The Pantry Door by Julie Steimle (top 100 books of all time checklist TXT) 📕

However, she didn’t hold it against her grandmother as she saw her teasing smile when Grandma Schmidt returned to eat. Instead Katy took up a sandwich and sighed. “So, do you think they’ll come back?”

Her grandmother shook her head. “No. Not unless they are called again.”

“Do you think I will still see gnomes?”

Nodding, her grandmother’s smile widened. “But they won’t bother you.”

Katy set down her spoon and leaned over her bowl. “How did you know what to do? How did you know I wasn’t crazy?”

Meeting Katy’s eyes, Grandma Schmidt conveyed in a look many years of experience and understanding. “I have seen a great number of things in my life, Kathleen. I have learned a great many things. And one thing most important I learned is to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.”

That answer was not what Katy wanted to hear. She grimaced.

“That, and to love music,” her grandmother added. Grandma Schmidt leaned back in her chair with a far off look, gazing towards the cupboards, though Katy wondered if she was staring at her cupboard. “My love for music saved me.”

Katy blinked at her.

“And it can save you,” Grandma Schmidt said.

There was no way Katy could respond to that. She already knew music was important to her. She knew it.

Monday finished silently. Grandma Schmidt took her nap while Katy picked up some paper and drew what she remembered the pixies looked like, including the fat one dressed in a morning glory hat and several pieced-together leaves all over its body. Doodles really—and they didn’t look all that good in comparison to what she had seen. But Katy didn’t want to forget the pixies, the gnomes, Mr. Fugit, or Nissa. She didn’t want to forget the secret room or the cupboard door. She didn’t want to forget any of it. Katy stowed away her pictures before her grandmother could see them, tucking them in the bottom of her travel bag,

The rest of the week felt dull in comparison to the first three weeks. They weeded the garden, took naps, and read books. Katy did, however, continue her sketches of things she saw around the garden. She drew up a gnome, and one gnome walked by to critique it. He had tilted his head and said nothing, lifting one eye at Katy, seemingly trying to decide if she were making a book, but then Katy turned and offered to draw him. For a moment she sat and drew his portrait, then handed him the torn off sketch. Smirking, the gnome bowed and carried away the little piece of paper like he had been handed a child-sketch from his own kid. Katy had not seen him since.

Once Friday arrived, Katy had a stack of pictures of strawberry plants, the garden, a gnome under the grape vines, all the places she and her Grandpa Schmidt used to go that were not too far from the house in case a Gibson came along to harass her, and the apple tree with pixies flying though the leaves. As she sat on the porch, drawing one of the roses with pixies peeking out, Katy heard the generally intermittent rumble of a car roll over the gravel road. She glanced up once, wondering if it were someone calling on her grandmother for a visit, but her eyes caught on the familiar sheen of blue to her mother’s car. Katy sat up.

She had completely forgotten to be mad at her mom. Katy blinked, her heart pounding, wondering what would happen now. It was a day early. One day too early. It was unfair, totally unfair that her mother was going to take away her last evening at Gran’s.

Katy kicked the porch railing. White paint chips fell, and she felt automatically guilty, wondering why she hadn’t suggested that she paint the porch before she left.

“Kathleen? Kathleen. You’re mother is here!” Her grandmother called from somewhere inside.

Half inclined to run away, the other half inclined to call out the pixies again, Katy ignored her feelings and drew in a breath. She had to meet her mother again anyway. Sooner was better than later.

Turning over the picture on the book she used as a drawing table, Katy marched to the screen door and pulled it open. The spring gave that same old, questioning twang and snapped when Katy stepped inside. She took in a breath, set the book and drawing on the couch, and crossed the rest of the distance to the kitchen door.

Katy took one step into the kitchen.

Her mother turned hesitantly, with caution, but with hope in her eyes. Katy didn’t want to reward that, to let her see she had become the reformed, model child just as her mom wanted. But inside another feeling rose, one Katy tried to beat down.

“Hello, Mother,” Katy said in as cold a voice as possible, trying not to reveal any weakness on her part.

Nodding with dismay, Katy’s mother sighed. “Hi, Kathleen. How was your summer?”

Averting her eyes to the living room, Katy replied with some bite, “Thomas Gibson tried to run me over.”

Grandma Schmidt cut in between them, raising her hands with an apologetic blush. “Don’t worry, Denise. We had a little trouble with the Gibsons, but Sheriff McGiven has taken care of it.”

Right away Katy’s mother turned from her daughter to her mother. “Oh, the Gibsons aren’t at it again? Are you all right? You haven’t had any trouble with them at all have you?”

Katy rolled her eyes and walked straight through the kitchen to the basement door, wishing with a frown that her mother had at least broken down and cried on her behalf. However, when Katy looked back, she saw her mother’s worried expression turn to her. It was the same look she had given when she left Katy at her grandmother’s, but now, somehow, Katy felt like she heard that pixie say to her, “Do you hear the flowers weeping?” and she wished to listen to see if they really were. But Katy stepped into the basement stairwell.

“Kathleen?” her mother called out.

