by Ryan Graudin
“All we need is the ledger,” Jake said quickly. “We’re supposed to return it to the Curators personally.”
He was being smart, securing their way home. Wasn’t that exactly what she’d wanted when she feared she’d let treasure lead her magnet fingers here?
Still, Marisol had to fight the urge to stomp on his foot and shut him up. They could ask for the ledger and something shiny, couldn’t they?
The queen nodded to Jake. “I’ll give you the ledger once the thief is caught and my Amber Room is restored. In the meantime, you shall be my guests of honor: feasting with the rest of the royals and sleeping on the finest silks this side of the Unknown!”
Jake shot Marisol a glance. He looked . . . worried. Christopher was getting away yet again! But, she reasoned, it would be nice to let someone else do the chasing for a change. Aside from their nap on the Baychimo, the children had been going nonstop. Silk sheets would feel nice on Marisol’s aching calves.
“We would be honored,” she answered. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“Yeah,” Jake mumbled. “Thanks.”
Oz barked his gratitude, a dollop of icing still stuck to his nose.
For now, they were staying.
12
Jake
NEFERTITI’S COURT KNEW HOW TO PARTY!
That evening was the fanciest feast Jake had ever been to, and he’d attended his fair share of embassy “shindigs” with his mom. Lost royals and nobility and dignitaries from a long stretch of centuries gathered in a high-pillared hall. Trays of exquisite snacks were ferried about by unimpressed servants, while stories of power and foul play were shared across the long tables. Being a royal—particularly a lost one—seemed to involve lots of backstabbing.
Jake and Marisol nibbled on soft, buttery slices of Ansault pear, their eyes wide and ears eager. There was a lot to take in. Names included.
“Nice to meet you!” A gentleman with an Austrian accent and a sloping chin smiled at the cousins. “I’m Giovanni Nepomuceno Maria Annunziata Giuseppe Giovanni Batista Ferdinando Baldassare Luigi Gonzaga Pietro Alessandrino Zanobi Anton—”
“Really, Johann!” Though the boy who said this looked closer to their age, his face was chiseled. Almost a marble bust, if not for his warm brown skin and tumbling black curls. “They’ll fall asleep before you finish!”
The man with the endless name sighed, deflated. “Some people call me Archduke Johann Salvator. Even more call me Johann.”
“How can you remember such a long name?” Jake wondered.
“It’s mine,” the archduke said simply. “To keep it that way, I recite it every morning, noon, and night.”
“That sounds like a lot of work.” Jake glanced down at his hourglass. The charm felt heavier than usual, so heavy that he wondered one more time if it’d be so bad to let go of a grain. Just one. A teary goodbye to a friend, maybe?
Marco in Italy. Or Silvie in France. Or Freya in Australia.
Then again, he’d had so many. . . .
Johann followed Jake’s gaze. “You’ve got to stay on top of your sands so they don’t get dragged down. Or rather, dispatched to the Great Library of Alexandria. That’s where the Administrator archives them.”
Marisol furrowed her brow. “The Administrator? We’ve heard that name before, but who is the Administrator?”
“He’s the first Curator. Their boss.” Johann’s sloped chin went sharp. “Queen Nefertiti doesn’t like him much, and this is her court, so we should probably change the subject. Now, I heard you just visited the underwater cities. How were they?”
“Watery.” Jake was too distracted tucking his necklace back under his collar to answer properly.
The archduke was undeterred. “I love the water! It was the sea that brought me to the World in the first place! I was sailing near Cape Horn, when my ship was caught in the most incredible storm. Waves thrashed our bow and fog swirled everywhere, though I thought it was odd that the winds didn’t tear the clouds apart. When we sailed out the other side, well—later on I learned it hadn’t been fog at all, but the Unknown. Was your journey similar?”
“Less dramatic,” Marisol said. “We did meet a chicken that lived in a car, though.”
She and Jake supplied the details as the statuesque boy tossed Oz pieces of meat seasoned with silphium. The Tasmanian tiger seemed to appreciate the herb’s leek-like taste, even going so far as to lick the prince’s hands clean. He was a prince, as it turned out.
