The Weight of Boxes

“It’s all fun and Portals until someone hands you a box that smells like guilt.”

The vibrant display of the Portal held Beatrix captivated, drawing her closer like a moth to a flame. The colours seemed to shimmer more intensely with every subtle movement she made—jewel-toned ripples pulsing gently outward, tempting her forward with their hypnotic rhythm. She stood barely an arm’s length away, her wine glass tilting slightly as she leaned in.

I watched her from my place on the couch, the bottle of shiraz still resting heavily in my hand. It was a bittersweet comfort, clutched like a talisman in a world that no longer made sense. I took a deep breath, letting the peppery aroma flood my senses. There was a warmth to it—blackberries, cloves, a whisper of oak. It was grounding. Familiar. Almost enough to dull the sense of dread stirring in my chest.

Raising the bottle to my lips, I took a slow, contemplative sip, eyes never straying from Beatrix. Her expression was slack with awe, gaze caught in the kaleidoscope before her. I could see the moment her hand began to lift, fingers inching forward.

"Don't touch it, Beatrix!" I shouted, the words bursting from me like a reflex. The sudden volume startled even me, slicing through the delicate silence like a dropped plate.

Beatrix spun around, nearly spilling her wine. Crimson droplets clung to the rim of her glass. "I know what I'm doing, Gladys," she snapped, defensive as always, her voice tinged with that familiar air of wounded pride.

I raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You do?" I asked, letting the scepticism hang thick between us.

She hesitated, caught out. Her shoulders stiffened as she took a step back from the Portal, the confidence draining from her like water through a sieve. "I... uh..." she faltered, her gaze flitting from the swirling colours to me.

I sighed inwardly, resentment tightening in my chest. It was always like this with her—Beatrix the brave, Beatrix the impulsive. But it was also Beatrix the secret-keeper, Beatrix the avoider of truths.

My mind dragged me backwards—Brody, lying motionless, blood-soaked, lifeless. Murdered. The word was like a punch. She had known. She’d carried that knowledge like a concealed weapon, hidden beneath her quips and evasions. All that time, she’d let me grieve without truth. Let me spiral in a vacuum of unanswered questions.

And now here she was again, toeing the edge of something unknown, keeping yet another layer of herself walled off.

I gripped the wine bottle tighter, its weight suddenly oppressive in my hand. The comfort it had once offered now felt like a crutch I didn’t want but couldn’t let go of.

Luke re-entered the room abruptly, his presence snapping my thoughts in half. His hair was still slightly damp from the shower, sticking to his forehead in uneven strands. His focus was laser-sharp, his posture rigid with urgency.

"How long did you say you've hired that other small truck for?" he asked me, locking eyes with mine.

The question caught me mid-sip, and I choked slightly on the wine. It burned its way down the wrong pipe, triggering a series of involuntary coughs that I tried to wave away with a hand. "Until Sunday," I managed to croak out, wiping the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand.

Luke didn’t wait for more. "We're going to do a truck swap. Move the truck onto the road for me, would you Beatrix?" he said, already striding towards the front door, momentum carrying his voice ahead of him. "I'm going to bring Gladys’ truck back from Clivilius. You'll need to reverse your truck back into the driveway once I have left. Then I'll reverse mine in front. The keys are still in the ignition."

His instructions spilled out in a flurry, brisk and unarguable, before he vanished through the door.

"Beatrix, you can't be serious!" I said, the words escaping in a rush of disbelief as the dull thrum of the truck’s engine roared to life outside. The sudden sound shattered the fraught stillness that had hung in the living room like thick fog.

I let out a frustrated huff and turned away, feeling the tension twist in my chest like a tightening coil. My gaze drifted downward to the bottle of shiraz still cradled in my hands. A temptation. A relief. A mistake, maybe—but one I couldn’t seem to turn away from. Just a couple more sips, I promised myself weakly, the same lie I’d told myself too many times before.

I moved back to the kitchen bench, where the wine glass stood waiting—half-filled, innocent in its invitation. With a well-practised motion, I poured another measure of the dark, ruby liquid. The wine spiralled into the glass, pooling deeply, catching the light like something half-alive. It almost sparkled. I stared at it for a moment, mesmerised.

As I raised the glass to my lips, something outside caught my eye. I froze mid-sip, the rim of the glass grazing my lower lip.

Through the kitchen window, I could clearly see the driveway. The Portal shimmered once more—alive, pulsing with kaleidoscopic light. But it wasn’t the colours that held me rooted to the spot.

It was the truck.

A small delivery truck was emerging from the swirling vortex, its form becoming clearer as it passed through the barrier between worlds. My breath caught. My heart thudded against my ribs, slow and heavy. Luke was up to something—more than he'd let on. The precision of it, the planning... this wasn’t improvisation. This was strategy. Layers upon layers I hadn’t yet begun to understand.

A chill traced the length of my spine.

Unable to contain the need to see it all unfold, I stepped out onto the front porch, wine glass still in hand, gripping the rail for balance. The sun glinted off the truck’s roof as it fully emerged from the Portal, which continued to churn behind it like some kind of technicolour storm.

After bringing the truck to a halt and jumping from the cab, Luke turned his attention to Beatrix and the contaminated truck. "Reverse the truck back a little," Luke called out, his voice sharp with focus as he flailed his arms with exaggerated gusto. His gestures were so dramatic, I couldn't help but chuckle—half amused, half stunned. It was like watching someone conduct an invisible orchestra. I stood there, caught in the absurdity of the moment.

