The Ten Thousand Doors of January

by Alix E. Harrow

“If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between the worlds, that stories happen.”

It’s a profoundly strange feeling, to stumble across someone whose desires are shaped so closely to your own, like reaching toward your reflection in a mirror and finding warm flesh under your fingertips. If you should ever be lucky enough to find that magical, fearful symmetry, I hope you’re brave enough to grab it with both hands and not let go.

Mourning is a self-absorbed business;

But Mary LeBlanc possessed the sort of reckless compassion that led people to give money to strangers and invite beggars in for supper.

No one really remembers their own origins. Most of us possess a kind of hazy mythology about our early childhood, a set of stories told and retold by our parents, interwoven with our blurred baby memories. They tell us about the time we nearly died crawling down the stairs after the family cat; the way we used to smile in our sleep during thunderstorms; our first words and steps and birthday cakes. They tell us a hundred different stories, which are all the same story: We love you, and have always loved you.

tragedy has its own terrible volume. It rolls and cracks, shakes the ground beneath your feet, lingers in the air like summer thunder.

“The trouble with you people,” I observed, “is that you believe in permanence. An orderly world will remain so; a closed door will stay closed.” I shook my head, reaching for the door. “It’s very… limiting.”

I hope you will find the cracks in the world and wedge them wider, so the light of other suns shines through; I hope you will keep the world unruly, messy, full of strange magics; I hope you will run through every open Door and tell stories when you return.