Portals

by Amy Simone

  “We’ll be safe in my office,” he explained. “You had no business in all that mess.”

  “Trust me, I didn’t choose that,” she said.

  Now they hurried along finely engineered stone halls with brilliant fluorescent type lighting. There were some sounds of light thuds above them.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “World Wars,” he answered. “You got stuck in a history warp.”

  He opened a large brass door using a massive wheel. “Go sit down. I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

  She threw the train of her dress off to one side and plopped into one of the black blob seats that rose to accept her reclining body. “Oh jeez,” she muttered.

  “Have this,” he said, and offered her a glass of liquid.

  “Are there drugs in this?”

  “No, it’s fruit and water. You know how I like my fresh fruit.”

  Cassie drank. All the smoke from the castle battle seemed to have settled right into her lungs. She coughed.

  “Where have you been?” she asked again. “I lost my computer.”

  “I know. I arranged that. Those people were wicked.” She knew exactly who he referred to.

  “Where is that guy who works for you?” she asked. “Bruce the lumberjack?”

  “He’s working another situation right now. Much more serious than yours.”

  Cassie set her glass down on the floor by her feet. It amazed her to see her ankles held in a severe lacing of leather strings culminating into a moccasin of sorts. The leather was soft, though, so it didn’t hurt.

  “You saw I was in trouble, I guess.”

  The Coach winked at her. “Why do you think we have all these monitors?”

  34

  What to Do?

  “Coach, I need some answers,” Cassie pleaded. “Why am I seeing all of this and you? Why can that guy, Bob, see too?”

  “We pick only a few,” the Coach began. “You needed help. Remember, your father asked.”

  “It’s been some awful help, if you ask me,” she argued. “I am in trouble with the law. I get to see why my husband left me. Talk about rubbing my face in the dirt.”

  “Quiet.”

  “No, I won’t be quiet,” she continued. “Things are getting worse, not better.”

  “There’s your life,” he said. “We aren’t controlling it.”

  “Yet you call yourselves The Controllers.”

  “More like the Monitors,” he offered. He settled deeper into his expansive desk chair, raised up his legs and put his feet on his desk, then took a deep drink from his cup. “Ah.” His long white robe almost touched the floor while he was in this position.

  “This has affected my kids,” she whined. “I cannot stand that. I don‘t want them involved!”

  “Oh but my dear, they are involved. Now they have to deal with a new stepmom, you, their dad…”

  “That woman is more like a sister,” she said.

  “That was your husband’s decision.”

  “I’m just so worn out. Where any of this is going.”

  “In time,” he told her. “You’ll see in time.”

  She pushed against the chair and sat more upright. “I did what you suggested. I gave up my laptop. Now I can’t even find you when I need you anymore.”

  “That’s not true,” he explained. “Your new friend Bob tried to explain to you but you were too busy having a pity party…”

  Cassie objected, then angrily clamped her jaw shut instead. The silence in the Coach’s office hung for several moments.

  “All right,” she finally said, “What exactly do you propose I do?”

  “Drop the attitude.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” her mentor told her. He moved his feet back down, now sat up too, facing her. “We’ve been observing you and how you have pretended to be a good little girl not wanting to make any waves.”

  “I don’t follow. I am raising my kids.”

  “That part is fine. But the rest of it—yeech.”

  He turned to one of his most mammoth monitors. “Just watch,” he told her. “This could be you, future you.”

  The screen was at least seven feet tall. It went blank for a moment as he touched his remote. Then a screen came into focus. It showed Cassie riding Sailor in a horse show.

  “That’s in the past, you idiot!” she wanted to scream but she murmured, “I was young then.”

  “Oops, wrong section.” He punched more keys. Now she saw herself standing on top of a mountain with a backdrop of a huge red fiery sunset. It looked like she had jogging clothes on.

  “Oh, please, a jock? I don’t think so. I hate running.”

  “Then this…” The screen switched to a corporate high rise office. Cassie was dressed in a powder blue business suit and addressing a large staff. She stood at the head of the shiny table with a power point display behind her.

  “Uh uh, Coach, I don’t think so,” she protested. “That’s not me.”

  “But it can be. You just got to take back your power.”

  Cassie angrily trounced the huge mass of her dress back over her lap and stood up. “This is ridiculous. If you think you’re inspiring me, this is a pile of BS. None of those are me. I don’t like it. I don’t want to be any of those things. I hate running. I hate working in offices.”

  “How do you know? You just were a waitress then an online seller,” he shot back.

  “Don’t forget, a mom—foremost above all.”

  “That takes care of itself.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she explained. “How typical that you, a man—if you even are male—trying to claim to understand what it means to be a mom.”

  The Coach looked at her squarely. “I’ll grant you that.”

  “What you are telling me is you have no answers for me.”

  “If you reject what I’m trying to offer you, then I suppose that’s true.” He sat back and darkened the screen.

