Finger to Lips

"The best allies are the ones nobody expects—which is why an elderly woman in a recliner can be more dangerous than a locked door."

The day had stretched into something that felt less like hours passing and more like geological epochs grinding forward. The unplanned Uber detour back to Joel's house to retrieve Jamie's car—abandoned in my panic-fuelled Portal escape—hadn't helped matters. Now, finally pulling the vehicle to the roadside near Jeffries Manor, I let the engine die and sat in the resultant silence, listening to the tick of cooling metal and the thud of my own heartbeat.

Is this really a good idea?

The question bounced around the car's interior, finding no satisfying answer. Earlier today, Louise had ambushed me in my own driveway, searching for the son I'd pushed through a Portal without asking. I'd lied to her face about Jamie being in Melbourne, manufactured tears using childhood grief, and watched her drive away believing a fiction I'd constructed in desperation. The thought of encountering her again—here, on her own territory, with no valid reason for my presence—sent cold fingers walking down my spine.

Perhaps Paul's suggestion wasn't so idiotic after all. Buy Kain new clothes. Simple. Clean. No risk of confrontation, no need to explain why I was lurking around a property I had no business visiting. My fingers tightened around the ignition key, the metal biting into my palm.

It would be easier. So much easier.

"Just start the car and drive away," I whispered to my hands, watching them tremble slightly against the steering wheel. The words were meant to inject resolve, to tip the scale toward the sensible option.

The key turned. The engine hummed back to life.

For exactly three seconds, I felt the relief of a decision made.

Then: "Fuck!"

The word tore from my throat like something that had been caged too long, and my fist connected with the steering wheel hard enough to send pain shooting up my arm. The leather absorbed the impact with expensive indifference.

"Why does everything have to cost so much?" I demanded of the universe, of the empty car, of whatever force had decided that my life should become an endless parade of difficult choices with no good options. The money situation was worse than I'd admitted to Paul. The settlement's needs were multiplying faster than my resources. Every purchase meant something else couldn't be purchased, every expense a calculation about which necessity to sacrifice for which other necessity.

The silence that followed my outburst offered no sympathy. The universe, as usual, had nothing useful to contribute.

I killed the engine again, reached across to grab Jamie's empty backpack from the rear seat, and clambered out of the car with the particular resignation of someone who'd already decided to do the stupid thing and was simply going through the motions of accepting it.

The car door slammed shut behind me with a thud that seemed too loud for the quiet street. My footsteps were heavy, almost dragging, as I trudged along the uneven rocky edge of the bitumen road. Small stones crunched beneath my shoes, each step a tiny percussion accompanying the turmoil inside my skull.

The hundred metres to the front gate felt like a pilgrimage—each step laden with hesitation, with the accumulated weight of every questionable decision I'd made since the Portal first revealed itself. As I approached, my eyes traced upward along the elaborate wrought-iron beams that stretched from sturdy concrete pillars at the gate's entrance. The ironwork arched gracefully before intertwining in patterns that spoke of old money and older pretensions, craftsmanship designed to impress visitors and intimidate interlopers.

I was distinctly in the latter category.

My gaze found the words etched into the metallic slab crowning the gate, and I read them aloud to no audience but myself: "Jeffries Manor."

The name hung in the still air, carrying vibrations of history I only partially understood. Jamie had always been reluctant to discuss his lineage, deflecting questions with subject changes and strategic silences. But rumours had a way of circulating regardless of what their subjects preferred, and the whispers about the Jeffries fortune painted pictures far darker than the elegant façade before me suggested.

Secret slave trade, some said. An underground operation that had built this grandeur on the backs of those who could never enjoy it. The idea seemed pulled from a different century, a different world—yet recent events had done considerable damage to my confidence in distinguishing the plausible from the impossible. The Portal alone had rewritten my understanding of what reality could contain. Why not a family fortune built on trafficking?

The rumours about Jamie's great-grandfather were particularly persistent. His disappearance wasn't the mystery official records suggested, according to community whispers. He wasn't so much missing as deliberately erased from public view, allegedly orchestrating smuggling operations with the family's tacit blessing from whatever shadows he'd retreated into.

In the decade following his supposed vanishing, young men had started disappearing from the area. Men in their early twenties, barely begun with their adult lives. The local newspaper had spun narratives of fortune-seekers who'd found success on the mainland, their faces smiling from pages that told tales of ambition and achievement. But the stories never quite extinguished the suspicion that something darker explained their absence.

