6

Jake

THEY WERE IN BIG, BIG TROUBLE.

“Mari,” said Jake. “This is bad. Really bad.”

“The Curators don’t look happy,” she agreed.

“Why would they be? We only just arrived, and we’re already wanted criminals.”

“But we didn’t want to be criminals!” Marisol wailed.

“I’m not sure that matters,” he said as the white-clad crowd drew closer. “We’ll have to try and explain, if they’re the ones in charge.”

She nodded, lips pressed together hard, expression grim.

With Christopher gone, the Curators were the only ones they could ask for help. So they stood under the St. Helena olive tree, and Jake reached for Marisol’s hand, giving it a squeeze as they waited for the oncoming storm—then he had to let go to dry his damp palms off against his shorts. Nerves ran through him like a buzzing electric current.

In some ways, the Curators were identical—each wore a white suit or a boxy white dress, each wore a monocle, each had the same necklace around their neck, the same charms threaded onto it.

But now Jake got a better look, it was clear they were all different as well. At the head of the pack was a short man with dark brown skin and a magnificent droopy black moustache. The top of his head was bald, polished to a shine.

Beside him was a tall lady who walked with a businesslike stride. Her skin was almost as white as her crisp suit, setting off the fiery red of her hair, which was scraped into an unforgiving bun.

Her voice sounded equally harsh when she spoke. “You have not been cataloged!”

The other Curators nodded in agreement as they stopped behind her, a forest of white.

Jake’s heart fluttered harder. A breeze blew past them, sending the leaves of the olive tree shimmering with a shush-shush-shush. He wished he could shush too, but he had to try and say something.

“We know,” he agreed, reaching for the calm tone he used when his mom was in another meeting, and he was trying to convince the receptionist to pass on a message for him. You always had to sound calm when dealing with adults who had the power to give you something, or not. “We were with a man who said he was a Curator, and we thought . . .”

His voice trailed off as her thin brows lifted. Straight, unsympathetic lines framed her face, reminding Jake of the Renaissance paintings he’d seen with his mom at the Louvre. No one smiled in those. All of the Curators looked like portraits, actually. Grumpy and ageless and not one bit like Christopher Creaturo.

“The man you were with was not a Curator,” Droopy Moustache said.

Marisol scrunched her nose, as if she were having trouble concentrating. “You sound funny. . . .”

“Funny?” Droopy Moustache sounded horrified. “On the contrary! We are very serious, foundling. Christopher Creaturo is a rogue. An agent of chaos! Why, just yesterday he broke into the Public Record Office of Ireland and ripped a page out of our most current ledger! He is a fraudster of the highest order, a scalawag, a scoundrel, a—”

“We know that now,” replied Marisol, shifting in closer to Jake. “I guess that’s why he sent us in to get the book instead of going in himself.”

The Curators’ eyes all snapped across to focus on Marisol at the same time, like one giant white creature with twenty eyes, or like those pictures at a gallery with gazes that followed you around the room.

“You took a ledger?” the woman asked sharply. “Where is it now?”

Jake and his cousin exchanged a long look.

“Um . . . ,” Marisol said.

“I’m afraid Christopher Creaturo ran off with it.” Boy, this was epically bad, Jake thought, taking in their expressions. End-of-the-world bad, even. “Look, we came here accidentally in the first place.”

He explained as quickly as he could about their arrival through the Morris Island Light, about Theodosia and their meeting with Christopher. He instinctively left out the fact that Christopher had sent the Loch Ness Monster back to their world. That would only cloud the Curators’ mood, and they looked pretty unhappy already. He only hoped they hadn’t arrived in time to see that terrible glimpse of Nessie splashing for the tourists.

The Curators listened: ten sharp white shapes cut out against the green of the grass and the cobalt blue of the Aral Sea.

“So we were wondering,” Jake said as he concluded, “whether you could send us home, please? We were never meant to be here.”

“Yes,” said the woman with the bright, tight bun. “Certainly. This chaos cannot be allowed to stand. We can send you home.”

Marisol snatched Jake’s hand in excitement, and he squeezed her fingers.

