The Door at the End of the World

by Caroline Carlson

  “How are you?” I asked as we walked down the hall and up a few flights of stairs. Thomas was half a foot taller than me, and I had to hurry to keep up with him. “How are Mom and Dad? I haven’t heard from them in a while. Letters get lost so easily at the end of the world, though; I can’t really blame them. And I’m sure you’ve all been busy—”

  “I’d love to catch up, Goose,” said Thomas, “but right now we don’t have the time. I told Mrs. Bracknell I’d bring you to her immediately.”

  “Mrs. Bracknell?” I grabbed at Thomas’s elbow. “Do you mean Governor Bracknell? The head of Interworld Travel Governor Bracknell?”

  “The very same,” said Thomas.

  “But we came to see you!”

  “That’s what Jeanne told me,” said Thomas. “She also told me why you were here. Is it true that the worldgates are broken and both gatekeepers are missing?”

  I nodded.

  “Then Mrs. Bracknell is the person you need to talk to. If what you said is true, something serious is happening at the ends of the world, and I’m not close to senior enough to deal with it.” Thomas led us around a corner, squeaked to a stop in his polished shoes, and paused with his hand on the door in front of us. “It’s a good thing you came to Interworld Travel, though. All you need to do is tell Mrs. Bracknell what’s happened, just the way you were going to tell it to me. And don’t look so frightened, Goose. She may be a governor, but I swear she’s not going to eat you alive.” He winked at me. “She’s already full from lunch.”

  7

  Clara Bracknell was a small, bright-eyed woman with brown hair turning unabashedly gray at the temples. I doubted anyone ever gazed over her head when she tried to talk to them: even with her sleeves rolled up, a pair of scissors sticking out of her pocket, and a pencil tucked behind her ear, she practically radiated importance. “Thank you, Mr. Eberslee,” she said, standing up from her desk as Thomas led us in. “That was immediate.” Then she turned to me and gave me a good long look. “This must be your sister,” she said, putting a hand out for me to shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Lucy. Thank you for all the work you do for us at the gatehouse.”

  “Oh!” I said. “You’re welcome.” No one had ever thanked me for that before, not even the Gatekeeper. It felt awfully nice to be noticed.

  Then Mrs. Bracknell shifted her gaze to Arthur. “You’re not one of my employees. You look like an Easterner. Are you?”

  I’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice that. When I’d promised Arthur that no one at Interworld Travel would get him in trouble, I hadn’t realized we’d be coming face-to-face with the woman who actually ran the place. I wasn’t about to tell her I’d brought someone over from East illegally, but I couldn’t just stand there and refuse to introduce him, either. “This is Arthur,” I said hastily. “He’s been traveling with me. He’s . . . um . . .” I tried to think of something halfway believable that Arthur might be.

  “A prince!” said Arthur.

  “A prince?” Mrs. Bracknell cast a skeptical eye over the shirt Arthur had been wearing for days and the pants smudged with motor oil.

  “Oh, yes,” I said, inventing wildly. I’d been thinking of calling Arthur a foreign ambassador, or maybe a governor’s assistant, but he’d gone and made himself royalty, of all things, and now we were stuck with it. “Arthur is an Eastern prince on a tour of the worlds, but he doesn’t want anyone to know who he really is. That’s why he’s disguised as an ordinary person: he doesn’t like all the fuss. He’s sick to death of all his courtiers and golden robes and things.”

  “That’s right,” said Arthur. “Golden robes are awfully heavy. And you wouldn’t believe how hot they get in the summertime.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t,” said Mrs. Bracknell carefully. Then she smiled and shook Arthur’s hand, too. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness. You’ll have to tell me all about your kingdom later on. I’m curious to hear more.”

  Once it was clear enough that no one was going to be arrested on the spot, Arthur and I sat down in the chairs Mrs. Bracknell pulled out for us. They weren’t uncomfortable, exactly, but their backs were stiff enough to nudge your spine back into place if you even thought about slouching. We left a third chair open for Rosemary, who still hadn’t come back from the washroom. The far wall of the office was paneled in glass, and the bees hovered near it, taking in the view of Centerbury, while Thomas stood by Mrs. Bracknell’s door like a sentry.

