The Gathering

The Arrival

XXX. The Arrival

The kitchen door opened. Admitting Kash and Kamadan from their expedition to Fischer's studio. Both moved slowly. But their eyes were sharp. The weariness of significant discovery.

Kash stopped three steps into the room. Mia's distress hit her like heat from an open oven. Raw. Uncontained. Radiating outward. She crossed to Mia immediately. Taking her hands.

"Just try to calm down," Kash said. Her voice carried the steadiness she'd cultivated for moments of crisis. "Slowly. Breathe. Good. So, what happened?"

Mia's hands were cold despite the warm kitchen. "I called my granddaughter."

Kash's eyebrows drew together. Lora stepped in to explain.

"Mia discovered that her phone still works. Her real phone number. Connecting to her real carrier account. She called Jennie. That's her son's youngest daughter. Who's looking after our farm in Hollow Path while we're... here."

"But Hollow Path doesn't exist in this version of Massachusetts," Alice added. "I've been checking since Mia's discovery. The geography is wrong. The hamlet isn't there. The farm isn't there. Yet the call connected normally."

Kamadan had moved to the table. His posture shifting to the focused stillness of cataloging information.

"The call went through to a different reality?"

"A different phase," Alice corrected. "An alternate arrangement of the present moment. Whatever brought us here, it didn't sever our connections to where we came from. It just... relocated us."

"Jennie sounded fine," Mia said. Her voice had steadied. "Normal. Happy about the harvest. Worried about us sounding strange. She doesn't know anything is wrong. She thinks we're just on a trip."

"Because for her, you probably are."

Kash released Mia's hands and pulled a chair close. Sitting so they were at eye level.

"The version of you that exists in her reality. The one who left on whatever journey she thinks you took. That version is probably continuing normally. You branched. Or were extracted. Or—"

"Or we were always here," Lora said quietly. "And also always there. Like Alice with her phases."

Alice nodded. "It's possible. The Wilds have Otherworld connections. Fae heritage. Even if only adopted. The boundaries between versions of reality might be more permeable for you than for ordinary humans."

Kamadan had been photographing the phone. The table. The arrangement of people. Documenting everything with his usual thoroughness.

"This changes several of our assumptions," he said. "If communication remains possible between phases, we may be able to gather information from multiple sources. Reach people who can help. Or warn those who might be in danger."

"Danger from what?" Mia asked.

"From whatever orchestrated our gathering."

Kamadan's voice was gentle but serious.

"Our visit to Mr. Fischer revealed concerning patterns. The encrypted files on his system. The ones containing information about us. They were installed before he began his work. Before he ever invented anyone. The timestamp matches the day his wife and daughter died."

The kitchen fell silent. The stew bubbled on the stove. Unattended.

"Someone knew," Kash continued. Picking up the thread. "Someone knew what would happen to his family. Knew it would break him open. Knew the grief would make him receptive to whatever voices or visions they wanted to send. Fischer wasn't just a conduit. He was a prepared conduit. His tragedy was either anticipated or..."

She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.

"Arranged," Mia whispered. "You're saying someone might have killed his family to create the circumstances needed to find us."

"We don't know that," Kamadan said carefully. "We know only that the timing is suspicious. The encrypted files predate everything else. Someone was watching Fischer before he became useful. What that someone did or didn't do to shape events..."

He spread his hands.

"We need more information."

XXXI. The Implications

Emma arrived from upstairs. Drawn by voices. She assessed the room with a single glance. The positions of bodies. The tension in shoulders. The cold stew on the stove. She moved directly to the coffee maker.

"Something has occurred," she observed. Not asking.

Lora summarized. Mia's call. The connection that shouldn't have worked. Alice's phase interpretation. Fischer's encrypted files.

Emma listened while preparing coffee with mechanical precision. When Lora finished, Emma turned with a cup in each hand. Offering one to Kamadan.

"Interphase communication," Emma said. "Consistent with the house's properties. If the basement exists in adjacent space—physically larger than the structure it occupies—then the entire building may function as a threshold. A location where normal rules of connection are suspended."

"You're taking this remarkably calmly," Mia observed.

"I am processing. Calm is efficient."

Emma sipped her coffee. The cup was warm between her palms.

"The call's success suggests several possibilities. First: our origin points remain accessible. We are displaced but not severed. Second: the displacement may be intentional. Whoever brought us here wanted us connected to our previous realities. Not isolated from them. Third: communication channels can be exploited in both directions. If you can call out, others can call in."

Mia's phone buzzed. A text message notification.

Everyone stared at the device. It sat on the table. Ready to bite.

Mia picked it up with hands that had steadied considerably. Her face went still. Then shifted. Recognition. Then something harder to read.

"It's from David," she said.

Lora moved immediately to her sister's side. "That's not possible. David has been—"

"I know what David has been."

Mia's voice was flat. Controlled.

"I watched him die. I watched the Seelie take what remained. I buried what was left."

She held up the phone so others could see the screen.

The message read: The music knows where you are. Don't stop playing. —D

"The sending number," Kamadan said quietly. "Is it David's?"

"It's the number he had before the fire."

Mia set the phone down. The device had become hot. Her fingers pulled back from the surface.

"The number that should have been disconnected three years ago. The number I still couldn't bring myself to remove from my contacts."

"Could someone be spoofing it?" Kash asked. "Using his number to deliver a message?"

"Anyone can spoof a number," Emma confirmed. "The technology is trivial. But the content..."

She studied the message.

"Whoever sent this knows about David. Knows about your music. Knows something about your current situation. The pool of candidates with that knowledge is extremely limited."

"Unless David himself sent it," Alice said. The suggestion hung in the air.

"David is dead." Mia's voice carried the weight of absolute certainty and absolute grief.

"David's body died. David's mortal existence ended."

Alice's tone was gentle but precise.

"You told us the Seelie assisted his transition. That means his ending wasn't conventional death. It was transformation. And transformed beings sometimes retain capabilities that the merely dead do not."

"He's never contacted me before. Three years. Not a word. Not a sign."

"You weren't in adjacent space before," Kamadan observed. "You weren't accessible to whatever communications might originate from... wherever he is now. This house changed the rules. Your call to Jennie proved that connections can reach across phase boundaries. Connections can also reach across other boundaries."

Mia stared at her phone. Her jaw was tight.

"The music knows where you are," she repeated. "What does that mean?"

"Literally," Emma suggested. "We arrived in a house with personalized recording studios. Studios that contain equipment and configurations matching each of our specific requirements. Someone wants us to make music. Wants us to make music here. In this threshold space. With these particular resources. Or something."

"And David—" Lora started.

"Knew what we are better than anyone," Mia finished.

Her voice had changed. Still grief-laden. But now with an edge of determination.

"He was our sound engineer for fifteen years. He understood the technical side of what we do. If anyone could explain how our music interacts with... with whatever all of this is... it would be David."

"Then his message is guidance," Kamadan said. "Not from beyond the grave in the ghost story sense. But from wherever the Seelie took him. From whatever phase or plane or adjacent reality he now occupies. He's telling you: keep working. The music matters. Whatever purpose has gathered us here, creation is part of it."

Mia picked up the phone again and typed a response: We're listening. We're playing. Tell us more if you can.

She sent it before anyone could object.

The reply came in seconds: Not yet. Soon. Build first. The house will show you.

Then nothing. No further messages. No matter how long they waited.