I shook my head, frowning—where had that come from?
It’s true, whispered the voice. Remember Rebecca Hurly and the crayons? What about Dennis Stevens and his teeth? What about the crow with the crooked neck? Or the flower that never wilted?
My frown deepened. Why was I suddenly having these half-formed memories from a childhood I had done my best to forget? I pushed them away and pulled on a fresh nightshirt and a robe as well as my little ballet-type slippers that Craig always bought me. Then I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee.
As I drank it, I looked at the envelope again. The beautiful handwriting spelling out my name still looked vaguely familiar—where had I seen it before?
I looked inside to take out the keys and that was when I saw that I’d missed something. Folded up very small in the bottom of the envelope was a tiny piece of paper.
I dug it out and unfolded it to see more of the gorgeous, flowing script. I frowned as I read it—it was some kind of rhyme.
Use the key to draw a door,
From the ceiling to the floor.
Open it and you will see,
Where you are supposed to be.
“Huh,” I said aloud and took another sip of coffee. What the hell was this supposed to mean? Was I really supposed to draw a door with the key? And if so, which key?
I looked down at the two keys in my hand and saw that the larger one—the one that looked like it might unlock the gates to a mansion—was glowing.
I nearly dropped it out of reflex—usually anything metal that’s glowing is red-hot. But I realized that this wasn’t the case. The large metal key with the ornate head was still quite cool to the touch. It was just…glowing.
Maybe that’s the answer to your question, whispered that little voice in my head. Maybe that’s the key you’re supposed to use to draw the door.
It felt like a part of me—like a voice from my past that had just woken up for some reason. The question was, should I listen to it?
I looked at the glowing key in my hand again. It was either try drawing a door to see what happened…or crack open my laptop and start applying for jobs I knew I wasn’t qualified for.
No contest.
I put the chain with the smaller key around my neck and it settled between my breasts. Then I went to the wall closest to my dining room table with the larger key in my hand. Hmm…the poem had said I should draw from the ceiling to the floor but I couldn’t reach that high. Should I get a chair?
I did that, pushing the chair I had been sitting on right up to the wall. I dragged the head of the large key up from the baseboard—which needed to be dusted—up as far as I could. Then I climbed on the chair and continued drawing, extending the line all the way up to the ceiling.
The key left a faint scratch on the tan paint of the dining room wall and it occurred to me that I was ruining my wall for no good reason. But what the hell, I probably wasn’t going to get to keep the house anyway. The mortgage was due at the end of the month and I didn’t even have a third of the money I needed to pay it.
I decided to keep drawing.
I leaned over as far as I could to draw the top of the door and then extended the line downward, all the way to the floor. I hopped off the chair and stepped back to admire my handiwork. There—I had scratched a tall but rather narrow doorway on my dining room wall. Now what?
Nothing, seemed to be the answer, because nothing was happening. I was just about to give up this nonsense and start job hunting when that annoying little voice whispered in my ear again.
How can the door open with no knob to turn? It asked.
Well, good point. Feeling foolish, I stepped up to the door again and scratched out a knob to one side of the center. Then I stepped back again with my arms over my breasts and waited for more nothing to happen.
It did, for the next five seconds. I was about to give up again when I noticed something strange…the scratches I had made in the paint were glowing.
“Shit!” I whispered to myself, raking a hand through my curls. I took off my glasses and cleaned them on the hem of my t-shirt. But when I put them back on, the scratches were still glowing…and the space inside them was beginning to look like an actual door.
I watched, my jaw hanging open, as the door solidified and the round circle I’d scratched became an actual brass doorknob. Holy shit—I’d drawn a door and it had become real! Like really real.
Well don’t just stand there—go through it! commanded the little voice in my head. Go on—go! Before it fades away!
I stood there for a moment, feeling stunned. Then I grabbed the envelope and the scrap of paper off the dining room table and shoved them both into my robe pocket.
