Holden

HOLDEN

Dr. Jane Clevenger sipped on the Earl Grey had made for her as she perched on a sofa chair near the fireplace. She looked like a tourist coming back from a safari gone wrong, all linen and canvas, midsixties, a gray braid falling from her sun hat and down her shoulder. She'd been camping alone near Triplet Lakes when the fire started.

Maidei sat on the table's bench facing the Fort's new arrival, a quiet fury burning behind her eyes. "You didn't return my calls."

Clevenger lifted her chin toward Tiffany, who leaned against the far wall with her arms crossed. "Nor did I return hers, if that makes you feel better."

"It doesn't," said Maidei.

and Angel tossed glances back and forth, silently arguing about who would be the first to speak up and ask questions.

"Who are these two?" Clevenger nodded in 's direction.

opened his mouth, but Maidei interjected. "My assistants."

Clevenger narrowed her eyes at them. "I see."

Great. had no idea how to act like a scientist .

"And Jane was my dad's research partner," Tiffany said.

Research partner. Jane had studied the same glacier in the same cabin as Siena's team.

"Please, call me Dr. Clevenger."

Tiffany cocked her head. "Sure, Auntie ."

The tension was suddenly so suffocating that had to look away and at Zaid, who sat on the floor behind the table, sifting through a stack of papers he'd just brought into the room. An odd thing to do now, but he didn't understand Zaid's intentions half the time.

"You both called Dr. Clevenger about Dr. Dupont?" Angel asked.

"Yes," Tiffany and Maidei said in unison.

Maidei continued. "When the team disappeared, I wanted to know whether there were other places Dr. Feyrer would have sent them. Somewhere else we could look. But instead of divulging anything to me, you came here in secret and ventured up the mountain yourself. Why?"

"I don't speak of the research over email or phone." Dr. Clevenger said. "I signed an NDA for Dr. Feyrer."

"My dad's dead," Tiffany said.

"Just because he's dead doesn't mean I shouldn't be quiet and careful."

Quiet and careful? "Weren't you studying the same thing as Dr. Dupont?" asked. What was so secret about glacial emissions?

Dr. Clevenger was quiet for a moment, her eyes roaming over like she was contemplating his existence. "We were studying the same thing, but I don't think Dr. Dupont or her team knew this. I don't believe Feyrer told her the whole truth before he died."

's fingers itched in anticipation. Whatever Clevenger knew was about to link his carefully aligned pieces or smash the puzzle to bits.

"Is that why you hiked into Deadswitch alone when you knew she was missing?" Maidei asked. "Is the whole truth why we can't find her?"

Clevenger smiled coyly at Maidei. "I suspect you know more than I thought."

"What the hell is going on?" Angel muttered.

"I ventured into Deadswitch because I have a suspicion where Dr. Dupont's team went," Clevenger said calmly. "I went alone hoping to collect research we left at the cabin all those years ago, research Dr. Feyrer wouldn't let us take off the mountain."

"Why wouldn't Dr. Feyrer let you take the research back to the university?" asked.

Clevenger lowered her tea and saucer to her lap. "Because what we found was dangerous and challenged our understanding of the world, and we didn't know who we could trust with the information."

had heard something like this before from Maidei, when she'd shown him the old files from her own research project.

We were on the brink of a discovery that would have changed our rudimentary understanding of life.

"Here." From inside his fort of papers, Zaid passed Maidei a few folded pages. She unfolded them, stole a glance, and set them in her lap.

Tiffany paced near the window, and 's heart raced as he watched her. "So, if you weren't studying the glacier..." he began.

"We were," said Dr. Clevenger. "But it was the nineties. Climate science was changing, and skeptics abounded. Alpenglow Glacier was melting too fast, and we were sent there to prove the melt wasn't related to geothermal or biological activity. We took samples of everything: soil, plants, core wood." She nodded toward Maidei. "Some of our findings matched Dr. Chari's a decade later, but nothing made sense. We scraped animal cells from trees. It was like we were being tricked.

