The Faraway Inn Quotes

“What about the mirror? How does it help with running the inn?” “It doesn’t,” Auntie Zee said. “It’s just an asshole.” I heard that”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“You build what you want to build, offer it as widely as you can to whoever you think will appreciate it, and if other people like it or don’t like it… that’s on them. Not you.”
She thought of Ethan. That sentence shouldn’t have applied to him, but… it kind of did. He hadn’t wanted what she built. And that was on him.
Jack laughed at something one of the guests said, and Calisa peeked again into the sitting room. He was chatting with the guests as he served cake to Zef. He likes me as I am. He saw her as she was. He listened to her. He never tried to change her. He’s what I need and want.
As if he sensed her watching, he looked over. Calisa met his eyes and smiled, and he smiled back, instantly and fully, like he’d been ready and waiting for her to notice him.
“I think I understand,” Calisa said to Auntie Zee.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“You carry the true him in your heart, or the him as he could have been, and there is no shame in that. Allow yourself to feel what your heart wishes to feel. Do not deny your pain.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“What kind of epiphany would unlock her power. . . Why did she care? She barely knew him. Except she did know him. . . He'd trusted her in a way that no one ever had before. He listened to her. He respected her.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“While the little dragon flew in circles overhead, Calisa kissed Jack. He tasted like an epiphany. Like chocolate cake with raspberry jam. And like a future she wanted.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“What is all this?” Auntie Zee cried. She was at the stove, an apron wrapped around her waist, stirring a pot of golden syrup that smelled like honey and lavender.
Smiling broadly, Rin trotted across the kitchen and kissed her on the cheek. “Happy reopening day, Auntie Zee,” he wished her. He then deposited his baskets of sugar-covered pastries on the butcher block island.
The other vendors repeated the greeting, each kissing her on the cheek and delivering baskets of ruby and golden fruit, fat berries, fresh-baked breads, honeyed pastries, packets of spiced meat, and jars of pearly beverages. Soon the parcels, jars, baskets, and crates were piled as high as the rafters, and the sweet and savory smells were thick in the air. Inhaling, Calisa thought it was like being inside the most delicious café in the world. In many worlds, she corrected herself.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Gently, Auntie Zee said, “I am a traveler cat.”
“A what?” Jack asked. Calisa was grateful to him for voicing the question. She had so many battering through her skull that it felt like she couldn’t speak.
“It is a type of witch. Very rare. I was born with the ability to open and close portals.”
A witch. “And the cat part of it?”
Now she was smiling more broadly. “It’s how a portal witch recovers her powers. I have to transform into a smaller body, specifically a cat. It allows the magic to replenish— there’s less energy required to keep a smaller body alive. As for why a cat… I suppose the universe has a sense of humor. Cats are known for always being on the wrong side of every door.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Our dragons fly, not swim,” Enkle said. “It wouldn’t make sense to give them both the same name. You should know that, given the little dragon you carry.” He held a finger out toward Steve.
Catlike, or more accurately, dragon-like, Steve sniffed it and then let out a puff of smoke.
Calisa stared at Steve. “Little dragon.” In retrospect, it was obvious. She’d just been too busy and too distracted to properly think it through. “Okay, that tracks.” To Jack, she said, “Told you Draco fit him.”
Jack shrugged. “I still think he’s a Steve.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Auntie Zee’s room was a wondrous kaleidoscope of color: scarfs and tapestries were draped over the walls, while mobiles made of prisms dangled from the ceiling. Gold, silver, and blue pillows were piled on the bed beneath a ruby-and-emerald-colored canopy. Multicolored rugs covered the honey-colored floor. Every surface was stacked with treasures: boxes carved from seashells; tiny sculptures of creatures that shouldn’t exist, like dragons and centaurs; little paintings that hung on the wall depicting worlds with impossibly high waterfalls, many moons, and castles. Coming inside, Calisa saw one etching of the labyrinth with its bone guards.
These were souvenirs of her travels. Or perhaps gifts from visiting travelers. She’d made her room a shrine to all the wonders that the nexus could bring. She loves this place.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“I am not some minor jellyfish. I am the sea witch for the Eastern Seaboard, and I cannot be absent for an extended length of time. Auntie Zee understands this. If I am unable to return within twenty-four hours, there will be havoc.”
Reaching room number three, Kendra flung open the door. Calisa was struck by the stench of seaweed. Sea witch, did she say? What was a sea witch?
Eastern Seaboard?
As in the Atlantic Ocean?”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“If you’re looking for an adventure, you should find another vacation. The Faraway Inn is an escape,” Calisa said. “It offers a few days to just breathe. To think, if you want, or not think. To be calm. To heal, if you need to. To have space and quiet.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“They lingered by a stall that sold scarves that shimmered like the sky--- you could see sunset spread across the fabric, deepening from pale blue to rose and orange, then to deep blue scattered with stars. Jack wrapped one around Calisa's shoulders, and she held the fabric up to her eyes, watching it twinkle between her fingers.
