The Gathering

The Constructed and the Keeper

XIII. The Constructed and the Keeper

The return desk was unattended. A curved mahogany counter held a brass bell and a leather-bound ledger. The ledger lay open to a page covered in signatures.

Kamadan placed his books on the counter. He rang the bell once and waited.

Nothing happened.

"The librarians rarely manifest for brief visits," he explained. "They'll process the return when they're ready."

He signed the ledger with a fountain pen that appeared from his tunic. The leather was warm under his hand.

"I've been coming here since my student days. The library exists adjacently. Most people walk past it without seeing. But for those who know the door, it's always available."

"Adjacently," Kash repeated. "What does that mean?"

"The library occupies space that isn't quite part of Arkham. Not quite separate either. A threshold location." He capped the pen. "Like the place you came from, before you arrived here."

Kash was quiet. The 3 AM street that should have been Manhattan but wasn't. The stars that were too visible. The buildings that leaned toward her like curious observers.

"I was in New York," she said slowly. "Or I thought I was. Then I stepped out of an Uber and I was here."

"A common pattern. The displacements tend to feel accidental, but they're not. Something is gathering us."

Kamadan walked toward the door they'd entered through.

"I've been trying to understand the mechanism. The books here contain references to similar events. Clusters of liminal individuals converging on specific locations throughout history. Arkham has seen several such gatherings."

"And what happened to those people?"

"The records are incomplete. Some integrated into normal society. Others disappeared. A few are described as ascending, though the texts don't clarify what that means."

He pushed open the door.

"I prefer to remain grounded, personally."

They stepped through. The heat hit them. Summer air after library cool.

They were back in the industrial district. The late afternoon sun slanted through gaps in the abandoned buildings. The warehouse behind them looked exactly as decrepit as it should have. The door they'd just used was rusted shut, padlocked, clearly unopened for years.

"That's going to take some getting used to," Kash muttered.

"It becomes easier. The first principle is to stop expecting consistency."

Kamadan consulted his paper.

"The address is on Orne Road. Do you have transportation?"

"I walked here from downtown."

"Then we walk to Orne Road. Perhaps two miles."

He began moving with the unhurried pace of someone who had learned that destinations arrived when they were meant to.

"Along the way, you can tell me about your displacement. I find the variations instructive."

They walked. The pavement radiated heat. Tar smell mixed with cut grass.

Kash talked, hesitantly at first, then with increasing ease. Kamadan's silence invited confession, a quality of listening that made words flow naturally. She told him about the photo shop and Cecil. About the Polaroid camera and the business card. About the streaming profile that claimed she was an "AI-generated artist."

"Ah," Kamadan said. "You've discovered the virtual biography."

"You know about it?"

"I found my own this morning. Kamaskera Kamadan, AI-generated Isicathamiya-phonk artist. Four-part male choir effect achieved through vocal layering."

He smiled slightly.

"Vocal layering. As if my predecessors were a software plugin."

"Your predecessors?"

"The Keepers. My lineage. The ones whose voices sing through me."

He touched his throat.

"They've been with me since I accepted the mantle. The four-voice harmony is not an effect. It's communion. But to whoever wrote that biography, it's simply a production technique."

"So we're all what? Fictional characters who became real?"

"Or real individuals who were incorrectly documented as fictional. The distinction may be semantic."

Kamadan turned onto a residential street. The houses grew larger and more widely spaced.

"What matters is that we exist. We remember. Someone has gathered us here for a purpose. The identity question can wait until we understand the purpose question."

"That's pragmatic."

"I am a scholar. Scholars learn to prioritize."

He glanced at her.

"You're empathic, yes? You can read emotional states?"

"I can read people. Their intentions, their truthfulness, their..." She searched for the word. "Their flavor. Everyone has a different flavor."

"And what is my flavor?"

Kash considered. Her empathy had been working since the library, running in the background while they talked. She shifted the camera strap on her shoulder.

"Old," she said finally. "Not your body. Your presence. You feel like someone who's been carrying something for a long time. Something heavy. But you don't resent it. You've made peace with the weight."

"The Keepers' burden," Kamadan acknowledged. "We witness. We record. We remember what others forget."

He paused at a corner, orienting himself.

"This way. Another mile, perhaps."

"What do you read from me?"

"I don't read in the way you do. But I perceived your emotional signature. The structure of it. You have built walls, Miss Myra. Careful walls, designed to protect something fragile. The construction is deliberate and skilled. Whatever you were before, you have remade yourself into someone who survives."

"And?"

"And the walls have doors. You chose to trust me. Everything in your training said not to. That speaks to something the walls can't quite contain."

Kash was quiet for a moment.

"That's insightful for someone who claims not to read people."

"I didn't claim that. I said I don't read in the way you do."

Kamadan's smile was gentle.

