Monday, November 2, 2020

On the Monday five days before she stepped into her own, Wilhelmina had a dentist appointment.

It was a relief to leave the apartment early, because Delia was marching around in a state of high dudgeon. She wanted, quite desperately, to go to Pennsylvania with Wilhelmina and the aunts. The reason she wasn't allowed to—school—was not compelling to her. "It's virtual school!" she shouted. "I can do it from anywhere!"

"You can do it from anywhere with Wi-Fi, Delia," said Cleo, her nose clogged, her eyes swollen. Cleo was leaning against the kitchen counter, pulling boxes of cereal out of the cabinet with the hand she wasn't using to prop herself upright, trying to make Philip's breakfast. "The aunts canceled their Wi-Fi when they closed up the house."

"Eleanor and Madison can tell me what I miss!"

"Delia, we can't ask the aunts to take charge of all your needs."

"I bet Wilhelmina stayed with them for an entire summer when she was ten," shouted Delia.

"She wasn't in school!" said Cleo. "And the aunts were eight years younger then, Delia."

And there were three of them,thought Wilhelmina. Three had been the perfect number.

"It's not fair!" shouted Delia. "Wilhelmina gets to do everything!" Then she stormed away and slammed Wilhelmina's bedroom door.

Cleo stared at the ceiling, her upturned nose pink and chapped. "It is certainly unfair," she said. "I can't argue with that. Where's Philip gotten to? Philip!"

Philip was in the living room, where Wilhelmina's barricade still stood. He knelt in the window chair by himself, having an animated conversation with the statue of Saint Francis.

"Wilhelmina gets to do everything!" she heard him say, in a cheerful but accurate mimicry of Delia's outraged tone. Wilhelmina slipped out the door.

Outside, the world was bright and chilly and the sun touched nearby houses with pink and gold. Wilhelmina turned to glance up at Julie's windows, but the Dunstables' curtains were drawn. She began the tromp down the hill.

Her dentist was in the Lupa Building, three stories above Alfie Fang's. Wilhelmina wore leggings striped in various shades of blue and a deep blue sweatshirt dress, plus a blue-and-purple scarf that looked sharp with her red coat and glasses. Sometimes the colors Wilhelmina wore made her feel more substantial as she moved through the world. She needed that this morning, because the majority of her attention was focused on an abstraction, and an absence: all the things that weren't happening on her phone.

Finally, ding!

Wilhelmina dug her thumb out of her glove and read while walking.

Okay,wrote Julie. Sorry that took so long. I had to do a complicated runaround to get James's number so no one nosy would ask me nosy questions. Then I had to grill him. We video-chatted. I wanted to see his face while he answered my questions

Okay,said Wilhelmina. No prob

Then I had to grill Eloisa about whether he was trustworthy. According to her, the answer is yes. She's known him a long time. Like, he moved here from Waltham junior year, but she knew him before that. I think their dads are friends?

Okay,said Wilhelmina again. I didn't realize I was asking you to do so much work

It's fine. Anyway, James is seeing the weird shit too

Wilhelmina walked to a bus stop bench and sat down hard, trying to sort out her reactions to this. Relief was among them, but her relief was muted. Mostly, Wilhelmina felt like Julie was very far away.

Oh, good,she wrote back mechanically. Thanks

Are you freaking out?said Julie. About whether you're imagining my texts?

No, I'm good

He seemed relieved. Like, to be asked. He's probably also been wondering if it's all in his head

Maybe we're seeing bizarre shit because the world is on fire and our minds don't know how to cope,Wilhelmina found herself saying, a bit randomly.

Or maybe weird shit actually is happening, because the world is on fire,said Julie. You okay there, elephant? Where are you?

On my way to the dentist

Fun. BTW he's definitely into you. He kept grinning whenever I said your name. Want me to ask Eloisa? We talked a long time. I trust her. Plus I think she's James's wingman

Yeah, I don't know,said Wilhelmina. I need a minute

You okay? You seem…distant

I'm fine,said Wilhelmina. What do you mean, you talked for a long time? Like, about me and James? Or maybe about you and Bee, she added to herself, suddenly wondering if that was even possible. If Julie and Bee were becoming, like, a thing, would they talk to other people about it before they talked to her? Maybe that was why Julie kept nudging her to be into James. Because she was into Bee, and that would be all neat and tidy.

No, don't worry,said Julie. Mostly about college. She's looking at some of the schools I'm looking at. She wants to fly too

Julie had been talking about college, about spreading her wings and dropping herself down someplace completely new, for years. It was among the reasons Wilhelmina had given her the elephant necklace with butterfly wings.

I'm sorry your year got delayed, elephant,said Wilhelmina, meaning it.

Thanks. Anyway, yours did too

I'm going to be late for the dentist

You go,said Julie. We'll talk later

Thank you, Julie. I owe you big time

You'd do the same for me, elephant. Bye!

At the Lupa Building, Wilhelmina walked past Alfie Fang's, succumbing to the urge to peer through the windows. The light reflecting off the glass made it impossible for her to isolate anything beyond indistinguishable shapes, which was probably for the best. It was good that James was seeing the same odd things she was seeing, but that didn't make it normal. Nor did it leave her with the first idea of what to say to him.

She stood outside the building's main entrance, calling the dental office to check in. Elongated wolves sat on lintels above the giant doors, watching her while she answered the long list of Covid-protocol questions.

When she got the go-ahead to enter, she passed under the wolves. Inside, the lobby was made of marble and chrome; more wolves perched above the elevators. With a cheerful bing, an elevator opened and Mrs. Mardrosian stepped out.