“Alexander Helios,” he said politely when Johann prompted him to introduce himself. “Son of Queen Cleopatra and Marc Antony. Also, a friend of Oz.”
Queen Cleopatra? Jake tried not to let his jaw drop at yet another big name from history class!
“Oz?” A suntanned man with neatly combed cirrus-cloud hair looked up from his discussion, then laughed. “Oh, I thought you meant Australia. But you were talking to my fellow countryman here.” He leaned down to scratch the back of Oz’s neck, and the thylacine’s tail quivered with pleasure. “Harold Holt,” he said. “Australian prime minister. Well, I was before I went for a swim off Cheviot Beach. The surf was so rough that I got myself all tumbled in it, didn’t know which way was up or down. Kelp was everywhere. . . . When I finally surfaced, I found myself here!”
Everyone here seemed very eager to share their stories . . . to talk and talk and keep their memories stuck. Like a starfish to a rock, the Baychimo’s captain had said. It made Jake’s lids droop. He fought off a leaden yawn.
This did not go unnoticed by Prime Minister Holt. “You two seem ready for bed,” he said.
“We can wait up,” Jake protested. “The soldiers will return soon, won’t they? I mean, shouldn’t they be back by now?”
“Don’t you worry!” Alexander Helios waved away his words. “We are speaking of the best scouts of the Army of Cambyses, and the Ninth Legion of the mighty Roman army.”
Marisol eyed the prince thoughtfully. “They must have already gotten lost at least once, or they wouldn’t be here.”
“Their navigating has improved since then,” he promised. “Rest, and let the work be done.”
In the end, there was nothing to do but take his advice and wait. The children were shown to their room and brought big beaten-bronze bowls of water that cast rippling candlelight reflections all over the ceiling. They dipped in cloths and scrubbed themselves clean, and then—to Jake’s not-so-slight embarrassment—the servants brought a new set of bowls, because the first round of water was dingy gray.
With the exception of Amelia’s jacket, which Marisol refused to let out of her sight, the cousins’ clothes were taken away to be washed. The white linen robes left in their place were cool and airy—perfect for a desert night.
The bed Queen Nefertiti had provided was enormous, with plenty of room for them both. Its silk sheets were soft enough to melt in. After a moment’s consideration, Jake laid the leather jacket across the foot of the mattress for Oz, so their friend could jump onto the slippery silk without sliding off the other side. Zoom, plop! Besides, letting their companion sleep on the floor seemed like bad manners.
“I really hope they’re back with the ledger when we wake up,” Marisol murmured.
“They will be,” said Jake, with more confidence than he felt.
Oz settled into his jacket bed with a grunt while Marisol nibbled her lip. “Jake, if she offers us a reward again . . .”
That wasn’t what Jake had been expecting. “Huh?”
“She’s a queen!” Marisol gestured at their bedchamber’s luxuries: incense, ornately carved wood, plush rugs. “A fancy queen! She could spare us a diamond or something, and she wouldn’t even notice it was gone. We could save Nana’s beach house if we had enough treasure like that. Nobody would have to sell the place if there was money for a new roof!”
Jake sighed. “Oh, Mari. . . .”
His cousin’s cheeks ruddied. Her eyes flashed. “I—It’s hard to concentrate on finding Christopher when there’s so much tre
asure around.” She looked down at her hands, voice softening. “It would be nice not to worry.”
“Then don’t.” This came out more harshly than he’d intended, but he was tired. So tired. “Even if we did bring back enough money to save the beach house, our parents don’t want the trouble of keeping it up. And Nana’s not there anymore. Sometimes . . . sometimes you just have to let things go and make a clean break.”
Tears stained Marisol’s freshly scrubbed face. “A clean break is still broken,” she said stiffly. “You think I’m holding on too tight? Well, I think you’re giving up too easy, letting go of a place we love! Of a person we love!”
That shut him right up. His throat closed, and it was impossible to get words out. Barely possible to get a breath in. Perhaps he did give up on things too quickly, before the letting go could hurt. But Marisol hadn’t had to leave her life behind like he did. She hadn’t said goodbye to her house and her friends and her school over and over again, with everyone promising to keep in touch and everyone knowing they probably wouldn’t.
Oz whimpered, curling up as small as possible in the children’s silence.
Candles shivered, and Jake didn’t know if he’d apologize even if he could speak. How could you be sorry for who you were? How could he hold on without getting hurt?
After another quiet moment, Marisol softened, wrapping her arms around Jake’s neck and making the front of his robe damp with tears. He returned the hug automatically.
“Oh, Jake,” she said, sniffing a little. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just, don’t you want to fight for the house? Some of our best memories are there, even after Nana. Do you remember the night after her funeral? We lit that big bonfire on the beach, and we all wrote our messages to her on paper lanterns and sent them up to the stars?”
“A bonfire?” Jake blinked into her tousled black hair, his own head giving an uneasy shake. “I—I don’t remember that. I think maybe Mom and I must have gone home by then.”
“No,” Marisol protested, pulling away. “No, you helped me tie the string on my message. You said you learned the knot from a man on a boat in Indonesia!”
Jake stared at her, feeling his heart punch hard at his chest. He had learned to tie a knot from a man like that—he could still see his face, the crinkle of his smile, his nimble brown fingers in the sun. But he was sure he’d never taught it to Marisol beside a bonfire on the beach. All their fires at Nana’s house had been smaller, for cookouts in the backyard, for one very specific reason.
“The city doesn’t allow bonfires on Folly Beach,” he reminded his cousin.
“I know. We got special permission from the city council because Nana contributed so much to the community,” Marisol said tightly. “The mayor was there! Don’t you remember?”
But he didn’t.
He didn’t.
“Jake, I—” Marisol suddenly broke off, her eyes fastened to his necklace.
“What?” Jake whispered.
Marisol reached for his hourglass, pulling it out from under his white linen robe and gently lifting it between them.
A grain of sand had slid from the top and was anchored in the bottom half.
“That’s where your memory went,” his cousin whispered.
Jake’s insides felt cold. He couldn’t even tell the memory was gone—would never have known if Marisol hadn’t told him. “Oh . . .”
He wasn’t sure what else to say. He certainly couldn’t tell Marisol that he’d wanted to lose a memory, never mind the fact that this was the wrong teary goodbye—he’d wanted to forget the last sight of a friend he’d never see again. Not Nana’s memorial.
Jake didn’t feel one ounce lighter when he stared at the grain. “I guess it’s been archived by the Administrator in the Library of Alexandria,” he whispered. “That’s what Johann said, right?”
Marisol nodded grimly. “But the Curators told us that their boss wouldn’t notice until we lost at least two pieces of sand. We won’t be cataloged yet. We still have time to escape this place.” She dropped the hourglass, taking his hand in hers. “In the morning we’ll have the ledger back. ¡Sólo lo sé!”
The two of them settled down to sleep, but Jake’s thoughts whirled for a long, long time after Marisol’s breath slowed.
Would the Curators be able to send them home after all of the damage Christopher had caused?
Would Jake’s bonfire memory come back when they left the World Between Blinks? Or was it lost forever?
Is this how it would feel, to slowly become more like the woman in the underwater city? And yet, a tiny voice buzzed inside his head, if you could lose all your bad memories so painlessly, wouldn’t it be worth giving up a few of the good as well?
When he finally managed to sleep, his dreams were uneasy.
Trickling in dozens of sand-strewn pieces.
Vanishing back into black.
As if they were never there at all . . .
The next morning, things were even worse.
The bedraggled army scouts limped in after breakfast, and none of the groups had Christopher. Two of the Romans had tried to arrest another Roman scout in the dark, mistaking him for Christopher, and living up to its name, the Lost Army of Cambyses had gotten . . . well, lost.
“There were too many trails!” Jake overheard an officer explaining. “Footprints kept appearing out of nowhere. They led us in zigzags and loop-the-loops, and at one point one of our men was doing the foxtrot!”
Needless to say, they’d returned empty-handed.
Marisol looked like she was on the verge of tears, shoving aside her empty plate and flexing her fingers into fists.
