“You have got to be kidding me,” Loray
peered through the tiny key hole. A vast, colorless wasteland yawned on the
other side. She stepped back from the door and surveyed it. Gray paint peeled
like a stale sunburn while splinters threatened to stab anyone who came near. The
door had just arrived from the King’s palace, and even though it was not large,
it seemed to fill the one room cabin.
As long as she could remember, Loray had been looking forward to this day. Living on a remote island kingdom of orphans, everyone counted the days until their twenty-first birthday. Then, without fail, each person would receive a door shipped from far across the sea where the King lived. Each door was always different: sometimes speckled or painted bright colors, sometimes round with a handle in the middle, or sometimes engraved with battle scenes. People said that the King’s son himself handcrafted each door, but no one could be sure because nobody had seen the Prince or Door Maker.
Still, the doors kept arriving right on time, always specially marked. No one knew exactly what lay on the other side. Each time a door arrived for someone, the person stepped through it and never came back—unless to bring back a baby for the island to nurture. But from these brief encounters, the young people on the isle of Limda had gathered that whatever lay beyond the door was good. And because each person who came back for a brief time always seemed wiser than they were before they left, Loray and most of her peers had concluded that each door led to a university in the King’s City.
Loray ran her fingers through her dark choppy hair and traced the letters on the embossed card that had come with the door. Maybe they would rearrange themselves into a different name. But no—she might not be very educated, but she could read her name: Loray Isildree. The letters stood their ground.
She went outside to chop wood.
A few people passed by on the road. “Happy birthday, Loray!”
“Yes, happy birthday!” Their unspoken questions bored into the back of head, but she ignored them. Her muscles burned and her hands ached from clenching the axe, but she swung anyway. She focused her breathing on the steady clank of metal pounding metal as she drove the wedge deeper into the wood. Her face grew wet and she tasted salt.
She slouched inside with an armful of wood and delivered a baby fire in the hearth. It retched and glowed red in the deepening shadows of the little cabin. Loray shuffled to the cupboard, grunting as she pulled out a fresh plate of beef and taters. If only the Door Maker would provide for her like this magic cupboard did. She glanced at a letter she had received from her older brother across the sea. Clive had received his green door five years earlier, and he now lived in the middle of a cornfield where he listened to people’s problems and enjoyed the company of his “true love.” Loray shook her head. Clive had encouraged her to step through her door, but she knew exactly what lay beyond it: desert. No City, no university, and no way to expand her hungry brain.
A knock interrupted the retching fire.
“Come in,” Loray said. Safety did not concern her in Limdra.
The door opened, allowing a slight breeze to breathe into the room. A young man came with it. The fire crackled brighter.
“Oh, it’s you,” Loray’s eyebrows rose and she followed, but he motioned her to sit.
“I wanted to make sure that your door was delivered to you safely,” Errol nodded to the gray thing in the corner. As the island’s shipping manager, he carried out the King’s business.
“Yeah, it did.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Why didn’t you?”
Errol smiled and settled into a rickety chair next to her at the table. He was the only one on the island who had not stepped through his door. Actually, no one had seen whether Errol had even received a door. His twenty-first birthday might have been last year or fifty years ago. “That is my business,” he replied.
“This is mine.”
Errol remained silent for a moment. He may have been the leader of island, but he never used his authority to push anybody. He stretched his long legs out and crossed his feet, folding his arms as his deep brown eyes gazed into the fire, turned toward the door behind him, and swiveled back to her.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“I see a bundle of dusty sticks clamped together pretending to be a door,” she replied, “a door that could really use a new coat of paint. I can’t stand gray.” She wrinkled her nose.
“And what did you see through the keyhole?”
She stared at him. “Desert.”
A smile burst on Errol’s face. “Aha! I see now.”
“See what?”
“Your problem.”
“Yeah, my problem is that the Door Maker or Prince or King or whoever he is doesn’t care a thing about me. Can’t say I blame him,” she bent her head and tore into the beef, the salty juice squirting between her teeth.
“Uhuh. Loray, do you have a mirror?”
