The Door Between

“I’ve spent my life cataloguing creatures. Turns out, the strangest one was always the world itself—just waiting to crack open.”

Three sharp knocks rang through the house, slicing cleanly through the quiet that had settled like dust. I looked up from the newspaper—its pages now a soft sprawl across the table, headlines half-read and already forgotten. The world outside the window had shifted from early chill to something more settled, sun easing in across the timber floor. The knock was a jolt. A note of punctuation where I hadn’t placed one.

With a sigh, I folded the paper, the crinkle of it oddly loud in the stillness, and pushed my chair back. My body was slower now, reluctant in the way it sometimes got after a good meal and an hour of thinking too much. There was no real urgency to my steps, just the pull of curiosity and the faint, automatic prickle of irritation at being pulled away from my quiet.

I opened the door.

"You're late," I said, without warmth but not without humour.

Luke stood on the threshold, caught between apology and fluster—his coat slightly askew, the collar bent where he’d likely wrestled with it mid-walk. He looked wind-brushed and faintly undone, like someone who had started the day with the best of intentions and watched them slip steadily out of reach.

"I know. I'm so sorry," he said, and the words tumbled out with a kind of breathless sincerity that softened the edge of my annoyance.

I held his gaze for a beat longer than necessary, then stepped back, opening the door wider in silent permission. It was the sort of invitation that didn’t need a flourish—just a shared understanding of history, of cups of tea and old bus rides and trust that didn’t have to be spoken aloud.

"Don't mind the clutter," I warned, my tone easy now, as he crossed the threshold. A habitual apology, delivered with the pride of someone who would never actually change the mess. The hallway was, as always, a curated chaos—stacks of journals along the skirting boards, a trail of boots by the wall, a single sock tucked inexplicably beneath the radiator like it had wandered off during a philosophical crisis.

"Most of it is research papers and journals," I added, almost defensively, gesturing vaguely toward the leaning tower of entomological reports near the bookshelf. The paper stacks bore witness to seasons of fieldwork and late-night hypotheses scribbled on backs of envelopes. There was order, if you knew how to read it.

Luke smiled, that quiet, familiar smile of his. The kind that didn't ask questions but noticed things. He let his eyes skim the hallway without comment—over the folders, the weather-stained backpack still leaning against the umbrella stand, the scatter of annotated texts like breadcrumbs from a particularly academic fairy tale.

But beneath the welcome, beneath the residual warmth of shared years and shared spaces, something shifted low in my gut—a muted churn. The duck egg. Just a whisper of wrongness. Not enough to concern me, but enough to remind me I was very much a creature of biology, no matter how well I understood it. I pressed a hand to my stomach for a moment, discreet, a gesture more instinct than worry.

It passed quickly. A faint ripple, nothing more. But still—it lingered.

And so did Luke, now standing in the hallway of my cluttered, lived-in house, carrying something unspoken in the lines of his posture. Whatever had brought him here, it wasn’t just breakfast.

"Something smells good," Luke commented as he stepped further into the house, the lingering aroma of browned butter and faintly scorched toast wrapping around him like a warm scarf left too long on a radiator. It clung to the air—the scent of a breakfast recently devoured, still echoing in the fibres of tea towels and the faint sheen on the stovetop.

"We ate without you," I said, flat but not unkind. The words landed without accusation, just a practical truth spoken aloud, like noting the rain after it had already soaked your socks.

He gave a small nod, unruffled. There was no edge to it, no offence taken. Luke had always carried that strange ability to slip through the seams of awkward moments like steam through a cracked window—diffusing tension before it gathered weight.

"Chris is in the garden. You can cook something for yourself if you like," I added, letting the suggestion stand somewhere between hospitality and warning. I didn’t bother dressing it up. There was still a faint churn at the edge of my stomach, and the memory of that last duck egg had taken on a quiet dominance in my awareness. Not enough to complain. Just enough to offer fair caution.

"Nah. It’s all good. But thanks for the offer," he said, waving the idea away with the same ease he applied to most things—missed buses, postponed plans, half-cold tea. That steady temperament of his had always been something I noticed, if only because I seemed constitutionally incapable of it.

