“You wonder why we have red eyes.”
I nodded. Of everything that had happened in the last couple hours, their bloodshot eyes were the very least of what I wanted explained, but I found myself wanting that answer. It would be something I could cling to like a shipwrecked man holding tight to a floating hung of wood.
“We are of a mountain people. Up here is snowy year-round, so our eyes have adapting to the brightness so that we can go outside for long periods of time without getting the snow blind. Would you like to having something to eat?” She leaned over to pull a pouch of animal skin from under her cloak. Her gnarled, spotted hands untied the straps with surprising dexterity.
The sudden change in topic left me confused. “I am kind of hungry.” My stomach rumbled an agreement. I leaned forward to see what she would pull out of the bag.
She reached in and brought out several strips of wood about two inches long, a quarter inch wide. They looked like the kindling I saw the woman carrying earlier. I hesitated a moment before taking one of the offered sticks. The disappointment was thorough.
“A boy as big as you, one won’t be doing at all.” She giggled that girlish laugh.
I nodded and took another stick, which made her giggle again.
“Are you hungry, dear?” She held one out to Aoife.
Aoife turned from the fire, her gold-tinted eyes going from the old woman’s hand, to her face, and back again. She nodded and shuffled from the fire. She grabbed a few sticks with a trembling hand before returning to the fire.
I looked closer at a stick between my thumb and forefinger. It looked like driftwood. Not appetizing at all. I wondered how I could get out of eating it without offending the Elder. I glanced at Aoife, surprised to find her chewing on a piece of her stick. I turned back to find Elder Narit watching me. I smiled and raised the stick to my mouth. My teeth slid easily through the wood. I had planned to give the piece of wood a couple quick chews and swallow it mostly whole, but I was surprised to find it incredibly flavorful. It reminded me of an intensely sweet carrot, and in spite of its kindling appearance, it was quite moist.
Elder Narit giggled again at the surprise on my face. “Desha wood. A stapling of my people’s diet. Would you like some as well?”
I thought I saw a peculiar glint in the old woman’s eyes as she held her hand to Seanna. A mischievous look that had a hint of laughter behind it.
Seanna shook her head, her face an unreadable mask.
Elder Narit shrugged her boney shoulders and returned the remaining sticks to the bag. “Food can sometimes be hard to finding up here, but the desha tree is growing strong in cold weather,” she explained to me. “It’s full of the things the body needings, so it works fine as a substitute when meat is being scarce.”
The room lapsed into yet another silence as the old woman looked us over. I wiped a bit of crusty blood from my forehead. The wound was starting to throb with an intensity it had yet to pull out of its bag of tricks. Each pulse sent a ring of pain around my head like a crown.
Elder Narit abruptly unfolded her legs and pushed herself up, joints creaking and popping as she did. She swept her cloak over her shoulders in a practiced motion. “It would seeming you have much to discuss.”
I was surprised by the abrupt change in her demeanor.
Her eyes traveled around the building. She sniffed at the air. “This room is thick with unsaid words. I will leaving you to your privacy so that you may putting a voice on those words. They are not speaking for themselves, I think.” She nodded in agreement to her own statement. “You are welcoming to stay here for the night. I will have bedding brought so you can make yourselves the more comfortable.”
“What about figuring out what to do with us?” I blurted. “Niklas said we trespassed.” As soon as it was out, I frowned, confused at my stupidity.
“Ah, Niklas. He is having too much severity. I’m thinking he could lighten up a little, yeah?” She giggled. “Could I having a word of you, Gaige Porter?” She turned and shuffled toward the door without waiting for an answer. “Alone,” she added over her shoulder when Seanna started to stand.
Seanna’s eyebrows drew closer, but she said nothing and settled back to the floor.
I stood and followed. We stopped just inside the door and she turned to me. I stood taller than her, but I thought that might have not been the case if she hadn’t been so stooped with age.
“Why are you here, Gaige Porter?”
