by Joshua Cook
He took the bags from her outstretched hands. At least he could brush his teeth and take a proper shower. “Any coffee in this weird headquarters of yours?” he asked, trying to make light of the situation.
“Of course... Take a shower, get cleaned up, put on some fresh clothes, and I’ll be back here in twenty minutes to show you the way to the kitchen,” Jasmine replied. She kept her eyes locked firmly on Cendan’s face, and it was then he remembered he was standing here, in front of his ex, in just his boxers and a grin.
“Oh yes, okay… uh… thanks!” He closed the door, locking it behind him. He turned to the bags before him, reflecting that it had been nice of Jasmine, if not a little creepy. Cendan wanted his space—arm’s length was his preferred level of closeness with most people. While he and Jasmine had been far closer than that at one time, those days were long over. Still, after brushing his teeth, taking a shower and having a shave, he had to admit he was somewhat glad she’d brought his things. None of this was going to stay here, however. He might leave a few things here, but he was determined to keep from living this life all the time.
He quickly repacked everything, left the bags on the bed, and waited for Jasmine to return. It had only been a few minutes when she did so, knocking once more.
“Good, glad to see you up and ready. You didn’t unpack?” Jasmine nodded at the bags
“Not planning on leaving any of this here. I’ll buy a few things to leave here, but I have a life outside this, a job, responsibilities,” Cendan replied. Better to be totally honest about it. He may be one of them, but he wasn’t going to be living it all day, every day.
Her lips tightened. Jasmine had always been easy to read as her face showed what she was feeling regardless of what she said. Clearly, she didn’t agree with what he’d said. He was probably going to get the same response from all of them. Cendan had joined them, but on his own terms.
The kitchen wasn’t far from where he had slept, and unlike most of the place, didn’t even have a door. It was also surprisingly modern, which stood out here even more than the lack of a door did. Both Marcus and Sal were there as well, drinking coffee and eating. Cendan poured himself some coffee and hunted around for whatever there was to eat. While he actually enjoyed cooking—it was just a process, after all—this morning seemed one to just grab something quick, and so a bowl of what appeared to be granola would do.
Sitting down and starting to eat, Cendan didn’t talk. The others glanced at each other several times, appearing to be somewhat surprised at this. Cendan had questions, of course, and a lot of them. But he was still feeling this out, and a lot could be learned by what someone else said first.
Finally, Marcus spoke up. “Sleep well?”
Cendan nodded. “Yes, thanks. Jasmine nicely brought me nearly my whole wardrobe from home, so I was able to change and get a good shower, too. I’ll have to take most of it back though.”
“Why? Just leave it here.” Marcus scowled. “You’re a Bridgefinder now. You should be here.”
“As I told Jasmine, I have a life, Marcus. I agreed to this, but I need my space. I have a job, a career, and clients. It’s important to me.” Cendan set the spoon down. “And honestly this place creeps me out.”
Sal who had been eating his own bowl of cereal, shrugged a bit. “Yeah, it can take some getting used to.”
Whirling towards Sal, Marcus forced himself to be calm. “Not helping.”
“I mean,” Sal continued, “the weird rounded corners, all the different doors, no windows, either. And did you notice the lights? Lots of lights. Right? But they aren’t the same—some are flames, some appear to be electric, some are bugs, glowing bugs. They don’t move, but they glow. They don’t appear to eat anything, but still they glow. It’s creepy.”
Cendan hadn’t noticed the lights. That bothered him, but how often did anyone really inspect a light fixture as long as it worked? “What is the deal with all the lack of corners and doors, anyway?” he asked, taking a long sip of coffee.
“We don’t know,” Marcus replied. “I told you, we’ve lost so much we don’t even know what we’ve lost anymore. There are areas of this place we can’t even enter, only a maker could. And there are doors that are sealed, locked tight. One shows evidence of very heavy blows, blows strong enough to bend the steel the door is made of… blows made from the inside of the door. And the door is locked. And has been for an innumerable amount of years.”
