Caught in the Fabric

"I'd braced myself for detectives and dimension-hopping conspiracies—the whole catastrophe. Nobody warned me about the strand of fur on the recliner."

Circling the island bench for what felt like the thousandth time, I pointed the Portal Key at the living room wall once more. The motion had become automatic—lift arm, aim at wall, slide finger across button. Hope for something different. Receive nothing.

I slid my finger across the button again, pressing harder this time as if force might make a difference. The device remained inert in my hand. No ball of energy shooting from its end. No wall exploding in a spectacle of colour. Just the same bland charcoal surface staring back at me, unchanged and unchanging, mocking every desperate attempt.

My chest tightened with each futile repetition. The Portal Key had become my lifeline over this past week—my escape route, my connection to Clivilius, my ability to move between worlds with the ease of stepping through a doorway. Without it, I was trapped. Stranded on Earth with a detective sniffing around my property, a neighbour cataloguing my movements, and no way to reach the settlement that depended on me.

I tried again. Nothing.

Again. Nothing.

The frustration built like pressure behind my eyes, a headache forming to match the one that had plagued me since waking. My legs burned from the endless pacing. And still the wall remained stubbornly ordinary, refusing to transform into the swirling portal that should have appeared at my command.

What the hell is wrong with this thing?

I turned it over in my palm, examining it for damage, for some visible sign of malfunction. The device looked exactly as it always had—small, metallic, unremarkable. The kind of object you might mistake for a garage door opener or a car key fob if you didn't know better. Nothing about its appearance suggested why it had suddenly decided to stop working.

The phone on the bench vibrated loudly, its sudden buzzing a jarring intrusion into my spiral of failed attempts. My impatience and frustration reached a boiling point as I swiped it from the surface, ready to dismiss whatever distraction had dared to interrupt.

The notification screen displayed a message from Gladys.

11:07AM Gladys: I'm at Collinsvale. Where are you?

Shit! The fence order.

The realisation crashed through my preoccupation like cold water. I'd completely forgotten. Gladys had been collecting additional fencing supplies we'd ordered. She'd driven out to the Owens' property in Collinsvale expecting me to be there, expecting to hand off the delivery so I could Portal it through to Clivilius.

But I couldn't Portal anything anywhere. Not until I figured out what the hell was wrong with my Portal Key.

I stared at the message, my mind cycling through options. Collinsvale was only ten minutes away—hardly a significant drive. And Gladys was already in the truck. Already behind the wheel. It made more sense for her to come to me.

I can't leave here until I know what's going on, I told myself. The Portal Key sat dead in my pocket, and until I understood why, I wasn't going anywhere.

I typed out a quick reply, already anticipating her reaction.

11:09AM Luke: Bring it around home. Sorry.

The response came almost immediately.

11:09AM Gladys: Seriously!?

I could practically hear her indignation through the screen, could picture her sitting in the cab of the truck in Collinsvale, staring at her phone with that particular expression of put-upon annoyance she wore whenever plans changed without her approval.

11:10AM Luke: Yes please. I'll get you some wine. I promise.

The negotiation hung in the balance. Gladys's weakness for wine, I suddenly realised, was something I wasn't above exploiting when necessary. Everything felt necessary these days.

"Come on, Gladys," I murmured softly, fingers tapping the benchtop in a nervous rhythm as I waited. The seconds stretched out, each one feeling longer than the last. My eyes stayed fixed on the screen, watching for the three dots that would indicate she was typing a response.

Nothing.

More nothing.

I resisted the urge to send another message, knowing that pushing too hard would only make her dig in her heels. Gladys responded better to bribery than to pressure. I just had to wait her out.

11:12AM Gladys: I want two bottles

A smile broke across my face—the first genuine one since I'd woken to find my Portal Key useless, since the detective had smashed through my window, since I'd stood at the back fence watching an unidentified car disappear in a cloud of dust.

Easily persuaded. The thought brought a brief chuckle, a moment of lightness in what had otherwise been a catastrophic morning.

11:13AM Luke: Done

With Gladys en route, I had time to fill and nothing productive to do with my Portal Key. Which left me confronting the evidence of everything that had gone wrong in this house over recent days.

