Galaxy breaking through a 3D cube chest tattoo

The stack of brick at Hobb's Yard that you swore would never move has moved, and I have seen where it went. Don't laugh. I was at the tiller at four this morning, mooring the Perseverance under the lock gates at Sallow Bridge, when the wall beside the towpath began to step outwards, one course of blocks after another, like a staircase folding open.

Inside the gap there was no lock chamber and no water, only dark with two grey worlds hung in it, one cratered and one a little beyond, and a cloud of pink and orange light spilling over the sill. Dad always said the cut ran down into the earth and came up somewhere else. I thought he was drunk. I touched the nearest block and it was cold and warm at once, the way the bread oven used to be.

Mrs Okafor from the toll cottage came down in her dressing gown and stood beside me. She said the moon had been wrong for a week and nobody listened. We watched a single star slide across the gap like a boat with no tow line. Then the blocks folded back, neat as a drawer, and there was only brick and the smell of wet rope.

I've written it in the logbook so the Board can't say I made it up. Come up at Easter and check the wall yourself. If it opens again, bring a torch and your good boots, and tell me whether the planets are still there. I left a jar of blackberry jam on the cabin shelf.

Your loving sister, Nell