Aurora Wolf

Gates

by

Michael B. Tager

There are entrances and exits to any place. Ask any theatre attendant or boardinghouse mistress, they can tell you. There are the entrances that everyone knows about; the ones that shout their purpose to the world. “Look at me”, they’ll say. “I’m here. I exist.” They are benign and direct and when you consult a map you know where these doors will open.

 There are other ways, however, that are not so loud. They are shadowy and secretive, cobweb-draped and stained with dust. Their locks are missing, their hinges are rusted and their knobs fight your hand. Every place has them, those lost and forgotten doors. Some lead to empty storage closets or back-alleys. Others have been bricked up for a dozen years. Others, well, they lead to places you wouldn’t imagine.

In the summer before the Great War, a group of school-boys approached me, a tow-headed child in the center. I sent them off without a thought.

The young ones are the most eager. They can barely stand it, the excitement. Most of them try to keep a sober front and try not to let anyone see how they churn underneath their stoic mask. But to a ready eye, it’s obvious. They burn with the desire to start something grand or right a great wrong. And so they come to me.

I’m not hard to find. That isn’t to say that I’m easy, either. After all, I’m not in the phone book. But to those who know, to those who ask in the right places, with a whisper in the right ear or coin in the right pocket, I can be located. I can be found. And where else can a man be found but at his work?

In the middle of the Dust Bowl, my heart was captured by a small-framed beauty who sought me. I spared her a few kind words, but nothing more.  

In many ways, I am just like any other. I sleep, I eat, and I work. I care for a carousel on the edge of a crumbling pier. The job suits me, it is timeless, calm; and most importantly, there are no doors on a merry-go-round. No secret exits in an open place. I am tired of secrets and doors.

They all must have a key. What is a door without a lock and what is a lock without a key? Have one, you must have the other. Is a door still a door when it bars nothing? How can it save space when anyone or anything can march on through? No, there must be a lock and for every lock, there must be a key. And all who meet with me, whoever they are, must have a Key.

When the South rose in rebellion, a blue-hair came to me with tarnished key in her shaking palm. This one lacked the child-like mannerisms or gross naiveté of many of her age who sought me. I supported her arm as I escorted her away.

Now, a brother and sister regard me. Often I suspect who my “clients” will be. I can tell by the look in their eyes: preoccupied and veiled, but these two took me by surprise.

The elder one, a girl, with dark hair and fair features laughed as her brother – a mirror to her image – shared his enthusiasm for the ride in squeaks and bellows. As most of the ones who come to me on … business … fail to enjoy the ride, I discounted these two.

As night fell and I readied myself to venture home, content, they came to me, holding a large, silver Key.

They offered some minimal discussion of which I did not ask nor particularly care to know. Their parents had died, some time ago, and the state had threatened to separate them: no blood stood by to take them in. Finding the silver Key and obscure hints in a journal in their parents’ possessions, they set out.

“Until we found you, sir,” the girl says. “The gatekeeper.”

When Europeans first came here, a swarthy man came, the first of them to find me. He called me “Porteiro”, a meaning which has stuck through the years. I prefer the old name, one which has gone with the people who gave it to me.

I sighed and said what I am bound to say. “What do you seek?” I have no choice, I have no autonomy. When they asked for the Door, I did as I was bid.

I took them to where they needed. I walked them from the carousel through the old, rotted boardwalk. I took them past buskers and beggars and young families on holiday, to the end of the causeway, where the sand and the rocks met the wooden trail. They paused by the overhang, frightened of the nearly pitch black darkness where I waited illuminated, old lantern in hand.

“You must decide,” I said, hissing. “There are no second chances here.” I glared at them out of my one good eye and waited. Only a few turn away when they find me, but most of those who do retreat here. The dark and unknown seems massive and all-encompassing when one is not prepared. It may seem frightening to those on a lark, but is nothing compared to the rest, I would assume.

The siblings, after a moment’s conference, followed me into the dark. The girl kept a tight eye on me and a firmer grip on her brother’s hand as she challenged me to lead them safe.

“I’ve heard about you,” she said. “They say you aren’t to be trusted, so stay in front of me.” She fingered something on her waist as I sighed and turned. I have received barely covered threats regularly in all the years that I have escorted those with a Key and I would be weary if I took umbrage at them all.

I lead them down through the depths until we came upon a cave, nestled between the wood and the water, leading into the sodden earth. I took up torches that lay and handed one to each of the children, lighting them and leading. The cave, once inside, was dank. Things scuttled and if the leading edge of light brushed upon them, they reared up on many legs and challenge before speeding away. The boy gasped when he saw one out of the corner of his eye. “Nothing can look like that,” he said to me, disturbed.

“But you have seen it and it is not nothing,” I said. The boy grew quiet, but firmed up his chin and nodded.

A pair of tribesmen from the plains stood here facing the many-legged creatures. The gray-haired, touched in some way by the sight of them, screamed and took chase into the darkness. The younger, stayed by my hand, did not follow. After a long wait, when the light of our torches nearly died, he reluctantly allowed me to lead him forth.

