Border, KS

“Shit, help me!” Antigone shouted to her sister when she saw the angry man charging toward her. “I don’t know what I’m doing, for God’s sake!”

Siobhan looked at the man, and swallowed. She ached, from where she had been hurt in the fighting, and the panic that she had fought down with the blue-haired woman threatened to rise back up and overtake her. But looking at the door, something inside of her knew.

“I can’t do it, Annie—none of us can help you. I can stand here and I can fight the guy if he comes through, although he looks hopping mad,” Siobhan pointed out. “Maybe because he has to run for some reason, but I can’t close the door. I don’t know how, but you have to close it.”

Antigone swallowed, and when she didn’t speak Siobhan continued. “Somehow I knew that the sword was inside of me,” she explained. “I felt it when I needed it, but I just couldn’t get to it—until something shifted, and I could. Ignore the crazy guy in front of you, I’ll deal with him. Wen you look at the door and close your eyes…can you feel it?”

Eyes flickering to the man still charging at them, and wondering exactly how far a sight line doors to other dimensions normally had, Antigone closed her eyes. She felt her pulse pounding in her head in her panic, and heard the sounds of fighting from somewhere. She was tired and terrified and wanted to run as fast as she could away from all of this, and she had no idea what Siobhan was talking—

There.

She felt it, a little golden thread of warmth, shining against the cold of the room and the mist flowing out of the open door. She had no idea how it got there or what it was attached to, but there was a little bit of a thread.

“I…I can feel it, but I can’t reach it!” She gasped. “What do I do with it” She asked, looking to Siobhan as she opened her eyes wide. She could still feel it, she hadn’t lost it when she opened her eyes, but it was maddeningly beyond her reach. “It’s like…trying to flex one specific muscle I can’t even see, and isn’t attached to anything I’ve ever used before!” She grunted in frustration, banging the heels of her hands in to her head.

“Don’t think you’ve got to dig for it…” Siobhan pointed out helpfully. She brought her curved sword to face toward the door. But then because she was still Siobhan, she shouted in to the door. “COME ON AND HOOF IT, A-HOLE! WE DON’T HAVE ALL DAY, AND MAMA’S GOTTA GET HER MURDER ON!”

Antigone wouldn’t have thought there was anything that could have drawn her whole attention away from the door, but in retrospect she realized she had been severely underestimating her sister. “NOT HELPING!” She shouted in frustration. “Can you lay off the sarcasm for one damn minute so that we can stop from getting murdered to death by a nightmare from hell?” She shouted in to her sister’s growingly stunned face. Hot tears flashed in Antigone’s eyes, born of the fear and frustration she felt at not being able to close the door; not really made because of her sister’s antics, but lashing out at them.

“I—” Siobhan sputtered, staring at Antigone. But Antigone just kept rolling on in frustration. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one that can make the damn door close, and not…” Her heated words trailed off as something…shifted inside of her. It felt like a stomach settling after a long time being uneasy or nauseous, finding comfort after long churning—except that it was like a part of her soul that did it. It sent a little thrum of warmth through the rest of her, warmth that went from her hands and eyes and hair and every part of her out to the door. Obligingly, it slid three inches closed.

“Murdered to death?” Siobhan asked, and another dam broke inside of both of them. Fear rushed away in a moment and they both started giggling madly. They laughed hysterically in to the face of oncoming murdering to death, and the shifting in the very center of Antigone settled firmly back in to it’s new order. She breathed in deeply to steady herself from the laughter and looked at the door. She had to close her eyes to see it, but she felt the golden glow that suffused every part of her now waiting, and all it took was a push on her own emotions to coax it out in to her words.

“Close,” she spoke, the word resonating in the room. There was a push of energy not unlike that Siobhan had caused, although not nearly as strong, and her ears popped like she had been on a plane. The door swung quickly, moving smoothly and soundlessly as if the hinges were oiled and newly installed, shut just as the man came up within arm’s reach. There was a muffled thump like he ran in to the door and was surprised it didn’t give, and then a pounding. But the pounding faded a heartbeat later, and the mist in the room dissipated away.

Lacey and Monica stared at the both of them like they were mad, which given Siobhan had just summoned a magic sword to kill someone and Antigone had shut a magic door with words…they might be. But then Antigone’s eyes met her sister’s again, and they both dissolved into hysterical laughter once again.

“Murdered to death,” Antigone managed to gasp, as she fought down the laughter before it gave way back to fearful sobbing.

“Murdered to death,” Siobhan agreed, wiping tears from her eyes that weren’t all from the giggles. “Come on…let’s go make sure Uncle Ryan doesn’t need saving too. We have to do everything, I swear.”