The Letter I Never Meant to Write

“There’s a moment—after the wine, before the kettle clicks—when all your bravado slips through the cracks.”

The morning sun broke through the bedroom blinds, brushing against my face with the warmth of something halfway between a blessing and a nuisance. It wasn’t aggressive, just persistent—like a gentle hand tugging at the edge of sleep.

A small, insistent nudge at my cheek accompanied it.

"Morning, Snowflake," I mumbled, my voice thick with sleep. My hand reached instinctively to her silky head, fingers sinking into the soft, reassuring fluff of fur. The warmth of her body pressed into mine, grounding me in something simple, something familiar.

"Where's your sister?" I asked, my tone playful.

"Meow," she replied, as if stating a fact she expected me to accept without question.

I cracked an eye open.

"Is that so?"

"Meow," she said again—this time sharper, more insistent.

"I don’t blame you," I muttered, stretching slightly under the doona. "I would have bit Chloe’s face too if she wouldn’t leave my tail alone."

A double meow followed—quickfire and decisive. I could almost hear her saying, Exactly.

"Yeah, alright. I’m up," I sighed, surrendering to the morning.

I pushed back the doona, its familiar floral print crumpling in protest, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My feet found the cat-faced slippers with unthinking precision, the plush insides welcoming my toes like an old friend. Snowflake gave a satisfied chirp, her tail flicking upward as she trotted alongside me.

She nudged my calf, brushing her head against me in that way cats do when they’re not quite ready to admit they want your attention. I shuffled into the kitchen, flicking on the kettle with the habitual grace of muscle memory.

The clatter of cat biscuits into pink ceramic bowls was like a siren’s song. From the shadowy recess under the bookshelf, Chloe emerged—elegant, deliberate, and clearly still a bit miffed.

She gave me a quick glance, then zeroed in on her sister, as if checking for signs of territorial infringement. Their eyes locked—brief, intense—and then, as always, Chloe relented. She crouched low beside her bowl and began to eat with exaggerated care, lifting each biscuit between her teeth like she was judging them one by one.

Snowflake, meanwhile, dove in with the same gusto she brought to everything—no time for ceremony, just the unfiltered joy of breakfast.

I leaned against the bench and watched them.

Five years old next month.

From the same litter, yet as different as rain and fire. Chloe, the reserved little duchess, never doing anything without first calculating her odds. Snowflake, always first to the food, first to the fight, first to curl up beside me when the weight of the world got too heavy.

It struck me then how much they reminded me of Beatrix and myself.

A quiet smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. That particular brand of sisterhood—the kind born of shared origin but shaped by wildly divergent lives—was something cats and humans evidently had in common.

"Thinking of Beatrix," I said aloud, directing it at the two of them, who remained engrossed in their morning ritual.

"If we’re up, she can get up too."

It seemed only fair. She’d had her fill of wine and secrets just like I had. Let her face the daylight too.

I straightened up, wrapping my hands around the warm mug I’d poured while I wasn’t paying attention. The morning, though deceptively calm, still carried the invisible weight of everything that had shifted in our world overnight.

But for now—just for a moment—I had my girls. My feet were warm. And the sun was still pouring in.

With a playful sense of mischief fizzing just beneath the surface, I crept towards the guest bedroom door like a teenager sneaking up on a sibling with a water pistol.

"Beatrix?" I called softly, wrapping my voice in feigned sweetness. "Are you awake yet?"

A muffled moan issued from behind the door—low, groggy, unmistakably unamused.

I grinned.

These were the harmless rituals that stitched the uneven fabric of our relationship together—needling, prodding, teasing in ways only sisters could.

Slowly, I pushed the door open, letting it creak with exaggerated slowness. The hinges moaned like an old horror film prop, a sound I knew would burrow into Beatrix’s foggy, hungover brain like a splinter. I savoured the moment.

As soon as the noise ceased, I moved swiftly to her bedside. "Come on, Beatrix. Get up," I said, shaking her shoulder with a little more vigour than necessary—just enough to earn a grumble.

She turned to face me, bleary-eyed and squinting against the intrusion of morning. Her face was puffy with sleep, hair standing in wild tufts.

"How the hell are you even functioning this early?" she croaked, rubbing one eye with the back of her hand. Then, without waiting, she added, "Oh wait. I forgot. Of course you'd be fine."