“But not,” said Droopy Moustache, “until you have undone the damage you have caused. As my colleague said: this chaos cannot stand. You must find Christopher Creaturo and retrieve the ledger. Everything must be in its right place. You are the ones who caused the disorder, and you must restore the world to the state in which you found it.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the Curators behind him, like a whisper of wind going through a forest.

“Everything must be organized.”

“Everything must be correct.”

“But—” Jake hesitated before stating the obvious. “It’s just a book.”

“Just a book? Just a . . . ?” Red Bun fanned herself, her expression sterner than ever. “Foundlings, I don’t think you understand. If our ledgers fall into the wrong hands—such as Christopher Creaturo’s—objects might be displaced from one world to the other.”

Jake glanced across at Marisol with a quick flush of guilt—now he really wasn’t going to say anything about Nessie.

“If too many objects are displaced,” continued Red Bun, “then the fabric between the worlds starts to rip. Why . . . it could even unravel! Everyone and everything would be lost!”

End-of-the-world bad times two, it seemed.

“So you see,” Droopy Moustache concluded, “you must find Christopher Creaturo and retrieve the ledger.”

“Don’t you think an adult should do it, if it’s that serious?” Jake ventured.

“By which you mean us, I suppose,” Red Bun sniffed.

“Well, um . . .” Yes?

There was a long silence, and the Curators flocked together like seagulls—heads swiveling, feet shuffling, everyone waiting for someone else to speak. What was it? Why wasn’t one of them answering?

Then Red Bun’s reply burst out of her, as fast as floodwaters breaking past a barrier. “We cannot hunt him down ourselves! If we abandon our posts to chase that miscreant all over the map, the Administrator will demand to know why we are shirking our duties!”

“And then,” said Droopy Moustache gravely, “we will have to tell him what has happened.”

Understanding lit Marisol’s eyes as she glanced from white suit to white suit. “You’ll have to explain to your boss how you let someone steal a ledger.”

There was another jittery silence.

“The Administrator takes breaches of the rules very seriously,” said Red Bun. “You must retrieve the ledger.”

“But how are we supposed to do that?” Marisol protested.

“That,” said Droopy Moustache, “is your problem. You certainly showed enough ingenuity in stealing the ledger the first time around. I suggest you employ those same brains to acquire it again.”

“And you’re wasting time,” the woman with the red bun pointed out. “As we speak, Christopher Creaturo is no doubt moving farther away. We won’t send you back until you have the ledger, so you should get started.”

Jake studied the town behind them. Their savior-turned-thief must have disappeared somewhere into its rabbit-warren streets. It was a mishmash of buildings from different times and places, rough-hewn stone slabs sitting alongside curling patterns in elaborate balcony railings. Judging by the way the Curators were talking about organizing and cataloging things, there must be some system to which building ended up where, but Jake couldn’t tell what it was.

How could they possibly find Christopher inside that maze? All the worry that had started to fade at the idea of going home was back with a rush, squeezing the breath out of his chest.

Then a voice sounded from the back of the group of Curators. What did you call a group of Curators anyway? A collection? A catalog?

“We can’t just send them off to chase the rogue down with nothing.” It was a younger Curator speaking. His expression was more understanding than the others’. Sympathetic, even. He had longish hair, and in looks, he reminded Jake of his South Korean friends.

This made Jake wonder. Had the Curators come from his world too? Or had they always lived in the World Between Blinks?

“They don’t even have language charms!” The man’s hand rose toward his necklace. “We should at least give them money to buy some at the marketplace.”

Jake studied the necklaces with new interest. The monocle on each, he recognized. But it seemed the pen, key, scroll, and hourglass also served a purpose. Interesting.

“What are they for?” Marisol asked, voicing his question.

“They serve sundry purposes,” said Droopy Moustache.

“Sundry?”

“It means many,” he replied, with an air of flagging patience. He lifted the little scroll on his necklace. “This one’s a language charm. Everybody speaks their own tongue in the World Between Blinks, so if you wish to travel here, you’ll need to be able to understand them. Nobody in the World is without one, it would be utterly impossible!”

