The Gateway

Dear Diary,

I found my brother's body today. After the note he'd left me. The suicide note. I had to give it to the police. Evidence they said. But I have a picture, and I'll transcribe it later. Of course, he said it wasn't a suicide note. Said, wrote. Whatever. God, I'm afraind I'm going to forget his voice. Said how much he loved me. Said he was sorry for leaving me. Said he couldn't say thank you enough for all I put up with him. He was never grounded enough for this world. Scattered, finding connections that just weren't there. Should have forced him to see a professional. Too late now.

Died like he lived. Weirdly. Just like he said.

"You'll find me by the stones. There's a world where our dreams are true, where everyone has the opportunity to be their very best selves. But to get there, I have to leave this world."

Sounds like suicide, right? Dead body. Out by the trilithon in the woods. Goodbye note.

But...
I'd sound crazy if I told anyone, and the phone battery died before I got there so I couldn't take pictures. But I swear by all that is holy and good in the world there were tracks in the soft earth. The impressions of his boots leading to where his body laid against the base of the tree, almost cradled by the ancient thing's roots. And the giant paw prints, like some sort of distended canine that led away from him and just... stopped at the standing stones. It started pouring rain before the police got there. Turned the place into a mud hole. No one else saw them. Huh. How do you know a life has been lived once it's ended?... Anyway. I saw them. I know I saw them.

Or did I? Which stages are bargaining and denial? I don't want him to be dead. I want my weird brother back, talking about psychic harmonics and universal string vibrations.

If I start crying now, I don't think I'll be able to stop. No crying.

Dear Diary,

I dreamt of him last night. My brother. As soon as I saw him I realized I must be dreaming, and I woke up. He called out to me, but I couldn't hear what he said. His arm stretched out, as if in slow motion, and then it felt like I was pulled away down a long tunnel; like I fell back into my body. I woke with a jolt and cried.

Dear Diary,

Three nights running. The same dream. I see him, and I know I'm dreaming, so I wake up. The same place, the same tunnel feeling, the same jolt awake. More crying. Maybe I need to try and stay asleep? Maybe I'm trying to tell myself something? Who knows. I just want to rest, and not cry. It hurts so damn much.

Dear Diary,

I stayed asleep.
It was.... I don't know what it was. It was a dream. It had to be. But, I don't want that to be true. And I must be crazy, if that was my dream.

He was there, in that same place that looks like Stonehenge, but not a ruin; like it had just been built a week ago. And yet it felt ancient, eternal, like looking across the ocean. The trees were alien, but familiar; as if I'd seen them before even though I am quite sure I have not. The air was full of the sounds of small life going about its business. Chirping, chittering, wind in leaves, the perfume of flowers I'd never smelled before but made me yearn for a memory I don't have. Just being there somehow made my heart ache, even without him standing there in the midst of it all.

He spoke my name, reached out to me; and this time I didn't get pulled back through the tunnel and away. His eyes were clear, and they shined like jewels. His voice was steady. But it was his focus that was so different. He had always been going in three directions at once, his attention and thoughts scattered on different tasks, like a cat trying to chase an entire flock of birds. Now, it was like a laser; and he was there all of him, all at once focused on being there, and on me.

We talked for a bit. I don't remember the exact words, but I remember the gist of it. He was glad I didn't disappear this time. He isn't dead, just here, in this other place, that isn't there, the place I'm still stuck in.

He wanted to introduced me to his friend, the one he said helped him get there from the world I was still living in. I asked where his friend was, and he said she was standing behind one of the lintels, out of sight, for fear that her appearance might frighten me off.

I turned, and she stepped into sight. Eight feet tall? Nine? I don't know. Past six and a half it's all kind of guessing for me. Big. Muscular, yet svelt. She looked like one of those anthro pics on the internet, or a werewolf out of Hollywood. Classical wolf markings and coloring. But for her eyes. They shifted slowly, through a whole spectrum of jeweled colors. Sky sapphires. Grassy emeralds. Black obsidian. And on and on. Her sheer size was intimidating. But frightening? No. Not a bit. She struck that same sense of forgotten familiarity I got from the trees and the stones. She moved with a grace I instantly envied. Her voice was low, and smokey. I couldn't help but think she'd make a wonderful blues singer.

I can't remember what we said. But she wanted to know me better, asked for permission to do something. I must have said yes, because it was a dream, why not? She put two of her fingers to my temples and closed her eyes. It felt like being flooded by the happy warmth of a thousand years of gentle sunbeams.

The only words I remember were the last ones she spoke before I woke up in bed (no jolt, no tears) "It makes sense now. Laura, your brother and I must make preparations. Please be patient. We'll see you again soon, I promise."

When I woke up I realized my brother wasn't my brother there. I mean, it was him, but it wasn't. It was the concept of my brother, an idealized him I guess you could say. He didn't look like him physically, even though it was him spiritually. It was like the roman statue version of him. I don't know how else to put it. Maybe when I'm not an emotional train wreck and I've had coffee I can do it better justice for my personal posterity. This will do for now.

Dear Diary,

Three days and no dreams of my brother or his friend. No dreams at all. It must have been a dream, some strange thing my subconscious cobbled together in my grief. And yet I can't shake the feelings it left me with. Or the images of alien trees I've never seen before but left me yearning to run through them. And that smell, that flowery smell. I don't know what it is, but I can't possibly forget it now; even though I feel like I forgot it before? It's so confusing.

Tomorrow I pick up his creamated remains. Maybe I'll be able to put him inside a fancy puzzle box some day. I think he'd like that.

Dear Diary,

I dreamt of him last night. Him and his wifwolf friend. Except it wasn't a dream. I was there for hours. We spoke about so much. You wouldn't believe me if I wrote it down. It sounds like none of it can be true. I wouldn't believe any of it. Except. There's this fresh wound in my thigh where she bit me. And I can still taste her blood in my own mouth. I'm going to the trilithon, to the gate. I'm going to cross worlds there. I'm going to see my brother again. I'm going to be the best me I can be.

It is a strange feeling, to look at one's own body from outside. Stranger still to know you're never coming back to it. It's laying there, where my brother's body laid a week ago, cradled by the roots of an ancient yew.

The trilithon gate is in front of me. Through it, I can see my brother beckoning in the other world. I can see his friend, the wifwolf I have begun to call sister. I smile, and leave great canine like prints in the soft earth as I walk between the lintels leaving everything I was before behind; to embrace everything I can be in front of me.

I'm looking Air'yn in the eyes when I've crossed over. I'm her size. My fur is starkly white with some light grey markings. Heh, my fur. In a way it is so strange to think that; and yet it is not strange at all, just utterly natural. I'm athletically built from what I can see, but there's plenty else I need a mirror or two for. I'm so happy to see them like this I don't notice their expressions for a moment. Not until I put my brother down from the great hug I've picked him up in. I didn't even realize how much I was crying, happy crying, until he reached up and wiped some tears away. It was the awe I saw that finally clued me in.

"What? What is it? Do I look weird or something?"

All he said was "Star eyed."

I turned to Air'yn, and she was also looking at me with something like awe. "What's this Star Eyed?"

She dug around in her pack and came out with a mirror and handed it to me. It was the first time I ever saw the wolf like face that stared back at me from it. Yet I recognized it as my own, and it felt familiar; so familiar I wasn't struck by anything odd until I really looked at my eyes. They were utterly black from corner to corner, save for the smattering of tiny sparkling points, as if diamond dust had been thrown over black velvet; like glittering stars in a moonless sky.