He looked like a rabbit cornered by a wolf. She almost felt sorry for him.
“Jack? I’m right, aren’t I? About the closet doors?” Calisa asked.
He shook his head. Squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them. And then he said, “It’s any door. Sometimes. And sometimes not. I don’t know exactly how it works, but certain doors open to certain places. Except when they don’t.”
And there it was.
Unless this was a joke.
It’s not a joke.She’d seen it, walked through it, visited…“certain places.” “Where do they go? How do they work?”How is any of this possible?
“Auntie Zee is the only one who can make the doors cooperate at all.”
She thought of the first door she’d opened: the broom closet with the howling darkness. After Auntie Zee had slammed it shut, it was an ordinary broom closet. She should have guessed that Auntie Zee herself was a key element.
Jack continued, “Auntie Zee is, like, the caretaker of theinn’s doors. She’s the one who says whether a door works as a portal or as, um, you know, a closet or bathroom or whatever.” His eyes slid to the foyer, as if he were expecting Auntie Zee to charge into the kitchen and demand that they stop talking.
“Whatdoyou know?”
“The bed-and-breakfast is a nexus,” Jack said. “A nexus of realms.”
She absorbed that. “And what exactly does that mean?”
He shrugged. “Lots of doors to other worlds.”
Again, for an instant, Calisa couldn’t breathe. She’d been right—there really were other worlds through those doorways.Actual other worlds. I’ve been to other worlds!That was why the sun had felt and looked so strange and why the smells from the night market had been so unfamiliar. There wasn’t anything like it on Earth, because she hadn’t been on Earth. She’d known it, but she hadn’tknownit.A nexus of realms.
“It’s rare, a place like this,” Jack said. “That’s why it’s so special. It’s a place where people can come to escape. A real getaway, for whoever needs it.”
“So the guests…they’re actually from other worlds? Realms, you said?”
“I think of them as ‘realms’ because, as my dad explained to me, they’re not other planets. At least not other planets in our solar system. It’s not like Kendra is from Venus, and Mulligan is from the moon or even Alpha Centauri. They’re just from other places. Faraway places. Like pocket dimensions, if you want to sound all sci-fi about it, which you shouldn’t because Auntie Zee hates that.”
“Wow.” She tried to wrap her mind around this. “Howmany…” No, that wasn’t what she wanted to ask next. “Are you from another realm?”
He shook his head. “Vermont born and bred. Like my dad.”
“And Auntie Zee?” Calisa asked.
Jack looked surprised by the question. “I never asked.”
From upstairs, Auntie Zee called, “Jack, third floor!”
Both of them froze. Had she somehow heard them talking?She couldn’t have.Did she find out that Calisa had opened doors that she shouldn’t have opened?She could have.What was Auntie Zee going to say? And what was she going to do?
I can’t go home! Not now!
Auntie Zee called, “Bring the plunger!”
And both Calisa and Jack exhaled in unison.
Chapter Twelve
While the cake cooled and Jack plunged the third-floor toilet, Calisa made the icing. She didn’t need a recipe for this: it was just powdered sugar with milk, butter, and vanilla. She’d made it for the cupcakes she’d baked for Mom-Kate’s birthday, the ones that had tasted like churros.
A flicker of orange caught the corner of her eye, and she glanced at the kitchen fireplace to see a flame dancing over the logs.That’s still weird.What else was in the Faraway Inn that she’d failed to notice because it should be impossible? How about the teapot that heated instantly and didn’t seem to have an on switch, despite Jack’s claim that it was an electric kettle?
Checking on the cakes, she decided they were cool enough. She smeared raspberry jam on the first layer and then laid the next layer on top. Jam oozed out the sides and dripped onto the plate, bleeding into the white icing and causing it to smear pink. She should have waited until the cake layers cooled more, but it was late afternoon already. If she delayed any longer, itwould slip from teatime to dinner, and she’d latched onto the idea of reinstating a real teatime with homemade cake and tea from a possibly enchanted teapot.
