Griffin hopped out of bed, pressed his ear against the door, and listened. On the ground floor of headquarters, chair legs scraped against the concrete. He eased his door open. The hall was empty. Moonlight yawned out of windows set high in the thick walls.
Griffin crept out of his room, his bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor, and down the staircase. He didn’t see anyone in the wide corridor or in Dr. Hibbert’s glass office. He peeked through the porthole window into the kitchen, where a teetering stack of dinner dishes had been left to soak in the deep aluminum sink.
A buzz of voices in the conference room floated across the still air. Griffin snuck over to the library. Bookshelves covered the wall to his left, and a bank of filing cabinets lined the one on his right. In a gap between shelves, down by the floor, an embellished grate covered one of the building’s air vents. Dappled light and muffled voices from the room next door filtered through. Griffin crouched low, his breath held tight in his chest, and he listened.
All the Keepers were packed inside. And every single one of them was arguing.
“I thought you said you handled this! You said they would leave us alone!”
“We should pull apart that lens piece by piece so they can’t come back ever again.”
“Philip already tried that, remember? It doesn’t work.”
“We don’t have time to waste arguing—Somni could be gathering those priests with their creepy mind control and preparing to cross a whole army of soldiers over.”
Griffin sat back, stunned. An army?
There are a dozen reasons why it’s risky to swim in the water off the Oregon coast. Submerged logs tumble through the surf. The ocean floor is dotted with hidden rocks that will pull a swimmer under and pin him there. And then there are the sharks, of course. But the most dangerous thing? Rip currents.
You don’t even know you’ve been caught up in the rush of water speeding out to the open ocean before you’re too far gone to call for help. You’re treading water, but the waves are only getting bigger, and you know you’re not strong enough to fight the current back to shore.
Griffin gulped for air, lifting his chin high as if he were struggling to keep his head above water. What could he possibly do against a whole army?
The voices in the conference room rose to shouts, swelling and raging to drown their fear. Griffin leaned forward again, pressing his ear to the grate.
“What we need to do is call in the Coast Guard. We can’t handle a full-scale invasion on our own.”
“But we still don’t know what changed! They left us alone for three years. We need to know why—”
“We’re never going to know enough.”
“We need to find Philip’s notes!”
“Are you kidding? They just kidnapped Philip. It won’t be long before the priests make him tell them what Katherine did to the lens.”
The man kept talking, but the words turned fuzzy until they were a tinny ringing in Griffin’s ears. Kidnapped. His dad hadn’t just disappeared, then. Someone had taken him. Someone who could move between worlds, with armies at the ready.
There were other worlds out there. And his dad was on one of them. Alone. Maybe hurt. Probably afraid. Griffin pressed his palms against his temples and squeezed.
Gradually, voices from the conference room slipped back in the lull between waves of panic rolling over Griffin.
“We don’t even know what Katherine did to the lens. If Philip didn’t tell us, then he’s definitely not going to—”
“Enough!” Dr. Hibbert’s stern voice cut through the rest, and the bickering around the conference table grumbled and fell silent. “I sent a crew to sweep the cottage for Philip’s book. If they don’t find it by morning, we’ll have to admit that it’s lost to us for good.”
Griffin frowned. Was she talking about his dad’s journal?
“Clearly Somni is tampering with the lens. By taking even one of us through the portal, they’ve broken our agreement.” An undercurrent of long-simmering rage filled her voice. “Tomorrow we’ll send a team to the lighthouse at sunset. Fergus, Sykes, and I will travel to Somni to see what we can learn. The rest of the team will remain at the lighthouse, standing guard in case anyone comes through while we’re gone.”
Dr. Hibbert paused, daring anyone to disagree with her. “We’re left with two options. Either we find a way to repair the block Katherine put on the lens, or we have to cut the tether between Earth and Somni, closing the portal for good. The block must have failed, and with Philip gone and his notebook with him, we don’t have a glassmaker to solve that particular puzzle for us. That leaves us with no choice. We must sever any human link between the two worlds.”