  Mrs. Bracknell herself leaned against the desk. “I don’t have much time,” she said, “and I suspect I’m about to have even less of it, depending on what you have to tell me, so let’s get down to business. Thomas has given me a general idea of the situation, but I’d like to hear it directly from you, Lucy. What’s going on at the ends of the world?”

  I told her almost everything I could remember, from the morning of Maintenance Day all the way to our arrival in Centerbury. The only thing I left out was an explanation of exactly how Arthur had turned up in Southeast in the first place. Mrs. Bracknell listened to the whole story with her mouth pursed and her gaze pinned directly on me. She didn’t take notes, but then again, she didn’t seem like the sort of person who had to. When I finished by explaining how we’d noticed the lights on the world sculpture had gone out, she shook her head and sighed.

  “That awful sculpture,” she said. “We’d assumed it just needed repairs. A magician has to come over from South every three months to maintain the thing.” She looked over at Thomas. “That’s no excuse, though. We should have known better.”

  “I’ll have someone take a closer look at it,” Thomas offered, “to make sure there aren’t any more problems we’ve missed.”

  “Thank you.” Mrs. Bracknell turned back to me. “Lucy, you said Florence’s deputy came with you. Where is she now?”

  “In the washroom.” I turned around to stare at the door, willing Rosemary to walk through it. I was starting to worry she’d gotten lost somewhere in the depths of Interworld Travel. “She should be here soon.”

  “I hope so.” Mrs. Bracknell looked worried, too. “Now, you told me the climate was exceptionally normal at the Southern end of the world. What was it like at the Eastern end after the worldgate was sealed?”

  I tried to remember. It had only been a few days ago, but it already felt like months. “We had a hailstorm later that day, but it wasn’t a very large one. And we didn’t get quite as lost as we should have when we left the gatehouse.”

  “Remarkable,” said Mrs. Bracknell. “I can’t say I’m surprised, though. When the physical connection between two worlds is cut off, it’s only natural that each world’s influence on the other would weaken as well. Since you say the sense of normalcy was stronger at the Southern end of the world than at your own, I assume that worldgate was sealed first, perhaps a few days before yours.”

  Mrs. Bracknell spoke in long, brisk strides of language, and I couldn’t run to keep up with her the way I could with Thomas. “You mean things are becoming more normal at my end of the world, too?”

  “I’ll have to send my officers over to investigate more thoroughly,” said Mrs. Bracknell, “but yes, that’s exactly what I expect. In a few days, if the worldgate can’t be repaired, the area will be just like anywhere else: no more missing socks or hailstorms. At least, not any more than usual.”

  Arthur gave a nervous sort of cough.

  “But it can be repaired,” I told him. I looked at the others. “Can’t it?”

  Mrs. Bracknell and Thomas exchanged the sort of glance my parents used to give each other when they didn’t want to talk about something unpleasant until I was safely in bed.

  “I’m the Gatekeeper’s deputy,” I reminded them, “and the Gatekeeper is missing. I should know what’s going on.”

  “Of course. You’re right.” Mrs. Bracknell stood up. She was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to fix the worldgates,” she said carefully, “because the problem we’re facing is more than a matter of
broken locks. Worldgates don’t seal themselves, and gatekeepers don’t abandon their posts and leave without a trace. It’s clear to me, as I’m sure it’s clear to you, that we are under attack. Someone is tampering with our world on purpose. I don’t know who that someone is or what that purpose might be, but I’m hoping you’ll be able to help us find out. I’d like you to think hard, Lucy: before the worldgate broke, did anyone unusual pass through the end of the world? Anyone suspicious? Even if you can remember who came through the door most recently, that would be a great help.”

  The person who’d passed through the door most recently had been Arthur, of course, but I couldn’t tell her that. “No one suspicious,” I said. “Just some tourists and Interworld Travel employees—and the Gatekeeper, of course. Once she’d left, I wasn’t allowed to let anyone in or out.” At least that wasn’t a lie.

  Mrs. Bracknell didn’t look satisfied. “Do you have the travelers’ records with you?”

