The Portal – Complete Short Story
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The Portal
by Rich Mason
Chapter 1 – Rumors in the Desert
The desert was quiet. Maya Torres paused halfway up the sandstone slope, camera strap digging into her neck, as she listened. The wind had dropped away so completely she could hear the faint tick of grit settling against her boots. Above, the sky stretched pale and cloudless, the kind of flat blue that looked painted on. A pair of ravens circled in lazy loops over the ridge, their calls carrying sharp across the canyon.
She snapped a photo of the horizon, burnt red cliffs fading into dusty sage green but it wasn’t the landscape she had come for. This was her second week in Bridge Canyon, and she’d already filled memory cards with vistas and rock art. What she wanted now was a story.
The story was why she was here, in this forgotten corner of northern Arizona where the maps turned vague and the locals turned vague with them. Every time she asked about the petroglyphs carved into the canyon walls, or about the hikers who’d gone missing over the years, someone would shrug and say the land was dangerous. But in diners and on gas station porches, she’d catch half-heard phrases, “the place where the Earth breathes”, “the canyon that vanishes people.”
Yesterday, she’d finally asked one of the elders directly. “You don’t want to go there,” Thomas Naakishchiin had told her, his voice like dry stone. “It’s not evil. It’s not good either. It just is. And it doesn’t give back what it takes.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but he only looked past her, toward a line of cliffs glowing in the late sun. “Our young ones used to walk there,” he said. “On vision quests. Some returned with great wisdom. Some… did not return at all.”
Now, climbing toward those same cliffs, Maya could almost believe the air had changed. The heat pressed differently here, heavier, more alive. She caught the smell of sage on the wind, and beneath it, something sharper, metallic, like a coin held too long in the mouth.
Her camera beeped, ready for the next shot. She raised it toward the ridge, framed the uneven horizon.
Through the viewfinder, a shimmer wavered just above the rocks. Not heat haze as it was too early for that and too cold. This was tighter, like glass bending in slow motion. When she lowered the camera. The shimmer was gone. Somewhere far off, a sound like distant chimes drifted through the stillness. Maya stood a long moment, breath caught in her throat, before she forced herself to keep climbing.
Chapter 2 – The Ancient Story
The old man’s house sat at the edge of the trading post parking lot, its porch half-swallowed by the shadow of a leaning juniper. Maya had knocked once, certain he wouldn’t answer. He had the kind of presence that suggested visitors were an intrusion. But the screen door creaked open, and Thomas stepped out as if he’d been waiting. He was small framed, his back straight despite the years. His eyes, dark and unreadable, flicked over her camera bag, then to her dust-scuffed boots. “You are the one asking questions,” he said. It wasn’t quite an accusation. “I’m trying to document the old petroglyph sites,” Maya replied, careful to keep her tone respectful. “And… the stories connected to them.” Thomas was silent a long moment, gaze drifting past her toward the plateau in the distance. When he spoke, his voice was slow, the cadence deliberate, as though he measured every word before letting it out. “The stories are not just stories,” he said. “They’re a kind of map. But not the kind that shows roads.”
He gestured for her to sit. The porch boards creaked under her weight. “Our people knew of the place for longer than the memory of names,” he began. “They called it the Breath of the Earth. It is not here, and it is not somewhere else. It is both. A thin place, where the world you know is close to other worlds.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “The young ones went there when it was time to see their path. Warriors, hunters, healers. Some came back with eyes that saw farther than before. Some came back and could not speak of what they saw. And some…” He shook his head. “Some, like my brother did not return at all.”
Maya shifted, her throat tightening. “What happens to the ones who don’t come back?” “They walk another trail.” His eyes fixed on hers, dark as obsidian. “One that does not lead home.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small stone, no larger than a coin. A spiral was carved into it, worn smooth by time. “This is the sign of the path,” he said, placing it in her palm. “If you see this in the canyon, turn back.” The stone was warm against her skin, warmer than it should have been in the cool shade. She glanced up, wanting to ask more, but Thomas had already turned his gaze toward the plateau again, signifying that the conversation was finished.
When she finally rose to leave, the wind shifted. It carried the scent of sage, dry and clean, and under it the faint metallic tang she had noticed before. From somewhere out among the rocks came the soft, distant sound of chimes.
