Jillian was the first to open her eyes. She looked up at the red moon hanging above them, and was surprised twice in the span of a second: first by how close the moon still looked, and second by her lack of surprise at their location. Of course this was all real. She had had her share of wild and beautiful dreams, but never anything like this. And if she hadn’t dreamed it, it had to be real, and if it was real, of course they were still there. Real places didn’t go away just because you’d had a nap.

Beside her, Jacqueline stirred. Jillian turned to her sister, and grimaced at the sight of a slug making its slow way along the curve of Jacqueline’s ear. They were having an adventure, and it would all be spoiled if Jacqueline started to panic over getting dirty. Careful as anything, Jillian reached over and plucked the slug from her sister’s ear, flicking it into the brush.

When she looked back, Jacqueline’s eyes were open. “We’re still here,” she said.

“Yes,” said Jillian.

Jacqueline stood, scowling at the grass stains on her knees, the mud on the hem of her dress. It was a good thing she couldn’t see her own hair, thought Jillian; she would probably have started crying if she could.

“We need to find a door,” said Jacqueline.

“Yes,” said Jillian, and she didn’t mean it, and when Jacqueline offered her hand, she took it anyway, because they were together, the two of them, really together, and even if that couldn’t last, it was still novel and miraculous. When people heard that she had a twin, they were always quick to say how nice that had to be, having a best friend from birth. She had never been able to figure out how to tell them how wrong they were. Having a twin meant always having someone to be compared to and fall short of, someone who was under no obligation to like you—and wouldn’t, most of the time, because emotional attachments were dangerous.

(Had she been able to articulate how she felt about her home life, had she been able to tell an adult, Jillian might have been surprised by the way things could change. But ah, if she had done that, she and her sister would never have become the bundle of resentments and contradictions necessary to summon a door to the Moors. Every choice feeds every choice that comes after, whether we want those choices or no.)