Katy paused, turning her eyes to look.

Still hesitant, her mother asked, “Are you ok? Thomas Gibson didn’t hurt you, did he?”

Ducking before the tears could come, Katy hurried the rest of the way down the stairs.

It was what she wanted. She had wanted her mother to care if she were hurt. She wanted her mother to miss her and feel sorry for leaving her in that place. But her concern only reminded Katy that Nissa was gone, for some nutty reason. It felt as though she were staring at Nissa’s face when her mom asked about her.

“Kathleen?” Her mother still called down.

“I’m fine,” Katy called back, wiping away the tears.

Walking down the stairs some, her mother called again. “Kathleen, are you—?”

“I said I was fine!” Katy snapped.

Her mother stopped on the stairs. “Alright. I just wanted to know if you needed any help with packing.”

“Are we leaving tonight?” Katy asked.

“No, tomorrow,” her mother said.

Katy sat down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. It still felt too early. She wanted to see Nissa one more time, but that was impossible. Not even the upstairs room appeared anymore. It seemed the magic had ended.

She heard her mother’s feet head back up the stairs. The upper door closed.

 

They ate supper with very little conversation. Mostly Katy’s mom asked Grandma Schmidt about the broken window and then how she was going to get it replaced. Grandma Schmidt then asked about what the Nielsens were doing for Christmas, if they would come and stay or if they were going to Florida to visit her husband’s relatives.

“Oh, we’re coming here, Mom,” Katy’s mother replied, not really looking at how Katy picked at the green beans on her plate or how little Katy had eaten of her sliced cooked carrots next to the pork chop she hardly nibbled on. “Every Christmas here is a gift.”

Grandma Schmidt smiled.

“And will Matthew be visiting also?” her mother asked about Katy’s uncle.

Uncle Matt lived in Redlands, California, working at a bank. Katy’s cousins were older than her by two years and always told Katy she was weird, like Grandpa Schmidt. Remembering that made Katy wonder. Before it just felt like they were making fun of her, putting her on the defensive even on behalf of Grandpa Schmidt, though he laughed when he had heard it. But now she wasn’t so sure. They were alike. And listening to them talk, Katy remembered she missed him.

“Yes. Matt will be here for Christmas,” Grandma Schmidt said. “You may want to drop by and visit him on your way home.”

“That’s twelve hours out of the way, Mom.”

“Oh. I keep forgetting how far apart you both are. Alright then. But you must promise me that when you come to visit, you’ll bring that electronic keyboard of yours and play for us. We don’t have a piano anymore.”

“I will, Mom. But you know how rusty I am.”

“Well then, practice, dear. You have that keyboard for a reason, you know. You can’t expect Kathleen to play her instruments if you won’t.” Her grandmother winked at Katy.

Katy poked her pork chop again. Everything was falling back into the same conversation as always. Grandma would nag her mom about something she wanted to see again. And then her mom would make promises she hoped Grandma Schmidt would forget about when the time came. But Katy didn’t want things to go back the way things had been. She didn’t want to lose the magic of the cupboard. She didn’t want to forget that she had been left at the mercy of the Gibsons and strange magic of another world. She wanted things to keep changing.

So Katy sat up and said, “Don’t worry, Grandma. I’ll make Mom practice.”

Grandma Schmidt smirked and lifted her chin to nod at her daughter as if that settled that.

But Katy’s mother laughed. “And how are you going to do that?”

Looking her mother in the eye, Katy said, “I won’t go back to the orchestra if you don’t practice piano. It’s only fair.

Katy waited, expecting her mother to become angry with her, but instead she burst out laughing.

“Ok! It’s a deal!” Her mother even stuck out her hand to shake.

Taking it, trying to squeeze hard to show she meant it, Katy shook on it.

With her hand in her mother’s, a shiver ran up her arm. When they let go, Katy stared at her palm, wondering why she felt so weird. Her anger was melting, and only a residual of resentment lingered. She wanted to hate her mom; but looking at her face, hearing her voice, Katy also wanted to embrace her. That feeling had been welling up since the moment she saw her. But, as ever, Katy held it inside, refusing to give in to it.

That night, when Grandma Schmidt finished catching up on the news with her daughter, and Katy’s mother had folded out the couch inside the living room, Katy snuck into the kitchen one last time and climbed into the cupboard. She had to push with her whole arm to get the upper door open, and when she climbed into the room, she had to part the curtains herself and lift the window open to peer out. When looking out, she saw the moon and a plethora of pixies whirling about to Fairy Dance over the trees, trailing in a procession around a lean figure playing in the moonlight. The man turned, tipped his head and continued to play the song until it was finished. The pixies cried out for more, but he shook his head, turning his eyes to Katy. “Do you like the song?”

“How do you know that song?” Katy stared at him, knowing it was a private family tune her grandfather had written.

He smiled, the shadows obscuring his face. “I know the writer.”

But her heart jumped. Katy would have leapt from the window into his arms if she could. “Grandpa!”

The man smiled and stepped into the moonlight, looking up. His face was much younger,