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 vibrant 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.

If Jake had let go of Nana’s goodbye first thing, so easily . . .

Well, then, what was next?

Marisol held her breath, but Jake’s remaining sand didn’t fall.

Her lungs started to burn.

She exhaled slowly. Getting angry wouldn’t do them any good. “If we want to get home, we should be calm on the route.”

“Huh—?” Her primo blinked. “Sorry, I was watching Oz. What’ve you got there, bud?”

The Tasmanian tiger had planted himself by a large leaf and was sniffing at its inhabitant: a lumpy, bright orange toad.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you!” A British voice rang out, clear as a bell. “That amphibian is one of the most poisonous creatures alive!”

Marisol and Jake turned to find a man emerging from the underbrush. He was dressed like an explorer—from his broad-brimmed hat to his worn boots. A crumpled handkerchief fluttered from his hand.

He waved it toward them with a reassuring grin. “It’s all right, young travelers! I’m a friend! Are you lost?”

“Yes,” Jake answered.

“Isn’t everyone lost here?” Marisol pointed out.

The man stroked his dark moustache. “I suppose so. But there are different types of lost, you see. Explorers lose themselves on purpose. The Unknown feeds our bones and fuels our souls. You two, on the other hand, look disoriented. Is there some place I can help you find?”

“We’re searching for someone actually—” Marisol paused when she realized Oz was still investigating the venomous reptile. “Stop that, Oz! You’ll get hurt!”

The newcomer took a closer look. “Ah—I was mistaken. Sometimes I forget which Amazon I’m in. This isn’t a golden poison frog but a golden toad. It wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Don’t toads eat flies?” Jake asked.

“That they do!” Wrinkles gathered around the man’s eyes as he laughed. “You’ve both got vim and vigor, that’s for sure. Colonel Percy Fawcett, at your service.”

Introductions were exchanged. Oz wandered over to a cluster of trees, his snout tilted skyward. Marisol was about to explain their search again when she realized exactly what the thylacine was staring at.

One of the trunks was moving.

And it had scales.

“Is—wait, what is that? A snake?” Her theory about extinct things being bigger looked right: the creature was almost forty feet long. It could swallow an elephant, no problem.

“A Titanoboa cerrejonensis. Amazing to look at, scary to see.” Percy backed away from the slithering giant. “Still, I’d rather take my odds out here with these beasts than be chained to some Curator’s clipboard. Life is so much bigger beneath the trees . . . plus I have some T-rex repellent back at camp. Come. We’ll be safe there.”

They didn’t have to think twice about following him.

The explorer’s camp was tucked into a rare clearing. A fire burned inside a ring of packs and mules. Two younger men crouched by the flames and another sat on a log, while a fourth gentleman carved the letter L into a nearby tree.

“Watch your step!” Percy warned as they followed him through the last of the underbrush, past the woodcarver. “Herr Ludwig Leichhardt here likes to string nets around the perimeter—they kept him safe from beasties in Australia when he was exploring the place.”

“We think so anyway. Poor chap’s memory has gone past half-glass!” exclaimed one of the men by the fire, who wore a hat like Percy’s and shared the same longish nose. “Who do we have here, Dad?”

“Marisol, Jake, and Oz, meet my son, Jack, and his friend Raleigh, who both joined me on my journey to search for the Lost City of Z!”

Jack and Raleigh were in the middle of sorting through intricate shards of pottery. They paused to nod at the cousins.

Percy Fawcett turned toward the camp’s last member. “And this is the intrepid Uemura Naomi, who arrived in the World after summiting Mount McKinley.”

Naomi was a middle-aged Japanese man in a red flannel shirt. So far, all the explorers seemed to be men. Perhaps, Marisol mused, lady explorers were too clever to get lost?

He bowed his head in greeting and edged over on his log, offering the cousins a seat. “Welcome, travelers!” His voice was musically deep. “Please call me Naomi. What brings you to Amazonia?”

The T-rex repellent Percy started spraying around the campsite made the whole place smell like peppermint.

