As her eyes adjusted to the dim light that filtered through the falling water, Suri noticed the unmistakable outline of a door. Almost anyone else would have seen nothing but an oddly straight irregularity in the stone, a queerly symmetrical bevel, but Suri knew it was an opening. She understood the truth of the matter in the same way she perceived most things of this sort—something told her.
She didn’t hear an actual voice. No one whispered in her ear, Psst! Door here! Suri understood it as a notion that had popped into her head, but the feeling wasn’t her own. This happened to her fairly often, and the understanding that the ideas came from somewhere else was obvious in cases where the thoughts opposed her natural inclinations. Once, when she saw a beehive for the first time, she thought it was a fruit and planned to hit it with a stick to knock it down. As she picked up a stout switch, a thought had popped into her mind suggesting that hitting it wasn’t a good idea. So odd was this cautionary thought—as no one who knew her would ever accuse Suri of being prudent—that it caused her to laugh. After striking the hive several times, Suri stopped laughing.
Tura explained such intuitions easily enough. “How is it you think the squirrels know to gather nuts for winter? How do spiders know the pattern for a web? How do birds learn how to build nests? It’s the same thing. You’re hearing Elan, the world, speaking to you.”
Being stubborn and not remotely careful, Suri originally struggled to heed the alerts, but after enough painful lessons, she learned to pay better attention. Once she’d started to take note, Suri became aware of more than mere warnings. She began hearing the same announcements that other things in the forest did—like the one that went out every autumn to tell the birds who didn’t like snow to take flight. She knew when bad weather was coming even while the sky was still blue. She could tell when the murderous bear, Grin the Brown, was in the area. In this same way, she knew that the vaguely rectangular outline in the stone wall at the back of the crevice was a door. The only question remaining, then, was how to open it. The door to their little cottage was opened merely by pushing on it, while a string tied to a bunch of stones closed the door with their weight.
Suri pushed on the stone.
Nothing happened.
She turned to the wolf with a grin. “We have ourselves a challenge, Minna.”
Puzzles were always fun and took a plethora of forms. The most obvious were the various incarnations of the string game. Tura had introduced her to the amusement that could be obtained by taking a loop of string and weaving patterns between her fingers. The old mystic only showed Suri one design, then left her apprentice to build on it. “Listen to Elan. If a spider can hear how to weave, so can you.”
Another great puzzle, equally challenging and infinitely more exciting, was how to climb a tree. Each one was a complex maze of branches. Finding the right route to the top was difficult and risky—often dangerous, sometimes life threatening. Climbing trees, more than any other activity, honed Suri’s skill at hearing and listening to the voice of Elan. In the high branches, tests were pass–fail, and often, failure was not an option.
Suri loved puzzles, and this stone door showed every indication of being a marvelous one. Not only was it a unique challenge, but opening it came with the added reward of discovery.
What is behind such an incredible door?
She went on to try every manner of shoving, sliding, hammering, and kicking. None of it worked. She was glad because such a solution would be too easy. Standing back, Suri rhythmically tapped the tips of her fingers together pondering the situation.
The door, or an outline of such, wasn’t terribly big; it was shorter and stouter than the one they had at home. This made her suspect the entrance was indeed to Nog, as crimbals were known to be little creatures. In a wood as big as the Crescent Forest, the magical folk were reputed to have hundreds, or even thousands, of doors leading into their realm. Tura had told her countless tales of people accidentally falling through such portals as mushroom rings, hollow trees, and still ponds. Suri couldn’t recall a single story with a stone door, much less one that couldn’t be opened, but that did nothing to dissuade her. After all, keeping outsiders from entering the crimbals’ world was usually the point of the stories. As a result, the legends were no help.
Suri began to pace up and down the length of the narrow crevice, her wet feet slapping the stone. It didn’t help her think, but she did feel a bit warmer. Minna opted for sitting down, but she had a thick fur coat.
“What do you think?” Suri finally asked when pacing in the small space made her dizzy.
Minna began once more to lick the fur on her foreleg—the other one this time.
“Oh, don’t start that again. We have a puzzle to solve! Honestly, Minna, your head just isn’t in the game today.” Suri stopped, folded her arms, and stared at the door. “What do we know? The door is short and wide. It’s made of stone, and it refuses to open through any normal means. Hmm. That would suggest the maker did not want people entering. It’s also not easy to see, which supports the same idea. So, all we have to do is consider: What would a person do to prevent us from getting in?”
Suri tilted her head left and then right. An epiphany dawned and she stood on her head. Viewing the door from upside down, she hoped the new perspective would reveal a secret. It didn’t. She sat on the floor after that, her back against the wall. With her legs stretched out, her toes could almost touch the door. After some time, she sighed in defeat. Turning upside down had given her a headache, and it was difficult to think, except . . .
“The door is short.” She said this as much to herself as to Minna, which was just as well given that the wolf was now completely occupied by licking the water off her fur.
Standing on her head had gotten Suri thinking about which way was up and height in general.
Some birds build nests elevated in trees to keep their eggs safe. Squirrels climb to higher branches to escape bigger animals.
Suri looked up. She did so not merely because of her series of observations, but on account of the thought popping into her head. Initially, she’d theorized that turning upside down might have caused the notion to break free and drop into her mind, but that didn’t seem right in this case. When Elan whispered, she rarely had a familiar voice because, being everything, she must have so many. For this reason, hearing her was easy but listening difficult. Suri would often experience a flash of insight, then ignore the idea, believing it to be one of her many pointless thoughts. The notion of looking up, however, didn’t feel likeSuri’s idea at all. That was the clue. Looking up was a suggestion given to her.
Suri stood and studied the top of the outline. The bevel made a little shelf, one just above her eyesight. To someone shorter—a crimbal—it might seem very high indeed. And high up, according to mother birds, meant safe.
Suri reached as far as she could and let her fingers feel along the top edge, exploring what her eyes couldn’t see.
The stone was smooth, polished to a glossy finish, and perfect without any variance . . . except one. Oddly, it wasn’t on the shelf, and her fingertips didn’t find it, but her palm had brushed by an inconsequential bulge on the surface of the door. Examining it more closely, Suri discovered a tiny diamond-shaped protrusion. Placing her palm on it, she pressed.
Nothing should have happened; Suri was pressing on solid stone. And yet, the diamond gave way. The instant it did, the stone door began to move.