Pressing his face against the passenger window, Gale’s eyes widened at the large black iron gate that opened automatically as Rachel’s car neared. The car entered into a brick road leading to a large mansion that looked more like a castle. In big roman letters, the sign said “Ann Family Estate.”

The estate sprawled across the property like something from a movie or a story. Three stories of limestone and glass stretched in both directions, with perfect symmetry. Autumn had turned the surrounding trees into a beautiful cascade of halloween colours. Tall hedges covered the whole perimeter, preventing anyone from looking in from outside.

“You live here?” Gale asked.

Rachel kept her eyes on the road. “Yup. Welcome home.”

Gale remembered one book he read about a rich main character. The book, in particular, was from the perspective of the secondary character rather than the main character. Never could he have imagined he would have that same feeling from a character in a book.

On the other hand, he lived in a rinky dinky orphanage that had peeling paint whenever he scraped by it even just a little bit with his shoulders. Looking down on his outfit, gray hoodie, slightly baggy jeans, and a backpack with a hole on the side. Was if he was even allowed in this kind of… rich people area.

He glanced at Rachel still holding the wheel.

It should be fine. Fine is good. But fine wasn’t good when she said fine earlier in the diner. He needed to look up what ‘fine’ meant later.

The car came to a halt by the front door of the house. Getting out of the car, he saw a sign just by the front door that said “Ann Family.”

“You grew up here?” Gale asked, bending his neck upwards to look at everything.

“Yeah,” Rachel also got out of the car and walked to his side. “It’s just a house.”

“Your ‘just a house’ could fit my entire apartment building. Twice.”

Rachel didn’t answer.

Gale followed her as she walked to the front door. She placed her thumb against a small panel beside the knob. A green light flashed, and then she placed her palm flat against another panel that slid out from the wall.

Her hand glowed blue.

The pulse from her hand felt like ether seeping into the device, but ether that’s different from Ollie’s. Closer to the signature of the essence he uses. However, a hint of difference still remained.

“You’re using ether to unlock your door?” he asked.

Rachel nodded. “Family’s security system.”

“That’s…” Gale thought of a word for a second. “Excessive?”

“My grandmother’s idea.” She smiled as the door swung open fully. “After you.”

Stepping inside the mansion, the sight of it all had him more frozen than he was when he was in the neutral grounds below Royal York Hotel.

The entrance hall had a ceiling thats 3 stories high, ending in a domed skylight. But what caught his attention were the materials. Breath of the Void had fed him that these weren’t just mundane materials, as they had lingering ether signatures. The floor beneath his feet looked like the same shiny white rock, but it had veins of ether flowing through them. The walls were the same. Wooden panels that seemed to move when he looked away from them. Each grain on that same wood looked like it was etched with microscopic glyphs.

“What is this place made of?” he asked, kneeling to touch the floor.

“Materials from the rift.”

“The rift?”

“My grandmother has particular tastes… The floor is I think cloudstone? It makes the space less echoey. The walls are made of living wood, at least that’s what I call it anyways.” Rachel said.

The wooden panel nearest to them seemed to shift. The patterns in the grain realigned themselves, forming circular patterns that mimicked wood, but clearly not. “Also serves as security. The whole house basically has a nervous system that responds to threats.”

“Young Miss,” a voice interrupted.

Gale stopped himself from almost flinching, stopping his left hand from going into his left pocket. He took a deep breath to calm his throbbing heart before looking at the figure.

A tall man in a black suit for a butler appeared from a hallway on the left. He had straight silver hair tied into a ponytail. His features seemed too perfectly symmetrical to be human, more like the elves that books had described. His eyes swept over Rachel briefly, and then gave Gale a clearly obvious stink eye.

“You didn’t inform us you would be bringing a guest,” the man said.

“I don’t need to inform you of my visitors, Gerard,” Rachel said.

“Your grandmother has certain expectations regarding security clearance, especially when dealing with…” Gerard’s eyes briefly glanced at Gale again. “…individuals looking like unsheltered humans.”

“This is Gale,” Rachel said. “He’s one of the friends that got stuck with me in the rift from before.”

Gerard’s eyebrows rose. “One of your forest followers? I was under the impression they had all been accounted for.”

“He just came back,” Rachel said.

“How convenient,” Gerard murmured. “Perhaps sir would like to check his… belongings at the door? We have had issues with outside contaminants in the past.”

“Gerard,” Rachel said with a voice much lower than before, sounding firmer. “Gale is my guest. He saved my life. Multiple times.”

“Of course, Miss Rachel.” Gerard bowed slightly. “Nevertheless, the guest quarters might be more appropriate for uncleared-“

“Gerard,” Rachel said.

The butler’s expression remained neutral, but his eyes showed all the disapproval that made Gale shrink. Rich people having butlers and security stuff. He couldn’t understand.

“As you wish, Miss Rachel. Shall I inform Lady Ann of your guest’s arrival?” Gerard asked.

“No,” Rachel said. “We won’t be staying long. Just grabbing some things from my room.”

Gerard nodded and walked away, his steps silent on the strange floor.