  “… that the answers are within myself and all that New Age jazz, huh?”

  “We don’t call it New Age around here, dear. Age is a relative concept when you talk to Controllers. You must remember, we have been around for eons.”

  Cassie bristled at his condescending tone. “I need to go. This is not helping.”

  “Bye bye,” the Coach said in a soft, almost singsong voice.

  He must have hit a special eject button because when Cassie came to she stood exactly in her work station holding her scanning device. She could still hear some din in the background as little voices clamored to get out of their boxes but she kept her head down and intensely focused on work.

  “I can’t hear you,” she whispered. “I’m minding my own business. Leave me alone.”

  Guiltily, she looked once at Sharla to see if her manager noticed her absence. No, there was no reaction. Sharla was busy talking on her work phone and gesturing.

  How could she to reach out to the other side in any organized manner? The Coach had not given her any hints. By now she wanted no more to do with the parallel universe. It had racked ruin with her everyday life. She felt her kids were at risk—especially after what Annie and Greg had done to Caleb. That was the main reason she wanted her boys to go away for the summer.

  “Bastard,” she thought to herself when she summoned up the last vision she had of the Coach lecturing her.

  “I’m not going back,” she thought. “It’s time to resist.”

  35

  Decisions and Consequences

  Having decided, Cassie felt better instantly. She found she could focus better. In a way it was as if she’d developed tunnel vision. As she walked the aisles at work, she would seek only the boxes on her list. She forbid herself to even turn her head to read any extra labels or to tune into any of the tiny voices. She thought of herself like a heat-seeking missile. Her productivity went up. She was faster at locating her targets and loading them onto the carts.

  Bingo, she told herself. I
t was as if she’d found one piece of a missing puzzle. No longer would she let those forces or things or whatever they called themselves to knock her around like that. No, she was not crazy. Even Bob had told her that. Except her form of sanity meant getting away from this subtext universe. If she felt that strange sucking energy again, she’d do whatever it took to fight it. Over and over she’d repeat the word “resist” throughout the day. She thought of this as her insurance policy.

  What a crock it’d all been. Just plain stupid, she thought. In the first place there was no way to harness any of it or direct it. Those options the Coach had shown her had all been trash ideas. She laughed to herself just thinking she might aspire to be a captain of industry. Heck, she didn’t even take but a few classes at community college. Then to imagine herself doing endless loops as a runner? That was even more ludicrous. All these dreams—they must have come from somebody else or perhaps the Coach and his team had seen too many commercials. This made Cassie laugh even more.

  Emboldened, she ran-walked up the aisles at work as she retrieved her stock. Sharla noticed and nodded, impressed by her employee’s growing zest. The better Cassie worked meant that Sharla’s overall numbers would go up; they might give more bonuses; everybody would be happier.

  Still, by the end of her shifts, Cassie was dog tired. She crashed once she got to her mom’s house, ever grateful that Hayworth was still in town to watch her boys at night. That wouldn’t last forever. Hayworth’s wedding to Frank was coming up and so far several potential buyers had looked at the house. Once Hayworth finished her move to Colorado, Cassie figured she had only a few options as what to do with her boys—either she had to find a different job or she had to ask Ralph to take them more nights. Catherine had showed if it was an emergency she could watch them but she already had a house full of kids. The clock was ticking. School would let out soon, too. Then there was the larger question, where would Cassie and her tiny brood live once Hayworth’s house sold?

  Cassie browsed the local rental market using her phone. The prices seemed so high. Her job only paid so much. Ralph gave her a set amount, too. These things together worked while she lived for free at Hayworth’s. Cassie shuddered to think how she’d get by once her mother sold her house. She hated being in limbo like this but she’d give a short, quick prayer and hope for the best. It made her nervous, though, just to trust like this. The future looked awfully murky.

  Bob texted her during the week just to see how she was doing. She gave a short, quick response that all was well and that her son would be there for the second lesson. Her first inclination was to avoid Bob. Now she’d shunned the Coach and that entire strange world, getting too familiar with Bob didn’t make much sense to her. She felt vulnerable that she’d allowed him to see her fall apart, too.

  She considered re-upping her subscription to the dating service that Hayworth had given her. There were so many men to choose from but she got cold feet.

  Once Saturday rolled around, she had arranged for Josh to stay behind at her mother’s. Keeping him outside, waiting for the lesson to be over, was more than she wanted to deal with. So, she suggested that Ralph either pick up their youngest directly at Hayworth’s and she’d drive Caleb over later. Josh got cranky sitting on the grandstand. This way she could watch the lesson more and understand what was being taught. The horses, as always, held a special place in her heart.

  Bob occasionally looked her way. He could tell she was being stand offish the moment she got out of the car. Why? He wondered.

  After the lesson was over, he took Caleb’s hand and walked him over to his mother.

  “Your son did awfully well,” Bob told her, searching her face for some answers.