The comment caught me off guard. My smile faltered.

"What’s that supposed to mean?" I snapped, the edge in my voice sharper than I’d expected.

Beatrix raised her eyebrows lazily, her mouth curling into a tight smirk. "Do you really need me to explain that?" she said. "I swear, sometimes you are more messed up by Brody’s death than I am."

Her words hit like a slap—so casual, so precise in where they landed.

My lips pursed instinctively. "That’s not fair, Beatrix," I said, barely keeping the tremble from my voice.

"Well, it’s true," she retorted, without hesitation.

The heat in my face surged. Rage. Grief. Humiliation. It bubbled up and spilled out before I could stop it.

"You’re not the one who found him lying in his own blood!" I shouted, the memory slamming into me like a wave against a sea wall. The image of Brody’s lifeless body flashed before me—frozen, grotesque, and real as yesterday.

I looked down, suddenly ashamed of the rawness in my voice. My cat slippers stared back up at me from the floor, wide-eyed and grinning, as if mocking my outburst.

Why did I let her get under my skin so easily?

There was a silence, thick and awkward, until Beatrix exhaled heavily.

"So why do you want me up so early?" she asked, her voice quieter now, edged still with grogginess but stripped of the venom.

I composed myself, wiping the emotion from my voice. "I thought you might like to come and visit Luke with me," I said with a shrug, as if it were no big deal. "I have to go around and collect the truck I left there yesterday."

"Oh," she murmured, swiping a finger across the corner of her eye to clear a crust of sleep. "Sure. But I need a shower first. And coffee."

I let out a quiet chuckle. "I’ll take you home first," I offered. It was easier to keep the peace with small gestures. I patted the bed gently. "Come on, get up."

Beatrix groaned and pressed her fists into her eyes like a child. "Okay, I’m coming," she said with a reluctant stretch.

Satisfied—for now—I turned and padded out of the room, leaving the door open behind me.

But as I crossed the hallway, the weight of the previous night crept in again. Cody. His voice in the dark. His warning. His sudden, eerie disappearance. How did he know about Clivilius? And what was his connection to Luke?

I couldn’t shake the sensation that something wasn’t just strange—it was wrong.

And worse, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know the truth.

As I pulled into our parents’ driveway, a niggling doubt crept up the back of my neck. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and sighed. Why had I agreed to this detour? Beatrix’s place was barely a five-minute walk from mine—if that. But no, here we were, back at the family home, and already I could feel the press of old ghosts clinging to the walls.

I wasn’t in the mood. Not for nostalgia, not for small talk. Not with my head still spinning from the weight of secrets and inter-dimensional doorways.

The driveway gravel crunched softly beneath the tyres as I braked to a stop. I glanced at the dashboard clock. Late enough that Dad would be gone—he liked to get into the office early, even now. Retirement was on his radar, he’d told me the last time we spoke. That had been… what, two months ago?

A flicker of guilt nudged me. We weren’t exactly estranged, but our conversations had become thinner over the years, like old cotton—worn from too many washes, still holding together but only just.

Mum, of course, would be home. Her retirement had come quietly, like everything else she did. No fanfare, no fuss. Just a gentle bowing out, and a new routine of puzzles, cups of tea, and calling me twice a week to ask if I’d “managed to eat something green.”

I was still stuck in that fog of thought when the passenger door clicked open. Beatrix was already halfway out before I’d even registered her movement. She moved quickly, efficiently—too efficiently for someone who’d downed nearly an entire bottle of red after midnight.

"I’ll be back to collect you in an hour," I called, my voice straining to sound casual, hopeful for something—acknowledgement, maybe. A simple thank you. Some indication that the night we’d shared had meant something beyond damage control.

She didn’t look back. Just raised one hand in that vague, dismissive wave of hers and kept walking. Her posture straight, shoulders taut, eyes already locked on the front door as if she could walk fast enough to outrun both me and the memory of last night.

"Typical," I muttered, letting the word settle in the space she’d left behind.

The cool morning air slipped into the car, brushing past my collarbones with an almost smug chill. I reached across the passenger seat and pulled the door closed with a dull, definitive click. The sound echoed inside the car like punctuation—closing a sentence I hadn’t wanted to write.

