Cold Comfort

"There's something deeply satisfying about watching a man freeze in his car while hunting for someone who's standing ten metres away in the dark, refusing to turn on the heating out of spite."

The portal deposited me in the study, and I stood for a moment in the familiar silence, letting the transition settle. Through the window, afternoon light filtered weakly through the blinds—grey and diffuse, the sun already beginning its winter descent toward the horizon.

I checked my phone. Just after three. Paul would be walking Grant and Sarah toward camp right about now, answering their eager questions, maintaining the pretence that I was Brad and that we'd been expecting them all along. The fiction wasn't mine—Melanie Bandy and the real Brad Coleman had constructed it months ago—but I'd inherited it the moment I failed to correct Sarah's mistaken identity. The thought of Grant and Sarah's faces—bright with anticipation, utterly trusting—sent a twist of something through my chest. Guilt, probably. I was getting better at ignoring it.

The house felt emptier than usual, though nothing had changed since my last visit. The same furniture. The same shadows. The same lingering sense of Jamie's absence, as if the rooms themselves were holding their breath, waiting for him to return.

He wasn't coming back. And neither, eventually, was I.

I gave it a good half-hour before I started. Long enough for Paul to reach the settlement proper, for the Ironbachs to be absorbed into the introductions and explanations that would occupy the rest of their afternoon. Long enough for the portal site to empty of anyone who might see me dumping furniture and ask uncomfortable questions.

The bookcase came first.

Jamie had assembled it years ago, and I still remembered watching him puzzle over the instructions with characteristic determination. The memory surfaced unbidden: his furrowed brow, the screwdriver gripped too tightly, his muttered frustration when a shelf refused to align properly. I'd offered to help. He'd waved me off, insisted he had it handled. Three hours later, the bookcase stood crooked against the wall, and we'd both pretended not to notice.

Now I dragged it across the carpet toward the study, the cheap laminate protesting with every movement. The wood was flimsy—we'd been saving money back then, furnishing the house with whatever we could afford rather than whatever we actually wanted. Dust billowed from behind it as I pulled, years of neglect made visible in a single grey cloud.

I activated the portal.

The colours swirled to life against the wall—purple and blue and green spiralling in patterns that still caught my breath despite everything. I angled the bookcase through.

The portal site was empty. Just ochre dust and barren plains stretching to the horizon, the settlement invisible from this vantage point. I deposited the bookcase and retreated before anyone could wander into view.

Back through the portal. The floor lamp from the living room. Through again. Deposit. Return. The coffee table. Through. Deposit. Return. The small side table where Jamie used to stack his books.

The rhythm of it was almost meditative—the physical labour occupying my body while my mind worked through everything else.

Melanie Bandy.

The name had been circling since Sarah first mentioned it at Bonorong, and it refused to settle. Another Guardian, operating in Hobart, cultivating relationships. How long had she been at this? Months, clearly—long enough for Grant and Sarah to trust her, to pack bags for a two-week assessment trip to another dimension. That kind of groundwork didn't happen overnight.

Which meant I'd been operating in blissful ignorance, assuming I was the only Guardian working this territory. The naiveté of it almost made me laugh.

The back bedroom was next.

The cold hit me the moment I opened the door—sharp, biting, carrying the damp smell of winter air. The broken window gaped behind the blinds, glass still scattered across the carpet where Karl's intrusion had left it. The garbage bags I'd stuffed into the corner had been torn open, their contents spilled across the floor in a chaotic sprawl—Karl's handiwork, presumably searching for bodies or evidence or whatever dark fantasy had driven him to destroy my home.

I closed the door again.

Karl's mess. Karl's problem. I had better things to do than sort through scattered rubbish in a room I was abandoning anyway.

Was Melanie working alone, or was Brad Coleman part of a larger team?

The question continued to nag at me. Tasmania wasn't a large place. Hobart was smaller still. If multiple Guardians were drawing from the same pool of potential recruits, we'd eventually find ourselves competing for the same people. Every skilled tradesperson I secured was one less available to Melanie. Every specialist she recruited was one I couldn't access.

But there was another possibility too—one I kept circling back to despite my instinct toward caution. Allies. People who understood the weight of this work, who might share the burden of building something sustainable. Cody was already one such connection. Could Melanie and Brad become others?