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the Portal vanished. The air where it had been now looked perfectly ordinary, as if nothing extraordinary had ever occurred. A flat stretch of garden fence. Bland. Bare.

My eyes narrowed. “So, you can move the Portal?” I called out, suspicion creeping into my voice.

Luke glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he replied, the fatigue in his tone betraying how long he’d been juggling this madness. “As long as I activate it against a relatively flat surface, it appears so.”

I swirled the wine in my glass, watching the light catch the clinging streaks down the side. “That’s so amazing,” I said, a hiccup slipping through the words. I took another sip, slower this time, letting the warmth settle in my chest.

Beatrix brought the truck to a halt with a lurch. The tyres gave a small squeal as she stopped short. A moment later, she hopped out of the cab and jogged towards Luke, who was already at the back of the other truck.

I watched, dread gathering like a storm cloud behind my ribs. The sharp click of the latch on the truck’s rear door snapped something in me.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screeched, the panic clawing up through my throat. My voice cracked from the strain. I didn’t want to see it again. I couldn’t. That awful image—blood pooling beneath a young man’s lifeless body—was already burned into my mind. It didn’t need reinforcement.

“We need to move all the remaining goods into this clean truck,” Luke replied, almost mechanically, as he gave the metal siding a pat like it was just any old moving job.

My legs buckled slightly as I stood, too fast, too unsteady. I clutched at the porch handrail, the cool metal anchoring me. Nausea curled in my gut as the blood rushed to my head. He can’t be serious.

We couldn't touch anything. Anything. The thought of shifting boxes, lifting evidence, of mixing our prints into this mess made my stomach churn harder. We were already neck-deep in it. And now he wanted us to wade further in?

The panic swelled again, raw and unforgiving.

Luke moved to the back of the second truck, his motions brisk and determined, as if he were ticking off another errand on a to-do list rather than standing in the midst of a crime scene. "Okay, Beatrix, come help me move this stuff," he called out. "It looks like there are only a few smallish boxes left."

I stood frozen on the porch, clutching the handrail like a lifeline, watching the two of them fall into a strange rhythm of cooperation. They might have been shifting furniture or helping a neighbour move house. The sheer mundanity of their actions felt utterly jarring against the grim reality that surrounded us. There was blood. A body. A Portal to another world. And now we were... doing removals?

A cold, creeping dread washed over me, tightening around my chest like an invisible vice. We're tampering with evidence, I thought, the phrase thudding against my consciousness with brutal clarity. It was no longer a hypothetical. This was real. This was criminal.

And what if Luke wasn’t innocent? What if he’d done something—terrible? What if we were helping him cover it up? The realisation sent a shudder down my spine. The killer, whoever they were, could still be out there. Watching. Waiting. I scanned the quiet street instinctively, my eyes darting from tree to rooftop, but everything appeared frustratingly normal.

And yet, as irrational as it was, a small voice inside me screamed that I couldn’t just stand by. Luke and Beatrix were already entangled in this, elbows-deep in it. If I didn’t step in now, I’d be the outsider again. The one left in the dark. The one who couldn't claim ignorance, but also had no agency. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

"What about me?" I called out, my voice thinner than I intended, tremulous and edged with desperation. I gripped the handrail tighter, then forced myself down the first of the front steps.

"Shit, Gladys. You can barely stand," Beatrix snapped, her voice steeped in irritation. She didn’t even look at me—just kept moving boxes like this was any other Saturday morning chore.

"I can so," I shot back indignantly. Letting go of the rail, I planted my feet deliberately, taking two exaggeratedly careful steps. My legs trembled with each one, but I was determined not to falter. She probably thought it was the wine, and maybe she was partly right, but she hadn’t seen Brody’s blood like I had. She hadn’t found him.

“Here, Beatrix,” Luke interrupted, handing over a box.

Beatrix barely turned as she barked over her shoulder, “Gladys, come get this box. And for fuck’s sake, hurry up!”

The venom in her voice hit me square in the chest.

“Beatrix!” I snapped, yanking the box from her hands with more force than was necessary. My fingers gripped the edges tightly, the cardboard creaking in protest.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Just put it in the other truck,” she said coolly, turning away like the conversation was beneath her.

I inhaled sharply, teeth clenched, and stormed off with the box cradled against my chest. Its weight seemed to grow heavier with each step, as though the guilt and fear inside me had seeped into the very contents. What’s even in here? I wondered, but didn’t dare look. Best not to know.

The moment I stepped into the second truck, the oppressive staleness of its interior closed around me. It smelled of dust and old rubber, but that wasn’t what made my stomach clench. It was the silence. The finality. This was real. We were actually doing this—moving physical evidence connected to a death—and pretending it was just part of a strange day.

I placed the box down carefully, but my hands lingered on its sides for a moment longer than necessary. I felt the weight of it not just in my arms, but in my soul. Each box we moved wasn’t just an object—it was a symbol of our growing complicity. With every trip between the trucks, we were sinking deeper into this madness. And there was no map out.

I stepped back out into the sunlight, blinking against its brightness. The breeze brushed against my flushed cheeks, and I closed my eyes for a second, as if that could undo the choices we were making.

But when I opened them, the truck was still there. The boxes still needed moving. The body—thankfully out of sight—was still in the other vehicle.

And we were still pretending this wasn’t going to haunt us forever.