Chapter Twenty-Two #2
She’s not wrong. There were windows everywhere, and the statue was always watching. She could have seen Auntie Zee walk through this door. Feeling hope bubble up, Calisa grinned.
She held out her hand, Jack took it, and together they stepped into the portal. Colors blurred around them, and all sensation vanished except the feel of his hand in hers—and then they were through. She inhaled salt air before her eyes adjusted to the swath of blue.
On the other side, they stood on a cliff covered in seagrass. It overlooked the ocean, broad and blue and beautiful. Wind blew her hair into her face and against her cheeks. She thought it looked a bit like Ireland, or it would have if it weren’t for the very obvious sea serpent out in the waves.
“Is that…” Jack began.
“I think so. Do you think it prefers to be called a sea serpent or a sea dragon?” Calisa asked, eyes wide. She watched its silvery form as it dove between the waves. She couldn’t hazard a guess as to how large it was—at least the size of a cruise liner.
She saw a flicker out of the corner of her eye. She glanced to her left as Steve settled on a rock. He lifted a wing as if in a wave. “You weren’t supposed to come with us,” Calisa said.
He let out a little burst of flame.
“Yes, very nice, but you should go back,” she said. “We don’t know if this is safe.”
Steve ignored her.
Out in the ocean, the sea dragon breached and then dove into a wave. Its tail flicked toward the sky. “All right,” Calisa told Steve, “but stay close, okay?”
Opposite the portal was a winding dirt path that led down toward the shore. Nestled between the rocks below was a village, just a few homes clustered around a dock. “It looks like our world,” Jack said. “But if this is our world, then why—”
“Not our world,” Calisa corrected. “Sea dragon.”
“Oh, right. Do you think Auntie Zee is down there?”
“Only one way to find out. Come on, Steve.” She patted her shoulder, and the winged lizard flew up and settled on it. He wrapped his tail around her neck like a scaly necklace.
They began walking down the path. The wind blew sea mist off the ocean, and Calisa felt coated in a thin layer of salt, not unlike the upholstery in Auntie Zee’s sitting room.
Halfway down, she felt a sudden wave of dizziness. She reached out to steady herself, and Jack caught her arm. “You okay?” he asked.
“Just…one sec…”
It faded. She took a deep breath of salty sea air.
On her shoulder, Steve chirped worriedly.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s keep going.
” She didn’t know what that was about. Maybe they were at a different altitude here?
Or maybe there was something in the air that was messing with her balance.
Jack seemed fine, though. She shook her head to clear it and marched onward.
In a few minutes, they reached the edge of the village.
At the edge of town was an empty house: broken windows, a brick chimney covered in lichen, and a front door that swung wide in the wind. Inside she could see an overturned table and a thick layer of dust, as well as an old-fashioned TV with a shattered screen.
The second house looked lived-in. It had an herb border in front that looked well cared for (after all their yard work, she could tell immediately that someone had weeded these plants), as well as a pair of boots next to the door, but the windows were dark and there was no sign of movement.
The third building was larger and had dirty white walls, heavy shutters that framed the windows, and a trellis with roses so deeply red they looked black.
It was three stories tall and boasted an array of antennae on its roof between its brick chimneys.
An inn, maybe? Or a restaurant? It had a stone sign planted in front of it with no words but an image of a turtle.
Warm amber light glowed in the windows, and Calisa heard the buzz of voices within.
Calling something unintelligible to someone inside, a woman came out backward.
She was carrying a basket on her hip, and she turned as soon as she was through the door—and froze.
She stared at them, and they stared at her.
Her eyes were black, her hair was white, and instead of skin she was covered in silvery scales, not unlike the sea dragon.
Without a word, she darted back inside the building.
“Okay, so they’re not overly friendly here,” Calisa said.
Close to her ear, she heard a rumbling from Steve’s stomach vibrating against her neck and wondered if that was his version of a growl.
“Should we leave?” Jack asked.
“Auntie Zee could be in there.” Or she could have passed through. Someone in this village might have seen her and know where she is. “We have to try to talk to them.”
“She literally saw us and fled.”
“We could try a different house?”
Before they could decide what to do, the woman rushed out again, this time pulling a man with her.
He also had silvery scales, as well as a white beard that was so fine and wispy that it looked to be made of silk strands.
They halted and stared at Jack and Calisa.
Pointing at them, the woman flapped her hands and began whispering urgently to the man.
Calisa stepped forward and cleared her throat. “We’re looking for an older woman, my great-aunt. Everyone calls her Auntie Zee. We think she might—”
Staring at Jack, the man interrupted. “You’re right. He looks just like Thomas.”
Thomas? Who—
Beside her, Jack went as still as the statue. “You know my father?”