"Mrs. Mardrosian!" said Wilhelmina.

The older woman was wearing the same black peacoat and flowered scarf she'd worn in the cemetery the day Wilhelmina had changed her tire. A crooked mask slipped down her face, revealing her nose. "Am I supposed to be a martyr?" she said, to the air apparently, because she wasn't looking at Wilhelmina.

"Mrs. Mardrosian?" said Wilhelmina. "How are you? Were you able to get your tire fixed?"

"What?" said Mrs. Mardrosian, turning toward the sound of Wilhelmina's voice, unfocused. "Oh, is that you again, Wilhelmina?" Her mascara was running on one side, a dark tear finding all her face's wrinkles. "Are you in this building too?"

Wilhelmina wasn't sure what to say to that, since the answer was obvious. She was standing right there. "I'm going to the dentist," she said.

"Right," said Mrs. Mardrosian, with a touch of sourness. "I was just there. Yes, I did get my tire replaced, but I still haven't found my keys. Probably turning to rust beside some grave somewhere. Well, have a nice day."

Mrs. Mardrosian wandered away toward the big revolving door, still muttering to herself. Okay, thought Wilhelmina, stepping into the elevator, glad to have it to herself. Whatever.

Upstairs, the dentist's office looked different from the last time she'd been there, mostly in the sense of partitions. A plexiglass wall separated Wilhelmina from the woman sitting at reception. A quick glance down the corridor showed her that plexiglass partitions divided some of the other sections of the office that had used to be open too.

Another difference was that the woman at reception was cradling a small owl in her lap.

Wilhelmina blinked, leaning in to stare. The owl lay on its side, draped in a blanket, staring back at Wilhelmina with big, yellow eyes. It was teeny. As small as a robin!

"Yes, hon," said the woman behind the plexiglass. "I know what you're thinking. But it's perfectly hygienic."

That wasn't what Wilhelmina had been thinking. "That's an owl, right?" she said, still staring. It had a round, pale face, and brown streaks on its tiny head. "I'm seeing an actual owl?"

"Yes," said the woman. "I live near that patch of trees above the stadium, you know it, hon? We get some critters there. I found this little one in my yard, lying on its side, just like you see. It has an injured talon. Anyway, I couldn't just leave it there, right? So I wrapped it in a blanket, and here we are. I've been on the phone with the raptor rescue center. They say it's a northern saw-whet owl."

"I see," said Wilhelmina. "Did they tell you to keep it in your lap like that?"

"No!" the lady said. "They told me to keep it in a box and avoid its feet, because its talons are dangerous. But every time I put it in the box, it starts making this heartbreaking chirping noise, and it doesn't stop until I put it back in my lap! I drove here with it lying in my lap too. I'm worried I'm ruining it for the wild! But I couldn't leave it in my yard, right?"

"You really couldn't," Wilhelmina agreed. "It would've died."

"Exactly!" said the woman. "So here we are. But I should let your hygienist know you've arrived. It's Wilhelmina, right?"

"Yes," said Wilhelmina, who was suddenly remembering the dream she'd had last night. She'd been sitting inside an old-fashioned car in a barn with an owl, who'd been in the driver's seat, staring straight ahead.

"Trust yourself, Wil-helm-ina," said the owl, who spoke in low, deep owl hoots that Wilhelmina understood, because Wilhelmina spoke owl. In fact, Wilhelmina spoke owl so fluently that she knew that the owl, speaking her name, was dividing it up with dashes. "Trust Ray," the owl added. "Your names mean ‘protector'!"

Another patient stepped into the reception area, wearing a puffy sky-blue coat.

"Oops, I'm so sorry!" said the owl lady. "We're supposed to have this system set up so the patients never encounter each other. I don't know what happened." She indicated the distant side of the room. "Wilhelmina, hon, will you go sit down over there while I check James out?"

Of course Wilhelmina could go sit down over there, while of course the woman checked James Fang out. Because who else would have an appointment right now, at the same time as Wilhelmina's, at the dentist/owl rescue center? She dared a glance at James. He looked extremely cheerful to see her.

"Hi, Wilhelmina," he said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm great," said Wilhelmina, who was clutching her temples, trying to cling to that dream as it faded away. At least he was wearing a shirt today, which was not a helpful thought right now, actually.

"I talked to your friend," said James. "You know, Julie?"

"Uh-huh."

"Over there, please, Wilhelmina?" said the owl lady, pointing more forcefully.

"Right," said Wilhelmina, turning, aiming for a chair on the other side of the waiting room.

"Parliament," said James.

"What?" said Wilhelmina, wheeling back.

"Parliament," he said. "That's what a group of owls is called. I looked it up."

"James is the one who told me about the raptor center," said the owl lady. "I don't know what I would've done otherwise."

"I used to work there sometimes," said James, who was definitely grinning at Wilhelmina under his mask. She could tell.

"That'll be two hundred sixty-seven dollars for today, James," said the owl lady.

"Right," said James grimly, fishing a card out of his coat pocket. While he waited for his card to process, while he turned to glance repeatedly at Wilhelmina, while he said his goodbyes and left the office, Wilhelmina couldn't help but notice that James was slightly glowing at the edges, as if he were standing in front of a miniature sun.

When he'd gone and Wilhelmina was allowed to approach the desk again, she saw that the owl lady and the owl lady's owl were both glowing slightly too.

