by Carrie Jones
“Hurry. The singing will ruin your good mood,” Bloom said, shooing them toward the entrance.
The door blew open, and the mayor and Tala hustled inside. “There you are!” The mayor spread his arms wide open, welcoming the children. “Hurry! The entire town is waiting to celebrate our heroes.”
The mayor’s voice was large and matched his body. Jamie figured only someone as confident as the mayor could live with a monster book in his home. For a second he wondered if the book had calmed down yet. He hoped so.
Despite the fact that Tala had tackled Annie and covered her face with doggy kisses, the mayor managed to hurry them out of Aquarius House and into the garden. It was full of creatures, both human and nonhuman looking. Orbs of light hung from all the trees, which had somehow blossomed into purple and white flowers. Flags depicting moving scenes from the children’s adventures floated midair. Small bonfires were set up throughout the yard, and fairies danced around them. Tables lined up in rows. Flowers were strewn on top of the linen, and candelabras lit the table settings. The chairs all moved backward and forward by themselves, and several joined a good ten or so cats that were dancing on their hind legs to fiddling music produced by Mr. Nate and an assorted group of werewolves and owls. Dwarfs and vampires, shifters and hags all laughed together. Several younger vampires morphed into bats and swooped above the tables in a game of tag.
“Oh … wow … ,” Annie breathed out.
“Yes, exactly!” The mayor slapped her on the back so hard that she stumbled forward and Bloom had to catch her by the arm so she didn’t fall over. “Wow.”
Everyone seemed to notice the children at the same time and turn to stare at them with mouths wide open. An owl hooted. A wolf howled. Applause began to ripple through the crowd until it was suddenly thunderous.
“Our heroes!” a witch cried.
“Brilliant job!” called Ned the Doctor. He dropped his glasses in his excitement. A pixie scooped them up and flew off with them.
“Wait!” Ned yelled. “I need those. Oh, dear …”
SalGoud raced after the pixies, trying to retrieve Ned’s glasses. It was chaotic and awesome and beautiful. All of it. It was everything Annie had ever dreamed of.
“Hooray for Annie!” a small gray cat yelled. It was definitely the cat that had helped Jamie in the house. It gave him a paw wave. He waved back.
Annie startled. “Cats can talk?”
“Everything can talk inside Aurora,” Bloom explained. “Sort of … Well, sometimes … I guess that’s not completely true … Um … yeah … It’s complicated.”
People had started to chant her name. Annie shook her head and cupped her hands. “Hooray for Jamie!” she corrected. “And Bloom and Eva!”
Megan, the cranky blond hag with the questionable predictions, sauntered closer to them, arms crossed over her chest. “That’s too many to yell.”
“Well, I’m not the only hero,” Annie said.
Megan stuck up her chin. “Obviously.”
The tension was eased by several pixies hovering over the mayor’s head and rapidly blinking their eyelashes. “Mayor! Mayor! Speech!”
Bloom motioned for Annie and Jamie, and they sat at a table beneath a weeping willow tree. Huge light orbs swirled and lit the silverware. Annie’s seat moved her closer to the table, which was heaped with all sorts of food and treats. She still had the roll from Bloom. She bit into it and gave a piece to Tala, who wagged his whole body in a happy wiggl-ing motion.
The mayor hopped up onto a table, which made him even taller than normal. The hags sitting there had to adjust their hats and crane their heads to see him.
“We are saved!” he yelled happily. “And it is because of our youth that we are here tonight, and the fine magic of Miss Cornelia. Please, Corny, take a bow.”
Miss Cornelia moved out from the shadows under a tree and bowed somewhat stiffly. She caught Annie’s gaze and then Jamie’s, giving them both a sweet smile.
“And I must say, Gramma Doris and Helena have outdone themselves with the fine pies of happiness and tarts of joy. Hopefully, you have all availed yourself of the deliciousness before the main course …”
Bloom and Jamie were digging in. Annie hadn’t finished her roll. A pixie whizzed by her ear and settled on her shoulder. “Annie, the mayor goes on and on. You should eat.”
Jamie gave her a thumbs-up. “It’s super good.”
“Now,” the mayor continued as Miss Cornelia made her way to Jamie’s table. “This town has been under a threat the likes of which we haven’t seen for a good ten years, and the theft of the gnome and the invasion by the crow monster is likely to be only the first attempt to end us.”
The crowd moaned.
“But the Raiff and his forces of darkness shall not prevail. Not now. Not ever. For we have not one but two Stoppers!”
The massive noise of cheers shook the trees and tables. Hooves and paws and feet stomped on the ground. Glasses clinked and forks rattled against plates.
“Not like Miss Cornelia is getting any stronger or Annie has any clue what she’s doing, but oh yes, let’s cheer,” Megan snarked.
Eva growled at her.
The mayor’s chest puffed up and his face turned red. “Aurora shall never fall. Never.”
“Never!” a dwarf yelled.
The crowd began to chant it. “Nev-er. Nev-er. Nev-er.”
Jamie joined in. Everyone did except Annie, who seemed to be turning whiter than normal.
“Annie?” he whispered. “What is it?”
