A Way between Worlds

by Melanie Crowder

  Philip took a sip. His tongue worked in his mouth as his eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. “Yes.” He tried swallowing again. “Very grateful.”

  Griffin lifted the cup to his lips, taking the tiniest sip possible. A shudder rippled through him. He’d gotten used to the way food on Caligo tasted over the past few days, but the texture—it was like swallowing a squished grape, sweet, veined, and more than a little slimy.

  The Levitator made a sweeping gesture with his arm, and as it passed beyond the edge of his spun silk garment, his skin shifted to mimic the white of the mists and the steel gray of the ceiling. “The old Levitator did not approve of meddling in other worlds. His only exception was saving the greenwitches as they were being taken from Vinea to Somni, to their deaths. He couldn’t sit by and watch the slaughter of fellow magic workers.”

  Griffin scowled. Of course the greenwitches deserved saving. But didn’t everybody? Why hadn’t the old Levitator saved Griffin’s dad when he was kidnapped by the priests? Or his mom, all those years before?

  The Levitator reached for the refreshments, a gleam lighting up his eyes. “I plan to deal differently with our sister worlds. I don’t think Caligo should only watch at a distance while others suffer.”

  “Again,” Katherine said, “we thank you.”

  The Levitator topped off each of their cups, never mind that not one of them had asked for refills. “There is a Sight that comes with this role. I can only see so far—a little ways into the portal to each world. I guess you already know the Somnite army has been moving.”

  “Yes,” Philip said.

  The Levitator tugged at the fabric over his knees. He squirmed in his seat. “There’s more. Some of the priests went to Earth.”

  “What?” Griffin scrambled to his feet. Of all eight worlds, only Stella and Earth had resisted Somni occupation. Keeping Somni out of Earth was the whole reason the Society of Lighthouse Keepers existed, and why their leader, Dr. Hibbert, had betrayed the Fenns.

  The Levitator held up a hand. His voice squeaked a little when he continued, at odds with the whole sage-in-the-sky thing he tried to pull off. “That’s not the worst part. By the time the priests get back to the portal, they are shepherding people from Earth with them. People under their control.”

  “No!” Katherine cried.

  “But if the priests aren’t even on Somni anymore, they don’t need to steal any more dreamers. Why would they…?” Griffin trailed off at the dismay on his parents’ faces, at whatever they’d clearly guessed that he didn’t yet understand.

  “Soldiers.” Philip’s voice was hard. “Earth has no natural protection from the priests’ powers of mind control. One thing we’re very good at, though, is war. Trained soldiers falling easily under Somni’s control—of course the priests would look to Earth to raise another army.”

  Dread coiled inside Griffin. “But—I took the block off the lens, so Mom and I could go home. That means I’m the reason they could travel to Earth. I did this.”

  Katherine brushed a wayward curl out of his eyes. “No, Griffin. The evil of others is only ever their own fault.”

  “I’m so sorry.” The Levitator rushed to explain, his words spilling together. “I should have seen this sooner. So many of the priests were traveling to Vinea to meet the battle there—I didn’t notice the first few who went to Earth instead. All I know is—they go in, one at a time. And when they come back through, each one brings dozens of people from Earth with him.”

  For the first time since Griffin had arrived on Caligo, the Levitator seemed like the kid he was. Not some all-powerful magic worker, just a scared kid.

  Philip jumped up. “The alarm would’ve sounded. The Keepers have to be on alert.”

  “But they have no leader,” Katherine said, “and we know how long it takes that gaggle to come to any decision.”

  “Somebody would have called the Coast Guard for help, at least. We have to believe that.” Philip yanked at the ends of his hair. “How did we miss this?”

  “There has to be a way to stop them.” Griffin’s voice sounded feeble in his own ears.

  “If we find a way to guard the people of Earth from the priests’ mind control, we could stop them from kidnapping anyone else. We need to limit the damage they can do.” Katherine began to pace the small room. “The malva vine won’t work. We’d drain Vinea’s supply before we covered the West Coast. Same with Somni’s sjel tree essence. There’s no way it could shield everyone on Earth.”