Exhaling so loudly that she sounded like a gust of wind, the silvery-scaled woman pointed toward the water. She had light webbing between her fingers. “He’s on the sea.”
Calisa turned to look out at the white-crested waves. The clouds had gathered above them, and it looked as if it was about to burst into rain. The horizon was streaked with gray and purple. For all she knew, that was how it always looked here.
Jack’s father?
Was this why the statue had pointed to this door?
Not because of Auntie Zee, but because of Jack’s father, Thomas?
Could this have been the door he’d gone through, the one that Auntie Zee hadn’t been able to open?
Her heart pounded so fast that it felt ready to fly out of her rib cage.
She couldn’t imagine how Jack must be feeling—the hope leaping inside him so hard it had to hurt.
“He’s been missing….” Jack’s voice cracked.
He swallowed hard, as if the words were lodging in his throat.
“He was supposed to be gone three days. It’s been three years.
We opened the portal…. She opened it…. This is Calisa.
I’m Jack, Thomas’s son. What do you mean he’s on the sea? Doing what? When will he be back?”
“He’ll be back with the tide,” the man said. “He’s taken to fishing. Has quite a knack for it. Rigged up a better kind of net with a pulley. He’s been talking about designing a new kind of lobster trap. You’re his son?”
Jack nodded, as if unable to speak.
“Extraordinary.”
“He’ll be so pleased,” the woman said, pressing her hands to her heart. “Overjoyed. You cannot imagine what he’s gone through, thinking he’d never see you again.”
“I’m sorry,” Calisa said, “but who are you?”
“I’m Vela, and this is my brother Enkle,” the woman said. “We run the Seaturtle Lodging House.” She waved at the building behind them. “You can stay here, have a bite to eat, while you wait for him to return.”
“How long will it be?” Jack asked. “Is there a way to tell him I’m here?”
Enkle squinted at the cloudy sky. “It’s not advised.”
Vela said kindly, “Your father, when he arrived…You should know he tried desperately to return to you. He journeyed…”
“So far. So very far,” Enkle said.
“Beyond what is known.” Vela gestured broadly at the cliffs and beyond. “He was gone for months at a time, searching, always searching…always returning when his search failed.”
Calisa watched Jack. He was drinking in every word, blinking hard to fight back tears.
His hands kept curling and uncurling into fists, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she didn’t.
She was ready, though, if he needed her.
This had to feel overwhelming—to find out now that what Jack had feared, that his father hadn’t been able to find another portal, was true… .
“After failing again and again, he returned to us and resolved to wait here,” Vela said. “He believed the portal would reopen. He never quit believing.”
“I confess we did not,” Enkle said. “We thought he’d baked in the sun too long….”
“Or drank too much of the sea,” Vela said.
“Or stared into the eyes of a sea snake,” Enkle said.
Jack looked dazed.
“Sea snake,” Calisa repeated lightly, eyes still on Jack, ready to be there if he needed her. She couldn’t tell if he was about to fall apart from fear or explode from hope. “I admit I was rooting for ‘sea dragon.’ It’s a cooler name.”
“Our dragons fly, not swim,” Enkle said. “It wouldn’t make sense to give them both the same name. You should know that, given the little dragon you carry.” He held a finger out toward Steve.
Catlike, or more accurately, dragon-like, Steve sniffed it and then let out a puff of smoke.
Calisa stared at Steve. “Little dragon.” In retrospect, it was obvious. She’d just been too busy and too distracted to properly think it through. “Okay, that tracks.” To Jack, she said, “Told you Draco fit him.”
Jack shrugged. “I still think he’s a Steve.”
To Enkle, Calisa asked, “Is Steve from here?” She twisted to look again at the little dragon on her shoulder. He’d quit rumbling once Vela and Enkle had started speaking to them. “Is this your home?”
He didn’t reply, of course.
“Doesn’t look like one of ours,” Enkle said. “Ours aren’t that small.”
Calisa wanted to ask a thousand more questions about dragons and sea serpents and their world and why they didn’t have other portals and what their lives were like. Another time. “Jack’s dad—do you have a way to contact him and tell him to come back to shore?”
“We don’t know how long the portal will stay open,” Jack explained.
He’s right. It had closed on Jack’s father, and Auntie Zee had been unable to reopen it.
What if it closed again, trapping them inside?
She hadn’t considered that possibility when they’d walked through, but then she hadn’t known this was that portal.
A shiver ran through her. She thought of her moms and how worried they’d be. “We can’t stay.”
“Please,” Jack said.
Both Vela and Enkle looked alarmed. “Of course,” Vela said. “We should have thought of that. You can’t linger.” She nodded at Enkle. “We’ll sound the horn. Your father will come.”