Don’t Follow, Kitty

“You tell yourself you’re keeping them safe. But every time you step through, you’re really just hoping they don’t follow — because if they do, you’ll have to admit you wanted them to.”

For those few moments after Gladys's departure, the silence of the house seemed to amplify. I stood there, staring at the door she had closed behind her, lost in a tumult of emotions that threatened to overwhelm the careful control I'd maintained throughout our conversation. The manipulation had been textbook perfect—every nudge, every suggestion, every calculated pause designed to guide her towards Luke without revealing the truth of my involvement. I should have felt satisfied. Instead, I felt hollow.

Taking a deep breath, I sought to centre myself, to push aside the disappointment of not sharing the significant news I harboured about Clivilius. The words had been there, pressing against my teeth during our embrace—the revelation that another world existed, that I had children there, that the man she was about to help was the fulfilment of a prophecy I'd been teaching those children about since they could understand words. But the timing was catastrophically wrong. Understanding the precariousness of Luke's situation, especially if he had indeed initiated others into our world without proper preparation, underscored the necessity of Gladys's involvement. Luke needed help, and quickly, before his amateur fumbling created disasters that even experienced Guardians couldn't rectify.

The grim reality of the challenges ahead, particularly the inevitable occurrence of the first death, weighed heavily on me. Someone always died in the early days of Portal crossings. I'd seen it with my own settlement, with Grace's death following the twins' birth, with the dozen other casualties that had marked Belkeep's establishment. Luke was operating blind, pulling people through without infrastructure or supplies, without medical support or contingency planning. The shopping list Gladys had shown me was evidence of panic, not preparation. And panic killed people.

Snowflake, with her timely interruption, seemed to grasp the severity of the moment as much as any human could. Her affectionate nuzzle against my shin, accompanied by a loud meow that echoed through the suddenly too-quiet house, was a welcome distraction, a momentary reprieve from the heaviness of my thoughts. The cat's amber eyes regarded me with the kind of uncomplicated affection that humans rarely managed, without judgment or expectation beyond food and attention.

"You're right," I found myself speaking to her, the words more for my own benefit than hers. The idea that helping Luke might inadvertently prepare Gladys for the realities of Clivilius offered a sliver of hope in the complexity of my plight. If she saw the chaos that unprepared Guardian work created, if she witnessed the desperation and the makeshift solutions and the barely-controlled catastrophe, perhaps she'd understand why I'd kept my own secrets so carefully. Perhaps she'd forgive the lies by omission, the careful compartmentalisation, the wall I'd maintained between my Earth life and my Clivilius responsibilities.

Snowflake's reply, a meow that seemed to carry more weight than usual, prompted a smile from me despite everything. Her presence, comforting and familiar, brought a sense of normality to the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. I'd always appreciated the way Gladys's cats demanded nothing beyond acknowledgement and the occasional scratch behind the ears. They were uncomplicated in ways that people—myself included—could never manage.

"Excellent point, Snowflake. I agree. Luke clearly hasn't told Gladys anything about Clivilius or Guardians. He would be unlikely to take her through the Portal until he had told her," I mused aloud, the conversation with the cat a grounding exercise, a way to sort through my tangled thoughts. Speaking the words helped crystallise the logic I'd been pursuing. If Luke was operating with any sense at all, he'd keep Gladys firmly on the Earth side of things until he'd laid proper groundwork. The shopping list suggested he needed her as a resource gatherer, not as another person to protect in Clivilius. That bought me time, precious days or perhaps weeks before Jeremiah's ultimatum became entirely moot.

Her emphatic meow, more insistent this time, seemed to echo the urgency of the situation. As I picked her up, her soft fur a comfort under my fingers, I found solace in the simplicity of the moment. Snowflake's continued vocalisations served as a reminder of the immediacy of my concerns. She was lighter than I expected, all fluff and bones, purring now against my chest with the kind of trust that made guilt twist deeper in my gut. Gladys loved these cats with the fierce protectiveness of someone who'd learned that people disappointed and abandoned whilst animals remained steadfast. I was about to prove her worldview correct by potentially dragging her into a dimension where her beloved pets could remain on only one side.

"That's true too," I responded, considering her 'input' seriously. The question of timing, of how long I had until Luke might reveal the full truth to Gladys, loomed large. It was a race against time, one whose outcome could alter the course of our lives in unforeseeable ways. But if Luke told her first, if she learned about Clivilius from someone else's lips rather than mine, would she ever trust me again? The manipulation was necessary, I told myself. Distasteful but necessary.

"Meow," Snowflake agreed, her voice a mix of comfort and urgency.

"Sorry, kitty," I said finally, setting her down gently. The call of my responsibilities, of the people who relied on me in Belkeep, could not be ignored. The brief respite Snowflake provided was a necessary balm, but the reality of my duties remained.

Short on blank wall spaces and under the pressure of necessity, I directed my Portal Key toward the fridge. The device felt warm in my palm, thrumming with the familiar energy that had become as natural as breathing over the decades since Jeremiah had thrust it into my inexperienced hands. The small, bright ball of light that shot from the device, colliding with the stainless-steel door, erupted in an explosion of colours—a spectacle that never ceased to amaze me, no matter how many times I had initiated it. Swirls of blue and green and gold cascaded across the metal surface, reality tearing itself open to accommodate passage between dimensions. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was the defining feature of my entire adult life.

