The Gatekeeper: Chapter One, Part Two

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Chapter One

The Fugitive, Part Two

 

[Note: This is Part Two of Gatekeeper. You can find the previous Part here: https://www.mumblesmusings.com/2020/08/the-gatekeeper-chapter-one-part-one.html]

 

The Constantine family sat around their dinner table, their house lit only by the small chandelier above. They ate in silence, each quiet for their own reasons. For starters, the father, Ryan Constantine, was deep in thought, and deep in trouble — or, at least, that’s what he thought. He, carrying as heavy a workload as he was, was hastily eating his salad, barely savoring the meal in a rush to get back to his computer. After all, he had work to do.

Across the table from him sat his wife, Claire, worried (as always) for all those who suffered in the world. Most notably, she worried for her children, watching them like a hawk, making sure that danger never became too imminent for them. But she was also concerned about her husband, working day and night to provide for them. She knew his work was necessary, but the amount of stress on him was too much, and deep inside she wondered if it was her fault he had so much to worry about.

In between sat their son, Ben, and their daughter, Kara. Unlike their parents, they were unburdened with responsibilities, lacking the weight of the world on their shoulders. Ben was fiddling around with a couple of his miniature figures, imagining a story developing between the two characters he held between his hands. Though he was a mere eight-and-a-half years of age, his imagination was unrestrained, and every day it seemed that he came up with an even more complicated tale to tell. 

Kara, on the other side of the table, was also thinking, although she was lost in a different kind of thought entirely. She remembered a time long ago, when she was a small child, and her parents were actual, present figures in her life, instead of being lost in work or worrying over her. She wanted that family back, but could never figure out how to make it happen. Thus, she took to the sciences and mathematics, eagerly studying those things in life which were constant, unlike the feelings and actions of people.

It was almost as if these four people, connected by blood, were living in completely different worlds under the same roof. Each knowing of the others, yet not giving them much thought - after all, their own worlds were far more pressing. Far more important. Far more crucial to them than the people around them. And so the Constantines would have stayed, if not for a firm, urgent knock on the door.

The knock jolted everyone in the room, a surprising spark to their darkened lives. For a moment, the Constantines merely sat there. Almost not believing that it had happened, so immersed they were into their own thoughts. But then there came the knock again, even louder than before. As Mr. Constantine began to get up, thinking about how answering the door would lose him valuable time he’d need to spend on work, Mrs. Constantine stood up first and cut him off.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” she told him, the concern for him evident in her voice. At once, she both wanted to spare her husband any unnecessary chores that would better be left to her, and ensure that whoever was knocking meant them no harm. Quickly, but carefully, Mrs. Constantine walked over to the door, and looked through the door’s eyehole to see who stood before their door.

It was a man, appearing to be around twenty years of age. The man wore a dark trenchcoat and a hood, which made Mrs. Constantine fairly suspicious of him. But then she noticed the man’s scruffy beard, his hollow eyes and desperate look — this man was either looking for help, or doing a very good job of pretending. 

“Who is it?” Mr. Constantine asked distractedly.

“A stranger… I think he needs our help,” she replied.

Against her better judgement, she opened the door slightly, just enough so that she and the man could talk. “Hello,” the stranger greeted. “Would you mind if I came in momentarily, to charge my phone?”

He spoke in a strange, foreign accent that Mrs. Constantine had never heard before, and she’d never seen him around the area. Thus, she asked suspiciously, “Where are you from? Why are you here?”

“Where I’m from is not important, where I am now is,” the man replied, seriously. “Could I just, for five minutes, charge this device?”

Mrs. Constantine looked at him again, noticing that the man looked tired, hungry. As if he had been wandering the streets for hours aimlessly, looking for a place to rest but never finding one, and finally having to resort to begging like so. Immediately she felt pity for the man, so unfortunate and down-on-his-luck to be walking around like so.

“Please, come in,” she invited, opening the door wide, and the man shuffled in slowly. She gestured over to the kitchen counter next to her, where a charger sat, and the man walked over thankfully, plugging in his phone.

Meanwhile, Mr. Constantine, nearly finished with his evening meal, finally decided that this had gone a little too far. He turned around, noting the stranger his wife had just allowed into their house, and called out sharply, “Hey! Who are you?”