"Please sit," I said, gesturing toward the chair by the window.

He moved without protest, settling into the spot I often claimed myself—the one closest to the light. The winter sun cut through the glass with a soft clarity, landing in golden slats across the table, warming the grain in the wood. From that seat, the view opened out over the side garden and into the stretch of land just beyond, where the enormous oak stood sentry over our little patch of wild. Its limbs were bare now, save for the stubborn cluster of brown-gold leaves that always clung on longer than the rest, like a last act of defiance.

Luke glanced out at it, and for a moment his expression softened into something contemplative. That tree—solid, timeworn, unmoved by seasons—had that effect. It didn’t just fill the window; it filled a silence, too. The kind of silence that didn’t need filling.

He said nothing. I said nothing. But the moment was noted, quietly, like an entry in a journal you wouldn’t show anyone else.

“I'll make us some tea,” I announced, turning on the kettle and reaching for two mugs that had nearly dried on the rack beside the sink—rim-stained, heat-warped, but still serviceable in the way things become when used often enough. The act of making tea was a small domestic rhythm I always found oddly grounding. A ritual gesture. Something about the boiling water, the careful steep, the quiet clink of mugs—it created a pause. A space between the noise of the day and whatever came next.

I moved through it easily, my fingers trailing along the worn cupboard edge, pausing at the mismatched row of tea boxes we kept tucked behind an old tin of barley sugar. Earl Grey, lemon and ginger, rooibos, something experimental from the market labelled “moonroot” in handwritten ink. An entire drawer of moods. Of moments.

Which tea shall we have? I glanced over my shoulder at Luke, half-hoping for a sign, or even just a blink of decision from him.

He didn’t notice. He sat motionless, elbows resting lightly on the table, fingers interlocking, then shifting again in some private choreography—interlace, release, fold, rotate. It was rhythmic in its way, but not soothing. More like an echo of something not quite settled. He wasn’t agitated, exactly, just... disassembled. Piece by piece. Thought by thought.

That was Luke, though. Always a little out of step with the room, but never in a way that felt unwelcome. I remembered that same posture from the bus years ago—him tucked into the third row back, his gaze fixed out the window, mouth set in a line like he was drafting dialogue he’d never say aloud. Until he did. And when he did, it was always something thoughtful. Something sharp-edged or oddly lyrical. A half-theory about dreams. A passing remark about symmetry in gum tree growth. Or, once, a fully formed opinion on the failings of regional signage typography.

Despite all that talking—or maybe because of it—I’d never quite pinned him down. He was all transparency and deflection, equal parts honest and opaque. An open book with half the pages missing.

Peppermint felt right. Clean and bracing. Something to cut through the quiet, if not the tension I hadn’t yet decided was real. I dropped a teabag into each mug, the smell already starting to rise—crisp and bright, like crushed leaves between fingers.

The kettle rumbled on. A steady crescendo. I glanced at him again.

Still fidgeting.

Something in the way his shoulders hunched—not tight, but watchful—stirred a memory. Jane, in her typical blaze of impulsive joy, texting me that first day she’d spoken to him: I did it! I made contact! Like he was some foreign species she’d gently coaxed into view.

And maybe he was. To her. To me. To all of us, back then. Luke wasn’t the type you easily imagined at the centre of things. But somehow, he’d ended up in the orbit of our lives anyway.

I poured the water, watching the leaves in the bag bloom, steep, swirl. A tiny tempest in a chipped ceramic cup. And beside me, Luke sat with all his quiet unspokenness, filling the room not with words, but with whatever lay behind them.

Turning sixty in a few years, I found Luke’s boundless enthusiasm for life quite refreshing—when it wasn’t exhausting. He was a splash of vivid ochre across the faded canvas of my steadier, more weathered rhythms. That bright-eyed energy of his, untempered by the erosion of time or the quiet dulling that creeps in with age, sometimes lit up the room like morning sun through bottle glass. And other times—like now—it fidgeted, twitched, and jittered its way across my nerves until I could feel it ticking beneath my skin.

His knee bounced. Then his fingers resumed their silent choreography. Interlace. Fold. Tap. Switch.