Chapter 3 – The Hike and the Disappearance
The trail was little more than a game path, a faint line through sagebrush and scattered boulders. The air was crisp, the kind of dry clarity that made the cliffs ahead look close enough to touch.
Maya walked in the middle of the group, camera swinging against her hip. Caleb, the guide, set a steady pace up front, his easy stride making the climb look effortless. Behind her, Erin the quiet young woman who’d signed on last minute kept to herself, while two German tourists murmured to each other in low voices. They’d been hiking for an hour when Caleb slowed at the base of a narrow canyon. “Here’s where it gets interesting,” he said, gesturing to the sandstone walls that rose like teeth on either side.
The path funneled them into the shade. The temperature dropped ten degrees. Shadows stretched long and cool over the ground, patterned with the occasional petroglyph, circles, animal shapes, and, once, a spiral.
Maya slowed to snap a photo. Through her lens, the spiral seemed deeper than it should be, as if the carving cut into the stone far beyond the surface. She blinked, and it was just rock again. Caleb’s voice echoed ahead. “Up here is the arch. Pretty spectacular if the light’s right.” He rounded a curve in the canyon and disappeared from sight. Maya quickened her pace to keep up. Erin followed close behind. The tourists lagged, distracted by the petroglyphs.
They turned the same corner Caleb had taken.
And stopped. The canyon ahead was empty. The path was soft with dust, perfect for holding prints. Caleb’s boot tracks led forward a dozen feet… and then nothing. No scuff marks, no turn back. Just an unbroken stretch of pale earth.
“Caleb?” Maya called, the sound bouncing thinly off the stone walls. No answer. A cold draft brushed past her, smelling faintly of copper. Erin shivered beside her. From somewhere ahead, so faint she almost thought she imagined it came the sound of chimes.
Chapter 4 – The Search and the Silence
By nightfall, the canyon was crawling with rangers. Flashlight beams sliced through the dark like thin blades, catching on rock walls and dry brush. The air had cooled sharply, the heat leached away as if someone had drawn it out of the ground. Maya stood near the arch where Caleb’s footprints had ended, hugging her elbows. Erin sat on a nearby boulder, staring into the dust at her feet. Neither spoke.
The search lasted until well past midnight. Dogs came in the morning, their handlers shouting commands in clipped voices, but the animals sniffed the trail up to the arch and stopped cold. No barking, no pulling forward. Just a quiet refusal to move.
By the second day, helicopters were combing the mesas. From above, the plateau looked like a vast stone labyrinth, every canyon a dead end. Caleb’s name went out over the radio; his description posted in gas stations and grocery stores. No one found so much as a torn scrap of clothing.
When Maya tried talking to locals, most turned away before she could finish her question. At the trading post, a woman folding blankets only shook her head. “He’s gone where you can’t follow,” she said softly, not looking up. “Unless you want to.” Maya felt a prickle at the base of her neck. “What’s that supposed to mean?” But the woman only moved to the next stack of blankets and said nothing more.
That night, back in her motel room, Maya lay awake long after the news crews had packed up and the last search truck rumbled away. The desert outside her window was a black sea under a scatter of stars. She must have dozed, because when she opened her eyes, she was standing in the canyon again. The walls rose high on either side, painted silver by a light that wasn’t moonlight. Ahead, the stone arch shimmered, edges bending like heat waves. From beyond it came the sound of chimes, low, resonant, vibrating in her chest. She stepped forward. The air changed becoming cooler, heavier, filled with the faint smell of copper and something sweet she couldn’t name. Her pulse quickened.
A figure moved in the shimmer. Tall, indistinct, glowing faintly as if lit from inside. She couldn’t see a face, but she felt eyes on her. The chimes grew louder, a deep harmonic chord now, and the figure lifted an arm, beckoning. Maya stepped closer. The ground gave under her foot. She jerked awake, heart hammering, breath ragged. The motel room was dark and silent, but the air still carried that faint metallic tang.
Chapter 5 – Obsession
The next morning, Maya told herself she’d let it go. She packed her gear, deleted the photos she didn’t need, and drove into town for coffee. The search was winding down; Caleb was now officially “missing pending further investigation.” She’d seen it before. How a life could turn into a paragraph on a report and then into silence.