"Stay," I instructed Snowflake, my tone firm yet gentle, pointing a finger at her as a visual command. The gesture was probably unnecessary—cats understood intent more than words—but old habits died hard. I'd been giving that same command to children and animals for decades, trying to prevent curious souls from following me into a world that would kill them with indifferent efficiency.

Snowflake settled on her haunches, watching me with intense, curious eyes that reflected the Portal's shifting colours. "Good girl," I praised her softly, my heart swelling with a mixture of affection and apprehension. I knew all too well the inexplicable allure the Portal's energy held over animals, much like its effect on people. Their instinctual curiosity, unhampered by the rational fears that might restrain a human, made them unpredictably brave—or perhaps recklessly so.

As I prepared to step through the swirling colours, Snowflake's sister, Chloe, a bundle of feline mischief and curiosity, made a sudden dart towards the anomaly from wherever she'd been lurking. "Chloe! Stop!" My command came out as a growl, a protective reflex as I leaped in front of the fridge, blocking her path with my body. The last thing I needed was for one of Gladys's "children" to inadvertently wander into Clivilius. The thought of her returning from Luke's errand to find one of her beloved cats missing, of having to explain that I'd accidentally transported a domestic animal to a frozen hellscape where it had little chance of survival, made my blood run cold.

Snowflake's tail began to wiggle, a sign of her growing excitement or perhaps confusion at the unfolding drama. With my arms outstretched, creating a barrier no curious cat could bypass, I cautiously moved backward through the Portal, my heart racing with the fear of unwanted followers. The transition was always disorienting—that moment when you existed in both places simultaneously, when your body stretched across dimensional boundaries and your mind couldn't quite process the dual sensory input. Cold air from Clivilius met warm air from Tasmania, creating a pressure differential that made my ears pop.

The moment my foot touched the cold, stone floor of the Portal Cave, I commanded the Portal to close, sealing off my world from theirs. The colours collapsed inward with a sound like silk tearing, reality stitching itself back together. A deep breath escaped me as I scanned the area anxiously for any sign of Snowflake or Chloe. Relief washed over me as I found no trace of them having followed. "Shit," I exhaled, the tension draining from my body like water from a broken dam. "That was too close. Gladys would never forgive me."

The thought lingered, festering with implications that grew darker the longer I examined them. Whilst Gladys's forgiveness was a concern, the darker musing of a "carefully orchestrated accident" wormed its way into my thoughts—an insidious suggestion that Gladys wouldn't, couldn't leave her pets behind. If one of the cats somehow found its way into Clivilius, if Gladys followed to rescue it, if circumstances aligned just so... The idea was a dark insight into the desperation I felt, a measure of how far I might be willing to go to ensure her safety, and perhaps, her presence in Clivilius. If she had no reason to return to Earth, if the things she loved most were already here...

I slapped myself across the face, a sharp rebuke to the dangerous path my thoughts had wandered down. The impact was harder than necessary, leaving my cheek stinging and my vision momentarily starred. "Don't be a fool," I scolded myself aloud, my voice echoing strangely in the cave's acoustic deadness. The sting of the slap was a physical reminder of the fine line I was teetering on, the boundary between necessary manipulation and genuine monstrosity. The moral quandaries of my role, the sacrifices and decisions it entailed, were a constant battle—a struggle between what was necessary and what was right. Grace had understood that struggle. She'd lived it alongside me during our too-brief time together. But Grace was dead, and I was alone with choices that grew increasingly impossible.

In that moment, standing alone in the cold embrace of Clivilius, I was reminded of the weight of my responsibilities, not just to the people I sought to protect, but to the moral compass that guided me. The Portal Cave stretched away into darkness, the familiar path to Belkeep's settlement barely visible in the dim light that filtered through cracks in the stone ceiling. Somewhere out there, my children were managing crises I should have been present for. Somewhere on Earth, Gladys was helping a man whose existence I'd failed to mention despite knowing he was the central figure in prophecies I'd built my entire Guardian philosophy around.

I'd told myself for weeks that I was protecting Gladys by keeping her separate from Belkeep, that introducing her to this world would only endanger her. But standing here in the cave's frozen silence, I had to acknowledge the truth: I'd been protecting myself. Protecting the carefully compartmentalised life I'd constructed, where Earth remained uncomplicated and Belkeep remained isolated, where I could be two different people and never have to reconcile the contradictions between them.

The cold was beginning to seep through my clothes—the navy shorts that had seemed perfectly adequate in Claremont's morning warmth were laughably insufficient for Belkeep’s climate. I needed to move, to get to Belkeep's communal hearths, to change into proper winter gear and address whatever crises had accumulated during my absence. But for a moment longer, I stood in the Portal Cave, caught between worlds in more than just physical space, trying to find the courage to do what I knew was right even as my mind catalogued a dozen reasons why the easier path might serve everyone better.

Snowflake's face flashed through my memory, those trusting amber eyes regarding me without judgment. Animals understood things humans forgot—that presence mattered more than perfection, that loyalty was more valuable than clever strategy, that sometimes the simplest response to chaos was simply to sit together in companionable silence until the storm passed.

Perhaps there was wisdom in that simplicity I'd been too clever to recognise.

The settlement awaited. My children awaited. And somewhere on Earth, Gladys was walking deeper into Luke Smith's disaster without understanding what she was truly stepping into. I'd set that in motion with my careful manipulation, my strategic suggestions, my performance of helpful boyfriend whilst concealing Guardian purposes.