Her dental cleaning was normal, except that she had to gargle with a vile antiseptic rinse beforehand, and also her hygienist, Liz, was dressed like an astronaut. But it was normal in the sense that nothing glowed that shouldn't, and no new owls appeared. Nothing solid vanished into thin air, and none of the signs on the walls changed.

When she returned to reception, the owl lady was on the phone.

"Yes, my name is Ellie," she said. "Ellie Saroyan. That's right. You'll find me on the fourth floor, but please call ahead. I'll have to ask you the Covid screening questions before I can let you in, I'm afraid. All right! Thank you!"

She hung up. "That was the raptor center," she told Wilhelmina. "They think she's a young female."

"Oh?"

"And possibly she's in the middle of her migration. They're going to come and pick her up! Isn't that great?"

"Yes," said Wilhelmina. "Only the most full-service raptor centers do house calls at the dentist."

The owl lady threw her head back and trilled a laugh that was surprisingly musical; she startled a smile onto Wilhelmina's face.

"Oh, you're so funny, hon," she said. "Now that she's going, I'll miss her. I hope she'll be able to return to the life she's supposed to be living."

Wilhelmina studied the owl's tiny face, which was staring at her sideways. The owl's beak was a small, dark, graceful hook, and her eyes were bright and steady. She looked both extremely silly and thoroughly dignified.

"Me too," said Wilhelmina.

On the elevator ride down, Wilhelmina was thinking about the rest of her day, the shape of which would depend on whether the aunts received their ballots. She fished her phone out of her pocket and texted her father. Mail? Ballots?

He texted back immediately. Mail came. No ballots.

Well, then. Wilhelmina was driving to Pennsylvania today.

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. Wilhelmina stepped out under the wolves, expecting the lobby. Instead, the space transformed around her, the marble walls shrinking so fast that she ducked, shrieking, as the marble turned into glass blazing with light. Raising a hand to shield her eyes, she saw a familiar floor of black and white squares and a counter with a tiled mural of a forest behind it. The smells were familiar too: powdered sugar, yeast, honey glaze. Coffee. She was in a small, triangular doughnut shop. This was Alfie Fang's.

With the beginnings of a tired, familiar fury, Wilhelmina straightened and held her ground. No elevators opened into Alfie Fang's normally, but what could she do? This one had. She looked around, searching almost impatiently for whatever written message she was supposed to receive this time, wanting to get this over with. The shop was full of customers, who were alarming, because they were translucent. She could see through them, to the walls and the furniture, which only made her more tired somehow, more angry. See-through people felt like a hallucination cliché. They moved around her smoothly, not looking at her, as if some instinct told them she was there, but they couldn't actually see her. Their voices were cheerful but muted. The most noticeable thing about them was that no one was wearing a mask.

In fact, Wilhelmina caught sight of James in the kitchen doorway, peeking out into the front of the shop, not wearing a mask. James! There was no plexiglass along the counter, so Wilhelmina could see him clearly. He was smiling at someone. He had the most adorable dimple in one cheek when he smiled. Wilhelmina turned to see who he was smiling at and discovered that behind her was the shop door, opening and closing as customers came in. Her elevator was gone. She waved her arms in the air to get James's attention, but he didn't seem to notice.

Beside James, lights began to sparkle on the mural of the forest. Biting back a sigh, Wilhelmina waited for the sparkles to resolve into words.

Help the Doughnuts!said the lights.

"What?" cried Wilhelmina. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The lights blazed so brightly that it hurt; then, all at once, they disappeared. Wilhelmina pulled off her glasses, dabbing her streaming eyes with her scarf, then waited for clarification, but none came.

Okay, fine,she thought, looking around at the spectral people nearby. Is that it? Can I leave now? If so, how did she leave? Her elevator was gone. Was she supposed to walk out through the door?

Wilhelmina moved toward the door, not sure what would happen when she touched it. But when she grabbed at the handle, she found it to be solid enough—so solid, in fact, that she swung around once more, expecting the people to have gone solid too. James was standing at the kitchen entrance again, looking straight at her. He grinned his dimpled grin at her.

But when she raised a hand, James's face registered no recognition—and then she realized she could see right through his body into the kitchen beyond. When his mother came up behind him, Wilhelmina could see the two of them superimposed.

It was creepy, which filled her with a burst of indignation. She didn't like the way this supernatural bullshit was using James and changing him into something creepy, when he was so nice. She turned back, swung the door open, and stepped outside.

On the sidewalk, people stood in a socially distanced line that extended down the block, wearing masks.

"Thank you," one of them said to a startled Wilhelmina as she held the door for him. When she spun back to look through the glass, she saw the plexiglass partition at the counter, and a customer at the register with a big pile of doughnut boxes in his arms. She squinted, trying to see through him. He was opaque.

Okay, then. It was over. Fine. Wilhelmina began to march down the street, taking long steps with her big Hart feet. "Leave me alone!" she shouted at the sky.

"Wilhelmina?" came a voice from behind her.

"Oh, what now?" she shouted, then turned.

It was James, racing after her, masked but wearing no coat. He ran with a doughnut raised over his shoulder in one hand, as one might carry a javelin. In fact, Wilhelmina had a memory suddenly of James throwing a javelin. She was sure she'd seen him do that before in the stadium, running on very nice legs, then, with very nice arms, hurling a giant, vibrating spear, which had soared forever across the sky.

Like a ray,she thought, sighing. She tucked her hands into her pockets and waited for him quietly. Trust Ray.

"Hi," he said as he neared her, stopping a few careful feet away.