“Your grandmother sounds… crazy,” Gale said, following Rachel closely as to not get lost. “Wait, can I say that? She can’t hear me right?”

“Hahaha. No, she can’t, but crazy is putting it mildly.” Rachel’s lips curled into a half-smile. “Let’s just say she’s from old Aur. Very traditional. Very… particular about who enters her home.”

They passed multiple closed doors. Rachel pointed out that one of them was a dojo she would practice in on a daily basis. Then a dining room that she felt uncomfortable in.

Photos lined the corridor walls, showing people he didn’t know and also Rachel’s various ages. One of them had her holding up a trophy in a school with all the other kids in the background. In one other photo, a man and a woman stood beside her.

“Is that your parents?” Gale asked, pointing to a photo of Rachel as a young girl standing between a smiling couple. Her smile, the brightest he’s ever seen while her dad and mom held her shoulders on each side.

Rachel stopped. Her eyes turned to the small photo on the wall.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling softly as her eyes dilated. “That was my first win in the middle school school’s boxing tournament.”

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“You looked really happy.”

“Because I was. Was really happy,” Rachel said, touching the frame of the picture. “Not much to say other than that. They’re just… never home now.”

“Sorry,” Gale said.

“Don’t be.” Rachel’s fingers lingered on the photo frame, tracing the edge. “Grandma says they’re in an adventure out there in the world searching for places where we can be safer. Been saying that since I was around twelve.”

Mom and dad also said those things. Keep moving to be safer. Even though they always moved and had a hard life, it was happy. That’s all that mattered.

The way Rachel’s eyes trembled as she looked at the picture frame, she probably thought the same.

Gale’s hand moved and placed itself on her shoulder, hoping it would be some semblance of comfort. She looked back at him. The same warm smile he saw from back then, now in the most literal sense as the air warmed up around him.

“Come on. We got more stuff to see.” Rachel took his hand on her shoulder by the wrist and then dragged him softly along the corridors, holding it the whole while.

Eventually, they reached a door at the end of the hall.

“This is my room,” Rachel said, her hand on the doorknob. “What’s wrong? You look like I just invited you to jump off a cliff.”

Gale hesitated going in. “I’ve never been in a girl’s room before. Boys weren’t allowed in girls’ rooms.”

Rachel burst out laughing, wiping tears off her eyes. “You fought monsters in another dimension but you’re scared of a bedroom?”

She pushed the door open, and it revealed a room he wasn’t expecting. Other than the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the backyard with the scenery of the autumn colours unlike any other, it only had a large bed, a dark blue comforter, a desk with a computer chair, and everything else was plain compared to the hallway. It looked more like his lifestyle other than the stuffed toys and the size difference.

“What were you expecting?” Rachel asked. “Frilly curtains and pink bedding?”

“Kind of, yeah,” Gale said.

She walked to a door across the room. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

Gale walked over, following her. The door opened to a walk-in closet. Even just the closet was bigger than his whole apartment unit.

Rachel knelt beside a dresser and pulled out a wooden chest from a pile of clothes.

It looked old, plain, and easily missed. She placed it just outside of the walk-in closet and sat down.

“Sit,” she told him.

Gale sat in front of her in a lotus position, eyeing the wooden chest.

When the box opened, the smell hit him right away. The leafy smell of the forest, rocks, dirt, and surprisingly, creek water. Inside, a bunch of random stuff that looked more like it came from the forest.

“What is all this?” Gale asked.

Rachel took a stick from the box, a straight stick about the length of her arm. It looked dark, ordinary, dried, and had nubs where branches would have been.

“This is from a place called Horizon.” Rachel turned the stick in her hands, showing it to Gale. “It was the third rift I went through after we came back. The whole planet was just metal and glass. No plants, no trees, nothing green anywhere.”

“So it’s just a stick?” Gale said, putting a hand on his chin.

“It’s more than that.” Rachel said softly. “When we found this, it was the first organic matter we’d seen in days.”

She placed the stick on the carpet in front of him. “It reminded me of the forest we went through.”

The wood in the Eclipsed was dark and brown. It consumed the little light that came from the blue moon. Nothing like the trees on Earth. The stick had a similar colour that seemed to absorb the light, but not close enough to remind him of the dark forest.

“You went through more rifts? After coming back?” he asked.

Rachel nodded. “Some missions from the job board in the Path’s HQ. Also, sometimes they would appear near our home. Grandma would tell me to go with a few people.”

Her hand went back into the box, taking out a stone. It had an odd bluish-gray colour.

“This came from Castle World,” she said. “That’s what we called it, anyway. The entire planet was basically one giant stone structure. Looked like a castle from the open hole windows.”

Gale squinted at the stone. It was the exact colour of the stone tower where they had stayed as refuge against the forest beasts.

“Just looks like a rock to me,” he said, though his throat felt dry.

“The planet’s surface was solid stone for miles down. No dirt, no soil, no separate buildings. Just one massive castle that stretched across the whole world.” Rachel placed the stone next to the stick, also in front of him.

She reached into the box one last time and pulled out something that Gale didn’t expect. A crude spear, no longer than his arm, made of what looked like a sharp bone tied to a stick with dried sinew.

