The car ride was quiet, a nostalgic deep hum. It has been four days since Seri has been back from college. She flew back from the congested city back to her beachside hometown, a place her family nicknamed ‘The Twilight Zone Dishwasher’ because once you enter Oceanside the WiFi sucks and the fog is so thick you can’t even see the waves from the window.

Her mother had more silver strands of starlight amongst her thick sweep of honey brown hair, and she had started talking about redoing Seri’s old bedroom, replacing the carpet with wood and taking out her old wardrobe. Seri commented here and there on opinions, and answered questions about her first year away. The car was packed with bags of groceries and art supplies, and Seri flipped through one closest to her as they drove.

There were several tubes of acrylic paint, a few vintage notebooks, and a collection of rubber stamps. It all had a distinct rustic smell, that Seri wasn’t sure she loved or hated.

Suddenly the car stopped.

Weird. Seri looked out the car window.

“Mom, this isn’t our house.”

“I know, we are taking a quick detour.”

The car backed up into a long winded driveway, with familiar lamps dotting the trimmed grass and illuminating the rose bushes in front of a cozy one story house with faded blue wallpaper and stone rabbits playing in the garden. Bright sunlight lit up every part of it, chasing away the fog that clung to the shores Seri could still see in the distance.

Abuelita and Abuelito’s house?

“It will only be a quick pit stop hon, we can go home right after. I have to check their mail and make sure everything is good since they are still in Spain. Can you water the lemon trees and rose bushes for me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Seri slide out of the car, as fluid and uncaring as the wind or water of Oceanside. Putting her hands in her pant pockets, she walked between tall bushes over to the garden hose, stiffly coiled along the wall. It felt rough and familiar on her fingers, and the knob sprayed water on her arm as she turned it on to full power. A spray of water erupted from the nozzle, spraying the garden in a glittering shower.

Seri waved it around at the grass, her paint stained hands catching stray drops of water. Moving to the roses, a vivid rainbow caught in the arc of the water.

She laughed and turned to her mother, “Mom, look- a rainbow!”

Her mother didn’t look up from the pile of mail on the porch, crouched over in concentration, but she smiled. “That’s great! I used to do that when I was a kid.

Seri grinned ear to ear looking around. Everything was golden, or blue in shadow, or fractured in a wonderful array of color, painted across the garden in an arc. It appeared inside the water coming from the hose, almost like magic.

Seri traced the arc with the hose, stepping around the pale roses by the side of her grandparent’s house. It ended in corner, in a shadow. There was a small hole in the wall, just enough for a small animal to scurry to and from. Like a roach or a rat. Seri crouched down, her knees popping as she peeked inside the black tunnel.

“Hello?”

She yelped, ducking past a bright green mosquito flying into the hole. It was larger than most, and she only caught a small glimpse.

Her mother finished the mail, and she rode home in silence. Every minute that passed by, her leg bounced faster in the car. Her memory got more hazy and then more in focus.

The mosquito had legs.

And hair.

Or did it? She swore she caught it carrying a small blueberry. Was she making things up? Seri bit her lip in excitement, and memories came rushing back to her. She remembered that hole, as a kid she called it the fairy portal.

She remembered telling her young siblings sternly that humans could never find it when they grew up, because the taller you get the smaller it shrinks. Even now the memory of seeing it is shrinking in her mind, which was fogging up with summer classwork and plans with friends.

A wave of hot panic shot through her body, and she whipped out her phone to write down every detail of what happened.

She won’t let herself forget. No matter how tall she gets, how foggy things become. She will always remember the rainbow, the violent colors cutting through what she thought was possible.