Ridge and I stepped out of the museum gift shop and crossed to where Tina and Vale were waiting with the strange curator.
“What was that all about?” Tina asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I answered with a question. “I was just doing some souvenir shopping.” She rolled her eyes at me.
The curator cleared his throat. “If you are you ready to enter the museum,” he said, “then you must put your genies in a jar.”
“Do you mean a jar,” I asked. “Or ajar?”
“Come on, Ace,” said Tina. I knew we were in a rush, but there was always time for a good play on words. “Just put Ridge away.”
I held up the peanut butter jar. “Sorry, Ridge,” I said.
“Just hurry through,” said the genie. “We don’t have much time left, and I’d rather not spend my final moments in that itchy jar.”
I nodded, then spoke the command. “Ridge, get into the jar.”
There was a puff of smoke and Ridge disappeared. Vale also vanished at the words from her Wishmaker. Tina and I stood silently side by side as the curator reached behind the desk and produced two cloth bags just like the ones I had seen on the rack in the gift shop.
“Compliments of the museum,” the curator said, handing one to each of us. I held it up like I wasn’t sure what to do with it. “For your jars,” the curator explained.
I set Ridge’s jar into the souvenir bag and put one arm through the handles so it was dangling at my elbow.
The curator gestured for us to step past the desk and enter the museum. “Just to be clear,” he said, “your genies must remain in their jars for the duration of this tour. Letting them out will automatically result in your expulsion from the cave.”
At the mention of the cave, I shared a nervous glance with Tina. What if Thackary had already made it?
“We have to catch up to the visitors who came in before us,” I said. “Take us to them.”
“Right this way.” We had only followed the curator a few steps, into an exhibit with a bunch of empty wooden crates, when he said, “Ah. Here they are now.”
An elderly couple stepped around the corner, studying the exhibits. The woman had a cane, and the man leaned on her for support.
“What?” I shrieked, as the old people moved out of sight into another exhibit. “Those were the visitors?”
“Indeed,” answered the strange man. “The museum attracts at least a half dozen visitors every week.” He said it like he was proud of the statistic.
Just then, the museum’s front door burst open behind us. Wheeling around, I saw Thackary Anderthon and his son, Jathon, sprinting toward the front desk. It seemed the duo was not ahead of us, after all.
The fact that I didn’t see Scree meant that Jathon’s genie was probably still in her pickle jar. They passed the desk without difficulty, though the curator had moved forward to stop them, waving his short arms wildly, his wandering unibrow leaping across his sweaty forehead.
“You can’t enter here!” he cried, but Thackary cut him off.
“When is a door not a door, matey?”
“A door is not a door,” said the curator, “when it’s ajar.”
“Ajarrrrr!” Thackary repeated.
The curator glanced at Jathon. “Is your genie in the jar?” he asked. The bearded boy nodded and patted the pocket on his black leather jacket. “Then you may join us.”
“What?” I shouted. “You can’t let them in! The Universe told us to stop them!”
The curator shrugged. “I cannot stop anyone who has completed the three tasks. All are welcome to try their keys at the Cave of the Undiscovered Genie.”
“Then I’ll have to stop him myself!” I shouted, racing headlong at Thackary Anderthon. It would have been a lot easier if Ridge were allowed out of his jar. My air shark was much more threatening than me.
In fact, I never managed to reach Thackary at all. The curator stepped forward, deftly seizing my arms and throwing me to the floor like a ninja master. “There will be no fighting in my museum!” he shouted. “Another stunt like that and I will not hesitate to throw you out.”
I pulled myself up off the floor. I didn’t doubt the curator’s threats. He was much stronger than he looked and I was no match without Ridge.
“I do not show favoritism among guests,” he said. “If you are foolish enough to go ahead, you will all enter the cave together.”
From inside his jar, I heard Ridge moan. If the curator was going to let Thackary and Jathon enter the cave, then we’d have to race every step of the way, neck and neck until the final moment.
“What are ye waiting for?” Thackary yelled at the curator. “Take us to the cave!”
The odd man adjusted his glasses and waddled off past an exhibit of empty plastic tubs. I, Tina, Jathon, and Thackary followed. The man was wearing some kind of cheap cologne that made my nose tickle. It was horrible to walk beside my enemies, knowing that the Universe had charged me to stop them. But without Ridge, I didn’t know what to do. I’d have to bide my time and swipe the victory from Thackary at the last second.
“So Thackary was behind us, again?” said Ridge’s voice, echoing up from inside his jar. “I thought we were supposed to be following him. So far, we’ve beat him to every location.”
“That be no fault of ours,” Thackary cut in, hearing my genie’s voice. “’Tis a consequence we’ve been forced to endure. Me boy made a wish when we set sail to accomplish the three tasks.”
“But a consequence followed,” Jathon said. “If anyone else was seeking the cave, we were cursed to always arrive just moments behind them.”
“That must have been irritating,” Ridge’s voice offered.