"Beautiful," she said.
"Yes," he agreed.
He was looking at her, not the scarf.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Calisa glanced at Steve, who was still sunbathing on his rock. He flicked out his tongue, unperturbed. A lick of flame unfurled from the tip of his tongue and then fizzled in the air. He then looked at her expectantly.
She stared at him. "Um... congratulations?"
Pleased, he closed his eyes and began to snore.
Did her lizard really just breathe fire?”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“They visited a seaside village where mermaids flocked to the docks to deliver fish to local fishmongers, a labyrinth made of bones where the skeletal guard at the gate swore to pass the news to those within, a vast forest populated by creatures who resembled mushrooms and lived at the bottom of a tree that spiraled above them and blocked every hint of the sky. They spoke with a bone-like creature who covered its body in the pelt of a bear and to a family where the parents were made of bark and leaves and the children were twigs with wisps of grass for hair.
And in between their otherworldly visits, they kept fixing up the inn.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Despite the fact that most of the market's customers were dressed in draped fabrics while she and Jack were in shorts and T-shirts, no one stared at them. There was enough variation in the shoppers and the vendors that their differences were unremarkable: skin colors from blue to coal-black to pink to bronze to metallic silver. A few shoppers were covered in fur. One woman sported beige-colored wings. She had on a necklace of bird bones that fell down to her stomach. Another had talons instead of hands. He clicked them together in rhythm with his footsteps. Calisa could have wandered through the stalls forever, filling her eyes with all the impossible people and the beautiful oddities on display.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“What did this place used to be like?"
Mulligan answered first. "Glorious, serene, vivacious. Ah, I do remember those days fondly. Every room full. Lively chatter over breakfast. Strolls through the garden and the surrounding hills. I have heard it claimed that the High King of the Goblins himself once chose to stay here in disguise, and that Auntie Zee simultaneously hosted the famed enchantress Isatre and her mortal enemy, the ruler of the Elind, without a single incident. They sipped juice at breakfast together and spoke of spring flowers, utterly unaware of who the other was."
"That was a long time ago," Kendra said, clipped.
"The glory days," Mulligan agreed.
Calisa asked the more important question. "What do you think it would take to bring the inn's old guests back?"
"Cake is a start," Kendra said, piercing another bite of the chocolate cake with raspberry jam.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“The bed-and-breakfast is a nexus," Jack said. "A nexus of realms."
She absorbed that. "And what exactly does that mean?"
He shrugged. "Lots of doors to other worlds."
Again, for an instant, Calisa couldn't breathe. She'd been right--- there really were other worlds through those doorways. Actual other worlds. I've been to other worlds! That was why the sun had felt and looked so strange and why the smells from the night market had been so unfamiliar. There wasn't anything like it on Earth, because she hadn't been on Earth. She'd known it, but she hadn't known it. A nexus of realms.
"It's rare, a place like this," Jack said. "That's why it's so special. It's a place where people can come to escape. A real getaway, for whoever needs it."
"So the guests... they're actually from other worlds? Realms, you said?"
"I think of them as 'realms' because, as my dad explained to me, they're not other planets. At least not other planets in our solar system. It's not like Kendra is from Venus, and Mulligan is from the moon or even Alpha Centauri. They're just from other places. Faraway places. Like pocket dimensions, if you want to sound all sci-fi about it”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Underneath the sheets were couches and chairs and tables, but not just ordinary couches and chairs and tables—- they looked like works of art. One couch was carved to look like a shell, with wood shaped like the spiral of a conch. Its cushions were blue-green, and the soft knit blanket on top reminded her of sea-foam. Another chair was shaped like the stump of a tree and carved with flowers and acorns. A thick moss-green cushion was sunk into the center of it. The top of a coffee table was a mosaic of pebbles, polished as if by a stream.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“Crunchy is just incomplete peanut butter. Like someone forgot halfway through that they were supposed to be mashing it.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn

“I like cheddar. And goat cheese, the soft kind that you can spread. It's really good with fig jam."
"I especially like cheesecake."
"Everyone likes cheesecake."
"Except the lactose intolerant," Jack said.
"Mm-hmm, it's probably a cruel joke to them," Calisa said. "Cake but not."
Jack frowned. "You're right. In that case, we shouldn't serve it."
"Unless you use cream cheese with lactase."
"You can do that?"
She knew it existed, but she'd never baked with it before. "I made a regular cheesecake last year. Trick is you have to cool it gradually, or it cracks. Probably same process.”
― Sarah Beth Durst, The Faraway Inn