“The only thing your map is missing,” she said in a kind, quiet voice, “is the location of the door, and it’s a very important door, one we need to find together. I know it leads down into the ground, and I think it might be . . . under this carpet.”

She knelt down on the floor of my room, right there on Tom’s red carpet, and drew a big rectangle with a long, pointy fingernail. I stared at her finger because I had never seen anything so long and thin, and I had never seen such white nails. And sharp. She drew the rectangle again, and I knew without her saying so that she wanted me to cut a hole in the carpet.

Oh, Grampy, I didn’t want to. I didn’t even kneel down beside her at first, but I could tell she was very serious and very sure it was what I needed to do. I came down off the bed, and at first I tried to pull up the sides of the rug, to see if we could move it, but the rug is fastened to the floor somehow. I got on my knees beside her, and that’s when I noticed that she hadn’t taken off her shoes when she came in, and the rug was covered in muddy footprints ground into the redness.

“Oh,” I said. “You didn’t take off your boots!” I was so sad about the mud on the carpet and so sad about how upset Tom would get when he saw.

She smiled at me like that was the silliest thing she had ever heard. We were both on our knees on the floor, but her back was to the window so that the front of her was still in shadows, and even though we were close, I couldn’t see her face. I so badly wanted to see her face—I thought if I could, it would help me do what I needed to do. She leaned forward again and traced the same large shape in the red rug with her long fingernail.

“You do it,” I whispered.

She told me this was very important and that it would be a great help to you if I did it. To you, Grampy.

“Someone took something from me a long time ago,” she said in a kind, faraway voice. “It means quite a lot to me. I’ve asked so many people to help, and no one has been able to bring this thing back to me. But I think you will. I think you’re the one.”

Still, it was the fact that this might help you that made me do it. Oh, Grampy, I was so sad to do it, but I held the knife tight in my hands and slid the blade along the carpet. I expected it to be very tough, but the carpet almost melted under the sharpness of the knife, and it only took two trips around the rectangle before I could peel it away. It came back like a thick slab of skin, and a hardwood floor was underneath. I could see that by cutting through the beautiful rug I had also scratched the floor, and I had to catch my breath. I felt so horrible about what I had done.