Immediately the stranger whipped around, eyeing him like a deer caught in headlights. Then, the strange man calmed down, his eyes going from wild to analytical, and replied, “Merely a man in need, and I thank you for your generosity, sir.”

“Why are you here?” Mr. Constantine bellowed, suspecting the stranger to be some sort of stooge from his employers, sent to terminate his employment. Ben and Kara took notice, as well, when the man replied, “I am a… a fugitive, to be honest with you. I hope humans… you specific humans value honesty just as much as my family.”

“A fugitive? What did you do to be a fugitive?” Mr. Constantine demanded, getting up out of his seat and staring at the stranger face-to-face.

“I am a… wrongful fugitive, sir,” the man replied. “A case of mistaken identity, that’s all.”

“Then what are you doing here? Why not explain yourself to the authorities?” Mr. Constantine countered. 

“My identity has been mistaken with that of a dead man,” he replied. “And where I come from, we do not speak ill of the dead.”

“Please, you look hungry. We have some leftovers?” Mrs. Constantine offered.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t accept such a thing,” the stranger waved off. “This is your property. I have no right to any of it.”

“No, really. If you’re innocent and on the run, we should at least help you as much as we can before you need to be on your way again,” Mrs. Constantine reasoned.

“Well, if you insist, I suppose it would be my duty to accept such a kindness from you. With greatest humility, of course,” the man replied, and he walked over to the table, before hesitating. “Where should I sit…?”

“You can have my seat,” Mr. Constantine grumbled. “I’m not hungry.”

“Oh. Thank you, sir,” the stranger said with a bow, and sat down, as Mrs. Constantine placed a plate of leftovers in front of him. 

As Mr. Constantine stormed off, returning to his work, Ben asked, “Are you a vampire?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You didn’t come in until Ma invited you in. So you’re a vampire. Either that or an alien. So which one is it?” Ben pressed on.

“Ben, not everything is one of your stories,” Kara interrupted.

“That’s… actually wrong,” the stranger answered. “Everything is a story, recorded forever in history. You are part of my story now, just as I am part of yours. But no, young ...Ben?... I am neither a vampire nor alien. I am human, just like you.”

“Are you sure?” Ben questioned curiously. “So you’re telling me if I flick water onto you right now, you won’t melt into nothingness?”

With a chuckle, the man replied, “No, not at all.”

Then, Ben picked up his glass of water and flung the entirety of it at the stranger, who barely flinched as water struck his face. 

“Ben!” Kara shouted.

Meeting the man’s amused stare, Ben called out, “Oh, so you thought just because normal water doesn’t affect you, you can lie to me?”

“Whatever do you mean?” the man asked, confused beyond measure.

“I need holy water, obviously!” Ben shouted, and he ran off to the pantry to find some salt and a priest.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Mrs. Constantine apologized on behalf of her son, handing the man a paper towel to dry himself off.

Accepting it, and watching Ben run off with a curious gaze, the man noted, “What an odd little boy.”

“Ben’s like that all the time,” Kara stated. “Always thinking about stories and tales. He’s a little immature like that.”

“And you?” the man asked. “I suppose you’re not the storyteller type, are you?”

“No, I’m more into, like, science and stuff,” Kara replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, where I come from, it is… custom, to ask. For all have their place in my… in my town. Every person has a job, a passion, and we have built ourselves to… accommodate such a desire,” the man replied, slightly amused, as if speaking a joke only he would understand. “Your brother… he would be training with the greatest Lore-Keepers of my town today. And you… would be studying, with the Sci-eers in their laboratories, if you both came from where I come from.”

“And where do you come from?”

“A place. Far away. You wouldn’t know it.”

“Oh, Kara knows many places,” Mrs. Constantine commented proudly. “Could be a historian, she could.”

Noting Kara’s vigorous nod in response, the man leaned back in his chair confidently, and stated, “Alright. My home is a place called… E’levey’kideum. Far from here. Do you know the place?”

Kara, stunned, didn’t reply, and the man took this with a laugh, replying, “Ah, so you still have a little work to do before you can express such confidence. You must know, where I come from, such boldness would not be tolerated. Not without the knowledge to… to reinforce such an attitude.”