The most intriguing thread of the lore, however, was architectural rather than criminal. Somewhere beneath the floorboards of one of the manor's original ground-floor rooms, rumour claimed, lay a hidden trapdoor—a secret passage leading to the backroad that skirted the property's edge. The notion seemed lifted from Gothic fiction, the kind of detail that transformed mundane family history into something with clandestine allure.

A soft chuckle escaped me as these tales resurfaced, blending with the shadows and the manor's imposing silhouette against the grey sky. Despite generations of whispered speculation, the exit of this fabled tunnel had never been discovered along the property's backroad. Jamie, for all his openness about other matters, had never hinted at secret passages or hidden rooms.

I suspected the truth of the Jeffries' history was considerably more mundane than legend preferred.

From the fragments Jamie had shared over the years, the family's continued occupation of the manor was less about choice and more about obligation. Their grandmother, Thelma—a stern but unexpectedly kind figure I'd encountered at various family gatherings—was the anchor holding everyone in place. Her adamant refusal to transition to a nursing home meant she required constant care, which meant her family remained tethered to her side whether they wanted to be or not.

Kain lived here, along with his three sisters—an unusual arrangement given that the oldest two were nearing thirty. Brianne, Kain's pregnant fiancée, had recently joined the household, waiting for the completion of the home they were building together. Despite the manor's vastness, its halls seemed to contain more than just its many occupants. Secrets perhaps, lingering in shadowed corners and sealed rooms.

With a thread of optimism I didn't quite believe in, I hoped the afternoon's timing might favour me. Perhaps the sisters were absorbed in their routines elsewhere. Perhaps Louise was still driving around Tasmania, searching for a son who was currently hauling camping equipment in another dimension.

Passing beneath the archway, I lifted my gaze to the manor's silhouette atop the hill. It sat like a grand yet brooding sentinel, its presence felt long before its details became clear.

Cool air nipped at my exposed skin, a sharp contrast to the sweat beading on my forehead. The physical contradiction felt appropriate—anxiety and exertion producing heat whilst the winter afternoon stole it away. The overcast sky above seemed to mirror the uncertainty of my mission, its grey expanse a silent witness to my trespassing.

Reaching a vantage point where I could survey the driveway's terminus without exposure, I nestled myself within a particularly dense bush, its leaves and branches forming a screen between me and the manor. From this position, I counted the cars parked near the house, each number sinking in as I assessed my situation.

"Three," I murmured.

Logic suggested distribution: one belonged to Brianne, another to one of Kain's sisters, and the third—my stomach clenched with recognition—was unmistakably Louise's.

So much for hoping she was still out searching.

My eyes then caught movement near the back of the property. Hudson, Kain's dog, was tethered out there—a beacon of friendliness in what had become a nest of potential complications. I'd always gotten along with Hudson. His exuberant barking and enthusiastic tail-wagging had greeted me warmly at past gatherings, a canine welcome that required no explanation or justification.

But now his presence posed significant risk. The back entry I'd considered as a less conspicuous route was clearly off-limits. Hudson's loyalty and enthusiasm, charming in any other context, would announce my arrival to everyone within earshot. Dogs made terrible accomplices for covert operations.

As my right leg began to cramp from the awkward crouch, I shifted weight and scanned for alternatives. The large glass sliding door leading into the manor's sunroom emerged as the most viable option. The overcast sky rendered the room less exposed than it would be on brighter days, offering a slim opportunity amidst considerable uncertainty.

A fleeting thought about the rumoured trapdoor crossed my mind, and I permitted myself a brief, ironic smile. If only.

Adrenaline surged as I made my decision. I darted from my leafy concealment, pressing my body against the manor's cool rendered wall. The surface was rough against my palms as I edged toward the sunroom, every muscle coiled for rapid movement should necessity demand.

Peering cautiously into the room through the glass, I scanned its vacant expanse. The absence of occupants sent relief flooding through my chest. From somewhere deeper in the house came the distant thud of music—bass and rhythm suggesting a living room entertainment system, its sound confirming that the family's attention was anchored elsewhere.

Then the air split with raised voices, and I flattened myself against the wall so quickly that I scraped skin on render. My body was coiled to flee, every nerve screaming for escape—

But as the argument's content became clear, panic gave way to something approaching relief. Louise's voice, unmistakable in its intensity, was clashing with one of her daughters'. Their dispute—whatever its substance—confirmed their distance from my position. They weren't about to walk into the sunroom and discover me pressed against the exterior wall like a guilty stain.

