The Forever Gate (9 page)

Her tea had grown cold. She allowed electricity to spark from her fingers, and instantly the liquid boiled. She took a tentative sip. Ah, much better. She remembered a time when hot tea scalded her tongue. These days it was the only thing she could drink
—everything else felt cold. It was getting so very hard to keep warm at her age. So very hard.

But I'm not that old!
a part of her shouted. All she had to do was look at the liver spots on her trembling hands.
Oh yes you are.

A hurried knock came at the front door and she almost dropped the cup.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" She crankily grabbed her cane, and steeled herself for what would come. She stood all at once, and flinched at the agony in her left knee. Something always hurt these days. Her left knee. Her right shoulder. Her lower back. She massaged electricity into the knee, and it helped, a little.

The knocking at the front door became more frantic.

"
I said I was coming!
" She began the long journey to the door. The shack was small, but so was her stride, and she crossed the room step by tiny step. She wondered who was bothering her this morning. The nurse wasn't scheduled to visit for another three hours.

She finally reached the door, and paused a moment, not at all looking forward to the cold that would come. The blasted fool outside the door knocked again, and she opened the door irritably.

A wave of frigid air assailed her.
Damn this cold!

Shivering, she recognized Jackson, a messenger who'd joined the New Users a year ago. He was the highly-connected cousin of the mayor. A little on the dumb side.

"What is it?" Her breath misted. "Why have you come here in broad daylight? Were you followed?" She glanced at the snowy street behind him. There were only a few people about. Human.

"Leader Ari!" Jackson bowed excitedly.

"Yes yes." Ari waved a dismissive hand. "Spare me the formalities and answer the question damn you."

Jackson bounced on his heels rather exuberantly. "He's done it. He's really done it. He's crossed back!"

"Who's crossed back? Speak plainly, idiot!" Old age had made her a little crabby, she had to admit. That, and the irrepressible cold.

The man offered her an open journal.

Ari no longer noticed the man, nor the breath misting between them, nor even the cold. All of her attention was on that diary, which she recognized immediately. It was the diary that was twin to the one Hoodwink had taken with him, a diary rigged to instantly reflect any words written in his copy. It was the diary that was kept on display in the New User headquarters deep underground, reverently left open to the page of Hoodwink's last missive ten years ago. It was the diary she'd sat beside for weeks after he'd gone, futilely waiting for a message from her father, a message that never came.

Something new was written beneath the last entry, in Hoodwink's own handwriting. A single sentence:

Told you I'd come back.

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The Foreve
r Gate 2

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The Forever Gate
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