The World Between Blinks

by Ryan Graudin

  No . . . not a dog.

  No un perro para nada.

  She didn’t know what the animal was. It looked like a tiger mixed with wolf—sandy brown with several dark stripes down the back. Despite a long snout crowded with teeth, the creature seemed tame. It sat up on hind legs, nose politely pointing out that they had more gingerbread to give.

  Amelia obliged, throwing a piece. Jaws opened wide—as big as those great white shark bones Nana’s neighbors had—and caught the bread with a SNAP!

  “Hello, Oz! Long time no see!”

  The animal’s round ears perked up. Its bark sounded like a cough: ah-ah-ah!

  “What is it?” Jake clutched his snack. “An Oz?”

  Now it was Amelia’s turn to chuckle. “He’s a thylacine. Whenever a species is about to go extinct back in the old world, the Unknown seems to . . . well, to know. A few of each one slip through into the World Between Blinks—I guess extinction is a way of being lost. Our friend here is one of the last Tasmanian tigers.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Jake, still keeping careful hold of his snack.

  “Oz is what everyone in the World Between Blinks calls him,” Amelia said. “And I do mean everyone! He gets around all over this place, Oz does.”

  “Oooooooh.” Her cousin nodded. “Tasmanian tigers used to live in Australia!”

  “Is that why he sits like a kangaroo?” Marisol wondered.

  Oz grunted, returning to all fours, and for another wild moment she worried she’d offended the animal. Could the thylacine understand them?

  Marisol tossed him another gingerbread offering.

  Just in case.

  SNAP!

  “Feed Oz and he’ll follow you anywhere,” Amelia said. This seemed true, since the thylacine kept trailing them across the ice—nails clicking. “He’s been on a few adventures with me in the Flying Laboratory. Er, my plane.”

  “I mew dat!” Marisol declared through a bite of confectionary.

  Crumbs went everywhere. So did Oz, in an attempt to collect them.

  The newest addition to their group wore a collar. There was a plaque on it—much like the nameplates identifying the plants at the Crystal Palace, but its text didn’t translate into either of Marisol’s languages. All she could pick out were numbers: 1936. That must be the year the Tasmanian tigers went extinct. It made her sad to think about such a weird but cute creature disappearing.

  Oz stuck around, though, following the trio even after the gingerbread became nothing but wrapper. They strolled through the fair, past women with baskets of hot apples on their heads and more missing keys than Marisol could count. The keys reminded her of the set her parents had lost just yesterday. They reminded her of the key with the curling she and Jake had found at the lighthouse. It’d vanished when they slipped into the World—and probably wouldn’t be any help getting home, even if they’d somehow held on to it. She’d have liked to try, though.

  When they passed some chests of golden doubloons—guarded by a watchful vendor—she even began to miss her brother, Victor.

  We’ll get back to the beach house, Marisol promised herself.

  We’ll find the treasure to keep it too.

  Her fingers buzzed at the thought, though it would’ve been very hard to find the language charms without Amelia’s help. The shop that sold them had no sign, its sail-like fabric shut tight against the frigid air. Oars supported the tent instead of poles, Marisol noted when they ducked under the flap.

  Inside sat a woman with television-static hair—white and everywhere. The chain around her neck drooped with dozens of charms: a scroll, a monocle, a fish scale, a feather, to name a few. She was nose deep in a book called . . . Marisol tilted her head to one side. Love’s Labour’s Won by William Shakespeare, the spine said. The woman behind it was oblivious to her new customers.

  Oz yipped.

  She jumped, snapping the script shut. “Bonjour! Madame Earhart! Ça fait longtemps! Comment ça va?”

  “Hello!” Amelia returned the greeting. “I’m aces, thanks for asking! My foundling friends here need language charms. Do you have any in stock?”

  The shopkeeper kept speaking in what Marisol suspected was French, waving toward a basket filled with hundreds of miniature scrolls. With Amelia’s help they negotiated a price: most of their pence, both Australian and Ghanaian.

