Beautiful Chaos(122)

They were all part of my family now.

Here we were, holding hands in a hospital room, saying good-bye to someone who was in so many ways already long gone.

Amma nodded to Twyla. “You mind doin’ the honors?”

Within seconds, the room disappeared into shadow instead of light. I felt the wind blowing, even though we were inside.

Or so I thought.

The darkness solidified, until we were standing in an enormous room, facing a vault door. I recognized it immediately—the vault in the back of Exile, the club from the Tunnels. This time, the room was empty. I was alone.

I put both hands on the door, touching the silver wheel that opened it. I pulled as hard as I could, but I couldn’t make the wheel turn.

“You’re gonna have ta put a little more muscle inta it, Ethan.” I turned around, and Aunt Prue was standing behind me, in her crocheted slippers and her housecoat, leaning heavily on her IV pole. It wasn’t even attached to her body.

“Aunt Prue!” I hugged her, feeling the bones behind her papery skin. “Don’t go.”

“That’s enough a your fussin’. You’re as bad as Amma. She’s been here ’most every night this week, tryin’ ta get me ta stay. Keeps putting somethin’ that smells like Harlon James’ old diapers under my pillow.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve had my fill a this place. They don’t even have my stories on the TV here.”

“Can’t you stay? There are so many parts of the Tunnels left to map. And I don’t know what Aunt Mercy and Aunt Grace are going to do without you.”

“That’s why I wanted ta talk ta you. It’s important, so you pay attention, ya hear?”

“I’m listening.” I knew there was something she needed to tell me, something none of the others could know.

Aunt Prue leaned in on her IV and whispered. “You gotta stop ’em.”

“Stop who?” The hair on the back of my neck was standing up.

Another whisper. “I know exactly what they’re fixin’ ta do, which is invite half a the town ta my party.”

Her “party.” She’d mentioned it before. “You mean your funeral?”

She nodded. “Been plannin’ it since I was fifty-two, and I want it ta go just the way I want. Good china and linens, the good punch bowl, and Sissy Honeycutt singin’ ‘Amazin’ Grace.’ I left a list a the D-tails underneath a my dresser, if it made it over ta Wate’s Landin’.”

I couldn’t believe this was the reason she’d brought me here. But then again, it was Aunt Prue. “Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s all about the guest list, Ethan.”

“I get it. You want to make sure all the right people are there.”

She looked at me like I was an idiot. “No. I want ta make sure the wrong ones aren’t. I want ta make sure certain people stay out. This isn’t a pig pick at the firehouse.”

She was serious, although I saw a sparkle in her eye that made it seem like she was about to break out into one of her infamously unharmonic fake-opera versions of “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”

“I want you ta slam the door before Eunice Honeycutt sets foot in the buildin’. I don’t care if Sissy’s singin’, or that woman brings the Lord Almighty on her arm. She’s not havin’ any a my punch.”

I grabbed her in a hug so big that I lifted her tiny crocheted feet right off the ground. “I’m going to miss you, Aunt Prue.”

“’Course ya are. But it’s my time, and I got things ta do and husbands ta see. Not ta mention a few Harlon Jameses. Now, would you mind gettin’ the door for an old woman? I’m not feelin’ like myself today.”

“That door?” I touched the metal vault in front of us.

“The very one.” She let go of the IV stand and nodded at me.

“Where does it go?”

She shrugged. “Can’t tell you. Just know it’s where I’m meant to go.”

“What if I’m not supposed to open it or something?”

“Ethan, are you tellin’ me you’re afraid ta open a silly little door? Turn the durned wheel already.”

I put my hands on the wheel and yanked on it as hard as I could. It didn’t move.

“You gonna make an old woman do the heavy liftin’?” Aunt Prue pushed me aside with one feeble hand and reached out to touch the door.

It sprang open beneath her hand, blasting light and wind and spraying water into the room. I could see a glimpse of blue water beyond. I offered her my arm, and she took it. As I helped her over the threshold, we stood there for a second on opposite sides of the door.

She looked over her shoulder, into the blue behind her. “Looks like this here’s my path. You want ta walk me a ways, like you promised you would?”

I froze. “I promised I’d walk you out there?”

She nodded. “Sure did. You’re the one who told me ’bout the Last Door. How else would I know ’bout it?”

“I don’t know anything about a Last Door, Aunt Prue. I’ve never been past this door.”

“Sure ya have. You’re standin’ past it this very minute.”

I looked out, and there I was—the other me. Hazy and gray, flickering like a shadow.