“The very one.” She let go of the IV stand and nodded at me.
“Where does it go?”
She shrugged. “Can’t tell you. Just know it’s where I’m meant to go.”
“What if I’m not supposed to open it or something?”
“Ethan, are you tellin’ me you’re afraid ta open a silly little door? Turn the durned wheel already.”
I put my hands on the wheel and yanked on it as hard as I could. It didn’t move.
“You gonna make an old woman do the heavy liftin’?” Aunt Prue pushed me aside with one feeble hand and reached out to touch the door.
It sprang open beneath her hand, blasting light and wind and spraying water into the room. I could see a glimpse of blue water beyond. I offered her my arm, and she took it. As I helped her over the threshold, we stood there for a second on opposite sides of the door.
She looked over her shoulder, into the blue behind her. “Looks like this here’s my path. You want ta walk me a ways, like you promised you would?”
I froze. “I promised I’d walk you out there?”
She nodded. “Sure did. You’re the one who told me ’bout the Last Door. How else would I know ’bout it?”
“I don’t know anything about a Last Door, Aunt Prue. I’ve never been past this door.”
“Sure ya have. You’re standin’ past it this very minute.”
I looked out, and there I was—the other me. Hazy and gray, flickering like a shadow.
It was the me from the lens of the old video camera.
The me from the dream.
My Fractured Soul.
He started walking toward the vault door. Aunt Prue waved in his direction. “You goin’ ta walk me up ta the lighthouse?”
The moment she said it, I could see the pathway of neat stone steps leading up a grassy slope to a white stone lighthouse. Square and old, one simple stone box on top of another, then a white tower that reached high into the unbroken blue of the sky. The water beyond was even bluer. The g
rass that moved with the wind was green and alive, and it made me long for something I had never seen.
But I guess I had seen it, because there I was coming down the stone pathway.
A sick feeling turned in my stomach, and suddenly someone twisted my arm behind me, like Link was practicing wrestling moves on me.
A voice—the loudest voice in the universe, from the strongest person I knew, thundered in my ear. “You go on ahead, Prudence. You don’t need Ethan’s help. You’ve got Twyla now, and you’ll be fine once you get up there to the lighthouse.”
Amma nodded with a smile, and suddenly Twyla was standing next to Aunt Prue—not a made-of-light-Twyla but the real one, looking the same as she did the night she died.
Aunt Prue caught my eye and blew me a kiss, taking Twyla’s arm and turning back toward the lighthouse.
I tried to see if the other half of my soul was still out there, but the vault door slammed so hard it echoed through the club behind me.
Leah spun the wheel with both hands, as hard as she could. I tried to help, but she pushed me away. Arelia was there, too, muttering something I couldn’t understand.
Amma still had me in a hold so tight that she could’ve won the state championship if we really were at a wrestling match.
Arelia opened her eyes. “Now. It has to be now.”
Everything went black.