She shrugged and nodded toward her bed. Errol sprang forward and kneeled by her bed until he felt the hand mirror underneath it. A lock of dark hair fell into his eyes.
“Aha! Yes, here we are,” Errol beamed. Then, more seriously, he pulled up the chair until it was opposite Loray and sat in it. “Tell me, Loray, what do you see?” He held up the mirror.
“I see an orphaned girl with a red nose and stained teeth, doomed to remain brainless because she’s not going to study in any university anywhere.”
“How about her eyes? Does she have anything over them?”
“Yeah, dinky eyelashes.” She meant to make him chuckle, but he did not.
He considered her for a minute. Then, suddenly, he pulled a knife out of his pocket, slit his palm, and wiped a drop of wine-colored liquid on her forehead. “Loray, give me your eyes.”
“What? Why? What did you do that for?” Loray pawed her smarting forehead, but the blood was gone.
“I want you to give me your eyes.”
“What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy?”
“Give me your eyes.”
“Why? What will happen if I do?”
His eyes softened. “I can’t tell you. You will have to trust me. Just give me your eyes.”
“What will you do with them?”
“You must trust me. Give me your eyes.”
Her gray eyes peered into his brown ones. They radiated unnamable warmth. The gray door mocked her from the corner. She bowed her head and nodded.
Errol’s hand shot forward and snatched at her tingling forehead. Something ripped and popped while a fire screamed in her eye sockets. Everything turned black and then red. The fire ravaged its way into her lungs where she let it out through her vocal chords. The peeling door danced with a green door, and the two spun in a circle faster and faster until blackness swallowed them. Somewhere metal clanked on metal, and a man’s voice rasped as he drew breath. Then nothing.
Something bound her eyes closed. Loray stirred. A cool pillow caressed her cheek while a wool blanket scratched her arm. Her fingers groped toward her face and found a bandage.
“Shhh, careful,” a voice said. Errol’s voice.
“Errol, what happened?”
“You had surgery, and you did wonderfully, I might add.”
“Are my eyes—”
“Gone.”
“Oh.”
“Cheer up,” his voice carried his smile. “I gave you new eyes. But you need to keep the bandages on for now. But no worries. I’ll be right here. I am very good at delivery, so I can be sure that the food in your cupboard gets delivered to your mouth.”
“Errol, no, you have better things to do.”
“Can’t think of one.”
“You’ll fall behind in your deliveries.”
A pause. “I’m always right on time.”
“Why are you doing this, Errol?”
“I promised to deliver you.”
Weeks passed, and Loray sat in darkness. But even the darkness shone brightly. Every day the voice of Errol, the ageless delivery man, spoke to her, read to her, laughed with her. Soon she learned to recognize his voice even as he came whistling and mumbling down the street to check on her. Other friends would stop by, but their voices washed over her in confusing waves. His alone spoke clearly.
“Today is the day, little lady!” Errol said one day, breezing through the door with a whiff of fresh rain and postage stamps.
“Will it hurt?” she asked. She swung her feet over the edge of her bed.
“I suppose it will a little. But the worst is over.”
“Okay. Do it, then.”
Scissors whispered through the bandages, and gentle fingers removed them. Light flooded everything. Loray blinked at a swimming face. Errol smiled at her. He was much more handsome than she remembered. Sunlight pierced the rain clouds into her cabin window, illuminating something that was brilliant blue.
“Where did that come from?” she gasped. She scanned the room for her peeling gray door, but only a double-winged blue door leaned against the wall.
“Oh that,” Errol laughed. “I delivered it a few weeks ago, but you didn’t seem to like it. Shall I take it back?”
“No,” she said too quickly. She laughed too. “Is it really the same door?”
“Handcrafted by the Prince and great Door Maker himself. I’d swear to it.”
Loray closed her eyes and fingered her eyelids. “Where did these come from?”
“They’re ours—mine,” he said.
“They’re—good.” A tear streaked her cheek.
“I know,” he nodded, his own eyes glistening. “Well, dear lady, there’s no time like the present! Are you going to go through that door or aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
He threw his head back and really laughed then. Clear notes echoed from the rafters. “Don’t worry,” he squeezed her hand.