I looked around properly for the first time since the detective's intrusion, taking in the state of the place with fresh eyes. The broken window in the back room where Jenkins had smashed his way in—glass still scattered across the carpet, fly-screen crumpled on the concrete outside. The study light that had been damaged during... I couldn't even remember which crisis anymore. There had been so many.

And then there was the blood. Or rather—there wasn't.

I paused in the hallway, frowning at the walls. Beatrix had bled heavily after the shadow panther attack. I remembered the smears along these walls where she'd staggered through, the handprint on the bathroom door frame where she'd steadied herself, the spots on the skirting boards.

But now... the walls were clean. I ran my finger along the bathroom door frame where I distinctly remembered that bloody handprint. Nothing. Not even a faint trace.

Moving through to the kitchen, I found the same. The dark pool that had formed on the tiles—gone. The kitchen floor gleamed as if nothing had ever happened there.

When did this happen?

And it wasn't just the blood. The camping gear—all the equipment that had been piled in the living room after one of the supply runs—had vanished too. Tents, sleeping bags, camp chairs, the whole lot. Gone as if it had never been there.

Someone had been in my house. Cleaned it. Removed items. And I had no idea when.

I stood there for a moment, unsettled by my own obliviousness. How had I not noticed? How had I been so consumed by everything else—the detective, the Portal Key, Duke—that this had happened without me even registering it?

Then my mind caught up with itself. The camping gear would have gone to Clivilius. The cleaning was thorough, methodical. It had to be Beatrix. She must have come through at some point, seen the state of the place, and dealt with it while I was off juggling a dozen other crises. Pushing Nial through the portal. Sneaking into his house to retrieve the work laptop—and the disaster with that bloody Dalmatian. Sitting across from Thelma and Jane at Vaucluse, trying to extract answers about keys and trapdoors.

The thought should have been comforting—one less thing to worry about. Instead, it just underscored how fractured my attention had become. People were moving through my life, my home, handling things I should have been on top of—and I was barely keeping track.

What else have I missed?

The house was clean—cleaner than I'd left it—but that didn't change the fundamental problem. This place was compromised. The detective knew to look here. Terry was watching from across the road, ready to report anything suspicious. And despite all of that, I'd just asked Gladys to bring yet another delivery straight to the front door.

Brilliant, Luke. Really thinking that through.

But what was done was done. She was already on her way.

With time to kill and a Portal Key that refused to cooperate, I found myself looking around at what remained of the life Jamie and I had built here. We couldn't use this place as a base anymore. That much was clear. Which meant, sooner or later, we'd need to empty it entirely.

May as well make a start.

I headed downstairs, remembering the empty boxes I'd shoved into the cupboard under the stairs after our last move. They were still there—flattened, dusty, but serviceable. I pulled a few out, folded them back into shape, and started on the bookcase. Handfuls of books went in without ceremony, spines cracking against each other as I worked. It wasn't much—the downstairs living room had never been more than a couch, a coffee table, and these shelves—but it was something to do while I waited. Something to keep my hands busy while my mind spiralled.

The three-seater couch caught my attention as I shoved another handful of books into the box. I found myself staring at it, hands pausing mid-task.

The tents in Clivilius are huge, I reminded myself, trying to think practically. They can easily fit a few couches, especially in those central, shared spaces. The settlers were living in temporary accommodation, sleeping on spare mattresses and sitting in folding chairs. A proper couch would be a luxury. A touch of home in a world that was anything but.

But standing there, contemplating the logistics, a deeper realisation took hold. This wasn't really about physical comfort or strategic resource consolidation. It was about clinging to something normal in a world that had become unrecognisable. The couch, the furniture, all of it—these were anchors to a life I was desperate to preserve even as it slipped through my fingers.

Jamie and I had bought this couch together, three years ago. We'd argued about the colour—he'd wanted grey, I'd wanted blue, we'd compromised on this deep charcoal that satisfied neither of us and somehow pleased us both. Getting it into the house had been a disaster. We'd wrestled it through the front door, then stood at the top of the stairs staring at the doorway, trying to work out the angles. Tipping it. Rotating it. Swearing at each other about whose idea this had been.

