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The Hocking Hills Gate An adventure beyond the gate
Chapter One: The Trail That Changed
Annie Fisher knew every bend in the trails of the Hocking Hills, or at least she thought she did. She knew the way the hemlocks leaned over the path at Cedar Falls, the echo under the great sheltering curve of Ash Cave, the strange little windows of the Rock House, and the quiet places in Conkle’s Hollow where even birdsong seemed to lower its voice. She knew the smell of wet sandstone after rain, the slippery sheen of moss on old boulders, and the way the gorge air stayed cool even when the parking lot felt hot enough to melt crayons.
Her younger brother, Arthur, knew the trails too, though he pretended he was above being impressed by rocks, waterfalls, and trees. Arthur was eleven, which meant he believed sighing dramatically was a complete sentence. He wore his backpack on one shoulder no matter how often Annie told him it would make his neck hurt, and he had a talent for turning any stick into a sword, spear, pointer, or “scientific measuring instrument,” depending on what he wanted to poke.
That morning in Conkle’s Hollow, the gorge was cool and green. Sandstone cliffs rose so high on either side that sunlight arrived in thin gold ribbons, slipping between leaves and touching the trail in bright, broken patches. Ferns crowded the damp ground. Water whispered somewhere ahead, trickling over stone. A squirrel scolded them from a fallen log, then vanished into a crack in the rocks as if it had remembered an urgent appointment underground.
Annie walked ahead, skipping over roots and muddy patches. Arthur followed with a stick he had declared to be a “perfectly balanced hiking staff,” though Annie suspected he mostly liked poking leaves with it. Their parents were farther back on the main trail, reading a sign about staying on marked paths. Annie had heard that speech a hundred times: no climbing, no running near ledges, no touching wildlife, no wandering off. She had obeyed it a hundred times too. Mostly.
They had hiked the lower trail before. They had seen the ferns, the mossy stones, the trickling water, and the dark mouths of small caves along the wall. So, when Annie stopped so suddenly that Arthur bumped into her backpack, neither of them understood what they were seeing.
A gate lay on the ground near a cave entrance.
It was not a farm gate or a rusted park barrier. It was round at the top, wide enough for a person to walk through, and made of metal that looked like gold in one place and brass in another. The frame had no hinges, no latch, and no handle. It was carved with curling symbols that seemed to move if Annie stared too long, slipping from spirals into leaf shapes and then into tiny claw marks. At its center, wedged into a star-shaped setting, shone a blue diamond as bright as a fallen piece of sky.
“How did we miss that before?” Arthur whispered.
“We didn’t,” Annie said. “It wasn’t here.”
Then she saw the footprints. They led from the gate toward the cave. Some were enormous—longer than Arthur’s forearm, pressed deep into the damp soil, with five rounded toes at the front. Beside them were smaller prints with smooth soles, narrow and soft-edged, like moccasins. The big tracks had crushed fern stems flat. The smaller ones avoided every puddle, as if whoever had made them knew exactly where to step.
Annie looked at Arthur, her face tight with confusion. “Are these Bigfoot footprints?”
Arthur crouched so quickly his backpack slid up behind his ears. “Impossible. Look at this, Annie. There are smaller footprints too. Smooth soles. Looks like a moccasin footprint.” He glanced around the gorge, lowering his voice. “Who wears moccasins these days?”
“I can think of a few kids who wear moccasins,” Annie said, “but I don’t know anyone with a foot that size.” Her gaze returned to the stone. “What about that blue diamond? That must be worth a fortune.”
The blue diamond pulsed once, faintly, like a heartbeat. Annie should have stepped back. She knew that. Every sensible part of her brain shouted that mysterious glowing stones in forbidden cave gates were not things you touched. But another part of her—the part that kept wondering what was around the next bend, the part that collected odd rocks in her windowsill and made maps of places she had not visited yet—leaned closer.
“Annie, don’t touch that!” Arthur lunged for her hand.
He was fast, but not fast enough to stop her. His fingers closed around hers at the exact moment Annie’s fingertips brushed the blue diamond.
