Jasmine walked through the small door into a cozy living room filled with the warm smell of butter, onions, mashed potatoes, cabbage and sausage. A three-legged stool sat by the fireplace where small log blazed merrily. Beside the fireplace was a trunk with a rounded lid, like a treasure chest in a fairy tale, but as big as Jasmine herself. Colored glass sculptures hung on the walls, along with a painting of a ruined castle under a lowring cloud-filled sky. Against one wall was an easel with a painting in progress: a stone circle under emerald hills; in the foreground one particular reddish stone and in the background a woman’s face in the sky.

Three books lay on a stand beside a bulging stuffed chair, each book opened to a different place. A twisty double spiral against a black backdrop was on the cover of one. On a yellow writing tablet were funny letters. Jasmine could already read the Dr. Seuss books and make a good go at The Polar Express and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but she only recognized some of the letters: an odd-shaped e and an o. Before the “eo” was big circle with a line through it like the planet Saturn, and after the “eo” was a small circle with a slash.

From the kitchen, an old woman’s voice hummed while a kettle whistled merrily. Jasmine reached into her pocket and wandered without hurry or fear around the corner into a little dining nook with a sturdy brown table and three stuffed chairs. In the kitchen water sizzled and splashed into a teapot. The old woman turned at the sound of Jasmine’s little feet.

Her hair was the silver white of crisp snow but the eyebrow which she raised at Jasmine was still jet black. She looked fondly at the little girl, with an air of wistful melancholy (a little happy and a little saddy was how Jasmine thought of it). But she welcomed Jasmine, as everyone did. (Little Jasmine had no way of knowing that when new tenants were interviewed for the building, one of the questions they were asked was, “Are you okay with a little girl showing up unexpectedly in your apartment?”)

“I’d been wonderin’ when ye’d coombe, little love. Are ye fond of Earl Grey tea at all? And I just might have a strawberry tart we could share.”

Jasmine nodded solemnly and pulled out from her pocket the drawing she’d made that morning. “This’s for you.”

The old woman accepted it graciously, drew from a sweater pocket a pair of reading glasses on a long black stick, perched them on her nose and held up Jasmine’s drawing for inspection. “Well, isn’t that sweet,” she said finally. It was a drawing of a face and, like everything Jasmine did, was quite good for a six-year-old. The face was round and had jug handle ears but was nicely colored with skin tones that matched Jasmine’s own, and cherry red lips.

“What smells so good?” Jasmine asked.

“Ah, that’ll be the batch of colcannon I just made. That’s a dish we used to eat in Ireland around Halloween, which is in … October, sorry, ye know that. My gran would make it every year, with a lovely flake of butter melting on the top. And I’ve made some bangers to go with, would ye like some?”

“I’d like to eat bangers, thank you.” Jasmine considered for another moment. “Do they ‘splode in your mouth?”

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The old woman laughed merrily. “Well, isn’t ‘at sweet. No, love, they’re sausages, I honestly don’t know why we call them bangers.”

She sat Jasmine down and served her up a plate of food that was cool but still quite good. Jasmine studied the sausage seriously and a little suspiciously but when she chewed on it, her face lit up. “‘At’s good!” she decided.

The old woman sat down in another of the chairs and watched her fondly. “You’re Jasmine, then, dearie?”

The little girl nodded absently. She was used to people knowing who she was. The old woman told her, “Well my name is Mary Hammond. When I was your age, m’dear, they called me Black Mary because my hair was jet black. As black as coal. Naught to do with the color of your skin, back then,” she explained, as if to reassure Jasmine, who simply accepted it as one of those mysterious things grownups sometimes say. Jasmine’s mother had indeed been black, and very pretty, and had had black hair and had even worn black sometimes (rainbow tie die was her preferred garb) and the only thing significant to Jasmine in all this was that Mama had had a radiant smile and eyes like emeralds from the Emerald City, and had loved her.

“Do they call you White Mary now?” Jasmine asked, innocently curious.

Mary Hammond laughed. “Oh Lord, no, not that. ‘White Mary,’ my lord, I’d sound like a maggot. I s’pose one could call me Bloody Mary, I’ve been bloody awful at times. No, no, whyn’t ye call me Silver Mary, dear love?”

“Silver Mary. That’s a pretty name. You’re pretty too. You a painter?” Jasmine asked in one flow. As the old woman nodded, Jasmine continued, “My popster’s a landscape drawer and a potter and Yako plays the shakuhachi.” She pronounced the Japanese word flawlessly.

Silver Mary said warmly, “I’d love to meet them,” and Jasmine was on the point of asking, “Who’s the pretty lady in the painting?” when she stopped and her mouth fell open and her eyes went as wide as gold coins.

A hole with shimmering edges spread open in the wall beside the painting. She saw a glimpse of the prettiest waterfall she’d ever seen, not so big as the ones in Yosemite but lots prettier, all lacy and glowing like silver fire in the moonlight.

But she also saw a face and it was the face of the lady in the painting. The pretty lady with hair so black it was blue peeped elf-like through the small hole, like an actress peeping through the curtains before a play. (Jasmine had just played the good witch in a community production of The Wizard of Oz.)

The woman from the painting looked intently at Silver Mary and her face, Jasmine thought, looked “saddy.”

And then the lady saw Jasmine.

Silver Mary turned to see what Jasmine was looking at. The black-haired lady held a quick finger to her lips and pointed sideways.

The hole was gone the next instant. Mary Hammond looked only at a blank space of wall.

She looked back at Jasmine. “What did ye see, dear?” Her face was intense, hungry.

Jasmine was no good at craftiness. She remembered the finger to the lips but said without guile, “I don’t know if I’m ‘posed to tell you. She said shush.”

Mary Hammond sat back, her face at peace. “Well then dear, if she said you oughtn’t to tell me, I mustn’t ask for another word.” She started to say something else, then silenced herself. “And I’ll not say another word, for I said I’d not.”

Jasmine was eager to go now for she thought she understood what the lady of the painting had meant when she’d pointed sideways. She finished her meal and said goodbye just a little faster than was polite but she promised she’d come back. Then away through the little door she went and into dim light.

The lady had pointed at the little door before she vanished. Jasmine looked to see her there in the comfortable dark. But she saw nobody. She started back home, disappointed.

An enormous, empty space loomed on her left, where there had only ever been wooden walls before.

Startled like a bird, but unafraid, Jasmine turned to look.

“Don’t look, my dear,” said a rich, cultured voice. “Keep your eyes forward as though nothing were out of the ordinary.”