But as she sipped bitter coffee in the corner booth of the diner, her eyes drifted to a faded bulletin board by the door. Between lost dog flyers and a notice for a pancake breakfast, there was a photocopied sheet of missing person reports. Some recent, others yellowed with age. She recognized one of the older ones, an experienced hiker from Flagstaff, vanished fifteen years ago. The location was the same plateau. Another, from 1983, listed the cause as “unexplained disappearance during backcountry trip.” By the time she finished her coffee, she’d written down twelve names.
That afternoon, she took her laptop to the library. The building was small, its shelves lined with local history and weathered maps. She pulled everything she could find about the plateau; geological surveys, hiking guides, even old newspaper clippings. Patterns emerged. The disappearances clustered around late summer and early autumn. Most occurred in the same two-week window, though no one seemed to have noticed. Maps showed something else. Petroglyph sites scattered across the region, with the highest concentration near a narrow canyon marked only as “unimproved trail.” Several had spiral carvings like the one Thomas had given her.
Near closing time, she found herself staring at a laminated star chart pinned to the wall. The librarian, a thin man in a corduroy vest, noticed her interest. “That one’s old,” he said. “Shows how the night sky looked before light pollution.” Maya traced a finger over a cluster of stars. “Do you know if anyone’s ever charted the petroglyph sites against celestial alignments?” He smiled faintly. “You sound like Mark Redding. He was a local amateur astronomer. Spent years trying to prove some of the carvings match star positions. He used to say the spiral represents movement through space and time.” She copied down the name.
That night in her motel room, she spread maps, notes, and printouts across the bed. She marked each disappearance, each spiral carving, each possible sighting of strange lights or “heat waves” in the canyon. When she was done, a shape emerged: all points converged on the arch where Caleb had vanished.
Her eyes drifted to the star chart again. The librarian’s words echoed in her mind, “movement through space and time.”
A quick online search brought up astronomical data. Three days from now, the constellation Scorpius would align almost perfectly with the plateau, just after sunset. The same date, give or take a day, when most disappearances had occurred.
She sat back, heart thudding. She should tell someone, perhaps Thomas?. But she could already hear his answer: Turn back. Instead, she closed the laptop and stared at the dark window. Her reflection looked pale and sharp-eyed, the expression of someone who had already made up her mind. Three days. She would go back. And this time, she would see what was on the other side.
Chapter 6 – Return to the Arch
The road ended in a washboard stretch of dirt that rattled her teeth and shook dust through the cracked seals of her old Jeep. By the time Maya pulled off onto the narrow pullout, the sun was a bleeding orange disk just above the mesa edge.
She stepped out into air that felt heavier than it should have it was still, but charged, like the sky before a lightning storm. The silence was complete. Not even the wind moved through the sagebrush.
The hike in was faster than she remembered. Her boots found the path easily, as though the trail had been waiting for her. Shadows lengthened, merging into pools of darkness between the boulders. When she reached the mouth of the narrow canyon, she stopped. The sandstone walls rose like rusted gates on either side. She could feel the weight of the arch beyond, though she couldn’t see it yet.
She walked forward. The temperature dropping with each step, a coolness that felt almost welcome until she realized it was seeping into her bones. The air grew thick, the metallic tang she’d smelled before sharp now, curling at the back of her throat.
Halfway in, the light began to change. It wasn’t just dimming with the sunset, it was bending. The shadows no longer matched the rock shapes that cast them. Colors deepened unnaturally; reds turned molten, the blue sky overhead bleeding toward black though the sun still glowed outside the canyon.
Then she heard the chimes. Low at first, like a faint breeze striking glass somewhere deep in the stone, then layering into a harmony that vibrated in her ribs.
She rounded the last bend and the arch stood before her, taller than she remembered, the stone edges rippling as if seen through water. Beyond the arch the air shimmered, not just with heat but with light, threads of green and gold twisting upward like smoke.
Maya’s breath caught. Every instinct told her to stop. Her hand went to the stone in her pocket, the spiral Thomas had given her was now warm, almost hot against her palm. But the chimes beckoned her. The shimmer widened, and for a heartbeat she thought she saw shapes moving inside it. A figure, tall and luminous seemed to be watching her.
