The Way Through
by Eva Papasoulioti
A door appears in Alex’s room for the first time when they are twelve, on a stormy, cold November night, right in the middle of one of their parents’ knock-down drag-out fights. Unable to sleep, they’re sitting doodling when a narrow stream of water flows across the desk towards the paper. They think water must have spilled from their glass until they realize they haven’t had the opportunity to bring one yet. Soon, they find out that the face of their history binder isn’t there anymore. Instead of bright yellow plastic, there is an underwater place, fish swimming past, unperturbed by Alex’s presence.
The door, open and welcoming, leaks steadily onto the desk. It smells of salt and iodine. Without hesitation, Alex takes a deep breath and dives. They splash into the water world like a fish returning home in a tight embrace of blue. Silver fish, indigo weed, and rays of rainbow fill an ocean infinite. Calm overcomes them like a cocoon. No sound of their parents’ fight. No storm. They forget to breathe, and when they remember to do so, there is no panic. They inhale and the water doesn’t go past their throat, their body adapts to this new world as if they had always breathed in water. They laugh and bubbles surround them, teasing them playfully.
From then on, they will return to this world when the noise gets to be too much, when sleep eludes them, when the fights start, when the voices in their head need to be quieted.
A second door appears at the back of their closet. Alex is now fourteen, and there was another fight today about clothes, hair, and names. The closet won’t protect them if their father decides to come upstairs, and if he does, then not finding them at all will be worse. Doors in closets are cliché, they know, but who cares. There’s no forest. No lamp. They stand on top of a cloud in front of an open library. Wooden bookshelves peak through the cumulus, lit by a gentle sunrise painting everything in pink and orange tones. With feet hidden in the mist, their lungs expand, their palms caress the solid softness around them. The books are alphabetized by author, some authors they’ve never heard of, some books in the banned list, some titles in languages they don’t know. They make themselves comfortable in one of the clouds with a book in their lap and the sun’s warmth on their cheek.
Their mother notices their gills one Sunday morning during breakfast, when it’s just the two of them, and she makes a face. She comments—complains—about Alex’s choices regarding their appearance and themselves, as if changing your name isn’t enough, wearing these clothes isn’t enough, the ridiculous color of your hair isn’t enough, you have to go around wearing weird emo make-up, pale like somebody sliced your neck. Alex looks into their mother’s eyes— angry for the wrong reasons, tired, haunted— and tells her, you too mom, you can also do whatever you want. You’re enough.
The night their mother asks for divorce, Alex is sixteen and discovers another door, this time in one of the pictures taken of them and their mother at the Botanical Gardens three years earlier. It hangs in a cheap, chipped frame. The thought that maybe they’re getting too old to travel to other worlds crosses Alex’s mind as they struggle to squeeze their butt through the frame, but it disappears as they get through. They stand in front of a picnic table, in a meadow bursting with wildflowers. Poppies, chrysanthemums, asphodels, irises. Birds sing and bees buzz happily. Their mother would love this place. Another kid’s sitting on the table. They say hi. They swap names and ages, share secrets and worlds. More kids show up in the meadow. Some come down the road, others emerge from the forest, all thirsty for conversation. Until now, Alex has been the only visitor in every world they’ve traveled to. This place, though, is different. It blooms with community, abuzz with friendship and connection.
Alex returns to this world again and again. They prefer the meadow to scrolling on their phone while their mother cries in the next room. She has changed a lot without their father’s overbearing presence. She smiles more, sings, and tries to spend more time with Alex, but on some nights, she looks like a lost, lonely child. Alex can relate.
On the first anniversary of the divorce, Alex takes their mother swimming through the water door. They don’t stay long; their mother doesn’t grow gills. She takes in the colorful fish and the calmness, her long hair floats in a dark crown around her head, her mouth open in awe. When they return, she holds Alex tight all night. She whispers apologies in their ear. Soft words like I’m so proud you believed in yourself, like you’re my most precious and you’re so strong my Alex, and I love you. Alex stays awake, afraid to miss a single moment, a single caress.
When Alex takes their mother to the cloud library, she sits— sinks—in a cloud while they read, and she says nothing. Her eyes are closed, and there’s a ghost smile on her lips. The side of her face is colored with peace and peach sunrise orange.
The day before leaving for university, Alex takes her to the meadow. Their mother’s butt slips through the frame with a little push, too, so there’s certainly no age limit. She doesn’t go past the picnic table. She touches the poppies, inhales the fragrance of the asphodels, and laughs at the bees, but her stay is brief. She says, Alex, this place is for you and your friends, and leaves.
The doors never disappear. Alex always takes the picture frame with them, and sometimes they take the worn history binder. Sleep is as elusive at the dorm as it is at home, a part of themselves they cannot leave behind, but the worlds help. And not just them. On Alex’s breaks, when they’re home and visit the cloud library in the closet, they find clues of their mother’s presence. Her perfume, a hair tie, a cigarette butt. Their mother’s new project is searching the kitchen or the bathroom or the fridge for a door of her own.
It’s close to dawn the day after semester’s end, and Alex is back home. They call their mother from the living room. The two of them stayed up all night, talking about the future, their choices, and all the paths ahead. When their mother doesn’t answer, they call again. In the kitchen, they find a cup of coffee cooling on the counter next to an old, stained cookbook.
There’s a door in the discolored cover. A cottage. A spring breeze. The smell of vanilla cake.
Alex smiles. They caress the cookbook’s spine gently and place it with care, cover up, on the shelf. They turn off the light and go to bed.
Eva Papasoulioti is a Greek writer of speculative fiction and poetry. Her work has appeared in Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Nature Futures and elsewhere, and has been nominated for the Rhysling and Dwarf Stars Awards. She lives in Athens with her spouse and their two cats. You can find her on X/twitter and Bluesky @epapasoulioti and on her blog plothopes.com.