She’d grown since the first day she and her family had arrived at Windemere Manor. Last summer, the fireplace’s mantel had loomed overhead, but now Claire was eye level with it. Well, almost eye level.
After everything that happened, Mom and Dad had changed their mind about selling Windemere Manor. It would take two years for the house to be properly rebuilt from the strange flames that had torn through the mansion. But it was a historic home, and there were societies that were willing to help them cover the costs of fixing the damage from the fire that had begun, somehow, in the art gallery on the first floor. Everything would be rebuilt—even the fireplace’s chimney.
It had been a strange fire, everyone agreed on that, but nothing had befuddled the fire department more than the hearth of the fireplace. It wasn’t scorched but warped. As though the stone had been melted and reformed. As though it had survived an earthquake—though no earthquakes had been recorded here for a very long time. Claire let her hands run over the mantel’s carvings of forest animals among foliage. And here and there, she’d discovered, a carved image of a hammer, a gemstone, an oak leaf, and a love knot.
She would always be searching for magic in this world.
“Claire! It’s time to go!”
“In a minute, Mom!” she called back. Outside, she could hear Dad rev the engine. They were heading home to their small house, two hours away, but they would be back next weekend. Like Claire, her parents preferred to be here. She hurried down the length of the gallery, empty now but for a few footprints.
As she reached the double doors, Claire turned back to look one more time at the room.
Though none of the windows was open, a wind sighed through the gallery, soft as Spyden silk and light as a unicorn. A wind that seemed brushed with the sights and smells of possible worlds. Claire closed her eyes. For a second, she thought she felt a tug at her bushy ponytail, and her hand drifted to the purple ribbon wrapped around her curls. She would see her sister again—she was sure of it. And in the meantime, what other worlds were out there?
Her fingers tingled. She was ready to capture the image that had just blossomed in her mind, one of a unicorn, her head high, crystal horn gleaming, as she raced the wind to her next Experience. Smiling, Claire closed the double doors and tugged her pencil free.
Its leaf was still green.