I didn’t know what to say. I turned to look at Seanna, who sat, looking for all the world like she didn’t care what our discussion was about.
“I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “I don’t even know where here is.”
The old woman nodded. “You have much question to asking of the Ashling. Ask and trust your heart.” She prodded my chest with a long, thin finger. She pulled it away like she had been burned. “There are demons inside you, Gaige Porter.”
“Demons?”
“They tearing at your heart. Eating you from inside out. Fill you with anger. Causing the rashness into your actions.” She looked from my chest to my eyes. Her own blue, bloodshot eyes watered. “The demons.” She poked my chest again. “You are in needing of expelling them before there is nothing left here.”
I felt immensely uncomfortable under her gaze. It felt like those cloudy, bloodshot eyes bored into my soul. I felt naked and embarrassed.
“Good luck in your quest, Gaige Porter.” She turned to grab the door latch and lifted it before adding, “Keeping your friend close. Heeding her advice, it will be useful to you.”
“Who?” I asked glancing back at the two girls.
“We will be talking again soon,” she said. “Too soon.” She disappeared from the room in a blast of cold air.
9
Answers?
The latch that held the door shut fell back into the metal hook, and I stared at it for a long moment. My mind buzzed with a feeble attempt to make sense of everything. Anything, really. Every time I tried to grab onto a fact, other thoughts muscled their way to the front of my brain, demanding attention. Dozens of questions circled around in my skull, taunting me like schoolyard bullies. Where am I? What’s going on? What is a Gatekeeper? Who is Seanna? Am I going to lose my toes?
I shivered as a cold breeze slipped under the door and rushed over my wet shoes. I took a couple steps back and turned to find both girls staring off in opposite directions. I squeezed my eyes shut as my forehead gave another aching throb. What were those things that attacked us? Who are these people? What did the old woman mean by trusting my friend? Is my skull trying to push through my forehead?
I needed answers and had no clue where to get them other than from the one responsible. I opened my eyes and looked at Seanna. She sat with legs crossed, pointedly ignoring me. Her hands rested motionless in her lap, fingers tangled together. The fire cast flickering shadows across her pale face. Her eyes looked sunken and dark.
Aoife sat in front of the fire, pulling off her wet shoes and socks. She set them aside, laying the socks out flat with shaky, mechanical movements. She folded her knees to her chest and stared into the fire. Her normal, hazel eyes unfocused like she saw all the way back home in the flames. I wondered if she even saw them dancing merrily only a foot away from her. She flexed her hands and toes rhythmically.
“Who are you?” I asked Seanna from across the room.
Aoife stirred but continued to look through the fire.
Seanna didn’t react at all.
“Where are we?”
Still no response.
I clenched my fists and ground my teeth. “Either you start answering questions or—”
“Alisundi,” Seanna said without looking my direction.
“What?”
“You are on Alisundi.”
“What in the world is an Alisundi?”
She finally shifted her eyes to me. The flickering firelight did strange things to her eyes. Something danced deep within them. One moment, t
hey were bright. The next, a shadow passed over them. “Not ‘what in the world,’ but what world.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked through my teeth.
“Come closer to the fire,” she said. “You’re shivering.”
I was shaking, but it was more from the mounting frustration, anger, and confusion than standing in the cold seeping under the door. The blood pulsing at the base of my skull grow more insistent. My forehead throbbed like a hammer tapping my head. Whump. Whump. Whump. Each thump sent slicing pain across the cut on my forehead. I forced my hands to relax, took a breath, and walked over to where she sat.
“Sit.” She rolled her eyes when I remained standing. She let loose a long breath and her eyes softened. “Sit and I’ll explain everything.” She held out a hand to me.
I thought about continuing to stand over her, use height as a weapon against her. But when she leveled those blue eyes at me, all thoughts of insubordination fled. I grumbled something and sat down on the wooden floor, ignoring her proffered hand. I glanced at Aoife by the fire, but she gave no indication of joining us. I pulled off my shoes, as did Seanna.