Soon we came to rough paving. I do not know how there is such a path underground: but before the city was here, the way was paved. Before the knowledge of what pavement was known, the road here was. The road is dark, blood-red brick, worn smooth by countless feet and hooves for there was a time when the travelers would come upon horseback, and before that, on beasts that no longer live, even in our history. When I was young, the road was but a hair more complete. When I am allowed to rest my weary bones and my replacement comes from the bogs and the sand, the road will remain.

From time to time, the light from their torches would illuminate the skeletal remains of former visitors. I did not bring attention to these unfortunates; and the girl, when she did notice, did not point it out to her sib. I paid my respects with a bare nod of my head and, after the first, the girl followed suit.

Soon enough, we reached the Door. It has changed slowly over time. Now it is a large, oaken thing, gilt in bronze along the edges and reinforced with steel. The handle is overlarge for the frame, and features a misshapen head of a long-extinct creature. Some see it one way, some another.

The boy nudged his sister and whispered, “A satyr.”

The girl shook her head, but did not speak.

I said nothing, it is not my task, but I always see something different.

A Victorian lady, ill-dressed for this journey, laughed when she looked upon the door. She explained, before picking up her voluminous skirts and setting forth, that the handle resembled her husband’s face.

After a long moment, silence weighing heavier than a shroud of iron, the girl advanced to the door. From around her neck she pulled the heavy silver key, handle long and slender with a round hole toward the end. From the neck of it sprouted jagged, uneven teeth fit for no normal lock. She looked at me with a question on her face, but I cannot ever speak first.

“What do I do?” she asked. Only when they speak, can I aid and provide. I could tell she was frightened.

“Enter the key to the lock, little girl. What you unlock is for you to enter or not. But whatever you decide, now is the time.” I pointed at the lock and fell silent.

An injured sailor, near the turn of the last century, who had spent his life either on the sea or in a bottle, could not understand how to make the Key fit the lock. I had to guide his hand to the door.

She did not disappoint. She tightened her grip and ripped the key from the chain on her neck.

I winced as the delicate links fell to the ground.

She took a long breath and entered the key and when she turned, in one quick motion, an audible click echoed. She pushed the door open easily and bright green light filtered through the door onto their faces.

The boy smiled and clapped his hands, the girl less certain but no less excited. Without another word toward me, they joined hands and ran through, the light fading as they passed.

I hesitate a moment to step forward. For the others, the door swings freely; but for me, it fights and only closes in fits and starts. I strain and the door’s hinges groan, until the door is held tight against the casing. I take the key in hand and twist it, shooting the bolts back home. I then remove the key and place it in my coat before kneeling to brush away their tracks.

Retracing my steps, I stand out in the moonlight and regard the night, breathing the salt air into my belly. I turn home to the other Door.

Did you think there was but one? There are entrances and exits, one for another. Like light and dark, yin and yang, there are two. The first, deep underground, sturdy and strong. The second is … less so.

It is a plain door, made of pine and painted a soft blue. There is a handle and a lock to which I have no key. It only opens outward. Every night, when I get home, I fix myself a meal and eat it, often in front of the television. After all, I am like everyone else for all that I have a grander task, a more tiresome chore, a longer road to travel.

After I finish my meal and ready myself for the night, I walk up three flights of stairs to the attic door, made of pine and painted a soft blue. Every night, I check to make sure it is closed. Many nights, it has been ajar. Only once have I seen anyone exit.

It was a long time ago, when I was young. The door was not what it was and the house was not a house, but more a crude shelter from the elements. But that is not important; what is important is that despite its look, its function has always been the same; it is the exit. Even then, every night, while I was eating my meal, I would check the door. That time I saw the door swing open, a boy stood there, maybe twelve years of age while I was finishing my hearty stew. He had the beginnings of a downy beard and a rough tautness to his frame. He regarded me when the door swung open and asked me, with a grave voice, “Is that it, then? Is it over? Have I won?”

I shrugged my shoulders and offered him my meal. He sat and thoughtfully ate from my bowl. After a time, when he was finished, he stood, thanked me for the meal and left my home. I gazed after him for a time, filled with questions that I could not ask.

I have craved to go through the doors myself every day, every hour, every moment since.

I have only just sent the siblings off, the first in a long time to brave the Door and whatever is beyond it. I hope that they come through. I feel the shackles on my soul loosening and I want to ask them what it is beyond the door. I know not where they go or what they find. I am to watch the door; I am to escort those that seek. I was not to question; I was only to yearn and to wonder. Are the others there, the many brave, sad souls that I have ushered through? What is the reward? The old man, who reminded me of my own father, so many years dead, is he still there. Or the plain woman who spared me a kiss in my youth … what became of her? I want to know of the hundreds of children, bursting with excitement of fear. I want to know what became of them.

Perhaps these two will come through. Perhaps they will succeed, if success even entails coming back. Perhaps they will tell me what is beyond the Door. My desire has only grown through the long years. So few come out again that I see, but what of it? I burn for the siblings to return, for perhaps they will lead me to my own Key.