This to Cendan’s mind was not the way to get him to stay—in fact, it made him want to leave, and now. Quickly finishing his meal, he stood. “So, if I want to go home, how do I do so?”
Jasmine sighed. “I can show you how. We will need to get your focus though.”
Cendan nodded. He figured that he’d need it to get in or out. He followed Jasmine out of the kitchen and down yet another oddly shaped hallway. This time, he did pay attention to the lights, and while the basic shape was fixed, same as the doors, each one was different. And Sal had been right about the light sources. Cendan noted at least six as they walked, laid out in no pattern he could figure out.
Jasmine stopped in front of the door that Cendan knew to be the same one as last night—the barrier room, Marcus had called it. There was a new light on the door today, a dark blue light on one of the glass globes in the door, and very faint golden lines between what he assumed to be his light and the others he had noted before.
Jasmine regarded the door as well. She seemed happy. “Nice shade of blue.” She pushed the door open.
Cendan looked at the door again. “What’s with these lights, anyway? I mean, obviously one is lit up for each focus in the room, but why?”
Jasmine shrugged. “This falls into the we aren’t sure category as well. We basically use it to tell whose here and whose not. Standing rule, if you leave the headquarters, you take your focus. What the old Bridgefinders used it for, though, we aren’t sure. Maybe exactly what we use it for, or maybe for other reasons.”
The explanation made sense, but it didn’t seem to cover everything. What were the golden lines? He considered asking, but kept his mouth shut. While all of this seemed real, there were strange gaps, things not adding up all the way. Cendan needed more information, and he needed to find it out himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jasmine—he did. She, however, fully bought into all of this. She had been raised in it. And, as a result, she believed it all without hesitation.
Cendan liked to figure things out on his own, or at least have a working theory. That way, when he opened his mouth to ask, he had a framework or an idea to work from. These golden lines, the key in his vision… he couldn’t put them into place yet, so he kept them out of any discussions.
The room held the same feeling of solidity he had noted before, but it was stronger this time. Was that a real feeling or just his imagination?
Jasmine cleared her throat. “Cendan, this is one of the main reasons we want you to stay. Taking the focus out of the barrier room means that it’s not helping keep the worlds separate. That means we’re back to where we started from. You need to take your focus with you—we aren’t saying you have to leave it. It’s too dangerous out there without it now. But if you stay at your own house, the barrier is weaker for it.”
Cendan paused. Based on everything he had learned that was a good argument. But still, while this place was at times comforting and felt real, other things about it were decidedly otherworldly. “I just need some space, Jasmine. My mind is still having a hard time accepting everything I’ve seen and done in the last twenty-four hours. You know me. This is not my life!”
“I know, Cendan. Three days ago, if someone had told me that I’d be standing in the barrier room, with you, telling you to stay here and be a Bridgefinder full-time… You? My ex? Cendan Key? The most ordered, logical, and frustratingly obtuse man I’ve ever known? I never would have believed it.” Jasmine slumped into a pig-shaped chair that appeared to be carved out of jade.
“Obtuse?” Cendan asked. “Ho
w am I obtuse?”
“Obtuse as hell when it comes to women and relationships,” Jasmine replied. “But that ship sailed, as they say. Still, here we are. Again. You’re a Bridgefinder now, Cendan. Your life won’t be the way it was before. It can’t be.”
Cendan didn’t say anything, but sat down in a chair of his own, this one shaped like a cylinder. He said nothing for a while, staring at his focus, which was still in the pattern of the board. “Question. If the connections—these Bridges—weaken the barrier each time, why doesn’t this Slyph just open a thousand of them at once, over and over? A million or more? You all—sorry—we couldn’t close them all if we tried.”
“That’s a question we’ve asked as well. Marcus thinks that at this point the barrier is so weak that the Slyph is being very careful about how and when she starts a Bridge. He thinks of the barrier like a water balloon. You know that thin skin separating the water from the air? Same thing. The barrier is so weak that if you puncture it too much, too fast, both worlds could be lost. Or our world at a minimum, something the Slyph for all her evil doesn’t want.”
