Lily walked home a different path every day. Last Monday she’d burst out of class and blazed a trail through the field full of checkerblooms that lay beyond Mrs. Dutskin’s property. A car that looked as if it hadn’t had a driver since before Lily was born was parked in a knot of trees. Lily hung up some wind chimes she found lying like a squished insect in the grass. From an aspen tree, their life restored, they hummed in pace with her heart as she continued towards home. 

This past Tuesday, she had ducked through the looming alleyways that cut through Mrs. Greene’s drug store and Mrs. Cooper’s haberdashery. Squatting behind every trash bin and lurking in each doorway was a tattered bum with a switchblade and nothing to lose. Lily knew they were just waiting for her to drop a coin or stop to tie her shoe before they’d pounce and demand jewels she didn’t own. Quick on her feet and never one to let fear be anything other than fuel, Lily maneuvered through the alleyway like a Collie expertly threading an agility course. A leap over the puddle of brown water, a dash past the rodents that milled about a bag giving off a mysterious odor, and finally emerging into the sunlight once more. People in suits and dresses walked out here; Lily had made it through another dark and strange land.

But there was a new riddle Lily had been trying to settle for some time now. A month ago, she was on the final stretch of her walk home. While there were infinite pathways for Lily to take on her walk home from school, only one sidewalk led to her front door. So these final three blocks were, unfortunately for Lily, nothing special. As she trod along the pavement, cracked by pernicious roots, Lily began to hear a melodious voice on the hot air. If Lily were blindfolded on this final leg of her journey home, she would find her way using the routine of others’ lives. A sputtering lawn mower turning off and on to Lily’s right could only be Miss Alice, pausing more often than necessary for a sip of iced tea. To her left, a grunt and thud followed by “good” was the Lacrosse sisters practicing for softball with a game of catch.

Lily had walked past Ms. Danvers’ mysterious backyard often enough to know the woman sang as she gardened. Her voice was the summer air itself, as wayward and welcome as a breeze. Like many other days, she was singing that afternoon. But unlike any other walk home from school, Lily saw that Ms. Danvers had left her fence gate, overgrown with sweet peas, hanging wide open. Lily approached the gate —  an invitation hanging wide open —  and knew she shouldn’t peek in. It was impolite to snoop, eavesdrop, or stick your nose where it didn’t belong.

Ms. Danvers was not cruel, but she did not like to share the secrets of her garden. 

Lily made up her mind to just keep her eyes forward. But right before she was past the yawning fence and never-before-seen garden, something vibrant and beautiful tugged at the corner of her eye. She simply could not help but turn and meet it. Amid the green and blue she saw every day, on every path home, was a shade of pink. Lily turned, and she looked across Ms. Danvers’ yard, directly at a door. It was red, adult-height, and a white archway rose above it. Tangled throughout the arch were tiny bundles of pink petals. From pastels to hot pinks and lavender purples, the thing was peppered with flowers that looked like butterflies mid-flight. They whizzed around the red door, promising Lily that it swung open onto another world. A space tucked inside the cracks of where real things happened. Lily would push that door open and step through it if it was the last thing she did.

That was the last time the yard’s gate had been open. In the month that followed, Lily checked Ms. Danvers’ yard every day. The gate remained shut, as it had every other day Lily had walked past it. Did she miss her chance? Would the petals still be waiting for her in another month? 

Yesterday, she had enough. After once more discovering the gate firmly shut, Lily crossed her arms and stared at the wooden slats. Without knowing she was doing it, she sucked in her cheeks as if she was a fish underwater, which was what Lily always did when she was deep in thought. Perhaps if she couldn’t go through Ms. Danvers’ yard, she could go around it. Lily walked along Ms. Danvers’ fence until it met Mrs. Wu’s white-picketed yard. That then met Lily’s former best friend’s yard, which had no fence. The street curved around these houses, and Lily tried to hold in her mind the location of Ms. Danvers’ yard. With each car that passed, she imagined it was a secret organization keeping tabs on her. The shadowy group had agents everywhere, and Lily wasn’t yet sure what they wanted. Sometimes she’d see men pretending to do yard work or talk on the phone while they were actually writing down Lily’s movements. When cars passed her, Lily did not make eye contact with the drivers. The last thing you wanted secret agents to know was that you were onto them — it made them feel like they’d done a poor job.

Lily had finally made her way around the block and was approaching the opposite side of her former best friend’s yard. That was replaced once more by the white-picketed greenery of Mrs. Wu, who kept an incredibly neat garden outside of her living room window. Finally, Lily arrived at Ms. Danvers’ dark brown fence.

Here’s what Lily didn’t know.

Sixteen years prior, when Lily’s mother was still in high school, a city planner had evaluated the patch of Earth that would go on to be Ms. Danvers’ beautiful house and garden. Their job that day was to determine where a telephone pole would sit on a small square of land. The city planner was perplexed, because there didn’t seem to be any place to put the pole. At least, no place that would allow a woman like Ms. Danvers to create a beautiful garden (unless you consider a telephone pole a beautiful garden fixture, which this particular city planner did not). After much pacing, chin-stroking, and a 30 minute-lunch break that was actually a first date, the city planner had her solution. 