I tried to ignore it, watching the peppermint darken in the mugs, but it was like having a metronome slightly off-tempo thudding beside you.

“Would you stop fidgeting!” The words burst out, sharper than I’d meant, caught halfway between jest and honest exasperation. Not angry. Just... worn thin.

Luke startled, slightly. But only slightly. He froze mid-shift, then immediately pressed his palms flat to the table, pinning them there like he was afraid they might make a break for it again.

“Sorry,” he said. His voice was quiet but earnest, touched with that surprised blink people give when they realise they’ve crossed an invisible line. One they hadn’t meant to, or even seen.

The stillness that followed was almost more disconcerting than the fidgeting had been. He was so rarely still. It was like watching a stream suddenly dam itself, all momentum halted, the current held in suspension.

And still—still—I liked him. Even when he buzzed with restless limbs and half-swallowed thoughts. Maybe especially then. Because for all our differences, there was something in him that reminded me of younger days. Of motion, and mess, and the bright, inexplicable pull of wonder.

The kettle whistled. Shrill, clear, and perfectly timed.

I turned to it gratefully, lifting the handle and pouring the water over the tea bags in slow, steady arcs. Steam rose in graceful ribbons, coiling through the morning light in soft spirals. It danced at the edge of the windowpane, momentarily visible against the trees beyond, before vanishing into the room’s quiet air.

There was something ancient in the act. Tea, poured without urgency. Spoons set down quietly on saucers. Two people letting their thoughts settle into the cup.

A pause.

A breath.

A way to begin.

The moment of casual enthusiasm dissolved—just dropped, as if the air itself had let it fall—and what settled in its place was weightier. Thicker. Purposeful. A current of something unspoken but undeniable.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

The question came out plain, but not soft. My tone was firm, stripped of all the usual buffers I might have used. Not unkind—but intentional. It wasn’t meant to scold, or to push him away. It was meant to cut through the noise, to reach whatever truth he’d brought with him beneath his smile and shifting fingers.

It had been circling the edges of my thoughts since he arrived, that question. Buzzing faintly behind every pleasantry. And now, here it was—full and bare between us.

“You’ve only come here once before,” I added, watching the words land, “and that was only because Jane brought you along.”

There it was. The quiet implication. That his presence here meant something. That it wasn’t just about breakfast or tea or the oak tree view. That it had weight.

Luke’s answer wasn’t immediate. He cleared his throat, but it didn’t sound like the kind of clearing that comes before speech. It was rough, hesitant—more the kind of noise a person makes when they’ve found something lodged in their chest and don’t quite know what to do with it.

The sound echoed lightly in the kitchen, bouncing off the plaster and the wood and the quiet steam rising from the kettle. Then—nothing. Just silence. The real kind. The kind that waits.

"Is there something you want?" I asked, softer now, but no less direct. As I spoke, I placed a steaming mug of peppermint tea in front of him. The gesture felt automatic, a muscle memory of hospitality. But beneath it, something more deliberate stirred. A signal, perhaps—that I wasn’t angry. Just waiting.

I moved a few stacks of books from the nearest chair—field notes, leaflets, half-flattened packets of seeds—and sank into it, the seat familiar, the weight of the moment less so.

I watched him.

The warmth of the tea wafted up between us, all mint and clarity, but the air held a cooler edge. That sort of internal chill that doesn’t come from a change in temperature, but from an awareness that something is about to shift.

And this—this small kitchen with its chipped tiles and its humming fridge and its cluttered benchtops—became, for just a moment, a place of decision. A threshold. Whatever came next would ask something of us. Of me. Of Luke. And of the friendship we had, which until now had been so comfortably stitched together by shared rides, book swaps, and half-finished thoughts.

The mug warmed my palms. The silence lengthened.

And still, I waited.

Luke leaned over his cup, letting the steam rise to meet his face, his eyes briefly closing as he inhaled. "Mmm peppermint," he murmured, as if the warmth and scent could offer some kind of anchor. His tone held a flicker of gratitude—but nothing else. No explanation. No answer.