Cendan examined that idea in his head, and it made good logical sense. “That is one of the first things I’ve learned about all this that makes sense to me. Jasmine, I need to go. This has been a lot to take in. Go and clear my head. I need some space to process all of this.” Cendan waved his hand around the room.
Jasmine nodded, saying nothing. She stood, approached the barrier board, and carefully removed her focus. Cendan reached down and hesitated for a moment before picking his up. The key felt right in his hand, warm and strong.
Jasmine had secreted her focus somewhere before him and had turned around. Without saying anything, she led him out of the room. The blue light and the green light were now out, dimmed to plain, empty grey. The thin gold lines were also missing.
The way out seemed closer than he remembered, but then again, who could tell in this place? Jasmine approached a wall and held out her hand, still holding the focus. “Come stand next to me, Cendan, and hold your focus in your hand like so.”
Cendan did so, feeling foolish. Offering the key to the wall? But with a soft grinding noise the wall parted, and the same stairs he had descended last night appeared before him, leading up to a narrow band of light. Jasmine beckoned him, they stepped onto the stairs, and the wall closed behind them. For a second, it was dark—that the only light came from the same narrow band from the crack in the door at the top of the stairs. Cendan watched the dust particles move in the light, flowing and floating in a dance all their own.
Then, there was a sound, and the door above them opened. Mid-morning sunlight streamed about them, making Cendan blink a few times in response. They quickly climbed the stairs and were greeted by one of Jasmine’s extended family. “How did they know to open the door for us?” Cendan asked.
“There’s a sensor under one of the metal stair plates,” she replied. “Step on it, and someone comes.”
Cendan considered the pale gray sky overhead. It was going to rain. It felt good to be outside, not locked up in a warren of tunnels. He slipped the key into his pocket, feeling its steady presence. “Thanks for showing me the way out, but I forgot my stuff.”
Sal appeared, holding his bags. “Figured you forgot these. You guys left straight from the kitchen.”
Cendan shouldered his things and thanked him. “So, you all know where to find me… just let me gather my thoughts. I’m not leaving, but I need to process, you know?”
Sal shot him a thumbs-up and a hopeful grin. Jasmine just slightly nodded, but trouble was brewing on her face. His car was where he had left it, right in front of the place. Cendan felt he had just returned from a long trip away—the car was familiar, but also not, and it had only been a single night.
As he drove home, the sky began to spit rain, and Cendan allowed himself to relax a bit. Getting out of the Bridgefinders’ headquarters helped him process everything. Firstly, he didn’t believe it was a hoax. He had been there after all. There was too much detail, too much information for it to be a hoax. So it had to be real.
Since all of it was true, the next thing was figuring out how involved with these people he wanted to be. They all seemed decent enough, and he already knew Jasmine, but that life—that life was a strange one. He was still mulling that part over when he finally pulled into his driveway in front of his house.
He admired it, but it seemed so foreign to him now. Truthfully it was far too big for him. He had bought it with the idea that one of two things would happen–either he would sell it off at some point for a profit, or he’d finally settle down and maybe even have a family, and then he’d already be set. But he’d been here for five years, and neither thing was close to happening. Still, he could afford it, so it wasn’t a huge worry.
He grabbed the bags out of the trunk and quickly walked into the house. The rain was coming down harder now—a cold rain, one that too much of would chill you to your bones. Everything seemed fine in the house, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that the place was semi-foreign to him. Once he entered his bedroom, he could tell Jasmine had been there. She’d never been the best about putting things away. Cendan cleaned up and unpacked the bags she had brought. He packed a small bag and threw some travel toiletries into it. That should work if he had to spend the night in the lair.
Cendan dried off his damp hair and went into his office. As he suspected, he had more than a dozen messages from various clients. Most wanted to know where he was. He had built a reputation as someone they could reach any day and any time, and the fact he had gone silent for twenty-four hours had freaked more than a few of them out.
