Chapter 90

Merrit would not let me near the coin again, or anything like it, until I had learned to shut a door.

“You opened a finger’s width,” he said, the morning after, “and something at the bottom of that gold looked up. Next time it will not wait for a finger’s width.” He set a little glass on the table between us, brass and old green glass, with grey sand in the lower bulb. “Reading is a door. Doors open both ways.”

“I can shut the door,” I said. My voice was a little stronger that week. It still went on the hard letters. “I shut the bond once, on the road west, so hard it stayed shut for days.”

“You slammed it.” He did not look up from the glass. “A slammed door bounces. I don’t want slamming. I want a door that closes quietly, and latches, and stays shut when you walk away from it, and opens a hand’s width when you choose and not a hair more.” He turned the glass over. The sand began to run. “Put your palm on that page, and don’t read it.”

***

It was a not