by Ryan Graudin
“Let’s see if it works,” Jake replied.
Marisol held the walkie-talkie to her mouth and pressed the button on its side, staring into the sky as if Amelia might appear at any moment. “Come in, Amelia, come in, Amelia, this is Marisol and Jake! Do you read?”
There was a stretchy, staticky pause, full of nothing but the radio channel’s hiss and Oz’s high-strung whine. It was only when the thylacine butted Jake in the back of the knees that Jake realized he was holding his breath.
Then, just as he began to worry, the radio crackled to life. “Hey there, friends!” came Amelia’s cheerful voice. “Great to hear from you! What’s cooking?”
“A lot,” Marisol replied. “We’re at Queen Nefertiti’s palace right now. We were wondering if you had time to give us and Oz a lift?”
Again there was the pause, and then Amelia’s voice crackled through. “Sure can! There’s a landing strip right next to Amarna. I’ll be coming in from Roanoke, so I’ll see you there in a jiffy! Anything for an adventure! Earhart out!”
Jake swept Marisol up in a hug so tight that she squeaked as her feet came off the ground. “This is it!” he said. “We’re finally going to be one step ahead of him. This is the moment the tide turns in our favor, Mari!”
“I hope so!” She hugged him back just as hard. “It’s just that, we still don’t know exactly where Christopher is going, or why he’s sending stuff that was lost in the 1940s back to our world. . . .”
“No,” Jake admitted. “But once Amelia flies us to that jungle, we’ll be a step ahead of Christopher. We can find a way to block his path and ask him what he’s up to.”
Marisol’s face turned pensive. “How? Fallen trees? Quicksand? A diversion of doughnuts?”
“That last one just might work,” he joked. “Though we’ll have to wait and see where we land before we come up with a plan.”
His cousin nodded.
“Tranquilo con la ruta,” she whispered, mostly to herself.
As the trio headed back down to the palace courtyard, they found that Queen Nefertiti was waiting for them. She reminded Jake—strangely—of water. The way her sapphire crown flowed into her wig, the way that spilled onto her shoulders, the way those flowed into her gown. It was elegant and refreshing and so very different from yesterday’s first impression.
“I was hoping to catch you three before you left,” she said, her voice like a ripple across a still pond.
“We’ve got a lead on Christopher Creaturo, and we’re going to follow it!” Marisol explained. “We’ll do our best to get your Amber Room back.”
Queen Nefertiti smiled. “I’m beginning to see why the Curators put their faith in you. It wasn’t fair of me to judge your spirit by your outward appearance. Your determination is at least ten times your height!”
“We’re not that short for our age. . . .” Jake found himself fighting not to stand on tiptoe. “And Mari’s right. We’ll find the ledger. We’ll fix everything Christopher broke.”
“I know.” Nefertiti’s hands, which had previously been crossed behind her back, flashed in front of the cousins.
Marisol’s gasp could be heard all the way to the ocean.
Jake couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The queen was holding a diamond. A BIG diamond. That kind of jewel wouldn’t just fix the Berunas’ beach house, it could probably buy the entire island of Folly Beach. Plus some.
Sunlight sprayed into rainbows as Queen Nefertiti offered this treasure to them. “A little Tasmanian tiger told me you were in need of a jewel. This is the Great Mogul Diamond. It’s been in my collection for more than three hundred years. Long enough for me to get bored with it. Consider this your preemptive reward for restoring the Amber Room to my palace.”
“Oz told you?” Jake shot a startled stare at the thylacine.
His bark sounded a little like a chuckle; his teeth looked very much like a grin.
“In his way,” Queen Nefertiti amended. “He also pointed out that I came across as rude yesterday. For that, I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“¡Bueno!” Marisol’s hands shot out. Even cupped together, they dipped with the diamond’s weight. “Muchas gracias, Reina Nefertiti.”
“You’re very welcome,” the monarch replied. “Now go and earn it.”
How in the worlds are we going to explain an egg-sized diamond to our parents? Jake wondered. Then again, this was a pleasant problem compared to the rest. They could solve it after they caught Christopher, reclaimed the ledger, restored the lost treasures, and found their way back home.
