After twenty minutes, it opened again. A grotto. Silver stone in front and still orange water. Only the light from outside the door made everything visible. What was maybe a statue could be seen. A base of large stones, a skirt that looked like it had been assembled from driftwood, a torso of mud and stone. Five arms. No face. It’s dim, Ayanna told herself, my mind could be playing tricks on me. She had forgotten the dissonance of being in a mundane Michigan field and being able to see improbable elsewheres. And had the door always felt like an optical illusion? As an adult, Ayanna noticed the space of the doorframe shouldn’t have allowed her to be able to see so far, so wide. The day grew hotter.

Humidity made the air feel closer and closer to solid. Ayanna tried to keep her water intake slow and steady. It would storm, Ayanna knew, around five. Enough lightning to make most of the crowd disperse until it was done. After what Ayanna estimated was around two hours, the door shut again. More police arrived, increasingly concerned with the growing crowd and the danger of a crush than with Ayanna and Opal. Around a half hour passed. The door opened out into a long meadow, this one bronze and filled with spirits. They were all speaking in languages Ayanna couldn’t understand. Some sounded like instruments, she couldn’t help keeping her eyes on one that kept changing from cat and slender person to what looked like a waterfall and who was speaking only in marimba noises. The sky behind them was flickering between colors.

Maybe her sister had seen all this. Maybe she was still alive. Walking between worlds, finding a way to adapt each time. Ayanna wanted to believe it was a possibility. Her sister eating the sweetest, most impossible berries. Drinking violet water and being astonished that it tasted like syrup. Lying in one of the orange swamps, hot-tub-warm against her tired bones. Olivia seeing each world and carving her name into a stone.

At one point, her mother admitted she needed help to make it to a bathroom. Her ankle was swollen. They walked slowly together to the barn. After helping her mother to the bathroom door, Ayanna paced the barn. Sat in her old makeshift pew. The concrete floor was cracked and less even now. There were no longer books on the shelves or photos of the parishioners or the pinboards where people had put note cards of their intentions and the small things they wanted to do to help bring about world peace. It didn’t smell like coffee or chili or potluck. It was far cooler in here, thanks to a small air conditioner desperately trying to fight against the heat.

There was nothing Ayanna thought she could say to change her mother’s mind. Ayanna made her drink more water in the cool barn, sit for a while.