He heard the noise, and he felt it.

The sound was distant but drawing closer. He started to sit up as the floor shook and the bed swayed, as a great rumbling engulfed him. Dark strong wood was being pushed. Enormous forces were testing Marduk’s trunk. This was something new, something Diamond hadn’t imagined. He remained upright, grinning with nervous amazement, and then the tree gradually quit moving while each of the room’s five lights began to glow.

A deep brownish red light was the first sign of the day. Like every morning, it came slowly. No moment seemed brighter than the moment before, but the transformation was steady and smooth. Vague lines became simple shapes that turned into walls and furniture and the shelves. It was as if a hand and paintbrush were adding details everywhere at once. When he could see his floor, Diamond jumped down and set his stool under the lowest light, and standing on his little toes, he put his eyes up next to the pane of thick round glass. He had done this before, this careful watching of the dawn. Red was always the first color. The dawn rain would last for a little while or a long while. Long nights usually brought long rains. Pushing an ear to the glass, he heard a smooth steady sound louder than the usual rain sounds, and he closed his eyes, working to imagine what was happening outside.

What always came to mind was the image of water spilling from a giant wooden pitcher.

He had mentioned that guess to his parents, more than once.

Father usually responded with a sober nod, saying, “It’s something like that. And it’s something else entirely.”

Mother preferred to look away, telling the walls, “I don’t like rain. Let’s change the subject.”

Diamond stood tall until his calves ached. By then the light was bright, the blood color thinning toward pink once the heaviest rain was done. Jumping down from the stool, he returned to bed and pulled the sheets over his body and lay down, ready to pretend sleep. That was one of his best tricks, eyes closed, body limp and dreamy. He lay there a long while, sharp ears listening to the pumping of his heart and his blood. The wood overhead offered a slow majestic creaking. Marduk was adjusting to the weight of water and the vanished winds, and one shift triggered others, a much louder groan coming from behind his head. Then he heard his mother’s footsteps. He was certain. Familiar bare feet were slipping along in the hallway, and he smiled into his pillow, waiting for the locks to be turned. Father always flipped the knob’s lock before releasing the two long bolts. Mother used the keys first, probably because the knob was hardest for her. He listened for the rattle of big keys, but there wasn’t any. He couldn’t hear the feet on the floor anymore, and nobody called through the massive door. Nobody was saying, “Good morning, my darling. How did you sleep, my love?”

Eventually Diamond sat up, staring at the door.

Abandoning his bed broke an important ritual. He slowly approached the door, setting his right hand on the cool knob. Nobody was standing on the other side. He was as certain of that as he had been about his mother’s arrival. The red and pink of dawn had vanished, replaced with the searing green-white glare of full morning. Maybe he had fallen back asleep. The footsteps could have been a dream. But just to be sure, he said, “Good morning,” to the door. “I’m awake, Mother. Are you there?”

There was no answer.

To the silence, he said, “You’re late, Mama.”

She was very late. He couldn’t remember the day being this far along and not have at least two visits from her or Father.

“Where are you?” he asked.

The great tree gave a sorry long groan—one of those early-in-the-day tremors signaling the flow of sap in response to the sun. Marduk was with him but that meant so little, and Diamond settled to the floor with his legs crossed and put his hands on his face and cried.

The crying didn’t last.

No bravery or special courage dried his eyes. Tears didn’t help, and he gave up on them. Father would be home soon. He stood and wiped his eyes and went to the table with the water pitcher and the little plate with two cold crescents and the blackwood bowl full of golden oil. That Mother left such a large treat was unusual and suddenly ominous. But she always had reasons for doing what she did, and he assumed there were good wise perfect reasons behind the gifts. Father was coming home. He might arrive in the next breath. Mother had to step out early this morning, and she would be back in another moment, full of apologies. Those were the stories that allowed Diamond to feel hungry.

He wouldn’t let himself worry, eating both of the crescents, using their charred ends and his fingers to soak up the last drops and smears of the sweet oil. Once again, he used the chamber pot, and he brushed his teeth with his special brush and the bitter gray paste, and he considered dressing but decided to wait. A game seemed necessary, and so he brought down his soldiers and lined them up on the floor and opened the box of blocks and stared at the top layer for a long time. Then he invited Mister Mister to sit beside him, and together they studied the loyal warriors with their swords and fierce guns and uniforms unlike what his father wore for work, and to no one in particular, he said, “I don’t know what to do now. I don’t.”

He returned to the door, pressing an ear to the cool wood.

Nothing.

Early in his life the door’s edges had been covered with foam, sealing out germs and unnamed poisons. But the foam below had worn away, leaving a long gap. Through his left eye, the hallway was a plain of smooth wood, vast and empty. Nobody was standing quietly on the other side. He looked at every angle, making sure. Sitting back, his mind wandered where it wanted, and it was as if he was watching his thoughts from some safe high place, uncertain where they would lead next.

The image of his mother returned to him—bent over, ribs bruised, her face filled with tears. Old people were subject to injuries. His parents proved that, what with scars and creaking joints and the way they stood up slowly and carefully after too much sitting. Mother wasn’t gone; she was hurt. A sloppy misstep caused her to fall, and she was somewhere else in the house, too sore to move or help herself. That was the perfect and very awful explanation, and the boy leaned against the door and cried for both of them.

Again, tears didn’t last.

He got to his feet, and quicker than ever in his life he dressed. He put on yesterday’s trousers and a favorite long shirt that he tied with a one-knot on his left side, and he slipped on the sandals that Father had refitted for his feet. Then he hurried up into the round chamber with its chest full of locked drawers and the one drawer that still had a few tools that weren’t forbidden to him.

He pulled out the entire drawer and carried it to the door.

Once more he looked through the gap and with a loud worried voice called out, “Mother. Are you there? Can you hear me?”

Nobody answered.

That made everything worse. He couldn’t know how badly hurt and helpless she was, so he had no choice but work fast. Little steel prods and screwdrivers and a hammer meant to shape soft metals offered their services. Diamond didn’t know what to do with any of them. But he remembered another day—almost two hundred days ago—when the knob became too difficult for Mother to turn. Father kneeled beside the door, using various tools to remove the old brass plate and fix the workings, adding lubricant and a few hard curses before closing it up again. Then he winked at the little boy who was watching every motion, asking, “And how can this be interesting?”

Everything was fascinating, if you paid attention.

Diamond set out his tools and studied the door before picking up a screwdriver, attacking the two broad screws that held the plate in place. He turned the left screw until it tumbled to the floor. But the other screw was worn and partly stripped, and it refused to come free. And even if this worked, he wondered what he would do with the dismantled knob. Two enormous bolts were set deep into the adjacent wall, each ready to fight him to the end. Diamond touched the dead wood and the lowest cross bracings and each wooden pin that held the stubborn door together. Three hinges were on the left side, each filled with a long iron pin. The pin on the bottom hinge had worked partway free. That seemed important. With his little hammer, he struck the pin from below, trying to lift it free. Soon the pin’s head was shiny, and he made so much noise that he heard it in his head after he quit. But nothing had changed. Nothing was different. So he stepped back and looked at everything but the door, searching for the hardest toughest strongest object in the room.