"Hi," she said.

"I saw you through the window," he said. "I wanted you to have a replacement doughnut for the one that was stale."

"That's very nice of you," she said, her defenses fizzling.

"Honey cruller, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's one of my favorites too."

"All your doughnuts are delicious," said Wilhelmina, "and of course the portraits are amazing. But I think there's a kind of genius to the simpler ones, like the honey cruller and the youtiao."

She could tell James was smiling again. "My dad talks about them that way too," he said. "He'll be happy when I tell him you said that."

Then he stretched out toward her and Wilhelmina reached toward him. He'd enclosed the doughnut in one of those paper pastry pockets. She grabbed it, stepped back, and held it up to her nose. It was soft and sticky and smelled wonderful. Help the doughnuts. She was going to help this doughnut achieve its destiny.

"Thanks," she said. "If you could see my mouth, you'd know I'm smiling."

"Me too," he said.

"A parliament?" said Wilhelmina. "Really?" She was babbling, to detain him. Realizing this, she felt her ears turn pink.

"Yeah."

"That's cute."

"It is cute."

"I don't suppose you know what a group of snow geese is called?" she said. "Like, is it a gaggle, like with regular geese?"

"I don't know," he said. "But I'll find out."

Wilhelmina returned home to an elevated level of uproar. At the rolltop desk in the living room, Philip sat in Esther's lap having online storytime, which was normal enough, but a lot of noise seemed to be coming from the kitchen.

"I'm making egg salad!" she heard Theo shout, to a background of clattering dishes and the sound of chopping. "Do you like a touch of Dijon mustard in your egg salad? Cleo is picking up a nice bread and we have these lovely cheeses Wilhelmina got yesterday and I'll pack fruit. We have three thermoses! Should I make coffee? One black, one with cream, one with cream and sugar? Or would you rather I sent you with the coffee beans and put some cream in the cooler? And maybe you'd like to take the empty thermoses so you can fill them up in the morning, in case there are lines at the voting! Oh! I'll put the camping chairs in the trunk when Cleo gets home!"

As Wilhelmina entered the kitchen from one direction, Aunt Margaret entered it from the other, wearing her eye patch and rolling a small suitcase.

"I expect we have coffee in the house, dear," she said. "And thermoses. Hello, Wilhelmina."

"I'll pack them anyway, just in case," said Theo, frantically chopping. "Hi, honey. You don't want to be without coffee."

"Dad!" yelled Delia, bursting into the room behind Aunt Margaret. "I need you!"

"I'll be there in two minutes, honey," said Theo. "Please stop bellowing into your great-aunt's ear."

"I need you now!" yelled Delia. "You're the one who says school is so important!"

"I can help you, Delia," said Wilhelmina.

Delia turned a venomous glare upon Wilhelmina. "I don't want your help," she said, then spun around, ran back into Theo and Cleo's bedroom, and slammed the door. Next, behind Wilhelmina, Cleo entered the kitchen, holding a shopping bag and a pink box. She smelled of cold.

"Hi, honey," she said. "What does Delia need? I'll help her."

"She needs a more respectful means of expressing her feelings," said Theo testily. "But I gather she also needs something school-related, rather urgently."

"I'll check," said Cleo, moving around Wilhelmina, placing the box on the table. It was a doughnut box, from Alfie Fang's. "How was the dentist, Wilhelmina?" she said.

"Mom!" said Wilhelmina in confusion. "What are you doing?"

"I'm feeling a little better," said Cleo. "So I filled up the tires and topped off the gas."

"And you went to Alfie Fang's?" said Wilhelmina, studying her mother dubiously. Cleo didn't look better. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose was still puffy and raw. "We must've just missed each other!"

"We wanted you to have doughnuts for your trip," said Cleo. "Any idea what category of problem Delia's having?"

"No clue," said Theo.

"Okay, I'm going in."

This was definitely a different Cleo. As Wilhelmina watched her shrug out of her coat and march off to help Delia, she saw her other mother emerging from the fog. Her bright and alert mother. Well, thought Wilhelmina, with a small stab of resentment. It was about time.

"Wilhelmina, hon?" said Theo, sweeping in beside her. "You have masks? You have your phones? Don't forget a scarf, or something to make a pillow for your lumbar. Should you bring your sunglasses? You'll be driving southwest all afternoon. Do you have both acetaminophen and ibuprofen? Oh!" he said, patting his own head as if struck by a thought. "I want to check you have the spare tire, and a jack and a wrench. And I'll get you a flashlight. Have you downloaded any podcasts?"

"Dad!" said Wilhelmina. "We're going to Pennsylvania! Not the moon!"

"Stop and rest at least every two hours," continued Theo. "You promise, honey? Long drives are tiring. You know not to drive if you've taken metaxalone, right?"

Metaxalone was a muscle relaxant Wilhelmina took sometimes, and of course she knew that. "Dad," she said. The chaos, or Theo's badgering, or something was making her emotional. She felt crowded, and also strange about the journey ahead, as if she wasn't sure it was a good idea. She wished everyone would leave her alone. She wished they could stop preparing, and just go.

She went to her bedroom and packed a bag.

On a day with good traffic, it was a drive of four and a half or five hours to the aunts' home in northeast Pennsylvania, and one Wilhelmina knew well, woven as it was into the earliest patterns of her life. But she'd never been behind the wheel before on that drive, or driven so far anywhere in one day. Anticipating the pain that would start in her neck, spread to her pecs and shoulders, then set fire to her hands, she began alternating acetaminophen and ibuprofen before they started.

