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.
And she walked into a very familiar place: the kitchen of her and her moms’ Brooklyn apartment. Mom-Kate and Mom-Elise were seated at the table—Mom-Kate with her usual latte, and Mom-Elise with her phone. Both of them jumped up when Calisa stepped out of the bathroom doorway.
“Calisa!” Mom-Kate cried.
“What happened to our bathroom?” Mom-Elise asked.
Calisa laughed and then suddenly, inexplicably, found herselfcrying. Both of them rushed to her and threw their arms around her, drawing her close. “I’m okay,” Calisa said, muffled, crying, into their hair and shoulders.
“Of course you are,” Mom-Kate said. “You’re home.”
—
After she’d spent over an hour with them, telling them everything about her summer and the inn and Auntie Zee and Jack and Steve and her cakes and the Night Market and the baby dryads and all of it, Calisa invited them back to the bed-and-breakfast.
“Does Auntie Zee want us there?” Mom-Kate asked.
“Of course!” Calisa had no idea if she did or didn’t, but why open the portal if she wasn’t going to talk to Calisa’s moms? Clearly it was time for a family reunion. Mom-Kate had reached out to Auntie Zee by sending Calisa, and Auntie Zee was reaching back by making this portal. Both of them wanted to heal whatever had broken between them. She was sure of it. Mostly sure of it.
She held both her moms’ hands as they squeezed together through the doorway and popped back into Calisa’s guest room, where Auntie Zee was napping in the chair, in her human form and beneath a quilt. Jack and Thomas had left, but the firebird danced over the logs, keeping watch as it always did.
Mom-Elise saw the firebird immediately. “Wow. I know you said…Mom-Kate has told me stories too…but to see with my own eyes…” She knelt beside the fireplace. “Absolutely beautiful.”
Stretching its wings, the firebird pranced over the logs as if showing off.
Auntie Zee opened her eyes. “Ah, good, you’re all here. We have a lot to discuss.” She threw off the quilt and pushed herself shakily onto her feet. Without another word, she began shuffling toward the hallway.
Calisa saw her moms glance at each other, and she wished Auntie Zee had started off a bit more friendly, perhaps with a hello, so great to see you, sorry for holding a grudge for a decade. Still, it was an okay start to the reunion. She didn’t seem angry that Calisa had invited her moms. So long as they all—
Mom-Kate crossed her arms and said in her mama bear voice, “Yes, we do have a lot to discuss. I heard you were ready to send Calisa back home as soon as she arrived.”
Calisa cried, “Mom-Kate! That’s not the most important thing that I told you. And besides, she didn’t. I’m still here.” In fact, if she thought back over it, Auntie Zee hadn’t mentioned sending her home since the moment she’d relocated Steve to the greenhouse. That had been the turning point, though she hadn’t known it at the time.
“Come to the sitting room,” Auntie Zee ordered. “This won’t be a short conversation.” She waddled out of the room without even glancing back to see if they followed.
“Mom-Kate, Mom-Elise, please…just come talk to her, okay? For me?” She led them down the hall, through the lobby, and into the sitting room, which was thankfully devoid of guests. “Not a word,” she said to the mirror as she passed it.
Who? Me?the mirror wrote.I’m kindness personified.
“You’re not a person.”
Rude. Also, accurate.
She shooed her moms past it. She didn’t trust the mirror not to write something to upset her moms just for the amusement value. “Would you like some crème brûlée?” Calisa offered. “And tea?”
The firebird had already raced through the chimneys and was dancing on the log in the fireplace of the sitting room. Mom-Elisa halted to stare at the fiery bird again.
