Keepers Of The Gate Read online

  The moment she stepped on to the footbridge, the dogwoods’ white and green leaves fluttered as if a million butterflies had awakened. The tree swayed, a magnet drawing her forward. Below, in the stream, the dogwoods’ inverted image scattered a verdant and silvery reflection, alive in rapid water. The brook altered, rose, and fell, coursing liquid mercury. Twyla’s hair quilled and sailed past her face. She lifted her foot, gasped, and whipped her head around when a hand grasped her shoulder. Old George.

  “No, little one, you will displease your ancestors,” he’d said, leading Twyla from the bridge. Old George glanced at his wristwatch, took her hand, and led her back to the house. “Never cross the bridge at night. It’s dangerous,” he’d said, patting Twyla’s hair before she entered the home. When she peered around, he wasn’t there.

  “Twyla, you OK?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where were you just now?”

  “I remembered a conversation between Grams and Papa on my 10th birthday. It was hours after my party around dinnertime when I stumbled on them in the backyard. Grams mentioned Brant and the two names written on the map, Pilan and Sagoyewatha. I assumed they were friends because Grams often spoke their names. She always prefaced Brant with the Indian name Thayendanegea.”

  “From what I remember, that was Brant’s given name at birth.”

  “I’ve never forgotten the uncomfortable silence surrounding the dining room that night. Grams just pushed the food around her plate as she drank three glasses of the special liquor always served to guests in the evening. The alcohol relaxed lines on her face and softened her brows. She glanced across the table and smiled, pretending to be fine, but I sensed Brant still consumed her thoughts.” Past emotions tug at Twyla’s heart, awakening disquiet, and sadness she suffered when tears cracked Grams’ tough facade. “Why are memories resurfacing today?”

  “What did you hear?”

  “Grams said she had to go back and warn them. Go back in time? Is that what she meant?”

  “Brant, plan, warn them, sounds that way.”

  “Can I see the map?” Twyla takes the diagram from his hand, studies the red outline around Genesee and green dots from Elmira to the northwest territory of Seneca Lake. Next to the Genesee site, she recognizes Thomas Boyd’s name and two others, Pilan and Sagoyewatha, in Grams’ script. “That’s her handwriting.” Pilan… Echoes an intangible, elusive glimmer. “What’s the horseshoe shape at the bottom?”

  “Tactical markers of another Iroquois and British ambush near Chemung River. Did you receive the maps from the historical society with markers?”

  “I’m not sure. Today is the first time I’ve seen the maps.”

  “Hmm…”

  “What?” Twyla asks.

  “An idea just struck me. If, and I’m not saying it’s possible, your Grams traveled to the past, she was aware what history held for our people. She might have been a powerful weapon for the Iroquois,” says Jayson, tapping the map with his index finger. “And given what you’ve just remembered, it sounds as if she cared about the Iroquois joining the ambush. This is huge, Twyla.”

  “I can’t imagine Grams in those dangerous times. But she had three safeguards. She knew of their customs and language and she was of Indian blood. They’d embrace her as a member of their village.”

  “With Tessa’s knowledge of the war and its repercussions for the Iroquois, she could have manipulated history. Did she?” Jayson stares into space, his last remark hanging in midair, dispersing before he reaches for the map in Twyla’s hand. “Changing history, what a hefty decision and one I’m sure Tessa weighed carefully.”

  “I can’t believe they’d place trust in a stranger.”

  “If she’d approached the villagers with divinations, Tessa could have wielded significant influence as a prophet. The Iroquois regarded dreams as spiritual guidance.”

  “Would you change history?”

  Jayson pauses, mulling over the question. “I’m not sure. There’s too much to consider,” he says, staring at the map again. “On second thought, no. I’d do my best not to tamper with history. Altering the past might cause a catastrophic aftermath. There’re reasons for conquest, war, famine, and pestilence, devastations only the ever-powerful Great Spirit can change. I’d approach time travel as an opportunity to witness, not change, Iroquois history.”

  “Excellent choice, Professor Sundown. I’d do the same,” Twyla exclaims with a sigh, rocketing from the seat, “If Grams time-traveled, where is the portal? Is it inside Twilight, on the property? And why hasn’t anyone else stumbled on it?”