I couldn't help but recall the family dynamics Jamie had described. Louise's persistent pressure on Katie, the youngest at twenty-two, to leave the family home—an odd focus given that her elder siblings showed no signs of departing. The rationale behind Louise's urgency remained a puzzle for another occasion. Right now, their discord was tactical advantage, reducing the number of potential obstacles between me and Kain's bedroom.

With renewed purpose and a carefully measured breath, I prepared to exploit their distraction.

"Now, where could you be, Brianne?" I murmured, the words barely audible even to my own ears.

With cautious deliberation, I nudged the sunroom's glass door open—just wide enough to admit my body without betraying my entrance with noise. My steps across the polished wooden floor were measured, each one a negotiation between speed and silence. The floorboards seemed determined to announce me, each creak a tiny thunderclap in the room's quiet.

Reaching the far end of the sunroom, I paused to reconstruct the manor's layout from memory. My attendance at Jeffries family gatherings had offered glimpses into the building's grandeur, but comprehensive exploration had never been on the agenda. To my left, I knew, sprawled the kitchen and various living areas—spaces designed for entertaining and daily family chaos. Logic suggested Kain's bedroom lay to the right, though uncertainty gnawed at my confidence. Was it possible his room was actually on the upper floor?

Louise's voice cut through my contemplation, sharp and clear despite the distance: "Brianne! Are you heading back to your room yet?"

I froze, holding my breath as though oxygen consumption might somehow give me away.

"In a minute," came Brianne's distant reply, her voice carrying the casual ease of someone in their own home. "Need the loo first."

The soft shuffle of Ugg boots betrayed Brianne's path past a doorway I couldn't see, followed by the definitive click of a bathroom door closing. Relief washed through me, mingling with the particular thrill of narrowly avoided disaster. Her direction, her response to Louise—everything pointed to the layout I'd assumed.

Kain's room had to be on this floor. If Louise expected Brianne to return directly to her room without climbing stairs, then I was on the correct level. Small victory. Small hope.

I need to find Kain's room, grab some clothes, and return the way I came before Brianne finishes. The mental instruction was clear, the timeline tight. I couldn't leave Jamie's car sitting on the open road indefinitely—I'd already been forced to abandon it once today, and that particular headache had cost me an Uber fare I couldn't afford.

I glided along the tiled hallway, the floor's coolness seeping through my shoes with each step. Brianne's temporary occupation of the bathroom was fortunate—her presence there a diversion I silently thanked the universe for providing.

Confidence surged as I reached the corridor's end, where a door bore Kain's name in stark black letters. The boldness of the signage struck me as oddly convenient—a guiding beacon in circumstances that had offered precious few.

I eased the door open, leaving just enough gap to serve as an early warning system should Brianne emerge prematurely. Inside Kain's room, I was immediately confronted with unexpected challenge.

Brianne's belongings dominated the space—clothing, accessories, the accumulated evidence of someone who'd thoroughly claimed territory. For a panicked moment, I feared Kain might store his clothes elsewhere entirely, that this mission had been doomed from inception.

But a thorough scan revealed a small chest of drawers, somewhat neglected in the corner as though pushed aside to make room for Brianne's expansion. Inside lay the items I sought.

Relief flooded through me as I filled the backpack with rapid movements. Undergarments. Socks. T-shirts. A pair of jeans and shorts. Each item chosen with urgency, the fabric whispering against my fingers as I stuffed it into the bag. There was no time for organisation, no luxury of folding. Kain would get wrinkled clothes and he could be grateful I'd risked this much to bring them at all.

With the backpack now heavy with its cargo, the nature of my mission shifted from search to escape. I needed to retrace my path, navigate the manor's corridors, and evade detection—all before a flushing toilet announced Brianne's imminent return.

The sound of boots against hardwood froze me mid-motion.

Panic exploded through my system as I realised the anticipated toilet flush had never come. How had I overlooked such a crucial signal? My gaze swept frantically across the room's sparse hiding options—the bed, some cabinets, a modest built-in wardrobe. None offered viable refuge.

In desperation, I turned to the window, hands working quickly to lift it and push the fly screen outward. I was halfway through manoeuvring my body toward escape when movement outside seized my attention—an approaching car, its progress up the driveway unmistakable.

"Shit," the curse escaped as I retracted my leg, abandoning the window as an exit route. Climbing out would deliver me directly into view of whoever was arriving.

