Keepers Of The Gate

by E. Denise Billups

  “Great heavens, no!” Cristal screeched in outrage.

  “As long as I’m alive and the Western Door Society thrives, it will never happen. Since your last visit, and after receiving Harrison Dox’s letter, I’ve sensed my ancestors’ restless energy stir each gloaming. I believe they’re waiting for Dox. That pesky man doesn’t understand what trouble awaits him. I hope not his great-grandfather’s fate,” she said with a hint of worry.

  Cristal believed Tessa’s words were in jest. Another Dox’s heart pierced with an arrow is highly improbable, she thought at that moment. “Let’s pray Harrison goes away, finds another property for his resort.”

  “Well, time will tell. I can’t concern myself with that now. But I pray when my darling daughter Skylar takes over the inn, she and her family will fight for what’s theirs. And I’m sure my gutsy granddaughter, Twyla, will keep this place safe,” she said as she spun a gold locket between her fingers.

  Whenever Tessa touched that locket, an heirloom she always wore, an elusive sensation weighted Cristal’s hand, and a phantom spiral looped around her fingers as if it were she who was twirling the gold chain. She’d never owned or spun a locket. But the disconcerting motion felt tangible, as if she’d done so a thousand times. She squeezed and palm rubbed the tickle from her hands, glowered at the antique necklace, pondering its heir – daughter or granddaughter? “Do you think Skylar and Charlie are ready to assume roles in Keepers of The Western Door Society?”

  Tessa shook her head and pinned her eyes across the lake. “No. Not now, but they will when they understand the property’s significance. My precious girls bear the gift of sight, but Skylar’s adamant and disdains a life at Twilight. When Dox arrives, she’ll see her fate is connected to the property. My daughter has a keen nose for dishonesty and will sense Harrison’s chicanery the moment he speaks.”

  “And Twyla?”

  “Gutsy, forever-curious and determined, that granddaughter of mine,” she’d said, clutching the gold locket. “Twyla will travel a rare path I’ve journeyed many times. I know this for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tessa’s eyes were brimming with mystery. “Everything’s explained in the envelope.”

  “My curiosity’s piqued,” she said, squeezing the packet, pondering its contents and Tessa’s comment. “Twyla has always reminded me of you in both body and temperament.”

  A whimsical chuckle leapt from Tessa’s lips carried on the breeze around the dock. “Yes, she’s a mini-me. After everything she’d seen as a child, she’s still passionate about the home and family business.”

  “Seen?”

  “That child’s nosier than a cat and roamed the inn, searching every nook and cranny, looking for secret passages, just as I did as a child,” she said and stroked Mystik’s fur. “She has a fascination with Twilight, even now that she’s grown.”

  As if bored by the conversation, Mystik stretched her front legs across her lap, leapt on to the dock, and strutted off. The tiny bell around her neck tinkled as she pranced away.

  Cristal glanced back as Mystik slunk up the slope. “I love that sound.”

  “Mer… um, Cristal, you always have,” Tessa stammered, catching her words with a sheepish grin. An odd expression crossed her face before she glanced away and brushed white fur from her blue linen trousers. She clasped her slender fingers and continued where she’d left off as though the conversation had never veered to another topic. “But it wasn’t what Twyla saw awake that scared her. Poor child had horrible nightmares. Sometimes, after sleepwalking, she’d wake the house with frightful screams.”

  “What did she see?” Cristal had asked, rattled by Tessa’s odd response to Mystik’s bell.

  “I suspect Twilight’s mystical energies snuck into her psyche while she slept. One night when she was seven, she had a horrible fright in the storage room. To this day, she won’t go near that steamer trunk.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I found her screaming and swearing a woman disappeared through the trunk. Later that evening, she described a dark-haired woman dressed in what appeared to be a Victorian gown. She even described her widow’s peak,” she said and glanced at Cristal’s forehead. “Much like yours.” Tessa had stared at her for a moment as if she were seeing another person, smiled and brushed a strand from Cristal’s face. “Your widow’s peak is lovely. You shouldn’t hide your charm. It’s alluring,” she’d said, then released a sigh that sounded mournful.

