Chapter Twenty-Eight
A week after the grand reopening, Calisa made crème br?lée for the first time. Mom-Elise had looked up the recipe online and read it to her over the phone. She whisked, heated, baked, then cooled. Now she had a half-dozen ramekins ready for their tops to be crisped into caramel.
“Ready for your big moment?” Calisa asked Steve.
He waddled over to the six shallow dishes of custard and dipped his head.
“No eating,” she said. “Fire.”
Tilting his head, he looked at her quizzically.
“You can do it. Steady flame.” She sprinkled spoonfuls of white and brown sugar over the top of each custard. “Come on, Steve. Fire.”
He looked at the crème br?lée again, and she tickled under his chin. He chirped and wriggled his body, then he opened his mouth and a spurt of fire came out. She lifted each dish to the flame until the sugar top crystalized to a perfect golden brown.
“You’re magnificent,” she told the little dragon.
He preened.
Jack came in through the back door. “You let him inside again.”
“Yep,” Calisa said. She patted Steve on the head and then went to the fridge to fetch him a slice of meat that they’d purchased from the Night Market on their last visit.
He took it daintily out of her fingers using his teeth, and she washed her hands before putting the perfect crème br?lées back into the refrigerator to chill until it was time for them to be tonight’s dessert. “How’s Melidor?”
“Nearly ready to return home, she says.”
“And the seedlings?”
“Loud.”
She’d heard them chirping and squealing when she woke up this morning. They sounded like baby birds crossed with the pop of bubble wrap. She wouldn’t have guessed they’d squeak like that, but she supposed it wasn’t anything she’d ever given any thought to before this summer.
“Steve, do you want to go play with the baby dryads?” Calisa asked.
He obediently flew out the back door as Jack held it open.
Jack crossed to her as she was putting the last of the crème br?lée into the fridge. “These look incredible,” he said, peeking over her shoulder. “Let me know if you need a taste tester.”
She turned to make a joke and the words fled from her mind.
His eyes were warm and laughing, as they always were, and before she’d even decided to, she was kissing him in the chill of the open refrigerator door.
His lips were warm and soft, and his arms wrapped around her and made her feel as if she were enclosed in the world’s nicest blanket.
“Close the fridge door,” Auntie Zee said testily behind them.
Calisa and Jack jumped apart.
“Sorry,” Jack said and closed the refrigerator door.
“You should know better than to open and close doors carelessly,” Auntie Zee scolded.
“It’s a refrigerator,” Calisa said. “Wait, can you turn a fridge into a portal? What about a car door? Does the car have to be parked, or can a portal be in motion? Can you have one on a plane?” As she rattled off questions, she scooted closer to Jack.
She wasn’t going to be embarrassed about kissing him.
In fact, she was tempted to kiss him again right now, and Auntie Zee could do whatever she wanted.
She had every intention of spending as much time as possible with Jack before the summer ended, and yes, that included kissing him at every opportunity.
Because time did move on, as Auntie Zee kept saying, and Calisa didn’t want this summer to end.
She was trying so hard not to think about that Future Calisa problem.
She didn’t want to leave the inn. Didn’t want to leave Jack.
Or Steve. Or the firebird in the hearth.
Or Auntie Zee. Or the statue. Or even the unfriendly mirror.
She wanted her enchanted tea every afternoon.
She wanted to bake cakes. She wanted to walk through portals into other realms. She even wanted to weed and clean the bathrooms, if it meant she didn’t have to say goodbye.
“Your mothers have been pestering me about you,” Auntie Zee said.
Calisa winced. She hadn’t called home as often as she should have.
She’d let them know that Auntie Zee was back, the grand reopening had been a success, and they didn’t need to abandon work and rush up to Vermont, but after that…
the inn had been full, and she’d had a lot of work to do. “I’ll call them,” she promised.
“You’ll do better than that,” Auntie Zee said. “Come with me.”
Calisa glanced at Jack.
Rolling her eyes, Auntie Zee said, “Yes, he can come too, if he wants, at least for the first part. After that, he’ll have to stay here.” She hobbled out of the kitchen, through the lobby, and down the hall toward Calisa’s room.
Calisa and Jack followed.
Over her shoulder, Auntie Zee said, “I have never made a portal in either a fridge or a car, but I suppose it’s theoretically possible. Awkward, though, to climb in over the crisper into another realm. Closet doors are ideal choices.”