The sun blazed relentlessly as they drove west on the Massachusetts Turnpike. When Wilhelmina had ordered new glasses, she hadn't ordered new prescription sunglasses. Now she regretted it, because after a few days of wearing her new glasses, her old prescription sunglasses were distorting her sense of space. Should a person with depth perception problems be directing a metal box along a path clogged with other moving metal boxes, at seventy miles per hour? Wilhelmina put her new glasses back on and suffered, hoping for cloud cover that never came.

In the back seat, Aunt Margaret gazed through the window dreamily. She'd asked to sit in the back so that she could let her mind wander, as she always did on car rides. She'd attached a pink button to her coat. In red and blue letters, it said Joe Biden. Under that in smaller print it said, I Guess. Beside that button was another, bigger button showing a luminous painting of Kamala Harris, and under Kamala, the words I'm Speaking.

Beside Wilhelmina sat Esther, with the doughnut box perched on her lap. She wore a determined and slightly grim expression, and Wilhelmina wondered where that expression came from, because she had a feeling she'd seen it on Esther's face now and then recently. She tried to recall, had that expression always been in Esther's repertoire, or had she changed at some point? Aunt Margaret and Esther had changed, she remembered, when Frankie died. Their movements had slowed noticeably, as if walking and sitting down had become painful, or as if, very suddenly, they were old. For a while, their speech had also changed. They'd seemed to pause before every statement, as if something kept rising into their throats to stop them speaking. Wilhelmina had understood the pause, because her own life had become filled with new, swollen pauses. Every thought was suspended, stuck behind a sort of gluey mass. It was grief, she knew, filling her up like pus around a wound.

"Are you all right, Wilhelmina?" Esther asked gently.

"Yes," said Wilhelmina, shaking herself out of her reverie. "I'm fine."

"You had a very serious look on your face," said Esther.

"Did I?"

"I thought you might be worrying about the election."

Wilhelmina grasped for another, any other, topic. "Are the doughnuts safe?" she asked, wondering, with perfect awareness of the absurdity of it, if she was supposed to be helping them in some way.

"Certainly they are," said Esther. "Want one?"

"No," said Wilhelmina. "I just wanted to make sure they were…comfortable. Would you like to listen to a podcast?" she added hastily.

"Maybe in a bit," said Esther. "Right now I'm content to admire the sunlight on the leaves."

"Isn't it beautiful?" said Aunt Margaret from the back seat. "This might just turn out to be the best day of the year to go home."

"You read my mind," said Esther. "Wilhelmina, I guess you've never been to the house in early November?"

"I expect the yard will be a little overrun, but the trees will be beautiful," said Aunt Margaret.

"The house will be cold as a penguin's schmeckel," said Esther. Wilhelmina didn't know that word, but her best guess was that it meant "penis." Yiddish seemed to have a hundred words for "penis."

"I'm not altogether certain penguins have schmeckels, dear," said Aunt Margaret. "In fact, I rather think they don't."

"What?" said Esther, who seemed quite intrigued by this. "What do they do then, shoot their stuff out of their ear?"

"I'm remembering now," said Aunt Margaret. "I think most birds just have, you know, openings."

"Openings!"

"Yes. They press their openings together. There's a term for it. I can't recall what it is."

"You're pulling my leg."

"I'm not," said Aunt Margaret. "I read an article in National Geographic."

"Well," said Esther, shaking her head. "Mother Nature is a wonder. A polar bear, then?"

"Yes, I'm quite sure a polar bear would have a schmeckel."

"Then that's how cold the house will be," said Esther. "It takes a long time to bring up a big old house like that. By the time it warms up, we'll be leaving again."

"But what a treat," said Aunt Margaret, "to go home unexpectedly for a day. It's like seeing a shooting star, isn't it?"

"I hope it lasts longer than that," said Esther with a teasing smile.

"Our lives are as brief as shooting stars," said Aunt Margaret, "if you step back far enough."

On that philosophical note, the aunts subsided into silence. Wilhelmina's phone buzzed occasionally in her pocket as she drove. She hadn't told Julie or Bee where she was going. She couldn't have articulated why not, and it was starting to occur to her that when they found out, they might think it was strange that she hadn't said goodbye. In fact, they might not like it. None of them had gone on any trips since the start of the pandemic. Bee had canceled the college visits he'd been planning last spring, and Julie's family hadn't done their usual summer drive to North Carolina to visit her father's family. Now here she was crossing state lines, and she hadn't let them know.

Wilhelmina gripped the wheel harder, squinted into the sun, and instructed herself to do a thing she was doing a lot lately: quit thinking about it.

In Connecticut, when they stopped at a service plaza to use the restrooms, Wilhelmina was upset by the number of people wearing their masks on their chins.

"We'll see more of that at home, of course," said Esther, as they pulled back onto the highway.

"We'll see more of a lot of things," said Aunt Margaret cryptically.

Wilhelmina's neck was aching. Her eyes were aching, and the muscles all around her collarbone were aching. Every other driver in Connecticut seemed in top physical condition, perfectly able to speed, swerve, honk, and cross multiple lanes of traffic without signaling.

"If Massachusetts drivers are called Massholes," she said, "what are Connecticut drivers called?"

"Hm," said Aunt Margaret from the back seat. "I feel like we should be able to do something with ‘Connecticut' and ‘contemptible.' ‘Contempticutible'?"

"That's awful," said Esther.

"I see the way they keep Connecticutting you off, Wilhelmina."

