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CHAPTER THREE

“ S hould I go through it?” I looked at Sebastian who was still sitting on the table at my elbow.

He was watching the door—which was thick and looked like it might be made of oak—with his wide green eyes.

His whiskers were trembling and his tail was lashing like it does when he’s interested in something.

In answer to my question, he jumped off the table and walked over to the door, his plumy tail swishing back and forth. He sniffed it once and then turned his head and said,

“ Mmmrow!” very decisively. It was a definite stamp of approval.

I have always trusted my cat’s judgment.

He’s good at letting me know who’s trustworthy and who isn’t and he once woke me up and warned me about a fire that had started when the motor in my bedroom fan overheated.

People claim that dogs are the best at taking care of their owners and maybe that’s true, but I would put Sebastian up against any dog.

If you’re wondering why I was consulting my cat instead of freaking out about the mysterious door that had suddenly appeared in my apartment, well…I don’t know. I thought it might have had something to do with that flash of memory—my grandma in the kitchen baking brownies.

Something inside me whispered that this kind of thing wasn’t new to me—that it wouldn’t even have been unusual if I could just remember more of my past. It had never bothered me that I didn’t seem to have any early memories before—now I wondered what I had been missing.

“All right,” I said to Sebastian and came to stand beside him. Putting out a hand, I gripped the doorknob and twisted…only to find it locked.

I frowned. Okay—what was the point of having a magical door appear in my apartment if I couldn’t open it?

I let go of the knob and walked around the other side of the door—only to have it abruptly disappear. I could see Sebastian standing there, staring at it, but from behind there was nothing to stare at.

I came back around again and the door reappeared. Okay good—at least I wasn’t going crazy. Clearly you could only see it from one angle. But that still didn’t answer the question of how I was getting in.

Then I remembered that I was still holding the elaborately curved iron key in my left hand. I had thought it was a key to the house I had inherited—to Morris. But maybe this was the lock it was supposed to fit. There was only one way to find out.

Hesitantly, I pushed the key into the keyhole that had been drawn below the knob. It went in smoothly and turned at once when I twisted it to the right.

“Well—I guess this is it,” I said, looking down at Sebastian. “Let’s try it again.”

This time when I twisted the knob (it was still warm, as though it had retained the heat from the fiery lines that had drawn it) the door swung open. When it did, I saw a sight that looked like it was straight out of a Thomas Kincaid painting…or maybe a photo in a tourism brochure.

The open door was standing at one end of a long, wooden bridge.

There were tall lampposts—two on either side—but they weren’t lit.

Maybe because it appeared to be late afternoon, rather than ten o’clock in the morning, like it was outside my apartment.

Hazy golden light poured down, gilding the gorgeous Fall foliage I could see surrounding the bridge on either side.

Yes, in the place on the other side of the door, it was Autumn—possibly sometime in October, not February, like it was outside my apartment.

Not that you get any snow in Winter in Central Florida.

You’re more likely to get a few days in the 60s and a very brief respite from the merciless Florida heat and humidity.

A gust of wind came from the other side of the door, swirling around me and ruffling my hair and Sebastian’s thick gray fur.

It was delightfully chilly—significantly colder than anything I’d feel if I stepped out of my apartment.

It brought with it the scent of Autumn leaves and possibly a fire somewhere in the distance, as though someone had raked up the fallen leaves and was burning them.

I have to admit, I was immediately enchanted.

You just don’t get Fall weather like that down in Florida—it doesn’t even get cold until mid-December and that’s if we’re lucky.

Half the time it’s eighty degrees on Christmas, which is a real bummer.

Not that I’d had anyone to spend Christmas with since my Mom died, but still…

I had never seen a New England Fall before—or had I? Something inside me was whispering that I had…that the memory was buried in the void of lost early childhood recollections somewhere in my subconscious.

Through the rustling branches of the trees at the end of the wooden bridge, I thought I could see a house—soft, periwinkle blue clapboard with white trim winked at me through the orange and gold leaves. Was that Morris? Did I dare to go and find out?

Sebastian answered the question for me. He walked right through the doorway, his tail held high and twitching at the end as he stepped onto the wooden bridge.

“Hey, Sebastian—wait! No!” I exclaimed, anxiety suddenly gripping me. “We can’t just wander in there—we don’t know where it actually is. It might not even be on Earth!”

I have always been a big reader, especially as a child, and The Chronicles of Narnia where four British children wander through doorways that lead to another world was uppermost in my mind.

But my cat didn’t care about my sudden bout of anxiety—he continued on down the bridge, looking from side to side as the Autumn breeze ruffled his fur.

He was getting further and further away and I felt my heart leap into my throat when I thought of losing him.

He was all I had left of my Mom—I couldn’t let him go into the unknown alone!

If I had stopped a moment to think, I would have taken some things with me through the doorway.

A light jacket and my purse at least. As it was, the only thing I had close to hand that was important was my phone.

I grabbed it as well as my grandma’s last will and testament.

Then I plunged through the doorway after my cat.

Though I didn’t know it, I had stepped into a whole other world…and a whole other life.