Her great-aunt frowned. “Of course it is.”
“It’s also Jack’s home. And Thomas’s,” Calisa said. “It’s a sanctuary for your guests. Look at Melidor—she needed the space from her family before she could decide what she wanted for herself. And Kendra is under so much pressure from her responsibilities. She needed a break from them, or she risked burning out. Mulligan—he needed somewhere to figure out the solution to his problem with Zef, and time and space to forgive himself. Those are just the guests that I know.” She didn’t mention herself, but she’d needed the inn just as badly as any of the others did. “This place has so much to give so many different people. Everyone needs a place where they can escape and just breathe.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Auntie Zee wagged a finger at Calisa. “I’ve been here far longer than you. You have no business swooping in here and thinking you know better than your elders. I have been running this inn on my own—”
Thomas interrupted. “You haven’t been on your own.”
Him, she listened to.
Auntie Zee opened her mouth and shut it. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.” She reached her hand out to him, and he clasped it. “Thomas, I am sorry I wasn’t able to bring you home sooner.”
“You tried,” he said gruffly.
“It did not open. Until her.” Auntie Zee studied Calisa.
Calisa bit her lip to keep from saying anything. She’d said enough already. Probably too much. She felt the weight of questions pressing against the back of her lips. She’d been barreling forward, guessing about how everything worked and what it all meant. She’d been lucky. It could have been so much worse. She could have visited unfriendly worlds. She couldhave been trapped behind a closed portal, unaware how to access her magic or that she even had any.
She felt a weight on her shoulder as Steve landed and settled in. There was a stab of pain as he kneaded his talons in the spot where he’d pierced her before, but she managed not to flinch. She liked the comforting weight of him on her shoulder.
He was a reminder that she’d done something right in all her flailing around. He’d been lonely, attached to someone who didn’t want him and didn’t appreciate him, and now he had her.
She waited for Auntie Zee to say something, to yell at her, to send her home.
“I had thought I was the only one left, at least in our family,” Auntie Zee said at last.
“Only one what?” Calisa asked.
Auntie Zee smiled, a little sadly. “It appears it skipped a generation. I hadn’t known that was possible. I was so afraid of disappointment that I didn’t even let myself hope—that’s why I wanted you to leave when you first arrived. I didn’t dare hope.”
That was so close to an apology. Calisa opened her mouth, but Auntie Zee wasn’t done.
“I should have realized when the teapot responded to you that you weren’t like your mother.” And then she said it: “I’m sorry. Can you forgive me? I should have explained, should have tested you immediately.”
Calisa felt the last of her anger drain out of her. She hadn’t expected a full-out apology, especially not after she’d just finished admitting to all the times she’d broken Auntie Zee’s two simple-to-follow, straightforward rules.
“Your mother should have told you about all of this beforeyou even came,” Auntie Zee said, her voice still full of regret. “I wonder who she was more afraid of disappointing: you or me.”
“Auntie Zee.” Calisa tried to make her voice quieter, calmer. “What…how…?” She didn’t even know how to frame the question she most wanted to ask.
Gently, Auntie Zee said, “I am a traveler cat.”
“A what?” Jack asked. Calisa was grateful to him for voicing the question. She had so many battering through her skull that it felt like she couldn’t speak.
“It is a type of witch. Very rare. I was born with the ability to open and close portals.”
A witch. “And the cat part of it?”
Now she smiled more broadly. “It’s how a portal witch recovers her powers. I have to transform into a smaller body, specifically a cat. It allows the magic to replenish—there’s less energy required to keep a smaller body alive. As forwhya cat…I suppose the universe has a sense of humor. Cats are known for always being on the wrong side of every door.”
Jack’s father snorted—an almost laugh.
“Dad? You knew about all of this?” Jack asked. “About traveler cats and Auntie Zee and how the portals work? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I’m sorry….”
“I told him not to,” Auntie Zee said. “You didn’t need to know, and I…I suppose I’ve become used to keeping this inn’s secrets. I figured, what good would it do for Jack to know?”
It would have helped when they were on their own and Kendra was panicked about the portals and they’d knownnothing about how the portals worked. It would have helped if Calisa had known there was a chance she had this power too. It would have helped if they’d known to talk to the cat!