The first thing Calisa noticed was that the red X on her door had been cleaned away, and now a bouquet made of acorns and pine cones hung in its place.
Auntie Zee didn’t wait for Calisa to unlock the door but instead strode inside as if she owned the place—which she did, of course. In the hearth was the firebird.
“Do you know what she’s up to?” Calisa asked the firebird.
It danced over the logs, which wasn’t an answer.
As if sensing her nervousness, Jack took Calisa’s hand as Auntie Zee crossed to the closet door.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Auntie Zee.
She just didn’t know what the innkeeper had in mind.
First she’d been complaining that Calisa didn’t call home enough, and now she was sending her off into an unknown realm?
“It’s easy to open or close a portal that already has a designated terminus, given enough power and sheer dumb luck,” Auntie Zee said, “but much harder to establish one to a new destination. Probably take you years to learn how. Luckily you’re young and spry.”
Years? Did that mean that Auntie Zee planned to train her?
Long-term? They hadn’t talked about it yet, not in any concrete way.
She felt her heart beat faster. There was nothing she wanted more, but how would it work?
Could she come back every summer? Would that be enough?
She’d have to talk with her moms, but she thought they’d say yes.
She wished she could be here fall, winter, and spring too, though.
What if she visited every school vacation also?
Would her parents allow that? Would Auntie Zee?
Auntie Zee touched each inch of the doorway, groaning when she had to bend to touch the floor and the lower parts of the sides. She hauled over a chair to stand on to reach the top. Huffing, she stepped up onto it and then wobbled.
Jack hurried over to steady her and the chair.
Auntie Zee grunted at him but didn’t protest at the help. When she finished, she stepped down and puffed. “Silence. I have to concentrate.”
Neither Calisa nor Jack had said a word.
The firebird stilled, and the crackle of its flames quieted.
Out of the corner of her eye, Calisa noticed that Steve had flown to her windowsill and was perched outside, watching.
He didn’t like when she ventured into other realms without him, especially if the other realms had treats.
Touching the doorframe lightly, Auntie Zee whispered to the doorway in a coaxing tone.
She swayed slightly, and Jack glanced at Calisa.
She shrugged. She didn’t know if they should be letting her great-aunt do this or not.
Last time she’d opened a brand-new portal, Jack’s father had been lost for three years.
Auntie Zee leaned against the mantel with a gasp.
Flapping its flame wings, the firebird flew up the chimney in a whoosh of heat as Calisa started toward her. “Auntie Zee?”
Auntie Zee held up a hand to stop her.
“I’m getting my father,” Jack said.
Before he could leave the room, though, the firebird flew back to the fireplace with a fiery whoomp, and Thomas arrived at a jog. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “You know you don’t have the strength….”
Huffing at him, Auntie Zee shrugged him off.
“I can do this. Child’s play.” She pointed at Calisa and said, “You’ll want to go through this one alone, girl.
Trust me on this. Fewer explanations needed if you’re solo.
” Without waiting for any questions or for Calisa to do more than glance at Jack and Steve, Auntie Zee drew herself up straighter than Calisa had ever seen her and commanded, “Open!”
She then sagged into a chair.
And she promptly shrank. Her clothes sprouted white fur, and her face reshaped itself into an elegant elderly cat. With dignity, the cat licked her paw.
All of them stared at her.
“Uh,” Calisa said. She still couldn’t get used to the idea that—poof—her great-aunt could become a cat. “Now what? Do we use the remedy?”
The cat lowered her paw and shook her head very clearly.
Thomas knelt beside her. “Give her a chance to rest. If it truly was ‘child’s play,’ as she said, her magic should restore itself naturally.”
The cat, Auntie Zee, licked her paw again.
“You should open the door,” Jack said to Calisa. “See what she wanted you to see.”
Right. Good idea. Certainly it was preferable to standing here imagining if she was going to transform into a cat next.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to sprout fur.
Calisa opened the door to a pleasant pink whorl.
It looked like raspberry jam being stirred into pink milk.
She glanced back at Jack, Thomas, her cat-aunt, and the little dragon peering through the window.
Trying not to dwell on what happened the last time Auntie Zee opened a new portal, she gave them all a wave, and then she stepped through the swirl.