Ayanna wished it was possible to lie to herself, to say she had not seen this woman. But looking at her now was the closest she had felt to being able to do something for Olivia. It felt like it would be a betrayal to her sister not to try to discreetly watch over their mother in these moments. A man bumped into Ayanna and said, “It’s too hot.” The closer they got to the long gate, the church, the fields, the louder the crowd was. It sounded like someone was breaking something. The man on the bullhorn was saying things but they kept coming out as squawks.

“It’s like he swallowed the microphone,” someone said, “and is trying to talk through his stomach.”

A woman yelled, “I will give you ten thousand dollars to let me go through.”

She found her mother again. Now she was yelling, “Let me in, let me in.” People ignored her. “They killed my daughter here,” she yelled. And now people were looking at her. Opal pushed through the crowd, long steps, shoving, and Ayanna followed as much as she could in her wake. It was as if most of her aging had happened to her voice. An octave lower, louder. People were talking, but still her yells cut through. Opal was at the very front now, speaking angrily to a man in military uniform. Stamping her feet, gesturing. Behind her, the door was open, but it was open to somewhere Ayanna had never seen before.

It was a desert with golden sand. There were things that looked like a mix of mushrooms and trees. A tree’s gray with dark blue fungus with light tan spots. They moved in a way where Ayanna could not tell if it was because of wind or if they were alive in a different way than plants were on Earth. A violet sky. There were hills in the distance, but they were so bright Ayanna had to make a visor out of her hands to feel comfortable looking. Was there music? A voice singing softly from far away. Maybe a lake? And her feet longed, like she was a teenager again, to walk right through. She wanted to hold the golden sand up at eye level, let it run between her fingers and weigh it on her palm, to feel her body work to climb those dunes. If there was water, it would probably be a shade of purple like the sky.

“Is this it?” a man said to another next to him. “Is there where the wife was?”

The other man didn’t understand, and Ayanna listened to the familiar story again. A lost wife, a virtuous man, a pilgrimage, a walk together from death to life.

“My daughter told me this is where she was,” Opal was saying. “I have to go to her. I can bring her back.”