  Although she’d received many compliments, Cristal never liked the attention the widow’s peak drew to her forehead and over the years tried to play down the V-shaped dip with bangs or a side parting, allowing her hair to fall to one side. To her amazement, Tessa recognized her little hang-up with eyes that stare through a person’s soul. “It’s an insecurity I’ll never outgrow,” Cristal replied, noting Tessa’s wistful expression. “Was Twyla dreaming?”

  “She was awake when I found her. As I’ve mentioned in the past, only the Newhouse family can see what exists inside Twilight. I believe my granddaughter will see plenty in her lifetime. Thank heavens, the sleepwalking passed, and she wasn’t harmed. She’s a persistent one and will step into my shoes without a problem when I’m gone.”

  “Well, I hope they’ll honor the work you and Ian put into Twilight.”

  “Cristal, you play a crucial role,” she’d said and pointed at the envelope in Cristal’s lap with a multi-ringed finger sparkling in the sunlight. “When you read the documents inside the package, you will think it’s crazy, fantastical and impossible.”

  “Why will I?” she asked, fixing her gaze on the familiar gold ring on Tessa’s middle finger. A band her husband wears, and Keepers of the Western Door Society members bear. In the middle of the band, a carved celestial dogwood tree guarded by two Indian warriors always holds her attention.

  “Well, because it is fantastical. Impossible? No,” she said and chuckled.

  Cristal slid her hand across the envelope in silent wonder. “I can’t imagine what this crazy, ‘it’ is, my mysterious friend,” she said, skewing her lips. She threw a curious gaze at Tessa’s amused smile and drummed the armrest with her fingertips.

  “Dear friend, what I’ve shared is true. I haven’t lost my mind, not now or ever,” she said with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, an expression she always assumed when making a point. When she turned her head toward the inn, her cinnamon complexion glowed crinkled silk in the waning sunlight. “When I stare at the house from this spot, I imagine my ancestors’ life on this land. I envision the longhouses, orchards, cornfields, and tribes living their lives, unaware of the looming war’s destruction. And that old man,” she said, pointing at the maple tree, “saw everything. Now, it and the brother dogwood, watch another generation as they did my ancestors. Perhaps, like you, those two trees know the future.” She took Cristal’s hand and stared intensely. “Are your predictions always accurate?”

  Cristal squeezed her hand and swallowed the sharp pang of sadness. Clearing her throat, she stared ahead at the lake and replied, “Always,” recalling the divination she’d told Tessa a year earlier, images of Twyla wandering through two celestial dogwood trees into a colorful waterfall, the meaning of the augury too obscure for her to understand.

  One vision she would never forget led her to Twilight Ends 15 years ago. Fleeting images and a force wrenched her mind and soul as the tour boat steamed past the spectacular Queen Ann Victorian. The rocky shoreline altered and grew dense with woodlands as a woman stumbled from the brush. Behind her, the trees and grounds were ablaze. The woman’s image grew in multiple strings of herself moving in tandem, toppling into the water ad infinitum until Cristal blinked the vision away. But her mind held tight to the images, spurring her trip to Twilight Ends.

  The moment the Simiele’s boat docked, she’d jumped into the car, headed straight toward the B&B and strode on to the property. The instant her feet touched the ground, she’d perceived the sacrosanct soil when
energy quickened, and a multitude of voices, absorbed eons on the property, beset her senses.

  Tessa’s inquisitive eyes bored into her profile, awaiting an answer. Cristal turned, met her gaze, and replied, “When every element aligns, they will come as I’m sure they did 81 years ago to stop Harrison Dox. But this time, I fear it might be worse. Tessa, I promise to help your daughter. You and Ian are my second family, and this place is special to me.”

  Tessa turned, stared at the maple tree, and whispered, “The ones near the lake never left.”

  Under the tangerine dogwood tree near the maple, Mystik pawed a leaf. At that moment, Cristal recalled the intense spectral energy she’d sensed on her first visit to Twilight Ends. Meeting Tessa’s keen eyes, she said, “No, they’re just asleep, waiting for the right time to protect what’s theirs.”

  “I believe you’re right,” she said with a Cheshire-cat grin and considered Cristal with a sharp squint. As if she couldn’t contain herself, she’d leaned into Cristal’s ear and whispered a long-held secret, then reclined into the Adirondack chair, and said aloud, “Keepers of the Western Door are still guarding the gate.”