"Then one morning, I woke to this awful ringing in my head and left the cabin to fill my canteen in the outside barrels, but the surrounding alpine environment had changed to one green, dark, and full of ancient growth. Unlike any temperate rainforest I've ever seen, let alone the Sierras."

Tiffany stopped pacing, her expression so horror-stricken that did a double take before he could even process what Clevenger had just said.

Ringing. He and Tiffany had heard a ringing in Deadswitch, too.

"I don't understand," Angel said.

"Neither did we," Clevenger replied. "We panicked and fought a lot that first day, unable to agree on where we were or how we'd gotten there. Days passed and we still couldn't decide what to do. Instead of working together, we grew suspicious of one another. Started stealing clothing and food, going on walks into this new strange wilderness alone instead of in groups. We acted like children. I'm not proud of..." She looked down at her tea, brought it to her lips, and drank slowly. She swallowed. "... of anything, really. And then one of our postdocs went missing. Wandered off into the forest. We split up trying to find him. Sent up flares. I never saw him again."

"Tell me you reported him missing," Maidei said. "You must have found a way out. Tell me you sent more people to search."

Startled by Maidei's demand, picked apart her rising anger. This same thing had happened to her, lost in a wet, dark, unfamiliar forest. Frank had found her sleeping on the ground. He'd searched for her.

Dr. Clevenger clasped her hands on the table near her tea, her expression reserved and unreactive to Maidei. "We found a way back, or I should say the way back found us. Two weeks later, we returned the same way we'd entered—a sharp ringing upon waking, a seemingly random event out of our control. We hiked out of Deadswitch within the hour, and Feyrer made us sign an NDA before returning home."

"And what about the postdoc?" Maidei pressed.

"We lied," Clevenger replied matter-of-factly. "We reported him missing after we made it home. We told officials he never arrived at our meeting point the morning of the trip."

The revelation stole the air from the room. Maidei clasped a hand over her mouth and stood, moving toward the windows.

Disgust twisted in . The postdoc's family deserved to know the truth about where he'd gone missing. And everyone visiting Deadswitch deserved to know what could also happen to them.

"Mai," Zaid said softly, still on the ground. Concern etched his face as he watched his research partner.

had forgotten Francis was in the room until he whined, padding over to Maidei and sitting near her feet.

"Did you ever find out more?" Angel asked quietly. "Where you actually went?"

"Yes," Clevenger said. "Wilder had theories, so the next time we entered Deadswitch, we took a theoretical physicist with us. This time it took four weeks for us to be transported. Same forest, same place we were before. Our physicist culled from the chaos what he believed to be the most important element of it all: the frequency we heard upon arriving, and when leaving. The ringing in our ears."

Ringing. searched for Tiffany, but she was absent from the room. Where had she gone?

Dr. Clevenger took a long sip of her tea. Her fingers trembled around the porcelain.

Angel huffed, and knew it was from impatience. He was not impatient, wishing for some cosmic pause button he could jam down and take a few breaths.

"Our physicist theorized the frequency was not just a sound but a signal, the harmonic resonance acting as a gateway. His hypothesis was heavily influenced by the theory that extra dimensions are required for the consistent vibration and interaction of the particles in our universe. We'd stumbled upon a rift. That's why our data was inconsistent during our first trip. We were collecting samples from two different worlds."

A hush blanketed the room. sat to combat his dizziness.

"Two different worlds," Maidei slowly reiterated. "And you kept this a secret."

Clevenger scoffed. "We had to. Imagine if this reached the public—or even the government —before we fully understood everything about the place beyond the rift."

Maidei sneered at her. "You mean you could no longer exploit it in secret?"

Clevenger raised her voice. "Ill-equipped people would try to find it. They would get hurt. Lost. Killed ."

"That's already happening." Maidei marched toward Clevenger and flung her arm out, the folded papers between her fingers. "A police report. My police report."

Clevenger warily took the pages and unfolded them, holding them away from her face as she read. "You've been there." She swiveled from Maidei to Zaid. "And you were searching for these pages before I explained my story. Both of you knew what I was about to tell you."

