As Maz and Eli reach The Frayed Spine entrance, the rain stops, but the clouds above still hold on to their grey for the sake of the autumn that never left.
Eli pushes the door, and the bell above it rings a clear ding of a single note. It cuts short as if the bookshop has shrunk closer to it, making his head tilt as he steps in.
I can’t file this bell under anything anymore.
Maz follows him inside, strides past, and veers towards the staff room, unzipping her coat, not paying any mind to the open basement hatch or Meg sitting on the second step with her back turned to the shop.
“No time for that.” Meg’s voice sounds lower as the basement’s depth below deepens it.
Maz stops and turns, meeting the weary dullness in Meg’s eyes.
“What for? I don’t see any customers.”
“Come on down.” Meg steps aside, her grip tight around her phone. Her other hand reaches behind to run a thumb over the top edge of the notebook that sticks out from her back pocket.
Maz shares a glance and a shrug with Eli before shedding her coat and leaving it on the counter. He joins her to head towards the basement. As they descend, their boots echo louder and a little later than on previous days. The stairwell may very well be remembering the footsteps from some other week, from some place else.
Meg pulls the hatch. It creaks and thuds shut above the three of them before she follows them down without her phone torch switched on.
The bulb inside glows dimmer than yesterday, yet still with enough shine to pick out Ron’s white apron as he stands at the foot of the stairs. The dust behind him hangs in scattered flecks under the thin light. He slides the two larger coins between his fingers, one on the other in a drift, flipping at their rims and over, as if they can’t ever have belonged in a tip jar. Turned halfway away from the steps, he leaves a welcoming space beside him, minus the invitation.
When Maz arrives at the bottom, she looks up at him.
You thought he always looked calm before. What would you call a calmness that’s… beyond calm?
She turns to Eli, but he wanders towards the chalkboard on the side wall, where the grid waits as perfectly aligned as he last left it. Before he gets close enough to touch it, the dust around him changes. Each speck starts moving slightly until all of them synchronise. As a whole, they seem to be pulsing in the air. She sidles up to him when she begins to hear the dust’s rhythm as a series of throbs, matching the thrumming of both their heartbeats.
The labels on the boxes in yesterday’s tower catch her eye. The words on every single one squirm out of focus before they ripple into nonsense and into nothing.
What the…?
Behind them, Meg’s boot squeaks against the stone as she stands stiffer, the phone a dead weight in her fist, while Ron stashes the coins in his trouser pocket and stays put by the stairs, the pair of them observing Maz and Eli.
Eli’s eyes narrow at the blackboard where the chalked grid lines start crawling across the surface. The squares on it stretch, and the lines coil into spirals before snapping back straight. His stance slumps and tenses in the same breath.
We took all the scales. Why’s this still happening? Unless… nothing worked, or Ari just made it all up.
“Do you see–?”
“Yeah.” Maz cuts in.
“Good that it’s not just me, I suppose. But we did the whole thing, and… I thought this would’ve stopped.”
“Oh, it did stop.” Meg’s fingers latch onto her notebook, one corner of her mouth pulling into a straight line.
“Upstairs.”
Maz turns to her.
“What?”
“That.” Meg lifts her chin towards the rear wall.
“That started.”
Maz looks where Meg points.
It’s only stone, right? Plain, ancient, moulded, pitted stone.
It takes another blink for her eyes to catch it. An outline in the shape of a door seems stitched into the wall. Not exactly carved, more an idea pressed in rock. Light bleeds through it, thin and white, growing brighter among the dust.
“What is…?” She watches the stone bricks.
It wasn’t there yesterday. Or it was and preferred to be seen now. Is that where the cold was coming from too?
The longer she looks at the light seeping through the outline, the more it appears as glowing tiny letters that run along in a stream without colliding with one another.
Eli takes a step towards the back wall. His eyes track the seams from edge to edge, every line too straight to belong in jagged stonework.
Meg marches ahead and stands in front of him, arms out, body squared to block. The gold serpent cuff on her wrist catches the outline’s light as it tightens, making it seem like a clamp and nothing of jewellery.
“Don’t–” Her voice cracks.
“I’m meant to…” She winces at the cuff winding its wrap further.
“I was told to…” Another twist from the cuff squeezes, gold biting skin.
“Just don’t. You shouldn’t go through.”
“Go through?” Maz’s heartbeat bangs loudly enough for her to feel it in her teeth. She comes up to stand beside Eli.