  Do Not Disturb… The footbridge.

  Are her recollections right, the butterfly dogwood leaves, the mercurial stream, and her quilled hair? It seemed like a dream, but the alarm on Old George’s vivid face endured. “Never cross the bridge at night. It’s dangerous.” Did he fear she’d fall into the creek, or stumble through a dangerous portal? Is the entrance at the footbridge? The answer lies in the mystical place, a gated site forever locked, where she’d ventured once with no wish to do so again, fearing the eerie dogwood trees. Now, part-owner of Twilight, she has access to every door and gate on the property.

  “Sacred ruins run beneath the house and property, right?” Jayson asks.

  “Yes,” she says, miles away, trying to grasp fleeting sensations of an August evening. She deliberates telling him about her suspicions. No, she’ll wait until later, after she visits the footbridge tonight. Whistling winds reminds her of the snowstorm and perils of crossing the grounds, not to mention the dangerous descent of a snow-covered stone stairway leading to the footbridge.

  “That’s your answer. The Iroquois protected those stones because they knew their power, conduits through time. And the entryway could lie anywhere on the property.” He says with arched brows.

  Twyla swivels around on her sock-clad heels, staring wide-eyed at Jayson. “Ian used to say Grams and Mom sensed revenants of past lives. But what if it’s a crisscross of past and present, time converging, not ghosts?”

  Jayson leans toward the candle, flicking his finger across the flame. “That’s plausible, given the mystical ruins.”

  “In less than 24 hours, Twilight has shown me visions I’ve never experienced in 23 years. Grams said years ago when the right people, stars, and time align, history reappears.” Twyla sits on the edge of the settee and stares Jayson deep in the eyes. “There’s a spiritual connection between everyone snowbound at Twilight today. You. Harrison. Cristal. Dante. Skylar. Charlie. Me. We’re the right people. None of this happened until the last essential person entered the house.”

  “Who?”

  “You. My visions didn’t start until you arrived,” she says, staring at the ancient bow and arrows. “When I touched the longbow, I’m positive I experienced a past life. I can’t explain it, but I felt in my heart it was me. And I saw you and Harrison during the war.”

  “That was the reason for your odd behavior in the Grand Hall?”

  Twyla shakes her head, wishing she hadn’t mentioned it.

  “From the look on your face, I’m afraid to ask, but tell me, please.”

  Twyla holds his gaze, dreading his mortality. A moment of panic stops her breath. She holds and releases a lengthy sigh. The agony Grams suffered from Ian’s death must have been unbearable. She runs her finger across Jayson’s silver staff and says unaffected, “You were a Native Indian and Harrison a Revolutionary soldier.” She pauses, deliberating mentioning the gunshot. If she doesn’t tell him, he’ll sense she’s lying. “When he fired his gun, the vision faded before the bullet struck or missed you,” she explains, wondering if Grams knew his fate when she drew the sketches.

  “Shit! Well, that explains the strange vibe I felt when I first saw him.” Jayson recalls the sudden recognition when Harrison appeared in the Grand Hall. He did a double take and asked if they’d met. They both believed they had. “Since we grew up in the same town and attended the same school, I assumed our paths crossed
once or twice along the way. But not in a past life during the American Revolution,” he says with a twist of humor on his lips and brows.

  His incredulous expression doesn’t hide the concern in his eyes. The notion of Harrison killing Jayson in a past life sends a chill through her body and a stronger wish to banish Harrison from Twilight. Is he still a danger to Jayson? “We need to find out the truth.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “Grams’ journals. Even the smallest clue may offer an answer…”

  “OK, but what…”

  “Shh,” Twyla hushes him, pressing her finger to his mouth. “Just listen.”

  Jayson runs his fingers across his lips with a mock twist and rests into the sofa.

  Twyla throws him an appreciative grin, strokes his jaw, pulling his face toward hers with a quick kiss. “OK,” she says, turning her head. She places her feet on the settee, curls into his shoulder and opens the journal to Grams’ first entry and reads aloud.

