A Road Can Open Both Ways

For a moment, Elias thought he had misheard.

“Nineteen?”

Mara nodded.

“She was eighteen when she disappeared,” Elias said. “That was only three years ago.”

Mara folded the map, carefully avoiding the split in its oldest crease.

“She looked about eighteen when I met her,” Mara said.

Elias sat down hard. A corner of stone dug into his thigh.

There had to be something wrong with the arithmetic. He could picture Lena at eighteen: blue coat, missing button, borrowing money she promised to return on Friday.

That Friday had passed three years ago. Lena never came home.

“Did she tell you where she was from?”

“Somewhere with a sea.”

“Lots of places have a sea.”

“I was six. I didn't conduct an interview.”

Mara glanced over the slab. When she crouched again, she handed him the map.

“She stayed until my aunt found me. Drew that bird on the back of a flour sack to make me stop crying. I kept it for years.”

“Was she hurt?”

“Her hands were burned.”

Elias looked down at his own scraped palm.

“Did she get better?”

“I don't know.”

The answer left him with nowhere to put the next question.

Mara unfastened a small flask from her belt.

“Drink.”

He swallowed too quickly and coughed. The water tasted faintly of metal.

“What is this place?”

“The south approach to Bellweather Bridge.”

He looked past her at the enormous broken span.

“Approach seems optimistic.”

“It was named before the middle fell out.”

She took the flask back.

“I'm supposed to be meeting two people down there. One of them will have opinions about your hand.”

“And the other?”

“Opinions about everything.”

Elias checked his phone.

Eight forty-three.

The lock screen showed a photograph of the shop, taken by Lena on a day he couldn't remember. His father stood in the doorway holding a broom. Elias was visible through the window, bent over a chart.

Seventeen minutes until nine.

He opened the message to his father.

Delivered.

No answer.

The picture and the little word beneath his message were suddenly unbearable. They belonged to a place where everything still made sense.

“Will nineteen years pass there too?”

Mara looked at the glass rectangle in his hand.

“I don't know where there is.”

“My home.”

“I've met people who lost a day between towns. One man arrived before the letter telling us he'd left. I haven't met someone from your harbour.”

“So you don't know.”

“No.”

He appreciated the honesty. He wanted her to say something else.

Beyond the slab came a scraping sound.

Mara put a finger to her lips.

The sound stopped.

She stood slowly, sword still sheathed, and beckoned him toward the pale tree.

“Bring your things.”

They made it six paces before Elias saw the stairs.

Faint white outlines of steps appeared inside the doorway, overlapping the grass he could still see through it.

Then a curve appeared above the top step.

The rusted mooring ring.

He stopped.

Mara turned.

“What?”

“I can see it.”

“See what?”

“The way back.”

Through the frame, grass moved in the wind. Over it lay another image: steps slick with water, the ring set into the harbour wall.

He shifted sideways.

The two pictures refused to fit together.

“The stairs are there.”

Mara followed his gaze.

“All I see is the hill.”

Elias took out his torch and switched it on. The white edges didn't change.

He switched it off.

“You're saying I shouldn't go over there.”

“That's exactly what I'm saying.”

“My father's coming to look for me.”

Mara's mouth tightened.

For the first time, she glanced at his phone without suspicion.

“If you can see something I can't, tell me before you touch it.”

He nodded.

They went back together.

The black reed still stood in the earth. Its tip had bent toward the doorway.

Mara kept herself between it and Elias.

Up close, the stair outline brightened. He could distinguish five steps, perhaps six. Below them lay darkness.

There should have been open shore beyond the bottom.

Perhaps the tide had returned.

He tried to remember whether he had held his breath at the harbour. He remembered wet stone, his foot slipping, his fingers finding the edge.

Nothing useful.

He reached toward the nearest white line.

“Slowly,” Mara said.

His scraped palm touched cold stone.

He flinched.

The stair vanished.

Grass again.

Elias stared at his empty hand.

“What happened?”

“I felt it.”

“Do it again. Stay on this side.”

This time he drew a breath before reaching.

The step returned beneath his fingers.

The grass inside the frame darkened. A narrow staircase descended between walls furred with pale growth.

Water dripped somewhere below.

Mara caught his shoulder.

“That isn't a harbour.”

He wanted to argue. Then he saw the ring properly.

It was set into the wrong wall.

At home, it had been on his left.

Here, it hung on his right, and beneath it were marks made by something dragging itself upward.

His lungs began to hurt.

He let out a frightened breath.

The passage disappeared.

Mara looked at him.

“Did you close it?”

“I don't know.”

“Try without holding your breath.”

He pressed his palm against the line and breathed normally.

For an instant, the stone returned.

Then it faded beneath his hand.

He inhaled and held it.

The staircase opened.

This time something moved at the bottom.

