Page 64 of Awry
And with the way everyone here seems to recognize my last name, if not me personally, I believe her.
The kitsune shifter hits the accelerator.“Check your fucking text messages.”
I don’t.
Six
The sky is clouding over,intermittently blocking the late-winter sun, as Cayley pulls the Corvette to a stop at the turn into the long drive leading up to the main house of the estate.Following the highway as it shifted inland from the coast, we left the last seaside town, Lincoln City, in our rearview mirror about ten minutes ago.We’ve been traveling along the mostly forested eastern border of the expansive property since.The main house is set near the middle of that property.
A gate blocks our entry.A gate I’ve never actually seen closed before, and which is now apparently locked.
I slide out of the car, moving hesitantly now that I’ve arrived.For the last three weeks, I’ve been moving toward this moment.
For the last three weeks, I’ve been avoiding it in every way I can.
Finding myself in a diner I had no intention of stopping at, I practically welcomed the distraction with Presh and the clash with the Cataclysm bikers.I forced the knowing.And I did so with the understanding that it would have consequences.
Namely, my death.Like that seemed preferable to my standing here now.
Coda isn’t wrong about my lack of self-preservation skills.The hacker just might not know me well enough to know how willfully I … disregard … myself.Deliberately.
I know what’s happened to bring me here.My aunt’s death, and my inheritance.I just don’t know the why or the how.But my being here is now tied up with so much that I don’t understand— starting with the number of people who seem to know me, or younger me, at least.And even the connection to Cayley through her sister.
If I’m walking a path already measured for me — perhaps by my aunt herself — why does it feel so disjointed?So disconcerting?
“Open the gate?”Cayley leans over the passenger seat to call after me.
I shut the car door without responding to the shifter and slowly cross to the gate.I just stare down at the latch.I don’t bother trying to unlock it.
My Aunt Disa and I never discussed this part — the actual transition — because it should have been decades away.Even a century or more.
I was supposed to … live, to have a life —
I shove the thought away.Whinging and whining aren’t my thing, so I’m not going to start now.Or I’m not going to get caught up in it, at least.
Even without the closed gate physically blocking my way, I know that the transition I’m facing — assuming?accepting?— isn’t going to be as easy as me just driving up to the main house.
Is my aunt’s body somewhere on the property, waiting for me to stumble upon it?Or has she just … disintegrated into the aether?More specifically, is she now my so-called sister in the transition to theAfter, snipping the threads of fate that now flow through me?And if so, what does that mean exactly?Does she still exist beyond this plane?If I hire the services of a mage with an affinity for the dead, will I be able to hunt down traces of —
I scrub a hand across my face.I’m still too near death myself.One foot dangling over the edge.Sections of my soul are still tangled in the aether.And I’m wallowing in it.
Instead of unlatching the gate, I climb it.The fencing is about six feet high on this edge of the property.Grasslands allowed to go wild stretch from here up to the house, which is set back from the bluff.A long, sandy beach stretches out as far as the eye can see — with enhanced or normal sight — from either side of that jagged, rocky outcropping.A low-lying beach punctuated by massive rock formations jutting out of the surf runs to the right.To the far south, near the very edge of the property, dunes begin to rise.
Except ‘property’ really isn’t the right word to encompass the mass of land that the Conduit and the Gage family occupy along the coast of Oregon.It’s a territory, really.Hectares upon hectares of land and beach.Even the foreshore is protected from public access, with both legal and essence-enforced boundaries.There’s a no-fly zone above, and a no-boating zone set between us and international waters.No entry without permission.
I can’t currently see that much of the property, of course.Not even while balanced on top of the gate.I can, however, see the conical roof of the turret tower on the main house, offset to the left on the asymmetrical structure.None of the usually ever-present soft glow emanates from its windows.
“Zaya?”Cayley asks.She’s out of the car now, moving toward me.
I don’t look back.I can’t feel anything yet except for a shiver of chilly wind coming up the long, gently curved driveway.I climb down the other side of the gate, hesitating a beat longer before setting my feet on the pavement.The driveway and all the paths will need to be power washed in the spring.
Nothing happens.
I pivot in place.
Winter-dead grass stretches out before me on either side of the driveway, the edging neatly trimmed.The grass gives way to forested sections that have been left to go wild for centuries, since the first Conduit claimed the land.Not the actual first Conduit, of course.I don’t think any of our personal records stretch back that far.
The world, with the gods no longer among us, is far older than centuries inked on paper, or even carved on tablet, can count.