She remained quiet for long moments, staring at me the whole time. I could see the wheels turning within her blue eyes. She touched the wooden amulet that hung at her neck. Her thumb slid over the swirls carved in it.
I opened my mouth several times to ask more questions, but every time I did, nothing came out. I was pretty sure I looked like fish out of water, gasping for air. The pain in my head waned and I felt myself sway where I sat. My vision blurred. My consciousness swam in a milky white reality. Purple slipped into the white like drops of food coloring in milk.
“Eat,” commanded a voice.
I did, raising a hand, the forgotten desha wood still clutched there. I took a bite but didn’t chew. It lay there on my tongue, my mouth slightly open.
“Eat.”
I chewed.
“That wasn’t the first time you went to that park when you’re upset, was it?” Seanna asked.
“What?” I blinked, my vision returning. My head cleared. I swallowed the piece of wood. “Um, I guess not. What does that have to do with anything?”
She fell silent again.
I frowned, but I didn’t feel in as much of a rush to find out what was going on as I had before. Something deep down inside me told me I would have my answers in due time. I just had to trust her. A little trust went a long ways. I just had to let her figure out the answers. I was sure they didn’t come easy. How could they? Just a little more time was all she needed.
Her thumb rubbed around and around on the amulet.
My mind shifted away from Seanna and my questions. I took in the Elder’s building. It was just one dim room, more long than wide. It was made entirely out of roughly cut wooden boards. I couldn’t see what they used to seal the spaces between, but it did a fair job of keeping the cold out. I felt warm enough near the stone fireplace that any last shivers from the cold melted away. An animal skin hung on the wall, hidden in the shadows on that side of the room. It looked massive, its black fur a hole in the dark outside the edges of firelight. Its shape vaguely reminded me of a bear. Whatever it was, I knew I didn’t want to encounter it in its more alive version.
Seanna broke my thoughts. “There are parks closer to where you live. What draws you to it? Have you ever wondered why you go to that particular one?”
“Not really,” I answered truthfully.
“The Gateway draws you to it.”
“The Gateway? What are you talking—”
“You are a Gatekeeper.”
“That’s what Niklas called me,” I noted. “The Elder, too. I just don’t—”
She nodded. “And that you are. I’m sure you don’t know what that means.” She went on as I opened my mouth to finish the thought. “Your world and mine are connected by a Gateway.”
“We’re on another world?” I whispered. Somehow, I had figured we were. It had become very obvious. Either I was on another world or I was in some kind of crazy dream. But having her say it made my mind go numb.
I glanced at Aoife by the fire. Her dark brows drew together, but she remained silent.
“The Gateway is a connection between our worlds, allowing for travel between the two. Provided the gate is open.” Seanna’s eyes flicked up to the bloodied cloth stuck to my forehead. “There are four known gateways here on Alisundi, three of which lead to Earth. In that way, our worlds are more connected than others. Three gates connecting the same two worlds is unusual. As far as we know, from what we’ve gathered from Travelers, there are no other triple-connected worlds.”
“And one is in Colorado. Where are the others?” I asked.
“The Mediterranean,” she replied. “And England.”
“England?” I repeated. “They were speaking English!” I exclaimed as the realization hit me like a boot to the brain. “Bad English, but English!”
“The Jo-Shar?” Seanna asked. “Yes. English spread like wildfire a couple hundred years ago when missionaries came through the gate in England. You’ll find the Jo-Shar’s sentence structure a little off. They picked up the vocabulary, but never fully grasped the syntax. Probably because their language lacks it.”
“English,” I muttered. I ran my fingers in my eyes. They hurt. Pain was returning to my head. Everything hurt.
“English,” Seanna repeated. “The missionary’s religion didn’t catch on as much as they’d hoped. Their language did.”
The room lapsed into another quiet. The crackling fire serenaded us as I tried to process the overload of information before it liquefied my brain and dripped out my nose. A dream, that has to be it, I thought. There’s no such thing as intergalactic travel. I can’t just take a step from Earth and have my foot land on another world, right?
