“How is this happening?” James asked Petra as she moved to join the rest of the Gremlins.
Only they were alone now. The other Gremlins walked on into the past, their voices fading. The portrait of the Fat Lady drifted into shadow and the corridor vanished away into darkness, becoming a damp cavern, hot with pressure. A pool flickered nearby, illuminated from within by eerie green light. Petra was wearing a yellow dress now, almost impossibly frilly and stiff with layers. Her makeup was streaked and running with tears, although her eyes were clear, unhaunted.
“You followed me,” she stated with a sort of weary, disapproving affection. “James, I really just don’t know what to do with you.”
He shrugged and moved next to her, looking around. “Where are we? Do you know?”
She glanced about, used the back of her hand to wipe a streak of mascara from her cheek. Only, as she did so, the Chamber of Secrets blurred, dimmed, and grew huge. The floor became the wooden planks of a dock. A woodland lake spread away toward a misty forested shore.
The gazebo wasn’t there. Or, it was, only long since fallen away, sunken to the dark depths.
“It’s not a where,” Petra said, turning alongside James and taking his hand, walking to the end of the dock with him. Together, they looked down toward the hidden, phantom shape below the waves. Petra wore a plain calico dress now, warmed by a pale blue hooded jumper. “I thought I was opening a portal to another dimension. But I see now that I was lied to. I understood it in the space between entering the portal and your joining me here. People say that hindsight is always clearer. Here, hindsight and foresight are the whole fabric of reality. It’s pretty much impossible to be deceived here.”
He sensed that she was right, and began to understand.
“We’ve both been to the World Between the Worlds,” he said, squeezing her hand and looking aside at her. “This is like that, isn’t it?
It’s the Time Between the Times.”
She nodded. The wound on her forehead was healed now, James saw, or perhaps had never yet happened. She looked both younger and older than he knew her. Probably, he appeared the same to her.
The lake faded away. In its place was a vast open space. There were neat benches arranged at intervals, and the suggestion of platforms, a sense of patient waiting, even though the space stood entirely empty.
It was, James realized, a train station.
“King’s Cross,” Petra smiled, and stepped away from him. She was dressed differently again, but not in any way that James had ever seen her before. She wore a simple dress, form-fitting on top, loose and flowing at the bottom, the same powder blue as her former hooded jumper, but made of some soft, dully shimmering fabric, at once dense and light as it swished about her legs. Ivory pearls hung in a single strand around her neck. To James’ surprise, she had a diamond ring on her left hand. It was not huge or ostentatious, but neither was it cheap.
It was inscribed on the inside with a phrase: Amis et amoureux pour toujours. James knew this as if he himself had caused the inscription— and the ring itself—to be there.
Petra had learned French at Alma Aleron, after all, and continued to love the language, even if she was not precisely fluent at it…
James looked down at himself. He was dressed differently as well—a white button-down shirt and a dark blazer, navy blue, Bigfoot house colour, yet somehow matching Petra’s dress, tone for tone. He was a little taller, a little older, as was she.
He moved to her with confidence, took her into his arms, and she came to him easily, laid her head on his shoulder. They stood that way for some time, resting together, holding each other as if it was the most natural thing in the world, saying nothing.
Finally, Petra drew a long sigh against him, stirred, and shuddered as she exhaled.
“We can’t stay here forever,” she said regretfully.
“I know,” James replied quietly, not yet letting her go. That moment would come soon enough.
She raised her head and looked up at him, reading his eyes.
“What is this, do you think?”
He shrugged a little. “A glimpse of what might have been…”
She nodded and looked around, then rested her cheek against his chest. He touched the top of her head with his chin, breathed in the scent of her hair. Muffled faintly, she said, “There’s not much sadder in the world than ‘what might have been’.”
It was James’ turn to sigh then.
The strangely empty world of King’s Cross Station was darker now. It had the effect of theatre lights dimming, quieting the crowd, subtly hinting that the final act was about to begin.
Still James did not let Petra go. She lowered her arms, found his hands, and laced her fingers into his. When she took a small step back and looked up at him, he wondered if they would kiss again. It was purely a wistful thought, however. They had already had their first and last kiss, the one to stand for all. He knew this. She, he could tell, was thinking the same thing. Her eyes dipped.
She let go of his hands and moved back another step.
The Station darkened from twilight to grey dusk, then dipped into patient midnight, drifting away all around them.
“It’s happening,” Petra said, still nearby but fading into shadow.
James nodded. There was a sound, dull and boundless, deep and low. It grew, rose up around them, bringing with it a sense of cold anticipation, of mist, and wind.
With quiet conviction, Petra said, “You won’t like how this ends.”
James shook his head in the lowering dark. “Nobody knows the end yet.”
“Perhaps not. But promise me one thing.”
“I will if I can,” he said, straining to see her one last time in this place that only they would remember. She was there, but just barely, merely a dark Petra-shape against a darker infinity.
“Accept the ending, James. Even if the play is a tragedy.”
Neither spoke again. Time was reasserting itself. They were coming out of the other side of the Time Between the Times. Voices blended with the rising drone now, indistinct, some shouting busily, others speaking with low, animated worry. They echoed dully, strangely familiar, like people heard from the other side of a wall. He strained his ears, tensed his body, as the gears of time caught up to him again, meshed minute to minute, and began to carry them forward again.
Petra was no longer in front of him, although he still sensed her nearby, herself realigning with wherever and whenever they were coming to rest.