She held the marble still, flat now in her palm, and held it up, almost at an angle as if it could show the way, and suddenly the passageway lit up. Well, sort of lit up. There were all kinds of turns and angles. They were lit, the turns and the angles, bright orange, but the passageway itself was still pretty dark. There were strange reflections of light in the darkness, straight geometric lines at all kinds of angles and levels, vectors of orange neon light, very much like the ones she’d seen in her dream.

Was she supposed to duck or walk over them? Were they like a warning system that could go off at any minute, sirens would sound, or the walls would collapse? She was letting her imagination run away with itself. Was she really? There were vectors of light everywhere she turned, and she had gone through a doorway that hadn’t been there before and seemed, when she looked back, to have closed behind her. Not only closed. The wall itself appeared to have closed up, realigned itself, and there wasn’t even a door any more or a doorway to run back through. Tess didn’t want to think about what she would do if she couldn’t get back. Or couldn’t find “the person who used to be Max,” or was it Colin, who’d gone through the library wall.

And now, she had, too. She knew she was on the other side of the wall or maybe even more peculiarly inside of the wall, in a tunnel of some sort or a hallway that led she wasn’t sure where.

At least, she could see there were walls at the moment, even though they veered in strange angles and directions, including up and down.

Her instinct was, if she hit a corner and had to make a choice, it made more sense to go down. At least that would make sense if she believed the message that Colin had scrawled on the bottom of his mother’s note.

Dear Mums & Papa,

I woke up and the most amazing thing happened—I’ve never seen it snow before, not falling snow, anyway. I didn’t want you to worry, if you come home before me.

Don’t be mad. I couldn’t help it. I had to go out for a moment and watch. I took mittens and boots and my overcoat and will tiptoe so as not to wake Lizzie. I put a note under Hannah’s door, so she knows to get Lizzie if she has one of her funny dreams and wakes up before I get back. . . . Don’t be mad. It was so pretty and I think I just have the holiday spirit.

Hugs,
Colin