“Come with me to the wall of water.”

We followed the apparition's fluid gait over to the edge of the cavern, and he raised his hands, palms out, facing the water. Then he began to speak his riddle. As he spoke with metallic clicks and hissed vowels, raised letters formed on the wall—watery words that were easy to read in the glare of the flashlights.

And this is what we heard and read:

If I am lying, I tell you no lie

If I am truthful, believe me and die

What I say first, is good but not true

What I say second, is what you should do

Go from the north, but not from that way

Go forward not backward, and you’ll save the day

Joseph and I stared, in awe of our own stupidity. It made no sense whatsoever.

“Well,” the messenger said, “I must be off now that my duty is complete. All those hundreds of years, waiting for this. A bit anticlimactic, I must say. Adieu.” Its shape began to distort back into blobs of water.

“Wait!” I yelled. In an instant it again formed into the tall man.

“That's it?” I asked. “What if we need help—will we ever see you again? Do you even have a name?”

“Why … yes, I have a name. Although it is rather embarrassing, I must say.”

“What is it?” asked Joseph.

“Well, it's …” he hesitated. “Well, if you must know, I am called Scott.”

I laughed—it was too good to be true.

“Scott?” I said through my chuckle. “Scott? You're a magic being made out of water and the best you could come up with was Scott?”

“Yes. I think it sounds rather distinguished—much better than Jimmy. Your parents really had to stay up all night thinking of that one. Now, I've had quite enough. Good-bye.”

A gust of wind came from nowhere, and Scott exploded into a million pellets of water, blowing into the wall of the cavern like a quick burst of machine-gunfire. Just like that, our watery friend was gone. Surprising myself, I felt sad to see him go.

Joseph and I looked at each other and laughed, then looked over at the riddle. That sobered us right up.

Now all we had to do was figure it out.

The Riddle of the Infinite Door.

I figured we at least had a fifty-fifty chance of survival.

Joseph had been thinking the same thing.

“Well,” he said, “there are only two ways to go through that door, so even if we just guessed, we'd have a fifty percent chance of being right.” He walked over to it, and ran his palm along its wooden face on the south side.

“Yeah,” I said, “but if you knew for a certainty that you also had a fifty percent chance of being killed, would you do it?”

“Sure, no problem.” He smiled. “But of course, it's not me that's going through, now is it?”

“No, it's not. So if you don't mind, I'd like to be the one who decides to so carelessly throw my life away. Come on, between the two of us, this thing will be a piece of cake.”

We went over to the wall with the raised lettering of water, and stood directly in front of the riddle.

“All right,” Joseph said. “I've got an idea. Let's just look at it, both in silence, for ten minutes. That way we can think without being interrupted or influenced by each other. When the time is up, we'll discuss whatever ideas popped in our heads.”

“Sounds good.”

Joseph looked at his watch, and we began the thinking process.

When the ten minutes were up, we were closer to solving the Jack the Ripper case than we were to figuring out the meaning of the cryptic words.

“Now, now, we can do this,” Joseph said. “Let's take it one line at a time.” He pointed to me. “You read it out loud, then let's talk about it.”

“All right. If I am lying, I tell you no lie.”

“Okay,” Joseph said, “so it's like opposite day on that old kids show you used to make me sit through. If we think the riddle is lying, then it's actually the truth. Make sense?”

“If I ever watched that, I sure don't remember. How old was I?”

“I don't know, three or four. I still don't understand how you could've forgotten a guy like me. Go on, read the next line.”

“If I am truthful, believe me and die.”

“See! What I said makes sense. Opposite day. We basically need to believe the riddle if it lies, and ignore it if it tells the truth.”

“If you say so,” I said. Joseph gave me an ugly look, and I let him know I was kidding. “No, that makes sense. Kind of. Okay, here's the next one. What I say first, is good but not true.”

“Wait.” Joseph rubbed his chin, which had way more hair on it than his head did. “Go ahead and read the next line.”

“What I say second, is what you should do.”

“Hmmmm. It's just about to click in the old ticker upstairs. Give me a second.”

“Well,” I said without waiting, “think about it. There are two more lines left, so those are the first and second things.”