  Awed, Cristal’s gaze widened with perception as she saw the truth in Tessa’s eyes. Now, a year later, she ponders Tessa’s impossible secret.

  Curtains swirl gossamer white across her vision, pulling her attention back to the present. Removing drapes from her eyes, she catches a dwindle of glitter between the dogwood and maple tree. Or was it the sunlight? Her gaze flits around the yard for George’s whereabouts, then back to where he stood a moment ago. “It’s true,” she mumbles.

  Cristal faces the bedroom and stares at the heart-wrenching image of grandmother and granddaughter. Twyla holds Tessa’s hand with tears flooding her eyes. Cristal sucks in a sharp breath, the pain she’d felt when her life changed at 16 with the death of both her parents, the agony she hoped never to feel again. But time toughened her heart with a steely armor. She sucks in the excruciating pain for Twyla’s sake, steps toward the bed and takes Tessa’s hand. “I believe you, my dear friend,” she whispers with a crack in her steel armor.

  4

  Skylar’s Foreboding

  Come to Twilight ASAP, Mom.

  Since Twyla’s troubling text message, Skylar’s phoned her daughter several times and received no callback or text. Why was her message so vague? Has something happened? Twyla knows she can’t postpone exams and rush straight to the inn. She inhales, closes her eyes for a second, releasing a long, nerve-cleansing breath. Twyla carries her mobile everywhere and never ignores her messages. It must not be urgent because she hasn’t returned her call, but the large font and ASAP bear a hint of urgency.

  What’s going on, Twyla?

  Sky wiggles her boot-clad foot beneath the oversize desk, stares at her wristwatch for the sixth time in a minute, eager for the undergraduate archaeology midterm exam to end. She glances around the spacious, amphitheater-style classroom at the three remaining students bent over the two-part exam. The freshman in the last row at the top taps his pen and rubs his forehead twice. He’s struggled the entire semester and will take the full hour to finish.

  She inhales deep, blowing a breath through her teeth. The swivel chair rolls against her sideways reach as she places the cell phone in her bag. Wrapping her arms around her narrow waist, she stares past the horizontal-oblong window at leaves wobbling adrift, floating out of view in the autumn breeze. Autumnal skies always leave her listless, yawning, yearning for a cozy retreat near a crackling fire. She sighs at the thought of winter’s short, bitter days, recalling Tessa’s old saying, “Autumn is the fall of summer before winter’s death.”

  Death.

  A chill gusts her mind, quelling autumn reveries with distressing images and surreal sensations that shook her from sleep at dawn. Two nebulous figures circled her with a warm embrace. It had felt like a dream, but she was wide awake. When they moved away, a startling thread of bright light spiraled from her chest, tugging her heart. As the two figures vanished, the cord tightened, then snapped with a sharp pang, severing something vital, or so it had felt as a baffling flood of tears ensued.

  She’d slid from bed without waking Charlie, her husband, and tiptoed across the room into the bathroom, closing the door to mute her sniffles. For several minutes, she’d sat on the tub with her hand to her heart, engulfed in sadness, and wept unfathomable tears. Spent from weeping, she’d crept back to bed, but the entire day, sadness has remained an ominous cloud above her head.

  She worries that the text concerns her mom, Tessa. With her father’s death more than a year ago, a deep depression has claimed her ever-vibrant mother’s zeal for life. Not even her beloved Twilight Ends lifted her spirits.

  The timer rings. Sky springs to her willowy, five-feet-seven frame, flings on her sable jacket with a flip of her shoulder-length, midnight hair atop the wool collar. Collecting her bag, she leans into the desk, chanting in her head come on, move it, urging the sluggish students along the aisle and smiling at Aria and Sam as they place their exams on the desk.

  “Enjoy your weekend.”

  “You, too, Professor Ferguson,” they say in tune, moving toward the exit.

  Sky lifts her gaze toward the laggard undergraduate in the last row, rising from the chair with a heavy sigh and wrinkled brow. She rubs the back of her neck with an unconscious toe-tap inside the stiff leather boot, wishing he’d speed his slog to the front.