"Margeleh," said Esther, her mouth twitching into a smile that, in turn, caused Aunt Margaret to look very pleased with herself. "Por favor, stop before I have to kill myself. Wilhelmina, just hold on a little longer. Quite soon, we'll pass through a door."

"What?" cried Wilhelmina. "I have to drive through a door?"

"She doesn't mean a literal door," said Aunt Margaret. "For heaven's sake, Esther, don't scare the child."

"I apologize," said Esther. "I shouldn't be loose with my metaphors while you're driving in stressful conditions. I only meant a threshold. A place where things change. Do you ever pass through a sort of door, Wilhelmina, and noticed that everything on the other side feels different?"

"I guess."

"It could be a literal door, of course," said Aunt Margaret. "Like the door to our house. I confess a sense of peace comes upon me whenever I enter our house, Esther. Or it could be a revolving door, like to a department store. Or a bus door, or an attic door. But I also feel it when I step into any of Frankie's gardens."

"As do I," said Esther.

"Or when I walk into a lake, then switch from walking to swimming."

"I feel it sometimes when I put on certain clothes," said Esther. "Like I've stepped into a slightly different realm."

"I think a storm can be a door," said Aunt Margaret.

"But," said Wilhelmina, "you're just calling everything a door. I mean, you're talking about feelings and sensations. Like the way a soft sweater makes you feel different, or the way a house smells when you step inside it."

"It does involve feelings, yes," said Esther. "But sometimes the feelings are an indicator that you've crossed the threshold into a different kind of space. Maybe even a sacred space. It bears noticing. Sometimes there are opportunities behind doors."

"Esther is very sensitive to doors and thresholds," said Aunt Margaret approvingly.

"You have your own sensitivities, Margie," said Esther.

"Pay attention to it, dear," said Aunt Margaret, "the next time you reach for a dress and you're not sure why you know it's the one you need to wear that day. Or the next time you step out of an elevator."

Wilhelmina glanced at Aunt Margaret sharply in the rearview mirror. But she was gazing out the window again, wearing her usual placid car expression. Next Wilhelmina's eyes shot to the doughnut box in Esther's lap. It looked normal, just a box—not glowing, or turning into a bird, or sparkling with a badly punctuated message.

"There now," said Esther. "I think we've reached it. Do you feel the difference?"

What Wilhelmina felt was exasperation. She had no patience for Esther's doors; of course it felt different when you walked into a house, or a store, or a lake. Of course the driving would get easier as they passed out of the parts of Connecticut that fed New York City, into the more rural parts that led into New York State. She found herself not wanting the driving to be different, just to spite Esther.

But it was different now, and Wilhelmina couldn't quite figure out why. The traffic around them was the same, the number of lanes the same. The blaring sun, the autumn leaves, the boring gray road with its boring white lines. A car with Connecticut plates swerved across three lanes right in front of her without signaling, the same way all these drivers seemed to think it was okay to do, and Wilhelmina was unconcerned. Her neck still hurt; everything still hurt. But it was like she'd entered a zone of driving ease. Nothing rattled her.

I've just gotten used to it,she told herself. I'm the one who's changed.

Around the time they crossed into New York State, the sun dropped behind the hills. Wilhelmina's relief was extreme.

They stopped again, this time for gas, and Wilhelmina stretched her aching arms against the outside of the car. Esther, who had arthritis, was stiff too; she went on a slow walk around the parking lot. Wilhelmina's shoulders and neck were turned in on themselves, composed of pain. She cleaned her hands with an alcohol wipe and medicated again. Then the aunts decided to break open the doughnuts before getting back on the road.

Nothing weird happened; the doughnuts were just doughnuts. Wilhelmina chose a youtiao, which was a long, airy, Chinese doughnut made with salt, baking soda, and baking powder, rather than sugar and yeast. Wilhelmina liked an unsweet doughnut on occasion. Hers was definitely not stale.

It was dusk as they crossed into Pennsylvania and exited the interstate. The roads narrowed and the traffic lessened. They began to see crossroads, farms, houses with lights in the windows, political signs in support of both candidates. Occasionally they saw dramatic displays of flags and absolutely gigantic banners, stretched across the tree trunks on the roadside.

The giant displays were always in support of the president, and Wilhelmina was unprepared for what they did to her. Why? Why was she unprepared? It was nothing she hadn't seen before. Maybe more of it than she was used to in the Boston area, where voters leaned left. But nothing new. And she'd guarded herself so well.

So why did it hurt so much? Why did every sign feel like a brand-new betrayal—and why was each one a surprise? She knew this already. She knew that they loved their bragging, racist, homophobic bully, that they hated the people she loved. So why did it feel like a new wound, every time?

"Why do the signs have to be so big?" said Wilhelmina.

"The weaker your argument," said Aunt Margaret from the back seat, "the louder you need to yell."

"My head hurts from all the yelling," said Esther.

"Oh, Esther," said Aunt Margaret, sighing. "My head hurts too."

By the time Wilhelmina pulled the car into the aunts' driveway, it was dark enough that the house and the yard, the gardens and trees were no more than inky, looming shapes. It was a comfort to Wilhelmina somehow, almost as if she wasn't really here yet, not quite. The house would reveal itself to her in stages so that she could adjust. She'd announced her intention to drive the aunts home in a moment of instant decision. She hadn't thought—hadn't let herself think—how it would feel to be here.