“Yeah, and it's telling us that the first one is good but not true!”

He looked at me, full of excitement, and I just stared back, not quite understanding.

“Not true, Jimmy! So the first thing is a lie, but good, and it told us that if it lies, it's actually not lying.”

“Yeah, I think I'm getting it. And the second thing-it says that's what we should do. Meaning, it's the truth, so actually we should do the opposite, right?”

“I think so. Read the last two lines, which we've both agreed are what the riddle is referring to as the first and second things it says. Right?”

My mind was turning into oatmeal. “Uh, yeah. Here goes: Go from the north, but not from that way.” I paused, waiting for Joseph to say something. When he just stared, deep in thought, I continued, “Go forward, not backward, and you'll save the day.”

We said nothing for quite some time. I realized that my brain was not working as hard as it had when I was under the gun trying to solve the riddle for the Gift of Ice. I was relying on Joseph too much, using him as a crutch. My mind kind of shut down, and I found myself waiting for him to give me the solution.

More minutes passed.

“HA!” Joseph's voice exploded from his mouth, just about making me jump out of my undies.

“What?” I asked.

“Jimmy, my boy, how do you stand there, in my presence, and not bow down and praise me as the most brilliant man who has ever lived? I am utterly wise beyond even my own expectations. I've figured it out!”

“Yeah, you're the smartest person alive. Now tell me what you've come up with.”

“You must do the first thing, because it is a lie and therefore not a lie.” He began to pace the cavern, one arm behind his back, one hand raised with pointed finger as he made his various points. He looked like a ridiculous version of a college history professor.

“Therefore,” he continued, “you enter from the north. But not from that way, you see. The second thing is what you should do and therefore not what you should do. You must go through the door backward. That explains how you can enter from the north, but not from the north, because you do not have your back to it. Your back will be to the south while you walk backward through the door, from the north but not really, and then receive your magnificent gift.”

He took in a very deep breath and waited for my response, as proud as if he'd just revealed the cure for cancer. I gave up.

“Joseph, my brain hurts. The Givers sent you as my guide for this, and the things you just said seem to make sense—although I'm not sure I could repeat them for a million dollars. I think I'll just trust you on this one.”

“No, my boy,” he said, growing very serious. “This is far too important for you to take my word for it. I want you to explain it back to me, or I won't let you get near that door.”

Frustrated, but knowing him to be right, I concentrated my powers of the mind, and combined the words in front of me with the things I'd just heard from Joseph.

“All right. There are six lines to the riddle, right?” Joseph nodded, even though what I had said was obvious.

“Okay, okay,” I said with the voice of a man trying to build the nerve to bungee jump off a cliff. I rubbed my hands together. Then I walked up to the wall and pointed at each line of the riddle as I referred to it.

“The first and second lines say to follow a lie and do the opposite of truth. The third line says that the fifth line is a lie, so we must do it, according to the first line. The fourth line says that the sixth line is the truth, so we should do the opposite, according to the second line.

“So if I follow the counsel of the fifth line, combined with doing the opposite of the sixth line, then I will enter the door from the north, but backward, so that I am facing north, but also departing it.”

I took my own deep breath, and looked over at Joseph.

“Well,” he said, “if we had some chocolate cake, we could celebrate with cake and ice cream, if we had some ice cream.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Come on.”

He grabbed my shoulder and led me over to the door, walking around it in a complete circle, then coming to a rest on the north side. For a few moments we both just stared at the door. It resembled the other doors I'd been through to perfection—a rectangle but with slightly curvy edges, ancient wood, and strange etchings that were no longer recognizable. The iron handle was long and curved, vertical, and attached at both ends to the wood. It was a door that was ready to be opened.

“All right, Jimmy. This is it. I will be right here, waiting patiently. Say hello to the old man if he's the one in there, okay? I sure like that fellow—he reminds me of my granddad. Anyway, off with you now.”

I took one more breath of the moist, salty air, and grabbed the iron handle. I looked over my shoulder at Joseph.

“Both times before, something terrible happened right after I finished. Be on your toes.”

I pulled the door open, turned to face Joseph, and stepped through, backward.