Chapter 35 of 35·6 min read·Several minutes after the handprint appeared
The Pressure That Answered
Sella waited for the handprint to change.
It did not. The dark palm held against the far side of the blue threshold, every finger spread. The tether rested against her shoulder. Her cut hand throbbed where blood had dried across the rope, and her right wrist complained whenever she shifted her weight.
On the landing, Tassa had not moved closer. Brannoc stood with his shield turned edge-on, as if even its broad face might accidentally answer the door. Iven watched the black ring at his throat rather than the mark.
“Can you see any more than before?” Sella called.
“No,” Tassa said. “A handprint. Still no hand attached to it.”
“Helpful.”
“Glad I could—” Tassa stopped. Her eyes flicked down to the shadow at Sella’s feet. “Is it moving?”
Sella looked. Her shadow’s arm remained stretched toward the threshold. The handprint stayed in place.
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s not the same as no.”
“No,” Sella said. “It isn’t.”
She examined the print instead of the shadow. Its edges were sharp, almost too sharp for a shadow. She could make out the shallow creases across the palm and the crooked line where the thumb met the wrist. No blue paint showed through the dark shape. No light came from behind it.
If it was a stain on the far side, the door had carried it there. If it was a shadow, then something had to be between it and the light. If it was neither, she had no useful name for it.
Names had not helped much down here.
Sella lowered herself onto her uninjured knee. The movement tugged at the strained ankle. She let the pain settle before she leaned toward the threshold. Her shadow’s hand remained spread, holding the door steady.
“Can you feel anything?” Brannoc called.
“I’m about to find out.”
“Try not to test it with the bleeding hand.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
She had been planning to. She stopped with her good hand halfway raised and looked at the blood on her palm. Brannoc was right. Pain was useful when it gave her information. It was less useful when she was using it to prove she could endure something.
Sella pulled a loose fiber from the tether and held it between two fingers. She brought it toward the blue face of the threshold, beside the place where the handprint showed on the other side.
The fiber touched the door.
Next
The handprint has answered Sella once and left a matching line of blood; she must decide whether to risk another touch or keep the threshold braced without learning what is on the other side.
Nothing happened. She dragged it over the paint. The surface felt smooth, cool, and solid. The mark remained visible beyond it, where no mark should have been visible through a solid door.
Sella pulled the fiber back. It came away whole.
“Any change?” Tassa asked.
“No.”
She looked down at her shadow’s hand. Its fingers pressed flat against the floor, stretched toward that impossible print. The ache in Sella’s wrist had faded to a dull pulse. She could stop. She could wait for the others to find a way across, if there was a way. She could also keep asking questions from this side while the thing that might answer held her door in place.
“I’m going to touch it,” she said.
“Your hand or the shadow?” Tassa asked.
“My hand.”
Tassa’s face tightened. “Which one?”
Sella didn’t answer at once. Her wounded palm was the one nearest the threshold. The other was steady. She moved that one forward, fingers open, and pressed her fingertips against the blue paint where the center of the handprint lay beyond it.
Cold seeped into her skin. The door gave no more than a door should.
Sella pressed harder. The mark did not distort. She slid her fingertips down, tracing the palm’s edge on the near side as best she could. On the far side, the handprint stayed perfectly still.
“Nothing,” she said.
She was just easing her hand away when the print’s little finger bent.
The sound reached her first: a soft, damp press, like a palm laid against wet clay. Then the dark finger moved, curling toward the center of the hand.
Sella froze.
Her shadow’s hand remained flat. Its fingers had not moved.
The little finger of the print straightened. A moment later, Sella felt a small touch against her own little finger, through the blue door.
She jerked back. The pressure went with her for an instant, following the length of her fingertip, then stopped.
On the landing, Brannoc lifted his shield. Tassa took one quick step forward and checked herself. Iven’s mouth opened; the ring tightened, and he shut it again.
“Did you see it?” Sella asked.
“Yes,” Tassa said. Her voice had lost its joke. “And I saw your hand move.”
“I felt it.”
“What?”
“A finger. Something touched my finger.”
Sella flexed it. The sensation stayed: not a numbness, not quite pain, but the memory of pressure still present on the skin. She could not tell if the touch had come through the door or from a trick of the shadow, but it had not been only the mark changing shape. Her hand had been answered.
She glanced at her bleeding palm.
“Don’t,” Brannoc said.
It was a plain word, not a command. He sounded tired.
Sella looked at him across the space. “I need to know if it’s the print or just the part of the door it’s on.”
“You know it can touch you. That’s enough for now.”
“Maybe.”
The others could not cross to her. She could not go back without learning whether the door would turn. Every new distance between them seemed to acquire another cost, then another reason they had to pay it. She hated that his caution was sensible.
Her wounded palm was still bleeding. She held it over the rope, watched a bright bead gather in the crease, and turned her hand so the injury faced the door.
She did not press it flat. She touched the blue surface with the tips of two fingers, well below the visible print.
The far-side handprint shifted.
Its thumb pressed against the door. Sella’s palm clenched before she could stop it. The cut opened against her skin, and pain ran up her arm. At the same time, pressure closed around her two fingers from the other side. A thumb—or something that felt like one—pressed into the soft space below her knuckle.
The sensation was too exact to mistake for her shadow pulling. The shadow still braced the threshold; its hand remained extended across the floor. Something was holding Sella’s hand from beyond the blue face.
Her composure broke before she could make a choice about it. She sucked in a breath and tried to wrench away. The pressure held.
The tether snapped taut against her shoulder. The threshold shuddered in its square. Her shadow’s fingers spread wider, and the door stopped turning—but the rope cut across her wounded palm. Sella’s grip slipped.
“Sella!” Tassa shouted.
Sella could pull harder. She could also let the pressure hold her there and see what followed. She could not do both, and the threshold was beginning to angle toward the landing.
She turned her injured palm inward and drove her elbow back. The pressure released. The door lurched another inch, then steadied as her shadow pressed down again.
Sella fell against the tether. The cut in her hand had opened wider; fresh blood ran over her wrist. Across the room, Brannoc lowered his shield. He had not taken a step. Tassa’s hands were locked around the straps of her pack.
The handprint on the far side remained spread against the door. A thin red line now crossed its palm, exactly where Sella’s cut had opened.
She kept her bleeding hand against her chest. The mark did not move again.
“What did it touch?” Tassa called.
Sella looked at the red line. “Something that could touch back.”
“That’s all?”
“It’s more than we had.”
“And worse,” Brannoc said.
Sella wrapped the tether around her forearm to keep it from slipping through her hand. She did not look away from the print. Its dark fingers stayed open, as if waiting for another test.
Her shadow continued to brace the threshold. Whether it had held the door for her, for itself, or for whatever had answered remained out of reach.
Sella kept her palm closed. She could feel the fresh cut with every beat of her hand, and beneath that, a faint pressure along the two fingers that had touched the door.