“Let’s just say it’s good that I have a bottomless credit card.”
I must have looked confused.
He wiped his hand over his face. “Endless? Wes, what’s the word I’m looking for?”
“No credit limit,” answered Wes. “And I say we leave everything in the truck overnight and unload in the morning.”
I agreed and bent to unzip the bag holding the cat.
Thatcher came barreling out of the house. “Mom, where’s Jasper? I can’t find him, and I’ve looked everywhere.”
A feline wail split the air. Jasper hissed at me before tearing up the porch stairs and launching himself into Thatcher’s arms.
“Hey, boy, where you been?” said Thatch.
“We had an adventure,” I said, “and I think he’s upset. It took us three portal stops to make it home.”
“Mom! You got to try out the portal? Which one, the crabapple tree?”
“Yes and yes. And right now I need to get some antibiotic ointment on my feet and go to sleep. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”
Thatcher waved and ducked into the house.
I turned to Wes. “I met that Portal Keeper you and Kaz were talking about. His name is Alabastair. Malvyn sent him here, via Maritza. We ended up at Meribah’s estate near Victoria, located the two fairies we were sent to find, and liberated them using Jasper’s spit.” I paused, took in a breath, and let it out. “Yes, you heard that right. Cat spit. Doug and Roger caught us, caught me—Bas was portaling the fairies to the Pearmains’—and—”
“Calliope, stop.” Wes held up his hand then opened his arms.
I accepted the offered hug. “I was scared shitless. They were out for my blood. Bas got me out of there just in time.”
Wes patted my back in a brotherly way. “You need to wash your feet and sleep,” he counselled. “Ro’s on her way over. We’ll take turns on watch. We already discussed it.”
“Doesn’t she need to sleep too?”
“She got another doctor to take her on-call shift for the rest of the weekend.”
I collapsed with relief. One part of my brain cowered in fear of what Doug’s—or his mother’s—next step might be. The rest of my brain wanted to check out. “I wish I didn’t have to rely on all of you all the time. But thank you.”
I went for a second shower of the night and made it a quick one. Sitting on the edge of my bed, bandaged feet splayed on the floor, I drew the pillow Tanner had used to my chest. Floorboards thrummed under my feet at my heels and toe pads and sent the gentle vibrations up the leg bones to my knee joints. I pressed my nose into the soft cotton, closed my eyes, sent out a search party through my toes.
Where is he?
My house pushed aside my question, showed me an image of its structural interior, the essential pieces covered by plasterboard, tongue-and-groove paneling, tile, and maple slats. My house rested on the foundation of the house that was here before it and the one before that. Outbuildings had come and gone, but the original footprint was true to its origins.
My house was casting its vote: No additions. No alterations to the beams that created the A-frame’s sturdy skeleton. No peeling back of its skin, no “freshening” of its exterior.
House approved of bunkbeds and boarders—that was every bit as clear. And House could find no connection to Tanner’s whereabouts. I lifted one foot and bent that leg to rest on the cotton sheet.
A tug kept the toes of my other foot floor-bound for one more piece of information.
Traces of Meribah’s blood mingled with others’ blood in the packed dirt of the root cellar. The same root cellar where cousins had trapped me in a game of hide-and-seek the summer after my mother died.
I did not sleep well. Even with Tanner’s faint scent in my nostrils and the pillow clenched to my chest, I couldn’t shake the last image my house had sent. I reached for my cell phone, swiped through my messages, and called Harper.
“Hey, Mom,” he greeted. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Just checking in. How’s Leilani?”
“She’s good. We’re both good. Making a plan with James about how to stay normal in abnormal times.”
“Is Malvyn home?”
“Mal’s due back by lunchtime today.”
“Have you talked to your brother?”
“He called me from the ferry last night and filled me in. Pretty intense scene, Mom.”
“Rowan’s witch friend has helped Sallie a lot. You’ll have to come by and meet the cat she left.”
“Yeah, Thatch was telling me about Jasper. Lei-li’s totally jealous.”
Silence.
“I love you, Harper. Maybe we can get everyone together for dinner tonight or tomorrow.”
“Sure, Mom. Love you too.”
I called Thatcher next, even though he was just upstairs.
“Mom? Where are you?”
“My room,” I said. “I talked to Harper.”
Thatch’s voice went to a whisper. “I miss the old days. When it was just us.” I missed them too. “But then I look at Sallie and Christoph, and they need us.”
“Yes, they do.”
“I like having a great-grandfather. And not just because he’s got a ridiculously high credit limit and wants to buy us, like, all the stuff. I hope he stays here a long time.”
“I like him too.” But living with my grandfather while trying—eventually, at some undetermined day in the future—to have a dating life?
“Anything else you want?”
“Just to tell you I love you and I’m proud of you.”
“I love you, Mom. And I’m proud of you too.”
Tomorrow, Monday, I had to go to the office. Showing up for our jobs was a foundation of the new normal I agreed to with my boys. I almost called Kerry then double-checked the time. That both Harper and Thatcher had answered my phone calls before nine in the morning was a miracle.
If I reached far enough and held tight to the bed post, I could coax my laptop off the desk and read through emails in bed. Mission accomplished, I texted Thatcher that if he wanted to win