Then Jamie had stopped, looked at me, and said "We're idiots. We can just take it around back and through the sliding door."

Back out the front door, around the house, and straight in through the large glass slider in under two minutes. We'd collapsed onto it right there in the middle of the room, too exhausted and too embarrassed to do anything but laugh at ourselves. Then we'd ordered pizza and watched terrible television and felt utterly content.

Now Jamie hated me. The couch was going to another dimension. And I was standing in a half-empty room, trying not to cry.

"Hey, Luke," Gladys's voice pierced the silence, her sudden presence in the room jolting me from my thoughts.

I spun to face her, heart hammering from the unexpected intrusion. My hand had already moved toward my pocket, toward the useless Portal Key, before I registered who it was. "How–" I started, confusion and residual panic making my voice sharp.

"Front door was open," Gladys offered, matter-of-fact, seemingly unaware of how close I'd come to... what? Fighting her? Running? I didn't even know anymore.

"Open?" The word echoed out of me, my mind immediately leaping to worst-case scenarios. Had Jenkins returned? Had someone else found their way in while I was distracted with packing?

"Not open, open," Gladys clarified, catching the edge of alarm in my voice. "Just unlocked."

The relief that washed through me was almost dizzying. Just unlocked. I must have forgotten to secure it after checking that Jenkins had really left. Careless. Dangerous. But not catastrophic.

"You had me worried there," I admitted, letting out an exhale that carried the weight of my temporary fear.

Gladys responded with a shrug, her nonchalance a stark contrast to my frayed nerves.

"So," she began, drawing out the word as her gaze swept the room, taking in the chaos of boxes. "What's with all the packing? Why not take it straight to Clivilius?" Her fingers absentmindedly brushed small clumps of dirt from the couch as she spoke, the gesture casual and thoughtless.

I watched her hand move across the fabric, watched the dirt fall away, and felt something twist in my chest. That dirt. Duke's dirt. Carried in on his paws from the backyard, ground into the fabric during countless afternoons of him sprawling across the cushions, tracking mud and leaves and the evidence of his adventures through the house. She was brushing away traces of his existence as if they were nothing more than mess to be cleaned.

"My Portal Key isn't working," I snapped, the frustration bleeding through sharper than I'd intended.

"Do you know why?" Gladys asked. She moved along to the recliner, her actions continuing as she began to dislodge the dirt that had clung to that fabric as well.

The burning behind my eyes intensified, watching her methodically erase Duke's presence from the furniture. I needed to get her out of here. Now. Before the emotions overwhelmed me, before the grief became visible, before I broke down in front of someone else.

Desperation clawed at my insides as I reached into my pocket, retrieving the cash I'd taken from Kain's wallet. Blood money, some might call it—currency stolen from a man I'd helped kidnap. Just another small crime in service of a greater cause. Just another thing I tried not to think about too carefully.

"Move the truck onto the vacant block and then you can take Jamie's car to go and buy yourself some wine," I said, my voice a mixture of command and plea as I thrust the wad of notes under her nose. A dismissal dressed up as generosity. The truck would stay on our vacant corner block beside the house until my Portal Key decided to function again—if it ever would—and she had no other reason to remain here.

"Sure," Gladys responded, surprise flickering across her features at the amount of cash I was offering. She snatched the notes, fingers quickly thumbing through them as she counted. The action was so mundane—counting money, calculating purchases—and so starkly contrasted with the turmoil churning inside me.

"Spend all of it," I interjected before she could question the generosity.

Gladys nodded, shoving the notes into her back pocket. As she turned to leave, her gaze caught mine—and held. For a moment, her eyes lingered on me, seeing something I'd tried to hide. A tear I hastily wiped away before it could fully escape, before it could betray the depth of everything I was barely holding together.

She hesitated. I saw it in the way her weight shifted, the way her mouth opened slightly as if to speak. Some part of her recognised that something was wrong, that this wasn't just about a malfunctioning Portal Key or a change in plans. But Gladys had never been comfortable with emotion—hers or anyone else's. After a moment, she thought better of whatever she'd been about to say and disappeared up the stairs.

