The Fifth Pass

The Fifth Pass

By Gage Fine Lore

The sweet breeze of early autumn was making Charlie frustrated. The fine pillowy clouds and bright cheery day had him tapping his foot impatiently. It was made worse by the excited calls of children ready for their weekend, and the beautiful warble of birds chirping merrily in trees just turning to their fantastic fall colors. "No." Thought Charlie. "Today is just too nice for a funeral!"

His toe-headed brother jabbed him in the ribs. "Chuck! Settle down. You're jumping like you've got ants!" whispered Barry.

"It's Charlie now. Don't call me Chuck." Was the grumbled reply. They each were darting their eyes between various assembled relations, all who had enough reason to hate the Darling boys thrice over.

The service had been delayed due to a bank error. That alone had riled enough feathers to stuff a mattress. Now they were all baking in their best formal black, and the Pastor was about as dull as a rubber ball.

Charlie felt it the worst, however. He hated suits, disliked family gatherings, and absolutely abhorred their father, Jack. Their last words were a shouting match on the old man's death bed.

Barry was not faring much better beside his elder of two years. Through a convoluted convergence of circumstance, the reading of the will, the burial, and the meeting with the family lawyer had all coincided to land on the same day. The brothers had already been late to the lawyer (a shrew-like lady that looked more skeletal than an actual corpse), and then the car had broken down on their way here to the cemetery.

It was with more than a little relief that both sons left their father's funeral as soon as it was over. "Barry, why are we doing the will again? It was read to the family last week. All we get is that cra... the house." moaned Charlie as he removed his jacket and tie.

Barry sighed as he had already explained this several times. "That was the other will. This one's for us only. Come on. We finally have a moment to be on time today."

The executor's office was in the posh part of town, with expansive offices too gaudy to be practical. They were presented to a short round man whose stark white hair contrasted spectacularly with his rich mahogany skin. He sat them in plush chairs. "Gentlemen," his speech had a hint of an exotic dialect, "here I have a lock box, and the will of your father, Jacob Darling. I shall read it now. "To my sons, Chuck and Barry, I bequeath the results of a lifetime’s work. The box accompanying this document can and must be opened only within the attic of our family home. May the contents serve you better than they did me. Signed, Jack.""

Charlie picked up the box dubiously. It weighed next to nothing. "What is it? Another of his useless gizmos? I don't have time for this shi… uh, this nonsense."

The little man raised his eyebrows in an unasked question. Barry answered it quickly. "Father made Chuck, sorry, I mean Charlie, swear to stop cursing. It was his final wish."

"Rotten thing to do to a guy. Just because I'm a little colorful in my diction, he decides to hound me from beyond. Unbelievable." Muttered Charlie as he rubbed at his short, dark hair.

"Ms. Beautaine will accompany you to the house to ensure you carry out the specifics of this will. Before you object, it's absolutely non-negotiable. Ah, here she is."

The men turned and rose in unison as a fair skinned woman approached. Her age was indeterminate, but her demeanor was youthful. She smiled genuine warmth at the brothers and performed a neat half curtsy. "Good afternoon. You may call me Cindar if you'd like. My time is at your leisure for the remainder of the day."

The brothers shared a look. They were both bachelors, and this girl would not be the first to have caught their contested attention. They jockeyed a bit on their way to the convertible, vying coyly for Cindar's attention. If she caught on to their competition, she hid it well behind a charming smile and witty banter. She took the passenger seat, when it was presented, with grace, and flicked back her chestnut brown locks in the wind as they made their way out of the city, and into the countryside.

The house was now as it always had been. A bit of paint missing here, a shutter askew there, and utterly alone. They made it to the attic, and lit a hanging oil lamp as there was no electricity installed up here.

"Alright, Cindar. We're here. Hand over the key." said Charlie. Their companion blinked. "Key? There was no key. I'd assumed you had it." Barry held up a hand to stop the impending argument. He was standing awkwardly in the center of the attic staring down. "Umm. Bro? Was this always here?" He asked pointing to an affixed metal plate installed into the floorboards. It was perfectly sized to fit the lock box.

Charlie, who had been carrying the box, placed it down carefully. It opened, but instead of just a swinging lid, the entire structure unfolded. They all stepped back as one, and watched dumbfounded as the box transformed itself into a new form, almost as tall as the ceiling in the attic, and as wide as- "A door!" exclaimed Cindar at the shape.

"You're right! It looks like a door now, standing right in the middle of the room. But no handle or hinges…" Barry looked across at Charlie. "What're we dealing with here?"

Charlie shrugged. He always clammed up when presented with something he didn't understand. Then something caught his eye in the dimly lit space. He stepped forward and stooped to pick up the item. It must have been inside the box before it performed it's little magic trick.