She rose and staggered over to the door. The blue cheered her. Just before she reached for the latch, Errol grabbed her hand.
“Wait. There.”
Blood dripped from her fingertip as he guided it toward the door. “Mine?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Ours—his—mine. It’s hard to explain.”
“You could have put the blood on the door yourself.”
“I know. But you needed to experience it and apply it for yourself.” He traced her finger in a cross over the keyhole. She realized the name of the warmth in his eyes: Love. It dripped warm and fresh from her fingertips.
Light streamed from widening cracks as the door swung away. Loray suddenly stood on the other side. A vista of mountains ripped an azure sky while an array of green-dotted valleys beckoned below her on the path. Purple grazed the far horizon, and in that haze stood a white city. She gasped and looked over her shoulder, but Errol was gone. An empty doorframe stood on top of a rocky mountain.
“You made it!”
She knew that voice. A man strode up the mountain to meet her. She knew those brown eyes that smiled into hers, though his stride did not breeze; it embodied authority.
“Welcome to the King’s Country! Did you like the door I sent you?” He had reached her. His hands were scarred and weathered, and he smelled like fresh wood and paint thinner.
She nodded.
“I have the papers for you to sign, if you want to.”
“Papers?”
“Adoption papers. Everyone on your island has been adopted by my father of course, but he won’t recognize it until you’ve all agreed to sign for it yourselves. Do you want to?”
“Of course! But—uh, why would the King want to adopt me?”
“You haven’t looked in a mirror since you got our eyes, have you?” Before she could answer, the Door Maker pulled out a mirror and handed it to her. A captivating young lady with long dark hair and teal eyes stared back at her. The eyes sparkled with joy. Loray glanced over her shoulder. No one was there, so she stared at the mirror again, her pulse quickening.
“This is how we have always seen you,” the Door Maker said. Errol’s same warmth radiated from his eyes.
“Oh. I see now.”
“Do you really? Good.” The Prince’s voice resounded with elation that hung in the air. After a long minute, he added, “So are you going to sign these papers? We have a City to travel to and some veils to rip along the way. I want more people to see what we see.”
As long as she could remember, Loray had been looking forward to this day. Living on a remote island kingdom of orphans, everyone counted the days until their twenty-first birthday. Then, without fail, each person would receive a door shipped from far across the sea where the King lived. Each door was always different: sometimes speckled or painted bright colors, sometimes round with a handle in the middle, or sometimes engraved with battle scenes. People said that the King’s son himself handcrafted each door, but no one could be sure because nobody had seen the Prince or Door Maker.
Still, the doors kept arriving right on time, always specially marked. No one knew exactly what lay on the other side. Each time a door arrived for someone, the person stepped through it and never came back—unless to bring back a baby for the island to nurture. But from these brief encounters, the young people on the isle of Limda had gathered that whatever lay beyond the door was good. And because each person who came back for a brief time always seemed wiser than they were before they left, Loray and most of her peers had concluded that each door led to a university in the King’s City.
Loray ran her fingers through her dark choppy hair and traced the letters on the embossed card that had come with the door. Maybe they would rearrange themselves into a different name. But no—she might not be very educated, but she could read her name: Loray Isildree. The letters stood their ground.
She went outside to chop wood.
A few people passed by on the road. “Happy birthday, Loray!”
“Yes, happy birthday!” Their unspoken questions bored into the back of head, but she ignored them. Her muscles burned and her hands ached from clenching the axe, but she swung anyway. She focused her breathing on the steady clank of metal pounding metal as she drove the wedge deeper into the wood. Her face grew wet and she tasted salt.
She slouched inside with an armful of wood and delivered a baby fire in the hearth. It retched and glowed red in the deepening shadows of the little cabin. Loray shuffled to the cupboard, grunting as she pulled out a fresh plate of beef and taters. If only the Door Maker would provide for her like this magic cupboard did. She glanced at a letter she had received from her older brother across the sea. Clive had received his green door five years earlier, and he now lived in the middle of a cornfield where he listened to people’s problems and enjoyed the company of his “true love.” Loray shook her head. Clive had encouraged her to step through her door, but she knew exactly what lay beyond it: desert. No City, no university, and no way to expand her hungry brain.
