The sky never changed. Some of the grass went up past their knees, some was short as if it had recently been mowed. When she brushed it with her hands, it was softer than usual. Ripping grass didn’t create a scent. Holding it up beneath her nose didn’t either. Walking was slow progress because they were making sure to leave a trail, walking heavy, letting their feet stamp down what they could.

“How do the doors work?” Olivia asked.

“What do you mean, how?”

“Like is there something you can do to activate them? Are there things they like? Do you have to have A-negative blood type? Do they like singing?”

“They don’t like anything. They are things.”

“But this wasn’t what you expected.”

“Oh. Here is rare. It usually opens to a place we call the golden path because, well, a lot of it is gold. A trail, the trees, some boulders, a slope up to a mountain. In Australia, it opens to an orange desert.” Ayanna’s hands finally stopped shaking. She pulled them out of her pockets and stretched her fingers.

“Do you think that’s heaven, and this is hell?”

Ayanna stopped walking. Olivia kept on for a few paces, then turned around.

“How could this be hell?” Ayanna said. “Do you hear screams in the distance? And also do you actually believe in hell? It seems like such a mean thing to believe.”

“Why?”

“People getting tortured for all eternity, no redemption, fiery pits.” Ayanna knew despite everything she said, the reaction she was having was that this could be true. She had never articulated it, but the idea of being in a place where nothing ever happens felt more in line with what she thought hell could be than any of the whole rivers-of-lava and demons-being-snippy-with-you-for-all-of-eternity did.

Before Olivia could answer, Ayanna saw in her peripheral vision a light pink light. She put her hand over her mouth. Olivia shook her head.

“Why are you being so weird?”

“Is there a light over there?”

*  *  *

Back in the field, everyone had decided the best thing to do was to be patient. No one had seen or heard a pop. The girls were fine. Their father had decided to treat this like a usual divorced-parenting problem, which is to say, he hoped it resolved and could be massaged before their mother had to be told or somehow found out on her own. He could not conceive of any possible way Olivia could tell her mother that she went through a door without it becoming a protracted fight. The only saving grace to this was they would be eighteen in six months. There was not enough time to have it become a legal fight as well.