I stood in the doorway at the end of the hallway, surveying the space. The island bench where I'd hidden from Karl. The wine glasses Gladys had left in the sink. The shiraz bottle, still on the counter, significantly lighter than when she'd opened it.

If she can get a detective to drink alcohol while on duty, there's still hope for us all yet.

The memory of Gladys's smug expression brought a faint smile to my lips, quickly fading. Sarah Lahey had left with more than wine in her system—she'd left with whatever story Gladys had spun, whatever impression she'd formed of this household and its absent occupants. An ally, potentially. Or another complication waiting to unfold.

I began emptying the cupboards methodically. The fondue set someone had gifted us years ago, still in its original box. The pasta maker Jamie had bought in a burst of culinary enthusiasm, used twice and then relegated to the back of a shelf. The mismatched collection of coffee mugs we'd accumulated from various cafés and gift shops, each one carrying its own small memory. The kettle. The plates. The cutlery. All of it useful, all of it going to Clivilius where resources were scarce and sentiment was a luxury no one could afford.

By the time I'd finished with the kitchen, the cupboards stood almost empty and my arms ached. My back had developed a persistent throb from the constant lifting and carrying. But there was still the couch.

I stood in the downstairs living room, studying its bulk in the fading afternoon light. The charcoal fabric looked almost black in the shadows, though patches of dog hair still clung to the cushions where Duke and Henri used to sprawl. Three years we'd had this couch, and we'd barely used it ourselves—this room was little more than a sunny afterthought, a second living room we'd furnished out of obligation rather than need. The dogs had claimed it as their own, stretching out in the afternoon light that streamed through the sliding doors, enjoying the solitude while Jamie and I lived our actual lives in the rooms upstairs.

The carpet gave me grip as I dragged it, the heavy frame protesting but moving. I activated the portal against the far wall, the colours swirling to life in the dim afternoon light, and manoeuvred the couch through one end at a time. Awkward, exhausting work—but manageable.

The matching armchair followed. Then the coffee table. Each item made its way through the portal, joining the growing pile of displaced belongings at the site.

By the time I stopped, the light outside had shifted from grey afternoon to the deeper grey of approaching dusk. My muscles burned. My hands were raw from gripping fabric and wood. But the house felt lighter somehow—emptied of weight I hadn't realised I'd been carrying. The downstairs room stood bare now, nothing but carpet and empty walls and the fading memory of two dogs stretching in the afternoon sun.

I retreated to the bedroom as darkness settled over the neighbourhood.

The laptop sat on the bedside table where I'd left it days ago, before Gladys, before the detectives, before Bonorong. I settled onto the mattress, back propped against the headboard, and pulled up the spreadsheet I'd been maintaining since the first days of the settlement—the one tracking resources, supplies, funds, the endless logistics of keeping a community alive in a dimension that offered nothing freely.

The numbers swam before my eyes, familiar columns of figures that told a story of slow, precarious progress. Food supplies: adequate for now, concerning for next week. Building materials: critically low, dependent on whatever I could source from Earth. Medical supplies: dangerously inadequate, a problem I'd been deferring for too long.

And now, apparently, there were other Guardians doing the same calculations. Other settlements, perhaps, drawing from the same finite pool.

I added a new line to the spreadsheet: Ironbachs - wildlife sanctuary expertise. Then, after a moment's hesitation: Melanie Bandy - unknown operation, unknown location, unknown resources.

The cursor blinked at me, waiting for more information I didn't have.

More Guardians in Tasmania. The thought kept returning, demanding examination. Not just Cody, operating from wherever Cody operated, but an entire network I'd never known existed. Were they coordinated? Did they report to someone? Was there a structure I'd somehow missed, rules I'd been breaking without knowing they existed?

Or were they independent, like me? Scattered individuals with Portal Keys, each pursuing their own vision of what Clivilius could become?

The second possibility was somehow more unsettling than the first. Coordination meant structure, accountability, the possibility of negotiation and alliance. Independence meant chaos—multiple Guardians competing for the same limited resources, recruiting from the same small population, potentially working at cross-purposes without ever realising it.

How many missing persons before the patterns became impossible to ignore? How many families left wondering before someone in authority started connecting dots?