“Can you feel where Christopher went?” Jake asked.
She felt something. He could tell by the way Marisol’s eyebrows dove together when she glanced at a silver serving platter. It held a box of (delicious) Mayflower Donuts, which had a strange rhyme scrawled on the cardboard.
THE OPTIMIST’S CREED
As you ramble on through life, brother,
Whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye upon the doughnut
And not upon the hole!
Marisol stared at this poem, blinking back tears and clenching her hands. “I don’t know,” she said finally.
“You do!” Jake assured her. “You’ve found Christopher with your magnet fingers twice before.”
“But what if this last time was a fluke, and I was really just tracking treasure? We can’t afford to go in the wrong direction.” Her eyes darted over to his hourglass, their meaning clear.
They were back on the hunt with no time to waste. Even less, Jake thought guiltily, since I chose to forget Nana’s bonfire. He shifted so Marisol couldn’t see the fallen grain of sand, his monocle clinking against the timepiece. Eyes ahead, don’t look back.
“We can’t afford to sit here either.” They had to keep moving, so Jake stood. “Come on, I have an idea!”
“¿Qué?”
“You’ll see!”
He grabbed a cinnamon doughnut to go, tearing off bits for Oz until there was no hole at all. The thylacine followed the cousins’ trail of crumbs through several courtyards, up to the top of the highest medieval castle turret. Wind whipped past them, sprinkling Jake’s last doughnut piece with more sand than cinnamon. He tossed it to Oz and looked out over the battlements. The Curator was right. It was ever-stretching, a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of desert, desert, desert. Plus a small glimpse of dessert, though Oz had nearly finished that.
The dunes that had led them to Amarna flattened off just after the swallowed city. Half sand, half sky, all shimmering with heat from here to the farthest horizon.
Marisol shielded her eyes, taking this in. “What are we doing up here, Jake?”
He wasn’t completely sure. Hopefully his plan would work. . . . “Which way are your fingers pulling?”
Doubt creased Marisol’s mouth, but she lifted a finger to the skyline opposite Portus.
“That’s just sand.
. . .” Jake’s heart sank, but he narrowed his eyes and stared as hard as he could. Was there some clue out there he couldn’t see? Slowly he traced a path to the horizon, and then . . .
Wait a minute.
Was that . . . ?
Though it was hard to see for sure with the mirage-painted air, Jake thought he saw the rippling golden sand change color at the very edge of the horizon, as if someone had drawn a line with a ruler. On one side was desert, and on the other, a rich, green band.
“Is that a jungle?” Marisol guessed, squinting at the distortion too. “It’s the right color.”
Here goes nothing. . . . When Jake lifted the monocle to his eye, the desert that had seemed so barren began blooming with script. He spotted a Lesser Bilby and a Bubal Hartebeest, alongside the quasi-mythical Lost Ship of the Desert. While it was tempting to read through the vessel’s many exits and reentries into the World Between Blinks, Jake forced his focus past the ghost ship. The monocle seemed to magically track his gaze, telling him that he was looking at Sections of the Amazon Rainforest circa 1970—NONRESIDENTIAL, EXPLORE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
“You’re right, Mari! It is a jungle—” He stopped short, words all tangled in his throat. The script on his lens had gone red: Christopher Creaturo, July 4, 1949—WARNING: DO NOT ENGAGE WITHOUT PROPER PERMIT.
“It’s him!” Jake croaked. “It’s Christopher!”
The man’s white suit was still in their line of sight, but just barely. Without the monocles, there was no way the cousins would have spotted him: smaller than a dust mote and flickering in the heat.
“Where?” Marisol scrambled for her own vision charm, then gasped. “He’s old! And he’s so far away!”
“We need to reach the jungle before he does,” Jake said.
“That’d be nice,” she ventured. “But Christopher’s been on the go since last night. There’s no way we can catch up with him.”
“Not on foot,” he agreed, grinning.
“Then what . . . ?” Now it was her turn to grin. “Oh, Jake!” She reached inside the pocket of Amelia’s jacket and pulled out the walkie-talkie. “¡Eres un genio!”