A knock interrupted the retching fire.
“Come in,” Loray said. Safety did not concern her in Limdra.
The door opened, allowing a slight breeze to breathe into the room. A young man came with it. The fire crackled brighter.
“Oh, it’s you,” Loray’s eyebrows rose and she followed, but he motioned her to sit.
“I wanted to make sure that your door was delivered to you safely,” Errol nodded to the gray thing in the corner. As the island’s shipping manager, he carried out the King’s business.
“Yeah, it did.”
“Aren’t you going to open it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Why didn’t you?”
Errol smiled and settled into a rickety chair next to her at the table. He was the only one on the island who had not stepped through his door. Actually, no one had seen whether Errol had even received a door. His twenty-first birthday might have been last year or fifty years ago. “That is my business,” he replied.
“This is mine.”
Errol remained silent for a moment. He may have been the leader of island, but he never used his authority to push anybody. He stretched his long legs out and crossed his feet, folding his arms as his deep brown eyes gazed into the fire, turned toward the door behind him, and swiveled back to her.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“I see a bundle of dusty sticks clamped together pretending to be a door,” she replied, “a door that could really use a new coat of paint. I can’t stand gray.” She wrinkled her nose.
“And what did you see through the keyhole?”
She stared at him. “Desert.”
A smile burst on Errol’s face. “Aha! I see now.”
“See what?”
“Your problem.”
“Yeah, my problem is that the Door Maker or Prince or King or whoever he is doesn’t care a thing about me. Can’t say I blame him,” she bent her head and tore into the beef, the salty juice squirting between her teeth.
“Uhuh. Loray, do you have a mirror?”
She shrugged and nodded toward her bed. Errol sprang forward and kneeled by her bed until he felt the hand mirror underneath it. A lock of dark hair fell into his eyes.
“Aha! Yes, here we are,” Errol beamed. Then, more seriously, he pulled up the chair until it was opposite Loray and sat in it. “Tell me, Loray, what do you see?” He held up the mirror.
“I see an orphaned girl with a red nose and stained teeth, doomed to remain brainless because she’s not going to study in any university anywhere.”
“How about her eyes? Does she have anything over them?”
“Yeah, dinky eyelashes.” She meant to make him chuckle, but he did not.
He considered her for a minute. Then, suddenly, he pulled a knife out of his pocket, slit his palm, and wiped a drop of wine-colored liquid on her forehead. “Loray, give me your eyes.”
“What? Why? What did you do that for?” Loray pawed her smarting forehead, but the blood was gone.
“I want you to give me your eyes.”
“What are you talking about? Have you gone crazy?”
“Give me your eyes.”
“Why? What will happen if I do?”
His eyes softened. “I can’t tell you. You will have to trust me. Just give me your eyes.”
“What will you do with them?”
“You must trust me. Give me your eyes.”
Her gray eyes peered into his brown ones. They radiated unnamable warmth. The gray door mocked her from the corner. She bowed her head and nodded.
Errol’s hand shot forward and snatched at her tingling forehead. Something ripped and popped while a fire screamed in her eye sockets. Everything turned black and then red. The fire ravaged its way into her lungs where she let it out through her vocal chords. The peeling door danced with a green door, and the two spun in a circle faster and faster until blackness swallowed them. Somewhere metal clanked on metal, and a man’s voice rasped as he drew breath. Then nothing.
Something bound her eyes closed. Loray stirred. A cool pillow caressed her cheek while a wool blanket scratched her arm. Her fingers groped toward her face and found a bandage.
“Shhh, careful,” a voice said. Errol’s voice.
“Errol, what happened?”
“You had surgery, and you did wonderfully, I might add.”
“Are my eyes—”
“Gone.”
“Oh.”
“Cheer up,” his voice carried his smile. “I gave you new eyes. But you need to keep the bandages on for now. But no worries. I’ll be right here. I am very good at delivery, so I can be sure that the food in your cupboard gets delivered to your mouth.”