  23

  Tessa’s Journal

  March 20, 1959

  The house shuddered again last night, a suction, inhalation. When I told Mom, she said it’s gusty Ya-o-gah, the Northwind, making the home creak and moan. It was neither whistling wind nor creaking floorboards. A distinct pressure expanded and released a shuddering breath from the inside, not outside, the walls. A month ago, I believed it was a dream, but now, I realize the phenomenon arose within Twilight, not my head. Both events happened minutes after midnight.

  Determined to find the source, I slipped from my bedroom, crept along the low-lit hallway thick with guests’ slumbering silence, past suites on the second and third floor, up to the attic but detected nothing. Descending to the Grand Hall, the floorboards vibrated beneath my feet as I continued across the shadowy space toward the dim corridor where the vibrations hummed the strongest. The antique grandfather clock tick-tocked. Wind trilled, and my heart galloped as I turned the corner.

  Every hair on my body prickled as if in a magnetic field. I froze in shock when a black opening vanished, dwindling with a pop. The floor tremor stilled. I strode toward the spot, straining to determine the vibrations origins. Was it a mirage? With my eyes fixed to where the rift closed, I shuffled backward, bumped into the wall, and hesitated, hoping for something else to stir in the dull space. When movement rustled from the kitchen, and a door creaked open, I rushed back to my room and jumped into bed.

  It’s late, and I’m wide awake with questions bouncing around my brain as I try to understand what happened downstairs. What did I see? It can’t be my imagination. The tremble stemmed from the corridor. Is the black void the origin? Origin of what? The query takes root in my mind, but I grow weary and doubt myself. Blustery Ya-o-gah sings to me. Soon it will whistle me to sleep.

  March 21, 1959

  Today I turned 17, and two wishes came true, my first date and kiss with Ian Blackfoot, my best friend and my classmate since elementary school. Our friendship’s destined, given the small Native-American community in Geneva, and our family’s prominence. Ian’s father, a Harvard-educated Native American, practiced law in New York City before moving back to his hometown and marrying. And the Newhouse business has thrived since the 1800s. The Blackfoot and Newhouse families emerged together from the Iroquois Confederacy centuries ago.

  Never in a million years did I expect to develop a crush on Ian. Our affections deepened and unfolded at 16. I sensed his awkwardness rose from attraction, not repulsion, when he stuttered and broke into a sweat for no reason. He lowered his eyes to the floor, jet-black strands flopping around his chagrined expression. I pretended not to notice his interest but couldn’t resist pushing his hair from his face. Sensitive to other people’s emotions, I often express empathy with touch. As soon as I brushed a strand behind his ear, he relaxed with a lopsided smile, arousing a tickle in my special place. Ashamed of sudden arousal, I glanced elsewhere.

  Of late, Mom has noticed our growing attraction and teased aloud several times for everyone to hear, “Another Wolf and Turtle clan wedding.” I hate it when she does that. To mute her voice, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “La-la-la-la-la,” over and over until she backed off with a smile. Since she started joshing about marriage, romantic fantasies of Ian populate my thoughts. I’d die if anyone knew the intimate images in my head. Ian said in the olden days, Native American girls married at 14. I can’t imagine being a wife or mother at such a young age.

  When he asked me to a bash last year, Mom shook her head and said, “No. When you turn 17.” Ian replied, “OK, it’s a date. A matinee in town.” We had no way of knowing what the movie would be but lucked out with Vincent Price’s House on Haunted Hill. I’ve never liked segregation in theaters or anywhere else and wish we’d gone to the drive-in-movie in Ithaca. Biases rouse my rebellious nature, causing me to act otherwise, as I did today.

  I walked through the cinema’s front door, strolled through the orchestra aisle straight to the first row, and sat, waiting for someone to protest. The only person to object was Ian, who said, “You’re crazy,” and pulled me upstairs to the mezzanine where coloreds and Native Americans sat.

  I fumed, uninterested in the popcorn and soda in my lap. When the movie started, my mood mellowed, and I glanced at Ian’s shadowy profile. He swung his head, planted a nervous peck on my lips, and looked back at the screen. Stunned, I sat upright with a foolish grin, wishing he’d kiss me again. Our shoulders brushed with an automatic fold of my arm in his. I stared straight ahead, struggling to focus on the film as his sweaty palm wrapped around my hand in the air-conditioned dark. Lost in Ian’s touch, and fantasizing about another kiss, the movie was one big blur.

