Wiping her hands on her shorts, Calisa stood up. “Okay, that’s sixteen—”
Melidor popped up and threw her arms around Calisa. “Thank you!” She then sprang back and jumped into the stream, ankle-deep, singing as she skipped from stone to stone, kicking the water so it sprayed into the air.
Calisa glanced at Steve, who was still sunbathing on his rock. He flicked out his tongue, unperturbed. A lick of flame unfurled from the tip of his tongue and then fizzled in the air. He then looked at her expectantly.
She stared at him. “Um…congratulations?”
Pleased, he closed his eyes and began to snore.
Did her lizard really just breathe fire?
Chapter Nineteen
“We can’t keep doing this,” Jack said. It was the next day, and they’d just returned from another visit—this one to a realm where the people were silent but their shadows spoke. “We’ve been lucky so far.”
“Not lucky enough,” Calisa said. “If we were actually lucky, we would have found her. Or at least found someone who’d seen her.” She slumped into the window seat in the library.
The ladder wiggled hopefully.
“Sorry, I can’t read now,” Calisa told it. “Having a crisis.”
“After my dad…” Jack’s voice hitched. He stopped, swallowed, and continued. “After my dad went missing, I searched for him. Every door I could open, I went through. Calisa…I’ve done this before. It didn’t help.”
“If we don’t look for her, who will?” Calisa asked. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could go to the police for:Hello, 911, my great-aunt is missing in another dimension.Besides, she wasn’t really missing. Just…they didn’t know where she was.
Calisa kept expecting to find her visiting with friends or taking a mini-vacation, but they’d been to multiple realms now and no one had seen her. They were nearly out of places to look. They’d visited nearly every realm that had been mentioned as a source of supplies.
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced toward the lobby, but it was only the cat sauntering by. Calisa sighed heavily.
“Rin said she’ll show up when she’s ready to show up,” Jack said, “but what if she doesn’t want to be found? What if she didn’t go for supplies at all, and that’s why none of her usual suppliers have seen her?”
“What do you mean?” Calisa asked.Why would she want that?
He leaned against one of the bookshelves. Nearby, the firebird crackled, as low as embers. “What if she just…went away? You heard her before she left. She’s tired. Maybe she needed a more permanent break.”
That…was possible.
It could be that the reason no one had seen Auntie Zee was she didn’t want to be found. This place, the Faraway Inn, was an escape for the guests—a break from their lives. Auntie Zee could have decided she needed an escape too,fromthe Faraway Inn. In that case, she could have chosen any portal to any realm. She could have even shut the door behind her.
Jack said hesitantly, “I think…we may have to wait for her to come back on her own. Unlike my dad, she can open the doors herself. She’ll return when she’s ready.”
“I’m not giving up.”
“I know. I don’t…” He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Maybe I just need some sleep.”
Maybe they both did. Maybe one of them would come up with a new idea in the morning. Maybe there was a supplier they’d missed. Or maybe they should be looking at other locations, the less commonly visited realms, without obvious suppliers? They were still a few doors they hadn’t tried….Or maybe we’ve pushed our luck far enough, and we should try being patient.Auntie Zee had her own way of doing things, and she could have a perfectly good reason for her absence, which she’d explain as soon as she returned.
Or maybe something has happened to her and shecan’treturn?
As always whenever that worry reared its head, Calisa shoved it back down. Nothing could have happened to Auntie Zee. She was the caretaker of the inn, the keeper of the doors, and she was fine. Just…absent.
Possibly intentionally absent.
The guests had started to notice. No one had said anything directly yet, but Mulligan had hinted at it a few times, and Kendra had made pointed comments about the decline in service. It was only a matter of time before one of them demanded to speak to Auntie Zee, and then what would they do? How long could they keep pretending she was on her way back or “Oh, so sorry, you just missed her”?
After saying good night to Jack, Calisa returned to her room and changed into her nightshirt and flannel shorts. Looking out the window, she saw the stream (finally free ofthe brambles), a shiny black ribbon in the light of the moon, winding out of the forest. Standing beside it, near where the seedlings were planted, was the statue. She looked as if she were guarding the baby dryads. Perhaps she was.
Beyond, the stars were sprinkled above the mountains. Calisa lifted up the window and leaned against the sill. Outside, crickets chirped. She heard the wind rustle the leaves in the trees. It smelled sweet, like earth and pine, and she didn’t know how Mom-Kate had ever left this place. Brooklyn felt so far away, and she wasn’t sure—