The ground beneath the arch appeared to pulse in time with the sound. Her vision swam. She took one step forward, then another, until the shimmer filled her sight. The moment she crossed, the world dropped away. Heat and cold struck her at once, air rushing over her skin like velvet. Colors she’d never seen before, shades beyond the human spectrum flooded her vision. The sky was no longer sky but a vast rippling dome streaked with rivers of light. Floating mesas hung in the distance, their edges glowing as though lit from within.
The ground was warm and faintly alive under her boots, pulsing like a slow heartbeat. Far off, a river of molten silver wound between jagged cliffs, its surface scattering light like fractured glass.
Maya took one step, then another. The chimes had followed her through, deeper and richer now, the harmony braided with voices whispering in a language that she almost understood. Somewhere ahead, a shadow moved. Not threatening, but deliberate. It turned toward her, and light spilled from its outline. Maya’s breath caught again, not in fear this time, but in the sudden certainty that she had been expected.
Chapter 7 – The Other World
The air was alive. It pressed gently against her skin, not with heat or cold, but with a constant, shifting current like being underwater without resistance. Every breath tasted faintly metallic, with an undertone of something sweet and floral that changed each time she inhaled.
Above, the dome of the sky pulsed with slow-moving colors; emerald bleeding into gold, violet streaking briefly through, then gone. The rivers of light she’d seen from the arch flowed overhead and beneath her feet, connecting floating mesas in the distance like glowing arteries.
She turned slowly, trying to take it all in. The ground beneath her boots wasn’t sand or rock, it was a smooth, dark surface shot through with veins of faint luminescence, each pulse in sync with the deep harmonic chime that still resonated in her chest.
A movement caught her eye. The figure she’d glimpsed before stood about twenty paces away, tall and impossibly slender, its limbs elongated like willow branches. Its skin, or what looked like skin was pale, translucent, and lit from within by shifting currents of light. Where a face should have been was a smooth oval, and yet she felt its gaze lock on her.
Her throat went dry. “Hello?” The being tilted its head slightly, and without moving its mouth, without even having one she heard it. Not in her ears, but in her mind.
You have crossed. The voice was neither male nor female, soft but resonant, like words spoken inside a cavern. She swallowed. “Where am I?” You are in The Between. The phrase carried weight, like a name too old to translate.
The being began to move toward her, each step fluid, almost gliding. Around them, the landscape shifted subtly as if responding to its movement. The distant mesas seemed closer, the rivers of light brighter.
“You were expecting me,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “We are always expecting those who choose to see.” She frowned. “I didn’t choose. I just… came.” “Choice is not always understood when it is made.” The words settled in her like a stone dropping into deep water. The being extended one hand, long fingers unfolding. In its palm was a spiral, etched into something that looked like glass, but alive with faint light. Maya hesitated, then reached out. The moment her fingers touched it, the world flared, images flooding her mind in a rush: A night sky with stars she didn’t recognize. A desert canyon, hundreds of years ago, young men and women stepping beneath the same arch. Creatures she couldn’t name, part human, part something else walking across glowing bridges between worlds.
When the images faded, she was on her knees, breathless. The being still stood before her, patient, unflinching. “You are in The Between,” it said again, softer this time. “Few return unchanged.” Somewhere in the distance, a shape moved across a ridge, a human shape. Maya stood, her pulse quickening. “Caleb?”
Chapter 8 – The Inhabitants
The figure on the ridge turned at the sound of her voice.
“Maya?”
It was him, Caleb, though not exactly as she remembered. His hair was a little longer, his beard fuller, but there was something else… something in his eyes. They caught the strange light of this place and reflected it back with a faint golden sheen, as if a sunset had taken root inside them.
She started toward him, then stopped, unsure if the ground between them was solid or just another shifting trick of this world. Caleb closed the distance himself, his boots making no sound on the dark surface.
“I thought…” She broke off. “You’ve only been gone a few days.”
Caleb smiled faintly. “Not here. I don’t know how long it’s been here. Feels like… maybe a day, maybe two. But I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe.”
She glanced around. “I’m already seeing them.”