Here’s what Lily saw.

Lily walked past Ms. Danvers’ fence, waiting for it to become the red door she’d spied on the opposite side. She walked along the smooth grey pavement warmed by the afternoon sun until the fence turned into Ms. Gutierrez’s yard. Lily turned around and walked the length of Ms. Danvers’ property again, until Mrs. Wu’s white fence overtook it. Where was the arch? The door?

Lily took a step back. Peeking over the top of the fence was an overgrown bush, or shrub, or perhaps a tree. It was a dense assortment of leafy green mittened hands that waved at Lily in the weak breeze. She took a few more steps back and craned her neck even higher. Towering over the leaves was a brown telephone pole. It reached up to the criss-crossing electric clotheslines overhead, adding conversations “to the grapevine,” as Lily’s mother liked to say.

The curb was there before Lily remembered sidewalks had them. She slipped off the edge of the pavement and flung her hands out toward Ms. Danvers’ yard. Clunk. Lily opened one eye. She turned to see a parked car that had caught her fall. Heart racing and grateful that no one (especially her mother) had been around to see her carelessness, Lily hurried away from the street. She turned her attention back to the mysterious fence.

Lily reasoned that, since there had been no telephone pole in Ms. Danvers’ yard, the land immediately in front of the fence must not be Ms. Danvers’ property. Lily had to think this thought, because that was the only way she would be able to explain climbing over this fence. She knew it was not polite to go on other peoples’ property (when she was caught for it, adults loved using that word, property; as in, Young lady, this is my property), at least not without a good explanation.

Putting one foot on a nearby fire hydrant, Lily grabbed onto the edge of the fence. She heard someone calling out to her on the opposite side of the street, but chose to ignore them. Lily winced as the rough wood at the top of the fence rubbed and poked at her skin. She hated splinters, but knew that they were proof of a good day. Lily strained as she tried to swing one leg up over the fence. She could feel sweat beading at her forehead and hoped no one happened to walk by  —  not because she would get in trouble, but because she likely looked foolish. 

Lily finally lifted a leg over the wood. With the last bit of her strength, she rolled over the edge of the fence. She had been so concerned with getting over that she had not saved any muscle for getting down. Lily twirled through the air and waited for the ground to meet her. It took a bit longer than she thought, which made its arrival all the more punishing. She felt the wind squeezed out of her like an accordion, which explained the wheezing sound she made.

Rolling onto her back, Lily opened her mouth wide, waiting for the air to come back. She did not panic, even though the muscles inside her chest and throat would not do what they usually did. Tears welling in her upturned her eyes, tears that showed the sky itself, Lily hung her mouth open and waited. She liked to think that it wasn’t her body that couldn’t catch a breath. It was the breath that refused to be caught. Her friend Mira liked to say that everyone had a spirit animal. Mira said there was a 0.001% chance your parents would happen to move to the area where your spirit animal lived. Even though Lily had nodded and smiled when Mira told her she was certain she’d seen her spirit animal (a chinchilla) on a vacation to British Columbia, Lily did not believe in the theory.

No, Lily felt that it was your breath that was some sort of corporeal companion. She called it Life Stuff in her head, though she’d never spoken the words aloud. Mouth open, face turning the slightest shade of blue as her eyes swam, Lily thought that she would say Life Stuff out loud when her breath came back. It seemed a waste of Life Stuff to never call it by its name; to use the breath that was not always guaranteed, especially during dangerous excursions near disappearing red doorways and mysterious telephone poles. 

“Life, Stuff.”

Lily sat up. She did not like breathing heavily. It reminded her of lumpy adults who could not touch their toes, or dogs with terrible breath. Lily reached forward and rested her fingers on the toes of her shoes, controlling her Life Stuff. She wore white and red sneakers today, like every day. Lily let out a deep breath through her nose and rolled her neck around. She knew some people could make a popping sound with their necks and figured that, like all things, it was something she just wasn’t old enough to enjoy yet.

Standing, Lily finally took in her surroundings. She had tumbled onto grass, which must have been the reason no bones were broken. The foliage that stretched above Ms. Danvers’ fence was planted in a neat, straight line along the dark brown wood. Tilting her head towards the tops of the leaves, Lily saw that Ms. Danvers’ fence seemed impossibly high. She tried not to think about how she would get back over without the aid of a fire hydrant. The space Lily was in did not extend the full length of Ms. Danvers’ yard. It was a perfect square that a recently married city planner could have told her was 6 feet by 6 feet. To the left and the right of Ms. Danvers’ street-facing fence, two other fences boxed Lily into the small area. They were not the same expensive-looking dark brown that Ms. Danvers prided herself on. The wood was the color of old book pages, and it looked more to Lily like sawdust barely bound by glue. 