“But we can already understand all of you,” Jake protested.

Red Bun dismissed him with a quick shake of her head. “When you enter the World, you travel through a thick barrier of Unknown. Just now, a little of its magic is still clinging to you, which is why it sounds like we’re speaking your language. But we Curators alone are speaking in four different tongues. Without a charm, your understanding will soon fade. The charms themselves are made from the Unknown, mined from the border between worlds.”

“Oh.” Marisol scrunched her nose again. “That’s why you sound so funny . . . I’m hearing you speak two languages at once!”

Droopy Moustache nodded. “Exactly.”

This time Jake heard the Spanish version too—exactamente—but only because he knew it and only because he focused. It must be very loud inside Marisol’s head right now.

“The monocle is a vision charm,” the young Curator started to explain. “We use it as a reference tool. It also helps us see through the Unknown—”

Red Bun cleared her throat; a reminder that they were on the clock. The young Curator blushed and began digging through the pockets in his suit. Grudgingly, the others did the same.

Soon, Jake was holding a handful of coins, each from a currency no longer used in his world. There was a small silver coin with a man’s head on one side and a five-pointed star on the other. The edges were crinkled, dipping in and out like the crust of a pie, except they were flattened.

“That one,” said the young Curator, “is a Ghanaian three-pence. This one here is an Australian sixpence.” He was pointing now to a silver coin with a man’s head on one side and a crest held up by a kangaroo and an emu on the other—both creatures Jake had met when his mother was posted to Australia. The edges of the coin were worn smooth, but its symbols had stayed crisp.

Marisol was holding a thin, orangish paper note up to the light. It was covered in intricate writing Jake didn’t recognize and had beautiful, circular designs around the edges.

“That’s a Georgian maneti!” The young Curator told her. “And these are staters.” He deposited several well-battered coins—not even proper circles—in Jake’s hand. Each showed a horse with wings: a Pegasus. Did those live in the World Between Blinks too?

The Curators laughed when he asked, as if this question was absurd.

“Of course not!” said Droopy Moustache. “Pegasi are purely mythical, not quasi-mythical. I mean, they don’t even meet the first three criteria for a quasi-mythical beast, and the question of aerodynamics . . . Pegasi never existed, child, not like Nessie or the Yeti. The ancient Greeks made them up.”

He looked at Jake and Marisol as if he’d just made things perfectly clear. The cousins looked at each other.

Did you understand that? Marisol’s eyebrows asked.

Nope, but I’m not volunteering to listen to him try again, Jake’s nose-scrunch said.

The friendly young Curator came to their rescue, changing the subject. “Staters originated in Greece, you know. I used to collect currency from all around the world before I came here.”

“Here?” Jake echoed. “So you’re from home?”

“I’m from Busan in South Korea,” he replied with a smile. “Min-jun’s my name.”

“Did you arrive in the World Between Blinks like us?” Jake asked, his heart fluttering. “By accident?” If lots of people had fallen through, then it couldn’t be his fault, could it? Wishing he could forget things from his past couldn’t have pulled them into the Unknown.

“Oh, I doubt it was an accident! Every one of us is an avid collector. Zuzanna over there had the largest stamp collection in Poland.” A round, blond woman with two braids wiggled her fingers hello as Min-jun continued. “But there’s an even stronger similarity: we all had such good collections because we had a knack for finding things nobody else could. That’s why we belong here.”

Beside Jake, Marisol squeaked, but when he looked over, she was busy making room in her pocket for the Georgian maneti, rearranging a sugar spoon and several other knickknacks he recognized from Nana’s shelves.

“Do you miss your collections?” Jake asked as Min-jun produced a few more coins.

“Not really,” the Curator replied, pausing to gaze down at one admiringly. “We have larger collections here to tend than we ever had before. We left those things behind to focus our attentions on what’s in front of us.”

Jake felt like he’d been punched. Min-jun could have been describing Jake himself—all he ever tried to do was leave his memories behind, so he could deal with the next new place and forget the loss of the people who had gone before.