She leaned toward him. “It’s nothing. It’s just … It’s a lot of responsibility, isn’t it? Being a Stopper.”
“I’m not sure,” he said after a moment, “but I think so.”
Her mouth tucked itself into a thin line. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
He could feel her worry that she wouldn’t be good enough, that she’d fail them. He knew how that felt. He nudged her. “You’ll be amazing.”
She slowly glanced up at him. “You think so?”
“I know it.”
A smile spread across her face. “You know, you were so worried before … about your life being pointless. Do you still feel that now? Like you don’t have a purpose? Because I think you do.”
“You do?” His hip bumped into hers. She bumped back.
“Yeah. I think one of them is to be the best person you can possibly be. That’s sort of everyone’s purpose in life. But another is to be here, to have saved Aurora.”
“How about being your friend?” he asked.
“That, too.” She laced her fingers between his. “Definitely. And part of my purpose is to be your friend and help find you sugar when you get hungry.”
He laughed. “Best friend ever.”
The magical sky seemed to bounce with lights and flags and pixies. Jamie relaxed into his chair. The mayor finally got the crowd to calm down.
“My own special personal thanks go out to Miss Eva, whose dwarfy resourcefulness and willingness to steal her father’s skis was instrumental in our rescue,” the mayor nodded toward Eva, who promptly raised her arms above her head and did a victory lap around the garden.
Once she settled back in her seat and the cheers died down, the mayor continued, “And thanks go to Bloom, the last elf, whose bravery and willingness to sacrifice his own life for the success of the mission proves that he is an elf to the core.”
People hooted and screamed their praise. Bloom turned a bit red and gave a jaunty wave.
“To Annie, our Time Stopper …” The mayor blew a kiss at her.
Annie sunk so low in the chair that she almost slid out of it. The chair bounced her back up. She gave up trying to hide and covered her head with her hands.
“Your magic is our future, our promise, and our salvation. May your heart always want to see the good in even the most evil of souls.”
The crowd went wild. Streamers fell from the sky. Balloons popped and reinflated. The trees seemed to sing out their p
raises. The mayor hopped off the table, his speech finished.
Annie leaned over to Bloom. “What about Jamie?”
Jamie sat there, smiling and applauding and chewing.
Bloom made big eyes. The mayor hadn’t mentioned Jamie.
Miss Cornelia glided to the center of the room, lifting up into the air just slightly. She seemed to glow as her rainbow skirts swirled about her ankles.
The crowd silenced.
“And last and never least,” she said, shooting the mayor a stern frown, “to Jamie, who faced his biggest fears to save us, and faced them well. Using his wits and bravery, he brought us all our gnome.”
She gently motioned for Jamie to stand up. He swallowed hard and did so. There was a smudge of cinnamon sugar on his cheek.
“To James Hephaistion Alexander, who proves without a doubt that worth does not come from the magic in your blood, but from the kindness in your heart. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” She coughed and checked the position of the moon high in the sky. “Or Happy Twelve Minutes after Your Birthday to be exact!”
The crowd exploded with applause once again, and Bloom playfully reached over Annie to punch Jamie in the shoulder. Annie clapped and beamed at him. Jamie turned a deep shade of red, much worse than Bloom’s. A gang of vampires swooped in and bounced him up onto their shoulders, lofting him into the air and swirling around the garden with him as people cheered and threw the confetti that magically appeared in their hands. Fireworks spelling out HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMIE! filled the sky with golden sparks.
“Ja-mie!” people shouted. “Ja-mie!”
Annie and Bloom and Eva were the loudest shouters of all. Mr. Nate gave him two huge thumbs-up, and Jamie forgot for a moment what it had been like to have been scared, hungry, and unloved. Instead, he finally knew what it was like to belong.
“This is our home now, Annie,” he said as Eva caught them up in a bouncing group hug. “You finally have a home.”
She laughed, joyous finally. Her face glowed with happiness.
“Yes,” she said as Eva accidentally stomped on her foot, “we finally do!”
Much later, when the children were all tucked into bed, after Eva was grounded again (this time for dunking Megan’s face into a vat of Happy-Birthday-Hero juice) and Bloom was safely perched inside his tree home, after Jamie’s stomach was finally full, and Annie’s heart was finally feeling like she had a home, was when they came for Miss Cornelia.
As silent as the pause between heartbeats, someone stepped from behind the front door of Aquarius House into the darkness of the foyer as she passed by, grabbing her by the hands and lifting her into the air before tossing a Sleep-Till-I-Say-So potion into her startled eyes. She slumped against him as he kicked open the front door, hoisting her still body atop the horse, the same horse the children had seen earlier that day, riding through the barrens. The Each Uisge huffed, and the rider hopped on behind Cornelia.
He spoke into the darkness of the night, “I bring her to you, sir.” Then he held on as the horse broke into a run.
And from a mirror, and then a window, the Raiff’s image watched as Miss Cornelia was whisked away. Sometimes even a demon can’t help but smile. The glass of the window cracked. The mirror clouded. But only Annie Nobody stirred in her bed. The rest of Aurora slept on, oblivious to the fact that the woman who had spent the last few decades keeping them safe had been taken from them and it would be almost impossible for any of them to ever be safe again.