My fingers scrambled for the Portal Key in my pocket, desperate for any salvation—and then a knock reverberated through the room, the sound seeming to shake the walls.

"Brianne, are you okay in there?" Louise's voice, laced with concern, penetrated the wooden barrier from somewhere horrifyingly close.

My legs lost all structural integrity, sending me crashing to the floor with a thud that seemed impossibly loud. The Portal Key—my potential lifeline—skittered from my grip, clattering against the far wall with a sound that might as well have been a gunshot.

But then, from beyond the door, came another sound: retching. Unmistakable, visceral, the sound of someone being thoroughly sick.

Understanding hit like cold water. Louise's inquiry wasn't directed at this room. She was speaking to Brianne in the bathroom. The knock had been on a different door entirely.

My breathing, ragged and harsh, slowly found rhythm as reality reassembled itself around me. I was still unseen. Still hidden. But the margin between safety and disaster had compressed to something that might not exist at all.

The car door slammed outside—new arrivals descending upon the manor. Voices, muffled but distinct, drifted through the open window on the afternoon breeze. My actions became frantic as I scrambled across the floor, fingers closing around the Portal Key with desperate relief.

Louise's voice filtered through the bathroom door, offering soothing instructions to Brianne between bouts of sickness. With the Portal Key secured, I edged back toward the sunroom, my body low, movements calculated to avoid detection.

Then a voice I hadn't anticipated cut through everything else.

"Are you lost, Luke?"

Thelma's inquiry was weary but unmistakable—the particular tone of someone very old and very awake when others assumed she was dozing. My heart seized in my chest. In all my planning, all my careful navigation of the manor's occupied spaces, I'd completely overlooked the possibility of encountering the family matriarch.

She sat in her recliner in the sunroom, a silent observer I'd somehow missed on my initial passage. Her frailty was evident in every line of her body, but her eyes—those eyes remained sharp, fixing on me with a blend of curiosity and recognition that made my skin prickle.

I was frozen, my mind racing through implications too numerous to process. Thelma, the linchpin of this household, had caught me in the act. Would she alert Louise?

As if in answer, Louise's voice boomed from down the hall: "Thelma! Where are you? I think we have an intruder."

Through the glass sliding door, I could see figures approaching—the external arrivals, drawn toward the sunroom by Louise's command or their own curiosity. The room that had promised escape now felt like a glass cage, exposing me to threats from multiple directions.

My options were evaporating by the second. Thelma's presence, the incoming visitors, Louise's growing suspicion—everything was converging into a perfect storm with me at its centre.

Then Thelma did something I hadn't anticipated.

Her long, bony finger rose to her lips in the universal signal for silence. Her other hand beckoned me with subtle urgency toward the heavy royal drapes that adorned the sunroom's windows. The suggestion was clear—they could be my temporary sanctuary.

Despite my escalating fear, there was alliance in her gesture. Unexpected. Inexplicable. But undeniable.

I edged toward the drapes as the sliding door began to open, the sound sending ice down my spine. Louise's voice filled the room with commanding authority: "Did you see anyone outside?"

The girls—whoever had arrived—offered nonchalant negatives, their voices blending into casual conversation as they dismissed Louise's concerns and moved away from the immediate area. Their lack of interest provided crucial reprieve, however narrow.

Louise's attention turned to her mother-in-law. "Are you okay, Thelma?" The voice softened with genuine concern.

Hidden behind heavy fabric, I held my breath, my body taut with the anticipation of discovery. Thelma's complicity in my concealment defied explanation—her reasons unknowable, her intervention the only thing keeping me from exposure. My stomach churned with acid anxiety as I waited for the response that would determine my fate.

"Yes, dear," replied Thelma's shaky voice.

"You haven't seen anyone that shouldn't be here, have you?" Louise pressed.

The pause before Thelma's response stretched into eternity. Fabric pressed against my face. My lungs burned with held breath.

"No, dear," replied Thelma.

Louise's footsteps receded, their rhythm carrying her away from the sunroom and deeper into the house. Only when silence had truly settled did I dare to emerge from the drapes' concealment.

My curiosity, tangled with profound gratitude and utter confusion, propelled me toward the old woman. "Why?" I asked, voice barely above a whisper. "Why did you...?"

Her response was that same gesture for silence—the bony finger pressing against her lips, commanding quiet with authority that transcended her physical frailty. Then, with slow deliberation, Thelma reached into the folds of her dress and withdrew something that caught the room's dim light.