“We called this world The Bone Fields,” Rachel said. “Scary name, huh? A couple of Path agents called it that, but that’s where I got this. A rift where the ground was covered in bones as far as you could see. Monsters there lived underground and would come out at night to hunt anyone at the surface.”

“Why did you keep them?” Gale said. “All these years.”

Rachel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know why, exactly. Just felt like keeping them. Haha.”

Autumn light came in from the windows. It cast a ray on Rachel’s face, making her awkward expression more vivid. Each item was basically a piece of memory for her, proof that she went through tremendous things that he hadn’t experienced with her. Proof that time moved on even without him.

“Sometimes I’d pull them out after bad days,” Rachel said softly. “When the nightmares got too much.”

Staring at the items she laid on the carpet, it all made sense. It reminded her of the nightmare they went through together. The time they spent together in that hell to fight against one another in a twisted way of experiencing freedom from whatever she lived in here. She wanted to fight together, and he threw her away.

“I’m sorry. I get it now,” Gale said.

Rachel looked up. “Get what?”

“Why you were so angry at the restaurant.” Gale met her eyes. “You kept fighting, going into rifts, and remember the things we’ve went through.”

“Yeah….” Rachel picked up the stick, looking at it before placing it back into the box. “There was this one rift, about three years ago. The squad called it the Deep Dark. Nothing but darkness for miles. Not like night darkness. It was just pitch black.”

Gale leaned forward. “How’d you navigate?”

“That’s the funny part.” Rachel let out a chuckle. “They made me their walking candle.”

She raised her palm, and a small flame danced in her hand. “I had to keep this going for I don’t know how many days straight. My ether nearly ran out.”

Gale watched the flame. It was smooth, unaffected by the wind when she moved her hand around. Back in the forest, her fire lashed out at anything. Even allies needed to watch out for it, making her hold back. Now, it was smoother and more controlled.

“What was in there?” he asked. “In the darkness?”

“Just a couple of monsters. Weak bony ones.” Rachel closed her fist, extinguishing the flame. “Things moved just at the edge of the light. All the monsters were afraid of the fire. Sometimes, there were voices that whispered right into our ears. And then we found the core, destroyed it, and went out.”

She looked down at the items on the floor, then looked into Gale’s eyes. “I got into reading after we came back. Helped me process stuff.”

“Really? What did you read so far?” Gale asked immediately.

The temperature in the room warmed up, and the air conditioning kicked in, blasting a draft their way.

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. It’s just some stupid books I read in my spare time.”

“But you said it helped you process stuff. They must be pretty good books.”

“A Court of Thorns and Roses.”

“What’s that about?”

Rachel stayed silent. Her eyes darted around, not meeting his even though he pushed for an answer. It was a book Gale didn’t know. He read all the books in that orphanage library. How has he never heard of it before? There was no way a book with such an amazing name would’ve escaped him.

“Do you still have the book?” Gale said, trying to stand up, but her hands stopped him from getting up.

“No, it’s fine. It’s probably somewhere burnt already. Haha.” Rachel faked a smile. “What about your classes?”

“I’ve been reading Poe for my class,” Gale said, slightly avoiding her eyes. “‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ It’s about this guy who kills an old man because he can’t stand his ‘evil eye,’ then hides the body under the floorboards. But he keeps hearing the dead man’s heart beating.”

“Sounds like half the people I’ve met in Aur,” Rachel laughed.

“The thing is,” Gale continued, “the heart is just in his head. There’s no actual sound. It’s his guilt making him hear things. But to him, it’s as real as anything.”

Rachel’s stare rested on the items between them. “Sometimes the things in our heads feel more real than what’s actually there.”

The main character of Poe’s story reminded Gale of the lies he told himself in the rift. It would be better alone. Solitude was the answer to everything. They were all liabilities. Might as well run away.

It was those same lies that led to those painful days without anyone.

“There was this one novel about a woman who could step between parallel dimensions,” Rachel said, fingers tracing the edge of the wooden box. “It made me wonder if there’s a world out there where we all made it back together. Where none of us got left behind.”

“I wish I could have been there,” Gale said softly. “For all of it.”

“Me too.” Rachel looked up, meeting his eyes. “But you’re here now. That counts for something, right?”

Before Gale could answer, a notification from her phone beeped in Rachel’s pocket.

The phone rang again.

“I should probably get that,” Rachel said, standing up from the floor.

Gale watched as she answered, her expression shifting from a soft smile to a focused business in seconds.

“When?” she asked, pacing toward the window. “And you’re sure it matches the binding process? No crystal formations yet?”

Gale couldn’t hear Ollie’s response, but Rachel sighed and cast a look toward him.

“No, it’s fine. I can meet up with you later,” she said. “I’ll head over to the facility now.”

She ended the call, looking back at Gale.

“Hey,” Rachel said, crouching down to the box and putting the items back in. “Wanna see some of the stuff Ollie’s been having me work on?”

“Where to?” Gale asked.

“Research facility, south wing.” Rachel sighed, shaking her head. “He almost gave me a heart attack when he was negotiating with my grandma about that one. Come on.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep