It takes me a while to feel up to doing much of anything after Mason’s exit. I never do figure out what I could have possibly said to have scared him away. Maybe he has a problem with klutzy girls? But he said he would talk to me later. And what is up with him always repeating that damn phrase, “It’s important to remember looks can be deceiving.”
Finally, I decide to order in again. I don’t feel up to cooking dinner. I watch the lights on my tree change colors as I wait for the food to get here. Every year, I randomly select which lights I’m going to use. Mason chose the ones that change colors. They’re my favorite. It makes me feel like I don’t have to settle for one color all season long.
After I’ve eaten the BLT and kettle chips I ordered, I decide to lie in bed and read more of the journal.
I spent days wandering around the forest, trying to find more permanent shelter. Finally, I decided to head in the same direction for a while, hoping to find someone, anyone, who might tell me where I could find a comfortable bed to sleep in.
In the distance, I saw what looked like the top of a mountain. I decided to aim for that point in the distance. At least it would keep me traveling in a straight line.
After I’d walked for hours more, I finally reached the base of the mountain. The closer I got, I started to see a small entrance. I walked up to the door and used the knocker to alert the occupants of my presence.
I waited and waited and waited. No one came to the door. I knocked again and waited some more. After another extended wait, I finally decided to try to open the door. It swung easily. Peering inside, I noticed a coating of dust on all the surfaces. “Hello,” I said, not wanting to scare anyone more than a stranger in their home would.
No one responded. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the halls. The place seems to be fully furnished. I can’t imagine someone just leaving all of their things here, but there are no signs of anyone having been here for some time.
Unfortunately, when I found the kitchen, I also discovered there was no food to eat.
I chose a room from the wing of this place that seemed to house all the sleeping quarters, and I sat there settled in to sleep for the night. I’ll worry about food tomorrow. Right now, I needed a bed, and a good night’s rest.
I decide now is as good a time to put a bookmark in my place as any. Even though I hadn’t gotten to this part before my journey into the journal world, I somehow still dreamed of the castle in the mountain. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not a dream at all. The feeling of running from the wolf through the woods was so real. The terror of being captured and transported miles away felt real. The scratch on my hand. There’s no way all of those things can be coincidences. They all happened over only a couple of nights.
Placing the journal on my side table, I pull my blanket over myself and curl into its warmth.
* * *
I’m shocked and disappointed to wake up in my own bed. I wanted to explore the castle under the mountain, find out what other secrets it contains besides the beautiful flower garden.
My phone ringing in the other room makes me get out of bed quickly, tripping over my slippers, trying to get them on my feet. Unfortunately, I get to the phone too late and wait to see if whoever it was leaves a voicemail.
Might as well go to the bathroom while I wait. While I’m sitting on the toilet, I hear knocking on my door. Quickly, I finish what I’m doing and make my way to open it. Looking through the peephole, I see my parents standing there.
Opening the door, I greet, “Hey, what are you guys doing here?” I open the door wider to allow them into my warm house.
“I tried to call, but you didn’t answer your phone,” my mom says as she removes her gloves, shoving them in her pockets, followed by her scarf and coat.
“You just called two seconds ago, Mom.” I hang her coat in my front closet, wrapping her scarf around the upper part of the hanger.
“Honey, I’ve been calling all morning.” She gives me a disapproving look. God forbid I sleep in for once.
“What time is it? I just woke up.”
My dad gives me a hug and kisses the top of my head. “Oh, Callie, you always could sleep through anything.”
“It’s eleven, dear,” Mom adds. Wow, that’s really, really late. I wonder briefly if super vivid dreams can affect your sleep?
I grab my phone and mutter distractedly, “Wow, I must have really needed the sleep. What are you guys doing in town, anyway?”
“I had an appointment for my ankle this morning. They freed me from my bandaged prison today!” I look down and see that indeed, her foot is in a normal shoe for the first time in a while.
She’s so excited to finally get her wrappings off. I can’t help but chuckle. “Good for you.”
Quickly I shoot off a text to Huxlee.
Me
Huxlee
“The tree looks beautiful this year, sweetie,” Mom walks around and checks out how I placed all the ornaments this year. She freezes at the front of the tree. “Are these new?”
“Which ones?” She points to the chest and journal ornaments I picked out yesterday with Mason. “Oh yeah, I got those yesterday, like them?”
She stays quiet, and I move closer to her. “Mom?” I say tentatively.
“What exactly made you pick those ornaments?” she hisses.
I bite my lip, my fingers tug at the hem of my top, and I flinch back when her gaze turns towards me.
“You just couldn’t leave it alone!” She shocks me with her sudden outburst. My heart jumps in my chest, beating a frantic rhythm.
“Caroline, your blood pressure,” my dad speaks calmly. I take a few deep breaths as he rubs his hand up and down her back.
