Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

“What will it take?” Wallace asked. “For you to cross.” He remembered
what Nelson had told him when they’d stood below the door. “To rise.”
“Ah,” Nelson said. “That’s the question, isn’t it? What will it take?” He
leaned forward, tapping his cane gently against Wallace’s leg. “To know he’s
in good hands. That his life is filled with joy even in the face of death. It’s
not about what he needs, necessarily, because that might imply he’s lacking
something. It’s about what he wants. There’s a difference. I think we forget
that, sometimes.”
“What does he want?” Wallace asked.
Instead of answering, Nelson said, “He smiles more, now. Did you know
that?”
“He does?” He thought Hugo was the type who always smiled.
“I wonder why that is,” Nelson said. He sat back in his chair. “I can’t wait
to figure it out.”
Wallace glanced at Hugo behind the counter. He must have felt Wallace
watching him, because he looked over and grinned.
Wallace whispered, “It’s easy to let yourself spiral and fall.”
“It is,” Nelson agreed. “But it’s what you do to pull yourself out of it that
matters most.”
The second hand on the clock began to stutter a half hour after Charon’s
Crossing closed for the evening. Hugo placed a familiar sign in the window:
CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT. He told Wallace it was just a precaution.
“We’re not here,” Hugo said. “Not really. When the clock begins to slow,
the world moves on around us. If anyone were to come to the shop during a
time such as this, they would see only a darkened house with the sign in the
window.”
Wallace followed him into the kitchen. His skin was itching, and the hook
in his chest was uncomfortable. “Has anyone ever tried to get in?”
Hugo shook his head. “Not that I know of. It’s … not quite magic, I don’t
think. More of an illusion than anything.”
“For someone who’s a ferryman, there’s a lot you don’t know.”
Hugo chuckled. “Isn’t it great? I’d hate to know everything. There’d be no
mystery left. What would be the point?”