“Errol, no, you have better things to do.”
“Can’t think of one.”
“You’ll fall behind in your deliveries.”
A pause. “I’m always right on time.”
“Why are you doing this, Errol?”
“I promised to deliver you.”
Weeks passed, and Loray sat in darkness. But even the darkness shone brightly. Every day the voice of Errol, the ageless delivery man, spoke to her, read to her, laughed with her. Soon she learned to recognize his voice even as he came whistling and mumbling down the street to check on her. Other friends would stop by, but their voices washed over her in confusing waves. His alone spoke clearly.
“Today is the day, little lady!” Errol said one day, breezing through the door with a whiff of fresh rain and postage stamps.
“Will it hurt?” she asked. She swung her feet over the edge of her bed.
“I suppose it will a little. But the worst is over.”
“Okay. Do it, then.”
Scissors whispered through the bandages, and gentle fingers removed them. Light flooded everything. Loray blinked at a swimming face. Errol smiled at her. He was much more handsome than she remembered. Sunlight pierced the rain clouds into her cabin window, illuminating something that was brilliant blue.
“Where did that come from?” she gasped. She scanned the room for her peeling gray door, but only a double-winged blue door leaned against the wall.
“Oh that,” Errol laughed. “I delivered it a few weeks ago, but you didn’t seem to like it. Shall I take it back?”
“No,” she said too quickly. She laughed too. “Is it really the same door?”
“Handcrafted by the Prince and great Door Maker himself. I’d swear to it.”
Loray closed her eyes and fingered her eyelids. “Where did these come from?”
“They’re ours—mine,” he said.
“They’re—good.” A tear streaked her cheek.
“I know,” he nodded, his own eyes glistening. “Well, dear lady, there’s no time like the present! Are you going to go through that door or aren’t you?”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
He threw his head back and really laughed then. Clear notes echoed from the rafters. “Don’t worry,” he squeezed her hand.
She rose and staggered over to the door. The blue cheered her. Just before she reached for the latch, Errol grabbed her hand.
“Wait. There.”
Blood dripped from her fingertip as he guided it toward the door. “Mine?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Ours—his—mine. It’s hard to explain.”
“You could have put the blood on the door yourself.”
“I know. But you needed to experience it and apply it for yourself.” He traced her finger in a cross over the keyhole. She realized the name of the warmth in his eyes: Love. It dripped warm and fresh from her fingertips.
Light streamed from widening cracks as the door swung away. Loray suddenly stood on the other side. A vista of mountains ripped an azure sky while an array of green-dotted valleys beckoned below her on the path. Purple grazed the far horizon, and in that haze stood a white city. She gasped and looked over her shoulder, but Errol was gone. An empty doorframe stood on top of a rocky mountain.
“You made it!”
She knew that voice. A man strode up the mountain to meet her. She knew those brown eyes that smiled into hers, though his stride did not breeze; it embodied authority.
“Welcome to the King’s Country! Did you like the door I sent you?” He had reached her. His hands were scarred and weathered, and he smelled like fresh wood and paint thinner.
She nodded.
“I have the papers for you to sign, if you want to.”
“Papers?”
“Adoption papers. Everyone on your island has been adopted by my father of course, but he won’t recognize it until you’ve all agreed to sign for it yourselves. Do you want to?”
“Of course! But—uh, why would the King want to adopt me?”
“You haven’t looked in a mirror since you got our eyes, have you?” Before she could answer, the Door Maker pulled out a mirror and handed it to her. A captivating young lady with long dark hair and teal eyes stared back at her. The eyes sparkled with joy. Loray glanced over her shoulder. No one was there, so she stared at the mirror again, her pulse quickening.
“This is how we have always seen you,” the Door Maker said. Errol’s same warmth radiated from his eyes.
“Oh. I see now.”
“Do you really? Good.” The Prince’s voice resounded with elation that hung in the air. After a long minute, he added, “So are you going to sign these papers? We have a City to travel to and some veils to rip along the way. I want more people to see what we see.”
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