He led her away from the luminous being, though it didn’t follow, just watched, light pulsing softly through its translucent frame.
They walked until the ground shifted into a kind of meadow, if you could call it that. The plants here were like nothing on Earth, tall stalks of glassy blue-black, flowers that glowed faintly from within, petals folding and unfolding in slow rhythm. A low mist moved across the surface, curling around their legs without clinging.
“They call this The Between,” Caleb said. “Some sort of crossroads. People come here from… everywhere. Not just Earth.”
As if to prove his point, the mist ahead rippled, and a coyote stepped out. Its fur was thick and dark, its eyes bright and knowing.
Maya froze. “Is that—”
The coyote’s shape wavered, and in the next heartbeat it was a man, tall, lean, with sharp features and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Then he was a coyote again, tail flicking.
Caleb’s expression didn’t change. “Shapeshifters. Old stories say they were tricksters, but here? They’re something else. Messengers, maybe. Or guides. Sometimes both.”
The coyote trotted closer, head tilted. It spoke, not with its mouth, but the same way the luminous being had. The spiral opens and closes. You must walk your path before the closing.
Maya glanced at Caleb. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Caleb said quietly, “if you stay too long, you can’t go back.”
The coyote’s form shimmered, and now it was an eagle, wings beating slowly in the heavy air. Its voice carried in both their heads. “Some are meant to stay. Some are meant to return with what they’ve learned.”
It lifted off, vanishing into the aurora-streaked sky.
Maya looked at Caleb. “Which are you?”
He hesitated. “I’m starting to think I’m meant to stay.”
She felt something tighten in her chest. “And me?”
“That,” he said, “is up to you.”
Chapter 9 – The Offer
They returned to the place where Maya had first arrived. The luminous being was still there, waiting as though no time had passed at all.
“You have seen the messengers,” it said. “Now you will see the truth.”
Before she could answer, the air around them thickened. The shimmer of the arch was gone. This was something else, a folding of the space itself. Light twisted, pulling them into a dome of shifting color. Caleb stepped back as if he’d been here before.
The ground beneath Maya dissolved into darkness. She floated, not falling, but suspended as images flared into life around her.
First came the past.
She saw the canyon, long before roads or fences, alive with people who wore painted faces and carried carved staffs. Young men and women stepped under the same stone arch she had, their expressions a mix of fear and awe. Some returned days later with eyes that seemed to see through the skin of the world. Others never came back, their names sung in low voices around campfires.
The vision shifted.
Now she saw The Between from above: not just a world but a network, rivers of light stretching between points of brilliance, each point a portal like the one in the canyon. She glimpsed other worlds, one with seas of glass under a green sky, another with towers of living crystal that pulsed like hearts.
Then the future.
Two paths branched before her.
In one, Earth was vibrant, oceans clear, skies filled with migrating birds, cities that glowed softly without smoke or haze. In the other, the land cracked under heat, oceans rose and swallowed coastlines, and the air carried a dull, lifeless haze.
“Knowledge shapes choice,” the being’s voice came, not unkind but weighted. “You may stay and learn what cannot be unlearned. You may return, and carry a seed of what you have seen. But you must choose before the closing.”
Maya’s breath caught. “Closing?”
“The spiral opens only when the worlds align. Once closed, the path remains sealed until the next turning.”
Caleb stepped forward, his expression calm. “I’ve decided to stay.”
The being regarded him in silence, light rippling faintly in its form. Then it turned its faceless gaze back to Maya.
“And you?”
Her mind was a storm, part of her wanted to stay and drink in every hidden truth this place held. But the images of the future pressed on her, and the thought of never walking under Earth’s sky again was like a weight on her.
She looked at Caleb. “If I go… what happens to you?”
He smiled faintly. “I keep walking my path. Just… not the same one as yours.”
The chimes deepened, resonating in her bones. Somewhere far off, she heard a change in their rhythm, an undertone like a slow drumbeat. The being’s light dimmed slightly.
“The spiral is closing.”
Chapter 10 – The Choice
The chimes had changed.
What had been a constant, resonant harmony now carried urgency. Shorter notes, sharper tones, like the warning bells of a harbor in a rising storm.