All around the conference table, the Keepers erupted in protest.
“You know what we stand to lose if we don’t!” Dr. Hibbert’s voice cracked as she shouted to regain control. The others quieted, and she continued softly, though the hard edge remained. “This is the last thing any of us wants. But are you willing to gamble everyone on Earth for the sake of a few lives?”
This time the Keepers stayed silent, as if they didn’t dare breathe.
“Tomorrow at sunset—during our limited window of time when the Somni side will be unguarded—we’ll open the portal. If we can’t bring every last dreamer from Earth home with us, they have to be sacrificed, right there in the temple.”
Griffin backed away in horror. Footsteps scraped against the concrete floor in the next room. He hurried out of the library, ducking into the kitchen just as the door from the conference room creaked open. Griffin cast around for somewhere to hide, then scurried under the sink, pulling shut the curtains that hid a tangle of pipes and drip pans from sight.
Someone approached the kitchen. The door swung open. Griffin held his breath until he thought he was going to explode. Booted feet clomped across the tile, paused at the opposite swinging door, and pushed through into the dining room. Griffin counted to ten before wiggling free of the pipes and pans, then he tiptoed out the door and up the stairs back to his room. He slipped under the covers and squeezed his eyes shut.
Murderers.
Griffin’s heart hammered against his chest, so loud it seemed like they must be able to hear it all the way down in the conference room. The Keepers weren’t scientists or researchers or any of that nonsense Dr. Hibbert had said before. They were murderers. They were going to kill all the people from Earth that Somni had stolen. They were going to kill his dad.
The door to Griffin’s room eased open. He wanted to scream. He wanted to ball his hands into fists and pummel whoever it was, make him hurt half as much as he did. But when you’re a kid in a world of grown-ups, you can’t just do what you want, not when they hold all the power.
So though Griffin’s head throbbed and his heart ached, he kept his eyes closed, and he willed his body still. A dagger of light lanced across his cheek, and he felt someone cross the room and lean over him, watching for any movement. With a quiet hmph, the person left, closing the door. Griffin’s eyes snapped open. He rolled onto his back, and his hand rose to his chest.
Griffin had read more books in his eleven years than most grown-ups. He and his father had gone to the library at least three times a week to swap out one stack for another. He’d read books about parasites and tornados, quicksand and every kind of shark. Griffin thought if he read enough about scary things (especially the sort that could steal a parent away) he’d shake the feeling that any day he was going to lose his dad, just like he’d already lost his mom. Or if that didn’t work, at least he’d be prepared.
The night after he’d read a book about clogged arteries, cardiac arrest, and open-heart surgery, he’d lain flat on his back, probing the long, ridged bone that ran down his chest and wondering what it must be like to have your chest cracked wide open.
Well, he didn’t have to wonder anymore. In that moment, Griffin knew exactly how it must feel.
The Keepers were going to open the portal the followin
g night. And they were going through to—where did they say? Somni? Then, when they got to the other side, they were going to kill every last person from Earth.
They were going to kill his dad.
IT’S TIME FOR BED, SWEET Griffin.
What’s that? You don’t want another story about a made-up world?
You think it’s all nonsense? Hmmm.
I’ll tell you what. You try, just this once, to set your suspicions aside, and I’ll tell you the story of how all those worlds came to be.
Deal?
Okay, then. Snuggle up.
Long ago, a starburst of energy bloomed in the sky like a many-petaled flower, and Earth was born, along with seven other worlds. They spun together for millions of years, waiting for a way between them to open.
In the beginning, each world was a perfect copy of the next, and they seemed identical until the great melt. Some, like Glacies, have yet to emerge from an ice age. Others, like Arida, warmed far too quickly.