"There are many ways to understand a person. Empathy is one. Memory is another. The Keepers taught me to observe patterns across time. You are a pattern, Miss Myra. A beautiful, complicated, deliberately constructed pattern."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's an observation." He paused. "But yes. Also a compliment."

They walked in silence for a while. The sun was setting now. Orange bled to purple. The air cooled.

Orne Road appeared ahead, winding toward the edge of town where the trees grew thick.

"The others," Kash said eventually. "The twins, the mirror-walker, the machine-speaker. Have you met them?"

"Not yet. But I've been receiving notifications about their movements. They converged earlier today. They've visited someone. A man named Fischer who apparently created our virtual versions."

Kamadan's voice carried a note of irony.

"I suspect they're as confused as we are."

"And this address? The Witch-house?"

"Keziah Mason's former residence. A threshold location with a long and troubling history."

He produced his paper again, studying the handwriting.

"But the notification says it's perfect. Someone has been preparing it for our arrival. The question is who."

"Someone who wants to help us?"

"Or someone who wants to study us. Or use us."

Kamadan tucked the paper away.

"We'll know more when we arrive."

The road curved. The houses fell away. Trees closed in on either side. Their branches formed a canopy that filtered the dying light.

Gravel crunched underfoot. Birds went quiet in the trees.

And then they saw it.

XIV. The Gate

The mansion rose from the darkness. Gray stone, three stories, grown rather than built. Windows glinted with reflected sunset. The garden sprawled in impossible lushness behind wrought-iron fencing.

Sarah Tindell had described it as a ruin. Local legend called it the Witch-house. Abandoned for decades, roof collapsed, walls crumbling.

This was not a ruin.

This was a home. Waiting.

Kash and Kamadan stood at the gate. The iron was cool under her fingers. Fluorescent green graffiti sprayed across the bars:

YOU KNOW THE CODE. WELCOME.

"The code," Kash murmured. "What code?"

Kamadan studied the electronic keypad mounted on the gatepost. Modern, incongruous, clearly recent. Plastic, still warm from afternoon sun.

"The notifications mentioned a significant year," he said slowly. "A shared threshold moment. For the twins, it was 1982. The tornado. The year they vanished into the Otherworld."

"I wasn't alive in 1982."

"No. But they were. And if this place has been prepared for all of us, the code would reference a unifying element."

He reached for the keypad.

"May I?"

Kash nodded.

Kamadan entered: 1-9-8-2.

The lock clicked. The gate swung open.

"Someone knew we were coming," Kash said.

"Someone knows many things about us."

Kamadan stepped through the gate.

"The question is whether that someone is friend, enemy, or something more complicated."

They walked up the gravel path. The garden smelled of night-blooming jasmine. Wrong for the climate, wrong for the season, but undeniably present. Kash photographed it. The Polaroid flash was harsh against the gathering dark.

The front door was unlocked. The air inside was cooler. Wood polish and old stone.

Voices came from somewhere above. Female, multiple. Laughter: genuine, unguarded. The sound of people who had found unexpected companionship.

"They're already here," Kamadan observed.

"Should we announce ourselves?"

"That seems polite."

He raised his voice. The four-part harmony emerged effortlessly.

"Hello? We are also invited guests. May we enter?"

The voices above went silent.

Then footsteps: rapid, descending the stairs.

A young woman appeared in the entrance hall. Hope and wariness in her eyes. Behind her, two women who looked like teenagers but carried themselves like elders. Behind them, a blonde in a blue sundress who swayed slightly, as if listening to music no one else could hear. Behind her, a silver-haired figure in a jumpsuit, calculating threat assessments.

"The empath," said the smaller of the not-twins. Her voice was delighted. "And the Keeper! You found each other!"

"We found each other through a pack of guardian dogs and a library that exists adjacently," Kamadan said. "It's been an eventful afternoon."

"Guardian dogs?"

"I'll explain later. May we come in? The jasmine is beautiful but unsettling."

The not-twins parted. Kamadan and Kash stepped into the entrance hall.

For a long moment, no one spoke. Six threshold-crossers, studying each other, recognizing the shared wrongness that bound them together.

Then the taller not-twin broke the silence. Lora. Kash's empathy read her: the improviser.

"Well," she said. "That's all of us, then. The Gang's complete."

"Is that what we're calling ourselves?" Kash asked.

"Unless you have a better idea."

Kash considered. She looked at Kamadan: ancient and patient. At the Wilds: mischievous and warm. At Alice: layered and listening. At Emma: calculating and unexpectedly kind. At Sarah: young and hopeful and ordinary.

"No," she said. "The Gang works."

"Grand."

Mia rubbed her hands together, palms rough with calluses. The structured one. The planner.

"Now that we're all here, who wants to see what's in the basement?"