Thirty minutes later, the cousins were waiting down by the airstrip. Prime Minister Harold Holt had helped them raid the kitchens, so they had a backpack stuffed with food, which Oz kept nosing as they stood in the shade of a palm tree. Amelia’s plane grew from a liquid dot to a blazing silver bird—large enough to read the NR16020 letters on its left wing. It touched down on the airstrip, rattling to a halt in a filmy cloud of dust.
She jumped out with a buoyant wave, and Jake and Marisol filled the pilot in on their adventures as she refueled.
“This Creaturo’s a slippery character, that’s for sure,” she agreed. “Look, I can take you to the Amazon jungle, but I can’t land the plane anywhere close. The sand is too loose and the trees are too thick. What I can do is show you how to use parachutes. It’s not as hard as you think, and you can aim for a clearing.”
“What happens if we don’t hit a clearing?” Jake asked.
“Well, it hurts a lot more if you hit a tree on the way down,” Amelia admitted. “But you’ll be okay, I’m a great teacher. We’ll strap Oz onto you, Jake. You’re the bigger of the two of you.”
The cousins exchanged a very long glance. Jake knew Marisol would punch him if he said out loud that he was worried about her parachuting, but she was smaller than he was. Then again, what was it Nefertiti said about height? Don’t judge a spirit by outward appearance. . . . Marisol might be younger, but that didn’t make her any less strong. Any less brave. She was just as much a partner in this adventure as Jake was.
If they were going to jump out of a flying plane, they’d do it together.
With a gulp, Jake nodded.
Amelia’s parachuting class involved a lot of jumping off a low wall into a pile of sand that was definitely softer than the ground in the Amazon would be. Jake did his best to pay careful attention, trying not think too much about what would happen if they landed wrong.
Half an hour later they were packed into the back of Amelia’s plane, Marisol in front of Jake and Oz sitting on his lap, strapped to his front. The thylacine gave his cheek an encouraging lick as they went bump-bump-bump-rattle along the tightly packed sand.
Then, with a stomach-lurching hop, they were up in the air and climbing into the perfect blue sky above the rippling desert.
Next stop, the Amazon jungle.
13
Marisol
UP, UP, AND AWAY!
Soaring with Amelia Earhart was noisier than Marisol imagined it would be. The Flying Laboratory—as Amelia called her silver plane—was LOUD. Even with two wads of cotton stuffed inside her ears, Marisol heard every gear’s angry hum. Every screw’s fight to stay tight.
Jake tried yelling something, but propellers ate his words as the ground rattled away. Marisol leaned forward to get a better view. All of the Lockheed’s passenger windows had been sealed, Amelia explained, for her flight around their old world. The front windows were clear—of course.
Their pilot beamed through the glass as she guided their plane higher and the World Between Blinks became bite-sized. Harbor boats looked like floating leaves. Queen Nefertiti’s palace turned into squares and swirls. When Marisol checked through her monocle, she could still see the crack Christopher had caused snaking through anthill dunes. Miles and miles away, the Amazon thickened the horizon with its lush green swathe of trees, cut down in the regular world and reappeared in this one.
Hopefully, they’d reach
the jungle before Christopher did.
There was so much to fix.
Marisol glanced back at her cousin. Freckles popped out of Jake’s blanched face, and his knuckles whitened around his parachute harness. His hourglass dangled over the chest strap.
Its fallen grain hadn’t moved.
One memory. Gone.
After last night’s discovery, Marisol had been checking her own timepiece obsessively. There was no change. She and Jake had arrived in the World Between Blinks together. So why were their sands dropping at different speeds? Why did people they met remember all fifteen of their names—cough, Johann, cough—while the dancing woman in Kitezh’s square couldn’t even hold on to one? She’d looked more modern than the Austrian archduke, with her red lipstick and trim skirt.
Timing must not determine how fast the amnesia spread.
