“I have a doctor’s appointment today,” Anna said. “Can you take the kid’s to school?”

Henry sucked his teeth. “ I would but I have to go on early tomorrow. They can ride the bus, right?”

“Abigail is still getting bullied.”

He rolled his eyes. “She just needs to fit back. If you want her taken then you take her. You have the day off right?”

After an argument that left her too worked up for sleep, Ann drove two daughters to the school.

She was eight minutes late. The respectioninst frowned at her. “The doctor has a ten minute rule, two more minutes and you’d have missed your time slot. We still bill you know.”

“With treatment, you could live a normal happy life,” her doctor said. He didn’t meet her eyes.

Anna wished she’d been late enough to miss this appointment. She’d have had another month of blissful ignorance. Anna nodded, accepting the information pages. Lists of medications. None of which would work.

“Thank you,” she said, because it was pointless to argue with a man who couldn’t look her in the eye.

She went home. Cleaned out the basement. Did her monthly checks that the locks were still in place on the portal. This check had signed her death warrant, but if she stopped it’d be so much worse. No it would be worse when she was gone, if she didn’t find someone to take over.

She picked up the house, before she picked up the kids. Checked her work emails. She called her husband, he didn’t answer.

“What smells so good,” Henry kissed her cheek when he came home.

“We need to talk.”

“You’ll be fine,” Henry said, after she’d told him what the doctor had said. “Isn’t that what the doctor said?”

“No.” The argument that followed was worse than the night before. She slept on the couch.

“I need you to take care of the portal when I’m gone, until the girls are grown.” She told her sister on the phone the next day.

“Yay, Henry would love that,” her sister, Beth scoffed. “I’ll just move right in.”

Anna hung up. She gathered herbs from the garden, grinding them together. She mixed them into a paste. Wiping it around the polished green trim of the stone portal door, she tried to imagine her husband doing this. She shivered.

“When I’m gone, Beth will have to take care of the portal.”

“This again.” This time he slept on the couch.

After work the next day, she replaced the flowers on the stairs. She tried to show her daughter how to do it, but her arms were to short to reach the hooks. Another year or two of growth at least, before she’d been able to do even this part. Did laundry. Cooked dinner.

“I don’t know what to do.” Her mind felt fuzzy already. Heavy and dull. The family curse had to be satisfied.

Another day of work. She garden after, trying to keep her young daughter’s interested in how to weed the sacred plants. A few more weeks, and she wouldn’t be here to do it. Time was slipping like sand through her hands.

“Henry, can you help me with dinner?”

“Can you carry this basket?”

“Please.”

His pillow stayed on the couch.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine when you’re gone,” her sister said.

Anna shook her head. She imagined the garden dying. The paste cracking and peeling. The portal would open once she was gone. Henry wouldn’t take care of it, not like she could.

“No.”

There was only one thing she could do, her last act to protect her daughters before she was gone.

“You’ll take care of the portal, if something happens to Henry? After I’m gone.”

“He’ll be fine.”

When Henry was asleep, Anna snuck down to the portal. It was old as the town. Maybe older. The truth of it’s origins long ago lost. But, the keeping of it had been carefully documented. Like the effects of tending it. The portal leeched the life out of the women who cared for it, but to not care for it would kill them sooner.

“Goddess,” Anna scrubbed the paste away. “I beseech you.” She thought of her daughter’s faces. They’d grow so quickly. They needed to be children as long as they could. Time was so very short. They needed a guardian who could care for the portal, keep them safe. “I beseech you.” She cracked open the portal.

The woman who stood on the other side wore her face. “Please.”