Aenoxis and the Bridge Between Worlds

Chapter 7

Two weeks later, Sage rolled out of bed with a different sense of purpose than she had ever had before. It felt stranger, more intriguing, and more powerful than any other reason she'd given herself to get out of bed previously, yet still smaller than her dream of a highly paid job and a big house.

It was the first day of their fair - they'd agreed to run it on both the Saturday and the Sunday to give more people the chance to visit - and she felt the familiar swell of pride in her chest. Once again, she had worked hard and planned spectacularly and got something done.

She sighed as she was reminded of every moment before this absurd adventure started: All of the time and effort she put into school work, focusing so hard on the curriculum that every quiz show became impossible; all of the homework she had poured her soul into so the teachers would know she deserved the higher grades. She could only wish there were more things she could add to that list, but the truth of it was that she hadn't spent any significant time doing anything else. Sometimes, Sage wondered what her life would be like if she'd let herself have more 'fun'.

It wasn't a feeling she liked to dwell on, so she rarely did. She knew she was smart - she'd learnt the entire specification for each of her five subjects within the first few months of Sixth Form - and she had every faith she'd land a position in a high status university of her choice, and that had been all she'd ever thought she needed.

A successful life was a happy life.

And then Mateo had died.

Mateo was her older brother by two years and had always been her rock - invincible. He had been her guardian angel. Every project she set her mind to, he was there to be the encouraging light to help her work through the night. Mateo had been everything Sage had never been, could never be - carefree.

Staring into the circular cracks in the flooring, Sage was swallowed by the flood she'd spent the last year both drowning in and running from.

There was Mateo, just six years old, showing her his newest Lego construction. The tiny redbrick dragon had taken him days to complete and the pride was written all over his face. It was impressive, however pointless. Sage smiled and bent down to take it, his small fingers letting go of it very cautiously. As she turned it over carefully in her fingers, she remembered how four-year-old Sage had grabbed it with careless hands and accidentally broken off the head at the base of the neck.

She looked away from her hands just in time to see Cinderella slip back into place on the bookshelf, nine-year-old Mateo taking extra care to keep the cover from folding. Feeling the dragon fade away, morphing between her hands into something new, she looked down. Rapunzel was clutched in her hands tighter than she'd really held it that day. Mateo came back from the bookshelf and offered for her to sit on his bed so he could read the story to her. He was patting the space beside him on the bed, the Lightning McQueen covers creasing and re-creasing under his hand.

She knew she'd been staring when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see her twelve-year-old brother, a blur of golden movement as he wrapped his arms around her. Wrapping her own arms around his back and squeezing tightly, Sage remembered that moment as if it had happened only an hour ago. Bad school days had been a regular occurrence in primary school, but Mateo had always made her feel better when she arrived home. Closing her eyes, Sage tried to hold him a little tighter, but he was no longer in her arms.

Mateo caught her as she fell forward, his arms strong and steady from the weekly visits to the gym that he and his friends had done for the past two years. He laughed, his fourteen-year-old voice breaking and setting Sage off in her own laughter, weaker than it had really been back then. She'd tripped over nothing, but just like she did five years ago, she turned back to check.