Something long, black and flattened slid up the steps. At first, Elias mistook it for a strip of cloth. It slipped across the threshold as he recoiled and gasped.

Sunlit grass filled the frame.

The flattened shape lay motionless among the roots beside the doorway.

Neither of them spoke.

Then the black reed pulled itself out of the ground.

It rose on six narrow legs.

What Elias had thought was its stem uncurled into a jointed body, no longer than his finger.

It tapped the stone threshold.

Once.

Twice.

From the grass beside the threshold came an answering scrape.

Mara drew her sword.

“Behind me.”

“I closed it.”

“Behind me.”

He obeyed.

The flattened shape beside the threshold twitched.

A hooked limb unfolded from beneath it.

It caught the stone, flexed, and pulled the rest of the flattened body out of the grass.

The creature was the size of a lean dog, made of overlapping dark plates. Its legs unfolded too far. Where a head should have been, two feelers swept across the grass.

A second needle-like shape clung to its back.

It shook itself, scattering drops of water.

Elias heard one strike his shoe.

Mara struck the nearest leg.

The blade rang. The creature lurched sideways, but the leg stayed attached.

“Run.”

They ran toward the pale tree.

Behind them came a rapid clicking.

Elias glanced back.

The creature wasn't following their footprints. It was moving directly toward the satchel at his hip.

He lifted the bag higher.

It changed direction.

“The map,” he said.

“Keep running.”

Mara shoved him around the tree. A hooked leg tore through the bark where his shoulder had been.

Silver leaves fell between them.

Her red cloak caught on a broken branch.

She pulled once, hard.

The clasp held.

Elias stopped to free it.

“Leave it!”

He fumbled at the clasp anyway.

The creature came around the trunk.

Mara turned to meet it. One hooked foot caught her upper arm before her sword knocked it aside.

She made a small, involuntary sound.

Elias got the clasp open.

The cloak dropped.

Mara caught his sleeve with her uninjured hand and dragged him downhill.

They slid through grass, stumbled over buried stones.

Elias had never run on a hill like this. Every stride landed lower than he expected.

Ahead, the ground ended.

A deep drainage ditch crossed their path. The opposite bank looked just beyond jumping distance.

Mara jumped.

Elias tried.

His boot struck the opposite edge. He fell forward, caught dry grass, and felt the soil loosen beneath his fingers.

Mara seized the back of his overshirt.

For one awful second, they both slipped.

Then she planted a knee and pulled.

He rolled onto firm ground.

Below them, the clicking stopped.

The creature stood at the edge of the ditch.

Its feelers reached across.

“Can it jump?” Elias whispered.

“I'd rather find out from farther away.”

They reached a low stone shelter built into the slope.

Its doorway was narrow. Mara pushed Elias through, turned sideways after him, and braced her boot against a loose block near the entrance.

“Help.”

They shoved the block together until only a hand's width remained.

Inside, the air smelled of old ash.

Elias bent double.

His whole body seemed to be trying to breathe at once.

A hooked foot scraped against the opening.

Mara crouched with her sword pointed through the gap.

“Don't touch any white lines.”

He nodded.

Outside, the creature moved along the wall.

He could hear each foot being set down.

At the back of the shelter was a crack no wider than his shoulder. Light showed through it.

Elias pointed.

Mara shook her head.

“There's a drop into the ditch on the other side.”

The clicking stopped.

Something brushed the gap at the entrance.

A feeler.

Mara struck it with the flat of her blade.

It withdrew.

A thin black limb slid beneath the stone instead.

Elias made a sound he wished he hadn't.

The limb reached toward his satchel.

He pulled the bag away.

Mara pressed her blade down, pinning the limb against the floor. The sword trembled in her hand.

“Find something heavy.”

There was a cooking pot in the ashes.

Elias lifted it.

The bottom came away.

“Something less historical.”

He grabbed a stone.

Before he could bring it down, a voice called outside.

“Mara?”

“Don't come closer!”

A pause.

“Good afternoon to you too.”

“Ivo. Get back.”

The limb jerked free.

The creature hurried along the outer wall.

Elias heard somebody swear.

Then a sharp metallic rattling, moving away from the shelter.

He climbed onto the loose block and looked through the gap.

A young man in a rolled-sleeve coat stood above the drainage ditch, shaking a tin at arm's length.

The creature went toward him.

“Is that your needle tin?” Mara shouted.

“Unfortunately.”

The man threw the tin into the ditch.

It struck stone, rolled, rattled again.

The creature followed the sound straight over the edge.

A splash came from below.

The man stayed very still.

Everyone listened.

At last he looked toward the shelter.

“I would appreciate an explanation before you acquire another one.”

His name was Ivo.

He helped them move the block, then made Mara sit on it.

Elias remained by the entrance, watching the ditch.

There was no clicking now.

“How did you know it would follow that?”

Ivo unrolled a strip of clean cloth.