  Cassie kept her gaze ducked down, then stooped to get to Caleb’s level. “I’m so proud of you, son.”

  Bob waited for a moment, he could tell she didn’t want to speak to him so he released the little boy’s hand and helped another student.

  Cassie took Caleb out to lunch on their way over to his dad’s. She attributed the previous encounter with Bob as a one-off. Bob was part of all that portal stuff. She was done with it all. She wanted to be free and live among the present. This portal stuff was too scary for her. She didn’t like surprises, anyway.

  Caleb sucked down his chocolate shake. “I think man likes you, mom,” he said.

  “Oh really? What makes you think that?”

  “I could tell. He kept looking at you.”

  “Now honey, there were a lot of us sitting there watching,” she reminded her son.

  “I can tell, mommy. I have eyes, you know.”

  36

  Wondering

  Bob always found it best to leave well enough alone. At first it perplexed him that Cassie walled him off. Then he figured she must have gotten scared by something. He tried to figure out if he had done anything directly but couldn’t think of anything. As usual, he went about caring for the horses that afternoon and into the evening. There was always something to do—mowing pastures, cleaning troughs, buying more feed, checking and cleaning tack.

  By mid-afternoon, he took a break. Some of his boarders were circling around in the arena, practicing for an upcoming show. He didn’t teach much on the weekends and only gave them a tip or two from ringside.

  Inside, his cool air-conditioned house he felt instantly relaxed. Opting for a shower, he got cleaned up and drove into town. It’d been a while since he’d gone to the library, too. That was another place he preferred since it was quiet.

  Once there, he visited his favorite sections—the old writings of the masters. If he hadn’t gone into the service, he was sure he’d done something ludicrous like get a degree in English lit. He was sure of this much. Smiling, he pulled out some books by Walt Whitman. He’d loaned his copy of Leaves of Grass to an Army buddy and never got it back. Bob liked to select one book at a time and savor it, read it front to back and then go back to his favorite parts. He believed in really studying something if it caught his interest. That was one reason he’d had some success with the horses, he liked to take his time with them, lots of time. Like books they held so many facets.

  He took the book to an open table, sat down and read it. The library wouldn’t close for another couple of hours and he intended to check the book out.

  “Psst!”

  Bob looked up over his reading glasses.

  A female robed form held out her arm towards him. “C’mere,” the figure muttered.

  Bob rolled his eyes. He knew this was one of the spirits as he liked to call them.

  “Not now.” He sat there and returned to reading.

  “I’m serious,” the witch figure insisted. “You will want to know this.”

  “I’m busy.” He considered moving or just flat out leaving the building. Quietude was more what he was after, that and being left alone.

  “It’s about her,” the witch hissed.

  “Oh, all right. This better be worth it,” he said, closing the book and taking it with him as he left the table.

  The witch led him to one of the conference rooms. She closed the door, then pulled back her hood. “You got to get Annie and Greg out of their mess,” the witch began. “That hottie you’re after got them locked up.”

  “You don’t look locked up now,” Bob observed.

  “Come on. You know what I mean. I can get around like this but not like you do. You go back and tell that girlfriend of yours to fess up. She double crossed us.”

  “I’m not up to speed on all this,” Bob objected and moved to leave the room. The witch stepped in between him and the door.

  “No. You don’t get to brush me off like this.” Bob didn’t like the way the spirit was looking at him. The ravages of time had worked on her face. She now had a major downturn to the corners of her mouth and her eyes drooped significantly making her entire face look like melted wax. Her hair was a vague mix of grey and blond with some matting as though she had never brushed it. The only hint she had once been human
or had any human link was that she had lipstick smeared on her mouth.

  “We have ways,” she threatened. “Think your horses are safe? Think again.”

  “Get out of here,” he said. His temper was getting the best of him now.

  He pushed her aside and left the room, then the library. The encounter bothered him. How did this thing who should have lived for forever in the library know about his business?

  That evening, as he checked on his horses around 11, it alarmed him to find Puck’s momma was breathing hard. It looked like colic to him. He put in a call to his vet and got his truck and trailer ready in case he had to haul the pair to the hospital. The answering service explained that his usual vet was in Hawaii. Racking his brains, he remembered that Cassie’s ex might help, so he called the after hours number.

  Eventually Ralph returned the call.

  “I hate to bother you this late,” Bob started.

  “What’s the issue?”

  They decided over the phone what would serve as a tipping point to bring the mare in. She was obviously in distress.

  Three hours later, Bob followed Dr. Owens’ directions and drove through the main gate. Nothing he had done had helped his horse, and she was going down fast. The entire yard was lit up. Dr. Owens had called in his partner to assist in case they had to open her up. Even Susan was there, dressed in her scrubs. The boys slept in Ralph’s truck.

  “Looks like a party,” Bob joked feebly as he unloaded his horse and her baby. Susan put the youngster in a stall near another horse so it wouldn’t get too stressed.