  Philip nodded. “We’d need a way to reach millions of people quickly.”

  Katherine spun to face the Levitator. “Do the mists protect Caligions? Could we somehow bring a sample home and let it loose in Earth’s atmosphere?”

  The Levitator shook his head, his lips clamped into a thin line. “I’m sorry, but no. We resist the priests by never letting them near us. Our people travel this world freely. We have very few restrictions in our society. But the boats will not carry any citizen of Caligo within earshot of the lighthouse. It is forbidden.”

  “Mom!” Griffin caught the edge of her sash as she swept by. “What about Maris? You told me the ocean’s song guards the people’s minds.”

  Katherine nodded slowly. “It does.”

  “Could it protect Earth, too?”

  Philip scraped his palm across the stubble covering his jawline. “Possibly. It’s a good idea. But we’d have to find a way to get it from Maris to Earth. And how would we even capture something like a song?”

  The Levitator shook his head. “I don’t have any of the answers you need. But the Levitators have always watched the portals, observing the seven other worlds and writing down what they saw. Those records are kept in our library, the greatest on any world. If anyone outside Maris knows the answer to your question, you’ll find it there.”

  7

  GRIFFIN

  THE LIBRARY WAS beyond the gardens, past the mews and markets, a narrow spiral standing alone in the mists. As the Fenns’ boat swung alongside one of the narrow platforms, Philip leaped out, turned, and reached back for Katherine and Griffin.

  A broad bookshelf lined the platform. It stretched well over Griffin’s head, and was fitted with wheeled ladders for rolling back and forth. He grabbed on to one, gave it a push, and watched as it careened toward the edge and stopped suddenly with a bang. The next floor up held another wall of shelves, set at a slight angle from the first, with its own ladders ready to slide back and forth at the librarian’s whim. Above that one was another, set again at an angle, and another, and another, so the bookshelves spun upward until they were swallowed by the mists.

  Griffin leaned over the edge, peering down. More shelves spiraled below—he counted six and a half stories down before they dropped out of sight. The shelves seemed to sway slightly, twisting like one of those wooden wind spinners people hung off their porches back home.

  The bookshelf directly in front of Griffin was empty of books, its only occupant a sign that read RING BELL. Griffin stepped up and pressed the shiny button. The tinny ding didn’t seem like it would travel very far at all, but then something moved, far below.

  Something big.

  It fell away from the backside of a bookshelf, and then it swiveled, catching the air under huge wings to break its fall. A beat after the first creature dropped off, a second fell away two stories up. And a third. Suddenly the gaps between books shifted in front of Griffin’s nose—what he’d thought were brass fittings for the shelves pulled back, revealing talons as big as his torso. The creature’s wings snapped open, flattening Griffin’s hair over his ears.

  He yelped. Philip gripped Katherine around the waist and pulled Griffin against him, his knees bent to absorb any more shocks of wind. The creature peeled away from the shelves, twisting in an airborne dance.

  “Magnificent,” Katherine breathed.

  “What are those?”

  “I have no idea.” Philip relaxed his grip, a little.

  “Look!” Griffin pointed
far below, where the creatures were rising steadily, darting in and out of layers of mist. “They’re coming back.”

  They settled into a loose formation, headed straight toward the Fenns. Their giant wings pumped, mud-black as the basalt rocks beneath the lighthouse.

  “Hold on!” Philip shouted above the gusts of wind.

  Just when it seemed like the creatures would crash into the library, all but one pulled up, gripping the backs of the shelves with wicked claws and hanging like a colony of enormous bats. The largest one swooped behind the Fenns, steadily pumping its wings. A man peeked around the side of the bat’s furry chest, his skin rippling to mirror the currents of air swirling in the wake of those massive wings.

  “You rang?”

  Griffin gulped. “You’re the librarian?”

  The man adjusted his spectacles. “That’s me. And you’re the Earth folk our young Levitator is sheltering.”

