large and carved from a darker stone than the crystal surrounding them. The symbols on them are painted in gold.
There are so many doors.
Zachary is sick of doors.
He takes his torch and explores the shadows, away from the doors and the tent, among jagged crystal and forgotten architecture. He carries the light into places long unfamiliar with illumination that accept it like a half-remembered dream.
Eventually he finds what he is looking for.
On the wall there is the faintest trace of a line. An arm’s reach away there is another.
Someone has scratched the idea of a door upon the face of the cavern.
Zachary brings the torch closer. The crystal drinks in the light, enough for him to see the shape of the etched doorknob.
The son of the fortune-teller stands in front of another door drawn on another wall.
A man this far into a story has his path to follow. There were many paths, once, in a time that is past, lost many miles and pages ago. Now there is only one path for Zachary Ezra Rawlins to choose.
The path that leads to the end.
Hudson River Valley, New York, two years from now
The car looks older than it is, painted and repainted in less than professional manners, currently sky blue and wearing a number of bumper stickers (a rainbow flag, an equal sign, a fish with legs, the word Resist). It approaches the winding drive tentatively, unsure if it has found the right address as its GPS has been confusing its driver, unable to locate satellites and losing signals and being the target of a great many creative profanities.
The car pulls up to the house and stops. It waits, observing the white farmhouse and the barn behind it wearing a rich indigo shade rather than the more traditional red.
The driver’s door opens and a young woman steps out. She wears a bright orange trench coat, too heavy for the almost summer weather. Her hair is cut pixie short and bleached a colorless shade that has not fully committed to being blond. She removes her round sunglasses and looks around, not entirely certain she has reached her destination.
The sky is car-matching blue, dotted by puffy clouds. Flowers bloom along the drive and the front walkway, splotches of yellow and pink marking the path from the car to the porch that is festooned with chimes and prisms dangling from strings, casting rainbows over the monochrome house.
The front door is open but the screen door is closed and latched. A sign hangs next to the door, a fading, hand-painted sign with stars and letters formed from steam rising in curls from a tiny coffee cup: Spiritual Adviser. There is no doorbell. The young woman knocks on the doorframe.
“Hello?” she calls. “Hello? Mrs. Rawlins? It’s Kat Hawkins, you said I could come by today?”
Kat takes a step back and looks around. It must be the right house. There can’t be many Spiritual Adviser farms. She looks out toward the barn and spots a rabbit’s tail as it hops away through the flowers. She is wondering if she should try around the back when the door opens.
“Hello, Miss Kitty Kat,” the woman at the door says. Kat has pictured Zachary’s mother a number of times but never properly conjured the person standing in the doorway: a small curvy woman in overalls, her hair an inordinate amount of tight curls tied up in a paisley scarf. Her face is wrinkled yet young and round with large eyes lined with glittering green eyeliner. A tattoo of a sun is partially visible on one forearm, a triple moon on the other.
She swoops Kat into a bigger hug than she expected from such a small person.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Mrs. Rawlins,” Kat says but Madame Love Rawlins shakes her head.
“That’s Ms., and not to you, honeychild,” she corrects. “You call me Love or Madame or Momma or whatever else you please.”
“I brought cookies,” Kat says, holding up a box and Madame Love Rawlins laughs and leads her into the house. The front hall is lined with art and photographs and Kat pauses at a photo of a young boy with dark curls wearing a serious expression and too-big eyeglasses. The following rooms are painted in Technicolor and stuffed with mismatched furniture. Crystals of every color are arranged in patterns on tables and walls. They pass under a sign that reads as above, so below and through a beaded curtain into a kitchen with an antique stove