by Ryan Graudin
A man with mossy teeth snarled at the children, the cutlass in his belt glaring bright. Jake didn’t like how sharp it looked. His arm hairs prickled into needles while he and Marisol hurried away.
Oz’s hackles rose too.
That sealed it. If the thylacine didn’t trust anyone here, they shouldn’t either.
“Jake,” his cousin said uncertainly. “I don’t like this place—”
Bodies burst out of the nearest door, almost knocking the children clean off their feet. It was a brawl! Fists flew all around, curses gurgling from pirates’ mouths, while a huge raggedy parrot with a bubbler charm buckled to one leg screamed straight in Jake’s face. Oz barked back at the bird, and Jake somehow found Marisol’s hand. He pulled her away from the trampling boots, toward the other side of the street, where a pile of empty barrels provided temporary shelter.
“Now I really don’t like this place,” Marisol rasped.
“Agreed.” Jake flinched when a shadow appeared in front of their cask, but it was only Oz. The Tasmanian tiger planted himself in front of the cousins, teeth bared, clearly ready to protect them. “We can’t stay here. And it looks like Christopher’s disappeared again. . . .”
A peek through the barrels showed nothing but pirates being pirates.
Marisol’s hand trembled as she lifted it, fingers flexing. After a long moment, she shook her head. “Qué raro. I can’t feel him.”
“Let’s go back and speak to that woman,” Jake suggested. “Maybe she knows where he was going.”
“They looked like they knew each other,” Marisol agreed.
Jake held his cousin’s hand as they made their way back toward Kitezh, and he was honest enough to admit to himself that it wasn’t just to comfort her.
Back in the white city, all was calm. Church bells sang, and the dancers kept swaying in time to them inside the crowded square. The woman with the khaki shirt and the flower-bright lips waltzed on her own, though she seemed eager for company when they approached.
Her smile was sunshine at the bottom of the ocean. Her wave was warm.
“Hello,” said Jake, uncertain where to start. Was this woman on Christopher’s side? Did she even know what he’d done? She seemed friendly, but they’d just seen her dancing with the enemy.
“Hello!” she said, her voice low and delighted, as if there was nobody else she’d rather see than the two of them. Her gaze dropped toward Oz. “Why hello . . .” Her voice trailed off, unable to catch Oz’s name. Jake got the impression that like everybody else, she knew the thylacine, even if she couldn’t remember what to call him.
Jake felt better when Oz’s striped tail quivered with greeting. The Tasmanian tiger seemed to be a good judge of character so far.
“Would you like to dance?” the woman asked.
“Sure,” said Marisol.
“Mari, we don’t have time for that,” Jake reminded her. “We’re sort of on an urgent mission here.”
Marisol gave him a firm look and raised one brow. “Jake Beruna,” she said. “Sometimes it’s all about keeping your eyes forward. And sometimes you have to stop a minute.”
The woman held her hands out to them hopefully. Jake took one and Marisol took the other, and the three danced together, all linked up. Oz slid into the middle of the circle, winding in and out and around their legs. And though he should’ve tripped them up, somehow he was simply dancing too, releasing little bursts of bubble with the occasional excited bark.
After a few dizzying turns, Jake introduced himself. “My name’s Jake. And this is my cousin Marisol.”
“I’m so pleased to meet you!” The woman released their hands to execute a twirl before she claimed them once more. “I’m afraid my name is long lost. . . .” She spun again, then held up her necklace.
There was a bubbler on it—of course—and a language charm, plus two sets of military dog tags—the identification soldiers hung around their necks when they were on duty. But Jake’s attention went straight to her hourglass. The timer’s sand had settled completely to the bottom—a mirror opposite of what the cousins wore around their necks.
“¡Ucha!” Marisol murmured. “All the memories are gone?”
The woman shook her charm hard, but the sediment at the bottom didn’t budge. It was as if a cold current of water swept through the square, wrapping up and down Jake’s spine. The Curators had told them their memories would slip away with the sand, but to see it right in front of them—this woman was worse than Theodosia, worse than the captain of the Baychimo.