  Later that afternoon, my parents strolled around with glee on their faces, an expression they get when Ian visits. I scowled with annoyance and shooed them away with a sharp glare. After cake and one glass of wine my parents allowed for the occasion and opening gifts, Mom and Dad attended to guests, leaving me with Ian and my new Argus camera in the parlor. If only they’d remembered to buy a roll of film.

  I itched to tell Ian what I’d seen last night but feared he’d consider me crazy and laugh. Instead, I challenged him to a game of chess. Ian fancies my father’s game compendium, a constant fixture on the pedestal table near the window, but it wasn’t there today. Just as I left the lounge, Ian turned the radio station to Sam Cooke’s voice crooning Everybody Likes to Cha-Cha-Cha. I glanced back and busted a gut as Ian’s hips writhed, and his arms swung in the air as if fighting off bees. He’s a big tickle, presuming he’s as good as dancers on American Bandstand. I hate to tell him he has no rhythm. Either he’s tone deaf or moves to an internal beat, not the music playing. He’s my rhythmless man.

  I searched the house for the game set, finding it open to an incomplete chess match in the family suite, and gathered the pieces in the box. Just as I headed toward the door, the ever-locked steamer trunk appeared wide-open in my periphery.

  Curious, I crept to the study in the rear, hoping that no one would come in. Three hand-sewn quilts prepared for storage lay on top of the chest. I moved the coverlets aside, scoured through a mishmash of packages stuffed with nothing important, just pillows, antiques, and Native American trinkets. I admired a colorful, beaded bracelet, and slid it on my wrist for the rest of the day. When I opened a deep metal box, stacks of leather-bound journals engraved with the initials MD emerged.

  Elegant penmanship lined discolored pages with brief entries, some a paragraph or two, others a page or less. On the inner cover, the year 1793 lay above the owner’s name, Mercy Dox. Her sad words, odd in places, captured my attention. Absorbed, I’d forgotten Ian until he found me 15 minutes later. When he stumbled through the door, my heart leaped, fearing my parents had discovered me. I returned the blankets to the trunk, smuggled the diaries to my room where Ian and I read until summoned downstairs. I wrapped the diaries in a quilt, stowed them in my closet, a secret Ian and I kept, never mentioning to anyone what we’d found.

&
nbsp; March 23, 1959

  After reading Mercy’s diaries, I’m positive the sensations I felt two nights ago are the same as hers. How frightened she must have been when her husband traveled, leaving her alone on the farmstead in unpopulated woodlands. The spot she mentioned in the journal is the gated property bordering the house. The place where Twilight’s previous owner, Mr. Dox, died with arrows in his chest.

  Many claimed he angered ancient Iroquois spirits when he traversed their sacred grounds. Soon after his murder, my family replaced the old wooden fence, closing off the plot with a wrought-iron gated fence, forever locked. I’ve dreaded the place, not because of his death, but another inexplicable fear, anxiety, which makes me more curious to see what lies inside the gate. Dad always says to confront your fears. But I’m sure he didn’t mean to trespass beyond the fence.

  Unable to sleep last night, I strolled to the balcony for fresh air, glimpsing the oddest sight of Young George dressed in Native clothing. The Georges crossed the backyard simultaneously, uttering mere words as they strode in opposite directions. Old George proceeded beyond the rustling trees and vanished.

  I leaned over the balustrade, straining my eyes, waiting for him to reappear. When he didn’t, I dashed downstairs, strayed toward the maple and dogwood tree, just as he closed the forbidden gate and trudged ahead. I stopped, remembering Dad’s remark, “Confront your fears.”

  My heart raced and my legs jellied as I trotted to the fence. I don’t know what frightens me in such a peaceful place. Maybe it’s the maple and dogwood watching as I approached. I held my breath and jiggled the metal latch, though I could see it was locked. The baroque-style, wrought-iron gate towered above me. Through the vine-covered iron creepers, George advanced along the narrow, rock-lined trail, descending the wooded embankment. I placed my foot through bottom iron creepers and flower swirls but couldn’t find a grip. Even if I scaled the height, I feared I’d impale a limb on the spiky top.