Was there really an overload of information? She’d barely said more than a few sentences in answer to questions that would require a book to thoroughly examine. Either way, what she had said, to have my suspicions confirmed, was too much for me.
I let my eyes stray, unable to concentrate. I stared at the animal skin hanging on the far wall. If it was some kind of bear, it was one the size of a small elephant. The head wasn’t included with the skin, so I was left to my own imagination on what the animal must have looked like. I decided the head was as big as my torso, with teeth as big as my thumb.
The throbbing in my head increased. I closed my eyes to the sight of the animal hide. “I can’t be here,” I muttered. “I shouldn’t be here.” I started to stand, but pain, like a spike in my temple, made my head swim and I flopped back down. Little, colorful squiggles squirmed around in my vision, doing a little dance with mini fireworks going off with each stabbing throb of my head. I squeezed my eyes tighter, but the dance continued. I thought I might be sick.
A hand touched mine. “Take deep breaths,” a voice said.
I did. I breathed in through my nose and out my mouth, filling my lungs completely with every breath. The sharp pain waned, along with the nausea. I opened my eyes to find Seanna’s hand on mine. It felt smooth and soft, delicate as a leaf. A tingle traveled up my arm and the pain faded even more, retreating to the dark corners inside me. I looked up to find her pale blue eyes looking into mine.
“I…” I cleared my throat. “I’m okay now.”
Seanna’s hand lingered on mine a moment longer before she pulled it away. The tingling went with it. My head filled with a dull throb, but nothing like the pain that had assaulted me a moment ago.
“I can heal that,” she said.
Before I could ask the latest in a long line of unanswered questions, the door crashed open. All three of us jumped where we sat, but a young man with just a trace of a beard stepped in along with a rush of cold air. He carried a stack of bedding. A young girl followed him in, carrying a bucket of water. She set it just inside the entrance and disappeared back out the door into the night. The young Jo-Shar looked from me, to Seanna, then to Aoife. H
e crossed the room, oblivious to the conversation he had interrupted, and dropped the bedding beside Aoife.
She narrowed her eyes at him as he turned to leave. At the door, he half-turned. “The water is for the face.” He glanced at my forehead, and then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
“Does he expect me to make everyone’s beds?” Aoife asked loudly, her first words in a while. She called him a colorful name and picked through the bedding. She selected two pieces, stood, and kicked the remainder toward Seanna and me.
The pile of bedding consisted of a mound of fur for us to lie on and fur-lined skins to use as blankets. I selected two and laid them out, trying hard to ignore the throb in my head. It wasn’t easy.
Once I had my bed set, I glanced at Aoife. She had rolled herself deep in her share as close to the fire as she dared and had fallen fast asleep. Her shoes and socks sat with Seanna’s and mine by the fire, drying. I watched her for a while, listening to the fire crackle. Her chest rose and fell evenly. I was shocked at how quickly she had fallen asleep. If what she’d told me about having insomnia was true, she barely slept. And there she was, out like a light. I figured the stress and strain of the day had worn her out, but I doubted I’d be able to sleep myself.
“Lie down,” Seanna said.
“Huh?” I turned toward her.
She motioned toward the skin I had spread out. I obediently lay on the mound of fur and pulled the cover to my chest. It had a musty, earthy smell to it. Not particularly unpleasant, but strange. Foreign.
Seanna retrieved the water by the door. She sat beside me, her legs folded to the side. She dunked a spare cloth in the water and used it drip the warm water onto the very blood-crusted piece of fabric stuck to my forehead in an attempt to soften it enough to pull off without taking too much skin with it.
I watched her work. The light from the fire made her blue eyes sparkle. It warmed her pale face to a golden glow, chasing away the shadows I had seen there before. A flutter of butterflies danced in my stomach.
I swallowed hard to make sure my throat was clear before attempting to speak. “What’s really going on, Seanna?”
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 9