“No, Jerry, she asked about that damned chest and I told her to just leave it alone. And here she’s gone and opened it, before her time, too!” I’ve never seen my mom come unglued so quickly. Okay, maybe when we used to fight with each other as kids, but it’s been many years since that has happened.
“Before my time? What are you talking about?” My gaze moves from my mom to my dad and back again, wondering which of them is going to tell me what’s going on.
My dad leads my mom to my couch to sit. I follow behind, taking a seat in my favorite chair.
“It’s never been done before. I don’t know what happens now. It’s never happened before. How could I let this happen? I should have hidden that chest years ago. What happens now? My mother never prepared me for this. What do I do now?”
My dad and I look at each other as my mom continues to mumble. I reach out my hand and place it on her knee. “Mom, could you tell me what’s going on?”
“I told you not to open the chest!”
“What do you mean, ‘what happens now?’” I figure this is the easiest and most broad of the questions I can ask right now.
“You’re not supposed to know until your birthday.” Well, that sounds odd, but okay.
“My birthday is in just a couple of weeks. Maybe it’ll be okay.”
She takes a deep breath and turns to my dad, “Can you get me a glass of bourbon, Jerry? I need a drink.”
I look up at my dad, who appears as shocked as I do. My mom rarely drinks, and definitely not bourbon.
“Over there.” I jerk my chin toward my TV cabinet, with my liquor in the bottom section.
When he comes back and she downs the first glass, she holds the glass out to him for another. Only when she has the second glass in her hand does she speak.
“The firstborn women in my family have a gift, Callie.” She takes another sip of the brown liquid. “But as I said, you’re not supposed to know about it until your birthday.
“Those journals are histories… histories of the people who have been banished from our world, leaving their life behind only as the fairytales we tell to our children as they grow up.” I’m starting to wonder if we need to take Mom for some kind of mental health evaluation.
“No one in my family has ever been told, as far back as I know, why these people have been banished, or who is doing the banishing. But we are the keepers of the world they are banished to, a gateway, if you will.” Like prison wardens? I definitely don’t want to be a prison warden.
“Also, no one in our family has ever seen this world. We only know what we’ve been able to learn through the journals.” At my sharp intake of breath, both of my parents turn to face me, eyes focused on my face.
“How do you get the journals?” I can feel the heat creeping up my face.
“The earliest known recorded journal appeared when our family was on a ship to America from France. An additional chest somehow made its way into their part of the cargo in the ship’s hold. The same chest you saw in our attic the other day.
“The chest has been preserved with magic all these years, and every few years, a new journal shows up in the chest. One day, many years ago, my many times great-grandmother took the chest and journals to a witch. The witch told her that the firstborn females in our family are a sort of key or gateway to a prison world.
“But we have never been able to figure out who is banishing these people to this world, or what the world looks like beyond the journal. While we are the gateway, we have never been allowed to see into the world.” She takes a large gulp, finishing off the remaining bourbon in her glass and holding it out for my dad to fill again.
“So we just… what? Get these journals and hope in a couple of years there isn’t another one? Have we ever been able to track down family members for one of these people who have disappeared?” Why the hell has my family been so okay with this over the years?
“I don’t know, Callie, I’ve told you almost everything I know. I was supposed to tell you on your twenty-fifth birthday when it was your turn to take over the keeping of the chest. But you just couldn’t keep it to yourself! You never listen!” Her volume seems to have been turned up as a result of the alcohol running through her veins.
“I’m sorry Mom, I didn’t know it would cause such a problem for the family secret. I didn’t even know there was a family secret.” I keep my voice calm. We don’t need two of us yelling at each other, even though I’m sure Dad is planning how to diffuse the situation.
“Well, Caroline, I think it’s about time we head back home. It’s a long drive back to the house.” He carefully takes the glass from her and sets it on my coffee table. Then places a hand on her back in a calming gesture.
“Yes, dear,” she says, standing. “I love you, Callie. I hope you know that.”
“Yes, Mom, I love you, too.”
I hug them before they leave to head back home. As soon as the door closes behind them, I take a deep breath in and slowly out, trying to calm my racing heart. I go to the coffee table and down the rest of the contents of mom’s cup before washing it in the sink. I return the cup and the remaining bourbon to their places in my liquor cabinet.
* * *
Even though it’s late, I make myself another cup of coffee. What I really want is another stiff drink but, I fear it would make me unable to puzzle through what my mom just told me.
If no one is supposed to be able to travel to the journal world, why can I? And how do I find out why I can?
An incoming text pulls me from my thoughts.
Jake
Jake
Me
Jake
Me
Jake
Me
After spending the rest of the night spinning the wheels in my head, with no way of knowing the answer to this question, I finally fall asleep on my couch.