The World Between Blinks

by Ryan Graudin

  Goose bumps shivered across Marisol’s magnet fingers. Her grandmother wasn’t gone—not all the way—because pieces of Nana lived on through her. Through her gift of finding what was lost, through her adventurous spirit, through her love for her family.

  She knew exactly what her grandmother would do, because brothers are treasures and Hazel was Christopher’s heart. Nana’s oldest friend was way more valuable than some creaky, leaking beach house.

  It was time to let go.

  Eyes ahead, don’t look back! She threw the diamond as hard as she could. It sailed over the Curators’ heads—twinkling like a star against the early-evening light. Hazel ooooooohed. Droopy Moustache cupped his hands and stumbled over bushes trying to catch it. Red Bun followed.

  The ledgers in Marisol’s arms slipped as she ran toward Hazel—good thing there was no need to carry both books anymore. She tossed the oldest copy to a very stunned Min-jun.

  “Here you go! I’ll rate you ten out of ten if you don’t tell!”

  The kindly Curator caught the book. And smiled.

  “C’mon!” Marisol used her newly freed hand to grab Hazel’s. “¡Vamos!”

  Together they started to run.

  16

  Jake

  LUDWIG LEICHHARDT TURNED OUT TO BE VERY USEFUL.

  The German explorer hadn’t lost all of his memories yet, and now that they were doing something he was interested in, he’d come back to life. On their journey to the Library of Alexandria, where the memory hourglasses were stored, he talked more and more, his words coming first in ripples, and then in great gushing waves.

  Just now, the whole group behind Operation Hourglass—Jake, Oz, Christopher, and the explorers—were crouched in a hutong, which turned out to be a narrow Chinese street bordered with bright red doors and brighter, redder lanterns. Somewhere in the old world, its stones had been demolished to make way for shinier buildings. Now, the alley sat just a couple of blocks from the library itself.

  “I came to see the library shortly after my arrival in the World!” Leichhardt was bubbling as he scratched out a map in the dirt, tapping each room with a stick. “I studied at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin back home, you know, and I wrote books. I wanted to see the greatest library the world had ever known.” He was visibly excited—he’d even trimmed his beard in preparation for the trip.

  Jake was just as excited, anticipation fizzing inside him like a Fourth of July sparkler. He’d get back Hazel’s and Christopher’s memories, of course. But there was much more to it. . . . Christopher’s Illuminator, which could be used to shine specific sand scenes back to life, must mean there was a way to tell the memories apart. And that meant that for all the memories he took from the library, he might just leave a few behind there as well.

  So many goodbyes to so many friends.

  Or the last time he saw Nana, with her veins too blue in her skin and her smile so weak, and Jake couldn’t breathe for remembering it now, but the sight was too stark to forget on his own, and he wished he could just—

  Percy nudged his shoulder. “Jake, old chap! Are you with us?”

  “I’m in.” He looked back down at the dust-drawn map. His nerves crackled like a live wire. “What do we have to do?”

  After a long look at the library’s layout, it was decided that Leichhardt, Percy, Raleigh, and Oz would head inside with Jake. Naomi and Jack would wait outside with Christopher.

  “One last thing,” Percy said before they left the hutong. “If we succeed and send you four back to the old world—then I believe we explorers must swear an oath of secrecy. If word got out that it’s possible to return, too many people would try it, and heaven only knows what things or places they might bring with them. It could be a disaster.”

  “You’re right.” Jack’s eyes widened. “If this works, we’ll have to keep it to ourselves. Our secret.”

  “We must swear,” Leichhardt agreed.

  And so they did, shaking hands to seal the oath. And then Jake, Leichhardt, Percy, and Raleigh left the others behind, making their way along the streets toward the library, Oz trotting ahead of them to lead the way.

  The Library of Alexandria itself stole Jake’s breath away—though that also could’ve been because there were so many stairs leading to the main courtyard. Here the building wrapped around a reflecting pool, which made the structure seem taller than its three stories. People from every era of history hurried across the plaza like ants on an anthill, caught up in the important business of learning.