  “She wants to know if you’re interested in buy-one-get-one-free T-rex repellent,” Amelia added after the exchange.

  “Maybe not today?” Jake answered diplomatically. “We shouldn’t spend our money all at once.”

  “Could we get eaten by a T-rex?” Marisol asked. She wondered what else they should be worrying about—how many dangers lurked outside this tent?

  “Eaten, no. Smooshed. . . .” Amelia hesitated. “Probably not. Jake is right. You’ll need your cash for other things.”

  They untied their chains and added the scrolls next to their hourglasses.

  “Hey, look at that,” Amelia said, leaning in to examine the necklaces. “Not a single grain of sand has fallen! That’s not a sight you see every day.”

  The cousins exchanged a fraught look, as Amelia’s words brought their problems bubbling back to the surface. They had to keep moving, before sand did slip through their hourglasses—before any of their memories trickled away—and they were cataloged and stuck here. Twelve years old forever and ever . . .

  “Better, yes?” the shopkeeper asked when they put their necklaces back on.

  Marisol listened past the tent, catching the fair’s frostbitten voices.

  A certain music had faded: the same sort of melody she heard whenever Aymara and Quechua were spoken around her in Bolivia. Words you didn’t understand were beautiful just for their sounds. This background of kaleidoscope syllables was gone, and two distinct languages were in its place.

  English and español.

  Spanish y inglés.

  Overlapping.

  Jake turned to her, frowning. “¿Cómo How’s es it sound para to you ti, Mari?”

  “Está bien.” If Marisol focused, her concentration could shift from one automatic translation to the other. Like adjusting a radio dial. “It’s okay.”

  Her primo nodded. “At least now we’ll be able to ask around after Christopher Creaturo.”

  “Who?” Amelia wondered.

  “This man dressed up as a Curator and tricked us into stealing a ledger for him,” Jake explained. “We have to get the book back if we want to return to Folly Beach. To our family.”

  The shopkeeper tsked behind her explosion of hair, and at their feet, Oz gave a disapproving whuffling noise.

  The look on Amelia’s face needed no translation. “This Christopher just put you behind the eight ball, did he? What a twit! Not everyone in the World is trustworthy. . . . You need to take more care around its people than its dinosaurs.”

  “He’s blond.” Jake pointed to his own bright bangs. “Wearing a white suit and carrying a giant book. Maybe you’ve seen him?”

  Both adults shook their heads.

  “I’d like to help you search,” Amelia began, “but I’m afraid I have to hoof it. It’s time for me to pick up Glenn Miller for his concert in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. With all of his trumpets there isn’t enough room in the Lockheed for you two.”

  “You’ve helped us so much already,” Marisol told the pilot.

  She started peeling off the leather jacket—reluctantly—but Amelia stopped her. “Keep it for now! We’ll have an excuse to meet again. If you look inside its pocket you’ll find a walking-talking.”

  ¿Un qué? Marisol pulled out a walkie-talkie.

  “It doesn’t have eyes, like those telephones, but it does patch in to the Flying Laboratory’s radio. You can use it to reach me if you need a quick lift. Take care of these kids, okay, Oz?”

  The thylacine sat on his hind legs and barked.

  They said their goodbyes. Marisol felt a pang when Amelia ducked out of the tent. Jake turned
his back to the exit, studying the nearest basket, which held dozens and dozens of shining scales.

  “Bubblers,” the shopkeeper told them. “Underwater charms make ocean breathing a breeze! I’ll give you a three-for-one deal!”

  Marisol shook her head. They’d spent enough time shopping.

  Now they needed to find Christopher.

  The Frost Fair felt bigger without a friend to guide them through it. Colder too.

  “Where do we even start?” Jake asked as they followed the flow of ice past yet another sock vendor. “If the World Between Blinks is as big as Amelia said, Christopher could be anywhere!”

  He could. It was true.

  Good thing Marisol was good at finding things. . . .

  She needed to focus to “flex her magnet fingers,” which meant pausing between two tents—out of the crowd again—and closing her eyes. Hands came out of her pockets, reaching into the frozen air.

