by Brad Ashlock
“Sorry?” the old man said, rubbing his chin.
“What kind of magic door jumps us to Arkansas? This blows,” Cal said.
Naumkin hushed Cal and ventured a question to the old man. “Can you tell us what year it is?”
“Is this some kind of joke?”
“Please,” Naumkin said. “We’ve been away a long time. It’s a long story. Can you tell me?”
“Sure,” the old man said, fear creeping back into his eyes. “It’s 1857.”
Part II: Through the Looking Glass
That night when the wind had picked up the snow off Tigran Naumkin’s roof and deposited it on the snowdrifts huddled against Gordon Dudley’s fence, Meeko Russell had looked out the window across the tundra to the woods beyond. She had been staring into the forest and, simultaneously, into the past, into the time when her mother and father were together. She had known the word divorce contextually. Meeko’s friend, Miranda, had parents who had separated and later married other people. According to Miranda, divorce meant extra Christmasses, weekend visits, and deliveries of school clothes.
To Meeko, the word was an abstraction, a confused situation that, until now, she hadn’t needed to define. Some of the kids at school couldn’t afford trips to Europe and Disney World, some had mothers who were white and fathers who were black, and some had parents that were divorced. Family to Meeko meant variety, but a stable kind of variety. Miranda’s parents, though apart, had a sensible pattern. Meeko’s family had had a sensible pattern too. A good pattern. She loved her parents, and the family vacations, and the stories before bed. Then things changed. She had remembered overhearing the arguments: the bad words, the crying, the shouting, and, almost worse than all of that combined, the dead silences. The family pattern had been shattered. The stability had been unbalanced. Meeko felt like she had been thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool and asked to sink or swim.
She was almost nine years old. She had remembered the trip to Europe and the two to Disney World. Her daddy used to throw her into the air and catch her; she’d also stand on his hands and balance, much to the chagrin of her mother, above his head, so high she could touch the ceiling with her fingertips. Daddy couldn’t balance her that way anymore (she had grown), but he could still toss her up into the air and catch her. He hadn’t done that for a long time. He had told her that even though he still loved mommy, he wouldn’t be living at the house anymore. He had also said that he loved Meeko, too, always would, and just because they wouldn’t be living together that didn’t mean he didn’t love his little pumpkin. How could that be, though? If he really loved her and mommy, how could he leave? Meeko had wondered if it wasn’t really her own fault, wondered if she had done something terrible to bring about the abstract D-word that sounded like Devil and Force combined: devil-force… divorce.
Daddy had packed his bags and had them waiting at the front door. She had remembered seeing them, leather and brown, like overstuffed turkeys with wrinkled skin; perhaps she had only been recalling the recent Thanksgiving, the only one Daddy had ever missed. Seeing those bags, those overstuffed Thanksgiving turkeys filled with his clothes that smelled like his cologne, Daddy’s perfume, dark and spicy, had given Meeko the feeling of a bird pecking in her stomach. She had put her hand to her belly, watching her father standing at the door and gathering the luggage, and then her tears came and she felt her chin tremble. She ran to him, begged him not to leave, and promised to do anything in the whole wide world just to keep him here with Mommy, here at home, not to go running off with the devil-force. He had held her shoulders gently and kissed the top of her head. He looked behind her to her mother, smiled through tears, and then departed.
Mommy hadn’t wanted to be alone. She had told Meeko they’d be staying with Grandpa Dudley in the mansion for Christmas. Sure, Mommy could run to her daddy, could run back to Lusker House, the old homestead, still so unchanged even after Grandma’s death, while Meeko had to spend the holidays fatherless. It wasn’t fair.
They had gone to Lusker House. On their first night at the manor, Meeko Russell stared out the window of the room she had been assigned, looking to the woods and dreamed that Daddy would return, that everything would become normal again, that the devil-force would drain like a car battery and get stranded out there in the snowy tundra.
And then he had been there. Standing below her window in the snow in his puffy winter coat, his mittened hands motioning her to go outside and meet him; he had been there smiling. Heart racing, Meeko had gotten out of her pajamas, put on the clothes she had worn that day, and rushed out of her room. The house was empty. Most of the help, except for Grandpa’s bodyguard, secretary, and cook, had gone to be with their families for Christmas.
Meeko crept down the stairs quietly, fished her boots, hat, coat, and gloves out of the closet, and had gone out the back door. The wind had been scary. It whistled and moaned, sending up whirls of snow and ice around her. The air had been cold on her face. She ran around the outside of the mansion to the front yard, gleefully unquestioning. Her father had been standing in the same spot where she had seen him from the window. She galloped across the icy ground into his arms. He picked her up, threw her into the air and caught her. Would they all be together again?
He told her that he and mommy had had a big talk, and that they were all going to go home again. Mommy would meet them in a couple days. He said Mommy wanted to be with her daddy, grandpa Dudley, for a while, and that Meeko should be with hers.