In time, Jake knew he and Marisol would end up like this: happy but unable to remember who they were. Basically, they’d be clams. Happy as a clam, that’s how the saying went, right?
“The man you were dancing with before. He’s a friend of ours.” Jake didn’t feel great about the lie, but it was an emergency, and Christopher had lied to them first. “You don’t know where he went, do you?”
“He visits me sometimes,” The woman’s eyes fogged over, almost misty. “But I don’t remember why.”
For a moment, there was something so familiar about her expression that Jake was sure he’d seen her somewhere before. In a textbook, or maybe a documentary. A photo? This made Jake glance at his own hourglass. All of its sand stayed safe and snug at the top, but still he couldn’t remember.
It bothered him.
It itched.
The woman didn’t seem to mind her own lack of memory, though. He’d told Marisol earlier that lostness simply came to him, gathering like the strands of seaweed that wreathed the square’s pillars. For a moment, studying the woman’s brilliant smile, Jake couldn’t help but wonder again if it would be very bad to fade like this. She seemed carefree. Jake bet she never spent any time feeling sad about what she forgot. She wouldn’t wallow in the bad things that happened in her past either. . . .
Happy as a clam.
Shellfish aren’t selfish.
But choosing to forget now would be selfish. The Curators had warned them that if they cast off even two or three heavy memories, the mysterious Administrator would notice, and then he and Marisol would be cataloged—stuck in the World Between Blinks forever. It was bad enough he’d attracted the Unknown in the first place, with his knack for lostness, his need to let go of things, and even though his cousin was putting on a brave face, he knew she wanted to return home. That could only happen if they retrieved the ledger before Christopher struck out one woolly mammoth too many and broke both worlds beyond repair.
“Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” he asked, failing to keep the worry from his voice. “Any idea at all?”
The woman’s frown looked sadder than most, probably because of her bold lipstick. Her feet fell still while the others in the square kept spinning, spinning around them. Jake wished she would let go of his hand. Or say something.
When their dancing partner stayed quiet, he turned to his cousin. “What about you, Mari? Can you feel where Christopher is now?”
Marisol pulled her fingers from his, flexing them a few more times before giving a glum sigh. “It’s just not working! I don’t know why for sure, but I think it’s because Christopher doesn’t want to be found.”
“He figured out we’re chasing him,” Jake reasoned. “And he obviously doesn’t want us to catch him. Do you think that’s messing with your superpower? Like, when a magnet gets flipped around, and it pushes away instead of connecting?”
“It must be.” She bit her lip, fingers wriggling. “I can’t feel the ledger either. I guess whatever Christopher’s doing is protecting the book too. . . .”
“He was talking about a submarine,” the nameless woman said suddenly.
“The Seawolf?” Marisol asked.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “It was . . . Oh, darn. I can’t remember. I think it started with a K? Or a C? Not Sea, mind you. He said he was sailing for the sands. He said . . .”
“What?” Jake urged.
Their dancing partner’s chee
ks turned pink. “He said, I love you.”
Both cousins fell quiet, letting the currents swirl around them. Jake didn’t know what to say, so he looked ahead instead. Over on the edge of the square, Oz was begging from a man who was pushing a cartload of fish.
That guy must have the easiest job in the world, Jake thought, as he watched the thylacine snap up a silvery mouthful of scales. Much easier than tracking down an agent of chaos.
How many submarines left the underwater cities in a day?
How would they possibly figure out which vessel Christopher boarded?
“Jake!” Marisol gnawed her lip, half smiling. “If Christopher was leaving, he’d have to go back through a checkpoint, sí? We should go and ask if the Curators have seen him. Even if they haven’t, their micromanaging paperwork could help us narrow down what route he took.”
Of course! Jake had never been so thankful for customs before!