But what to tell them? He was sure they would ask about the reason for his absence. While he was a stickler for the truth, he was pretty sure that wouldn’t work here. “Yes, sorry, I joined a small group of people fighting to keep magical creatures from invading our world and from flooding our world with magic. A mysterious creature they’ve never seen is behind it all… No, it’s not a cult… Wait… Hello? Hello?”
A smirk crossed his face. That would not go well. He’d left town to visit a friend? That wouldn’t work. After all, most of his clients knew his friends, what few he had. He’d had a romantic overnight? No, he doubted they would buy that. Maybe overnight meeting with a client who preferred to remain anonymous? That might work. More than one client of his didn’t want anyone to know they had hired him to fix their issues, regardless of whether simple logistics problems or more complex issues with technology. Yeah, that would work. And it was, if you really stretched it, kind of true.
He sat in his office chair and sighed. It felt good to be here, and the foreign feeling from before was fading fast. It was a good time to call some clients, and he picked up the phone and began dialing. Two hours later, he had returned all his calls, made plans for three consults, and was in his kitchen making a sandwich when someone pounded on his front door. There, standing out front was a harried and agitated Sal.
“Sal? What’s up?” Cendan opened the door. He wasn’t exactly happy to see him—he had started to put all that Bridgefinder stuff out of his mind, and this brought it right back.
“Bridge formed.” Sal blurted out. “C’mon, get your focus.” He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other in excitement and nervousness.
“Well, I—” Cendan started.
Sal cut him off. “Wait, it’s in your pocket, right? I can feel it. Good, c’mon!” He grabbed Cendan’s wrist and dragged him out the door.
“But my lunch, and I need to lock up—”
“No time! Bridge! Creatures, too. We don’t know what, but this is what we do. You’re a Bridgefinder now. Move!” Sal ran down to a waiting car. Cendan could see Marcus and Jasmine in the vehicle, Cendan sighed and followed.
Marcus nodded to him as he sat in the backseat next to Jasmine. “Good to see you. Took you long enough. This is why we live at the headquarters. We had to spend an extra ten minutes driving to
your house, ten minutes that whatever creatures are at the Bridge have to do what the Slyph wants. When we are all that stands between this world and her world, ten minutes is too much.” Marcus’ anger was evident in the lines of his face.
Jasmine wasn’t too happy, either, but she didn’t say anything. Cendan started to apologize, but stopped himself. That wasn’t going to do any good, and was he really sorry, anyway? He still wanted his old life. There was nothing wrong with that.
Thankfully, the drive to the Bridge wasn’t long. The silence in the car had been painful. They pulled up to a park with the slight screech of wet brakes. “Okay, it’s a park, so that rules out some of the more sinister creatures. Heads up for creatures that hide. With the rain and all this brush, it’s easy to miss stuff with your eyes.” Marcus stalked through the rain towards the tree line.
Jasmine caught the unanswered question that Cendan was about to ask. “There are a few creatures of the Slyph’s that for some reason hate nature. They are the ones that appear in places in cities—you know, alleyways and junkyards. Really rather scary things.” Cendan nodded, filing that one away. Sal appeared, holding a large heavy bag he had taken from the car’s trunk.
They all followed Marcus as he walked through the woods. Cendan felt something in the air outside of the cold wetness that was soaking into him. It was a tingle or a nudge—the same feeling he got when he heard a great song and a thrill went through him, but this got stronger the more they walked.
Sal looked at him and grinned. “You feel it, huh? That’s a Bridge.”
They turned around a large birch tree, and there it was. They’d said it appeared different to each of them, that no one Bridgefinder saw it the same way. To Cendan’s eyes, the Bridge had the appearance of glowing blue and green circuits surrounding a hole in the air. It was the strangest thing he’d ever seen.
“There’s the Bridge, all right,” Marcus said, “and more than one creature has come through.” He held up his ring. Sal and Jasmine scanned the surrounding area, their foci in their hands. Cendan started at the Bridge in awe. It was one thing to be told about it, and quite another to see it. He reached out a hand towards it when a high-pitched chittering sound broke his chain of thought.