Annoyed by the man’s insinuation and odd, eccentric way of speaking, almost as if he was unfamiliar with the English language itself, Kara shot back, “If you like your home so much, why don’t you go back there right now?”

Another chuckle, and then a response: “I never said I liked it. Home is… a difficult place for me to think on. You and your brother just remind me so much of all the people I used to know there, that’s all.”

“Why are you here, anyways?” Kara pressed on suspiciously. “Weren’t you here just to charge your phone or whatever? Can’t you go and leave us alone already?”

“Kara!” Mrs. Constantine shouted. “Be nice to our guest. That said, if you don’t mind me asking, Mr…?”

A moment of awkward silence passed, each of the three who still sat at the table staring at one another nervously, before finally the stranger asked, “Why did you stop?”

“Well, I would like to know your name, Mr…?” Mrs. Constantine clarified.

“Oh, apologies. I am not accustomed to the… regional dialect of this area. What do you call it, this region?” the man asked, curiously.

“Mom, he’s deflecting the question! Answer the question!” Kara demanded, causing the man to raise his eyebrows in surprise. 

“Alright, you wish a response and I shall give it to you. I doubt you will be able to pronounce my true name, so you may refer to me as… Janus. It is not my true name, but it will do,” the man answered. “This is excellent food, by the way. I would like to express my renewed gratitude for your hospitality…?”

“Mrs. Constantine. And it’s really no problem,” Mrs. Constantine replied, smiling as she recognized Janus' imitation of her own pause. “Say, didn’t you say something about how you were on the run from the cops or something?”

“I did,” Janus replied.

“Would you mind explaining what happened? Why you’re on the run and all?” Mrs. Constantine asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll have some amazing story about how you did something for the greater good but the authorities disagreed and now you’re running,” Kara stated sarcastically. “That’ll be it.”

“Well, that is accurate,” Janus replied calmly. “See, in my town, one of the… Scions, the most intelligent minds of my town wanted to build a device. And I aided him, because I wanted to do my part for my community, and the Scion was one of the most respected members of my town. But when we finished the device, he wanted to use it for a most terrible purpose. I could not allow him to do that, and he attempted to kill me over it. In the resulting  struggle, he… impaled himself. On a sharp metal blade in his workshop.”

“You expect us to believe he just fell over and died like... that?” Kara asked, suspicious - I bet he killed the guy and now he’s lying about it! I don’t trust this guy. If I’m right, he’s going to break my family even more than it’s already been broken. I need to get rid of him somehow…

“Well, yes,” Janus continued. “We crafted this in a blacksmith’s shop. Unfortunately, there was indeed an unusual amount of scrap metal lying around, and the smith failed to properly secure the safety of his shop.”

“A tragedy, I’m sure,” Mrs. Constantine lamented, as Kara finished her dinner and got up to put her plates in the sink.

“Indeed,” Janus agreed. “A tragedy it was. But because I was the obvious culprit in the case, despite the accidental circumstances, I was accused of his murder.”

“Why didn’t you say you were innocent? You are!” Mrs. Constantine asked.

“If I professed my innocence, I would have had to explain how he, the Scion, had caused his own death. And, like I said, in my home, it is forbidden to speak ill of the dead like so,” Janus explained.

As Janus continued to explain how the accusations against him caused him to flee his home and eventually make his way to Los Angeles, Kara, having put her dishes in the sink, got a cup of water, and took a sip, before putting the glass down on the counter, next to Janus’ phone.

As she washed her hands, Kara thought of how to keep her family as “intact” as it currently was and get rid of Janus before he could do anything to harm that integrity. But she couldn’t come up with an idea she liked, absentmindedly reaching for a towel to dry her hands. However, as she did so, Kara’s elbow accidently knocked the glass of water, spilling it onto Janus’ phone. Crying out apologetically, “Oh, no! Mr. Janus, I’m so sorry!”

“Kara! What have you done?” Mrs. Constantine shouted, running over and ushering her daughter away from the fallen cup, worried that the glass might have shattered and harmed Kara.