I watched him over the rim of my cup, the tea still hot against my lips. The contrast between its soothing warmth and the tightening knot in my stomach was jarring. My irritation had shifted from a simmer to a steady heat, slow-burning beneath my calm exterior. This wasn’t like Luke. For all his quirks and distracted energy, he wasn’t evasive. Not usually. Not like this.

He still hasn’t answered my question.

The thought looped again, quieter now, but sharp—like a thorn you’ve only just noticed digging in.

Then, without preamble, Luke stood. His chair scraped slightly across the floorboards, the sound too loud in the small kitchen. He moved toward the living room, his movements jerky—unsettled, like a marionette tugged by fraying strings. I stiffened.

"Where are you going? Is everything okay? The bathroom is down the hall and to the right, if that’s what you’re looking for,” I called after him, my voice a blend of confusion and a tightening edge of annoyance.

But I didn’t follow. Didn’t rise. I stayed rooted in my chair, my hands cupped around the warm mug. My stillness was deliberate. A quiet refusal. I wasn’t going to chase him into whatever strange spiral he’d decided to bring through my door this morning.

From the next room came the soft but unmistakable sound of paper shifting—magazines being shuffled, pages flicked without interest. The sound scratched at the silence like a twig tapping against glass. A small, mundane noise. And yet, entirely out of place. Unsettling, precisely because it wasn’t.

What in the world is he up to?

The question curled tighter in my mind. This wasn’t someone looking for a toilet. Or a magazine. This was someone trying to delay something.

Whatever peace the morning had promised was gone now, replaced by the creeping suspicion that Luke wasn’t here just to visit. And whatever it was—whatever sat behind his silence and shifting—it had brought shadows with it.

“Karen,” Luke called from the living room, his voice dry and croaky, scraping through the air like a twig dragged across gravel. The sound of it tugged me from the knot of irritation I’d been silently feeding in the kitchen. It wasn’t his usual tone—none of the buoyant charm or rambling warmth that typically threaded through his speech. Just those two syllables, flat and raw, like something worn thin by repetition.

I hesitated, mug still cradled in my hands, the peppermint steam curling up into the quiet like a ghost trying to stay polite. Something in his voice made me set it down.

Reluctantly, I stood, my chair dragging against the dining room floor with a sound that matched the texture of my mood—grating and unresolved. I took my time, not out of patience but from a calculated resistance, the kind you use when someone’s behaviour starts to feel like a game you never agreed to play.

“Everything okay?” I asked as I stepped into the living room. My tone came out brittle, a dry leaf crunching underfoot.

Luke didn’t answer straight away. He stood with his back slightly turned, body angled toward the far side of the room. There was a tautness in his shoulders, something coiled and focused. Gone was the distracted fidgeter from earlier. This Luke was different. Centred. Intent. It unnerved me.

“Just watch,” he said, and the two words were spoken with such deliberate calm they made the hairs on my neck shift. It was the voice of someone on the cusp of revealing something—not casually, but as a matter of consequence.

I stopped short, frowning. “What am I looking for?”

I didn’t bother hiding the annoyance in my voice. His cryptic theatrics had officially worn thin. Whatever mystery he was orchestrating, I was not in the mood to be led blindly through it.

He didn’t reply. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket—carefully, almost reverently—and withdrew a small, nondescript object. It sat in his hand like it belonged there. He turned, aimed it at the closed living room door with a motion so calm, so casual, it made the moment feel all the more surreal.

The door—just a door. White paint slightly chipped at the corners, a hairline crack running vertically beneath the handle from when Chris had tried to move the couch through at a bad angle. A normal door, in a normal house.

And yet.

Something in the air stilled. The familiar shape of the room grew stranger by the second, like I was seeing it from underwater.

My scepticism, sharp and ready, hovered at the back of my tongue.

But I didn’t say anything.

Because something told me it was about to shatter on its own.

A small ball of light shot from the object in Luke's hand.

It moved too fast for my eyes to follow, a streak of brilliance that exploded against the closed door in a silent burst. Light bloomed outward in a kaleidoscope of vivid colour—turquoise, violet, amber—rolling in liquid waves across the surface like oil slicked over water, alive and shifting. My breath caught. The door, once nothing more than chipped paint and woodgrain, was now awash in pulsing iridescence, its edges breathing with each oscillation of hue.

