13.

Wait. Stop. It's my turn to ask you something.

This glass, littered around my feet. It's not the way I remember it at all. This room, his room… It was always neat, everything in its place. Instruments sat in their corners, metal settled like stone. Glinting in the window-light, like old stars.

The glass. The glass is not just glass. There’s skin there, thin smoky strips like damp paper. What is it? Should I know? Can't you tell me?

Back at the flat, I stored the orange jumper and a few other shirts I’d taken carefully in my box of treasures. The box was half full now. As I peered in over the edge and surveyed my collection, I felt fuller somehow. Like the more things I put in there, the more rounded I was myself. I’d never shown anyone else what was in the box. Why would I?

I spread the materials I’d foraged from Dad’s office on the floor along with the last bag of leaf matter from the cemetery. In the centre of the pile, I placed the mouse and a small, feathered body I’d found by the side of the road a few weeks earlier. The skin had already rotted away, leaving just fuzz and bones. It might’ve been something as plain as a sparrow, but as I traced the skull with my fingertip, it was as beautiful a bird as any I’d ever seen.

Beside my bed, the canopy groaned and a thin waxy layer of matter hanging loose fluttered to the floor. My stomach squeezed. The days were passing quickly now, and the glue wasn’t sticking. How could it fulfil its purpose if it couldn't even hold itself together? The structure was me, and I was it. Perhaps it needed to breathe, to beat like a thriving heart.

Perhaps the structure was missing an ingredient.

I pressed a fallen leaf to my tongue and then back onto the wall, but once again it drifted to the ground. Blood? Would that work? Perhaps foraged natural matter wasn’t enough; maybe there needed to be a bit of me in there too. But the size of it. The structure must have been seven feet high, at least. Midwinter was only a few weeks away now. I couldn’t leave it another year, I couldn’t. I couldn’t see another year in, not in this shape. And if I wasn’t careful, my window would close.

And so, as the night fell, I rolled up my sleeve and sliced my forearm with a pair of kitchen scissors before settling down beneath the structure to paste a fragile layer of skin, feathers, and bone with dripping garnet.

KNOCK KNOCK.

I woke up curled on my side. The wooden floor felt cold against my face. The light through the window shone silver, and the faint call of the dawn chorus could be heard as birds passed through to greener places. For a moment, everything was peaceful. I heaved myself up into a sitting position and crouched there awkwardly, all knees and elbows. In that moment, I couldn’t see how it might feel to hold yourself and not be disgusted.

I pictured Dr John Gray, squatting in his nest of paper. He hardly moved his face or body at all, as if he didn’t need to. His body was his fortress. I shuddered. Just the thought of him still flooded my heart with disappointment. I’d surprised myself by having such high hopes for the visit. Why was I so shocked that I’d met another dead end? Hadn’t it been locked doors and lies that’d cut short my search for Grandad when I was a child? I’d been left with no one to turn to, no one to trust. Recently, I’d drifted. How could I have forgotten that I was always going to be on my own?

Whatever Grandad had done, it was thoroughly off the academic grid. I slid Hidden Worlds across the floor so that it lay between my knees. Dr John Gray had said that Grandad had published with a bunch of charlatans, the only ones who’d touch the book. A “back-alley place,” he’d said. I turned the book over and found the logo in the bottom corner. An orange bird, spread-eagled and soaring like a phoenix. It almost disappeared into the book’s red cover. Beside it was the name of the publisher, Melius Est.

I opened up my laptop and typed it into Google, but all that came up were Latin Dictionaries and translation sites. So I added Hidden Worlds to the search and there it was: the phoenix with feathers sticking out at all angles. Melius Est was a publisher, but more than that, they looked to be a collective of books all based around New Age principles. I was surprised to see books on Tarot cards and palm reading side-by-side with books on astronomy, but I didn’t dwell on it and quickly searched the menu for a list of FAQs. My eyes flicked past the history of Melius Est and how far they’d come, and came to rest on a tiny link at the bottom of the page, a button that took me to their community forum: The Institute of Homefinders. My heart started to race again and I squeezed it back into my chest with my hand.

Homefinders. Homefinders. The girl at Sam’s house had said she wanted to go home. And that hadn’t been the first time, had it? I squeezed my face in my hands as I rewound my brain back to where I’d heard it.

The library. The mudman. He’d said they were all going home. My throat tightened. How could I have forgotten that?

I opened up the forum, and a welcome message filled the screen. Could this be it? It read:

WELCOME TO THE INSTITUTE OF HOMEFINDERS.