I minimised the spreadsheet and stared at the darkened window.

James Fletcher's face surfaced in my mind. That knowing smile when I'd made the comment about Bob being huge. The way his thumb had traced circles against the back of my hand during our extended handshake. For someone named Brad, you don't really look like a Brad.

The business card was still in my pocket. I pulled it out, studied it in the glow of the laptop screen. His mobile number. His email.

We could use someone like him in Bixbus.

The thought had been circling all afternoon, and it still wouldn't leave me alone. James was passionate, knowledgeable, good with people. Exactly the sort of person who could make a wildlife sanctuary in Clivilius more than just a theoretical exercise. Grant and Sarah had the expertise, but James had something else—a warmth, an ease with people, that the Ironbachs' more focused intensity probably lacked.

But recruiting him would mean revealing the truth. About the portals. About Clivilius. About the one-way nature of the journey. It would mean doing to him what I'd just done to Grant and Sarah.

The comparison sat uncomfortably in my chest.

I slipped into the top drawer of the bedside table and returned my attention to the spreadsheet, updating figures that refused to add up to anything resembling real hope.

I set the laptop aside and crossed to the bedroom window, parting the blinds with two fingers.

Beyond the backyard, Berriedale Road lay quiet in the darkness. And there, in the dirt parking area across the road—the one that bordered the native bushland—a dark car sat motionless. Familiar shape. Stationary. The kind of stillness that suggested someone sitting inside, waiting.

Karl Jenkins.

The recognition came with a strange mixture of emotions—irritation, certainly, but also something darker. Satisfaction, perhaps. Here was a man who had torn through my home, frightened Gladys, and now sat in his car in the winter cold, watching for any sign of my return.

The beautiful irony was that I was already here. Had been for hours. And Karl had no idea.

And then it hit me—I'd been checking this window all evening. Not consciously. Just a restless habit, setting the laptop aside to cross the room and peer through the blinds, listening for sounds that didn't come. Some part of me had sensed his presence before I'd seen it, the unconscious vigilance of someone who knew they were being watched.

I closed the laptop slowly, letting the room sink into complete darkness.

I moved through the house like a ghost, checking each window, ensuring every blind was properly closed. The heating stayed off despite the chill seeping through the walls. No lights. No sounds. No movement that might cast a shadow or create a noise.

From the living room, I could see his car more clearly. The car sat motionless, but I caught the occasional shift of a silhouette behind the wheel—Karl adjusting his position, perhaps, or wiping condensation from the inside of the window. The winter night was bitter. Every hour would drain a little more warmth from his bones.

Good. Let him suffer.

The thought was petty, vindictive, entirely beneath me. I entertained it anyway, savouring the dark satisfaction of knowing that Karl Jenkins was freezing his arse off in pursuit of a man who was standing comfortably in his own home, invisible and untouchable.

Bye, Karl.

The memory of those whispered words, the confusion on his face as the lights flickered and the portal hummed to life—it shouldn't have pleased me as much as it did. But there was something deeply gratifying about watching a man who'd caused so much destruction sit in impotent certainty, absolutely right about my presence and absolutely unable to prove it without breaking and entering… again!

Two men in darkness. Both watching. Neither willing to make the first move.

I retreated to the bedroom eventually, lying fully clothed on the mattress, staring at a ceiling I couldn't see. The cold had settled into my bones despite the layers, but I didn't dare turn on the heating. Any change in the house's behaviour—lights, sounds, the hum of appliances—might draw Karl's attention. Might give him the evidence he needed to justify whatever action he was contemplating.

So I lay in darkness, and I let the thoughts come.

Jamie. Always Jamie, underneath everything else. The empty space beside me in the bed felt like an accusation.

What would he think if he could see me now? Lying in the dark, hiding from a detective, planning the recruitment of a man I'd been flirting with hours earlier?

The answer was obvious. He'd think I was exactly the person he'd accused me of being. Manipulative. Calculating. Incapable of genuine connection.

Maybe he was right.

The hours passed slowly after that. I dozed in fragments, startling awake at every sound—the creak of the house settling, the distant bark of a neighbour's dog, the occasional car passing on the street beyond. Each time, I found myself moving to the window, checking that Karl's car was still there, still dark, still waiting.

It always was.