Amelia had that theory about how being remembered back home helped some of the lost last longer, and Johann had talked about fighting to stay on top of your sands, but studying Jake’s charm made Marisol wonder if maybe the opposite could also be true. Maybe some people wanted to forget.
Wanted to let go.
The Flying Laboratory hit an air pocket, tossing Marisol’s stomach like pizza dough. She hated feeling so unsteady. Being calm on the route was way more complicated when it involved cracking worlds and a sad, sad primo.
After another bout of turbulence, she felt for the Mogul Diamond in her pocket, gripping until its facets dented her palm. Holding on to the jewel meant holding on to Nana’s beach house.
And all of Nana’s memories.
She squeezed the diamond tighter, even tighter, but it didn’t feel real. When Queen Nefertiti had placed this treasure in her hands, Marisol hoped they’d go back to a solid, sure state. North is north. Lost is found. marks the spot.
Christopher Creaturo is here.
But she still couldn’t tell if her fingers sparkled down for her pocket or for the desert below or for some unseen gold mine beneath that. What if the Mogul Diamond wasn’t enough? What if Jake was right and their parents would sell Nana’s beach house no matter what? What if—
A tap on Marisol’s shoulder brought her attention back to the cockpit. Amelia grinned, pointing out the window at a passing pterodactyl.
It would’ve taken the cousins a long, hot, sandy day to walk to the jungle—over so many dunes—but after only a few minutes Amelia waved them toward the back of the plane. They climbed over old fuel tanks and unlatched the rear door. A wall of cold wind pushed back, smooshing Oz’s ears sideways and turning Jake’s hair into a helmet.
Trees began dotting the ground below.
And . . . was that a speck of white, trekking across the rippling sand toward the tree line?
Marisol leaned forward to get a better look, but Jake caught her harness.
“I THINK IT’S CHRISTOPHER!” She could feel her lungs and lips shaping the words, but they didn’t make it out. “DOWN THERE!”
Jake frowned. The dot was already gone, vanished into the jungle. Below was a thick carpet of green: trees and trees and trees and trees. Golden threads of river tied them all together. It looked just like the stretches of jungle Marisol flew over back home.
Amelia signaled from the cockpit.
It was time to jump.
Jake looked so pale he was almost see-through. Oz wriggled in the boy’s harness, eager to get the leap over with. The longer they waited, the farther they’d have to trek back through the Amazon to find Christopher. Marisol gave her cousin a thumbs-up encouragement. He mirrored the gesture and stepped out into thin air.
With another pat to make sure the Mogul Diamond was secure, Marisol threw herself after him.
Skydiving didn’t actually feel like diving at all. There was no sudden drop of the stomach, no wild flailing. In fact, Marisol found that if she spread out her arms, they acted like wings, pushing her in any direction she wanted to go.
She flew toward Jake and Oz. Full grin. Her primo’s teeth were out too—more of a grimace.
Count to twenty, then deploy your chute! Amelia had instructed.
Marisol found her cord and pulled.
There was a quick snap as the harness dug into her armpits. Jake’s pack unfurled too. White fabric billowed everywhere, and they were no longer falling, but floating. The Flying Laboratory buzzed past—Amelia waving from the controls—before vanishing back over the horizon.
The trio drifted closer to the jungle, feet and paws dangling. There didn’t seem to be much clear landing space below . . . except for the river. A massive creature stood on its bank, drinking. It looked like a guinea pig—if guinea pigs were the size of cows with doglike tails.
Marisol didn’t know if there were ancient, extinct species of piranhas or crocodiles in the World Between Blinks, but if there were, they had to be bigger too. Right? Just like the megalodon. . . .
“We should try to land in the trees!” she yelled.
Jake cocked his head. “WHAT?”
“THE TREES!” She pulled the cotton from her ears and shouted again. “AMAZON WATER CAN HAVE LOTS OF TEETH! ¡ES PELIGROSO!”
He nodded, steering away from the water.
It was a brambly landing.
Parachute cords tangled with vines as Marisol found a good branch to balance on. Jake landed in a nearby tree. Thankfully, they weren’t too far off the ground and it was an easy climb down, especially for Oz, who stayed strapped into the harness while Jake lowered the thylacine to the jungle floor.