I exhaled slowly, the breath fogging just slightly on the glass. There was still so much I didn’t understand. And as I sat there in the driver’s seat, hands idle on the wheel, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being nudged further into a story that wasn’t entirely mine.

Showered, dressed, and pleasantly surprised to find myself feeling oddly alert, I sat at the kitchen table nursing a lukewarm mug of tea. It was a rare sensation—clarity in the morning. Normally, it was all I could do to shuffle toward the coffee machine while Snowflake meowed with the persistence of a soul wronged. But today felt... different. There was a pulse under the surface, something pressing just beneath my skin. Urgency.

Perhaps it was the mystery—Clivilius, Cody, Jamie. Or maybe it was just guilt. Hard to say. Either way, the fog that usually clung to my brain like a damp cloth had, for the moment, lifted.

My fingers tapped a restless rhythm on the tabletop, a subconscious echo of the thoughts tumbling through my mind. Does Luke know Cody? Had they met through Jamie? Were they both involved in… whatever this was? And what if Jamie wasn’t ever coming back? My stomach knotted at the thought.

"Jamie," I whispered, his name slipping out like a sigh. My hand reached for my phone without thinking, as though my fingertips might will a response into existence. I stared at the screen for a moment, hesitating. Then I hit 'Call'.

Straight to voicemail.

The electronic silence pressed against my ear like a wall. The hopeful flutter I’d felt when I dialled sank quickly, like a stone dropped into still water. I set the phone back down on the bench with more force than necessary, the dull thunk of it landing jarring against the quiet.

The house was still, save for the rustling of cats rearranging themselves somewhere behind me. I glanced at the time. Nearly half an hour before I needed to collect Beatrix. Enough time to do something. Anything.

The kitchen paper and pen, once forgotten under a takeaway menu and an unopened bill, suddenly called to me. I reached for them and slid back into the chair—my chair, the one I always favoured. Slightly lower on one leg, worn smooth on the armrest where I tended to rest my elbow during long conversations or equally long silences.

The pen felt cool in my hand as I uncapped it. And then I began.

Jamie,

I really hope you get this!

Luke tells me that you have gone through a Portal into a new world. He is calling it Clivilius. I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but then he pulled out an odd-looking device and showed the portal to me. It's colours are simply stunning! Unless I choose to believe that I have finally gone mad, which we knew was always a possibility, I have no choice but to believe what he tells me.

As you know, Cody and I have been seeing each other for over three months now. I think I really like him. And I am pretty sure he likes me too. I know you said you thought he was trustworthy, but things have been getting just a little strange.

He snuck into my room last night. After midnight! I have no idea how he got into my house. I was terrified! But he told me to trust Luke. To help him. To do whatever he asks me to do. I didn't even know he knew Luke. This is all getting too weird for me.

And that message of yours on the bottle. Is that really true? Was Brody really murdered? Why didn't you tell me?

I wish you were here. I really miss talking to you already. You're my best friend.

I drank too much last night. I liked it. It's the only thing that keeps my head from spinning out of control. Brody's face haunts me. Almost. Every. Night.

I haven't told anyone else yet, but work fired me last week. I didn't mean for it to happen. They made me give a urine sample for a random alcohol test and I failed.

Jamie, I don't know what to do. Please just come home.

I need you.

G.

When I finished, I sat back in the chair, letting the pen fall onto the table. My eyes lingered on the page, absorbing every word, each one a breadcrumb trail of my unravelled state.

The kettle clicked off behind me, its soft ping echoing through the room like an afterthought. But I didn’t move. I felt as though I’d stepped outside myself, watching a stranger leave her soul on a scrap of paper, hoping that words could cross dimensions.

Outside, a breeze stirred the lemon tree near the fence. It was an ordinary morning. And yet nothing felt ordinary anymore.

The impatience bubbled within me as I pressed my palm down firmly on the car horn, the short, sharp blast echoing through the stillness of the street like a slap. Waiting for Beatrix—especially today—felt intolerable. A delay I couldn't afford. My eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror, catching a glimpse of the envelope poking out from the zip of my handbag in the backseat. Its presence loomed like a silent accusation.

It wasn’t just a letter. It was a tether. A plea. A confession. And I needed to get it to Jamie—or Luke—or someone. Anyone who might know where to take it next. I exhaled sharply, the breath catching somewhere between a sigh and a growl, my thoughts a mess of urgency and confusion.

