18

Jake

JAKE SPENT THE WEEK MAKING NEW MEMORIES.

He’d raced along the beach with his cousins, feeling the sand that was just sand stick between his toes, and plunged into the salty waves, thankful that he didn’t have to worry about mega sharks. They’d played tag up and down the shore, dug networks of giant holes, and Jake had tried to teach the family how to play cricket, which he’d learned in Australia, though nobody—even Jake—really understood the rules.

Things were almost returning to normal.

Almost.

Their first night back had been a long one. He and Marisol stumbled through an explanation for their parents about getting stranded out at the Morris Island Light. About hitching a lift back from a pair of mysterious kayakers. About living off the picnic they’d taken with them. It wasn’t a very good story, even the second time around when they’d repeated it to officers with bright badges and coffee breath. Marisol turned roja in both cheeks. Jake kept waiting for the police to crumple up their notepads, to tell him to tell the truth.

But the Unknown wasn’t done with the Beruna cousins yet.

At least, that’s what it felt like, when the authorities left and their parents finally tucked them into bed. Jake wondered if maybe, somehow, shreds of magic had followed them back from the World Between Blinks, a little lostness that attached to their family, washing away the memory of how worried they’d been. It was less than a day before nobody spoke of their absence at all.

The only signs that Jake and Marisol had disappeared were their necklaces. All of the charms’ charm was gone. The magnifying glasses showed nothing new, scrolls stayed scrolls, and their hourglasses obeyed the normal laws of gravity, no matter how many times the cousins snuck away to test them. Up and down, up and down. They turned the timers in Nana’s attic, summoning the World with whispers.

“I wonder what Oz is doing right now.”

“Eating. Or flying with Amelia,” Marisol guessed. “Or both. I wonder what happened at Nefertiti’s court when the Amber Room reappeared. . . .”

They wondered and wondered and wondered. Most of the imagining was fun, but every time Jake saw a marking on one of Nana’s maps, he couldn’t help worrying about Christopher. Had Hazel and their great-uncle made it back safely? If so, why hadn’t they texted? Or telegraphed?

Or . . . something.

But then, one afternoon, Jake made his way up from the beach, Marisol at his side, his cousins Victor, Veronica, and Angeline trying their best to avoid burrs. As the five of them paused in the front yard to hose the sand off their bare feet, Victor squinted up at the porch.

“Hey, who’s that?” he said.

There were two extra adults sitting with their parents—a man and a woman. They had their backs to the children, and they wore sunhats that hid even their hair. Jake couldn’t see their faces, but a tiny thrill of hope shot through him, and his heart threw in an extra beat.

Marisol looked electric too. “Jake, do you think . . . ?”

“Maybe,” he said quickly.

She grinned, salt-static hair flying everywhere as she seized Jake’s hand and dragged him up the porch steps.

“Oh, there you are!” his mom greeted them with a smile. “We have visitors.”

And then the visitors turned around.

Oblivious to the way Jake and Marisol froze in the screen door, the other cousins piling up in behind them, his mother continued. “Children, this is Christopher and Hazel Creaturo. Christopher is our . . .”

“Second cousin, I believe,” Christopher supplied. “Three times removed. Or maybe four.” He looked exactly as he had in the World Between Blinks, except that he wasn’t wearing white anymore. Now, he was clad in a pair of jeans and a green shirt.

Aunt Cara’s smile was identical to Mom’s. “Can you believe they found us on one of those genealogy websites? You know, the ones where you send in a sample, and they tell you what countries you’re from, and match you up with other people who are related to you. Who knew Nana had even done that? But it would’ve been just like her to try something new.”

Christopher was all courtesy, paying no particular attention to Jake and Marisol. “This place was listed under ‘Beruna’ in the phone book. We just thought we’d drop by on the off chance someone was home,” he said. “We’re driving down the East Coast for our honeymoon.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Hazel’s lipstick was a different color—more coral than red—which made her look like a stranger when she smiled at the cousins.

In fact, there was no hint of recognition in either adult’s gaze when they met Jake’s eyes and shook his hand. Had there been a problem with the hourglasses? Had the Unknown stolen their World Between Blinks memories? Had they forgotten who Jake and Marisol were?

