The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball

were going to use the dog to sniff the letter out.
    —Dog? asked S.
    —Whirligig! called out the clerk.
    From the top of the pile of mail came bounding a miniature German shepherd. He was perfect in every way, but very tiny. He ran up to the clerk, who knelt down to receive him. The two exchanged greetings.
    —Do you have anything that belonged to the girl? asked the clerk’s wife. A sock? A scarf?
    —I have her shoe, said S.
    Out of a secret pocket he produced one of the two espadrilles that the girl was wearing during the accident.
    —What a nice shoe, said the clerk’s wife.
    —You were carrying that all along? asked the guess artist.
    —No, said S. It just occurred to me now.
    The clerk held the espadrille for the dog to smell. He sniffed at it with his nose, then ran away into the pile of letters. Sometimes he climbed and sometimes he swam through them. Soon he had disappeared from sight.
    —If anyone can find it, said the clerk, Whirligig can. He’s quite a pup.
    —Where did you get him? asked S.
    —He was in a package that came here, said the guess artist. She heard barking coming out of a box; she opened it up, and there he was.
    —Actually, said the clerk’s wife, he was a gift from my sister, who lives in Idaho.
    —But how did he arrive? asked the guess artist. Truthfully, now.
    —In a box, said the clerk’s wife. Wrapped up in a sweater.
    —That’s no way to send a dog, said S.
    —But in this case, said the clerk, it worked just fine.
    —Nobody’s disputing that, said S.
    —The other day, said the guess artist, I was down by the harbor and I saw the most horrible sight.
    Everyone looked at him.
    —A seagull was flying about, as seagulls often do. However, this one tried to fly beneath a dock, and it fetched up against one of the wooden supports. It must have broken its wing, because it fell there, right in the shallows, and was splashing around but going nowhere. Out from beneath the dock then came a large swan. It came closer and closer to the seagull, came right up over it and began to tear at the seagull with its beak. It started tearing off pieces of the seagull, eating it while it was still alive. I’ve never seen anything like it.
    —That’s horrible, said the dead-letter clerk.
    —I wish I had never heard that, said the dead-letter clerk’s wife.
    S. nodded slowly to himself; he knew well the true nature of swans.
    Just at that moment, Whirligig reappeared from the pile. He was carrying two letters in his dandy little mouth. He ran up to S. and dropped them at his feet. S. patted him on the head and picked up the letters.
    The first letter came in a richly embroidered envelope. There were traces of gold in the fibers of the paper, and the address had actually been embroidered on. It said, Selah Morse, God Knows Where. He put that envelope on the bottom and picked up the other. It was a simple white envelope, one of the official sort that you buy at the post office, where the letter folds into being the envelope. This one said nothing on the outside. He opened it.
     

     
    14 Beard Street
Brooklyn, NY
    Soon.
     
     
    Or else.
     

     
    He narrowed his eyes.
    —Very strange, he said, and his voice was loud in his ears.
    —We had best be going, said the guess artist. —But the other letter, said the clerk’s wife.
    —It’s from his sister, said the guess artist. She died some time ago. I don’t know that he was ever meant to see that letter.
    —Then give it back to me, said the clerk’s wife. She took a hold of the letter and began to pull it out of S.’s hand.
    —No! said S. That’s my letter. Let go!
    The two were pulling back and forth on the letter. Whirligig began to bark and nip at the ankles of S. and the guess artist. Just at that moment, the aperture in the ceiling opened and letters began to pour in, pouring down over the pile, increasing its size with every second. The noise was tremendous. Also, the clerk began to shout.
    The clerk’s wife pulled the letter