The air thickened around her. The colors overhead, the emerald and gold rivers of light began to pull inward, spiraling toward a single distant point. The ground’s slow heartbeat quickened beneath her boots.
Maya turned toward the luminous being. “If I go now, will I ever come back?”
“Perhaps. But not as you are.”
Caleb stepped closer. “If you stay, you’ll understand more than you thought possible. Time… isn’t the same here. You could live a lifetime and only days might pass on Earth.”
“And if I go?”
His smile was almost wistful. “Then you’ll live the life you have there. But the things you’ve seen here will change how you see everything else. You can’t shut it out once you’ve seen it.”
The being extended its hand again, the glowing spiral resting in its palm. “You may take this across. It will fade from sight in your world, but its mark will remain within you.”
Maya stared at the spiral, then at Caleb.
“Come with me,” she said, the words almost a plea.
He shook his head. “I’m already home.”
Her throat tightened. The ground underfoot pulsed harder, each beat sending a tremor up her legs. Beyond the meadow, the air at the edge of The Between began to warp, the shimmer folding in on itself.
The being’s voice was softer now, but still unyielding. “Decide.”
She thought of the desert sun on her skin, the smell of sage after rain. She thought of the vision, the oceans and skies whole again and of the other path, the one filled with heat and ruin.
Her pulse matched the heartbeat of the ground.
“I have to go back,” she whispered.
Caleb nodded once, a small, understanding motion. The luminous being placed the spiral in her hand. It was hot now, almost burning, but she closed her fingers around it.
“Walk,” it said.
The chimes swelled, the harmony turning chaotic. The sky above fractured into shards of color as the spiral point in the distance grew brighter. Maya ran.
The air resisted, pushing back with every step. The shimmer loomed ahead, collapsing inward. She could feel The Between trying to hold her, its beauty and strangeness pulling at the edges of her thoughts.
Her final step carried her through the light.
And the world dropped away again.
Chapter 11 – Crossing Back
Cold air slammed into her lungs.
She stumbled forward, boots scraping on rough sandstone. The shimmer was gone. The arch loomed behind her, silent and still, its edges sharp against the fading twilight. The sky was the ordinary blue of evening in the high desert, streaked with faint clouds.
Maya stood bent over, breathing hard. The metallic tang still clung to the back of her throat, but the deep harmonic chimes were gone, replaced by the thin hiss of wind sliding through the canyon.
Her hands ached. She opened her right palm and stared at the spiral stone. Its glow had vanished, leaving only the smooth, weathered carving.
She pulled her phone from her pocket. No signal. But the date flashing on the lock screen stopped her cold.
Three months had passed!
Her breath caught. She sank down on a flat rock, staring at the numbers as though they might shift if she just looked long enough.
The sound of footsteps drew her head up. A figure in a ranger’s jacket emerged from around the bend, flashlight beam sweeping over her.
“Ma’am? Jesus, where did you come from?”
“I…” She broke off, unable to answer.
He spoke into his radio, voice tight. “Found someone. Female, thirties, says name is Maya Torres. Looks unhurt.”
Back in town, she learned what she already suspected; the search for Caleb had been called off after two weeks. His family had gone home. The story had faded from the local paper.
No one asked her where she had been for three months. Or if they did, they didn’t expect the truth.
That night, in the motel room she’d checked into months earlier, Maya sat in the dark and turned the spiral stone in her hand. In the stillness, she thought she heard a faint hum under the floorboards. Low, steady, almost like the slow heartbeat of the ground.
When she closed her eyes, she could see The Between again; the rivers of light, the floating mesas, the golden sheen in Caleb’s eyes as he told her he was already home.
Chapter 12 – Aftermath
Two days after they released her from the clinic with a clean bill of health and a politely worded recommendation to “rest and hydrate,” Maya walked back to the trading post.
Thomas sat on the porch in the lean shade of the juniper, same chair, same stillness. He looked at her, then at the horizon, and for a long time neither of them spoke.
“I came back,” she said at last.
He nodded, as if she’d only gone to the store and now stood with a sack of groceries. “Not all do.”
Maya took the spiral from her pocket and set it on the railing. In the sunlight it looked ordinary. A carved stone, warm from her palm. “It felt different there,” she said. “It felt alive.”