Jake’s thoughts chased each other in a worried circle, but they were interrupted when Uncle Todd stuck his head out the door from the house. “Pierre and I are making shrimp and grits for lunch! It’ll be ready in fifteen. Can some of you kids please set the table?”

Jake was about to burst with questions, so he spoke up quickly, before anyone could volunteer him to wrangle napkins and cups of juice. “If there’s a few minutes left, maybe Christopher and Hazel would like to see the beach,” he offered, using his best We Have Company voice. The one Mom liked him to use when they were at fancy foreign embassy receptions.

He was rewarded with a smile. “That’s very polite of you, Jake,” she said. “Why don’t you take them down, just quickly?”

“I’ll come too,” Marisol piped up, still holding tight to Jake’s hand—and he was still holding tight to hers.

And so, his stomach full of butterflies that were doing acrobatics to rival anything Amelia could pull off, Jake and his cousin led their visitors across the street, onto a path lined with palm fronds and vines. Green swallowed them.

The moment they could no longer see the house, Christopher let out a whoop and grabbed Jake’s hands, pulling him free of Marisol to spin him in a circle. Hazel threw her arms around Marisol, lifting her clean off her feet.

“We did it!” crowed Christopher. “We all made it!”

“You . . .” Jake stumbled, staring up at his great-uncle. “You remember us?”

“Of course!” said Hazel. “We’ve been dying to be sure you made it back as well. We’re sorry it took us a whole week to get here. Christopher left bank accounts set up for when we returned, but it took a little while to access the funds and get emergency passports. Then we had to learn how to book flights on the World Wide Web using little plastic cards instead of money. My, but things have changed!”

“The old house hasn’t, though.” Christopher gazed back in the direction of their family, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth.

Marisol was grinning too, giddy with happiness, and Jake felt like he’d put down a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying.

“It’s so good to see you,” Marisol said. “It was beginning to all feel . . .”

“. . . like we’d imagined it,” Jake finished when she trailed off. “Though we knew we didn’t.”

“If we have our way, you’ll be seeing a lot more of us,” Christopher replied. “Your parents were just telling us that they’re not sure they can keep Lucy’s house, what with the cost of repairs. Especially since they only visit once or twice a year.”

The weight started to settle back onto Jake’s shoulders, pressing them down and winding his muscles taut. But then he realized Hazel was beaming—pink lips smiling under her retro sunhat.

“The repairs will be expensive,” she said. “But it just so happens, we have a lot of money. Those bank accounts have been growing since the 1940s. We’ve been telling the grown ups how excited we are to discover relatives, since Christopher hasn’t got any other family. Well, except me, now.”

Jake and Marisol waited, their breath balanced on a knife’s edge of hope as the newlyweds exchanged a warm glance. Christopher’s dimples showed as he continued.

“We’ll wait another few days, and then we’ll suggest that perhaps we could buy the house—and keep it as a summer meeting place for the whole family, of course.”

“We’ll always be waiting here for you,” Hazel said.

“¿En serio?” gasped Marisol. “Are you serious?”

“Very.” Their great-uncle nodded, taking Hazel’s hand in his. “There’s nothing we’d love more.”

Jake swallowed hard. He’d finally learned not to leave everything behind, but with the heaviness of knowing this might be their last summer here, he’d been wondering if it was a lesson he’d been smart to learn. And he knew Marisol had willingly sacrificed the Great Mogul Diamond to get them all home, but that she’d been secretly aching over the coming end of their time at the beach house. He’d seen her whispering to the map-covered walls when she thought nobody was looking.

Sometimes you hold on to things.

Sometimes you lose them.

And sometimes, just sometimes, you had to let go of something so you could find it again.

Jake studied Christopher’s and Hazel’s knotted fingers, testing this new idea. “So . . . we’ll see you next summer?”

“That you will,” Christopher said. “Hopefully it’ll be a quieter vacation than this one has been.”

They walked until they reached the end of the path, and stood on the beach together, staring out at the Morris Island Light, where it had all begun. Where they’d slipped through to the World and begun their wild quest to find their way home.

“Maybe next time will be a quieter vacation,” agreed Jake, though he had the funniest feeling. . . .

He blinked, then blinked again, and for an instant in between, he thought he saw land stretching out to the Light, a house with an old car for a chicken coop sitting beside it. But of course, with that second blink, it was gone.

At least for now.