They said goodbye to the forgetful woman, called Oz away from the seafood vendor, and wound back through Kitezh’s dreamy streets, past more candlelit processions and singsong bells. Jake could still hear their chimes when he and his cousin reached the edge of the city, could still feel the bells’ joyous dance sweeping through his feet. This rush grew stronger when he spotted another customs point.
Marisol gave an excited squeak and ran up to the Curator who was staffing the booth.
“¡Perdón!” She stood on tiptoes, nose tilted toward the glass. “We’re looking for a man who may have just hurried through. He has golden hair and a white suit. He was probably carrying a book. Did you see him?”
The Curator—a short, fat lady with very pale white skin turned almost bluish by the water and wavy brown hair cut into a neat bob—frowned and began riffling through her papers. Jake wondered how in the world she kept them dry.
“White suit, white suit,” she murmured to herself. “Ah, yes. Your friend boarded the EML Kalev.”
“It was a K!” Jake exclaimed.
“Is that a submarine?” Marisol asked eagerly.
“Indeed,” the Curator replied. “Launched in 1936, presumed sunk in 1941, though in fact she strayed off course due to a navigation error, becoming so hopelessly lost that she attracted the Unknown and drifted through into the World. She’s 59.5 meters in length, or 195 feet and two inches, if you prefer that sort of thing. It has Vickers-Armstrongs motors, and—”
“Thank you,” Jake cut in. She was clearly just warming up, and they didn’t have time to sit through the level of detail the Curators liked to provide.
“Christopher really likes submarines,” Marisol muttered beside him.
“Has it left?” Jake asked.
“Yes, about half an hour ago.” The Curator nodded. “I-hope-this-information-has-been-helpful. I-hope-you-have-enjoyed-your-stay-at-the-underwater-cities. Please-rate-this-information-provision-and-your-interaction-on-a-scale-of-one-to-ten.”
“That depends,” Jake said. “Can you tell us where the EML Kalev was going?”
She checked her papers again, running one finger down a long column of words. “Yes,” she said. “Portus. It’s—well, it’s a port. The city used to sit side-by-side with Ostia Antica, back in the old world, but now it’s on the edge of an ever-stretching desert.”
“Sand!” Marisol whispered excitedly. “That woman said Christopher was sailing for the sands!”
“So much sand,” the Curator lamented. “The location makes no sense. No sense at all! Many ships land there, so Portus is linked to hundreds of destinations, but none stay for long. The port is too isolated. We’ve tried to correct it over and over—Portus would be much more useful next to Ostia Antica again—but the stones are stubborn.”
“Stubborn?” Jake couldn’t help but ask.
“When Portus began disappearing from the old world, bricks crumbling and roads wearing away and seawalls sinking beneath the waves, it appeared next to the desert, filling in one stone at a time.”
Just like the lighthouse. . . .
“Every time we try to rezone the place, it disappears and builds back up overnight,” the Curator explained. “Always next to that darn desert! It’s most vexing; it defies order. Sometimes I wonder if lost things don’t want to be cataloged. OH—” She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide and watery. “Please don’t tell anyone I said such a thing! If the Administrator found out . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Marisol reassured her. “You’ve been very helpful!”
“A ten out of ten!” Jake added.
The official behind the counter beamed, waving them on to the buoy island, where they could catch a ship to Portus. They might not know where he was heading from there, but Christopher Creaturo was still in their sights, and they weren’t far behind him.
This wasn’t over yet.
Not by a long shot.
11
Marisol
THE ANCIENT ROMAN CITY OF PORTUS WAS BUSTLING.
It was very easy to believe there were a thousand places you could go from here. A constant stream of ships sailed into its U-shaped basin: canoes and catamarans, schooners and pontoons. Marisol even spotted a giant unicorn inner-tube spinning in their wake. She tried to see if the Beruna family dinghy had somehow ended up here too, but there were hundreds of prows and the harbor itself was over a mile wide. The lighthouse that towered over its entrance looked more like a chess piece by the time the cousins reached the docks.