The grass Lily stood on was lush, but not overgrown. Who tended these miniscule grounds within Ms. Danvers’ estate? It must be whoever looked after the telephone pole, which was rooted in the center of the plot. There were no carvings or staples in the telephone’s trunk, and Lily thought the smooth finish looked like a cleanly shaved leg. She was worried that when she got older her legs would look like the telephone poles downtown, marred and raw from people that may be no less careless than she.

When Lily had fully spun around, she saw the cracked yet warm red paint and the flowers, like pink and purple bows, that crowned it. The red door! Lily balled her fists and placed them on her hips, standing next to the telephone pole like it was a gargantuan flag she had just thrust into the land. She had made her discovery, and nothing felt better than a mission accomplished. This crevice of the world, nestled between eyes that could catch her and voices that could call her back, it belonged to Lily. 

She looked down, and finally saw them. They had seen Lily long before she noticed them, and had not taken their eyes off her since she tumbled onto the grass. Next to the telephone pole were strewn thirty or so photographs. Laminated photos that must have spilled out of the envelope that was also facing up at Lily. She had been with her mother to have photos developed before; she knew the dark entrails of a camera actually contained images. Photographers had ways of turning those hidden images into real pictures, but Lily did not yet know how. Her mother didn’t either, and Lily did not ask her mother the same question twice.

The envelope was blank. Lily stepped lightly through the pool of pictures towards the envelope, careful not to trod on any. Her heel narrowly missed a grim-looking birthday party for a dog, eyes like embers staring blankly at Lily. She nudged aside an elderly woman lying on a boogie board in the middle of a parking lot, giving a thumbs up to Lily. Reaching the envelope, she stooped down to pick it up. Inside were black ribbons that she held to the fading sunlight. As Lily had guessed, they contained tiny pictures. She then set the envelope back exactly where it had been.

Lily picked up some of the plastic, colorful pages. A girl Lily’s age, one that might as well have been her friend, smiled at her. Lily smiled back, and knew her name was Annie. In another hand she held a black car with a yellow stripe down the middle. It was an ugly car. A beach at sunrise, a pair of lips locked over heaping burgers, baseball games, and more smoldering eyes. They stared at Lily, waiting for something. What did they want from her? She couldn’t join them, she had school and curfew. Two ladies at a roller rink wore hoop skirts and looked back at their dates. Lily looked down at her dirtied school-clothes. Behind her, there was only fencing. 

A naked tree, a blurry full moon, Halloween costume contests, peace signs and thumbs up, smiles and confusion. And in it all was she. Lily stood proudly next to her ugly black car with the yellow stripe. She made a silly face donning her ladybug costume. She went to see the moon at night and kissed people between bites of beef. Lily looked out at herself and stared back, feeling her life stuff passing between her and these photographs like rocking waves. She had to see them all. The first day of school, a hand with a ring on it, heads crowded around a radio, feet hovering above a diving board, long chairs underneath long legs and wide hats, lips pursed, cheeks flushed, hands raised in protest, unrecognizable blurs forever cemented in motion. 

The pictures that Lily could not identify were the only ones that felt static. They were forever nothing. Her favorites were of families that did not know their picture was being taken. In these, people stared at each other and not at Lily. Their eyes were not aflame, and they did not wear expressions. They watched television and talked to each other across kitchen tables, heads cocked and fingers scratching where the neck becomes shoulder. Lily felt most at home in these, resting her head on a giant belly or captivating loved ones with stories of her adventures. Lily thought that with enough pictures, everything that had ever been done could be in this small patch of grass. Every second of every square inch of the world, tossed lazily out of an envelope next to a telephone pole. Heaped together and waiting for Lily to step through them.

Only one picture was left, and Lily had saved this one for last. It was the only photograph turned upside down, and the white void looked hideous next to all the life around her. She knelt down and placed her hand on it, letting out a deep breath. Just as her fingers tightened around the stiff paper, she heard a door open nearby. Lily shot her head up, and heard the unmistakable trill of Ms. Danvers’ singing voice.

While Lily listened to Ms. Danvers’ melody, she stared at the red door. It was so beautiful that it could be on the cover of a book. Even though Lily knew what Ms. Danvers’ yard looked like, this adorned barrier promised so much more. It was a glowing May Queen with flowers in her hair, barring access to an enchanted land that eternally lay opposite its beholder. Lily looked back down at the blank backside of the photograph. Suddenly, she knew what the picture was. Underneath her hand, pressed into blades of grass, was an image of the red door. Lily didn’t have to see the photograph to know it was true. After all, she had been inside enough pictures to know a thing or two about this sort of stuff.

Lily closed her eyes and folded up the picture. When she opened her eyes, she held a white rectangle the size of her palm. She didn’t take any other pictures. 

The shame and fear that came when Ms. Danvers’ eventually discovered Lily was great, but it was not greater than the secret she carried with her back home. She felt it in her pocket as it struggled to unleash itself, the thick paper trying its damndest to stand up straight. It wanted to meet Lily, but she did not accept the invitation. In fact, in her entire short life, Lily always kept the photograph in her pocket but never peeked. She knew what it would show, and had already been there.