Acknowledgments
To Emily Ciciotte, the coolest daughter ever. Without Emily’s insistence on “five more pages,” this story would never have been thought of (or written) during our long car rides and boring afternoons. Thank you, glorious Emily the Greatest, for making me a grown-up writer for children, instead of a newspaper person forever. Caution: do not try to write and drive at the same time.
I know that there is a belief that acknowledgments are rather “uncool,” but I can’t think of how not to publicly thank some of the kind and lovely people who got me through this book process. Time Stoppers is not my first published book, but it’s the one that I wrote first and revised a million times. It means a lot to me—and the people who supported me as I wrote it? Well, they mean a lot to me, too. Warning: revising a book a million times is dangerous work and hard on your typing fingers, but your teachers at Vermont College of Fine Arts will expect it of you.
So, here is everyone’s much-deserved public thank-you!
Thank you to my Agent of Awesome, Edward Necarsulmer IV, who works so hard for other people’s glory and recognition while expecting so little in return. Everyone should have an agent of awesome who is full of kindness and humor and goodness. Caution: not all agents are agents of awesome.
There is no greater editor than Cindy Loh. She makes okay books into great books, and she is brilliant and funny and everything good. It seems unfair that one human being can be so exquisitely talented. Warning: amazing editors make you spoiled.
Many thanks to the amazing team at Bloomsbury for all their passion and intelligence. I have never met so many people who try so hard to make amazing books for kids. Many thanks to Donna Mark, John Candell, and Owen Richardson, who made this into such a beautiful book. Hali Baumstein and Brett Wright, Linda Minton, Patricia McHugh, Ilana Worrell, and Melissa Kavonic, the managing editor. They all are unsung heroes. As are Cristina Gilbert, Lizzy Mason, Courtney Griffin in publicity as well as Erica Barmash, Emily Ritter, Eshani Agrawal, Shae McDaniel, Beth Eller, Linette Kim, Ashley Poston, and Alona Fryman in marketing. Caution: Do not get spoiled if you have an astonishing publishing team. Not all teams are this awesome or have sock puppets.
Many thanks to the real Mount Desert Police Department and their chief, Jim Willis, for allowing me to be a dispatcher and help them save people, as well as inspiring portions of this story. They are much better police officers and dispatchers than the ones in this book! Caution: um … don’t be a criminal on Mount Desert Island.
Many thanks to the People of Mike and Lynne and Grayson Staggs’ house, who inspired joy and story in me almost every Wednesday night, with special thanks to Samantha Spellacy and Nate Light, Jon and Sarah Day Levesque, Joe Pagan, Nicole Ouellette, John Bench, and Stuart West. It is always good to have friends to make you laugh, and therefore many thanks to Steve and Jenna Boucher, Lori Bartlett, Sherri Dyer, Susy Davis, Richard Cleary, Elsie Flemings, Annette Higgins, Dwight Swanson, and the marvelous Marie Overlock. Warning: when you think about how lucky you are to have such awesome friends, you may cry.
Many thanks to my brother, Bruce, who somehow always manages to be proud of me. It’s good to have someone like that. Caution: My brother is amazing, and a long hugger. Be prepared if you hug him.
So much thanks for the lovely people who read my books! I don’t want to call you guys “fans,” because it doesn’t really fit. I think of you more as super-cool friends who I don’t usually see in real life. But thank you to the readers, librarians, teachers, writers, kids, and other humans. I still can’t quite believe how awesome you are and that you read my books and support them. It means everything to me. Warning: Sometimes other people’s kindness can make you cry. Not that I’m crying right now or anything … cough … cough … ahem.
And finally, many thanks to Shaun Farrar, who somehow always manages to love me. It’s good to have someone like that, too. I am terribly, terribly lucky to have him to slay all my dragons and demons. Warning: Six-foot-six warrior-knights are pretty awesome and will spoil you and make you feel loved. Also, they are hard to pick up and carry. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Also by Carrie Jones
Need
Captivate
Entice
Endure
With Steven E. Wedel
After Obsession
Copyright © 2016 by Carrie Jones
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any info
rmation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First published in the United States of America in May 2016 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
www.bloomsbury.com
This electronic edition published in May 2016
Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 1385 Broadway, New York, New York 10018
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jones, Carrie, author.
Title: Time stoppers / by Carrie Jones.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2016.
Summary: Foster child Annie Nobody discovers a new world of magic, power, and scary creatures in a hidden, magical town, Aurora, where she and her new best friend, Jamie Hephaistion Alexander, learn it is up to them to protect their new home from those who want to misuse the great power, even if it means diving headfirst into magical danger.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015022933
ISBN 978-1-61963-861-7 (hardcover) • eISBN 978-1-61963-862-4 (e-book) Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | Magic—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION/Fantasy & Magic. | JUVENILE FICTION/Action & Adventure/General. | JUVENILE FICTION/Humorous Stories. Classification: LCC PZ7.J6817 Tim 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015022933
Book design by John Candell
All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing, Inc., are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.