Chapter Seven
Calisa was considering which room to tackle next when auntie zee appeared in the doorway to the sitting room. Scowling, the innkeeper waved at the sheet-free furniture and cobweb-free mantel. “Who told you that you could do this?”
So much for a friendly, approving grunt. “I thought…”
Auntie Zee snorted. “You didn’t think.”
“I didn’t need to think hard,” Calisa said. “It was drowning in dust and cobwebs.”
This time her great-aunt’s snort sounded a little more amused.
Encouraged, Calisa added, “The guests like it.” Or one guest, at least. She didn’t need to know that the guest had retreated to her room out of irritation. “I hoped you’d like it too.” It was, after all, a highly visible part of the Faraway Inn and had been decorated with care, once upon a time.
Crossing her arms, Auntie Zee surveyed the sitting room. For a long moment, she didn’t say a word. She simply scowled at the room as if she could swallow it in her wrinkles. “I can’t maintain this. That’s why I mothballed it in the first place—it’s too much.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Calisa said. “I can help maintain it. If you let me stay.”
Auntie Zee glared at the tea tray as if it had wronged her, then shifted her glare back to Calisa. “I told you already. You can’t stay.”
She didn’t know why those words hit her as hard as they did, but they felt like a fist to her stomach. She’d been working as hard as she could, trying to please Auntie Zee, who clearly didn’t want to be pleased. “Why not?” Why don’t you like me?
“You just aren’t the right fit,” Auntie Zee said.
Ouch.
Hadn’t she been demonstrating that she wasn’t useless? Jack liked her pancakes, she’d helped fix the porch, and she was cleaning nonstop, voluntarily, without any instruction or help or encouragement.
Auntie Zee added, “And I told you: don’t ask questions, especially of guests.” She then stalked out of the room, leaving Calisa to feel like she’d been dunked in cold water.
Now what?
It was clear that Auntie Zee didn’t want her here.
It was clear that Calisa had to change her mind.
She wasn’t going to just leave, not so soon after she got here, not when she didn’t have a backup plan, and not when she hadn’t yet tried everything she could to make this work.
Like she’d tried with Ethan, until he’d revealed his true colors and made it impossible.
Crossing her arms, Calisa stared into the cold fireplace, thinking, until a minute later she came to a decision:
I’m going to clean the bathrooms.
It wasn’t glamorous, but it was a chore that always impressed her moms. She was certain even Auntie Zee wouldn’t be able to resist the allure of a sparkling toilet. And she could drown her thoughts of Ethan in the toilet, flush them away where they belonged. It would be cathartic.
Visiting the kitchen, Calisa scooped up the cleaning supplies and headed upstairs with renewed determination.
The guest bathroom on the second floor was at the end of the hall, a white door with a rose painted on it. She knocked first, then opened the door.
It was, as bathrooms went, adorable: an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub, a linen shower curtain embroidered with leaves and vines, and a sink with a faucet shaped like a flower.
On the windowsill was a row of vases with sprigs of dried lavender in them.
It had been cleaned much more recently than the common rooms, thankfully, but if you looked, there were still streaks on the mirror over the sink, hair around the shower drain, and grime behind the toilet that said it wasn’t done daily or thoroughly, or had been done by someone with less exacting standards than Mom-Elise.
Setting her cleaning supplies down, she opened the linen closet to check if—
Thump.
Calisa shrieked as a large, lizard-like reptile tumbled out of the linen closet and landed in front of her, its clawed feet splayed out. She jumped backward.
What the hell—
Lifting its bulbous head, it looked at her with marble-size amber eyes.
She shrieked again.
It’s alive. And huge!
Like, Australia-wildlife huge. It was at least a foot long, not counting its whiplike tail, with a narrow body and four beefy legs.
It looked like a…She didn’t know what it was.
Iguana? Alligator? Not an alligator—that was absurd.
She thought of the alligator feed in the supply closet.
No. Not an alligator. It was the wrong shape for an alligator anyway—they had elongated snouts and, like, alligator jaws.
She stood rooted in the doorway and stared at it. It stared back.
Its head was the size of her fist and covered in knuckle-like ridges. Its skin was gray-green and rough, like leather that had been clawed and shredded. Loose purplish-brown flaps of what looked like shed skin covered its back.
It’s molting, she thought.
And then: I don’t care if it’s molting. It’s in the bathroom.
Why was it in the bathroom? Specifically, why was it in the closet in the bathroom? How did it get there? And what was she supposed to do about it? She very badly wanted to scream again. Her heart was thudding hard in her chest.
