that was closed shall be open once more.”
I can’t look away from her. Her eyes are mesmerizing. “What are you talking about?” I demand. I’m starting to feel a little scared and that makes me angry.
“Kira Mulloy, descendant of Aidan Mulloy. You are blood of the Tinker. The Lost One has come home. You can open the way,” she says. Her voice is different now. More confident.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I snap. “And my name is Kira Nichols.”
“Put your hand to the door, daughter of the Tinker, and open the way.” She is positively beaming down at me, oblivious to my anger.
“What door? It’s just a picture made out of little tiles! It doesn’t open!”
“The hand of the Tinker holds the key,” she says calmly. “Open the door, Kira Mulloy.”
“Fine!” I slap my hand down on the mosaic door. “Look, it’s just a picture, okay?”
But something is happening. The tiles under my hand feel unnaturally warm. I try to pull my hand away, but it’s stuck. The mosaic is changing. The colors of the individual tiles are running together. Then I am looking down at an old wooden door, surrounded by white flowers and green vines. It’s a door. A real door. In the ground!
I’m starting to panic. I scramble backwards, pulling at my hand with all my strength to free it. Instead, the door comes with me, rising upwards. I fall on my butt in surprise and my hand finally separates from the door, which is now standing upright like a proper door. Except that it isn’t set in a wall. It’s just standing by itself in the middle of the courtyard.
I pull myself to my feet and look around. The crowd has moved back, forming a wide circle around me and the door. Except for Aislin, who is standing just behind me. Her eyes are still white.
“Open the door, Kira Mulloy,” she says again.
And not knowing what else to do, I turn around, wrap my fingers around the doorknob, and pull.
I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the forest from The Annals of the Blessed. Yet, there it is. Tall, graceful trees. Ribbons of golden sunlight. Exactly like the painting in the book. I am filled again with a desire to step into that forest. And now I can.
I start to move forward, but a hand on my arm stops me.
“Um…I don’t think you should go in there,” Daphne says.
Everything is a blur after that. People push and talk loudly. Everyone trying to see through the doorway at once. Several people almost make it through, but the teachers form a human shield and yell until all the students back off. Then the principle takes me to her office and demands that I tell her what happened. So I tell her about Aislin’s prophecy and The Annals of the Blessed and my father’s birth name. Then she sends for Aislin, Fin, and Daphne and makes me sit out in the main office while she talks to them. Then she calls my mother.
Mom rushes into the office about fifteen minutes later, looking frantic. I’ve never been in trouble before, so she’d never been called into the principal’s office. She seems relieved to see me alive.
“What’s going on, honey?” she asks, hurrying to my side and immediately feeling my forehead to see if I have a fever. “Are you sick? Hurt?”
“No, I’m fine,” I tell her.
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Dad. Someone must have called him, too, because it says, Are you okay?
I text back, I’m fine, but he was a tinker, not a peddler.
~~ The End ~~