Flat Top's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Flat Top slept badly and woke before dawn. The open frame was waiting in the clearing, marked with his strip of cloth. He had a door now. That was the problem. If he stepped through, he might not step back. He had heard stories of searchers who crossed and never returned — their bodies left in the pines, their minds gone somewhere else. His juju eyeballs could show him the door, but they could not guide him home from the other side. He sat at his kitchen table and opened a leather journal he had kept since the search began. The cover was tooled in loud swirls of pink and green. Inside were years of notes — sketches of false shimmers, lists of failed frames, questions he had never answered. He turned to a clean page and wrote one line. If I go in, what pulls me out. He stared at the words until the ink dried. The answer came from a hook by the door. A climber's safety line hung there, coiled tight, its rope banded pink and teal, two steel carabiners heavy at the ends. He had bought it years ago to scale a cliff he never scaled. He lifted it down. The weight felt honest in his hands. One end for him. One end for something on this side that would not move. He walked to the clearing with the rope over his shoulder and his hair dragging behind him. The tall frame stood where he had left it. Its birch edges were smooth. Its wood swirled with colors that would not hold still. He circled it and picked the thickest pine within reach, a trunk twice his width, roots dug deep. He looped one carabiner around the pine and locked the gate. He tugged. The tree did not care. He clipped the other end to his belt. He measured the slack with his eyes — enough to step through, not enough to wander. He touched the amulet at his chest. Still cool. He drew a breath and put his palm flat against the frame. His hand went through. The wood did not resist. The colors climbed his wrist. He pulled back hard and the rope pulled with him and his hand came out whole, warm, tingling. He laughed once, sharp, and sat down in the pine needles. It worked. The line held. The door let him touch without keeping him. He stayed there a long time, watching the rope where it crossed into the frame and vanished a few inches in. He had proved he could reach through and return. He had not yet gone in. That was tomorrow's problem, or the next day's. He unclipped, coiled the line, and started back toward the painted house. Halfway home he noticed the carabiner at his belt was warm. He had not touched a cursed thing. Something on the other side had touched the rope.