The place was definitely a former industrial building of some kind, and just as definitely long abandoned. We had emerged upstairs, in the office part that extended a little over half of the length (we eventually worked out). Beneath it was a factory or workshop of some kind, and at the other end, taking up the full height, a space that had probably been a warehouse.
We found the office tearoom, a dingy room with worn and stained walls, but several tall cupboards, and Marie proceeded to open them. Much to our delight, the first one now led to our own wardrobe, the same one we had come through in such a Narnian manner. Though Marie didn’t look much like Mr Tumnus, and it wasn’t that cold.
We dressed in winter clothes first of all, though, and then started going through our camping stuff. We had been gradually building it up, buying gear from the discount outdoor shop down the road as we could afford it, planning on taking a camping trip after school finished while we decided what to do next with our lives. We had a little gas stove, two decent sleeping bags and some air mattresses, a tent (not much current use), some camp cooking gear and a couple of packs, with water bottles and a few camp tools.
“Do we really need to take it all out?” I asked, after we had it mostly on the floor. “After all, Marie can always open the door again if we need anything.”
“What if she’s opened a door and is on the other side of the world, though?” said Kevin.
“You’re right,” she said, “better to have it where you can reach it yourselves. I can’t guarantee to access the same place again, either – it’s not something I control, you know.”
With that encouragement, we pulled clothes, shoes, books and other essentials out of the cupboard too, and stacked them in the next-door cupboard for future use. The book I had been reading, unfortunately, was on my bed. I’d been halfway through it, too.
When we’d finished, she closed the doors and opened them again. They now revealed a fridge, a selection of food (mostly in cans and packets), and a microwave and electric kettle.
“Whose is this stuff? Is it OK for us to take it?” asked Kevin.
Marie did the one-shoulder shrug which I was starting to recognise as one of her favourite gestures. “My experience is that whatever’s behind the door is something I need. Not want, need. We need food. Whatever it is that decides what I need agrees on that.”
“You don’t think it’s something you’re doing?” I asked.
She controlled the start this time, but I could see she’d forgotten I was there again. “Well, it seems to only happen to me, but I don’t choose where the doors go to.”
“And it seems that you need us for something?” asked Kevin.
“Or maybe you needed me. That Mr Brown was about to get you, after all.”
“Yeah, about that – what did he do exactly that spooked you?”
“It wasn’t what he did exactly – he was just wrong. I’ve been in a lot of foster homes over the years, and there’s a kind of feeling that I get sometimes about someone, I know I’m probably going to have to vanish through some doors quickly at times, you know? Or do you?”
We nodded. We knew foster homes and creepy people. It was easier for me than for Kevin, but he always knew where they were and had got good at avoiding them.
“It was like that, only a lot worse. He didn’t seem totally – he was like someone who’d only heard about what humans were like, what they looked like and how their faces worked. Not quite – right.”
“You think he was some kind of alien?” I asked.
“Or a robot, maybe?” said Kevin.
The little shrug. “Maybe. I didn’t want to go where he was taking me, I know that much.”
We started opening packets and getting ready for cooking, and while we did, I said, “Foster homes, huh? You too?”
“Yeah. I’m an orphan. Car crash, they told me, but I don’t remember.”
“Same with us. All of that. It seems like a bit of a coincidence.”
“I dunno. A lot of people die in car crashes, don’t they?”
“Yeah, which is why it makes a good cover story. Eaten by weasels, not so much.”
She didn’t quite laugh, but her lips quirked in a smile – more response than I usually got out of someone. “You two brothers?”
“Do we look like brothers?”
She coloured up a little. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way…” She paused in the way I had learned meant “I’ve forgotten your name again.” “John,” I said.
“…John, but I find it hard to remember what you look like. Even when I’m looking straight at you.”
“Oh, that,” I said. “Yeah, that happens. Seems I interfere with that part of people’s brains as well. Sorry – it’s not something I can switch off.”
“Me neither. I never know when I walk through a door if it’s going to be one of those doors.”
“It doesn’t happen every time, then?” asked Kevin. “Should we chop these?” – meaning the carrots he had just got out.
“Yes, if we can find a knife. No, I don’t travel every time I open a door, or maybe sometimes what I need is to be where the door normally leads to. But it happens… unexpectedly, sometimes.”
“Mine’s always on,” he said. “Like, now I’ve talked to you for a few minutes, I could point straight to you wherever you were, out of sight, even miles away, probably. Useful in some ways, but it gets… noisy, in my head. It’s good to be this far away from home, just to get the quiet.”
“I wish I always knew where I was,” she said wistfully.
We finished making the dinner in near silence.
Mike Reeves-McMillan lives in Auckland, New Zealand, the setting of his Auckland Allies contemporary urban fantasy series; and also in his head, where the weather is more reliable, and there are a lot more wizards. He also writes the Gryphon Clerks series (steampunk/magepunk), the Hand of the Trickster series (sword-and-sorcery heist capers), and short stories which have appeared in venues such as Compelling Science Fiction and Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores.
