The Gossamer Gate (5 page)

Chapter 5

Khiara sat bolt upright in bed as she had so many times before over the past several nights. The dreams were intensifying and she felt almost suffocated by them. “I won’t be afraid,” she growled, despite Felisa’s warning, despite the dream warnings, despite the voice. The additional foretelling seemed like overkill to her. She knew exactly who and what was coming for her, as well as why.

It wasn’t just
her past coming back to haunt her; it was him coming back to exact retribution against her.

No amount of strengthening wards could stop him.

Taking a deep breath, Khiara jumped out of bed and hurried to open the blinds to let in the sunlight. It warmed her, but no longer had the power to chase away the nightmares. The problem was the nightmares were no longer relegated to the realm of dreams.

Fingers pressed to her forehead, Khiara squinted in the Friday morning light. S
he had been a bundle of nerves since last Saturday, and as tomorrow neared by the minute, she hated the fact that she could only wait for her nightmares to become reality.

“Will you calm down?” Cate grumbled at her several hours later as they were preparing to close the store. “Your concentration is shot to shit.”

Khiara had spilled an entire box of incense sticks on the floor, and was trying to pick them up. “Tomorrow is the anniversary and he’s out there, waiting for me.”

Cate set a box of CDs on the counter and knelt to help Khiara. “I know you went through some crazy shit with him, but do you think he
could really come back?”

“I know he’s already here
,” Khiara said vehemently as she shoved a handful of sticks back into the box. “If something weird happens to me, like if I disappear…”

“Call the police?” Cate interjected quickly as she slid the last of the delicate sticks of incense into the carton.

Khiara shook her head. “They wouldn’t be able to help. What would they do? Find a way through the gate? Listen to two witches tell them a third was dragged off into another world?”

Cate sat back on her heels. “You can’t be serious. That’s only in stories, Khiara. You know – the myths we discuss as metaphorical tales meant to teach lessons.”

“Look, try not to worry about it.” Khiara scooped up the box and rose to her feet. “If I’m not here tomorrow or the day after that, just… just let it go.”

“Should I get the coven together? We could try a protection spell,” Cate suggested, gazing at her with worry on her face.

Khiara bowed her head. She knew there was nothing anybody can do. 
If it makes you feel better
, she thought cynically.

“That might be just what I need,” she answered to soothe her friend’s fears. “Hey, I’m going to head over to Sean’s for an early night. Maybe dealing with the weirdness between he and I will help me forget all of this menace-from-my-past crap. Can you lock up for me tonight?”

“Sure.” Cate rose to her feet, still looking concerned. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“I will.” Khiara grabbed her messenger bag and, without even checking her appearance in the mirror, bolted out the front door as quickly as she could.

Cate was the same age as her, with no children and a tendency to mother-hen. Khiara knew that if something odd did happen to her, the coven would be in good hands with Cate’s leadership. She also knew that Cate wanted to try to solve everybody’s problems, and it would hurt her deeply to know that she could not solve Khiara’s.

At Sean’s house, Khiara willed herself to be almost invisible to everybody there. She drank her soda, ate her pizza, and tried to play the game, but
every time someone spoke her name, she could only respond, “What?”

She barely noticed when
Sean slid a note to her. Opening it, she read, “Is something wrong?”

A small smile pulled at the corner of her lips. Picking up her pencil, she wrote back, “Just dealing with personal issues.”

His response was, “Can I help?”

When she recovered from her surprise, s
he smiled at him and wrote, “No, but thank you for asking.”

Sean called it an early night, while it was still light outside. The campaign had reached its end; the characters had saved the world, and received their reward in gold pieces and magic items. Khiara noted her character’s earnings and spoils on the character sheet, and then packed up quickly, hoping to leave before anybody could stop her.
If this is it, then no sense in drawing out goodbyes
, she thought.

Despite his show of concern, t
he person she hoped most to avoid was Sean.

Unfortunately, h
e stood at the door before she even reached it, and blocked her way. She glanced back and noticed the guys using the side door to leave. Stung by the abandonment and realizing Sean had somehow premeditated it, she turned to glare at him.

“What’s going on?” he demanded to know. “You’ve been acting weird since that night two weeks ago.”

“Can you blame me?” She shrugged, trying to act casual.

“Look, I realize you’re disappointed…”

“I’m fine and it isn’t about you,” Khiara answered sharply.

Sean looked at her, his eyes wide. “Is it
that guy you’ve been seeing?”

“
Maybe. You’re not my only friend in this town. I talk to people other than you.”

“Oh. Right.” Sean sounded frus
trated. “So, what’s the problem that you’re not telling me about now?”

“There’s no problem.” She tightened her grip on the strap of the messenger bag, willing him to get out of her way and let her go home.

“There is. I feel like… I feel like I’m not going to see you again, or something.” Sean looked at her with such solemnity, that Khiara thought maybe he had somehow felt the strange pulse of negative, otherworldly energy that had been following her for the past couple of weeks.

She shook herself mentally, responded, “There is nothing you can do about it”, and pushed past him to put her hand on the doorknob. He reached up to hold the door shut and she stood there, just staring at the hand that was keeping her from leaving.

“There’s something you aren’t telling me,” he said. “I know you have other people you can talk to, but you’ve always told me everything.”

“So?”

“And I’ve always told you everything.” He tapped his foot on the floor planks. “So what the hell is going on with you? What happened to my best friend?”

