I adjusted the chains across my back. Rusted links the size of magnolia leaves slapped my legs when I moved. A groan slipped past my lips as the metal dug further into my shoulders.
Hand shading my eyes, I glanced up the hillside toward the gate at the top—wooden with an iron ring instead of a knob. Towering hedges spread out from the door as far as the eye could see. Gray clouds dusted the sky beyond the hill.
I needed to get through that gate.
My feet moved forward—one step. Two. Three. . . .
With every bend of my knee, every pad of my foot on the grassy hillside, the chain bit into my flesh, orange rust staining my white t-shirt.
Just one more step.
Okay, now another.
Another.
The links slipped on my shoulders, so I looped them around the back of my neck like a scarf. I winced as they pinched the tender skin on my throat.
Don’t stop, don’t cry. Just take another step.
The wind picked up, and I glanced at the gate again. It didn’t look any closer. Could it be a mirage? Didn’t those only exist in the desert?
The breeze carried the scent of salt water. How strange. . . . There was no water to be seen. But it didn’t matter. Only the gate mattered now.
Just keep walking up the hill and don’t think.
I shifted the links, and my hands came away covered in corrosive rust. My back ached. I didn’t know how long I could go on like this before I had to stop and rest. Would I be able to stand up again?
In front of the gate, a frothy white wave rose into the air out of the base of the hedge. My breath caught in my chest. Panic seized my body as though every limb was encased in a Chinese finger trap.
The monstrous wall of salt water curled at the top, then slammed into the grass only yards in front me. I leaned backward, the weight from the chain pulling me down the slope. I stumbled, but didn’t fall. There was nowhere I could go, nowhere to run, even if I was able to move quickly with this burden.
In mere seconds, the wave was upon me, swallowing my form like the fall of a pebble in the ocean. Ice cold water pricked my skin like a thousand pins. I held my breath and tried to kick up to the surface. But burdened as I was, my body only moved down. My lungs burned from lack of oxygen.
As I tumbled, the chain wrapped itself around my limbs like a snake with a mind of its own, cutting into my arms and neck.
I opened my mouth to scream. Salty brine rushed in to silence my terror.
Then the water filled with voices.
Their scorn, my shame pressed down on me along with the pressure of the wave. The sound was familiar. I knew those voices and remembered their words. With every syllable, the weight of the chain encircling me grew heavier.
And there was nothing I could do to make it stop.
Dear God, help me!
Shadows whispered on the edges of my vision. Instinctively, I tried to draw breath, but only filled my lungs with more water. I flailed and kicked against the water, the chains, the hopelessness of it all.
Then my feet touched solid ground. First my toes, then my heels settled. But instead of spongy, wet grass, I felt something hard underfoot.
Water peeled away from me, and a single ray of sunlight pierced the shadows to kiss my brow.
I coughed and retched water from my lungs, blinked the salt from my eyes.
Through the haze of water still clinging to my lashes, I could just make out glass stairs beneath my feet. Although they felt like stone, my chain fell through the glass like . . . water.
I blinked droplets off my lashes. The stairs weren’t glass at all, but the wave itself.
“Walk,” said a melodic voice somewhere above me.
Coughing, I said, “I w-want to, but I can’t.” I lifted the chain encircling my arms. “It’s so heavy. . . . And the gate never gets any closer.”
“Walk,” he said, all the more coaxing and kind. The sound seemed to thrum inside me.
I bit my lip, and took a tentative step forward. Again, I landed on something solid. Yet the link that fell through the surface of the glassy stair disintegrated—rusted orange particles dancing in a salty swell.
I took another step forward, the sun’s rays spreading across my face as each link in the chain brushed the surface of the water and fell away.
The gate, once unmoved, drew nearer as I climbed. Warmth blossomed over my form, beginning at my head and moving into the center of my chest.
The last few links in my chain crumbled in a gust of wind as I stood at the top of the watery staircase. Orange dust lingered in the air around me, sparkling in the blazing sun, before dissipating.
I released a shaky breath, overwhelmed by the majesty of what lay beyond the barrier.
With two hands, I reached for the iron ring and pulled.