"You took your time," I muttered the moment Beatrix finally opened the passenger door and slid inside.

"I had to put on my shoes," she replied, her tone clipped, a defensive glare flashing as she bent down to fiddle with a lace that clearly hadn't been tied properly.

"Doesn't look like you've even finished that yet," I added flatly, turning the key in the ignition with a determined flick. The engine roared to life as if matching the tension between us.

The car lurched gently over the lip of the driveway, and I felt rather than saw Beatrix sway beside me. There was a dull clink as something shifted at her feet.

"Why do you have a bottle of wine in the car, again?" she asked, her voice laced with both curiosity and criticism as her eyes narrowed, catching sight of the green glass.

I didn’t look at her. I kept my eyes fixed on the road, but I could hear the judgment in her tone like the hiss of a match being lit.

"It's good to have one nearby," I said, aiming for casual. "You never know when a good bottle will come in handy." The words floated out, half truth, half smokescreen. The bottle wasn’t there for celebration—it was comfort. Armour. A companion in case things spiralled.

Beatrix released a slow, loaded sigh.

I caught her subtle shift in posture. The unspoken thoughts swirled between us like smoke. Her silence said more than a dozen comments ever could.

"I know what you're thinking, Beatrix. Stop it," I snapped, the tension tightening in my shoulders.

"Stop what?" she replied smoothly, too smoothly. Her feigned innocence only grated further.

"You know what," I said, barely concealing my irritation. "We got a little carried away last night." I didn’t want to explain myself again. Not now. Not to her.

Beatrix gave a soft scoff—dismissive, clipped. The sound pricked at my nerves. My hands gripped the steering wheel more tightly, the leather firm beneath my palms. Why can’t she just let things be?

"I've only had one or two glasses a week for the last three months," I said defensively, the words tumbling out in my own defence before I could stop myself.

"Really?" she asked, arching an eyebrow, her scepticism barely veiled.

"Yes, really," I repeated, louder than I intended.

There was a beat of silence. Then, Beatrix let out a soft chuckle—low and knowing.

My jaw clenched. I stared ahead, refusing to let her see the colour rising in my cheeks.

"What?" I snapped.

"It's nothing," she said lightly, settling back in her seat with maddening ease. But her tone was anything but nothing.

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel as I bit back a reply. We drove on, the silence between us now bristling with unspoken tension and the weight of everything unsaid.

The quiet in the car wasn’t just a lack of conversation—it had taken on a life of its own. It pressed in around us, dense and almost suffocating, as if the vehicle itself had become a container for all the words we couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say. I kept my eyes locked on the road, focusing on each turn, each traffic sign, anything to avoid looking at Beatrix.

Beside me, she fidgeted in her seat, letting out a series of odd, involuntary noises—barely-there hums, throat-clearing, gentle sighs. I'd known for years that she did this when her mind was whirring. A strange, unconscious soundtrack to her inner monologue. It was one of those small Beatrix quirks that used to amuse me in quieter, simpler times. Now, it grated faintly. Or perhaps it wasn’t her; perhaps it was me—too tightly wound to feel anything but irritation.

Still, I said nothing.

As I drove, my thoughts shifted from the sister beside me to the friend I was desperate to see. You'd better be home when I get there, Jamie Greyson, I thought sternly, as if the sheer force of my will could summon him. The silence seemed to amplify my inner voice, my every thought echoing louder than usual, bouncing off the inside of my skull like a pebble in a jar.

The journey from my parents’ place to Luke and Jamie’s house took just seven minutes. But in that car, in that moment, it stretched on endlessly. Time elongated, seconds dripping by with the torturous slowness of a leaking tap. Each minute felt like an accusation—of everything we hadn't said, of every boundary we’d crossed or avoided.

The once-familiar route blurred past us—same trees, same bins out for collection, same corner shops and slow-driving retirees—but I hardly registered any of it. All I could think of was what lay ahead.

Luke. Jamie. The truck. The Portal.

And the letter in my handbag, its edges already slightly creased from being clutched and clutched again.

As we rounded the final bend, the roofline of Luke’s Berriedale home appeared in the distance. My stomach coiled into a tight knot, part dread, part resolve. Whatever happened next, I had to face it. Answers waited—or perhaps more questions—but I couldn’t keep circling the perimeter of this mystery forever.

Today, I would find out something.

I had to.