Behind her, she heard Mulligan, concerned. “Miss Calisa, are you well?”
Calisa jumped again and bit off a third screech.
She spun around to face Mulligan and pulled the door shut behind her.
She leaned against it. Her heart was racing from two jumpscares when she’d expected zero.
Bathroom jumpscares were the worst. “Fine. Sorry. Just…this bathroom is out of commission right now. Would you mind using one on the first or third floor?” She smiled a fake smile at Mulligan.
He was dressed in just as much black as the other night, except this time he wore a thick quilted bathrobe. He held a towel over his arm. “Of course, but you have not injured yourself?”
“Nope. All good here.” Except for the presence of the lizard. She didn’t think any guests needed to know about loose reptiles in the towel closet. Unless it belonged to one of them? “You didn’t happen to, um, lose a pet, did you?”
“I have lost my light, my joy, and my happiness, but no, not a pet.”
“Cool. Um, if you see Jack, like on the roof of the porch, would you mind sending him my way? I have a maintenance question for him. Just a routine bed-and-breakfast thing. Absolutely nothing to worry about.” She tried not to wince at how very suspicious that sounded. She was a terrible liar.
“Of course. I would be delighted to assist in any way I can.”
She watched him retreat down the hall before she reopened the door and looked down at the unexpected addition to her chosen chore, which hadn’t budged from where it’d plopped. “You shouldn’t be here.”
The lizard shifted its weight to face the bathtub. It looked as if it were contemplating a nice soak, preferably with bubbles.
She could pick it up with a towel and transport it to…
where? If it was the pet of one of the guests, it should be returned, but she didn’t want to knock on each door and ask if they owned a stray lizard she’d found in the bathroom.
She imagined the kind of reviews guests would leave after an episode like that.
Calisa heard someone jogging up the stairs, then down the hall, and she peeked out. Jack! She felt relief flood through her veins. He’d know what to do without alerting Auntie Zee. He must have encountered this kind of situation before.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Mulligan said there was an emergency.”
“I didn’t say emergency—”
“He said you required assistance and waxed on about one’s duty to those in distress.”
She was not a damsel in distress, though she conceded there could be a lizard in distress. “I just have a question,” Calisa said. So many questions.
He reached her, and she widened the bathroom door so he could peer inside at the lizard, which still hadn’t moved from where it had plopped on the tile floor.
Jack’s eyes were nearly as wide as the lizard’s. “Um, that’s…not supposed to be here.”
Okay, so maybe he wasn’t an expert in all aspects of innkeeping. “Does it belong to anyone? If it’s a pet, I’ll return it to its owner. If not…” She wasn’t sure what to do if not. Call animal control? That seemed extreme. It hadn’t done anything alarming. It was just sitting there.
“As far as I know, it’s no one’s pet,” Jack said, still staring at it as if he wished he were anywhere but here. “It must have gotten in from the garden.”
“And let itself inside the closet?” Calisa asked.
“Guess so?” He was backing away, looking as if he wanted to bolt. His eyes darted right and left, as if he was deciding the fastest exit.
“What are we supposed to do about it?”
If there were a window nearby, Jack would have climbed out of it. He’s not good in a crisis, she thought. Or maybe just not good with wild animals?
He swallowed hard and said, “We should, um, probably remove it?”
“Fine, but you really think it’s from the garden?” Calisa asked. “What if it’s an invasive species? We can’t just release it into the wild if it’s not supposed to be there.”
“It’s not supposed to be here.” He had retreated a quarter of the way down the hallway, which would have been funny except she still had the problem of the unwelcome lizard and no clue how to handle it. “Sorry,” he said. “Just not a fan of lizards. Or snakes. Or turtles.”
“What’s wrong with turtles?”
“I don’t know. They’re just…squishy inside their shells.”
“People are squishy inside too.”
“I didn’t say it was rational,” Jack said. “Just that I don’t like to be near them. Tortoises are fine, maybe because they’re drier? Turtles seem moist.”
The lizard wasn’t moist. Its skin looked rough and dry, even flaky. She didn’t think pointing that out was likely to make Jack feel better.
He offered, “I can ask Auntie Zee…”
“Or we can find a solution on our own.” Calisa didn’t want Auntie Zee thinking she was helpless or useless. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at the reptile. “All right. This isn’t a disaster. It’s just a little hiccup.”
“What do you think we should do?”