Shovel after shovel, the grave slowly filled with earth. Blisters and abrasions on her hands, both new and old, throbbed with pain, but she paid them no mind. The stabbing in her back was harder to ignore.
Alice rested her forehead against the handle of the spade. She had no strength left. Carelessly, she patted down the mound, tossed the shovel aside, and wiped her sweaty face with her shirt. She sat opposite her work, waiting. Who lay there? It didn't matter. This wasn't the first grave she had dug—probably not the last. The act brought her no joy, and yet she reached for the shovel more and more often.
She looked at her hands, dirty and wounded. Pulling a folding knife from her pocket, she began to clean her nails. Her patience was wearing thin.
God was late.
He usually appeared at moments like this, to ceremoniously close a chapter of history with his chatter. The next chapters promised no improvement, and the proposed ending made Alice nauseous. If only she could slip past the divine radar, into another world… she would do so without hesitation.
Two meters in front of Alice, a portal opened. Its interior shimmered and rippled. Its edges—torn fragments of reality—curled inward, as though something were trying to suck them in. From the magical passage stepped a young man, clad in a coat and top hat stitched entirely from patches.
"Good day!" he greeted cheerfully, snapping shut the lid of a pocket watch. The gleaming gateway behind him closed. He tucked the watch into his vest pocket, its chain dangling across the fabric, disappearing between the buttons.
"A beautiful day we have here," he said, glancing around. At last, he fixed his gaze on Alice—eyes of hypnotic, dazzling pink.
Alice stopped playing with the knife.
"Well indeed, the weather has been kind lately," she replied cautiously.
This was not her god.
The stranger stepped across the fresh grave. He bent down and extended toward Alice a hand clad in a white glove, stained with blue ink.
"We haven't met yet. My name is Vincent Whitelock. I am a contractor."
Up close, Alice could see that the man was not in the best condition—neither mentally nor physically. His clothes were blotched with blue paint. His face was pale, his hair completely bleached and unkempt, his gaze brimming with madness. He seemed deeply shaken by something. She shook his hand. Out of the corner of her eye she glanced at the shovel lying nearby, but abandoned any thought of further action in that direction. She had no strength left to deal with another body.
"Could I help you with something?" she asked.
"Oh, not at all…" Vincent laughed. "I intend to help you. Because surely you need help, don't you?"
"No," Alice answered firmly. "Maybe…" she corrected herself after a pause. "Actually yes, I do need help," she admitted. "I suppose it will cost me dearly," she sighed in resignation.
"Straight to the point, I like that."
He snapped his fingers.
Beneath Alice a chair sprouted, and from the ground beneath Vincent sprang a garden table, fully set with ornate porcelain.
"For a modest payment I can grant any wish," he said, then hopped off the table and sat in the chair opposite her. "The price depends on whatever I happen to lack, so you could even ask for a star from the sky."
He began pouring a lavender-scented infusion from the teapot into the cups.
"Sugar?"
"No."
Alice's eyelid twitched as, against her wishes, five sugar cubes dropped into her cup. She would have gladly splashed the sickly sweet brew into the contractor's face. She restrained herself.
"This may sound a little strange from your perspective…" she began. "But are you real? Is this truly happening?"
Vincent was now adding sugar cubes to his own cup.
"You think you've gone mad?" he asked.
"That's one option."
"What are the others?"
Alice exhaled with a hiss.
"It could be some trick, some game, a trap set to scramble my mind," she said thoughtfully.
"Who would do such a thing?"
Alice shrugged.
"The third possibility—you are real."
Cube after cube, he eventually added twelve. He stirred with a spoon.
"Quite likely," Vincent chuckled under his breath. "Though it's rather pointless to ask the opinion of a hallucination or a planted imposter. Not worth speculating."
He took a sip of the oversweetened tea.
"Tell me, what do you desire?"
Alice did not hesitate long.
"Apparently you have the ability to travel between dimensions. My wish is simple. Open a portal for me leading to another world."
"That's all?"
"That's all. I need nothing else. What do you expect in return?"
The contractor nodded in approval.
"And what I desire…"
For a moment he squirmed in his chair, shaping his request in his mind. He decided to phrase it in the simplest words possible, without ambiguity or hidden tricks. He pulled the spoon from his cup and pointed it at Alice.