Eyes ahead, don’t look back.

“Speaking of things we should be paying attention to,” Red Bun interrupted, sounding cross that she’d been sidelined, “we need that ledger back. The sooner, the better.”

Min-jun pressed the last of the coins into Jake’s hand, and as Jake glanced down, he realized there were two little discs among the others that weren’t made of metal at all. They were glass. They were monocles! The Curator closed Jake’s fingers over them firmly, and since they were clearly supposed to be a secret, Jake slipped the charms into his pocket.

“You’ll need hourglasses,” Droopy Moustache said, producing two from his suit pockets and threading them onto chains, which he offered to the children. Each was no larger than Jake’s pinky.

“These are strange!” Marisol exclaimed.

She was right. All the sand stayed at the top, and no matter how many times it was turned, none slid through to the other half.

“You must wear them at all times,” warned Red Bun.

“Is this how long we have to find Christopher?” Marisol asked.

“Not exactly. You’ll need them to see if you can still go home,” she told the cousins. “Although unless you hurry, you might not have a home to go to.”

“But what do they do?” Jake studied his, giving it a shake. Still not a single grain of sand shifted.

“The sand represents your memories.” Droopy Moustache seemed weary of explanations, his facial hair wilting more with each word. He kept on doggedly. “When the first grain falls, that means your memories are starting to leave you.”

Red Bun pursed her lips. “If this were by the books, we’d catalog you two and call it a day, but that would turn you into permanent residents of the World Between Blinks. To honor our agreement, we’ll hold off doing so for as long as we can, but if you lose too much sand, those forgotten memories will catch the Administrator’s attention and we’ll have no choice but to make your arrival official.”

“How long do we have?” Marisol’s voice rose in alarm.

“Impossible to say,” Red Bun replied. “But I wouldn’t let more than two or three grains slip.”

Suddenly a cry went up from the back of the group. Zuzanna, the stamp collector, was holding her monocle up to her eye and staring through it, pointing with one trembling finger. Every other Curator whipped around, lifting their own vision charms to squint through them.

“Great pages!” Droopy Moustache exclaimed. “Is that . . . ? But . . . she’s supposed to be in the World Between Blinks! Is it really . . . ?”

“The Loch Ness Monster. Christopher Creaturo must have returned her to the old world,” Red Bun finished, sounding grim. The cousins had seen her back home between blinks—the Curators must be using their monocles to look through the Unknown too.

“This is so unexpected!” Marisol’s eyes were as wide as she could make them, her voice a notch too loud. “We had no idea Christopher was doing such things!”

But . . . the word bubbled up. Jake bit down on it quickly. If they’d known Nessie would be spotted, they’d have told the Curators straight away. But they’d been hoping not to make matters worse.

“Oh yes,” he said, hearing how wooden and weirdly cheerful he sounded. “What a shock!”

Red Bun squinted at him for a moment. “Are you quite all right?” she asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “We’ll have to file every outstanding report we can lay our hands on to keep the Administrator from noticing that. And if the fabric between the worlds starts to unravel . . .”

“We understand,” Jake said, feeling a bit sick. “Get the ledger back before we lose more than two or three grains of sand, or you’ll have to catalog us, and we’re stuck here forever. Get the ledger back before Christopher Creaturo uses it to send anything else home, or the fabric between the worlds might unravel, and there won’t be a home to return to.”

“That’s about it,” Red Bun agreed. “If I were you, I’d get moving.”

“One moment!” That voice came from the middle of the group.

Another Curator stepped forward, studying Jake and Marisol over the top of his glasses. He lifted his clipboard and brandished his pen, speaking in a quick singsong voice, running his words together as if they were all one. “Thank-you-for-interacting-today-with-members-of-our-Curator-staff. We-appreciate-your-time.” He paused for a breath, then continued. “Please-rate-your-customer-satisfaction-on-a-scale-of-one-to-ten.”

Jake and his cousin exchanged a long, confused glance, then turned back to the Curator.

“Um, ten?” Jake tried. It didn’t seem sensible to upset the Curators.