A long, silver key, suspended on a delicate gold chain.

She extended it toward me, aged hands trembling—not with weakness, I sensed, but with the weight of whatever this moment meant. "Take this," she instructed, her voice carrying significance I couldn't decipher.

Hesitantly, I accepted the key. Its metal was cool against my palm, the chain pooling in my fingers with surprising heft. "What's this for?" I asked, my mind spinning through possibilities without finding purchase on any.

"William will be most pleased," Thelma responded, and her smile spread with warmth that seemed entirely disconnected from the cryptic nature of her words.

"William?" I echoed. The name added yet another layer to an already impenetrable mystery. Who was William? What did he have to do with a key, with Thelma's inexplicable protection of an intruder?

The metal in my hand felt heavier with each passing second, weighted with purpose I couldn't comprehend.

Thelma's voice drifted into something almost dreamy. "He hasn't had a visitor for many years now," she mused, her gaze going distant as though she were peering through time rather than space.

"Where is he?" My question was direct, spurred by urgency and the growing sense that I'd stumbled into something far larger than a simple clothes-retrieval mission.

"In there," Thelma responded, her attention shifting to the key resting in my palm.

"In here?" I held the key up, examining it as though its metal might reveal secrets under scrutiny. "How can he be inside a key?"

"The room," she clarified, but the words only deepened the mystery.

"What room? Where is this room?" The questions tumbled out, impatience and creeping realisation fighting for dominance. Perhaps Thelma's mental state was sharper than her age suggested. Perhaps she was exactly as confused as she appeared. I couldn't tell, and the uncertainty was maddening.

Her finger, slender and precise despite its trembling, directed my attention downward. "Down there," she whispered, the words carrying the quality of shared conspiracy.

"How do I get there?" Urgency coloured every syllable.

Thelma's finger shifted, now pointing at me—or rather, at what I held. "The key," she stated, as though this answered everything.

The realisation crept over me slowly, disbelief wrestling with acceptance. The rumours I'd dismissed as fiction. The stories of secret passages and hidden rooms. The trapdoor beneath the floorboards that no one had ever discovered.

Perhaps they hadn't discovered it because they hadn't possessed the key.

This wasn't just a piece of metal. It was a gateway—a means to unlock something the manor had kept hidden for generations. Thelma's cryptic guidance suggested I now held passage to a secret the Jeffries family had guarded for longer than I'd been alive.

As I stood there, key in hand, the weight of discovery pressed down on my shoulders. This had stopped being a simple mission to retrieve Kain's clothes somewhere in the last few minutes. It had evolved into something far more complex, entangling me with the manor's hidden depths and its unseen, long-forgotten occupant.

Louise's voice shattered the moment, urgent and commanding: "Thelma! Time for your medication."

The reality of my precarious situation snapped back into focus, propelling me toward the room's exit. I couldn't be found here. I couldn't explain any of this.

Thelma's subsequent cough—harsh, rattling—drew my attention once more. "Tell Jane I miss her," she croaked out, her voice a blend of frailty and determination.

"Lahey?" I sought confirmation, head turning back toward her. Jane Lahey—Thelma's dear friend, resident of the nursing home Thelma visited when her health permitted. Her nod and the soft smile that accompanied her "Of course" were laden with depths of friendship that stretched back further than I could imagine.

"I have to go," I whispered, the urgency returning with vengeance.

My exit was swift, my last image of Thelma viewed through the thick glass door as I carefully closed it behind me. Her final gesture—a finger pressed to her lips—was a silent plea for secrecy. A bond sealed between us amidst the chaos of my intrusion. A promise I didn't fully understand but somehow knew I'd keep.

As Louise's boots crossed the threshold into the sunroom, signalling my shrinking window for escape, my feet found their own will. I sprinted away from the manor, the key clutched in my palm alongside the Portal Key, the backpack of Kain's clothes bouncing against my spine.

Behind me, Jeffries Manor kept its secrets. But I carried one of them now—a silver key on a golden chain, and the mystery of someone named William who apparently hadn't had a visitor in many years.

I didn't look back. The path behind me was now fraught with risks I couldn't afford to confront.

But somewhere in the racing of my thoughts, as my feet pounded the rough dirt road toward Jamie's waiting car, I knew I'd be returning.

The key burned against my palm like a promise.

Or maybe a warning.