Dim Meridian

Dim Meridian

Ells Montgomery

This time, we walk to the line together. It’s evening; I’m hoping that’ll make it easier.

Noa’s arm linked with mine is as warm and certain as it was on the day we met, when she told me she could be my sister now. Mine is as shaky, but I don’t think she notices—she’s in one of her faraway moments, like she’s looking into forever and heading for it. I’m just an old home waiting for her to come back.

In the gloom before us, the line looks innocent: a thick band of copper inlaid into the earth, separating our dirt from theirs and stretching into forever. It’s worse in the day, when you can see the dark wall of the Dimness stretching up on the other side above the line, like the copper’s cleaving day and night in two.

It’s quiet. I wonder if others will be crossing so late. The Brothers will return to guard the line soon; only a few hours of Passage remain.

I study the Dimness ahead of us, afraid to look at Noa’s face.

What we knew of the inhospitable dark on the other side of the line was what the Sisters taught us in Lesson. Only the most lost souls crossed on Passage Day, the Sisters said, and only one way. A person choking on their demons might leave our cities and go to the Dimness. But they would not return.

We believed it. Noa did, too, until she ran away from the orphanage the first time and met a boy who said he’d come from the other side. He’d said it wasn’t inhospitable, just dark. That the plants fed on darkness and animals ate them and people lived. Then Noa said she’d never believed the Sisters at all.

Now, without warning, Noa releases me and steps over the line.

I’d expected build-up, some big goodbye, but of course she doesn’t wait. I’ve behaved so far, walking arm in arm with her to the border, but she must be thinking of the other times, when I wrestled her to the ground at the edge of day and dark, unwilling to be orphaned again.

Noa takes a few more steps, making sure of the separation between her and the life she’s leaving behind. Then she turns to face me.

It’s shadowy on both sides, but I can still see the difference. Her darkness is more complete, curling into the hollowest parts of her: her cheekbones, her collarbones, the sloping angles between shin and ankle. Her hands are invisible.

“I…” She pauses. I watch the darkness funnel into her open mouth. “I’m not trying to leave you,” she finishes. Her voice is muffled. Thick, like there really is more to the air she’s breathing. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” I tell her automatically. My rational brain believes it. The rest of me is unconvinced, but the rest of me is selfish.

“So,” she says. And then she just stands there, and I stand there, the copper line quiet and sure between us. Bushes rustle gently in the distance, and then more loudly, and then twigs are splintering, and a hundred yards down the line from us, someone bursts out of the woods.

We both turn to watch them, their head down and arms pumping as they sprint toward the line and over the copper and into the dark distance on the other side. Noa’s side.

Something about the speed of it makes me want to laugh, but nothing is funny. The cold air prods at damp spots on my cheeks like it’s making fun of me. I try to say something else, something like “are you sure,” but my voice comes out ugly and swollen.

Noa reaches out for my hand, and I instinctively meet her halfway. She always did run hot; of course her fingers are warm on mine. The touch feels too small, like we should be hugging instead, but one of us would have to take a step for that. My hand is already partly over the line, I realize. And it was so easy.

I take a small step, my toes inching into the margins of the copper.

Noa’s eyes widen to moons. Whatever else the darkness is stealing from view, it leaves her eyes, her perfectly crooked teeth.

“Are you sure?” she whispers.

And I’m not sure, not at all. But if she needs to be in the dark, I can sit with her in it. I want to be with her, in it.

She suddenly drops my hand and sprints away into the Dimness. She goes so far I can barely see her: a dark smudge in a canvas of greys and blacks. But she pauses there. She’s giving me a chance to let her go, to make this a story of her outrunning me and me turning home.

I think it’s the option, what settles it.

I step over the line and chase her into the dark.

                                      

---

 

Elis Montgomery is a speculative fiction writer from Vancouver, Canada. She is a member of SFWA and Codex. When she’s not writing, she’s usually hanging upside down in an aerial arts class or a murky cave. Find her there, on Bluesky @elismontgomery.bsky.social, or at https://www.elismontgomery.com

Dim Meridian first published September 11th, 2026

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