The Key of Lost Things

by Sean Easley

  • • •

  The 7-Eleven down the street provides enough “real food” for everyone. I hadn’t realized before how hungry I’d gotten. We sit at the picnic tables outside, chowing down on hot dogs and spicy cheese taquitos in silence.

  Oma steps aside to make some phone calls and figure out what to do about her missing house. I’m pretty sure that call with the insurance company is going to be a little weird.

  Nico and Bee head around behind the gas station to use the door to the Museum and have the Hoppers prepare some rooms for us. Meanwhile Orban ropes Elizabeth, Sana, and Cass into a card game—a good distraction. Cass is back to her chair now that Sev has had a chance to recover a bit too. Can’t exactly take a gorilla to the local corner store.

  Rahki sits at the other picnic table with me, watching as I write on some napkins. She pulls her cat-ear headphones off when she sees me looking at her.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  I fake a smile at her. “Finishing something.”

  “ ‘Orban, Most Likely to Point Me in the Right Direction,’ ” she reads aloud. “ ‘Sana, Most Likely to Have Great Ideas.’ ‘Sev, Best Dresser.’ . . . What is this?”

  “It’s everyone’s Hotel award for doing a good job,” I tell her. “Agapios wanted me to come up with awards to give everyone at a staff event once the summer was out—a lesson I think I learned a little too late.” I shrug. “Anyway, we may not have the Hotel’s resources to make the awards anymore, but I can at least do something. We need a morale boost.”

  “Good idea.” She pauses. “Don’t think that just because I let you get away with breaking your word to me this time, you’re off the hook for good.”

  The promise. “I know. I shouldn’t have made a promise I couldn’t keep.”

  “You’d better not do it again. Got it?”

  “What if I told you that I promise not to break promises?”

  Rahki laughs. “Fine.” She scans the parking lot, watching the cars come and go. “What happened to the key, Cam?”

  The Key of Lost Things vanished from my hand when I used it on the door at Oma’s house. “It disappeared,” I tell her. “I didn’t want there to be any way left for Stripe to get in, so I think the key took that as me wanting it gone too.”

  “So there really is no way left to reach the Nightvine?”

  I shake my head. “Not that I know of. And Mom’s key is still inside the Hotel too, along with everything else.”

  She sighs. “It’s going to be a long road home.”

  A long road indeed. “We’ll find our destination. Eventually.”

  “Cam!” Nico peeks around the corner. “I need to show you something. Now.”

  He leads me to the door at the back of the 7-Eleven, where Bee and Sev wait with stern faces.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Why aren’t y’all inside?”

  Bee turns the doorknob, and the door opens to a storeroom.

  That’s strange. “Okay? Where’s the Museum?”

  “That’s the problem,” Nico says. “The doors aren’t linked anymore.”

  Wait, what? “None of them?”

  “None of them,” Sev confirms, unrolling his pin organizer to reveal dozens of pins in their sleeves. “I tried them all. Forty pins, bound all over the globe. Not one managed to open a door.”

  “So what does that mean?” I ask. “Does the binding not work anymore?”

  Sev shakes his head. “The binding is still there. I can feel it. It simply . . . does not work as it once did. The magic has changed its disposition toward us.”

  “You mean it doesn’t like us anymore?”

  Without the doors, how will we find the Hotel before Stripe? And how will we track down a way to cleanse the Blight? We don’t even have a way back to Nico’s Museum.

  We’re homeless.

  It took me this long to get used to the idea that doors could lead to anywhere, but now they only lead to where they’re supposed to. The rules have changed. Our destination is set, but now the only question is, how do we get there?

  “Cheer up, kiddo,” Nico says, giving me a pat on the shoulder. “You know your buddy Nico’s always got a plan.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The creation of a book requires many cooks and taste testers and teachers, and they are as responsible for the meal as the one who wrote the recipe.

  To everyone at S&S BFYR, you are the very best kitchen anyone could hope for. Krista Vitola, the editor virtuoso whose skills with a knife are unmatched—there will never be another like you. Let’s keep making exquisite meals for readers together. Catherine Laudone—thanks for managing the kitchen and being such a great sous chef. Chloë Foglia, whose presentation is so sublime—this book is almost too beautiful to eat. Katrina Groover, Chava Wolin, and Bara MacNeill—thank you for ensuring that the dishes we serve are always of the highest quality. Lisa Moraleda, Chrissy Noh, Christina Pecorale, Victor Iannone, Emily Hutton, and all the rest in publicity, marketing, and sales—thanks for telling folks where to find the good stuff. Michelle Leo, Sarah Woodruff, and Amy Beaudoin—you bring in the most cultured diners (teachers and librarians, who are my most favorite readers). Justin Chanda—thank you so much for welcoming me to your restaurant.

  Pétur Antonsson, whose illustrations are the sweetest, most delectable complement to any meal. Let’s face it, people mainly come for the dessert anyway, and your art is the richest.

  Jim McCarthy, agent extraordinaire—thanks for getting my dish on the menu, and for helping out in the test kitchen. Your refined taste is more appreciated than you know.

  Gerardo Delgadillo, Lindsay Cummings, Brad McLelland, Samantha Clark, M. G. Velasco, Mckenzie Price, and Jessica Leake, who all encourage me when the dishes don’t turn out quite right—thank you for your endless support. To the Electric Eighteens and the Pitch Wars community, you are the best coworkers in the world. Mary Virginia Meeks, thanks for being a champion of reading, and of me.

  Jason and Carley Stevenson, David and Jamie, Becca and Lizzie Ake, John Paine, Dave and Natalie, Daryl and Deborah Miller, Jack, Emma, and Dean… you all give me so much life.

  Mom and Dad, thank you for teaching me about the world and the people in it. Brandi, here’s another book for your shelf. I hope it’s worthy. Love you, Sis. Kevin, make sure she displays it with her customary extravagance of twinkling lights. Kendrick, I am so proud to call you my son. Thanks for keeping my head in the clouds. God, you know all I have to say. And Shelly, no matter how you count our years together, they’re far from enough. You are my roots, and my branches, and my leaves that blow in the wind. Thank you for choosing me and making me a better man.

  And to my dear readers, librarians, and teachers: thank you for choosing to dine with us. Without you, there’d be no one to eat the food, and I have so many recipes I want to try.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sean Easley started writing in third grade because he was looking for adventure. He’s worked with kids and teens for well over a decade, listening to their stories, and somehow ended up with a master’s degree in education along the way. Now he’s a full-time writer living with his wife and son in Texas, where he stubbornly refuses to wear cowboy boots. Visit him at seaneasley.com and on Twitter and Instagram @AuthorEasley.

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  ALSO BY SEAN EASLEY

  The Hotel Between

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are pr
oducts of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Sean Easley

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2019 by Petur Antonsson

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  Jacket design by Chloë Foglia

  Interior design by Hilary Zarycky

  Author photo by Michelle Easley

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN 978-1-5344-3787-6

  ISBN 978-1-5344-3789-0 (eBook)