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Beyond the Veil
Rushing air roared in Wilkins’s ears as he fell faster and faster. It felt ice cold, yet as his descent sped, it burned his skin. The smell of smoldering flesh assaulted him as the sensation intensified. The icy wind whipped about him as he tumbled through an unseen void. He squeezed his eyes closed, partly from fear of the terrible visions which might surround him, but more to protect them from the buffeting and burning air that threatened to melt them in their very sockets. Faster he fell until he was falling so rapidly his mind couldn’t begin to process the sensation of momentum. Would he soon strike the ground? Would his death be painless, or would there be an instant of clarity as his body was dashed apart on some unnatural rocky shore? Perhaps he would simply continue to fall for all of eternity, his flesh blistering and peeling as he soared through the cosmos.
And as suddenly as it began, it ended. There was no thunderous crash as his body struck the ground, nor was there an infinity of pain as it was torn apart. His neck did not snap at the sudden change in momentum. Rather, he simply ceased to be falling. There was no ground beneath his feet, nor did he feel as if he was floating. It was more like some unspeakable mass of insubstantially buoyed him aloft.
Wilkins opened his eyes and instantly wished he hadn’t. Absolute nothingness surrounded him. There was no ground and no sky, no stars overhead, nor a distant horizon with which to orient himself. The void was endless. It was not the blackness of deep space or the darkest night, nor was it any other color. It was simply nothing. His brain tried to process a name for it. A sense of distance or color. But even abandoning the limitations of language, there was no sense with which to interpret what surrounded him. His mind bent near to the point of breaking as he struggled to process what he was seeing—or not seeing—and he desperately searched out something upon which to focus before the inconceivable emptiness drove him utterly insane.
His eyes locked on a soft green glow which seemed horribly foreign, yet vaguely familiar. As Wilkins looked into the light, it seemed to grow closer. He wasn’t moving toward it, and neither was it moving toward him. It did not grow larger or brighter. It was simply far away until he focused on it, and then it was nearby.
Revolving around the light like celestial bodies orbiting a dim, verdant star was a collection of familiar objects. A broken cutlass, golden coins glinting in the strange glow, and even a corroded iron cannon drifted about the light; tumbling, directionless, and with only the glow itself to serve as a point of reference for their motion.
Wilkins removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. When he replaced them, he found himself standing upon an endless field of gray flagstones. There was still nothing above them but emptiness. The flagstones extended as far as he could see, yet there was no horizon. They seemed to curve upwards, reaching toward the void, and then became a part of it. The light still hung in the air before him, surrounded by the floating artifacts.
He took a step closer, and the objects were suddenly arrayed about the light with a sense of order. The cannon stood firmly upon the ground and the smaller objects rested in place as if they were supported upon some unseen surface. He took another step toward the light, and the vague outlines of walls surrounded him. Velvet ropes encircled the cannon, and the other artifacts were nestled beneath the glass of display cases.
“Richard? Louis?” Wilkins called out.
He received no answer.
The scholar turned around, and behind him there was naught but the endless flagstone field and the eternity of nothingness above him. He turned back to the light, and before it stood his two companions. Stood being used by his mind in absence of any other word, for they both had feet firmly planted upon the flagstones, yet seemed to be frozen in place as they ran toward something. They looked as if something trapped them in a photograph, yet they were present and as real as if they were all still standing together in the museum.
The light stood between Wilkins and his friends. He walked to one side, hoping to circumnavigate the strange glow. As he moved, his surroundings did not change. Nothing rooted him in place, yet he was unable to change his perspective. He turned and walked in the other direction with the same results. He backed away from the light several paces, and although it did not grow distant, it and everything surrounding it faded, including Richard and Louis.
Wilkins stopped in his tracks. He walked toward the light, but nothing changed. He did not draw closer, and neither did the images around him become more defined. He broke into a run, and then a sprint. He felt his feet pounding upon the flagstones, heard his shoes clicking on the granite, and felt his breath come in ragged gasps. His lungs burned and his legs ached. On he ran, so fast he could feel the wind whipping through his hair, yet nothing changed.
He stopped, bent over double and gasping for air. “I know I was running,” he panted, “but why can’t I get anywhere?” He remembered when he first saw the light and how it had simply appeared nearby when he focused on it. He stood upright after catching his breath and stared directly at Richard and Louis. He gazed at them with all the intensity he could muster, refusing to blink lest they simply disappear. Again, nothing happened.
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes again. He thought of his time together with Richard. How he had always relied upon his friend when a strong arm and street smarts outweighed the practical usage of scholarly pursuits. He replaced the thin, wireframe glasses and opened his eyes to find himself standing right next to Richard, the man’s body completely solid in both outline and shape.
