BETWEEN ME AND YOU

THE DOORWAY IN BETWEEN

The house felt different after they were gone.

Not empty, emptiness would have been easier to bear. It felt paused, as though every breath waited for the missing ones to return.

Lucia moved through the silence with her rosary in one hand and Yuan’s trembling fingers in the other. The boy hadn’t spoken since the light vanished. Her eyes kept flicking to the porch where the lockets lay, their metal catching what little light the evening left behind.

“Banjo, Kristine..” she called at last, her voice is low, “where did they go?” Lucia knelt beside hero grandson. Finally they came back into the real world, at home of her son Banjo.

Yuan frowned, he has a sincere understanding. “But we can get them back, right?”

Lucia’s heart twisted. She wanted to lie, to soothe him, to promise miracles. But she had already seen too many miracles turn into grief. Still, when she saw the hope in his face, that same stubborn light she’d once seen in Banjo’s eyes, she found herself whispering, “Maybe we can try.”

As if the world around them is coming back to normal, only the two of them get out from the wild mist, for now.

That night, Lucia found herself wide awake. She was sitting at the kitchen table, a candle flickering low beside her, holding the lockets tightly in her hands. Their chains were tangled together, as if even the metal itself was reluctant to let go. Every few moments, the flame danced, even though there was no breeze. She could almost hear them, soft whispers, like voices echoing beneath the surface of water.

And beneath here, there is a hum... the same deep vibration that had haunted the house since Kristine’s return.

Lucia closed her eyes. “Please.. have mercy on us..” she whispered, “if this is punishment, give it to me instead. Let them go home.”

When she finally opened her eyes, the lockets shimmered softly. For just a moment, she caught a glimpse of their faces reflected in the metal, Banjo reaching out to her, and Kristine’s lips moving as if she were saying something that remained unheard.

Then the light dimmed. Lucia pressed the lockets to her heart and wept quietly into the dark.

By the time morning rolled around, Yuan was already outside. He had his father’s old compass in hand and the little telescope that Banjo had gifted him for his birthday. The fog still clung to the sea like a delicate veil, refusing to lift even with the sun making its ascent.

“I remember...” he said, not turning around, “Dad said he’d follow Mom anywhere. What if he really did?”

Lucia stepped onto the porch, her shawl drawn tight around her shoulders. “Then we must find where ‘anywhere’ is,” she said.

He looked up at her, eyes wide. “Can we?”

Lucia nodded, though fear churned beneath her calm. “If there’s a way in, there must be a way out.”

Yuan pointed toward the horizon, where the fog glowed faintly blue. “It always starts there, near the rocks. The day Mom came back, that’s where the mist was thickest.”

Lucia followed his gaze. The sea looked normal from here, but she knew better than to trust appearances. She had seen light bend, time twist, and death lose its grip, all for the sake of love.

“Go get your coat,” she said. “And your father’s flashlight.”

Yuan grinned, the first true smile since that night. “Are we going to find them?”

Lucia exhaled slowly. “We’re going to bring them home.”

After hearing her words Yuan ran back inside, Lucia glanced once more at the lockets resting on the table. The faintest shimmer of mist clung to them, coiling upward like smoke before fading into the air. Then for a moment, she thought she heard Banjo’s voice again.... softer now, but clear enough to make her breath catch.

“Ma… don’t let the light fade.”

Lucia straightened, her resolve hardening.

“Don’t worry, hijo,” she murmured. “Your mother’s still here.”

She stepped down from the porch, the fog curling around her ankles like a living thing, and followed Yuan toward the sound of the sea. The world around them pulsed like a heartbeat made of fog.

Every breath Banjo took came out as light. Every word he tried to speak twisted in the air before it reached her. Kristine Gomez stood before him, his wife’s soul given shape by the mist. Her eyes were the same as they had been the night she died, filled with love, with questions, and with pain that had nowhere left to go.

“Banjo,” she said softly, “why won’t this place let us leave?”

The air shimmered. Behind her, another figure took form....a woman sitting on the floor of the fog, her knees drawn to her chest, tears sliding silently down her cheeks.

Kristine Sanchez. The living one. The one who still had a body in the world of breath and sunlight.

Banjo looked from one to the other, the weight of his choices finally too heavy to hide.

“Because,” he said, his voice breaking, “I never told the whole truth.”

The mist darkened, waiting.

“I once loved two women,” he said. “You, Kristine Gomez, my wife... and you, Kristine Sanchez, the woman who leaves me after when I was too weak to face myself. Two hearts, two lives… and I broke them both.”

The fog rippled outward like water. Kristine Sanchez lifted her head, her face pale with grief. “You said you loved me....” she whispered. “But I was only a shadow, wasn’t I?”

Banjo shook his head hard. “No. You were real. Both of you were. I just didn’t understand that love isn’t something you can divide and keep safe. I thought I could bury my mistakes. Instead I buried you.”

Kristine Gomez stepped closer, the mist curling around her bare feet. “When I died...” she said quietly, “I thought it was the end. But the mist showed me a body... of hers. Your secret. I didn’t understand why she had my name, my face, my heartbeat. Until now.” Her gaze turned toward the weeping woman. “I am the one inside you,” she whispered. “My soul found your body when death called me. I thought I was just lost in a dream. But I’ve been living your life, wearing your skin, holding his hand in your place.”

Kristine Sanchez lifted her tear-stained face. “Then whose life do I have left?”

Kristine Gomez reached out, fingers trembling, and touched her shoulder. “Ours,” she said. “We share it now. My heart beat its last the moment you crashed. The mist tied us together... your body, my soul. Two halves of the same unfinished story.”

Banjo fell to his knees. “It’s my fault..."