“Fue divertido,” Marisol said once all three of them were safely on the ground.
“Fun?” Color was just now returning to Jake’s face. “You thought that was fun?”
“More fun than trekking across a wasteland.” She brushed bark off her jacket. “Oops, I never gave this back to Amelia. . . .”
The walkie-talkie was still in the pocket, along with the little green jar of smelling salts. And the giant diamond. And the occasional stray lint ball. Below these, Nana’s sugar spoon clinked against countless other items in the pockets of Marisol’s shorts.
No wonder she felt so off balance.
“That’s okay,” said Jake. “We might need another lift back to the Crystal Palace once we get the ledger from Christopher.”
Speaking of . . . “I think I saw him walking into the jungle from the desert!”
“Really?” Jake brightened. “Did you check your vision charm to make sure?”
“No. The plane was too shaky.” Confirming Christopher’s identity with the monocle would’ve meant letting go of the Mogul Diamond, and Marisol wasn’t about to admit that. “But who else would be walking through the desert in a white suit? If we head back that way we might be able to catch him!”
Her cousin frowned. “Which way is that way?”
She thought for a moment, wondering if she dared test her magnet fingers. They hadn’t always pointed true since she’d arrived in the World Between Blinks. Could she trust them? It was better to depend on less supernatural senses. They’d spun an awful lot in the sky, but if the river was over there—and it was, she could hear its mighty rush—then the desert had to be in the opposite direction. “Back through these trees.”
“Okay!” Jake adjusted their food pack, his face back to its signature keep going expression. “Here goes nothing!”
Marisol had been to her own world’s version of the Amazon several times. It was a short plane ride from the mountains of La Paz, and a fun getaway from the city’s dusty traffic. Mom loved looking at all of the bright flowers, Dad had a fascination with the even brighter birds, and Victor enjoyed making faces at the monkeys.
This jungle was different. Wilder. They didn’t have a guide to clear the trail with a machete or to point out different animals along the way. What was it about this place that was so . . . oh! In the middle of asking herself the question, Marisol knew. This was a part of the World Between Blinks that wasn’t cramped by the Curators’ filing systems—a part that grew green and vibran
t and every which way.
Marisol loved how alive she felt walking through it.
Oz did his best to scout, leading them on the easiest path nose-first. Still, it was slow going. Sweat swirled across their faces, and insects screamed down to buzz in their ears and sting at their skin, and their legs were scratched pink. The sun crept through the leaves as they walked—higher, then lower.
“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Jake asked as they paused for their umpteenth water break.
She had been. But—between her unreliable fingers and Jake’s memory loss—Marisol wasn’t sure about anything anymore. She’d never felt more lost than she did at this very moment. Not even when she’d sobbed on the steps of the inside-out lighthouse, with that sassy chicken clucking back.
It’d be easy to cry again, here where stranger, louder birds called and shadows slithered through overhead leaves. But Marisol knew that wasn’t what Nana would do.
“We can’t give up yet,” she said, determined.
Jake flinched. “That’s not what I meant.”
That’s not what she’d meant either. Marisol took a long drink, then screwed the cap back onto their canteen. “We’re walking away from the sunset, which means the desert is still ahead. We could run into Christopher Creaturo at any minute!”
“What if we’ve already passed him?” her primo wondered. “It’s a big thick jungle, which means our monocles are useless. Are your fingers still pointing straight ahead?”
It was Marisol’s turn to flinch. “I’m not a compass, Jake.”
“Of course not!” he protested. “Mari, I only meant . . .” But he trailed off. His face wandered too, as if he were deep in thought.
Or, Marisol suddenly feared, deep in losing one. Her eyes flicked down to Jake’s hourglass. There was still only a single speck of sand at the bottom—too small for what it really was. Had he wanted to forget the bonfire for Nana? That night with all of those memorial lanterns going up in flame over the Atlantic Ocean, constellations just for their grandmother? Marisol had never seen anything so beautiful and sad before, and she would never, ever want to forget it.