“You don’t need to know everything that has ever happened in my life,” Khiara retorted in annoyance. “Nothing that has happened will make any difference. It got me into the trouble I’m dealing with now. I don’t need you making things worse by interrogating me, or reminding me of how I fucked up our friendship.”

“What happened to you? What are you talking about?” Sean’s eyes were so full of concern that Khiara almost found herself breaking down and telling him everything.

“Like I said,” she choked out, “it has nothing to do with you, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about my problems.”

She yanked on the doorknob to open the door, and left as quickly as she could.

****

On Saturday morning she woke up shaking all over from yet another dream.

He was coming back, he had said. He was coming for her. He had made his claim to her very clear.

In this dream, she had seen his shadowy doppelganger; this was what had been watching her over the past two weeks, only this time it was giving her a chance to see just one aspect of it. She recognized its energy from the moment it had entered her dream, and it left her cold with dread. Trying to bring her mind to the present, she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill spreading through her body.

Khiara’s phone
rang, jarring her out of her grogginess, as her feet hit the floor.

“Felisa,” she said by way of greeting the moment she had the receiver pressed to her ear.

“You’re still there!” her friend gasped in apparent relief.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Khiara answered. Talking to Felisa made her fe
el anchored to reality once more. “Thank you for calling me right now. It really helped.”

“Well, that’s good. Please keep in touch, Khiara. Please.” The worry in Felisa’s voice was palpable. “I could feel the strangest energy reaching out to you
last night.”

“I know. That’s exactly what I dreamed,” Khiara said, nodding even though her friend could not see her. “I’ll stay in touch. I have to get ready to open the store.”

“Do you have to go anywhere today?” Felisa inquired before Khiara could hang up the telephone.

“I just have some books to return to the library this afternoon.”

“Can’t you stay home or ask Sean to do it for you?”

With a sigh, Khiara answered, “I can’t avoid leaving the house, Felisa. Besides, you know what I’m dealing with. He can probably get in here despite the wards
, despite everything. It might be better if I’m out in public often, rather than hiding at home.

“Right, that makes some sense. Well…” Felisa sounded hesitant. “I love you, girl.”

“I love you too. I promise to call you later today.” Khiara hung up and walked into the bathroom to take her shower. It made her feel only slightly better to go through the motions of her normal morning routine. The sense that something terrible was going to happen today was too strong for her to ignore it, though. She considered calling Cate, just to ensure that she was not alone today, but she knew that anything she did to assuage her fears would ultimately be a futile gesture.

She pulled on her jeans and a black tank top, and then tied her black boots at her ankles. Brushing her hair back into a ponytail, she tried to shut out the memory of last night’s dream. There had been a frightening finality to it, and she knew that even work could not keep her busy enough to forget tonight’s inevitable encounter

Much to her disappointment, business was slow, which gave Khiara too much time alone with the overwhelming sense of trepidation. The shivers came and went, her skin prickling with the chill each time. Feeling more vulnerable because of the loneliness, she closed the shop early to make her trip to the library. She only had a few books to return and she considered going into town afterward for lunch.

After dropping her returns off at the circulation desk, she realized she had forgotten her cell phone, and turned to walk home. As she walked, the feeling of
someone or something watching her grew so intense, it made her skin crawl. The icy sensation rippled up and down her body and she stopped.

When she
turned to look down the sidewalk behind her, she saw nothing there.

Khiara took a deep breath, and then turned back to the path before her, the path home; the path that had always led to safety.

The shadowy figure from her nightmares stood several feet in front of her. It gave off an aura that told her it was not entirely human, though she didn’t need to feel the sinister energy to guess that. She already knew precisely who and what it was. It was tall and thin, wearing a long black coat, black pants and shoes, and a tall black stovepipe hat that was completely outdated by the modern world’s standards.

She felt the scenery spinning around her, even as she tried to breathe through the moment. Khiara took
a step back, and then another, hardly aware of her surroundings, her entire focus on the macabre figure before her. He looked like an undertaker out of an old photograph – like he didn’t quite belong in today’s world, standing on the sidewalk on such a fine, spring day.

“I’ve missed you, Khiara,” whispered a voice
that came from all around her.

She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re not there,” she said aloud. “You can’t possibly be here at all.”

“Don’t fool yourself. You know that I’ve come here for you.”

“You
can’t
be here. There shouldn’t be a way to do it after I… after I…”

“You killed me, yes.”

“You should stay banished.”

The
figure’s hand reached for her as it advanced. “Oh no, if you know how to open the gate, there is a way, even if the veil between the worlds has not thinned. You took most of my power, but all I had to do was bide my time and let it return.”

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Khiara
backed away from him, but she knew this was the end. There was nowhere to go. Her predator’s shadowy doppelganger signaled the end, its dark energy stifling her.

“I sent my fetch to keep an eye on you,” he said. “Did you not see him? He has been watching you for the past fortnight, making sure you knew that I knew where you were. I have seen everything you have done in the past few weeks, heard every conversation, and felt every reaction you’ve had.”

Now that Khiara looked back at the past two weeks, she recalled seeing fleeting glimpses of a black-clad figure, not just in her dreams, but out of the corner of her eye wherever she went. Her lashes swept over her eyes as a tear streaked down her cheek.

“It is a part of me, split off to do my bidding. You felt him.” The statement was insistent.