  “What are you doing?” Jake sounded impatient.

  “Thinking.”

  Marisol pictured Christopher, with his sunshine hair and chin dent. Cold shivered into something else: the tug, the pull, the find me feeling. Her fingers swung like a compass needle, pointing back toward the Roman market.

  “We should go this way.” She opened her eyes, still pointing.

  Confusion squished Jake’s face. “Why?” he asked, and Oz echoed the question with a soft whine.

  Outside the Crystal Palace, she’d been ready to tell Jake about her talent, but they were in a hurry and it would take too much explaining. Besides, if Marisol could use it to get them out of this World, she wouldn’t have to admit it was her fault they got stuck here.

  “It’s just a hunch,” she said, and started walking.

  Oz and Jake followed.

  Her fingers pulled them back the way they’d come, past the elephant, through the archway, back into the clamoring dust of Ostia Antica’s market. The garum vendor waved hello again. But Christopher Creaturo wasn’t hiding in the colorful crowds. The cousins soon found themselves navigating the wider, jumbled cityscape—past Viking longhouses and sleek office buildings. Jake gasped when they walked past a huge round building, though the noise was nearly drowned out by a roar from a crowd somewhere inside.

  “Mari, that’s the Globe! Where Shakespeare performed his plays! It must be the first one. I saw the replica when I was in London.”

  “Was it the same?” she asked as Oz paused to salvage a sausage in bread someone had dropped near the entrance.

  “The replica was cleaner,” he said. “Pretty close, though. But where are we going, Mari? Shouldn’t we start asking people if they’ve seen him?”

  No. They shouldn’t stop now. The buzz beneath Marisol’s fingernails grew stronger. . . .

  She shuffled forward. Arms out. Reaching.

  “Mari!” Jake trailed, exasperated. “Will you at least tell me why you’re walking like a zombie?”

  Stronger . . . Closer . . . Almost there . . .

  Marisol turned onto yet another mixed-up street—where extinct flowers bloomed from window boxes and gas lamps were planted next to torches. At least the buildings had a theme: they all looked like residences. Igloos. Sod houses with grass growing from the roofs. Sturdier structures with doors as bright as songbird wings and shiny, out-of-order numbers. Probably not gold, Marisol reasoned, but her fingers flared all the same. Here! Here!

  She halted.

  Jake stumbled into her.

  Here! Sunlight beamed off Christopher’s hair as he stood across the lane, studying one of the tidy brick houses. The ledger sat open in one hand, a pen in the other. He looked from page to postal address. Double-checking. Triple.

  “It’s him!” Jake gasped. “Mari, how on earth did you find—”

  Christopher struck a line through the stolen book.

  Marisol knew what would happen next, but that didn’t make seeing it any less jarring. There was a house. Then there was NO house. Her heart skipped when she saw the empty lot, and when she blinked . . .

  Things started to rip.

  Through this new tear in the fabric between the worlds Marisol could see a street where cars had quickly braked, almost as if she were watching it on TV. Horns blared. A double-decker bus, painted a signature London red, had passengers pointing out of its windows. Marisol followed their fingers, expecting to see the un-lost house and finding . . . more.

  Christopher had struck this address from the ledger, sending the building back to their world—never mind that a new one had been built in its place since it disappeared. Because there was no room, the structures mashed together instead. A pair of doors jostled beside overlapping windowpanes. Some of the wall was built out of brick, while other parts were constructed from granite, as if two architects had fought over the plans and decided to call it a tie. Pieces of both materials scattered the road, which was why traffic had piled up, but there was no obvious damage to the building.

  “Oh!” Jake was clearly seeing the same thing. “I hope nobody was hurt!”

  “Yo también.”

  Marisol blinked without thinking. The London scene vanished, but there was a traffic jam forming here too. A penny-farthing bike wobbled to a halt, its rider tumbling, while cars of old stacked bumper to bumper ahead. Drivers were getting out.

  “Did you see that?”

  “I’m sure that Curator was just rezoning the house. . . .”