Looks like a… door? Maybe this is what all the comments were about, and that song that needed a kicking. However, it’s still a wall.
Meg’s arms stretch wider to reach the outline at either end as if she could hold it shut. Her cuff winds itself half a turn, the serpent head closing the gap towards its tail, forcing a grimace from her.
Ron moves to Meg’s side, taking out a folded receipt from his apron pocket. With a finger, he pushes the edge to unfold it and reveals the ‘Owed: One return journey’ before holding it out to Meg.
“It’s time.” He watches Meg avert her eyes and curl her hand into a fist while the phone in her other hand only creaks.
“Meg, we can’t get in the way of their choice.”
Maz’s head snaps to Ron.
“What choice? Nobody’s told us we had one. All we ever had was instructions. Which we blindly followed apparently. And here we are.”
Ron nods.
“I know.”
“What? You kno–? Why are you so calm about all this?” She stares at him, her hand gesturing towards the boxes, the chalkboard, the light squeezing through the wall in the outline of a door.
As Ron’s gaze drifts towards the wall, Maz blows out an annoyed breath and glances at Eli, noticing his eyes locked on the outline begin to glow with gilded curls swirling and thickening inside them.
“If you go through…” Meg lets out a shaky breath, and she steps aside from the outline.
“…you won’t be the same.”
A short laugh escapes Eli.
“Whatever we’ve been trying has had its chance.” His hands shake at his sides.
“We wake up to new shadows and things that move uninvited. Now walls that… are not in fact walls at all? Same left the building long ago.”
Maz takes Eli’s hand in hers.
“So, you’re definitely saying we can go through this actual wall?”
Meg looks past them, into the basement.
“That part isn’t just stone for you any more. It… remembers you.”
Eli tilts his head to enter Meg’s line of sight.
“It sounds like you already know what’s on the other side.”
Meg’s mouth opens, then closes. She looks at Ron.
Ron exhales as he shakes his head at Meg.
“Not specifically. From this angle.”
Eli raises a brow while looking between Ron, Meg, and Maz before he reaches for the wall.
Meg catches his wrist, fast, firm, refusing to let go.
“You sure?”
He lets out a small breath that tries to become a laugh and fails.
“Not even close.”
Meg releases Eli’s wrist and runs her hand down her face.
Maz sniggers at the bricks behind Meg.
“Might as well, then. The wall’s waiting for us to end up face-planting into it.”
Eli leans his head against her temple.
“Everything led us here. Let’s… trust the process.”
He raises both their hands and presses them into the stone.
Even if I called this wrong…
Maz’s hand wavers a breath from the outline’s light as her palm burns cold.
…if the wall eats you…
Eli’s fingers twitch beneath hers.
…if I become the next strange file…
Their eyes meet.
…this is it.
The stone grows a shade colder and softens beneath their touch. It yields as they press against it until their fingertips submerge into it, as if it were made of sand. More light leaks from the outline’s seams as the stone gives, swallowing their fingers.
Maz draws in a deep breath.
“It’s moving.”
“It’s letting.” Ron steps back.
When Eli leans in, his shoulder meets the wall and sinks straight through.
So, it’s more like I chose and the stones agreed? What did I just choose, then?
Maz pushes in with him, her next breath scraping down cold and dry.
Were you even supposed to open whatever this is?
The seam light flares, and the brickwork warps from the outline’s edges inwards to the centre as if pulling them. The wall allows for their step into it with a dense embrace.
They go through.
Meg’s cuff stops coiling any further. She stares at the sealed-looking stone where they vanished and reaches back again, pinching the notebook’s edge in her pocket. With a curse spat out under her breath, she whips her hand back and presses it where Maz and Eli’s were.
“Meg.” Ron’s voice comes out crisp from behind her.
“I know.” She shoves her phone in her pocket, poised to stride into the wall.
“But I can’t write that report from this side.” She goes through.
A slight smile makes an appearance on Ron’s face as he looks at the receipt in his hand.
“They don’t even know the way.” He folds the slip into his trouser pocket and straightens his apron. His hand placed against the stone, he steps through without rushing.
Stone thickens into its rigid form behind him, the outline’s seam light fading as it erases the door shape with it. The basement returns to being nothing more than a basement, able to deny ever having been anything else.
Advance chapters available on Patreon now! https://www.patreon.com/TolaLone