The front door closed with a loud bang, the sound echoing through the empty space like a final punctuation mark. Left alone with my thoughts, the weight of everything pressed down on me. The exchange—cash for a temporary reprieve from company—felt like a bandage over a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding. It bought me time. It didn't buy me peace.

I made my way to the recliner, moving through the room as if each step was a journey through accumulated memory. This was where Jamie sat to read. That was where Duke would sprawl after his outdoor garden adventures. Here was the spot where Henri liked to curl up when the afternoon sun hit it just right.

Ignoring the dirt that remained on the dark fabric—Duke's dirt, I thought fiercely, and it can bloody well stay there—I let myself sink into the cushioned softness. The recliner welcomed me, its familiar contours a small comfort in the chaos. For a moment, I just sat there, breathing, trying to find some equilibrium.

Then I saw it.

A single strand of white fur, its tip caught in the fabric on the arm of the recliner.

My hand moved before my mind had fully processed what I was seeing. Carefully, I picked it up, the action both deliberate and tender. The strand was maybe two inches long, slightly coarse, exactly the texture I remembered from running my fingers through Duke's coat.

Bringing the fur to my nose, I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes to better focus on the scent. It was faint—just a trace, really—but unmistakably Duke's. That particular smell that all dogs have but that each dog makes uniquely their own. The smell of sun-warmed fur and backyard adventures and unconditional love.

For a moment, I could see him. Duke's furry brown and white face hovering before me in my mind's eye, vivid as life. His pink tongue lolling from his panting mouth in that goofy, joyful way he had. His eyes bright with excitement, always so happy to see me, always so certain that my arrival meant good things were about to happen.

I could almost feel the weight of his body, the familiar pressure of his paws performing their delicate balancing act on my thighs as he tried to get closer, always closer. Duke had never understood personal space. He'd wanted to be touching you at all times, pressed against your legs when you sat, sprawled across your feet when you stood, climbing into your lap.

The sensation of his rough tongue running across my cheek pulled a smile from somewhere deep within me—a real smile, born of memory rather than forced for appearance. I remembered playfully fighting to push his face away before he could lavish me with more of his enthusiastic kisses, remembered the way he'd just come back for more, undeterred, convinced that persistence would win out. Duke had always been the more affectionate of the two boys, his love uncontainable and unsubtle.

Then, as quickly as the memory came, it faded. In my imagination, Duke leaped from my lap, his skinny front legs extending outward like a sugar glider attempting flight, landing with a soft thump on the carpet before bounding away to investigate some new smell or sound or possibility. The vividness was so acute, so real, that for a fleeting second I half-expected to see him there when I opened my eyes—looking up at me with those trusting brown eyes, tail wagging, ready for whatever adventure came next.

But when I opened my eyes, there was only the empty room. The silent house. The single strand of white fur clutched in my fingers.

I pressed it against my chest, feeling the pounding of my heart beneath it—too fast, too hard, as if trying to escape the cage of my ribs. The physical ache for the companion I would never hold again was almost unbearable. The permanence of the loss. The knowledge that no matter how many strands of fur I found, no matter how many memories I replayed, Duke was gone and he wasn't coming back.

"I'm so sorry, Duke," I whispered into the silence of the empty house.

The words were a tribute. A prayer. An apology for failing to protect him when it mattered most. For bringing him to Clivilius in the first place. For every choice I'd made that had led, however indirectly, to his death.

In that moment, sitting alone with grief pressing down on me, I understood something I'd been avoiding. Duke's death wasn't just a tragedy. It was a consequence. A direct result of the path I'd chosen—the kidnappings, the manipulation, the increasingly desperate measures I justified as necessary. I'd built a settlement in a dangerous world and brought innocent creatures into it, and now one of them was dead.

The tears came then, quiet and unstoppable. I let them fall, too exhausted to fight anymore, too alone to worry about appearances. The single strand of white fur stayed pressed against my chest, a talisman of loss, until I finally found the strength to tuck it carefully into my wallet—a keepsake I would carry with me always.