  “They’re back at the gatehouse. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I’d need them.” I shifted in my chair, trying to get comfortable. “I thought you should know, though, that Henry Tallard was poking around the end of the world just after the door closed, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done it.”

  Mrs. Bracknell’s eyebrows went straight up. “Henry Tallard?” she said. “The same Henry Tallard who crossed the Uncrossable Desert? Who found the bottom of Bottomless Lake?”

  “The same,” I said. “I don’t know what he’s up to right now, but I’d bet it’s not anything good. He wasn’t being truthful with me at the gatehouse. And the bees don’t like him.”

  THAT’S RIGHT, said the bees.

  Mrs. Bracknell frowned at them. “Have a team bring Tallard in to speak with me,” she told Thomas, who nodded and scribbled something on a pocket-sized notepad. “Tell him we’re giving him an award. He’ll enjoy that. If he knows anything about the worldgates, it shouldn’t take me long to find out, and if he doesn’t, we’ll send him on his way with a plaque or something like that.” She looked up toward the door. “What about Ophelia? Did she see Tallard at her end of the world, too?”

  It took me a moment to realize this question was directed at me. “Ophelia?” I asked. I’d never met anyone named Ophelia.

  “Ophelia Winston. Florence’s deputy.” Mrs. Bracknell frowned again, this time at me. “You said she was on her way. I can’t imagine what’s taking her so long. I’ll send someone to look for her.” She started across the room.

  “Wait!” I said. “The girl we met at Florence’s house said her name was Rosemary. My age, a little taller than me, with brown eyes and curls?”

  Whatever Ophelia Winston looked like, I could tell it wasn’t anything like that. Mrs. Bracknell was shaking her head, and Thomas had set down his notepad. Arthur didn’t say anything, but he sat up even straighter than before, as though he’d been jabbed.

  “Oh, worlds,” I said quietly. “Rosemary doesn’t work for Interworld Travel.”

  “No,” Mrs. Bracknell agreed. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Then who is she?” asked Arthur. “What was she doing at Florence’s house?”

  The bees hummed smugly. LIAR, they said.

  I shrank into my chair, feeling exactly as foolish as Rosemary had guessed I was. “She’s probably gone out the washroom window by now,” I said to the others. “Someone should check.”

  By the time a team of travel officers got into the lobby washroom, Rosemary was long gone. No one in the building had seen her pass by, and no one in the busy street outside had noticed a curly-haired girl slipping out of sight. “We’ll keep an eye out for her,” said the travel officer who’d come to deliver the news to Mrs. Bracknell and Thomas. “I don’t like our odds, though. We don’t have a photograph of the girl, and we can’t haul every child in the city up here for questioning.”

  I’d been standing at the glass-paneled wall, looking down at the city below. Centerbury stretched out below me in a patchwork of buildings and fields, hemmed in here and there by a stream or a roadway. The day had kept itself busy by turning into a damp gray afternoon, but the markets were bustling, and so were the streets all around the House of Governors. If Rosemary was anywhere in that crowd, I couldn’t pick her out from this distance. I’d lost her, and I’d lost the Gatekeeper, and I’d dragged Arthur across the world making everything even more disastrous than it had been to begin with. “I know what Rosemary looks like,” I said, turning back to the others. “Send me out with the travel officers. Let me search for her.”

  Thomas tugged at the sleeves of his suit jacket. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Goose,” he said. “It might not be safe, and you’re not trained—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “If Rosemary knows something about what’s happening to the worldgates, we’ve got to find her fast, and I can help. I want to help.”

  “I can help, too,” said Arthur. “I’ll go with Lucy.”

  But Mrs. Bracknell was shaking her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I agree with Thomas. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this is a job for professionals. You did the right thing coming to us. We can take care of the problem with the worldgates from here.” She turned back to the travel officer.

  Arthur nudged me. “What do we do now?”

  I had no idea. Arthur couldn’t go home to East, and I wasn’t about to go back to the empty gatehouse and sit by myself behind the desk, next to the fern, waiting for travelers who never came. “Please, Mrs. Bracknell,” I said. “Let us do something.”

  She gave me another of her long looks.

  “All right,” she said at last. “I don’t want you chasing down interworld criminals in the streets; it’s too dangerous. But the two of you can stay here for a few days and work in the archives. If Rosemary is a Southeasterner with a passport, her information will be filed somewhere, and we’ll need someone to dig through the archives and find it. Do you think you can do that for us?”

  I ignored the face Arthur was pulling and nodded. “We’d be happy to.”

  “Good.” Mrs. Bracknell gave me an approving sort of nod. “I appreciate your help, Lucy. I’m glad your brother convinced us to make an exception for you.”

  Before I could ask what that meant, Mrs. Bracknell was sweeping us out of her office and into the hallway. “Thomas can show you around the building,” she told us. “If you find anything important in the archives, come straight to him or to me, but please don’t do anything more without our approval. The last thing we need is another disaster.”

  8

  Thomas led us up the spiral staircase at the center of the Interworld Travel building, giving us a hasty tour as we went. “The Center for Otherworld Linguistic Studies is down that hall,” he said, waving an arm vaguely as we passed the fifth-floor landing, “and the universal armory is the third door on the left, though you won’t be able to get in there without top-level credentials. We don’t want people helping themselves to Western double-edged defense rays or Northern boatsinkers.”

  I hadn’t realized the Interworld Travel Commission had any need for weapons. “Do you use those things?” I asked.

  Thomas laughed. “Don’t worry, Goose; they’re just for our researchers to study. It’s important to learn about otherworld technologies. On the sixth floor, we’ve got the botany lab and the map room. The Explorers’ Museum is down on the second floor, if you want to look around, and so is the staff café. That’s where you’ll be having meals while you’re here. Let me say in advance that I’m very sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” asked Arthur.

  “You’ll know it when you taste it.” Thomas made a face. “Most of the building is open for you to explore as you’d like, but don’t barge into anyone’s private offices without knocking, and don’t try going up to the eighth floor. You won’t get very far.” We’d reached the seventh-floor landing now, and while the staircase continued up, we didn’t. The stairs to the eighth floor were barricaded with plywood and bright yell
ow tape. “We’re doing some construction work up there at the moment,” Thomas explained. “It’s not safe for visitors.”

  Our rooms were on the seventh floor in a part of the building called the Travelers’ Wing. “It’s for visiting otherworld diplomats, mostly, if they don’t have a place to stay in the city while they’re here on government business,” Thomas told us. “Luckily for you, though, it’s almost empty right now. We’ve got a trade official from West who’s come to talk to the House of Governors about some problems they’re having with interworld smugglers, and a farmer from Northeast who’s asked to meet with Mrs. Bracknell about his cows, though I have no idea why he thinks they’re any of her business.” He looked over his shoulder at Arthur. “You should find the guest rooms very comfortable, Your Highness.”

  “Oh!” said Arthur. “Er. Thank you. I’m sure I will.”

  My room in the Travelers’ Wing was twice the size of my bedroom back at the gatehouse, with its own washroom, a bed piled high with pillows, a long sofa, and a closet that connected to Arthur’s room on the other side. The bees buzzed back and forth curiously as I put down my rucksack and unpacked the few things I’d brought: a jumble of shirts and pants, a sweater, a book I’d forgotten I’d stashed in one of the outer pockets. I’d been feeling unsettled ever since I’d left the Gatekeeper’s house with all my things squashed into a bag, and it felt good to organize them on shelves and in drawers, to put them back in the places where they belonged.

  “Will you be all right in here, Goose?” Thomas poked his head into the room. “Do you have enough blankets? Towels?”

  “Yes, thanks. I’ll be fine. Except—” I lowered my voice, hoping Arthur and the bees wouldn’t wander in unannounced. “I’ve been wondering what Mrs. Bracknell meant when she said you’d convinced her to make an exception for me. What sort of exception did she make?”

  Thomas didn’t look away from me, exactly, but his gaze landed somewhere near my shoes. “I’m not sure what she was talking about, Goose, but I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. I’m sure it wasn’t important.” He shifted back and forth from one foot to the other again; before, I’d thought he was busy, but now I wondered if he was nervous. “When you’re done unpacking, let me know, and I’ll show you down to the archives.”