  “Yes,” Katherine said, clearing her throat and stepping forward. “And he sent us here—we have urgent business.”

  “I see. How can I help you?”

  “We need to look through everything you have on Maris.”

  “And quickly, if you can. Please.” Philip tacked on that last part after a pointed look from his wife.

  The librarian nodded curtly. “That would be twenty-three stories up from where you stand now. Hop on.” Three of the batlike creatures dropped away from the shelves, twisting until they were belly-up to the platform, their giant claws gripping the edge inches from Griffin’s toes. Their black eyes blinked, waiting.

  Katherine scooted her toes to the very edge of the platform.

  “Mom!” Griffin protested. “Seriously?”

  “Make a circle with your arms,” the librarian instructed. “Lock your hands together and hold on tight.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Katherine said, tossing a devilish smile over her shoulder. The bat beneath her swiveled, tucked its wings tight to its sides, and flung itself up through the open circle of her arms. Katherine was swept away in a spiral of black and a rustle of wings.

  Griffin’s heart seemed to beat in his throat. The air pummeled his eardrums and the mists curled around him, trying to soothe his frayed nerves. A moment later, Katherine was back, floating in the air beside the librarian, astride the bat’s shoulders. Griffin backed away from the edge.

  “Come on!” Katherine called. “It’s Caligo. Even if you fell, you wouldn’t fall.”

  He knew that. He wasn’t afraid of bats—at least, not normal-sized ones. Every now and then, one got stuck in the lantern room of the lighthouse back home, flapping pitifully at the windows, trying to get out. He and his dad had always worked together to set them free again without hurting them. But these bats were the size of bears—with wings.

  Griffin screwed his eyes shut and held out his arms like a human basketball hoop. Before he knew it, he was hugging a furry chest, the mists breaking over his face like a river over a boulder. Water streamed out the corners of his eyes and his skin rippled in the wind.

  Then, suddenly, Griffin’s stomach lurched and his hair flopped into his face. He wasn’t flying through the air, so maybe he hadn’t plunged into the mists after all. Griffin cracked one eye open.

  “You’re okay.” It was his mother’s voice, close beside him. Calm and reassuring. His bat hovered right beside his mom’s. And then the one carrying his dad settled a wingspan away.

  Without another word, the librarian shot up and the Fenns’ three bats followed after. They didn’t seem to have an in-between gear—it was either full stop or full speed ahead. And they weren’t really bats. The part of Griffin’s brain that wasn’t screaming in gleeful terror noticed that their flight was more direct than that. Less flitting, more swooping.

  “Level thirty-seven,” the librarian announced. “Ring the bell again when you’re ready for a ride back down.”

  Griffin’s bat pulled up his claws and reared back, dropping him onto the platform right-side up beside his parents. Griffin released his white-knuckled grip on the bat’s fur, and with a whoosh, the creature was gone. Katherine wistfully tracked their spirals below.

  “Right.” Philip looked like he’d been through a wind tunnel. He raked his fingers through his hair, trying to coax it to lay flat again. “The Levitator said to look for the books with embossed green spines.”

  Griffin tore his gaze away from the sky and scanned the shelves in front of him. “There!” A row of books as tall as his arm were wrapped in green paper that shimmered like a peacock feather. Each spine was inscribed with a single, painstakingly lettered word.

  “One for each of the Levitators,” Katherine observed.

  “So they just spy on everybody and then write about it?”

  Philip pulled the ladder toward him and balanced on the first rung while he handed down one volume for each of them. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  * * *

  When the Fenn family finally stumbled home for the evening, their eyes were strained, their fingertips paper-cut, and their bellies grumbling. The librarian, seeing their book-bleary eyes, had asked the bats to ferry them straight to their little island. When they arrived, a meal of strangely shaped and colored boiled eggs, along with a crisp bread that was more air pockets than anything else waited for them.

  Philip swallowed a yawn, dragging the pads of his fingers across his eyelids. Griffin plopped onto the ground and Katherine settled beside him.

