Verow sat beside the fire and sipped her tea, and Swain had a game of fetch with the strange man’s beard (it always just caught Swain’s teacup before it would spill over); and once they were well and relaxed the man called them to their seats and began his story.

“There comes a time in all of our lives when we can no longer be children, and we must learn to be on our own, and to make the bed without having been told to do it. If we do not manage to take care of ourselves there might be no one to help us along. When this time comes, and our childhood separates from us, we become Grownup. Perhaps your eyes will get dimmer and you could see that it has happened. But then we carry on living, and our childhoods do not come out to play often, and must wait around while we fill out forms.

“But there are childhoods that do not remain when it is time to become a Grownup, and they end up in another place entirely. A world of lost things.

“Mrs. Gordon,” he said, “the repulsive, chilling woman, has always feared the day when her childhood would leave her; and so when it was time to grow she locked herself up in a cold and damp closet, and never let her childhood out of her sight. In that way it could not become lost.

“But she had forgotten that we cannot avoid becoming Grownup (or at least we should not try); and so without spirit or adventure her childhood withered, and died. When the childhood went to the world of lost things the poor woman was lost as well, for she could not be without it.”

“What happened to the childhood then?” Swain asked.

The man looked at Verow, and his heart was so heavy that you could almost hear it thudding against his chair as it fell. “It became very sad, and lost its color.”

Verow understood what this all meant. Now some part of her suspected that she had known all along. She stood and removed her scarves, and her blankets, and gloves and binoculars until she stood bare in front of them, and they saw once again the emptying sight of her colorless skin.

“How dreadful,” said Verow, “and how strange.”

“Is there any hope of finding Verow’s color?” Swain asked.

“Isn’t it with the other lost things?”

The man shook his head. “It is one thing to be lost,” he said, “but another thing entirely to die. Verow’s color is not lost, but drained, and gone from her forever. What Mrs. Gordon didn’t know was that she need not fear losing her childhood at all; it was never necessary for it to fade completely. A thing can be lost and found many times, so long as it is still being looked for.”

“Does this all mean that we are not in the world of lost things?” asked Verow.

“You have just come from the place,” said the man. “You were there for a long while with Mrs. Gordon. When you opened THE DOORWAY you left the world of lost things, and so now are found. You are here in my cottage, which floats sixty feet in the air, above a confused town.”

“Where is THE DOORWAY?”

“Back through that closet,” the man said. Behind the children a door stood open to complete blackness; they had not noticed it before because it was nearly blocked off by the beard.

“It’s so dark,” said Verow.

“There is darkness between all the worlds,” the man said. “Without it we would not know when we have truly left one place and arrived at another.”

“Is there anything there, in the darkness?” Verow asked.

“It is filled with many, many things, which are not yet lost, and not yet found. They are simply wandering about, trying to find someplace to end up. Of course it’s all private business, and that’s why we can’t see them.”

Once he said this Verow was at her feet. “I will go there,” said Verow. “Not to the world of lost things, and to pitiful Mrs. Gordon, but to the darkness in between the worlds. There no one will notice my colorless skin. I will find a place of my own.”

Swain and the strange man nodded and did not fear for her, for in the darkness they knew she would feel free, so they were good and supportive, and we should not question her either.

Verow knelt to place a single kiss on Swain’s cheek (which to him felt cold and made him want to sneeze). “Thank you for the adventures. Thank you, old man, for helping me to understand.”

It took some work for her to tread around the messes of hair but she finally got to the door; and she did not turn but she spoke over her shoulder.

“I will not forget you.”

Then she went into the closet and shut the door behind her.

Topher Daniel can be reached at [email protected]