Wilhelmina's Pennsylvania summers had stopped a couple of years before Frankie had died. In fact, her last summer here had been the summer before the 2016 presidential election, the summer she was fourteen. The summer after that, instead of Wilhelmina going to Pennsylvania, Frankie had come to Boston, to take part in a clinical trial at one of the hospitals. The summer after that, Frankie had died. Wilhelmina had been to the house for short trips since then, but always with the rest of the family. Never just her and the aunts.

While Esther made her way down into the basement to turn on the breakers and the water, Aunt Margaret and Wilhelmina climbed the porch to the front door.

"We'll turn up the heat," Aunt Margaret said, fumbling for her keys, "and see if we have enough wood for a fire. Do you want to sleep downstairs, Wilhelmina? Your little attic room will be the last part of the house to get warm!"

"That's okay," said Wilhelmina quickly, alarmed at the notion of being kept from her room. "I'll sleep there anyway."

"All right, well, you let us know if you change your mind," said Aunt Margaret, pushing the door open. "It feels close to freezing out here."

Wilhelmina stepped into the house, thinking about Esther's thresholds. As Aunt Margaret passed through the foyer and into the kitchen, turning on lights and making small, happy exclamations at seeing this painting, that bookshelf; as she came out again and crossed into the living room, where she expressed her pleasure at the rack full of wood beside the fireplace, Wilhelmina stood still, letting the house illuminate itself in circles of golden light around her. She smelled long-gone woodfires, and a familiar, faint scent like a mix of vinegar and herbs that she thought of as the Pennsylvania house smell. Before her, a staircase stretched up into darkness, the staircase on which she'd sat a hundred times, eavesdropping.

There was nothing to eavesdrop on now, because she was grown-up, and Frankie was dead. Wilhelmina wondered if she'd volunteered for this drive for a reason to do with Esther's doors after all. Not because she'd wanted to cross a threshold into a different space, exactly. More because she'd wanted to step into a different time.

Wilhelmina's room was colder than she'd anticipated, and dimly lit from weak bulbs in the old lamps on the desk and the small bedside bookshelf. The dimness suited her.

When she sat on the bed, she could feel the frigid outside air seeping through the glass of the dormer window. She sneezed, then wondered how much dust the room's darkness was hiding. Her hand reached instinctively for the thing her hand always reached for when she first entered this room and sat on the bed—the three blue stones in the windowsill. During her very first summer with the aunts, Frankie had given her these stones. She'd been five, and excited, happy to be here, not particularly homesick the way some children might be, and she'd loved her attic room. But she'd had a couple of nightmares her first few nights. When she'd woken from them, she'd felt very far from other people.

In the kitchen one morning after one of her nightmares, Frankie had pulled Wilhelmina into her lap. Wilhelmina had snaked her arms around Frankie's warm, soft body, resting her ear on Frankie's chest.

"You can sleep on the second floor like we do, dear," Frankie had said. "We have lots of bedrooms."

"Yes, Wilhelmineleh!" said Esther. "You can even sleep in one of our rooms if you want." But Wilhelmina had wanted her up-high room with the sycamore outside the window. It was all hers, and it felt like a tree house.

So Frankie had given her three blue stones. She'd told Wilhelmina that Aunt Margaret had found them on a secret beach and that one was Esther, one was Aunt Margaret, and one was she, Frankie.

"I can give you two more for your parents, if you like," she said.

"No, you aunts are enough," said Wilhelmina.

The next time she had a nightmare, she woke in the usual panic, then saw the stones in the windowsill, blue and opalescent in the moonlight. When she sat up and touched them, her breathing calmed, because she knew that her aunts were real and that the nightmare was not. She felt the aunts sleeping in their beds on the floor below hers. She went back to sleep.

Wilhelmina cupped the stones in her hands. Today they were small, curved oblongs of ice, so cold that a surprised squeak rose from the back of her throat, but they were also just as she remembered them. Beautiful, and blue wherever the light touched them. They calmed her.

As she grew calm, the reality of where she was filled in around her, infusing her with sadness. On instinct, she called Bee.

"Hey, elephant," he said.

"Hey," said Wilhelmina. "Guess where I am."

"New Zealand?" said Bee.

Wilhelmina snorted. "I'm at the aunts' house."

"What!" he said. "In Pennsylvania?"

"Yes."

"How did that happen?"

"Their ballots didn't arrive," she said. "So I drove them home to vote."

"Oh my god, Wil!" he said. "Pennsylvania is a swing state! You're a hero!"

It hadn't occurred to her to expect this reaction. "No, I'm not."

"Wait, when?" he said. "I saw you yesterday! You drove there today?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"It all—happened really fast," she said, which made her obscurely unhappy, because it felt like a half-truth. She'd gone to sleep last night knowing she might be driving to Pennsylvania today. She'd gone to the dentist this morning. She'd texted with Julie, kind of a lot, and never mentioned it.

"Yeah, heroics often need to happen fast," he said. "It's, like, in the hero handbook. Does Julie know?"

"No," she said. "You can tell her."

"I'm really proud of you. Pennsylvania has like twenty electoral votes! It's like the swingiest swing state!"

"Elephant!" she said. "You're getting too excited. Anyway, Florida has twenty-nine."

"Does your neck hurt?"

"No," she said, because if she told him how much her neck hurt, he would say more about how she was a hero.

"Julie's going to love this," he said. "I'm texting her while we're talking."

"Bee, please stop," she said. "Please stop thinking so highly of me."