"Zaid knew of my experience from the beginning. I wanted to forget it ever happened, but he kept the documentation."

Zaid pulled himself from the floor to a seat at the table. "At least one of us needs to be a hoarder."

Maidei continued. "I called to tell you Dr. Feyrer's mentees were missing, left messages, and you never responded. I sensed from that point you knew where they were, and that it wasn't as simple as pointing out a location on a map."

No, not a map. "We found Dr. Dupont with the drone," said. "I told you I saw her, because she was standing there , just not on Agnes. She was already through the rift. That's why I only saw a flash of her before the feed went dead." This was as close to proof that he'd actually seen Siena as he would get.

"Dammit." Zaid buried his face in his hands. "And now the drone is toast. We could have learned more."

tugged on his collar, the room too hot .

"This frequency," Angel began, wringing her hands on top of the table as she stared at them. "Were you able to—I don't know—manipulate it somehow to open this rift?"

"We tried amplifying it," said Clevenger. "Sometimes we amplified the frequency and the rift immediately opened. Other times it would take months. We never identified the other variable."

Angel's hands froze on the table before she dug into her purse on the seat next to her.

"The technology is better now." Zaid's eyes gleamed with excitement. "Amplifiers and transmitters are more portable and powerful. Maybe you just needed a stronger sig—" A shrill screech through the air cut him off.

Francis barked. whipped around to Angel and saw what she held in her hands. "Tell me you didn't."

"They won't miss it." Angel looked down at the wooden flute she'd stolen from the visitor center, and blew on the flute again. Francis howled.

"What is that horrible thing?" Clevenger asked. Zaid's eyes widened like a five-year-old in a toy shop, and Angel handed him the flute.

"Ever heard of the Church of Bounty?" said.

Maidei crossed her arms. "I'm guessing you didn't check out that artifact through any official channel."

held his hands up. "Angel stole it. I didn't know."

Dr. Clevenger's face had fallen sheet-white. She picked up the small satchel she'd brought with her, rummaged through it, and pulled out her phone. After pecking on the screen a few times with her finger, she held it up. A high-pitched shriek emitted from her phone's speaker, perfectly in tune with the flute. "Sixty-eight hundred hertz," Dr. Clevenger announced. "Same frequency as the one we heard."

The cult knew about the frequency. They'd created instruments to match it. Was their entire religion based on what they'd found beyond the rift ?

"Holy shit," Angel breathed, and slumped in her seat.

shook away a shiver and stood. "We need to tell Frank."

"And then what?" Maidei watched him like he was an unpredictable zoo animal. "Frank has been at his post long enough to understand that something is terribly wrong with the wilderness area he oversees. He knows my story, and at least ten others have gone missing in the past decade under his watch."

"Exactly!" cried. "He needs to know the truth. He needs to prepare for something like this to happen again."

"He is one man," Maidei argued. "A ranger. What is he going to do? No one can reach the cabin right now. No one even knows if it still stands."

took a step back. "So what are you saying? We do nothing?"

Maidei visibly swallowed, and then straightened her shoulders. "I've already told you I've done my part. I'm leaving tomorrow. I need to go home."

Unbelievable. He swung his glare to Dr. Clevenger.

She jutted her chin. "I never had the intention of returning to that place beyond the rift. I came to Deadswitch this time to find the only proof I know of, in the research cabin on this side. I planned to contact Dr. Chari once it was in my possession."

"Your plan was to hand the responsibility off to strangers? I..." shook his head, stunned into silence. A revelation this big was supposed to get them closer to finding Siena. Now, he only felt hopeless.

"What do you think we should do, ?" Angel asked.

As he shifted his attention to her, Angel lifted her hand to chew on her thumbnail.

What had she told him, right before the fire started? We're not the A-Team of wilderness rescue. We're here for the evidence protocol misses.

The evidence protocol misses. He knew of another place where this frequency occurred .

"Did anyone see where Tiffany went?" he asked.

"I suppose I upset her with my story," Clevenger said. "Her father never told her."