Thomas’s gaze stayed on the plateau. “This place is alive, too. We forget, sometimes.”
“What am I supposed to do with what I saw?”
“Carry it.” He turned then, the small smile not unkind. “That is all any of us can do.”
She wanted to ask a hundred questions that had no words inside them. Instead she thanked him and left the stone where it lay. She didn’t need it anymore to know the way.
Back at the motel, she dumped her gear on the bed and powered up the laptop. She pulled the memory cards and loaded the files, breath held without meaning to. The thumbnails populated in neat rows of mesas, cloudless sky, sandstone walls, the canyon’s narrow throat. Then blocks of gray, image after image corrupted, file names intact but content unreadable, a slab of static where the world should have been.
She clicked anyway. One after another. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Then one opened.
It was the arch in slanting light, stone edges just beginning to glow with that first impossible shimmer. Not bright, but a suggestion, as if the rock remembered how to be a door.
Maya stared until the pixels swam, a prickle rising along her arms. She printed the photo and pinned it to the wall above the desk with motel pushpins, the paper bowing slightly where the wall wasn’t quite flat.
The room felt too quiet. She listened for chimes and told herself not to. The hum under the floorboards, if it was there was softer than thought.
She stayed another week. She told herself it was to rest, to let her body catch up to itself. In truth, she wasn’t ready to drive away from the place where the world had split open.
Days she walked the safe trails, kept to the marked overlooks, nodded at rangers who pretended not to recognize her. The sun on her skin felt like a language she almost remembered. The wind carried sage and dust and, now and then, the faintest trace of metal.
Nights she lay awake and watched the ceiling go from black to gray to the first pale blue of morning. In dreams The Between came and went like tidewater, light flowing over stone, a river of silver bending around distant cliffs, Caleb’s eyes catching gold.
When she woke, the memory of his smile remained for a few breaths, then thinned to something she could only name as ache.
On her last evening, she drove out to the overlook that faced the plateau and parked on the far end of the gravel lot where the guardrails had rusted thin. The air cooled quickly as the sun descended in the sky, shadows stretching long across the sage. She wrapped herself in a jacket and sat on the tailgate, boots swinging over dust.
The sky deepened through layers of color, amber, then violet, then the kind of blue that always looked like forever. When the first stars came up, they seemed sharper than they had any right to be. She tilted her head and found the crooked band of Scorpius, low and glittering, its tail curled toward the rim of the world.
For a long time she just breathed.
Somewhere out on the plateau a night bird called once, twice, then fell silent. The wind went still. The hush that followed wasn’t empty; it felt full, like a held note.
Maya closed her eyes.
There it was: a thread of sound so thin she couldn’t have sworn it wasn’t memory. Not the full chord she had felt in her bones. Not the dizzying harmony that bent the air. Only a single, steady tone, the idea of a chime more than the chime itself.
When she opened her eyes, the stars seemed to have drifted closer. A faint green lived at the edge of their light, a ghost of color she once wouldn’t have noticed. She smiled, and in the smile there was grief and there was relief and there was the strange quiet joy of having chosen and survived the choosing.
She slid off the tailgate and stood with her hands on the cold rail, the printed photo of the arch tucked into her jacket pocket, its paper edges rasping against the fabric when she breathed. The spiral stone waited on Thomas’s porch where she’d left it, but another spiral warmed just under her sternum when she thought of The Between, an invisible mark, or maybe only the shape the chimes had made inside her.
“Thank you,” she said to the dark. She wasn’t sure who she meant.
The wind returned, small at first, then carrying sage across the lot. The hum under her feet, if it was there matched the rhythm of her pulse for a few heartbeats and then fell away.
She turned toward the Jeep.
Behind her, the line of the horizon held steady and ordinary in the last of the light. The arch, unseen in its canyon, was only stone again. She did not need to look to know that in the camera’s eye, in just the right slant of sun, it might still remember.
Maya opened the door and paused with one foot inside, listening to a silence that had learned how to speak to her.
“I’ll carry it,” she said.
Then she got in, started the engine, and drove back toward town, headlights brushing sage and rock and all the ordinary things of the world that, tonight, did not feel ordinary at all.
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