“Well . . .” Jake pinched his nostrils. Everything he said sounded sucked through a straw. “It’s a long story.”

“Always better than a short one.” Jack Fawcett grinned.

Marisol and Jake took turns telling their tale, and even though she’d lived the adventure, it was strange to hear. Drowned cities, a desert queen, and prehistoric monsters? Mom and Dad would never believe this. Victor would probably pee his pants with laughter.

The explorers, however, seemed rapt. Except for Herr Leichhardt, who was busy carving a second L onto a second tree.

“So now we’re trying to get back the stolen ledger so we can go home,” Marisol said.

“Home?” Percy seemed stunned. “Whyever would you want to do that?”

Jack broke in, smiling at his father’s surprise. “Not everyone’s like you, Dad. You were always more at home in uncharted jungle than in England. Truly, it was the World Between Blinks calling you.”

“That it was,” his friend Raleigh agreed. “There were always rumors about the Lost City of Z—stories about a piece of pottery someone found deep in the Amazon, about a trace of a building left behind, about piles of treasure beyond counting. Legends that sent men searching the jungle. They always returned empty-handed.”

“And now we know why,” Jack concluded. “The Lost City of Z had already disappeared on the other side of the Unknown by then. We strove so hard to find it that we slipped through too.”

“It’s just upriver,” Percy said, his eyes shining with all the gold he could not see. “For now, anyway. The Lost City of Z is more beautiful than anything the imagination could conjure.”

“What do you mean, it’s upriver for now?” Jake asked.

“It refuses to stay still,” replied Percy. “Here one day, gone the next.”

“Oh, just like Portus.” Jake glanced at Marisol. “It keeps moving back to where it wants to be, no matter what the Curators do.”

“Just so, my lad,” Percy agreed, pleased. “The city doesn’t want to be in any one place. It wants to stay lost, and that suits us right down to the ground. The joy is in the chase, you know! We love nothing better than to hunt for it!”

“Really, who’d want to find it properly anyway?” Jack touched the brim of his hat, which looked as if it had been on his head for quite some time. “What would you do then? Grow corn? Raise chickens? Miss home?” He shook off this thought. “Once we laid eyes on Dad’s city for the first time, we knew there was no going back. We belong here.”

Marisol swallowed. This sounded similar to what Jake had said on the ocean floor: You say the lostness pulls you. I think it follows me, and this time it finally caught up. Like . . . like I belong here, or something.

What if they were in the World Between Blinks because of Jake?

What if he wanted to stay here too?

Her cousin leaned close to the fire, drawn in by the explorers’ words.

She fought the urge to pull him back. “Aren’t any of you sad, being lost?”

Raleigh and the Fawcetts shook their heads. Herr Leichhardt kept hacking away at the trunk.

Naomi picked at his flannel shirt, thoughtful. “Sad?” he asked. “No. Not sad. This is the biggest adventure any of us could ever undertake! Meeting such fascinating people and seeing such strange sights. I, for one, have made it my mission to explore every part of this world.”

“It has been an adventure,” Marisol replied. “But we still want to go home to our family.”

Oz, who’d been resting by their log, cried out in warning. Branches snapped. All five explorers whirled around, brandishing whatever they had on hand—pottery shards and the can of T-rex repellent and a pocket knife.

There was another crack.

Then . . .

Thwip!

“By golly!” Jack Fawcett tipped up his hat and squinted into the emerald jungle. Howls erupted from the leaves. “I think Herr Leichhardt’s trap actually caught something!”

The German explorer stood by his chiseled initial, looking vaguely surprised. “A dingo?”

“Dingoes don’t exist here, mate,” Raleigh reminded him. “It could be a dire wolf, though.”

“Or a demon duck of doom,” Percy said. “It sounds squawky enough.”

“I AM NOT A FOWL!”

Marisol’s heart forgot to keep beating.

She knew that voice.

So did Jake. Her cousin sprang to his feet and ran for the trees. Marisol followed with the rest of the camp, halting beneath a giant net that looked like it belonged in a scene from an adventure movie.