“Much better than that old fake, Christopher,” Marisol assured them.

This seemed to please the man, and he made a note on his clipboard.

“Go,” said Min-jun. “Hurry. The marketplace is on this side of the city—just turn right as you make your way in through the gates. Good luck.”

It didn’t take the children long to find the marketplace, and Jake kept hold of Marisol’s hand while the crowd thickened. The jostling elbows were as pushy as the worries inside Jake’s head.

Had they been missed back home?

Had anyone found the boat or their life jackets?

Was Mom freaking out? How about Aunt Cara and Uncle Mache?

What would happen if they couldn’t find Christopher?

What if their memories started to fade as badly as Theodosia’s?

Would that be so terrible? asked a tiny part of his brain. You wouldn’t ever have to feel the way you do when you leave everything behind. You could just . . . forget.

But Marisol didn’t want to forget—she wanted to go home. So did he, really, which was why Jake let his cousin pull him through an arch into the marketplace. The street’s stones—massive and gray—were worn smooth by an uncountable number of feet over an uncountable number of years. Along the edges tiled signs were set into the ground, pointing to all kinds of businesses. Stalls lined both sides, crammed close, graffiti scratched into the rock between them. Even as Jake stared, the letters of DONKEY FOR RENT began to change, English rearranging into a language he couldn’t read.

The Unknown was wearing off.

Marisol pulled him behind a large statue of a wrestler wearing a carved stone sheet (and not much else), where they could take shelter from the crowd.

“This must be some place on Earth that was lost,” she said, watching the endless stream of figures hurry by, clad in colorful clothes, from places far and wide and all over history.

“It looks kind of Roman,” Jake thought aloud. “I saw ruins when my mom and I were posted there.”

And in fact, the longer he looked, the surer he was. When a gap in the crowd opened up, he ducked over to the nearest stall. Its stone countertop held portions of roasted vegetables on little clay plates, with a big jug beside them. There was a mosaic at the back, hundreds of tile pieces fitted together to depict a glittering fish leaping out of a river.

Jake’s stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, and he rose up onto his toes to smell what was inside the jug.

A pungent wave of fish and salt punched his nose.

“That’s garum!” The stall keeper turned to them. He was a weathered man with thinning brown hair and skin of almost the same shade, clad in a tunic. “Fish sauce,” he elaborated. “It adds flavor to anything. Welcome to Ostia Antica! You have the look of foundlings. Can I fill your bellies, perhaps?”

Jake glanced across at his cousin, but they were both thinking the same thing. No matter how hungry they were, they should wait and see how much the language charms cost before they bought anything else.

They thanked the stall keeper and made their way along the road, looking for a stall that would sell them charms. Vendors clamored for their attention on both sides, shouting their wares.

“Socks for sale, never together!”

“These dentures belonged to George Washington himself!”

“Over here for keys to forgotten doors! Perhaps that lost door is right here in the World!”

Marisol kept dragging him over to different stalls—filled with bins of buttons; cell phones that had no service; and even, strangely, with jars of baby teeth. She stopped by a bowl of wedding rings, her eyes sparkling at the sight of dozens of diamonds.

“I don’t think those are language charms, Mari,” he said, tugging at her hand. They couldn’t spend too much time here.

“No,” Marisol agreed, but she also pulled back. “I was just thinking that maybe . . . well, maybe we could find something valuable here to take home. Something that could help pay for a new roof on Nana’s house. That way the grown-ups won’t have to sell it!”

Jake didn’t reply. He always told himself the same thing at difficult moments: eyes ahead, don’t look back. That was because he had learned it was better to let things go, no matter how much it hurt—because whether he fought it or not, they’d end up lost anyway. He thought for a moment of the friends from his international schools, who meant to keep in touch but never did. Of the places he and Mom planned to visit again but never returned to. He didn’t want to lose the beach house—his only true home—but wanting never made a difference in the end. The FOR SALE sign would go up, boxes would be packed, goodbyes would be said.

A diamond ring couldn’t change that. Not even a whole bowlful of them.

