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After tea with Grandmother, Mrs. Fealston led me up the grand staircase. For such an elderly person, she moved at a terrific pace, her low heels click-click-clicking with military precision as if she couldn't whisk me away from Grandmother fast enough. Once we reached the second floor, I caught glimpses of museum-quality paintings, suits of armor, and vast tapestries flashing past—as though from a high-speed train. "Your grandmother's rooms." Without pausing, she gestured toward a gilded hallway. I understood it to be off-limits. But I could barely glance at it before we kept climbing, up and up. By the time we arrived at the fourth floor, I could hardly catch my breath.

We came to a sudden halt. She flung open a small, ornate wooden door to our left and stepped inside. "This was your mum's room when she was a girl," Mrs. Fealston announced, only slightly winded. "I see Paxton's brought your things."

I took a deep breath and followed. My jaw dropped. The room was bigger than our entire apartment in New Haven. A blue vaulted ceiling soared overhead, painted with white blossoms and dancing dryads. To the left stood a high canopied bed accessed by a small flight of steps. To the right was a gigantic wardrobe next to a bookcase loaded with books. On the far wall, a marble fireplace was flanked by two stiff chairs, which stood at polite angles as if ignoring my cheap luggage by the bed.

After all our years in student housing and tiny apartments, I couldn't picture Mum in such a huge space, surrounded by glamorous furnishings.

"It's a strange house," Mrs. Fealston said cryptically, "but you'll make yourself at home here soon enough. Rest now. It'll be a few hours till supper. We'll take a proper tour tomorrow." Then she left, closing the door firmly behind her. She hadn't locked me in, exactly, but the expectation was clear: Stay put until called for.

I tried to steady my breathing. Was I really supposed to just hang out here all afternoon, like this was some sort of ordinary hotel? It wasn't fair. But perhaps Mum had warned her about my nosiness. Which wasn't fair either. Well, okay, then. If I couldn't be nosy out there, I'd be nosy in here.

I turned and studied the antique wardrobe. It stood at least nine feet high, as if designed for giants. A person could easily climb inside and disappear.

Not really, of course. I smiled faintly, remembering how many times I'd knocked on the backs of closets and cupboards as a child, imagining I was Lucy Pevensie looking for Narnia, or Amabel from E. Nesbit's The Magic World. It'd taken me an embarrassingly long time to accept that there were no portals to other realms. No magic wardrobes or jewels, tapestries or train platforms.

But magic still clung to the memory of the stories—or perhaps I still clung to the magic. The very walls of this place turned me into a believing kid again.

I took a step closer. Then I twisted the handle and swung the door open.

Empty. The back of the wardrobe stared me in the face.

I pressed my hands against the solid wood panels that lined the inside. Nothing happened, of course. I stood there foolishly for a moment. Then I made a half-hearted attempt at unpacking my things onto the shelves, as if that's what I'd intended all along.

Well, that was done. It'd taken all of five minutes.

I eyed the closed bedroom door. Maybe one quick foray into the hallway? But no, best not earn Mrs. Fealston's distrust.

Instead, I wandered over to the bookcase and pulled a slim volume from the middle shelf. It was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge—one of my favorites. I opened the front cover. Scrawled across the title page was familiar handwriting: Gwendolyn Lucinda Torstane, my mother's maiden name. These had been her books, of course. I ran my finger along the well-worn spines. George MacDonald. Frances Hodgson Burnett. J. R. R. Tolkien. E. Nesbit. C. S. Lewis. Mary Norton. Lord Dunsany. Madeleine L'Engle. Beloved authors, Mum's and mine.

But one book was missing. None of the shelves contained my absolute favorite, a collection called Ternival: Selected Tales by A. H. W. Clifton.

Its absence surprised me. Mum had whispered the tales to me as bedtime stories before I could read—stories about Augusta and her best friend, Maggie, who'd been among the first to stumble from our world into the magical realm of Mesterra. And about Andella the Archeress, who'd slain the foul wolf of the Wilderlands when the Vale of Ter was discovered beyond Mesterra's westernmost boundaries. And about the sisters Flora and Annabel and their cousin Claris, who'd fought fell enemies, danced with dryads, and become queens of Ternival after the Battle of Marisith-over-the-Sea.

It was the rare classmate who'd ever heard of Ternival, much less adored it as much as I did. The book hadn't been a smash hit when it was first published during World War II. The writing was curiously choppy in places. Plus, the collection was incomplete, as if Clifton had intended to write a sequel but never got around to it. But to me it felt so real. As if Clifton hadn't merely invented Ternival but had been there. In person.