“I don’t have any right to be.”
“And yet you are still angry.”
“No.” Keishin shook his head, his shoulders heavy. “I’m not. It’s just that I came on this trip to help you and all I seem to be doing is making this more difficult.”
“You’re not.” The wind tousled Hana’s hair. “But if you want to leave—”
Keishin tucked wayward strands of Hana’s hair behind her ear. “I don’t.”
—
Keishin followed Hana’s instructions and drew a door in the sand with his fingertip. He rolled his eyes and groaned at his crooked sketch. “I’m horrible at this. Can we compute the velocity of this desert’s wind instead?”
“All that matters is that you fit through it.” Hana stuck her key into her drawing. “Just do what I do,” she said, twisting her key in the sand.
Keishin did the same.
Their doors shimmered. The wind picked up, stirring the sand.
Hana shielded her face with her coat. “Try not to breathe. Don’t worry. This will be quick.”
A gust of wind blew in their direction, carrying away the sand from their sketches. Sand stung Keishin’s eyes. He held his breath and braced himself. The wind howled in his ears and, just as swiftly as it started, grew quiet.
Hana shook the sand from her hair. “The doors are open.”
Keishin glanced down. Two bottomless holes, in the shape of the doors they had drawn, replaced their sketches. Keishin leaned over them and grimaced. “Let me guess. We’re supposed to jump in, right?”
Hana smiled at him over her shoulder, leapt into the hole, and disappeared into the dark.
Chapter Twenty-four
The Museum of Education
A double helix crystal staircase spiraled from the center of a circular white hall, its top hidden by clouds. The clouds hovering inside the museum might have surprised Keishin had henot been distracted by the tiny folded paper cranes flying around and weaving between the stairs’ floating steps. A crane the color of the sunset landed on his shoulder and playfully pecked at his ear. Keishin gently ushered the origami bird onto his finger. It settled on its new perch and preened its triangular wings. Keishin lifted the crane to examine it. “Is it alive?”
“As alive as a bird made of paper can be,” Hana said. “It seems to like you. It can probably sense that you are from the same place.”
“Same place?”
“This crane is from your world. All the cranes are.”
“What?”Keishin said, startling the crane on his hand. It flew away and sought refuge in the clouds. “But I’ve never seen anything like them.”
“In your world, they look quite different. No. Wait. That’s wrong,” Hana said. “In your world, they don’t look like anything at all.”
—
Wisps of mist swirled around Keishin as they ascended the spiral staircase. Cranes sailed in and out of the clouds. “This museum doesn’t seem to be very popular.”
“Why do you say that?” Hana said.
“I haven’t seen any other visitors since we got here.”
Hana smiled and pulled out her mother’s glasses from her bag. “Look again.”
Keishin put the glasses on and nearly tripped over a step. He pulled the glasses off, glanced around, and put them on again, blinking rapidly. People made their way over both staircases, some stopping to offer their arms as perches to the paper cranes. He took the glasses off and scanned the empty museum. “Where did they go?”
“They’re still here.” Hana took the glasses from him. “Just not at the exact time as we are. When the museum admits us through its doors, it shifts time for each of the visitors so that we’re not all crowding around the same second. This way, we can all have the museum to ourselves.”