"I'm going to look for her." hurried from the room with Francis on his heels. He opened the front door to check outside, Frank's Jeep parked in the dirt clearing. Unless she'd walked to the station, she was still here.

He shut the door and climbed the stairs past the second floor to the third. Tiffany's room was empty.

Francis yipped softly and barreled up the pull-down stairs to the attic, more acrobat than dog. Curious, followed, and found Tiffany sitting on his bed.

She jumped up and turned toward the window, wiping her face. "I'm so sorry. I was trying to find somewhere where no one would look for me, and panicked." She took a deep breath and faced him, her eyes rimmed red.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Other than the obvious."

Tiffany deflated and sat again, and Francis hopped onto the bed to lick the tears from her cheek. She smiled and pushed him away, and the dog lay his head on her lap.

Tiffany reached out to stroke Francis's ears, her gaze averted from 's. "I've been there. To this place Jane and my dad were trapped."

's lips parted in surprise. He wanted to respond, but his mind raced too quickly.

"This was before Maidei's research group. Even before Frank. I was a kid. Nine. My mom was with her boyfriend in Greece, so Wilder... he didn't really know what to do with me. When he went out into the field that summer, he dumped me at the cabin with a stack of books and VHS tapes."

"Wait, you were nine ?" reeled. The cabin by Glass Lake was no place for a nine-year-old to stay by herself for weeks with no bathroom, no water, and no kitchen.

"I was alone," Tiffany said. "And lonely. I missed my friends and real food. Dad idiotically trusted me with a camp stove, but all I had were granola bars and cans of Chef Boyardee."

"Jesus Christ," said. That was the reason she'd been acting so strange when they visited the cabin together. "Your cabin transported you to the other forest, too?"

"Yes," Tiffany said. "And if the timeline is right, it was also at the same time as Dad and Jane. Couldn't have happened to everyone in Deadswitch, though. There are a couple of hundred people in the wilderness area throughout summer. Someone else would have said something. But I didn't, and apparently my dad made his team sign an NDA."

Tiffany fell quiet and looked down at Francis, who lay there patiently waiting for more pets. "You're a very good boy, aren't you?" she whispered.

"What was it like?" he asked quietly, hoping his tone implied he didn't want to force her to say anything she didn't want to.

"Dark," she said. "Impossibly dark. Everything beyond the cabin was overgrown and soaked. Nothing like Deadswitch. It... I don't know. It terrified me. I went outside once, walked around the cabin a bit, and then went back in and locked the door. I went to the bathroom in a bucket. I rationed my stock of soda and water bottles Dad had left me, not knowing if I would ever be brave enough to leave. Two weeks... yeah, that sounds about right. And the ringing Clevenger mentioned to you?—"

"We heard it while we were there." He'd sat inside the husk of a dimensional rift, only a few miles away from here, drinking a Coke and utterly clueless. And Tiffany hadn't said a word about it.

She could sense his thoughts. "You have to understand, I was looking to prove what happened to me was a figment of my imagination. If I had said something, it would have given power to possibility. It's so much easier for things just to stay impossible, ."

He understood. Tiffany had been trying to protect the part of her that was still that little girl. But now, given how many lives were on the line, someone had to be brave enough to go up against a tear in reality. The thought sent a bolt of terror straight through his heart.

And yet, everything he'd gone through, everything he'd discovered, had led to this. He thought of his dream the night before he and Angel had driven to California—sewing up Siena's leg with catgut somewhere in the wild. The confidence he'd felt in that moment, albeit imaginary.

Frank and SAR were entangled in the tangible emergency of the wildfire. Those who'd witnessed the dimension themselves didn't want the responsibility of their knowledge. Not only that, but it was possible opening the rift would take time. Weeks.

He had time.

No, he wasn't built to take this on by himself. But no one was built for anything at the beginning. Grit was equal parts strength and stupidity.

Tiffany whispered his name. blinked and refocused on her.

"Whatever you do next, you need to be careful," she said. "There will be no rescue if something goes wrong. No one will be there to hike you off the mountain."