Still holding on to the paperweight in her right hand, as if by instinct, with her left hand, she pulled the cat’s eye marble from her pocket and held it up, too. Instantly, there were orange vectors of light beaming perfectly like straight lines at different angles from both the center of the paperweight and the interior of the marble, pointing directly towards the wall.

The wall that “the person who used to be Max” had walked through. At least the same wall that “the person who used to be Max” had walked through when the room was a library . . .

The cat’s eye marble was blasting out bright orange, almost like neon colored lights, straight lines at angles which were emanating from the center of the blown glass marble directly towards the wall. It was a bit like a laser show, or something that might be given off from a small rocket as it was taking off, or the tail of a comet in space. The marble was hot to the touch and so was the paperweight and actually Tess worried one of them might liquify in her hand.

But the vectors of orange light just kept streaming towards the wall. And then they stopped. Just like that. As if each of the objects had run out of fuel. Or worn themselves out.

She set the paperweight back on the desk. She looked down at the marble. No, it was the same. It hadn’t changed. The cat’s eye marble was still intact in her hand as was the paperweight, inert, innocent as if neither object had done anything, at all.

Except there was an open doorway. Just that. An open doorway. Tess couldn’t even tell if there was a door. Just an open doorway that led to a dark unknown hallway beyond.

Adele was standing there now, tiny, knowing, standing quietly by the open doorway. “You can’t stay here,” she said. “You know that. You have to go find Colin.”

And as she said it, Tess looked around the room and knew that was probably true. She didn’t know where she was. The only way out seemed the open doorway that would lead her to she had no idea where. And something else resonated for her. Adele had said, she had to go find Colin. Was it Colin she was trying to reach, not Max? Or that the only way she could reach Max was by finding Colin and communicating with him? She would have to get over being angry at Colin, if that was going to work, have a civil discourse with him. But maybe she could get him to apologize first. If she could find him. If only, she could find him and find Max . . . or “the person who used to be Max” and try, if she could turn him into Max again. . . .