Front Door Fiction

"There's nothing quite like having the power to step between dimensions and still being trapped by someone's mother in a hallway."

"Damn it," I muttered under my breath, my steps echoing on the soft carpet of Beatrix's bedroom as I moved toward the door. The Portal had deposited me exactly where I'd intended—Beatrix's room, a location I knew well enough to visualise clearly—but I'd failed to account for the obvious problem now freezing me mid-stride.

I couldn't just materialise in Beatrix's house without raising serious questions from Wendy. The woman had called me in hysterics about finding Duke's body. If I suddenly appeared in her daughter's bedroom without having come through the front door, without a car in the driveway, without any logical explanation for my presence—the questions would be endless. And I was in no state to craft convincing lies.

As I contemplated retreating to Clivilius to find a different entry point, raised voices from the other side of the bedroom door seized my attention. Duke's name sliced through the air, and something hot and sharp twisted in my chest.

"I have no idea where Beatrix is. Or Luke. Or Jamie. Or…" Wendy's voice, thick with frustration and confusion, trailed off into heavy silence.

The weight of our Guardian activities on those we kept in the dark hit me with unexpected force. Wendy had no idea what any of us were involved in. She just knew her daughter had disappeared, her daughter's friend had vanished, and now there was a dead dog wrapped in a bloody towel in her bathroom. From her perspective, it was easy to see how it looked that the world had gone insane.

This isn't just about protecting Bixbus anymore. It's affecting everyone around us.

"I want that poor dog out of this house immediately!" Wendy's demand reverberated through the passageway, her voice carrying the particular tone of a woman who had reached the absolute limit of what she was willing to tolerate.

After a beat of silence, Brett's weary voice replied, "I'll go and take—"

His response cut short, the outcome left hanging in the balance. Brett—Beatrix's father, a man who'd always struck me as decent if somewhat bewildered by the complexities of his family—now drafted into service for a situation he couldn't possibly understand.

The hairs on my arms bristled as the bedroom walls suddenly reflected a familiar glow of colour. I spun on my heels, instinct overriding thought, and found Beatrix stepping through her own Portal, the swirling colours vanishing into the ether behind her. She looked exhausted, her clothes dishevelled, dark circles under her eyes that spoke of too little sleep and too much stress.

"What the hell is Duke doing here?" I blurted out, the words harsh whispers that barely contained the anger and confusion churning inside me. Seeing her—knowing she was responsible for this mess—ignited something volatile in my chest.

Beatrix raised her hands defensively. "Luke, I can explain," she began, but her mouth opened and closed several times without producing anything useful, as if the explanations she sought were fish slipping through her fingers.

I didn't have patience for her fumbling. "Whose idea was it? Jamie's?"

"No," Beatrix replied, shaking her head fiercely.

"Paul's?"

"It was mine," Beatrix hissed sharply, frustration and defiance flashing in her eyes. Her admission stopped me cold.

"What… where… what the hell were you thinking?" I stammered, my whispers transforming into something louder, sharper. The disbelief and anger that had been building since Wendy's phone call finally found their target. Duke's body should have been buried in Clivilius, given a proper resting place in the world where he'd died protecting us. Instead, Beatrix had dragged him back to Earth, left him in her bathroom wrapped in a bloody towel, and created a crisis that was rapidly spiralling beyond anyone's control.

The sudden flick of the bedroom light switch bathed us in harsh brightness, a stark contrast to the dim ambiguity we'd been cloaked in moments before.

"Beatrix!" Wendy called out in surprise, her silhouette filling the doorway. "I didn't hear you get home."

Shit.

I turned slowly to face her, silently pleading with whatever forces governed the universe that Wendy would maintain her assumptions—that Beatrix and I had entered the house like normal people, through normal doors, in normal ways.

"And Luke… when did you…" Wendy stammered, her surprise deepening as she registered my presence. The confusion on her face was almost painful to witness—a woman trying to make sense of a reality that refused to conform to logic.

"We haven't been home for long," Beatrix cut her off with impressive speed. "Luke and I were just discussing where we should bury Duke."

We were?

I cast Beatrix a silent question over my shoulder, my gaze laden with confusion and reluctant admiration for her quick thinking. She ignored me, keeping her attention fixed on her mother.

"Your father is taking care of it," Wendy replied, a hint of disappointment in her voice as she crossed her arms. Her posture radiated the particular exhaustion of a parent who had simply run out of patience.

My eyes widened. The sound of a car door slamming outside punctuated the moment, followed immediately by an engine roaring to life.

Brett was leaving. With Duke.

