Page 84 of The Princess of Portals

“So I should just let it eat me?” I said, exasperation straining my voice.

She laughed softly. “No, of course not. You will think of a way out of this. I know you will, Savannah.”

“But how?”

“You need to alter the scenario,” my mother said, then disappeared.

Alter the scenario. Ok, I could do that, whatever that meant.

I stared at the fire tiger. It stalked toward me, slow and graceful, its tail swooshing back and forth behind it, drawing elegant flaming semicircles in the air. Flames sizzled on the wet grass, a dance of fire and water. A heavy, burnt tang saturated the air.

The tiger was an apex predator, a powerful, primal force of nature that took what it wanted and left carnage behind. But it was also a cat.

The fire tiger opened its mouth to roar, but only a soft meow came out. The flames on its fur went out. There was a puff of magic, and then instead of a tiger, a small fluffy cat stood before me.

“Well, hello there, little one.”

I lowered to my knees, holding out my hand. The cat blinked its big blue eyes at me once, very slowly, then it slunk toward me, back arched. I petted it.

Wisps of fog morphed into a swarm of butterflies. The cat let out an excited meow, then chased after them.

Marlow materialized in front of me. He was dressed in high leather boots, dark blue jeans, and a button-up shirt. Tassels dangled from his long sleeves. He looked like a cowboy. He even wore a big, wide-brimmed hat. He tipped his hat to me now.

“You are so clever, Savannah Winters, just like your mother. I haven’t heard from Alara in so long. Is she ok?”

“She’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Marlow asked me. “Shouldn’t you check on her? Now. She could be in danger.”

I looked around at where I was. The foggy field. The soggy grass. The fire, the butterflies, the tiger-turned-kitten. It was all so weird. And why did the air suddenly smell so strongly of peppermint?

“This isn’t real,” I said to myself.

“Why do the two of you look so much alike? In fact, exactly alike? That’s not normal, you know.”

Wolf ran up to us, barking with excitement. A breeze brushed past me, blowing the fog away. I saw I was in a field of wild flowers. The cat was still chasing the butterflies, and as soon as Wolf saw them, she started chasing the cat.

Marlow ran after his dog, calling out to her. “Wolf, you leave that poor cat alone!”

Man, dog, and cat ran through the field, chasing butterflies—and one another. But no matter how fast they ran, the butterflies eluded them.

“He’s right, you know.”

I turned to look at my mother. She was back. Marlow and Wolf were back too. Wolf dropped a rubber banana toy at my feet.

“You look exactly like me,” Mom said. “That’s unnatural.”

She showed me the photograph she held in her hands. It was a picture of her from before the Curse. I knew that from the scenery: skyscraper cities and busy roads packed full of cars.

Zoe’s taunts replayed inside my head. Oh, but your mom didn’t lose everything because of the Curse. She lost everything before the Curse, when she got herself tangled up at the center of a horrible scandal. And then she wasn’t Professor Winters anymore at all.

For some reason, Marlow could hear the words in my head. I guess because all of this was playing out in my head.

“What happened to you all those years ago, Alara? What’s this scandal she’s talking about?”

Mom blinked a few times. “I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember. All I know is it was bad—so bad that I forced myself to forget.” She clutched my hands, her eyes wide and desperate. “Please, Savannah. Please don’t use the Remembrance Orb. I don’t want to remember. I chose to forget for a reason.”

“This isn’t about us, Mom. It’s about the Lost Spirits. We have to help them remember who they are.”