  Lowering his downcast eyes, he hands Sky the exam and mumbles, “Have a great weekend, Professor Ferguson,” never lifting his gaze.

  She frowns at his dull platitude and deadpan expression. Her large tote sighs a leathery creak as she releases her grip and takes the folded test from his clasp. She pats his shoulder and says, “Carter, I know you’re worried you didn’t do well on the exam. Don’t.”

  He lifts his gaze to her sympathetic brown eyes.

  “There will be other tests, and extra credit projects,” Sky tells him with a smile. “Try to enjoy your weekend.”

  With a slight nod, his sunken lips and brows rise. “I’ll give it my best shot.” He shoulders his backpack and zips his jacket. “Thanks, Professor,” he says, moving lighter through the door.

  Skylar scoops the pile of exams from the desk, places them in her bag, and hastens past a smattering of students waiting for the next lecture. Rushing toward the faculty parking lot, she slides inside the nine-year-old, metallic-gray bimmer, smelling of fine leather and peppermint, a car she inherited when Ian, her father, died. The crystal Wolf Clan charm sparkles from the rearview mirror where Ian hung it when he’d purchased the car. A trace of him she refuses to remove, even the old air freshener.

  She closes her eyes and inhales the thick, evocative scent while easing her mobile from her bag. Typing a text message to her husband, she wonders if she should mention the strange sensations she’d felt earlier and their daughter’s urgent text. No, he has a busy afternoon ahead with two more exams to administer. Instead, she types, “Heading to Twilight.”

  The car jerks in reverse, purrs forward, snaking off campus roads on to the narrow streets of Ithaca toward NY Thruway 89. Whenever she traveled these roads with her mom, Tessa often mentioned the Iroquois’ impact on the Finger Lakes Region. Her voice grew wistful, eyes narrowed as she stated for the hundredth time, “Just imagine, Sky, our people carved these roads with blood and sweat on hunts and battlefields.” Waving her bracelet-bejeweled arm in a colorful, circular sweep, she’d further clarified, “These byways and thoroughfares were once rugged warpaths. If only they could see it now,” she’d said in a pensive tone, gazing at rolling panoramas. She’d detected Tessa’s reflective gaze and wondered what mystery lay behind her enigmatic eyes.

  For a 20th- and 21st-century woman, Tessa behaves as if she knew the Finger Lakes region when the Iroquois Confederacy roamed wild forests. Often, she spoke of ancestors as if she lived during their time.

  Sky turns on to Route 14 North, merging on to Seneca Lake Dri
ve. It’s a scenic road she’s driven countless times, with views of sleepy hamlets, lakeshore homes, the ribbony lake, rolling vineyards now magnificent, crimson rows preparing for winter slumber. No matter how she tries to enjoy the multi-colored view, her mind fixates on Twyla’s text message.

  An hour later, and a ball of nerves, Sky arrives at the old Victorian bed-and-breakfast overlooking Seneca Lake in Geneva, New York that’s been in her family two centuries, her childhood home and family business. Since her marriage 23 years ago, she’s lived with her husband and daughter near the university, close enough to Twilight to check in on her parents. Twyla loves her Grams and treats this place as her second home. After she finished her midterms, she arrived a few days early to help Tessa around the inn for the weekend.

  On the roadside ahead, a midnight-blue B&B sign fastened to a 60-foot maple tree displays in twirling indigo font: Twilight Ends Bed and Breakfast, Circa 1800. Skylar swerves the car into a narrow descent shaded with overhanging maple trees arched in a yellowish-orange canopy across the road. Late-afternoon light seeps through boughs, speckling the windshield a rainbow lattice. Rain-dampened foliage, sulfurous with decay, reaches her nose as the window descends with a hum.

  In her periphery, movement sways through the trees. Sky slows the car and gazes at the ancestral graveyard that’s haunted her since childhood. The vibrant lives of ancestors she’d heard about in so many stories, now a memory, skeletons in an ethereal place shadowed by crooked boughs, creeping vines, silent with ancient whispers. Because the cemetery is hidden behind a copse of trees, no one knows it exists unless they stumble on it by chance. People seldom visit the site, except her parents, as though they’d known the deceased when they breathed.