  Jake felt slightly disappointed, watching them come and go. He’d been prepared for a much more daring entrance. “I thought we had to climb in through a window. . . .”

  “The library is open to the public,” Leichhardt replied. “But the hourglass archives are a special collection. For those, a permit is required. Or, in our case, burgling skills. Come! Let us thieve!”

  Leichhardt strolled through the front door with immense confidence for someone who was about to rob the place. Jake, Percy, and Raleigh followed, with Oz last of all.

  “Good afternoon,” said the Curator stationed at the entrance. “And welcome to the Library of Alexandria. We hope you’ll take a moment to rate your experience when you leave. Oh, hello, Oz!”

  Oz yipped a hello, and Jake said nothing, staying on the far side of Percy, in case he was recognized. But it didn’t take long for their new surroundings to distract him from his worries. Leichhardt’s map—while accurate—simply hadn’t captured the library’s scope. It was huge!

  There were rooms for eating and talking, for studying and attending lectures. Everything was lit by bold golden sunshine, which burst through open windows that were cut into the stone, without any glass. Statues of Greek and Egyptian gods watched over the aisles. An inscription above the shelves told Jake that this was: The place of the cure of the soul.

  But more than anything, what he noticed was . . .

  “Gad, that’s a lot of books,” Percy said, craning his neck to look around.

  Leichhardt nodded enthusiastically. “These aren’t the original papyri—scrolls, I mean—that would have been in the library. Or at least, not all of them. Most of history’s missing texts are here: works by Cicero, the lost notes of Da Vinci and Nikola Tesla. They have Hemingway’s earliest stories too! The papers were in a suitcase that was stolen from a train station, did you know? This happened after I came to the World, but I’ve heard . . .” He took in Jake’s confused expression and laughed. “Ah, this is wasted on the young. Jake, they have the unfinished Pratchett novels here! One day you’ll wish you had stopped to read them.”

  Jake’s eyes fell on a large poster pinned to the wall outside a lecture theater. “Well, I’ve sure heard of Shakespeare,” he offered. “But his plays exist in our world.”

  “Not this one.” Raleigh’s hat nearly fell off as he peeked into the performance. “They’re acting out The History of Cardenio. Too bad we don’t have time to pop in and watch!”

  “What’s that up ahead?” Percy asked. “I see more Curators.”

  Leichhardt was all business once again. “That’s the acquisitions department,” he said. “Back in the old world, works were brought there to see if they were worthy of inclusion in the library. Here, it holds the hourglass repositories.”

  A pair of Curators was standing guard, though the sign above their heads did most of the warning for them:

  RESTRICTED AREA, PERMIT REQUIRED

  FRAGILE MEMORIES, HANDLE WITH CARE

  Jake’s heart threatened to break his own hourglass—thump, thump, crack!—as the little group approached. This was where they’d find out if their plan would work. It wasn’t much of a plan, but there was only one way into the repositories. Well, two, but the Curators were unlikely to let them just stroll through the front door.

  Leichhardt and Percy charged up to the two guards, full of firework greetings.

  “Good afternoon!” Leichhardt cried. “I have a list of seventeen queries. I have alp
habetized them!”

  “I require your attention,” Percy said loudly, coming to stand between his Curator and Jake, Raleigh, and Oz. “I have forty-three suggestions for the improvement of the library.”

  Meanwhile, Raleigh and Jake edged over to the nearest great open window. Jake stuck his head out and swallowed hard at what he saw. Their recon had been right. There was a ledge outside, but it looked a lot smaller than it had from the ground. Three whole stories ago!

  “Good luck, old chap,” Raleigh whispered, helping him climb out the window, and holding on until Jake had his balance.

  He shuffled along the ledge—eyes ahead, don’t look back OR DOWN!—trying desperately not to think about how much air there was to fall through. Marisol was so much better at climbing things, but Jake had to be the one to do this—he was the only person who could sift through the memories he wanted to leave behind.

  He fought off the thought of Nana in that hospital bed and looked back toward the window. Raleigh was lifting out Oz, who didn’t seem the least bit worried that Tasmanian tigers did not have wings. The animal balanced just fine, giving his human companion an encouraging little wuff. After a deep breath, Jake kept on shuffling. It was about twenty feet to the next window, which would be inside the hourglass repository.

