But Fina is already climbing into the low branches of the tree. I start after her, but she looks down at me and shakes her head. “You stay here, and I’ll open the door,” she says. “I don’t know if the branch can hold both of us.”

So I stand there, biting my lip as she clambers onto the branch and sits down, then begins to scooch across it until she’s reached the other side of the wall. “What do you see?” I ask.

“A garden,” she says. “Hold on.”

Then she takes hold of the branch with both hands and slides off it.

CRACK!

“Fina!” I yelp at the same time I hear her cry out in fear or maybe in pain. The broken branch snaps back up without her.

“Fina, are you okay?” I call. From the other side of the wall, she lets out a sob in answer. “Hold on! I’m coming!”

I push with all my weight against the door, but it won’t budge.

Then Boomer and I are sprinting around, looking for another way in. It’s so dark now and there’s so much ivy that I don’t know if I would be able to see another door even if there was one.

You have to find a way in! a voice in my head screams. Fina is hurt! Madeline might be, too!

But I run the whole way around the wall without seeing another way in. I turn back, planning to look again, to start tearing at the ivy if I have to, but Boomer doesn’t budge. “Not now, Boomer!” I cry, pulling at his leash. “Come on!”

Instead, though, he lifts a paw to scratch at the wall. I pull back the curtain of ivy where he’s scratching and see moonlight shining off another door handle.

“Good job, boy!” I say, taking hold of the handle.

I pull. It doesn’t budge.

Then I push, and the door swings open.

Even though it’s dark and nothing is blooming, I know the garden I’m standing in is extraordinarily beautiful.

In the corner closest to the door I came in, there is an ancient double swing-set covered in rose vines. Two oaks stand like twin guardians by the back wall, and between them is a greenhouse. At the center of the garden is a sunken lily pond with little mossy stairs that curve all the way around it.

I realize I’ve seen the lily pond before. This garden is the one I didn’t recognize—from Gram’s unfinished painting. So she’s been here, and I bet Boomer has, too. That’s how he knew about the door.

Fina is nowhere to be seen.

“Fina!” I call quietly. “Fina, where are you?”