Jack spoke up. “No one has asked the most important question.”
All of them looked at him.
“Does Calisa want this?” He flushed red. “I mean, she’s got Auntie Zee’s traveler-cat-whatever powers, but a month ago she didn’t know anything about this inn or the realms or any of this. Just because she can do it doesn’t mean she wants to.”
“No one else can,” Auntie Zee said.
Mom-Kate held up her hand. “Jack’s right. It’s her choice. Her future.”
Leaning forward, Mom-Elise said to Calisa, “You can take time to think about it. You don’t have to make a decision quickly. You have the whole rest of the summer. In fact, you have as long as you’d like. Unless Auntie Zee needs you to decide immediately?”
“I won’t be retiring just yet,” Auntie Zee said. “Now that Thomas is back, and I have both him and Jack to assist me, I’ll be fine for a while.”
“You could hire someone else too,” Calisa suggested. “Now that the inn is flourishing again. Rin could help you find someone trustworthy if you ask him….”
Auntie Zee glared at her. “I’ll think about it.”
That was better than a no.
“Regardless, your moms are correct,” Auntie Zee said. “You should think about what you want before you decide. It is nota small responsibility. It’s a brand-new purpose.” All of them looked at Calisa with various expressions of concern, interest, and, in the case of Auntie Zee, complete confidence that she knew what Calisa would say.
Calisa rolled her eyes. “Obviously,” she replied.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
September came quickly.
Calisa wrote her college application essays about her summer working at her great-aunt’s inn, leaving out everything magical. She applied to every school that had hotel management courses, as well as a few with business majors and minors. It didn’t matter where she went—Auntie Zee could make her a portal. By the time she graduated, she expected to know how to establish her own portals, in addition to opening and closing existing ones.
For now, though, she had senior year of high school ahead of her. Her friends Crystal and Maddy were thrilled she’d met a new guy and instantly began to plot how to coax him to Brooklyn for senior prom at the end of the year. Whenever she mentioned Steve, they assumed he was another guy in Vermont, and Crystal kept pestering Calisa for an introduction.
Calisa, though, kept the inn’s secrets from everyone. It hadto be that way—the Faraway Inn needed to be kept safe, for everyone who needed it.
And there were a lot of people (and beings) who needed it. Thanks to word spreading about the success of the reopening, it was booked for most of the summer and half the fall, especially during peak fall foliage weekends in October—many were repeat guests from prior years, but several were new, drawn by Auntie Zee’s reputation and word of mouth spread by the vendors in the Night Market.
She only saw Ethan at a distance until the second week of school, when he was waiting for her outside the bodega downstairs from her family’s apartment. As soon as he saw her heading for the stairwell, he jogged to catch up to her.
“Hi, Ethan.” She didn’t feel the urge to say much else. He had apologized, after all, earlier in the summer. She didn’t need anything more from him. She checked her heart to see if it still felt sore, and she felt a familiar what-could-have-been ache. It was surrounded, though, by thoughts of what she needed to do this afternoon at the inn for the guests, what cake she’d bake next, whether anyone had fed Steve yet, and when her and Jack’s next trip to the Night Market should be.
“Calisa!” Ethan said. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
She hadn’t. She just hadn’t tried to see him. “Not really.”
“I think we need to talk.”
Calisa considered that—did she want to hash through everything that had gone wrong? It wasn’t all that complicated, actually. “I don’t know what there is to say,” she told him honestly.
“I’m hoping we can still be friends,” Ethan said.
“I…” She stopped, thought about it, and then smiled sadly at Ethan. Not unkindly. “We aren’t enemies. I don’t hate you.”
“That’s a start,” he said.
“And an end,” Calisa said. “Ethan, you should find a way to move on. We’re the past. I have a different future now.”
“Yeah, I heard you met some guy—”
She stopped him. “Ethan.”