  Fifteen feet, shuffle shuffle.

  Ten feet, shuffle shuffle, careful steps.

  A playful breeze snatched at his shirt, ruffling his hair. “Oh, Oz,” he murmured. “This had better be worth it.”

  Oz placed one careful paw in front of the other, tail trembling with excitement.

  Five feet, just a few more steps.

  Jake was careful not to relax as he got closer. His fingertips were sweating when they gripped the windowsill. Oz mimicked the position and hopped onto his hind legs, but the thylacine needed opposable thumbs even more than a set of feathers.

  “Ah-ah?” he pleaded, batting those liquid dark eyes.

  “You’re lucky you’re so cute!”

  “Ah-ah!”

  Jake clung to the sill with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed at Oz’s back legs, giving the creature a heave. Nails scrabbled, fur flew. A tawny striped rump disappeared through the window, landing with an audible thump on the other side.

  Jake hoisted himself through after Oz, the stone scraping his palms raw. When he straightened up, he was faced with shelves of hourglasses. Shelves on shelves on endless shelves. Christopher’s words rang in his head. They’re chronological. Every hourglass is arranged by the date its owner arrived. Follow the dates on the shelves and you’ll be fine.

  The shelves nearest Jake were centuries old, and almost every hourglass had a clear top and a full bottom. He raced through the aisles, counting down the years in a whisper. Hazel’s came first, the top completely emptied, the bottom stacked high with sand.

  Next came Christopher’s, with only a third of the grains left at the top. How hard it must’ve been for him to hold on to his memories, and to Hazel. He must love her very much, and Nana must have helped him remember this long. Wherever Jake’s grandmother was, she’d be smiling, knowing that he and Marisol were helping her brother. Finishing this story for her . . .

  Jake thought about the explorers as he ran along the shelves once more, but Percy and his crew had been very clear: they didn’t want Marisol to steal their ledgers, and they did not want Jake to bring their hourglasses out. They were enjoying their expeditions in the World Between Blinks, and they had no desire to return home with Christopher, Hazel, Jake, and Marisol. There was still too much to see here.

  But suddenly the urge to turn back struck him. He didn’t have time to think—he simply whirled around and hurried to the 1840s. There, toward the end of the shelves, sat Ludwig Leichhardt’s hourglass. Very few grains remained up at the top.

  Jake flipped the timepiece upside down, giving it a shake to start the sand flowing in the opposite direction. He didn’t dare wait long, but by the time he turned the hourglass right side up and placed it back on the shelf, Leichhardt had at least half his memories restored. It seemed a pity for him to lose so much of his past, and a good thank-you, to give some back.

  Oz made a low noise in the back of his throat, and Jake nodded. “Gotta keep moving,” he agreed softly, and they turned toward the most recent shelves. The cousins’ hourglasses were almost the last, his with just one grain of sand at the bottom, Marisol’s with none at all.

  Jake picked them up carefully, considering. . . .

  He couldn’t just shake his hourglass to send the sand through quicker—he might lose the wrong memories again. He needed the correct tool—something like Christopher’s Illuminator. There had to be more here, right? How else would the Curators examine this collection? If Jake could find one and use it to single out some of his worst memories, then he could leave those pieces of sand on the shelf and be on his way. Carefree.

  Happy.

  Jake’s thoughts were already in the courtyard where Christopher was waiting, and beyond that to the olive tree by the Aral Sea, where Marisol and Hazel had agreed to meet up with them.

  Perhaps that was why he didn’t hear any footsteps.

  When Jake rounded the end of the aisle to search for an Illuminator, he crashed straight into a Curator in a starched white suit.

  The official was a silver-haired man with a pale, puffy face, thin lips, and a pointed chin, and he immediately reminded Jake of a turtle without its shell. The man’s eyebrows, though . . . they were the most impressive pair Jake had ever seen. They looked like caterpillars who dreamed of becoming scarves—thick and pale.

  They wiggled extra wide when the Curator spotted the four hourglasses clutched to Jake’s chest, and Jake stumbled back, putting some distance between them.