The world folded.
Across the Infinite Mirror: The Battle for One Soul in the Multiverse
Chapter 1: The Last Good Man
Peter Gray had never considered himself important enough to be hunted by heaven or hell. He sold cars in central Ohio, drank coffee that had been sitting too long on the showroom burner, and knew how to read a customer’s hesitation before the customer admitted it. His life was ordinary in the way most blessed lives are ordinary: bills on the counter, a lunch packed by a wife who loved him, quiet prayers he sometimes forgot to say, and dreams of children he and Alice still hoped would come.
People at the dealership trusted Peter because he remembered what mattered. He remembered whose mother needed a safer car for winter roads, whose son had just started college, whose credit score embarrassed them before they even sat down. His manager often said Peter left money on the table, but Peter had grown up watching his father count overtime hours like prayers and his mother stretch a roast across three meals. He knew dignity could be bruised by a sales pitch.
The test drive began like any other. A nervous customer gripped the wheel too tightly while Peter explained financing options from the passenger seat. Rain slicked the road. Brake lights bloomed ahead. Then came the sound Peter would remember forever: metal folding into metal, glass exploding like frozen rain, Alice’s name tearing from his throat before the world went white.
“You’re doing fine,” Peter told the customer, though the young man’s knuckles had gone white around the steering wheel. The car smelled of new upholstery, warm plastic, and the peppermint gum Peter had been chewing since lunch. Rain ticked against the windshield in quick nervous taps. “Just ease off the gas. No rush.”
“I hate driving in this,” the customer muttered. His voice cracked on the last word. Wipers dragged sheets of water aside, then lost the battle again. Ahead, red brake lights smeared across the wet road like warning paint.
For nearly eight minutes, Peter Gray was legally dead. The doctors would later call his survival improbable. Alice would call it a miracle. Peter, once he found the words, would call it a warning.
He did not remember a tunnel. He did not remember clouds or harps or the soft clichés people used when they wanted death to seem less severe. He remembered a hall of mirrors suspended in darkness, each mirror holding a life that was his and not his. In one, he wore a tailored suit and smiled without warmth. In another, he sat alone beneath fluorescent lights, hands shaking over an empty bottle. In another, Alice stood beside him, older, laughing, alive with a happiness so fierce it hurt to see.
The hall smelled of nothing, which frightened him more than smoke or blood would have. His shoes made no sound on the dark floor. When he reached toward the nearest mirror, cold slid through his fingers as if he had plunged his hand into winter water.
Between the mirrors stood the Watchers. They were neither angels nor ghosts, though Peter’s frightened mind reached for both words. Their faces were calm, their eyes ancient, and their silence felt like a law. One of them spoke without moving its mouth: You are not finished because your reflections continue. Your soul is one. Your experiences are many. The adversary is searching for the primary flame.
“Am I dead?” Peter asked, or thought he asked. The question trembled through him without leaving his mouth.
Not finished, the Watcher answered. There is a difference.
Peter tried to ask why a car salesman from Ohio mattered in a war older than history, but no sound came. The Watcher lifted one hand, and the mirrors multiplied until infinity bent around him. Satan believes he can win a soul by winning every reflection. He has nearly completed the hunt. You must choose with discernment. Make many choices. Make them Godly. Do not let fear become your master.
Then Peter woke to the sound of Alice crying beside his hospital bed. Her hand held his so tightly his fingers ached. For a moment he could not tell which world he had returned to. Then she whispered his name, and he knew this much: wherever the primary universe was, wherever the first flame burned, he had been given back to the woman who would help him keep it lit.
Alice had slept only forty minutes in two days. Her hair was pulled back carelessly, her sweater was buttoned wrong, and there were coffee stains on the paper cup beside the bed. To Peter she looked more beautiful than any vision in the mirrors because she belonged to the world of breath, pain, and promise. When she saw his eyes focus, she pressed his hand to her cheek and laughed once through tears, the sound breaking open the sterile room like sunlight.