We began as a small co-operative, determined to find a road to a better world. The world we were born to join.

It used to be that it was only those who had nowhere else to go came to us, finding us through paper flyers in internet cafés and libraries.

Dislocated folk.

But now, we’re growing. We’re a movement.

It’s time to discover your true home. The place you belong.

Welcome to your doorway.

Doorway. Like Grandad’s doorway.

I couldn’t catch my breath. Was I falling, or were the walls rising? I was gripping my knees, but it didn’t help; I was still spiralling down. I locked my eyes on the screen and watched as the welcome message faded, and a bright orange phoenix soared across the top of the page. It was a login page. It looked like you needed a username and a password. The only other option was to ‘Request Membership.’

No. No. No.

I needed to get in. I clicked the ‘Request’ button and desperately filled in my name, email, and home address. The last box to fill in was for ‘any additional information to consider.’ I didn’t even pause. Before clicking submit, there was only one thing I could write:

I DON’T BELONG HERE. I WANT TO GO HOME.

The confirmation email had said my request could take up to a week to be answered. I must have sat on the floor clicking refresh for hours before I finally gave in and left the flat. The air in there was thick and tasted stale, and I was finding it hard to breathe.

When I opened my door onto the corridor, on my doormat was another package, the same size and shape as last time. How long had it been there? I stared at it for a few minutes before picking it up and tearing at the cornflower-blue cardboard. It seemed tougher this time, my fingers tangling in the tape. Eventually, I pulled out a set of coloured pencils, a sketchpad, and a small pin, printed with ‘Introverts unite separately.’ Again, there was no return address, but this time a little slip had been included in the package. It read:

Hope you enjoy this gift. We are beside you, always.

The Blue Pilgrims.

Everything went cold. Who was with me? What was going on? I dropped the open package on the doorstep and stepped over it to the staircase. My skin was starting to itch again, around the wrists, and I clawed at them as I descended the metal stairwell. As I reached the ground floor, a woman with short black hair was inspecting the small letterboxes for general mail. She didn’t seem to notice me in the doorway, and kept squinting at the door numbers as if she couldn’t quite make them out. But I did notice one thing: her blue fleece. The blue forget-me-not embroidered onto the shoulder. I turned quickly to head out of the fire exit. Were they watching me? Why? Suddenly I needed to get out. The walls were all watching me, flickering like blue irises. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone?

On the street, passers-by were hurrying about on their lunch breaks. I stepped into the throng. Many were shovelling food straight into their mouths as they walked. Others leaned against walls or sat on benches, their thumbs flicking wildly across their phone screens. On one corner, I passed a man in a blue checked shirt and a white apron. He was standing with his back to the street, his hands spread wide across a brick wall. Every few seconds he ran one hand down the wall, and then the other. Even against the street noise, I thought I could hear the grating of nails against the clay. His eyes were cast upwards towards the sky, and his lips mouthed words I couldn’t make out. It looked like he was trying to climb the wall and hadn’t realised that it wasn’t happening.

Normally I’d have just walked by like everyone else, leaving him in his bubble. But this time I approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder. I stuttered as I tried to voice something, anything, to help bring him back down to the ground. But the words wouldn’t come, and as he stared right into my eyes I felt not even a single shred of recognition. He muttered a few words under his breath but they didn’t make any sense at all. It was an entirely different language.

“I’m here,” I whispered. “You’re here.”

The man yanked his shoulder from my grasp, almost as if he was frightened. I raised my hands and then, in one mad and unplanned moment, I began clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth. But, his forehead a map of creases, the man backed away from me, making a strange chirping sound as he did so. Soon he disappeared around a corner and I was alone again, my heart cold and my skin prickling. Reaching up my jumper, I raked my nails down my side but it didn’t help. Standing there, I could’ve quite happily torn off my skin. I smiled. Not long to go yet. Not long.

I pulled up my hood before entering the arcade. It was busier than usual. I didn’t want to hold my head up too much in case Paul caught sight of me; after all, I hadn’t been back to work in two days. He hadn’t even messaged me. But I needed to keep glancing up to avoid the walkers striding about. No one else seemed to want to budge. Luckily the central bench was empty, and as I sat on it, I spread myself out so no one would try to share. I didn’t want the hassle, I couldn’t deal with the distraction.

Inside the art shop, Agatha was sorting through a cardboard box on top of the central glass counter. Every so often she’d raise a little bottle of what I supposed was paint up to the ceiling lamp and peer through it before placing it carefully back in the box.