Daddy said they needed to stop someplace first, that Meeko deserved one of her Christmas presents early for being such a princess. He lifted her up into his arms and trudged to the fence where a snow bank had been plowed up against the wrought iron bars. He carried her up the snow and deposited her over the fence to the other side. He had followed, picked her up again, and marched into the forest.
He carried her a long time singing the old song he used to always sing to her, Hey Jude. She hadn’t been scared of the darkness or the wind as long as he sang that song to her. They finally had come to a large building behind a rusty barbed wire fence. Dad had known a way in, had set her carefully on the ground, and then they went to the dilapidated structure. He explained that he had hidden her present within the ugly monster of a building. This used to be her great-great grandpa’s factory for making chocolates, he informed her. It was falling apart. Inside awaited pitch-black darkness except for a shimmering light in the far corner. They had gone to it and then down the winding metal staircase below the floor. Daddy told her to be very careful. She followed closely behind him until he told her to stop. He jumped down and then had her fall into his arms.
There had been a large metal door with pictures all over it, like in a comic book. Daddy had her close her eyes and then he opened the door. She remembered the sound like nothing she had ever heard before; it had reminded her of those bugs that peel their shells on trees and buzz in the summer, a whole swarm of cicadas. Even with her lids tight, the flashes of brilliant light had made her turn away. Dad had guided her through the door by the hand. It had slammed shut behind them. He told it was OK to open her eyes now.
“How did we get here?” she asked her father. She was in her old room back home. There was her bed populated with stuffed animals, the mobile she had made last year in Mrs. DeWitt’s class, her stereo, and all the posters of Brittney, Christina, and N’Sync.
Dad removed his coat, hat, and mittens, kneeled down and reached under her bed. He had withdrawn a little box that fit in the palm of his hand. It had been wrapped in gold shiny paper and tied with a dark blue bow. “Here you go, honey,” he had said handing it to her.
She had unwrapped the paper exposing a little white cardboard box. She raised the top lid, reached inside, and pulled out a gold locket by a thin chain. It had swung back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch.
“Merry Christmas, Meeko.”
She caught the locket in mid-swing, and had held it in her hand like a ladybug. “Thank you, Daddy.
” The face of the locket was ivory. It had been delicately carved to depict Meeko’s likeness. She ran her finger around the rim of the oval locket and then flipped it over and examined the back. We Love You, Meeko had been engraved in the gold. Meeko had thanked her father again, and then had attempted to open the locket.
“Let me,” her father had said, taking it. He had popped it open and withdrew a tiny key. He had returned it to her cupped hands.
She smiled, replaced the odd little key into the locket, and closed it with a click. “But how did we get here?”
“I know things have been hard on you, baby. Daddy’s going to make everything better. I know you’re scared and confused, but you have to trust me, Pumpkin. Soon, everything will be just like it used to be. No questions. It’s late. I’m not going to leave now. I put a lock on your door to keep you safe. You have to use your locket key to go in and out of your room from now on. OK?”
“OK.”
He kissed her on her forehead and then left the room. The door slammed behind him.
Time seemed to stand still now. Meeko would wake in the mornings, use her key, and was greeted by her father and mother at the breakfast table. Daddy would go to work; Mommy stayed with her most of the time, but neither her mother nor her father would answer any questions. After a week, her questions, like her memory of the bad times, of the devil-force, had faded. It was turning out to be a wonderful Christmas vacation. Everything she had wanted had come to be.
She didn’t know, couldn’t know, that her entire life had become a construction, a simulacrum designed to keep her happy and imprisoned. Lusker had kidnapped her to torture the Dudleys. He had planned to kill her, but The Presence had changed those plans. The Presence had become curious about the child that had found her way to his dominion of doors. The Presence, invisible, would follow Meeko throughout her day. At night, it would hover over her to taste her breath as she slept.
Joost Lusker was not allowed to kill her, but in exchange had been given a treat in the form of a much earned vacation: a trip. Lusker, over the years, had turned into quite a reliable servant, one of the best collectors The Presence had ever employed. Over the century, The Presence had come to Lusker, had stoked the coals of Lusker’s rage, and had twisted the former financier into a vehicle of hate and vengeance. The Presence, itself unable to venture between the worlds, had used Lusker to fetch things: pretty things, sweet things, warm things, and hideous things.
Lusker, The Presence decided, had finally earned the privilege to take his vengeance upon the Dudleys. Nevertheless, this new thing, this treasure of candied breath and silky brown hair the albino had brought back from Earth, should not be wasted. Not yet. The Presence, in its own twisted way, loved the girl. In exchange for her life, The Presence had given Lusker a trip back in time. The albino deserved something to make up for being denied the gratification of throwing Meeko to the dogs.
After it had become apparent that Gordon Dudley was going to flee, Lusker had commanded the dogs to bring The Chocolate King down. Afterward, Lusker, being denied the pleasure of killing Meeko by The Presence, had taken one of the dogs with him on his special excursion while the other dogs guarded the door under the factory. The Presence had given Lusker a unique key. Those who traveled without keys would end up in random worlds and be forced to find new doors on their own.