“No worries, Mrs. Constantine,” Janus interjected, striding over. “The glass is perfectly intact, and my phone is… waterproof, thankfully.”

As he said this, the scruffy-looking young man picked up his phone, turning it over to inspect it. As he did, the wetness of the phone’s surface caused it to slip, and, with an, “Oop!”, the phone fell out of his hand and crashed against the hard stone of the kitchen floor. The metallic crunch of glass hitting stone silenced the three for a second, before Janus calmly bent down, picked up his phone, and turned it over to reveal the shattered, splintered face of the device, its cracks weaving in every direction possible.

By the Ashes, a stroke of good fortune! Janus thought. A shame that it must come at the emotional expense of these Constantines, but all the better for me. I should hope that one day, when I get out of this mess, I will be able to repay this rapidly incurring debt to these kind Humans.

Oh, no, poor Mr. Janus! went Mrs. Constantine’s thoughts. What a poor, pitiful man. To walk around this area in such a sorry state, and now, resting in a warm house, with a sort of warm meal, for the first time in who knows how long, he breaks such a valuable possession! Oh, my dear heart! I’m sure Ryan will have some tools that can fix this, though. I must fix this somehow!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WHY MOM’S GOING TO INVITE HIM TO STAY LONGER WHY WHY WHY, Kara fumed silently. Why can’t people be simple? Why do they have to be so unpredictable and unreasonable and-and stupid?!

Mrs. Constantine broke the silence, saying, “You know, my husband has some tools that could fix that. I’m sure he could do it if he has any free time. In the meantime, we have a spare bedroom, if you’d like to stay while we get this sorted out. I’m so, so sorry for this.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, Mrs. Constantine,” Janus stated. “It was a mere error on my part. And I can’t accept any more from you than I already have.”

Yes! Go! Leave! Let me figure out how to fix this family without you variable screwing up the lot! Kara shouted internally, though she said nothing aloud.

Then there came a shout from upstairs — it was Mr. Constantine, shouting, “Claire! Could you bring me my toolbox? The window frame’s loose again!”

“Excuse me, I’m going to go get that for him,” said Mrs. Constantine. “The whole house has been a little shaky and in… disrepair since the war.”

She began to head across the dining room and into an adjacent hallway, presumably to get the toolbox, but Janus stopped her. “Shaky window frame, yeh? Allow me to fix it for you. I was a carpenter back home. It’s the least I could do,” he offered, and Mrs. Constantine nodded, much to Kara’s ire. 

“And I’ll see what I can do about your phone,” Mrs. Constantine offered in response. Janus bowed at this offer, and so, grinning ever so slightly to himself, set off to find that toolbox, fix Mr. Constantine’s window frame, and ensure his own safety - no matter how brief - from the authorities that so wrongly pursued him.

But as he walked out of the dining room and into the neighboring hallway, suddenly, he saw young Ben Constantine run up to him, and then he felt the cold slap of water against his face for the second time that night.

“Benjamin!” Mrs. Constantine shouted from across the room, as Janus stared at the young boy, blinking due to the slightly salty water he’d been hit with.

“Sorry,” Ben said with a shrug. “Couldn’t find a priest.”

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Author's note: Hey, thanks so much for reading! This concludes the first Chapter of Gatekeeper. I couldn't figure out a way to split this one into two or three parts without making it super awkward, so you get all of it at once today! Some updates:

• I am making an audiobook recording for Gatekeeper! I've already recorded last week's part, you can find it here:
• That'll be updated regularly as more parts come out over the coming weeks, so take a listen if you're so inclined. They'll also include little "teases"...
  
•  On the topic of the Gatekeeper audiobook, I'm also casting for the future parts of the audiobook! Here's a cast list, with some characters you'll recognize by now, and some that you will only get to meet in the coming weeks: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16L2_z3mQlcQxkQDlTU0wDYFl4PM_xNlfuWZElwhdiEA. If you're interested in any of the roles, let me know, and send in a recording of you reading the sample lines.
• Which leads me to the final update - since I'll have to be casting and coordinating the audiobook (although I guess it's more like a radio play, really), no Gatekeeper part next week. Instead, you can look forward to the audio recording of this part going up next week. That'll be all, thanks for reading once again, everyone!