Wilkins reached out and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder, finding the form to be solid and warm to the touch. He could even feel the rhythmic rise and fall of the man’s torso as he drew air into his lungs. Yet still, he was frozen in some endless dash toward some unseen goal.
Louis was gone. Wilkins looked about in a panic. Everything had disappeared. He was next to Richard, and the green glow was nearby, but that was all. Once again, they were in the endless void, neither standing nor floating. He closed his eyes and focused again. He pictured Louis running next to his friend, the flagstone floor of the museum, the artifacts, and the walls surrounding them. When he opened his eyes, Louis was once again frozen mid-stride next to Richard. They were standing in the museum. The walls and ceiling now surrounded them, but outside the windows was nothing but the void.
He tried to remember the street outside. The cars passing by. He pictured Jackson Square as he could see it from the museum, with its bushes and trees barely concealing the statue in the center. He did not blink, nor look away from the window, but suddenly the world outside came to life. Cars drove by and birds fluttered through the trees. Booted feet stomped upon the flagstones and Richard shouted, “Stop!”
Wilkins spun about. He was standing where he had been when he saw Henri emerge from the alcove. The space in front of it was empty for a split second, then Richard and Louis crashed through it as if they had meant to grab at something which was no longer there. They barreled into the wall and fell to a twisted heap of ebony and bronzed flesh. A woman nearby shrieked as they ran by, then turned and fled the scene.
Wilkins ran over to the two men and helped them untangle themselves from each other.
“What the hell?” Richard growled. “He was just there. How did we miss him?”
“He vanished!” Louis exclaimed.
There was shouting from down the hall.
“Come on,” Wilkins urged. “We need to get out of here before the museum officials assume we’re the ones who broke the case.”
Richard and Louis climbed to their feet, and the three of them made their way to the entrance. They heard more shouting behind them, but were outside and making their way down the sidewalk before anyone had the chance to accost them.
* * *
Richard paced back and forth in front of the train station’s ticket counter. “How could five days pass without them noticing a broken display? Everybody in that side of the museum could have heard the smashing glass.”
“Keep it down!” Wilkins said, smiling to the attendant behind the counter as she slid the three slips of paper out to them. He took them, then grabbed Richard by the arm and dragged him off.
“I don’ get it,” Louis said. “We were dere, den dis Frenchie vanished like...” He waved his hands in the air. “Poof! An’ now you say dat was five days ago? Where we been for five days?”
Once they were out of earshot of the attendant, Wilkins explained in hushed tones, “Remember that Richard and I thought we were gone only a few hours when the train vanished, but more than a week had passed? This is exactly the same. It seems time doesn’t operate under the same rules in this other place.”
“But we didn’t go anywhere,” Richard argued.
“I did,” Wilkins said as they walked onto the boarding platform.
“Wait.” Richard grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. “What do you mean, you did?”
After the incident in the museum, they had all agreed it would be prudent to be on their way. Henri had two idols, and there was no telling where he had gone. Their only lead remained the tales of Francisco Berdénes, and they would have to travel to Spain to hunt down more information on him. They came straightaway to the train station after leaving the museum, and their first clue to the unusual passage of time had been a newspaper Wilkins purchased at the ticket counter. He hadn’t had the time nor the wherewithal to explain what he had seen to the others or ask of them of their own experiences.
“I was falling, and then I was surrounded by an endless... nothing. Then there was the light, and some things from the museum, and then you.” Wilkins pulled his arm from Richard’s grip and continued toward the waiting train. “I’ll explain more once we’re aboard the train.” He shuddered. The thought of boarding another metal monstrosity so like the one they had ridden into the other place was beyond unnerving.
Richard hurried to keep up. “Well, I didn’t go anywhere. I never left that room. I ran at the Frenchman, he vanished, and then I hit the wall. And now you’re telling me that in a split second, five days passed?”
“Exactly,” Wilkins said as he climbed the stairs onto the train.
“What about you?” Richard asked over his shoulder.
“Same ding,” Louis answered. “I saw you run at dat man, figured he was de Frenchie from yer story, an’ I ran at him too. Then boom, we hit de wall.”
Wilkins slid the door to their cabin open, entered, and turned to face the others. “I’m not the one telling you we lost five days, this is.” He shoved the newspaper into Richard’s chest.
Richard unfolded the paper and looked down at it. The date in the corner, clear as day, read October first, nineteen thirty-nine. The main headline jumped out at him, taking up nearly a quarter of the page: Fighting Continues in Poland. He glanced down and read the first line of the article:
Battle raged across Poland on Saturday, September thirtieth, as the Polish Government In-Exile was established in Paris.
“Well,” Richard said as he handed the paper to Louis and followed Wilkins into the cabin, “which way to the bar?”