Marisol had to cling to Jake’s arm so she wouldn’t lose him in the rush of passengers as they disembarked and made their way out into a crate-cluttered marketplace. Here they paused, turning in a slow circle to take in the jumble of stalls—Socks for sale, never together! Colors looked bolder to her after she’d been underwater for so long. Smells were stronger too: spices and frying dough sizzled from shop fronts.
“Do you have any coins left?” she asked Jake hopefully.
“No.” Her primo shook his head. “The sooner we catch Christopher, the better.”
Hunting the rogue was getting expensive. They’d spent the last of their money on the passage here, and even so they’d had to scrub decks to keep the captain happy. He’d looked like one of Port Royal’s pirates, right down to the eye patch.
Marisol was happy to put that voyage behind her, though she still wasn’t sure what lay ahead. All of the buzz that should’ve been in her fingers was now in her stomach, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since the Baychimo.
“Maybe Oz could do some begging for us.” She looked over at the Tasmanian tiger, who’d stuck as close as a shoe to the cousins’ heels. His sandy striped fur blended with the desert air a little too well. “Do you take to-go orders?”
The creature’s bark sounded like laughter.
“It was worth asking,” Jake consoled her. “Now, let’s find a quieter place where we can concentrate.”
They wandered closer to the edge of the city, down roads no one needed, since they only led to vast hills of sand. The ever-stretching desert. “Do you think Christopher came this way?” Marisol wondered aloud. “Toward the sand?”
“These could be his footprints!” Jake pointed at a set that climbed toward a nearby dune. “If we reach the top, maybe we’ll see him!”
Step by step, Marisol followed the footprints. But the longer she studied them, the more she realized that the tracks were all different sizes and shapes, and they were appearing without anyone actually stepping in the sands. . . .
“I think these are lost trails, Jake—”
“Careful there!” a voice called out, startling the cousins to a stop.
They both looked up to find a woman in a gleaming helmet that wasn’t a helmet at all but a colander. Wild brown hairs sprang through its holes, quivering as if they were living things. The stranger herself stared hard at the ground.
There was nothing there, when Marisol dropped her gaze, except . . . maybe . . . Her eyes went a little funny, and she quickly blinked and looked away. “¿Qué es esa cosa?” she mutter
ed.
Jake had the same disoriented expression on his face. “Sorry, ma’am, we didn’t mean to step on anything, uh, important.” He paused. “Is that spot important?”
She ignored them.
Marisol wondered whether she should try asking too, or if they should simply back away from this peculiar lady. Then Oz—their furry diplomat—stepped forward to nudge his nose against the woman’s leg. She lifted her head, showing them a leathery face.
“I don’t have time for— Oh, hello, Oz.”
The Tasmanian tiger made a soft whining sound, and she sighed.
“You two, get around the other side of my handcart where it’s safe. This here’s a thin spot! One wrong step and you’ll go POOF!”
Her handcart was filled with an assortment of things: broken dishes, forks and shells, the odd earring. Staring at the stash, Marisol thought it would be at home in any of the market stalls here in Portus, or at Ostia Antica.
Suddenly the sandy ground near the woman’s feet began churning.
The grains weren’t sinking but hopping.
“Come on! Come on!” Her hands wriggled inside fingerless gloves. “Gimme something good to sell!”
The ground shook, and Marisol trembled with it. Remembering the woman’s warning, she took a step back, tugging Jake with her.
Several things popped out at once: a quarter, a parakeet, and a bedraggled stuffed bear. The bird took off in a flash of sapphire wings. When the sand solidified, the scavenger picked up the remaining items and tossed them onto her cart.
“Next time it’ll be gold!” she said to no one in particular. “Just you wait and see!”
“Does this thin spot connect to the Unknown?” Jake’s eyes went bright. “Could it send us back home?”
The woman’s head did a nod-shake circle. “Yes. No. Lost things from the old world show up here, but it doesn’t work in reverse.”