Through the Door (The Thin Veil) - By Jodi McIsaac Page 0,6

standing in the hallway. Eden stood staring at the door, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Then she opened it. Cedar gaped.

“Eden!” she said. She looked at her daughter as if she had sprouted wings or turned into a frog, both possibilities as likely as what she was now seeing through the doorway. Instead of white sand or girlish decor, she was looking at a small rustic cottage and the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean behind it. Cedar recognized it immediately as the cabin on Cape Breton Island that Maeve had rented for two weeks last summer. Eden had spent the whole time there, but Cedar had only been able to join them for less than a week because of work. The sky around the cabin was the deepening blue of early evening, just as it was outside the windows of their apartment.

The look on Eden’s face was one of sheer delight. “This is so cool! Mum, look!” she said.

“Yeah, I can see,” Cedar said, dumbfounded. “How are you doing this?”

Eden shrugged. “I dunno.” She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. “My hands feel kind of tingly.”

Cedar’s mind was still whirling and churning, searching for an explanation. Eden, however, wasn’t nearly as concerned with finding an explanation as she was with discovering more about this newfound ability of hers. She gave her mother a grin and said, “Wheee!” before bounding through the open door onto the lawn of the cottage.

“Eden!” Cedar shouted, and then ran through after her. Immediately her senses were assailed—the cool ocean breeze on her face, the intoxicating smell of the salt air, the sight of the ocean stretching out in front of her and, when she turned and looked behind her, the gentle mountains of the Cape Breton coast. Eden was doing cartwheels on the lawn, squealing with joy.

“Shh!” Cedar said, looking around frantically. “There are probably people living here right now! Come here!”

Eden finished a cartwheel and ran over to Cedar, who was standing just in front of the disembodied doorway. “What if someone sees us? How are we going to explain this?” she asked, gesturing at the door. “We need to get out of here.”

Eden reluctantly followed her back through the door. Again, Cedar tried closing it, but when she opened it, the cottage was still there. Then Eden closed and reopened it, and her bedroom reappeared. They sat down on the bed together. Cedar put her arm around Eden. “Eden, this isn’t normal. How do you feel?”

Eden sprung off the bed. “Great!” Her eyes grew wide and sparkled almost as much as the air through which they had traveled. “I’m magic!”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” Cedar said weakly.

Eden ignored her. “Let’s try your room!” she said as she dashed down the hall. Cedar felt as if she should stop her, but in all honesty, she, too, wanted to see what would happen. So she followed her daughter, who had closed Cedar’s bedroom door and was standing outside it, face screwed up tight.

“You’re sure you feel okay?” Cedar asked, her voice anxious. “You don’t feel sick or anything?”

“Nope!” Eden answered.

“Okay,” Cedar said slowly. “Where to this time?”

“Gran’s house!” Eden replied.

“No!” Cedar said quickly. “We don’t want Gran to know about this. I mean, we don’t want to freak her out, okay? Let’s pick a place where there probably won’t be a lot of people.” She searched her brain for a suitable location. “How about the library? It should be closed by now.”

Eden rolled her eyes at her mother, but then closed them in concentration and reached for the doorknob. A second later, the stacks of the local library were dimly visible through the open door. They stepped inside and Eden started to move toward one of the shelves, when the ear-piercing wail of an alarm went off, causing both of them to jump and scream.

“Dammit! The alarm!” Cedar said as she grabbed Eden by the arm and they hurled themselves both back through the doorway. Eden slammed the door shut. They stood there for a moment, hearts racing, and then Eden burst into giggles. Cedar pressed her hand against her heart, but then a grin cracked her face and soon both of them had collapsed on the floor, laughing.

“Note to self,” Cedar said. “Don’t go to places that have alarms.” Eden giggled again.

Cedar shook her head at her daughter. “This is insane.”

They spent the next hour opening doors all over the house to see where Eden could take them. They took