  “Ah.” Big Brow’s voice dipped as deep as a cello’s. “You must be Jake Beruna.”

  “What?” Jake took another step back, and Oz made a soft, unfriendly noise. “How do you know my name?”

  “You’re a new arrival,” the man said, tilting his head to study Jake like he was an interesting sort of puzzle. “My Curators tried to keep your existence from me. That was foolish.”

  Jake tried to calm his mind, considering the man’s words. “Your Curators,” he repeated, horror creeping over him. “Then you must be . . .”

  “The Administrator,” the man finished his sentence for him. “Indeed.”

  An ice-water chill dripped down Jake’s spine. The Administrator could properly catalog him and Marisol. He could trap them in the World Between Blinks forever, and Christopher and Hazel too! Why had he lingered?

  But the Administrator sounded more conversational than hostile. “I’m not surprised you found your way here.”

  “Oh?” said Jake, playing for time. “Why’s that?”

  “You are drawn to these memories. Or rather to the forgetting,” the man explained. “There is a great deal of lostness around you, Jake. You are a boy who wants to be lost.”

  Jake felt like someone had sat on his chest, as all the things he’d lost came rushing at him, all at once. His father, his friends, the places he’d lived. Some of them had disappeared for their own reasons, but a lot of them he knew he’d pushed away before he could lose them. Because he didn’t want to miss people or places—it hurt too much. It was like he always said: eyes ahead, don’t look back.

  “I understand,” said the Administrator quietly. “How painful it can be. How heavy. Life is full of loss, and sometimes it’s too much to carry around with you.” His hand went to his necklace, and Jake saw that the man didn’t have any hourglass at all. No sand. Nothing. “Many of my Curators don’t realize this—they cling to their memories like coins or stamps or cards. But you, Jake Beruna. You feel the pull of this place. You could be truly happy here. Light and free. I could see to it that nothing would hurt you ever again.”

  Jake’s mouth opened, then closed again. The Administrator made the Curators sound like Marisol, determined to hold on to things. But he sounded like
Jake too, that tiny, inner whisper that wondered if it would be easier to dance like a ghost beneath the sea or sail in the salt spray above.

  The Administrator understood, in a way so many others didn’t. He wasn’t urging Jake to keep his chin up, to find the positives, to look forward to the next good thing.

  If this man had truly found a way to take away the unhappiness that came with losing the things you loved . . . Well . . .

  Wasn’t it at least worth asking about?

  “How?” The question ached in his throat.

  “Let me help you. Give me those hourglasses.” The Administrator pointed at the stolen charms. “I can move all of the memories in yours to the bottom so you’ll never have to miss anyone, or anything, ever again. Nothing will be able to drag you down!”

  “But . . .” Jake’s mouth went dry. “But I don’t want to lose all of the sand! There are memories of Nana in there! Of—of . . . of picnics in Paris with my mom! Of bushwalking in Australia! Of my cousins, my family, of the beach house!”

  The Administrator frowned, his caterpillar eyebrows clashing together like they wanted to fight. “A memory is a memory, Jake. They all weigh on you.”

  Jake shook his head. “Those memories are what make . . .” He trailed off as the realization hit him squarely. “They’re what make me into me.”

  And then he saw. There was no such thing as an all-good or all-bad memory. The picnic in Paris had been delicious, but ants had gotten into the pastries. The bushwalk in Australia had been beautiful, but it had finished up with them tired and sweaty, sunburned and dotted with bug bites. The beach house was home, but it came with the memory of losing his grandmother. Even the last time he’d seen Nana, she had grabbed Jake’s hand and whispered, I love you, and how could he ever stand to forget those words, just to forget she’d been sick?

  Like the salt of peanut butter and the sweetness of chocolate, it was one that made the other taste so good. Enjoying the cool shade of a tree only felt so wonderful because you’d felt the heat of the sun first.

  “They’re all good memories,” Jake said slowly. “And they’re all bad memories. They’re both. Maybe some of them are amazing, or some of them are awful, but that’s how you get the sun and the shade. The bad is how you know the good when you see it.”