A tiny black notebook. No bigger than a pack of matches. "Come on." He gestured to the stairs back to the house. "Maybe the answers are in here." He descended them two at a time.

Cindar stayed, looking befuddled. "There is no way that all that-'' she gestured at the door like structure, "sprung from that little box that weighed nothing."

Barry lowered his voice. "Your office made you sign non-disclosure documents, correct? You must never speak a word of anything you see here to anyone. Ever. Our father was an engineer for... an organization within the government. Everything he did was top secret. That he even left us this thing is probably breaking half a dozen laws. Do you want to stay? You can leave now and pretend none of this ever happened. Your choice."

Cindar shook her head, but her eyes fell again on the impossible door. Despite herself, her curiosity was too peaked to stop now. She turned back to Barry. "I'll stay. The whole day, or beyond, alright?"

They rejoined Charlie downstairs who was muttering under his breath, peering closely at the book. He was pacing intermittently. "Arggh!" He tossed it to Barry in exasperation. "That bast… bonehead went and made everything too small!" Cindar reached into her business portfolio she kept tucked under one arm and produced a miniature magnifying glass. "Here. I look at a lot of poorly written documents. This helps."

Barry examined the book. "Well, that's interesting. Only five pages. They are instructions of some kind. Written in code. Technical schematics. He was... building something, or wanted us to build it. Hmm. Unclear."

Charlie hit his hand hard on a nearby table, making Barry and Cindar jump. "He's sent us on some... stupid... wild goose chase! That's what! He could never admit it, but he was just a failure, Barry! A wash up! All those missed moments... for what? A foolish trinket that opens in a dark room, that looks like a door but leads to nothing? That's his message, brother. That's all we ever were to him. He never had the time, and now he's gone."

Barry nearly dropped the book as he accidentally removed a page. He smirked at his discovery. "Actually, I think you're partly right. For anyone else, this would be gibberish. But he sent you to school to learn advanced mechanical engineering, and me to learn language and ciphers. He hid something here that he couldn't tell us about because he wanted it kept hidden! But we can find the answer. Cindar? Would you help? We'll need to start making notes."

Cindar jumped at the prospect, and started organizing a workspace as the brothers laid out the pages on the table. A pot of coffee was started, then another. Food was ordered, delivered, and consumed without a single halt in the work. A huge diagram of the various schematics was duplicated onto paper they tacked to a wall. This went well into dawn the next day.

Barry sat down, exhausted. "I think that has to be it..."

Charlie was pacing again. "No! Dang... darn... dumbfound it! No!!! Nothing like that can exist. Not in reality. You are talking make-believe, and you know it. I don't care what the notes say."

Cindar was sitting on the floor, but stood to refocus the brothers. "Alright, enough. Stop bickering. Let's go over this all again, for me."

It was Barry's turn to pace. "Look. It all has to do with space. Traditionally there are three physical planes. We can go forward and back, side to side, and up and down, right? Also there’s time."

Charlie moved his hand, gesturing to speed up the explanation. "Yeah, yeah, and without time you can't travel anywhere. You'd be forever stuck, unable to pass through the other dimensions. But this is outside of all that, and it's nonsense."

Cindar looked at them, first one, then the other. "I don't understand."

"What if you could sidestep the rules?" Barry picked up a page of paper. "This represents how we normally travel. What dad is proposing in these notes is this." He used a pencil to punch a single hole through from one side to the other. "He was trying to create a "Fifth Pass", a door that could take you in a moment to anywhere."

Charlie was staring down at the five pages again. "Look!" The others came to see what he had discovered. He pointed. "These were misordered. They were in the wrong sequence while in the book." He quickly righted them, reinserting the pages correctly.

As soon as he had, the book opened itself. Not by the hinge, but vertically, each page separating itself on top of the other like a mad sandwich. Everyone held their breath in anticipation, but the book paused, pages hanging in air, waiting for something.

Charlie looked at his companions. "Incredible. I had no idea. But if he got this far in his research... if he could do this..."

They all looked back up the stairs toward the attic. "Then you could fit a whole door inside a box that weighs nothing." Cindar finished the sentence with awe.

They rushed up, carefully carrying the strange book, which held it's new shape until they reached the weird door. The floating pages flew forward, and with a whoosh, the pass opened, revealing an entire huge chamber on the other side.

"Whoa! There's gold here!! $20,000! But why go to all this effort? Just to hide that here?" Barry wondered aloud.

Charlie just laughed. "Bro, we gotta face facts. Father wasn't that straightforward, and nothing here is as it seems. Look. This thing had another surprise."

He revealed the book, which had closed itself again, but now there were more pages. "Well Barry? Shall we take the old fu... er, fogey on his offer? What would you both say to an adventure?"

Cindar grinned and answered for them both. "When do we start Charlie?"

He smiled back. "Call me Chuck."

The End... For Now.