Impulsively, Beatrix and I dashed to the bedroom window, driven by instinct to gather information. But the window faced the backyard—darkened silhouettes of trees and the outline of a fence, nothing useful. The front of the house, where Brett's car was presumably pulling away, remained invisible to us.

I'd forgotten that detail about Beatrix's room. Under different circumstances, the oversight might have been inconsequential. Now it felt like another failure in a day comprised entirely of failures.

"Where is he going?" Beatrix asked, turning back to face her mother, her movements frantic enough that she accidentally bumped into her dresser. A bottle of perfume wobbled dangerously but didn't fall.

Wendy's face softened as her gaze met mine. "To yours, Luke," she said quietly, something like sympathy in her voice before she looked away.

My house. Brett was taking Duke to my house.

"Tell him we'll meet him there," I blurted out, the words escaping before I could fully grasp their implications. My small Portal Key rolled between my fingers in anxious anticipation, the smooth metal warming against my skin. The logic was simple: Brett had a car, but I had a Portal. If I left now, I could get there before he did.

Beatrix grabbed my arm fiercely, her grip tight enough to leave bruises. "Luke!" she hissed, pulling me back from the precipice.

"What!?" I snapped, frustration boiling over.

Beatrix's eyes dropped pointedly to the device in my hand, then flicked toward her mother standing in the doorway. "Not here," she whispered, the words barely audible.

The realisation crashed over me like cold water.

I'd been about to open a Portal. Right here. In front of Wendy.

Had I actually done it—had I activated the swirling colours in full view of Beatrix's mother—Duke's situation would have become the least of our problems. Explaining dimensional travel to a woman who'd just found a dead dog in her bathroom was not a conversation I wanted to have. Ever.

Feeling like a trapped animal, my fist clenched around the Portal Key hard enough to turn my knuckles white. The frustration of being cornered—of having to navigate this minefield of secrecy when all I wanted was to get to Duke—burned in my chest like acid.

Beatrix turned back to her mother, shifting gears with practised ease. "I'll call dad and ask him to come back here," she said, reaching for her phone.

"I doubt he'll answer while he's driving," Wendy replied, skepticism evident in her tone.

Beatrix dialled anyway, either unconvinced by her mother's assessment or simply desperate to try something. Almost immediately, a faint ring echoed from somewhere downstairs.

"Oh, I think that might be your father's phone," Wendy said, realisation dawning on her face as she turned and hurried out of the room to retrieve it.

"Shit," Beatrix muttered the moment her mother was out of earshot.

"Beatrix," I hissed, catching her attention before she could follow Wendy. "Let's get out of here."

I sent a swirl of colours reflecting onto her bedroom wall, the Portal activating in response to my urgency.

Beatrix hesitated, glancing toward the doorway. "What about mum?"

"I'm sure she'll just assume we left through the front door," I said, the words coming out more desperate than I'd intended. My eyes pleaded with her to stop questioning and just move. The ease with which Wendy had accepted Beatrix's earlier explanation—that we'd recently arrived home in a normal manner—offered a thin hope that perhaps we could slip away unnoticed again.

"Fine," Beatrix shrugged, though hesitation still lingered in her eyes. "I'll meet you there in a minute."

My eyes narrowed suspiciously. We'd need to activate our Portals separately, yes, but that should take thirty seconds at most.

"I'm just going to run downstairs and slam the front door," Beatrix explained with a loud huff. "It'll make it more believable."

The strategy made a certain kind of sense—reinforcing the illusion that we'd left through conventional means rather than vanishing into thin air. But it carried risk. If Wendy caught her, if questions started, Beatrix could be trapped here for hours.

"Okay," I conceded, my tone making clear I thought it was a questionable decision. But at this point, as long as it didn't delay my departure, I was willing to let it slide. Duke was on his way to my house. I needed to be there.

"But in case she catches me, don't wait for me," Beatrix added, a serious undertone to her voice.

I hadn't been planning to wait regardless, but her comment stirred something unexpected—a flicker of solidarity, perhaps, or just the shared exhaustion of people caught in impossible circumstances.

"We've got nowhere else to be," I found myself replying, my voice betraying the fatigue that had settled into my bones. The constant balancing act, the secrets piled on secrets, the weight of everything pressing down—my shoulders slumped with it.

"I know," Beatrix agreed. "But you know mother's not going to let me get away so easily without a full assault of questions."

"Don't get caught, then," I grunted.

With a final nod, Beatrix departed, her steps quick and purposeful as she headed for the stairs. I heard her footfalls receding, heard the creak of the staircase, and then I stopped waiting.

The Portal shimmered on the wall, colours swirling in patterns that still defied comprehension no matter how many times I witnessed them. I walked into the wall of light without looking back, letting the familiar sensation of dimensional transit wash over me.