“I am thinking you found a long-dormant portal to a forgotten realm, Calliope, and the taste of your blood has caused it to awaken.”
L’Runa had no more to add other than she would run my blood through unspecified “tests,” possibly consult with other trusted witches about her theory, and that I should prepare a set of samples of the glass shards and marbles for Malvyn. I mentioned to her again that we had Alabastair as a resource and we should share with him, too. Both Christoph and L’Runa agreed, with my grandfather adding he avoided portal travel whenever he could, and this was all strange and unsettling.
“Can you make sure the kids have whatever they need?” I asked, after both Belle and L’Runa had left. I was bone tired and in need of a pit stop at the bathroom and a final stop at my bed.
“I can do that, Calli-lass. Let me help you first.”
Christoph circled my waist with his arm as though we were heading off to a square dance. I assured him I could make it to my bed unassisted by walking on the outer edges of my feet.
That night, troubled dreams kept me from a restful sleep. The only thing I remembered of them in the morning was that I was searching for something. Which made sense, given my recent adventures and the current state of my life. Lying in bed, tired and anxious, I couldn’t summon any regret about my solo portal trip.
I had found—a place. Or a place had found me, called me to it.
I raised my right arm to the wan northerly light. The gauze bandages Belle had insisted on wrapping halfway to my elbows had survived my restless sleep. Mostly. When I peeked under the loosened section, the cuts were scabbed over. The paler skin of my inner elbow looked normal, if a tad blue. The blood streaming in grayish green rivulets under my skin, did not. A peppery tingle flowed through the soft tissue all the way to my shoulder.
I lifted my other arm, the one not punctured by the thorn. No tingle, only a throbbing palm and thumb pad from where I had sliced my skin with the dagger.
Taking advantage of the quiet house, I put thick wool socks on my feet to cushion the bandages, and slipped my hands into a pair of knit, fingerless gloves. In the kitchen, I prepared a mug of tea then brought it to my room. I had to shuffle to the living room again to retrieve my cross-body bag.
I’d neglected recording my dreams and adventures in my grimoire. The story of the portal tree with its thirsty thorn was too much of an anomaly not to write down. Back in bed, I munched on dried plums and pears, sipped hot tea, and wrote. I even sketched what I could recall of the two kinds of trees, the shapes of the leaves, the placement of the white blocky stones, and the location of the body of water.
I was content to let the morning pass without inserting myself into the kitchen or the teenagers’ prepping for school and the girls’ trip to Victoria. If they forgot something, so be it. In this moment of recording my magical adventure, I embraced the dual shifts happening within House’s walls. Competent adults were a part of my life now and it was okay for me to practice letting go.
I tucked my pen into the grimoire, set the book to the side, and wrapped both hands around my mug. Harper, ever the headstrong older brother, was coming into his gifts, a blend of magics—air magic, shifter magic—I knew almost nothing about.
I was earth-bound. I knew soil and roots. Yet within the circle of my mother’s protection, I had also known the sea. And more and more, I was succumbing to the pull of water, moving and still, fresh and salt.
Slipping another pillow behind me, I pressed the back of my head against the headboard and stared up, tracing the straight lines of my room. Unpainted tongue-and-groove boards running vertically along the walls. Walls meeting ceiling. Ceiling needing a fresh coat of paint.
I closed my eyes.
Water.
No straight lines there, unless it was water being forced to follow a man-made path. The night the dolls had whispered me awake they had nudged me into looking for water, and not just any water. A specific open body or moving stream called to them. I had tried to tap into my own memories—one doll represented a much younger me and I had to have that information locked away somewhere. But either I didn’t, or I couldn’t reach it.
I had tried.
And then I’d gotten worried I wasn’t thinking or acting coherently and put an end to my middle-of-the-night search for water on the behalf of inanimate objects.
I snorted softly and sipped the last of my tea.
This thing between Tanner and me was helping me to understand the nature of fire, how to build, light, feed, and temper flames. How to keep banked coals glowing. I could probably do all that, with the right person. Maybe Tanner was my right person. It felt like he could be yesterday and today and probably still would tomorrow, through our individual and collective attempts at normalcy and inevitable calls to adventure.
I smiled at Christoph’s response to my adventuring, a man of unknown age lecturing his forty-one-year-old granddaughter about portal-travel protocols and realized that caring for and being worried about someone you loved didn’t ever really end.
The caffeine in the tea hadn’t done its job. I set the mug on my desk, nudged aside my grimoire, and drew the covers over my head.
“Calliope?” The gentle pounding at the door echoed the throbbing in my