"You must promise to fall in love with me."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me clearly."
Alice met his gaze, cold as steel, without a trace of amusement in her eyes.
"Do you want to die?" she asked. "If not, perhaps we should renegotiate the price?"
Vincent twisted in his chair, his heart in pieces. She hadn't even considered his proposal! Insolent!
"The price is not negotiable," he declared, folding his arms across his chest. "Better not sass me, or I'll ask for an extra kiss on the cheek. What do you say? I'm generous enough as it is…"
Crack.
Alice smashed her cup against the edge of the table.
The contractor's heart stopped for a moment.
"Forgive me," she said calmly, cleared her throat, and set down the broken handle. Resting her elbow on the tabletop, she sighed deeply. "You won't change your mind?"
"No. As I said, the price depends on whatever I happen to need."
Poor desperate man, Alice thought. He was even handsome, young, tall—too bad he was insane.
"Why do you expect this from me in particular?"
"Destiny."
If only he knew what else was destined for her, she continued in her thoughts. She pushed off the table leg with the sole of her shoe, tipping back and balancing on the rear legs of her chair. She had to make a decision. What were the chances another contractor would come to her? And what were the odds that he'd have a better head on his shoulders?
"If I agreed… would our contract in any way interfere with my choices?"
A spark of hope lit up in Vincent's eyes.
"Not at all! It's more like a prophecy of the future. When one side of the contract is fulfilled, the other must follow—there are no exceptions."
He began rummaging through the folds of his coat for the proper document. When he found it, he spread the paper out on the table. From his cup he pulled the spoon, licked it, and twirled it between his fingers. The silver transformed into a pen, which he held poised above the contract. He raised his brows, awaiting her final decision.
There was no point in hesitating any longer. She had no other choice. She could not remain in this world. Besides—what harm could it do?
At worst, she would kill him out of love and they'd be even.
Alice stopped rocking in her chair.
"I promise that someday I will fall in love with you," she declared. "In return, I expect you to open a portal for me leading to another world."
Vincent wrote out the terms of the contract and signed his name. He handed Alice the pen and slid the document toward her. She glanced at the ornate, tangled letters. At the bottom of the page, she carelessly scrawled her name.
"You'll regret this," she warned.
"Alice Crevan…" the contractor read aloud. He nodded, satisfied with the outcome of their meeting. Her final words he brushed aside with a warm smile. He lifted his gaze to her.
She had long gray hair, and in her equally gray eyes lurked something unsettling. Though small and fragile, she moved with a decisiveness that left no room for opposition. This was the Alice he knew and loved. He sincerely hoped he would see her alive again someday.
"It's time to go," he said. It would be foolish to linger too long in the past. He rolled the paper into a scroll and tucked it beneath the folds of his coat. He finished his tea, set down the cup, and snapped his fingers. "I must quickly return something to its proper place," he explained his haste.
The table, chairs, and porcelain service sank into the ground. Before Alice could fall, Vincent caught her hand and helped her regain balance. He drew out his pocket watch, flipped open the lid, and began adjusting the many dials.
Curious, Alice peered over his shoulder. The watch was copper, with a sapphire-blue face, golden numerals, and six silver hands, two of which moved backward. Just like on the contractor's gloves, blue paint stains marked the timepiece, droplets sliding down the chain.
"Done."
Vincent pressed all the dials at once, and before them blossomed a shimmering portal.
"Where does it lead?" Alice asked.
"You'll find out yourself. You never specified which world you wished to enter."
"I've only just discovered that other worlds truly exist."
"And you accepted it remarkably calmly. I'm certain you'll manage, no matter where you end up. Go on," he urged her with a wave of his hand. "Off you go. I dislike drawn-out farewells. We'll have another chance to meet."
Alice picked up the shovel and stood before the magical rift that led into the unknown.
Was any of this even possible? Magic, portals, contractors, other worlds, such absurd amounts of sugar in tea… It was pure nonsense! But no matter…
Let's assume Vincent Whitelock exists.
"Thank you for coming," she whispered. Without looking back, she stepped through the portal.
Vincent gazed longingly at the passage where Alice had vanished. At last, he adjusted a few dials on the watch and set off on his own path.
It was the last wish he ever granted. The last contract he ever asked someone to sign.