There, swinging alongside several vines, was Christopher Creaturo.

“LET ME DOWN!” He was upside down, arms and legs poking through at odd angles, unable to see who he was shouting at. “PLEASE!”

Percy Fawcett’s head moved in circles, taking stock of the man. “What is a Curator doing so deep in the unzoned zone? With a ledger, no less.”

“He’s not a Curator!” Marisol and Jake said, almost in unison.

Christopher looked more like a castaway now, anyhow. His suit was less white after a night in the desert and a day in the jungle. His face was red from twisting against the ropes. His expression went limp as soon as he spotted the cousins.

“Oh, hello. Marisol. Jake,” he said meekly. “How—how did you get here so fast?” The ledger was already mashed to his chest, but Christopher repositioned to hug the book even tighter. “Ah, those were your parachutes. . . . You jumped out of an airplane to beat me. I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re both Berunas, through and through. I—I don’t suppose you’d like to free me from this net?”

“Why should we?” Jake crossed his arms. “All you’ve done since the Aral Sea is run away from us!”

“Wait, is this the chap who tricked you?” Percy asked.

“¡Sí!” Marisol’s answer burned. “He made us steal the ledger! And he’s been using it steal other things, like Queen Nefertiti’s Amber Room! He’s been creating cracks in the Unknown!”

“Cracks?” Christopher frowned.

“Um, yeah,” Jake told him. “You’re ripping the fabric between the worlds every time you send an object back through the Unknown. The Curators said you could destroy everything.”

“Really?” Christopher had a dizzy, almost-sick look on his face, even though the net was swinging less. “Oops.”

“Oops?” Marisol yelled. “That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

“Sounds more like an evil plan than an accident to me,” Colonel Fawcett interjected. “What exactly are you up to, my not-so-good fellow? And why have you dragged these poor children into your schemes?”

“I’m not evil,” Christopher protested. “And I wasn’t trying to steal the Amber Room, or any of the other entries I crossed out. Those were test runs to make sure I could safely send my one true love back home. I’m trying to save her, you see.”

“But if you’re not evil, then why did you trap Jake and me here? We want to return home too!”

“I’m sorry.” It was difficult to tell if Christopher was red from embarrassment or because he’d been hanging upside down for so long. “I didn’t know the Curators would be so cross with you. I only brought you here because—”

He didn’t get a syllable further—both the cousins and all of the explorers raised their voices at once, their words twisting together like a many-headed monster.

“How did you—?”

“My not-so-good sir, you cannot—”

“It’s not possible to—”

“What do you mean brought us here?”

“How could you—?”

“You can’t—”

“What do you mean BROUGHT US HERE?”

“I—” Christopher shrank from the clamor of voices, causing his net to twist again. “You have to understand, I desperately needed help. Those of us who’ve been cataloged by a Curator can’t enter the repositories—there was no way I could get an old ledger on my own. I needed someone who’d arrived here recently. So I snuck into the record room where they keep the current ledger, and wrote your names in.”

“You wrote their names in?” Percy Fawcett demanded. “Nobody has ever brought anybody to the World Between Blinks. Everybody knows the only way here is to slip through the Unknown by accident!”

“I’ve spent a long time hunting for a way,” Christopher replied. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had any other choice. My sister, Lucy, agreed to help me, but she was too frail by the time I had a plan in place. Aside from you two there was no one else in our family who could make the trip so easily—”

“Wait a second,” Jake interrupted. “Our family?”

Lucy. That was Nana’s name. Marisol had heard it said a thousand times, and she’d seen it written down with the middle initial as well: Lucy C. Beruna.

The jungle’s light shifted as Marisol finally saw Christopher Creaturo for the first time. Still-life. Black and white. An exact match to the wartime photograph in the beach house hallway. Where he stood beside Nana and Papa and the dancing woman from Kitezh—his one true love.

“You—” she whispered. “You’re Nana’s brother.”