  “I meant the fissure, good sir! The enormous crack! That was the clearest glimpse of home I’ve ever seen!”

  Marisol’s pulse drummed hard in her throat. They had to stop Christopher before it was too late! Before too many objects were displaced and the Unknown unraveled! Before everyone and everything was lost!

  “Stop!”

  Her yell wasn’t loud enough to reach the other side of the clogged street, and even if it had been, Christopher probably wouldn’t have listened. There was a grin on the man’s face as he tucked the book under his arm and strolled smartly down the sidewalk, toward the harbor. The Crystal Palace shimmered from the other side of sapphire waters. But . . .

  Christopher wouldn’t be going back to the scene of the crime?

  Would he?

  “Jake!” She gripped her cousin by the arm, jolting him into his second blink. “Christopher is heading for the docks! If he gets on a boat . . .”

  Jake understood well enough to take off running, but when her primo tried climbing over the hood of a canary-yellow sports car, its driver scowled, laying on the horn. The Viking in the cart behind that hurled an ax into its bumper. The dodo being carried in said cart leaped out, landing with a flightless plop and startling a sled team of huskies who’d begun howling in tune with the horn.

  “This way!” Marisol narrowly avoided tripping on the big wheel of the penny-farthing bicycle. So many spokes!

  She and Jake ran the long way round, forced to double back when they finally crossed the street, and slowed down again when they had to pass the newly vacated lot. Christopher’s stunt had attracted quite the crowd. The cousins pushed through as quick as they could, running down to the marina.

  Its docks were messier than before, splintered by the kraken’s tentacles, boats all tumbled together. The Curators must’ve contained—and cataloged—the offending beastie, since there was no sign of it.

  Most of the white suits were gone too. Only one remained, climbing into a submarine. Christopher’s gold hair flashed a final time in the sunlight before he disappeared into the hatch.

  “Hey!” shouted Jake. “Wait for us!”

  Oz gave a loud cry as they ran down the dock, dodging broken boards and disgruntled sailors. Marisol’s fingers seared. Her calves did too, burning all the way to the slip.

  They were too late.

  The choppy gray waves closed over the body of the submarine as it cut a path through the water, away from the dock. Then it vented water up into the air, like a whale or a fire hose aimed straight at the sky, huge jets streaming high, then falling to
the ground in silvery showers.

  For a long moment the periscope was visible, and then it slipped into the sea. The submarine and its passenger were gone, vanished beneath the waves.

  8

  Jake

  NO!

  They couldn’t come so close only to lose Christopher! Jake stared at the swirling, marbled waters, stomach churning, hope sinking faster than the submarine had. Marisol looked ready to dive in after it—so ready that he grabbed her hand to ground his cousin on the dock.

  “No worries, mates!” A big man waved from down the dock, sporting a legendary blond moustache and a sea captain’s hat. His accent sounded Australian. “There’s another ship headed to the underwater cities in a few minutes. Mine, in fact! Better views, better price, and you don’t feel like a sardine marinated in strangers’ armpit juice at journey’s end!”

  While this did not help Jake’s queasiness, it did lift his spirits. “The underwater cities?”

  “Yep! Biggest collection of sunken civilizations this side of the Unknown! Popular destination. Are you two aiming to go?”

  Jake and Marisol exchanged a quick glance, and she nodded. He wasn’t sure why Christopher Creaturo would go to an underwater super-city, but whatever the reason, they had to follow.

  Jake dug in his pocket for his remaining coins, pulling out a handful of the Pegasus-stamped Greek staters. The soaring horses made him think of Amelia for a moment. If only she were still here to offer a flight in her plane! But then again, she could hardly take them underwater.

  “Is this enough for two tickets?” Marisol had her orange banknote out, the Georgian maneti, and it fluttered in the breeze like a miniature flag when she held it up for inspection.

  “It is.” The captain paused to squint at Jake’s shirt. Or rather, Jake realized a moment later, at the necklace that rested on top of it. “But you’d best not come until you have your bubblers. Your underwater visit will be drastically shorter without them. Unless you both happen to have gills?”