“They follow the rattling. I used the same trick to get one out of a cupboard.”

“What did you put in the tin?”

“Used needles. Enough to make a noise when I shook it.”

Mara removed her hand from her sleeve.

Blood had soaked through the fabric.

Elias turned away from the entrance.

Ivo's expression changed.

He cut the sleeve along its seam and rinsed the wound.

Mara watched his hands.

“That cloth is clean?”

“Yes.”

“Actually clean?”

“I enjoy these votes of confidence.”

The cut was shallow, but long.

Elias stared at it.

She had been standing behind a slab, waiting to meet her companions. He had brought her back to the doorway.

“I'm sorry.”

Mara didn't answer immediately.

Ivo wound the cloth around her arm.

“Hold that.”

She did.

“I told you to leave the cloak,” she said.

“I thought I could get it loose.”

“You did. After it got my arm.”

He looked at the floor.

“I won't do that again.”

“Don't promise. Next time, listen.”

Ivo finished the knot.

“Your turn.”

Elias offered his scraped palm.

Ivo examined it, then glanced at the satchel.

“What did you open?”

“A staircase.”

“To where?”

“I thought home.”

Mara looked up.

“He can see the outlines of passages that aren't there anymore.”

Ivo stopped cleaning Elias's hand.

“Can you?”

“I can see something. I don't know what.”

“And he can hold a passage open,” Mara added. “But only while he holds his breath.”

They had learned it in seconds.

Elias would have liked those seconds back.

He looked uphill. The pale tree stood against the sky, a strip of red caught among its branches.

Beyond it, the doorway looked empty.

“So if I open it again—”

“Not today,” Mara said.

“I wasn't going to.”

She looked at him until he lowered his eyes.

Ivo wrapped his palm.

“You can move all your fingers?”

Elias did.

“Good. Keep that dry.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“I'm the person with the bandages.”

Mara made a tired sound that might have been a laugh.

Ivo packed his things. One space in the bag was empty.

“Was that tin expensive?” Elias asked.

“The tin? No.”

“The needles.”

Ivo tightened the buckle.

“Yes.”

Elias reached for his wallet, then stopped.

He had a bank card. Twelve euros. A receipt for bread.

“I can't pay you.”

“You can carry the bag. My shoulder's had enough.”

Elias took it.

It was heavier than it looked.

They followed the slope toward the bridge.

Mara had fetched a short leather case from behind the shelter. She checked its wax seal, then tucked it beneath her uninjured arm.

“What do you deliver?” Elias asked.

“Whatever people can't send by wishing.”

“Letters?”

“Letters. Medicine. Sometimes somebody's ungrateful nephew.”

Ivo glanced back.

“One time.”

“Twice.”

“The second was a misunderstanding.”

Elias nearly smiled.

Then he remembered Mara's blood on the stone.

He adjusted the medical bag.

Down in the valley, the broken bridge grew larger with every turn. A few canvas roofs stood near its first pillar. Smoke rose from a cooking fire.

People were there.

Water. Food. Somewhere to sit down without listening for feet.

Mara opened her leather case.

“There's something you should see.”

Inside was a single folded sheet.

The paper was thicker than Lena's map. Brown at the edges. A pale stain crossed one corner.

“A messenger brought this from the other side of the bridge,” she said. “Asked us to take fever medicine to a place called Rill.”

“Can you still cross?”

“Not here.”

She opened the letter.

The handwriting was unfamiliar.

Elias read the first few lines without understanding the names.

Twenty-three sick. Supplies nearly gone. The southern path lost after the rains.

At the bottom, beside the signature, was a little bird.

One wing longer than the other.

Elias stopped walking.

“Who wrote that?”

“A woman called Sella. She keeps the storehouse.”

“The bird.”

“Her directions said to find the marker with that sign. I didn't know whose it was until I saw your map.”

He touched the paper beside it.

Not the drawing itself.

He had spent all evening treating Lena's marks as something fragile that might disappear beneath his fingers.

“Did your messenger see her? Lena?”

“He saw the marker.”

“When?”

“Six days ago.”

Six days.

It wasn't proof that she was alive. It wasn't an address, or a promise.

But someone had used a road she had marked.

Recently.

He looked across the valley.

The far half of the bridge carried a thin line of trees. Beyond them, the land rose into blue distance.

Somewhere over there was a storehouse, a woman named Sella, and people waiting for medicine.

Mara refolded the letter.

“Come down to camp. We'll talk after you've eaten.”

He nodded.

For the first time since stepping through the doorway, he had a direction.

Then his phone vibrated.

Elias dropped Ivo's bag.

He fumbled the phone out, nearly losing it too.

No signal.

No new message.

Just the alarm he had set while standing beneath the harbour wall.

Nine o'clock.

Go home.

He silenced it.

Mara waited without asking.

Elias picked up the bag and followed her down.