Lusker had inserted the key in the proper door and was now in a place and a time he had longed to return to for over a century. Although it looked like the Grand Rapids of Earth back in the late 1800’s, it was not. It was the same world in almost every conceivable way except that no Joost Lusker had ever been born here.
This vacation was his bonus for handing Meeko Russell over to The Presence unharmed. The albino walked the red-bricked streets between the small shops. It was early autumn here. The cooling wind caressed his cheeks as he hobble toward the river, his falcon-headed cane digging between the cracks of the pavement. He tipped his derby to the ladies that passed him and then to the whores on the corners.
Ah, to return home, back to terra firma, back to the time when all he had been was a man, a financier, a human being with no masters and few cares. The Presence had twisted Lusker’s soul in all those years on the other side. Lusker had to do what he could in order to survive in the maze. He had become a collector between the worlds, serving The Presence, who could not travel. Lusker had been across a thousand different timelines to a thousand different realms, filling The Presence’s zoos, reliquaries, collections, museums, and arenas with the strange and wonderful objects and creatures of the universes.
Who or what was The Presence? Lusker had wondered that often in the beginning. Lusker had thought he had actually caught traces of The Presence over the decades: a passing shadow, a flicker of light, or a puff of air across a dusty floor. What was The Presence? Essentially, it was a tragic being. The Presence owned all the keys to all the doors of is prison, but lacked the hands to turn them. The Presence was forced to rage and seethe in its labyrinth of shifting Everywhere Doors, forced to use agents like Lusker to go out and return with entertainments.
The Presence had developed an obsession with our modern world. When the doors had opened between The Presence’s maze and Grand Rapids, Lusker had been forced to bring back samples of its wildlife, people, and artifacts. Every time he would return to Grand Rapids on his errands, he would remember the Dudleys. He knew that they were still powerful, still living high on the hog off Lusker’s hard work, even daring to reside in his old mansion.
With every dubious trip back t G.R. to fetch The Presence an animal, a chair, or a hobo, the albino’s ire would rise. The Presence had promised him one day that he’d be allowed to get even with the backstabbing Dudleys. The time had come and passed. Dudley’s heir had been destroyed, his granddaughter brought to the labyrinth for whatever horrible fate Lusker could devise. However, The Presence had become infatuated with the little bitch and, at least for the time being, forbade any harm to befall her.
The Presence had displayed an unprecedented act of diplomacy and in exchange for the girl, allowed Lusker to return to a likeness of his original place and time. Lusker was enjoying it now. He walked to the bank of the Grand River, a three-year-old boy at his side.
All of the dogs had desired the same thing after being brought through the magic door: to be able to become human. Unfortunately, age had been a factor, so a five-year-old dog could only transform into a five-year-old human. Although The Presence’s powers were virtually unlimited in the realm of magical metamorphosis, Lusker’s were quite restricted. Giving the dogs the ability to change into children was the best he could do. The boy next to him on the riverbank was the leader of the pack. It called itself Sebastian. Even Lusker found the speech of the dogs, an unexpected side effect after being given the ability to transform, disturbing. Regardless of their power to verbalize, they could only express the most beastly, primal desires.
“So this is what we get instead of the girl?” Sebastian spat. The child was just behind Lusker, looking into the rushing brown water, playing with the gold cross at its neck (the jewelry had been lifted from Mr. Williams’s corpse).
“Haven’t you had your fill of human blood?” Lusker asked.
Sebastian grunted.
They spent the remains of the day wandering the old streets and dining in the best restaurants the city of that time could offer. Lusker capped the night off with a prostitute. Perhaps the dog was right, perhaps killing the girl would have been better, but Lusker tried to make the most of it. The following day, after another nostalgic walk through the city, he fished the special key The Presence had given him from his coat, and returned to the maze, the domain of the Everywhere Doors.
They emerged into the great corridor lined with doors of different shapes, sizes, and designs. There were cathedral doors, shed doors, screen doors, and elevator doors. In the maze, Sebastian strode with its master down the narrow hall. Before returning the 1800’s Grand Rapids key to The Presence, Lusker
had to check on the dogs stationed at the chocolate factory. This called for a different key. Lusker withdrew his large ring, found the correct key, and inserted it into the keyhole of one of the doors. He opened it and stepped over the threshold, Sebastian in tow.
They were in the chocolate factory now. They pulled themselves up the broken staircase and ascended to the manufacturing level. Sebastian resumed its canine form and instantly sniffed at the air.
“Man,” the dog said.
“The chess player?”
“Too faint to tell.”
They exited the factory and discovered the two shotgun blasted dogs, Vincent and Algernon. Pools of blood had crystallized around the frozen bodies. Sebastian found a piece of tattered fabric. It buried its nose into the bloody rag and said, “Old man.”
Lusker scowled. “He must have gone through the door. Damnation!”
“Huntin’ time?” Sebastian asked.
“Yes. Find him, Sebastian. Quickly. Kill him on sight.”
“Yes!”
“The Presence must not learn about this. Go now. Let nothing stop you. Follow the spore. Who knows where or when Naumkin ended up; without a key he could be anywhere, anytime.”
“Old man’s lost.”