"But it's really fucking cool, Wil," he said. "Come on. You have to see it. The GOP in Pennsylvania's been trying so hard to suppress mail-in votes, which is obviously working if the aunts didn't get their ballots. So what are people doing? They're driving across the fucking land to vote! I can't help it. It makes me hopeful."

"Stop!" said Wilhelmina. "Please stop! I can't talk about hope!"

"Okay, sorry," he said, then added in a teeny, tiny, high-pitched voice designed to make her laugh, "But I'm hopeful, elephant."

Hope is ignorant,Wilhelmina didn't say. I came here for myself, just for myself, she didn't say. I miss you, and I'm mad at you, and I despise myself for being mad at you, she didn't say. All the things she wasn't saying were creating such a confusing barrier between her and her best friend, her oldest friend. She'd never felt cut off from him like this before.

"I saw Julie's necklace," she said, because the barrier of untruths was too painful. "A crow had it. It flew away."

"Oh! That sucks," he said. "Hey! Maybe I should get her a replacement. What do you think?"

Wilhelmina hated that idea so much that for a moment, she couldn't speak. The necklaces were from her.

"A crow!" Bee went on. "You know, I kind of like the idea of the crows keeping our necklaces for us. Like, hanging on to them for us. Maybe her necklace is having its own adventures. Kind of appropriate for Julie, don't you think? I mean, you did give her the elephant with wings."

Tears were filling Wilhelmina's eyes. Outside her room, she heard someone on the stairs. "Listen, one of the aunts is coming," she said. "I'll talk to you soon, okay?"

"I love you, hero," he said. "Sweet dreams!"

Wilhelmina dropped her phone into her lap, then noticed she was still holding the stones in her other hand. As she placed them back onto the windowsill, Aunt Margaret appeared in the doorway, a pile of bedding in her arms.

"Good gracious," said Aunt Margaret. "It's like the Arctic up here! We've got a nice, cheery fire downstairs if you'd like to join us, dear. Esther's throwing some dinner together from your father's supplies."

"I'll come down soon," said Wilhelmina, blinking hard to hide her tears.

"Good," said Aunt Margaret, collapsing on the bed beside her, catching her breath. "I'm sure I remember a time not too long ago when I could handle those stairs without huffing and puffing. Now, Wilhelmina, I've brought you one of Frankie's beautiful blankets, because I thought you might like that. But with a nod to reality, I've also brought you one of our good sleeping bags. You could sleep in the yard in the middle of winter in this thing and be warm," she said, placing the floppy sleeping bag and the blanket on the bed between them, then smoothing them with one hand.

"Thank you," said Wilhelmina, whose eyes were on the knitted blanket. It was thick and tightly woven, sky blue, with a pattern of flying black birds.

"There's not much light in this room, is there?" said Aunt Margaret, looking around critically. "I suppose there was never much need for light in the summer."

"No."

"I miss our summers," said Aunt Margaret. "You must always, always consider this your home, my dear."

"Thank you."

"We can't overstate how grateful we are for this," said Aunt Margaret. "I've lived through eighteen presidential elections before this one. Eighteen! Can you believe that? I was just counting them as I came up the stairs. None of them, not one of them, has worried me more than this one, Wilhelmina. Not Richard Nixon, not George W. Bush, not even the last one, when this monster came into power. Living in a swing state and not being able to vote—well. It would've broken our hearts."

"I really just—wanted a drive," said Wilhelmina weakly, pulling at Frankie's blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders, like a hug. Like a shield from all this praise.

"Well," said Aunt Margaret, speaking in a gentler voice. Aunt Margaret was observing her now, one-eyed, with a softer expression on her face. "In that case, thank you for wanting a drive."

With a labored breath, she stood. Briefly, she rested one hand on Wilhelmina's shoulder. "Come eat," she said. Then she left the room.

Alone, Wilhelmina pulled her blanket tighter. It wasn't easy. Her palms were hot and stinging, and her shoulders protested with every movement. Frankie, she thought. Help. I can't do this anymore.

She remembered, with a flash of incredulity, that when she was young, the aunts had talked about how she would come to live with them for an entire year. A year between high school and college. This year; it was supposed to have been this year.

Wilhelmina fell back onto the bed, laughing. How many times had she looked forward happily to this year? The aunts "teaching her all their best lessons," and learning all of hers. What lessons have you taught me this year, Frankie? Wilhelmina asked her. Huh? You died. And what lessons do I have to teach? Monsters can take over the world. They can steal everything for themselves, and laugh when people start dying. They can lie and people will believe them. They can be cruel and people will love them for it. People will help them be cruel, not just for one evil reason, but for an entire, endless range of evil reasons. People have so many justifications for being cruel.

And my power to change any of it is so small,Wilhelmina thought to herself. An entire day's painful drive will get us two votes in Pennsylvania.

Her phone buzzed, then buzzed again, resting on Frankie's blanket, vibrating against her stomach. Wilhelmina knew it was Julie calling. She wanted Julie's voice, her laughter, her company. Her company for real, not through the phone. And she didn't want Julie's praise. While she was thinking about it, the call went to voice mail.

For a few minutes, she lay there, remembering how she used to be able to hear the voices of the aunts at night through her window. She couldn't hear anything now except the sycamore rustling outside.

Through some instinct of Wilhelmina's that she hadn't paid much attention to for a long, long time—maybe since the last time she'd lain here, listening for the aunts?—she sensed that Aunt Margaret and Esther were in the living room, eating bread and cheese and egg salad with hot tea, while huddled around the fire.

With her blanket still around her shoulders, she got up, went downstairs, and joined them.