“Wasn’t it?”

“We never tested it again. June tried. The board told her the building was being sold. We locked the room.”

Daniel leaned forward. “The property isn’t being sold now. It’s being cleared. A developer bought the neighboring lot and is paying to remove the theater interior before demolition. Saturday is the deadline. June is eighty-two and refuses to leave until she understands what happened.”

“So you want me to look at a machine my father worked on twenty years ago?”

“I want you to hear June,” Walter said. “And if you decide we’re fools, you can walk away.”

Lily thought of her mother’s warning. “Why didn’t you tell her about me before?”

“I didn’t know your father’s name until I found his old work order. June remembered that he brought his daughter to the show. I found your diner because Daniel drove me through town after my hand injury. There was your name, right on the board.”

“And you didn’t say anything.”

Walter studied his bandage. “I was ashamed.”

That, at least, sounded true.

Lily went home and called Marianne again. This time her mother answered on the first ring.

“Did Dad save a boy at a theater?”

Marianne said nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because he didn’t want the story to become the only thing people knew about him.”

“Did he know why the wall moved?”

“He knew somebody had made a choice. He never knew who.”

Lily looked at the brass key. “I’m going to Bellweather.”

“Then take the flashlight from his box,” Marianne said. “He would have wanted you to.”

5. THE BLUE LANTERN

Bellweather lay between a freight railway and a long ridge of brick factories that had been converted into storage buildings. The Blue Lantern Playhouse stood at the end of a narrow street, its marquee stripped of letters and its entrance blocked by orange fencing. On one side, a new concrete parking structure rose behind temporary barriers. On the other, a faded mural showed a paper boat crossing a sea of stars.

Daniel drove. Walter sat in the back with a thermos and refused every offer of help with his seat belt. Lily watched the town pass, trying to reconcile the place with the small bright memory of painted stars.

June Vale was waiting on the steps. She was tall even with a cane, wearing a green work jacket over a red sweater. Her hair was white and cut bluntly at her jaw. When Lily stepped out, June looked at her face, then at her hands.

“You have his hands,” June said.

“My father’s?”

“Broad palms. Short fingers. He could tell which hinge was out of line by touching the door.”

She did not embrace Lily or cry. She took the brass key, checked its stamped number, and returned it.