THE PRESENT

Despite its location tucked into the Northwest corner of the continental United States, the seaside village of Port Townsend looked at first glance like it could be the setting for a BBC mystery series. Nineteenth century Victorian brick buildings provided gravity for the town's otherwise laid-back granola culture, with a mix of brightly dressed inhabitants keen on breaking from the bleak weather vibe versus tiny top hat wearing steampunk aficionados who embraced their gray environs. One hundred fifty-year-old ornately carved buildings offered colorful storefronts selling anything from home goods to fishing gear to organic spices.

Liv and Graham found parking a few blocks from the gallery, passing several cafés and a yarn shop with a tabby cat lounging in the window before reaching their destination. During the summer, according to Graham, the streets would be inundated with tourists, but now, in late January, it was quiet enough to hear seagulls calling to one another from the beach a block over.

"Here it is." Graham stopped at an art gallery situated on the corner of a row of conjoined buildings. Up an alleyway, Liv glimpsed a tall ship moored to a long dock, rocking gently in the wind.

Entering the gallery, Liv could barely contain a gasp. Several dozen wooden sculptures, some as small as a book and others as large as a small car had been situated around the space in a manner that made you feel like you weren't just walking into a gallery but were instead boarding a boat. Boats seemed to be the theme in general, or at least, the medium utilized here. According to the artist's statement, the show, called Maritime Repurposed, had been conceived of due to Port Townsend's nautical tradition. Ted had taken scrapped wooden boat pieces and transformed them into new structures, partial hulls becoming the nurse logs for a variety of creations, from carved trees to human figures, to more abstract forms.

This was unexpected. Given that Ted Bramblefoot sported a Dungeons & Dragons tavern owner's name and Graham had referred to him as a flake, she'd assumed his art would be self-aggrandizing and overrated—cheesy representations of naked goddesses or something in that vein. Instead, he'd taken the remains of old ships and resurrected them as objects that honored their seafaring history while still being new and strangely moving.

Liv straightened her back and took some deep breaths, not wanting Graham to see how affected she was. "It's nice," she said. "Where is this guy?"

"When I called him, he agreed to meet us here at four."

"It's four-thirty," Liv looked around for someone who seemed like a Ted Bramblefoot but they were the only ones in the gallery besides the curator. "Did we miss him?"

"Not a chance. Ted exists in his own time zone, which runs a half-hour to forty-five minutes behind this one. He'll be here."

Liv circled the gallery two more times, taking in the artwork, especially a large piece that had originally been a ship's bow. Rolling waves had been whittled into it, and inset within the waves was a rectangular metal door, complete with hinges and a tiny brass knob.

The depiction was warm and familiar, but for some reason, it made Liv want to pop a Xanax.

"Liv!" Graham called to her from the front of the gallery. A tall man with long blond hair and a nose ring stood next to him.

"What's up?" he said, pulling Liv into an unsolicited hug. "It's Liv Tandy—the Liv Tandy. I can't believe it."

She pulled away and stumbled back to stand next to Graham. "You know who I am?"

"Of course. Helli talked about you all the time."

Helli rhymes with Kelly. Helina had once told her she'd punched a guy for calling her that, and here this clown was saying it as if it had been endearing to her. Gross.

"What did she say about me?"

"That you were her best friend and just as into the supernatural game as she was. She showed me your videos. The two of you really should have made that TV deal work." He looked Liv up and down like she was one of his carvings, something he could touch and shape to his liking. "You two are smart, hot, and full-on ghost crazy. Everyone would have loved tuning in to see you all brainy and scared at the same time."

"Right. Except for, my sister had the audacity to die, they cancelled our deal and neither of us was ever full on ghost crazy, whatever the fuck that means." How this imbecile could create such fantastic art and have a relationship with Helina was beyond Liv.

She thought about calling him a moron and then knocking a couple of his beloved art pieces onto the floor for dramatic effect, but as that would be immature, she instead came up with, "You remind me of a dog I once knew. He licked his asshole a lot."

Ted's happy, flirtatious grin soured. His mouth went slack. "What?"

"The resemblance is uncanny. His tongue hung out just like that. Do you drool uncontrollably too?"

Graham cleared his throat. "You'll have to excuse Liv. She says regrettable things because the stress regarding my missing sister has been getting to her."

"That's not why I say them."

"Anyways," Graham continued, "we need to know if you've seen Helina since I last talked to you. Or heard from her maybe?"

"No, man." He ran a hand through his hair and averted his eyes from Liv. "Like, usually we don't worry about gaps in communication. It's the art of nonattachment, you know? We're together when we're together. Our souls totally intertwine." He brought his hands together, interlacing his fingers to demonstrate. Liv had to mentally block images of this guy in bed with Helina, bare legs thrashing around like overturned turtles.

