened her mouth, closed it, and titled her head to one side.

  “What?” I asked.

  She turned crystal blue eyes on me. They widened. “Get down.”

  “What are you—”

  “Down!”

  The question died on my lips as I flopped in the snow. I heard a great rush pass overhead where I had stood just a moment before. I lifted my head in time to catch glimpses of two shapes flying at Seanna, who backed away from them. A flash of purple light cut through the whiteness of everything, and the two shapes jerked to the side before I lost them.

  I pushed myself to my knees. “What was that?”

  “Stay down!” Seanna yelled.

  I planted my face in the snow again. More whooshing sounds went by overhead. A lot more. I realized the thumping sounds were wings as I pulled my face from the snow and swiped a hand over my eyes. A mass of white, blurry shapes flocked around Seanna, a cloud of violently flapping wings. They pressed in around her but could come no closer than a few feet. When one swooped i
n, a flash of purple would cut through the white and toss it away.

  I pushed myself to my knees again just as one of the white things landed in the snow a few feet in front of me. I let out a startled yell, jerked back, and flopped on my butt in the snow.

  It rose onto its short legs and spread its wings out to a five-foot span. At first, I thought it was a large, white bat, but I realized how wrong I was as it stalked toward me. It looked more like a miniature pterodactyl with white fur that blended almost perfectly with the surrounding snow.

  Its black eyes twitched around, searching out other threats. When it perceived none, it focused on me. It dropped onto clawed paws that protruded halfway down its leathery wings. It folded the wings alongside its body and slouched through the snow toward me, teeth bared in its long snout. Its pink nose twitched at me. It leaned its long neck forward and hissed. It sounded like a startled, angry cat. Except deeper. Meaner. It took a hop forward, sunk its body low against the snow, and spread its wings out wide and flat. Its claws wiggled and its wings quivered with anticipation.

  Somewhere in my panicking mind, I knew I should do something. Anything. I couldn’t just sit there and let it attack but getting up to run was out of the question. If I turned my back, all it would have to do was take one hop and it’d be on me. But I didn’t have a weapon to defend myself. All I could do was watch as it slid towards me. I wanted to push away from it, but I felt rooted to the spot.

  It rounded its back, preparing to pounce. Its muscles rippled under white fur. I watched it tense. A moment before it launched itself at me, a snowball exploded in its face. Its head jerked to the side, and the thing stumbled, sticking its claws into the snow to stabilize itself. It shook the snow from its face and turned.

  Aoife knelt wide-eyed in the snow, her pale face ruby red from the cold.

  The thing hissed and hopped across the snow, bearing down on her.

  Seeing my friend in danger spurred me into action. I scrambled to my feet and rushed after the creature.