  “Thank goodness the priests never gained access to that library. Can you even imagine…” Her voice trailed off, but the grim set of her mouth said more than enough. She drew the stack of books they’d brought back with them toward her.

  Griffin wriggled under her arm, looking up into his mom’s face until she blinked back the memories and her eyes focused on him again. She squeezed Griffin’s shoulder, gave a little shake of her head, and began flipping through the pages of the book in front of her.

  Philip eyed the platter of food reluctantly. “I suppose we should eat something.”

  Griffin didn’t want to even guess what sort of flying creature might have hatched the purple speckled egg on the plate in front of him. He plugged his nose and shoved one into his mouth.

  “So. What do we know?” Katherine talked around her bites, the skin at the bridge of her nose crinkling as she swallowed. “The people of Maris—”

  “Marisians,” Philip added.

  “Right. Their world warmed much more quickly than ours. Centuries ago, the oceans rose, drowning the land. The people built fleets of ships with sophisticated rain collection mechanisms, water gardens, and navigational systems. They learned to live like nomads, drawing everything they needed from the sea. As time passed, their bodies adapted to the harsh conditions.”

  Griffin jumped in. “They’ve got huge lungs for diving, thick skin like sharks, and a layer of blubber that keeps them warm in the ocean.”

  “Each of the eight worlds has some sort of magic, and on Maris, it’s the song.” Katherine hummed absently as she flipped through the book in her lap. “There was some mention of other things the song could do besides guard the people’s minds, but the entry was vague, to say the least. Something about how the Marisians and the ocean’s song could enter into a kind of communion—not unlike the Somnites and their sjel trees.”

  Philip settled in beside them. “Well, the song may have protected the Marisians’ minds when Somni invaded, but the soldiers still outnumbered and overwhelmed them. The priests stole their boats and with it, their way of life.”

  Outside, the mists turned a lavender hue, then a muted silver. Prickles inched up Griffin’s arms as memory grabbed hold of him. It had been like this often, in the years before Katherine disappeared, the three of them arranged around the fire in the sitting room, each lost in a book, but together, and quietly content. Griffin swallowed past a lump in his throat. He’d missed this. Even with everything going wrong, even with Somni’s priests a bigger threat than they’d ever been, he was gratef
ul for one evening like it used to be.

  Katherine took a sip of the fuchsia liquid in front of her, swallowing with a grimace. “We won’t know if the song will work on Earth like it does on Maris until we bring it home and find out.”

  “If we can bring it home. How would we even do that?”

  “Right. It’s easy enough to snip off a length of malva vine and carry the plant with you through the portal. It’s not so easy with something like a song.”

  “So what—we travel to Maris on a hunch? We go willingly into a world with soldiers and priests everywhere, all in the hopes that the song will do what we need it to? What if the Marisians don’t want to help us? What if everything goes right—we get through the portal, make contact with the Marisians, and then they turn us over to the soldiers?”

  Katherine sucked on her lower lip. “Do we have a choice?”

  The room fell quiet. A swarm of bright yellow birds with long, rippling tail feathers circled the floating island and sped away again like pebbles out of a slingshot. The mists swirled and spun in their wake, rustling the pages of the scattered books.

  “We have to try,” Philip said, though he didn’t look half as certain as he sounded. “We’d never make a single move if we waited to have answers to every possible question.”

  Griffin leaned against his mom’s shoulder. It wasn’t over for the Fenn family after all, and maybe it never would be. But he wouldn’t let them get separated onto different worlds, not again. If one of them was leaving, they were all going. Together.

  At length, Katherine spoke. “If we could free the Marisians, we would. We have to trust that they’ll do the same for us.”

  Griffin sat up and flipped to the back of his book. “I saw something about making contact when we first get there. It’s sort of like a warning. Here.” He dragged a finger down the page. “ ‘Since the portal first opened, a chain of rudimentary whistles have been kept in the tower, that any visitor to Maris may announce their arrival. Only the welcome will be permitted to proceed beyond the lighthouse.’ ”