The humans who inhabited each world evolved differently to suit their home. To adapt to the skies of Caligo, the people’s bones thinned until they were hollow as a bird’s. On Stella, it was their eyes that changed until, like owls, they could see in the dark as well as you and I do in the daylight. If the sjel trees hadn’t died, interrupting the dream cycle, in another generation or two, the people of Somni might not have spoken at all and would have communicated only with their minds.
A way between worlds finally opened 124 years ago, when the first beam shone out of our lighthouse. The glassmaker had only meant to construct a beacon to guide the ships at sea. He couldn’t have known the magic that moved beneath his fingers, how the want of the eight worlds would shift the glass, shaping it to meet that need.
When the glassmaker first switched the light on and the lens began to turn, a great tremor coursed through the sky. The creatures of each world felt the change in their bones, and they welcomed it.
You think I’m teasing? No—I swear to you: It’s true.
The eight worlds were always meant to be connected. We need one another, Griffin. We are so much stronger together.
8
BETTER FORGOTTEN
WHEN YOU’RE UP in the lighthouse tower at night, and you look out the floor-to-ceiling windows, all you see is shadows: the restless dark of the sea and the jagged pitch of treetops outlining the headland behind you. The beams swivel across the land and the ocean, and anyone could spot you up there in the tower, the bright light illuminating your every feature, but you’d never even know they watched from the darkness below.
When he walked into the dining room for breakfast the following morning, Griffin felt that same shiver of exposure. He stopped still at the entrance, sure everyone in headquarters was staring at him. He hadn’t slept much the night before. Every time he almost drifted off, he’d remember that his dad was in danger. His eyes would fly open again, and that same chest-cracking ache would settle in.
Griffin crossed to the buffet table. There weren’t any Pop-Tarts or cinnamon squares, just a bunch of heart-healthy options. He sighed, scooped three lumps of oatmeal into a bowl, and sprinkled a hefty portion of brown sugar over the top. He grabbed a bottle of orange juice and looked around for a place to sit. Fergus and Sykes watched him from the middle of the long table down the center of the room. Fergus wore a blazer that was at least two sizes too small (probably to make his muscles look even bigger than they already were). He had the kind of bushy eyebrows that barely left a gap between them. Sykes, on the other hand, was tall and lean. He hunched over his buttered pumpernickel toast, knobby elbows splayed wide like he thought someone was going to try to snatch it out of his hands at any moment. Griffin skittered around the outside of the dining room, as far away from those two as he could get.
In the corner, Beatrix sat at a round café table. She was a tiny woman, but she waved over her head and beamed so enthusiastically that she was impossible to miss.
“And how did you sleep?” she asked when Griffin took the seat opposite her.
“Oh—um, great. My bed is super comfy. I didn’t wake up once.” Griffin ducked his head and shoved a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.
“I’m glad to hear that. It’s not always easy sleeping in a new place.”
Griffin darted a look around the dining room. Everybody was dressed for a chilly day, in jeans or khakis and sweaters or thick long-sleeved shirts. There was no idle conversation. No friendly banter. And hardly anyone was making eye contact.
Good, Griffin thought. You should feel guilty. But then he froze. A blob of oatmeal slid off his spoon and plopped back into the bowl.
“Beatrix?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Everybody is in normal clothes today.”
The elderly woman tilted her head to the side, perplexed.
“Yesterday everyone was wearing the same pajama things.”
“Ah,” Beatrix said with a fluttering laugh. “You mean the stola?”
“The what?”
“The blue pants and shirt, with the red sash. It’s called a stola. Keepers are given a set at their induction ceremony.”
“Then, yeah, the stola. Why did everybody have them on yesterday but not today?”
“Oh!” Beatrix’s whole face brightened. “They’ll have them on again this evening. They only wear the stola when they have good reason to.”
Like when they’re traveling to a different world? Griffin glanced down at his raincoat and jeans. Was that why the Keepers had all worn stolas the day before? Because when the alarm sounded, they assumed they’d be going through the portal? They must have been dressed to blend in once they got there.
“They? But aren’t you a Keeper too?”