“We should keep going,” he said instead. “I guess the charms are farther in.”

Marisol held out her hand, not to grab the jewelry or for any other reason Jake could see. She wiggled her fingers, frowning. “I guess.”

Farther up and farther in . . . Ostia Antica sprawled in all directions, the roads running along lines so straight, it seemed they had been laid down by an invisible ruler. Or, Jake supposed, by some very hardworking Romans, centuries ago. While the market itself looked ancient, most of its stall keepers didn’t keep to the theme. A few—like the garum hawker—wore tunics. Some sported mismatching shoes and socks. Others looked like they’d walked straight out of old movies with their costumes on, cries echoing through their helmet visors. But they weren’t actors. They were all real.

“Swords! Get your lost sword of legend right here! Excalibur not guaranteed . . .”

Did time move the same way here as it did back home? Had these Romans and knights stepped out of their own moments in history into this one, or did people never age in the World Between Blinks? Jake hadn’t thought to ask Theodosia whether she’d been here one year or one hundred and one.

They passed stalls filled with suitcases. Sunglasses. Bus tickets. Stuffed animals. Real animals too! Cats and dogs and parrots and more. Jake couldn’t believe how many things they discovered as they walked.

But they still hadn’t found the charms. . . .

The children stopped to ask directions every so often, but most of the vendors were only interested in selling their wares, and after the first few conversations, they replied in languages Jake and Marisol couldn’t understand. The Unknown magic that had been clinging to them must be gone. Once they caught a glimpse of bright blond hair just like Jake’s, and they chased it all the way down the street in case it was Christopher, but it turned out to be a completely different man, who spoke Scandinavian-sounding words in a friendly voice.

Hunger gnawed at Jake’s stomach, and the worries in his head had gotten stronger too. On top of all this, he was suddenly shivering. Cold enough to wish he had a sweater to go over his T-shirt.

“Are you freezing?” Marisol asked beside him. “Yo también.”

A moment later, the ground crunched under their feet. When Jake looked down, it wasn’t sand, but glittering white particles that his sneakers were breaking. Frost! Through another stone archway ahead, an iced-over river was visible.

“Oh no.” Marisol shook her head. “¿Estás bromeando? No way am I going somewhere that cold.”

“Let’s ask for directions again,” he said, without much hope.

They stepped back, away from the fingers of frost that grabbed at their feet, but Jake came up short when he collided with someone. He turned around—apology on the tip of his tongue—and was met by a friendly smile.

He’d bumped into a tall, strong woman whose grin showed off a gap between her front teeth. She wore a leather jacket and a matching cap. A few auburn curls peeked out from under it, as well as a sliver of paler skin—she was suntanned, and freckled too.

“Well, hey there.” The woman gave a little wave, and Jake was relieved to find that they could understand each other. Her English sounded very American. “Are you two okay?”

He shook his head.

“We’re looking for language charms,” Marisol said. “Do you know where they are?”

“No problem,” their companion replied. “You’ll need one of those, for sure! Every citizen of the World does. Look carefully and you’ll spot scrolls next to the hourglasses on everyone’s necklaces. You’ll have to go to the Frost Fair to buy them. Come! I’ll walk you over there.”

His cousin made a sad sound—clearly she didn’t like the idea of venturing into the cold. The lady laughed, peeling off her jacket and settling it around Marisol’s shoulders.

“Here,” she said. “This’ll help. The Frost Fair is great, you’ll love it. I’ll get you a hot drink. Cocoa’s my favorite!”

The three of them headed for the archway, and the plunging temperature turned Jake’s breath into white-cloud puffs. Marisol must be even colder—he had sneakers on, but she was stuck in sandals.

“I didn’t catch your names,” the lady said cheerfully.

“I’m Jake,” he offered. “Thanks for helping us.”

“I’m Marisol.” His cousin wrapped the jacket around herself a little tighter.

“Pleased to meet you, Jake, Marisol,” the lady said, like finding them was the best bit of luck she’d had all day. “My name’s Amelia. Amelia Earhart.”