“Until now,” said Thackary. “This be the final stop, and we have managed to catch up, despite all odds and consequences.”
The curator guided us past a few more uninteresting exhibits: bottles, barrels, cardboard boxes. Then we rounded a corner and stopped in a room that seemed secluded from the rest of the museum.
This exhibit didn’t seem any more extraordinary than the last ones we’d passed. It had a low shelf, lined with lidless jars of varying sizes. Some were ceramic, others made of glass, metal, and wood. The wide tops were open and they all appeared to be empty.
“The door to the cave is not a door,” explained the curator. “It’s a jar.”
“As in, it’s slightly open?” I clarified.
The curator shook his head. “As in, a jar,” he answered. “A series of three jars, to be exact.” He gestured to the display on the shelf. “If you have completed the three tasks, you may now use the keys to enter the cave.”
“Enough blabberin’,” Thackary said. “I did what I was instructed to do. Let me have the key!”
The curator held up a hand. “These jars are unbreakable,” he said. “But each of you must break them.”
“How?” Tina asked. Thackary seemed ready to pounce on the shelf.
“The jars will break when you use the keys,” answered the curator. “Each of you pick up a jar and peer inside.”
Thackary pulled his son back as he stepped up to the shelf. “Not you, boy. I was the one who completed the tasks. The keys be mine.” He picked a glass jar off the shelf, but I wasn’t about to let him get ahead of me.
Leaping forward, I snatched up a wooden jar. I saw Tina moving beside me, but I couldn’t worry about what she did. Squinting one eye closed, I lifted the wooden jar and peered into the empty space.
Immediately, the jar cracked. I didn’t know wood could shatter, but the jar seemed to do just that. I jumped in shock as the container fell to splinters around my feet.
At the same time, something odd began happening around me. The museum suddenly seemed to fade. Tina and the curator remained normal, but the walls of the building, as well as Thackary and Jathon, took on a ghostly transparence.
As the museum began to fade out, a new environment seemed to fade in. Beyond the walls of the museum, I saw smooth stone. But the transition wasn’t complete. In fact, it seemed to freeze partway between the two scenes.
The sounds around me had changed as well. The first thing I noticed was Thackary’s pirate voice. He was facing us and screaming, but somehow he seemed farther away. Even the smell of his cologne dwindled, for which my nose was grateful.
“What is this?” Thackary threw his glass jar against the floor of the museum, but it wouldn’t shatter. “How have ye tricked me?” He strode toward us, his face trembling. Thackary raised his arm to strike the curator. I was afraid for a second, but then Thackary’s blow passed right through the strange little man.
“It’s quite all right,” the curator said to me and Tina. “We are now on a different plane from them.”
“I can hear you, scurvy dog!” Thackary’s diminished voice cried. “This be not fair! I did what was required. I was at Mount Rushmore and poked the eye of Roosevelt just as they did!” He pointed at us. “Jathon, me boy. Vouch for yer father. Tell this scallywag curator that I did what was needed.”
But Jathon wasn’t listening to his father. The bearded boy had crossed to the shelf and lifted a ceramic jar of his own. Raising it to his face, he peered inside. Instantly, the jar shattered and Jathon’s ghostly figure came into full view. He was now on our plane, much to the surprise of his raging father.
“What?” Thackary called. “How did that happen?” He plucked another jar from the shelf and slammed it against the floor with no result. “Me son didn’t do any of the required tasks. ’Twas I who touched the stone eye, ate the cotton candy, and reached the bed of the lake. This is me moment! Yarrrrr!”
The curator turned to the three of us. “Quite a sore loser, isn’t he?” I was glad to know that other adults found Thackary just as awful. Though the curator didn’t really seem like a normal adult.
“I don’t understand,” Jathon said. “My father is right. I didn’t do any of the tasks.”
“Oh, but the tasks were quite unnecessary,” said the curator.
“Unnecessary?” I cried. We had spent almost all week doing something that was useless? “What do you mean?” Even Thackary had fallen silent to hear the explanation.
“You see,” said the little man, “anyone can touch the faces of Mount Rushmore, eat candy from a park, or scuba dive to the depths of a lake. The Universe wasn’t interested in what you could do. It was interested in what price you would pay to do it.”
“Our consequences,” muttered Tina.
“Precisely,” said the curator. “The three of you share a trait that no other possesses.” His glasses slipped down his nose and he pointed at his eye.
Of course! It made sense now. The consequence we had all paid to reach Roosevelt’s eye was a change in our eyeballs. Now unnaturally yellow, the jars reacted when we looked inside. We had paid the price to be there.
The Universe had told us that we would receive the keys to the cave when we needed them. Little did we know that the keys were with us all along, disguised as useless consequences.
“But as you can see,” said the curator, gesturing around the room, “we’re not quite there yet.” He pointed to the ghostly jars in the museum. “Each of you take another jar from the shelf. It is time to use your second key.”