“Well,” she said, “you sound like the kind of person who can do what needs to be done.”

She made a quiet sound kind of like a laugh and said she had “enlisted” many people to try to help her through the years, but none of them had been successful. She was sure I could do it though, and again she told me that if I helped her and we were successful, she might even be able to help you.

You, Grampy.

Anyway, when she said that, I knew I had to at least hear her out. I told her I couldn’t commit to anything. I think you call that playing hardball, right, Grampy? I played hardball. I told her to tell me what was going on and after that I’d decide. But I really only agreed to listen because I needed to know how I could help you.

She said the island of Nysa is a very old island, older than almost any other place, and that there is a door that goes to some other place, an ancient door. A door that isn’t always in the same place. Sometimes it’s here and sometimes it’s there. Someone who went through the door a long time ago took something of hers along with them. She doesn’t think it was intentional—she was standing there helping them along, and they got scared and reached out and grabbed this thing of hers, and now it’s gone. She can’t follow—she’s not allowed to go in there—so she’s been trying to find someone who can go through that door, find what she lost, and bring it back.

I know it’s hard to believe, Grampy. But this is what she told me. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’m just telling you.

I asked her again what was taken from her, and this look of incredible sadness passed over her face.

“You’ll know when you see it,” she said.

“How?”

“You’ll know.”

I asked her, “What about the door, the one we tore up the carpet to find?” I told her I had gotten in a lot of trouble for that and she shouldn’t go around destroying things that weren’t hers. I started to cry. She bent down closer to me, and for the first time I could really see into her eyes, and they were kind. They were also sparking with life. I couldn’t decide whether to look away or look deeper in.

She said she had thought the door would be here in the house, for a few different reasons—something to do with Shirley. But she was wrong, and she said she was sorry. I believed her, Grampy. She was very sorry about it. And she said the door was almost certainly in the cabin where I had marked the X. She said I didn’t have to make up my mind right now about whether or not I would help. I could wait until I saw the door, and after that I would have to decide if I was willing to go through it or not. And that if I wanted to save you, I would have to go through it.