“Oh, yes,” Beatrix said cheerily enough before her face fell. “But they don’t ask me to wear the stola anymore. I’m only here for my brain, you know. They don’t need me for . . . trips. Just the physics. And anyway, I’m not sure I’d want to go. . . .” She trailed off, her cloudy eyes losing their focus.
“Go where?” Griffin barely breathed. He wanted so badly to understand what was going on. And it almost seemed like she might answer whatever he asked, in the middle of breakfast. Right under Dr. Hibbert’s nose. “How are those trips even possible?”
But Beatrix didn’t seem to hear his questions. Her mind was somewhere else entirely. She blinked slowly, her eyelashes meeting like a moth drying its wings. After a long moment, her eyes settled again on Griffin’s puzzled face. She stretched across the table and patted his hand.
“Some memories are better forgotten.”
Griffin squirmed. He didn’t like the sound of that. If Beatrix had been there—to Somni—and never wanted to return, it didn’t sound like a good place. At all.
And then an idea struck. Beatrix had been there. She would have a stola, a set she probably never even bothered to put on anymore. Griffin shoveled the rest of his oatmeal into his mouth, tightened the cap on his juice, and leaped up from his chair. “I gotta go. Sorry.”
He scurried out of the dining room, nearly crashing into Dr. Hibbert as he pushed through the swinging door into the corridor. Oily black coffee sloshed inside her mug, and she stepped back, holding the mug as far away from her crisp white blazer as she could reach. Griffin skirted around her, and she let him pass, her eyebrows raised and her lips twisted at a distinctly suspicious angle.
“I, uh—forgot something in my room.”
Griffin darted upstairs and flung open his door. He’d never been what you’d call a neat child. You’d never find his shoes lined up by the door or his coats all on the proper hangers or hooks. He preferred things a little messy. But as with most messy people, it was his mess, and it was just the way he liked it. So when he took in the rumpled sheets and the clothes strewn over the floor, he knew, through to his bones, that someone had been in there, rifling through his stuff.
If somebody had gone to the trouble to ransack his room, that meant the Keepers had guessed he wa
s hiding something. Griffin rested a hand on the front pocket of his hoodie, trying to shake the uneasy feeling that had crept over him. Beneath the layers of bulky cotton, the journal and the drawings were safe, strapped around his waist.
Griffin squared his shoulders. His mouth set in a stubborn line. They didn’t know everything. He ducked into Beatrix’s room next door, heading straight for the clothes cupboard. He didn’t have the luxury of flinging everything all over the place—Beatrix was a tidy one. So he pulled out each stack of clothes and carefully thumbed through them. Shoved at the very back of the cupboard, behind a tower of thick woolen sweaters, was her stola, the red sash wrapped reverently around the soft fabric. Beneath the stola was a pair of worn sandals. Griffin held them up against the soles of his boots. They were several sizes too small. He set them back on the shelf; his Tevas would have to do. Griffin closed the wardrobe and stuffed the bundle under his hoodie. He dashed out into the hallway and back to his room.
A crooked smile drifted across his lips. He peeled off the layers of his own clothes and lifted the blue shirt over his head. It was loose, but not horribly so. He stepped into the pants. Those he had to hold up with one hand while he wrapped and tied the sash around his waist like a belt.
Griffin pulled his jeans and hoodie over the gauzy fabric. They were a little more snug than usual, but if he wore his raincoat on top of it all, he didn’t think anyone would notice. His Tevas were going to look funny—nobody wore sandals in this kind of weather. But hopefully no one would be looking at his feet.
Griffin blew out a long breath, and the worst jangling of his nerves left with it. He was as ready as he was going to get. He could do this. He could.
Now he just had to find out a way out of there.
9
STOWAWAY
IN THE MOVIES, the bad guys always seem to be shoving somebody into the trunk of a car and speeding off to do whatever nefarious deeds bad guys do. But nobody would ever put himself in the trunk of that car to be driven off with—would he?
The Lighthouse between the Worlds Page 4