Felix said then everything was dark, and he dreamed about climbing up a mountain made entirely of silver stones. He could not see what was below, except it was very, very blue. There was music in every stone, and maybe he was trying not to fall into the ocean. Felix was gripped by a feeling of needing constant momentum and if he stopped, he would sink back into all the blue, and would be devoured. Later, he would read about the doors and notice how many people who had gone through had written about similar experiences. “Was I dead? Was I elsewhere? I call it a dream, but I know it wasn’t.”

Ayanna wrapped his fingers between hers. He squeezed back. Down the street, someone yelled, “Is that a skunk?”

“When I woke up in the hospital room, it was almost August,” Felix said. “My mom kept thanking Jesus, my dad wrote thank-you cards for every single person who came into my room, from the surgeons to the hospital cleaning staff. At one point, I had died for three minutes. I had been in medically induced comas, there were times where I had been awake, but I didn’t remember them.”

“Your friend?”

“I didn’t save him.”

She could hear Felix was crying, and Ayanna felt guilty for even asking the obvious question.

“Anyway, for a long time, I felt like a part of me didn’t come back from the experience. My therapist said it’s not unusual to feel like that when you go through a big traumatic experience. You feel a divide, you mourn who you used to be; if you lost someone in the event, you feel guilty for mourning yourself when you should only be thinking about the person you lost. You want to move on, you don’t want to move on.”

“I know. When my sister—” Ayanna’s throat shut. Then they were hugging and crying on the sidewalk. Down the street a mechanical witch cackled. Wind gusted. Felix’s eyes were so big, dark, and sad. And when they were done crying, they were looking at each other, and there was a question between them. Ayanna nodded and tilted her head up, and they kissed each other softly, and Ayanna hoped it was fine her mouth tasted like salt and weed and whiskey. Felix’s mouth was a little salty, but she didn’t mind.

“Anyway, when I heard about Professor Collins’s work, I wondered if it would help me get to speak to Amir again. And I wondered if somehow, I would maybe be able to find that piece of myself again. And I still get really scared sometimes in classrooms. I’m doing some of this as an independent study.”