At some point very soon, I was going to have to tell her the truth. I’d put it off for far too long. But every time I’d thought of doing it, I’d shut it down. And now there were too many things to say, and they swarmed around me like flies. What’d happened with the girl at Sam’s house. The plans I had for Agatha and I. And now… the Homefinders. I’d known exactly what Agatha and I were going to do, but now… everything was upside down. It was as if my sight had cracked, and now Agatha existed on the other side of the mirror. The thing is, I’d always thought she was just like me. An outsider, with her ever-changing hair and unusual smile. It’d been what drew me to her when we first met in the art shop. She was standing alone in the corner of the store, her hands wrapped around her middle. She’d given me this huge grin, her mouth shining like a crush of pearls, and my stomach just flipped. She saw me and understood me. But I suppose the more I’d learned about her, I’d discovered that she wasn’t quite like me. Like Emily, she integrated in a way that I didn’t. And she had a family that she lived with. A mum who brought her cling-filmed tuna sandwiches and a paper bag of cherries that stained her lips purple. A little brother who came to visit her sometimes in a black hoodie and jeans, his face low and self-conscious. I’d never actually spoken to him, but I often smiled as he passed me on the way out of the arcade. He’d normally give me a little side-look as if he shouldn’t be speaking to me and then scurry off down the road. I wondered what Agatha had said about me to make him so embarrassed.

But still… the sight of her purple hair anchored me there. I felt my breath deepen and my body fill the bench. She always did this to me. She made me feel real. Like anything was possible.

I was still watching her when a man and woman dressed in blue fleeces started to approach me from my left. Their eyes were fixed on me, and the woman wore a huge smile, her lips tight.

No time for that shit.

I heaved myself to my feet. Surely they wouldn’t follow me down the street? That’s not the Blue Pilgrim way. I whispered a goodbye to Agatha before striding as fast as I could towards the exit.

“Please sir, please stop.” A hand on my shoulder. Her voice was soft and clear. It had a sing-song quality to it that made me want to hear more, but I knew I couldn’t. Talking to the Blue Pilgrims once they’d picked you was a slippery slope. From the safety of the counter at Flynn’s, I’d watched people being led away, always gently, to the blue cars parked outside. And then presumably to a blue house and locked behind those cloudy shutters. Some were faces I recognised, gaunt men and women who found themselves on the benches regularly, just sitting in silence. Some were the men and women who poured themselves out onto the street, desperate to be heard. They’d tried to take Sam a few times, hadn’t they, but he seemed to make sport of attracting them and then fighting them off. But I had no energy for that.

I twisted from her grasp, and as she let go I felt this strange violent lurch in the pit of my belly, and I fought the urge to be sick. Holding my breath, I staggered from the arcade as quick as I could, my head down. Outside, it had begun to snow, and the street was a moving tableau of dusted black umbrellas and jackets. Somehow the snow made everything out there seem quieter, and I leaned against the wall behind the arcade, my arms wrapped around my jacket. I was suddenly aware of being massively hungry, so much so that I leaned over as far as I could to get some blood back into my head.

Not remembering if I’d brought a card to pay for anything, I reached into my pocket. I let out a little groan as that confirmed that I’d definitely left all my money in the flat. Out of habit more than anything, I pulled out my phone and sank to a crouch.

A reply from the Homefinders. Already.

Inside were the login details. Fumbling with the icons, I found the welcome page again and entered the username they’d issued me and the password. After a few terrifying seconds where all I had was a white screen, a whole world opened up before me. Hundreds and hundreds of chat groups. Messages popping up every minute in conversations about missing people, dark matter, and doorways. ‘How to find your doorway.’ ‘How to prepare for the wilderness.’ ‘Are there directions in the night sky?’ ‘What do you think lies on the other side?’ One forum was entitled ‘Doorway search.’ I opened it and scanned down the thread. Users were posting photographs of places they thought could be doors – mostly caves, crypts, and in one case, a sewer drain. No one was sitting back. Everyone was doing something to change things, to find their origins.

Above my head, something tap tap tapped on a glass window.

These people, they were all in the wrong skin too. Never meant to fit in. Just like me. Just like Grandad. But no… that wasn’t quite right. Scrolling through it all, I couldn’t see anything to indicate their plans were the same as mine. They weren’t trying to change their skin; they were trying to change their place. Just like Grandad did.

My project. I’d been going about it all in entirely the wrong way.

A burst of colour in my head, red and orange and purple, and suddenly it all made sense. I wasn’t born in the wrong skin. No. I was born in the wrong world. And I needed to find my way out of it.