I gasped, the sound sharp in the quiet. The jolt of surprise gave way almost instantly to something deeper—something reverent. Awe rose in my chest like a tide.

"That's incredible," I murmured, the words escaping in a breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. My earlier irritation—the tight coil of it—dissolved beneath the strange calm that followed, as if the light itself had drawn the tension from the room like venom from a wound.

"I know," Luke replied, and the pride in his voice was quiet but unmistakable. Not boastful—something gentler. The kind of pride that grows not from ownership but from having shared something extraordinary. There was a weight behind it too, a gravity that told me this was no parlour trick, no clever projection.

I stepped forward, slow and instinctual, drawn to the swirling colour like a moth tracking heat. The door shimmered, sparks trailing along the grain as though it were catching fire from within. It was beautiful. Mesmerising. Unnatural, and yet it felt strangely right—as if something just out of reach had finally aligned.

“Can I touch it?” I asked, my voice hushed. I didn’t even think about the words before I said them. My hand was already rising, reaching out towards the riot of light and shimmer, fingers extended to breach that last inch of space between reality and whatever this was.

"Not yet," Luke said quickly, sharply. His voice snapped the spell—not broken, but interrupted. A line drawn across the moment.

"Don't touch it yet."

I halted, blinked, looked at him. His expression had changed again. That soft pride was gone, replaced by an urgency that curled tight around the edge of his words. There was warning in it. Fear, maybe. Or knowledge I didn’t yet share.

"Why the hell not?" I demanded, my awe receding under a fresh wave of stubborn frustration. The question came hard and fast, a reflex more than a choice. I was still standing in my own lounge, after all—feet planted on my own rug, heart beating against the familiar cadence of my own walls. And now I was being told, in my own home, not to touch my own bloody door?

It rankled.

Wonder is one thing. But I’ve never liked feeling fenced out of something, especially in a place that’s meant to be mine.

The light on the door flickered, almost imperceptibly, like it had felt the shift in the room too.

"Because..." Luke began, the word drawing out like a held breath, his explanation poised on the cusp of revelation.

But the moment shattered.

"Karen!" Chris's voice rang out from the back of the house—solid, familiar, utterly real. The sound cut through the charged air like a blade, grounding me for the briefest of seconds. It was the unmistakable voice of home, of soil under fingernails and shared cups of tea. A tether to the everyday.

"In here, Chris," I called, my voice barely holding its steadiness, torn between the absurdity dancing across the door and the sudden relief of hearing him. His presence, I thought, would untangle this. He would walk in, take one look, and ground the world again with some sarcastic remark about paint fumes or morning wine.

But as the door swung open and Chris stepped into the room, whatever passed for reality gave way.

It began with light. Blinding, brilliant, unnatural.

A flood of electric blue burst outward, threaded with lashes of colour—vivid pinks, violent yellows, a kaleidoscopic storm that swallowed everything. The room vanished. The floor gave out. My stomach lurched.

I tried to move, to turn, but my limbs no longer responded the way they should. My body felt pulled apart—each cell stretched thin across some invisible line, as if space itself had unravelled around me. I was weightless. I was bound. I was dissolving.

"Chris!" I screamed, my voice raw and immediate, the only thing I could still command. My hand shot out blindly, reaching, begging for the ordinary.

"Karen!" His voice came back, louder now—closer. I felt his fingers clasp mine for a heartbeat, a single anchor in the chaos.

But the contact was torn away, wrenched from me by a force I couldn’t fight. My vision exploded into azure—clear sky where walls had once been, revealing an expanse far too vast to be the ceiling of our lounge.

Then, silence. Not the absence of sound, but the presence of something else—something immense.

A voice emerged. Not from outside, but inside. It didn’t pass through my ears. It settled directly into my mind, resonant and inescapable.

Welcome to Clivilius, Karen Owen.

The words rang not as invitation, but as declaration. A door had opened—and there would be no stepping back through it.