"When we're not," Ted continued, "we're unbothered. Our souls are free to ride the cosmic waves, find other souls to share a vibe with. You get it."

Yeah, she got it. Completely nauseating way to put it, but since this was not wholly dissimilar to how she handled relationships with men, Liv could hardly judge. Everything else about Ted's personality, however, was fair game.

"That's very enlightened of you, Ted. But you can be unentwined with Helina long enough to fuck other women and still recall her saying where she may have gone or what she was working on, right?"

"You mean the ghost frequency? Sure, she told me all about that."

"She did?" He was quick to jump to that subject, leaving Liv to wonder how big of a topic it had been throughout Helina's relationship with him. Sharing that sort of intel with this dumbass seemed a step further down the poor judgement road than she'd expected Helina to have traveled. "Are you, by any chance, GnocheGhost?"

Ted's eyes grew big. "Woah... are you on the PSU forum too? What's your username?"

"You're a liar."

"Your username is 'URaLiar?'"

"I read your DMs with Helina."

Graham gave her a sharp look. He hadn't read them, and she hadn't elucidated him on them either.

"Why does that make me a liar?"

"Because, Mr. Nonattachment, you were talking to her on the forum all the time and in a super invested way. None of this free spirit shit that you're trying to make us buy. Why are you doing this? Do you know what happened to her?"

Graham looked between the two of us. "I'd like to know that too."

"I swear, I don't." He put his hands up in defeat. "But I know what she was trying to do. It's just that... it's too out there, even for me. You're not going to believe it."

"Try us."

"I can show you."

He brought them over to the piece Liv had been studying earlier, the one with the rolling waves and the tiny door that made Liv long for a sedative.

"I made this for Helli and named it 18.98 in honor of her work. It was based off a drawing she made. In her sketch, she tried to capture something that she was trying to realize. Like, a total vision of what she wanted most."

Liv brought out Helina's drawing. "Was this what she showed you?"

"That's it." He peered at the piece of paper with a longing that surprised Liv. "Can I have this?"

"No. Do you know where this is supposed to be?"

"I assumed it was on the coast somewhere. Maybe Neah Bay or even Cannon Beach down in Oregon. But Helli said it wasn't. She wouldn't say where it was, just that it was closer to home than she expected it to be."

Close to home. "Who's home? Yours or hers?"

He shrugged. "Wherever it is, it's inspiring. I made this piece and dedicated it to her. Then she came to the artist reception, and she was speechless, man. Like, she stood there for the longest time. That's the sort of effect we have on each other. We're both on the same frequency."

Liv doubted that.

Ted nudged her. "It opens, you know."

"What opens?"

He pointed. "The door. Those hinges are real. You want to give it a go?"

"What's on the other side?"

"You have to open it to find out."

Nauseating anxiety swirled. She tried to ignore it as she reached for the miniature doorknob and pulled.

Blinking, she stared at what was inside.

"What do you think?" Ted asked.

She was on the verge of puking, her salmon burger lunch flying in regurgitated chunks across Ted Bramblefoot's 18.98 masterpiece. "Did Helina open this when she was here?"

"Of course. You should have seen her reaction. Come to think of it, it wasn't that different from yours. It's strange because I used her own note. She'd written it and left it next to my bed. I have no clue why. And yet, even though she wrote it, she seemed shocked to see it again."

"She didn't write that note." Liv said.

"Um, yes, she did. She woke up in the middle of the night, woke me up too. I saw her myself. She reached for a pen and wrote this. When I woke in the morning, she'd already left, but the note was still there. Looked like she'd spilled water on it even though there was no water glass on the table. That's why the ink is blurry."

"Liv, what's going on?" Graham asked.

"It's... it's nothing."

Liv excused herself and stepped outside. Rain poured over her. Bile burned her throat.

A hand, an offering, a water-soaked note.

Another impossible event to add to Liv's list.

Inside Ted Bramblefoot's otherworldly doorway was the note she'd pulled from Allen Chen's dead hand. Same paper, same ink, same hand scrawled message with the same water-blotched markings:

"There's no coming back."

_____

Author's note: Port Townsend is a real town about an hour from where I live and it is one of my favorite places. Back in chapter 13, when Liv and Graham are discussing their next moves and Graham brings up Ted Bramblefoot for the first time, I just knew Ted had to reside in Port Townsend so I could write that place into this story. 

If you are curious, here is a video of the town, complete with cheesy music, viewed from above:

https://youtu.be/ZznX01ViFTc

So... cool town, but Liv has just had her mind twisted around yet again. What do you think is happening? What's her next move?

Thanks for reading!