Angela found the staircase and retraced her steps up to the shop with the neon eye in the window. She closed the wooden door with the strange carvings on it.
Outside, it was still raining.
Angela shivered. It was cold. She was wet and hungry and tired. Without much hope, she looked at the little bottle from the Rewind Shop in the light from the streetlamps.
It was still glowing in all the colors of the rainbow.
Well, at least I’ve got something to show Mindy, she thought. At least I’ve got proof that she did see something strange here.
Angela remembered what Adam Zimmerman had told her. She pulled on the bottle’s tiny cork and opened it.
Angela gasped as rainbows puffed out of the bottle and gathered in a cloud around her. In her surprise, she almost forgot to do what Mr. Zimmerman had told her. But at the last minute, she remembered.
“Please, I need to get home before anyone knows that I snuck out!” she said.
The rainbows swirled around Angela. They wrapped her up. Their colors grew brighter and brighter until she had to squeeze her eyes closed because the brightness hurt!
She felt breathless and dizzy and…
When the dizziness passed and Angela could breathe again, she opened her eyes.
She jumped upright and nearly screamed in shock and surprise.
She was in her own home. In her own room. In her own bed.
The house was quiet, just as it should be late at night.
Angela lay back and stared at the ceiling. Did I dream it? Did it really happen? It couldn’t have. It must have been a dream!
Then she felt something digging into the palm of her hand. She was gripping it so tightly. She brought her hand up and carefully unclenched her fingers.
A bottle. A tiny bottle.
The rainbows were gone. They’d done their work and fixed things. The bottle looked ordinary now.
Angela stared at it for a long time. Finally, she placed it on the nightstand next to her bed. She fell asleep still staring at it. She dreamed of things curious and strange.
When she woke, Angela thought that Pike Place Market really is "the soul of Seattle.”
And souls are very complicated things. They have secrets for those who take the time to know them.
Angela loved Pike Place Market. She was sure she’d visit the Market again and again.
At night.