“Absolutely no need to be concerned,” Even said, both to herself and to Odd. “This must have been what happened before. The gateway went offline temporarily, but it came back. Like you said, all we have to do is wait.” She sat down and curled her tail around herself.
If it came back before, it could come back again. Right?
The three of them stared at the wall of mist. Even told herself there was nothing to panic about. It was like a power outage. You couldn’t watch TV, but you could convince your parents that you’d better eat all the ice cream before it melted. Eventually, the power always returned. Eventually, the border would reopen.
Even took a deep breath and then another. Just wait, she told herself. The gateway would fix itself again, they’d go home, and no one would ever know how close they’d come to stranding themselves on the wrong side of the gateway. She’d take her exam on Friday, Odd would return to helping the animals at the shelter, and everything would be fine.
“So . . . is something going to happen?” Jeremy asked.
“We’re waiting,” Odd told him.
They waited.
“How about now?” he asked.
“Still waiting,” Odd said.
This is my fault, Even thought. Coming here had seemed like such a good plan, the kind of decisive thing that a hero would do. Getting trapped here, though . . . A real hero would have anticipated that. She wished Mom were here. She’d know what— “Mom! She’s here in the magic world! We could find her!”
“Except we don’t know where she is,” Odd said.
Even sank down into the grass as she realized Odd was right. “And we don’t have any way to contact her.” Sure, this world was the source of all magic, and that was wonderful. But it wasn’t what they needed right now.
Mom had a lot of meetings lined up in various territories so she could reach as many potential customers as possible, but she’d never said where they were. She could be anywhere. Hundreds of miles away. Or in the very next town. Dad had her itinerary, of course, but Dad wasn’t here. They had no way of knowing where she was, and, even if they had known, they had no way to reach her. It wasn’t as if mundane cell phones worked in the magic world, not that Even had one tucked in her fur anyway.
“If we can’t contact Mom, then we have to get back to Dad on our own.” Even spoke slowly, knowing that Odd wasn’t going to like what she was thinking. “We have two choices: stay here and hope this gateway opens . . . or find a different gateway that is open.”
“This is the only one that leads home,” Odd protested.
“The others lead to someplace on Earth,” Even said. “So long as we find one to go through, we can go to the nearest border store and ask them to call Dad.” She tried to make this sound as if it were no big deal, though she dreaded that phone call. Dad was not going to be happy with them. “Dad will come get us wherever we end up.”
“Unless it’s Australia. Or Japan. Or the Arctic,” Odd said, but she stopped, clearly considering it. “But at least we’d be in the right world, and you’re right that there would be a border store nearby—there always is. They would help us get home.”
“So what do you think?” Even asked. “Do we stay, or do we search?” She didn’t know which was the right choice.
Odd shook her head. “The other gateways could be miles away. How do we even find them? And what if they’re closed too? Or in a dangerous area? No, it’s too risky. Girl Scout rule number one: if you get lost, you stay in one place so that people can find you. We should stay put and wait for the gateway to reopen.”
“What if the other gateways close while we’re waiting?” Even asked. “What if this is our chance and if we don’t go now, we won’t get home at all?”
“You don’t know that that’s a possibility,” Odd said accusingly. “You just want to explore. You’re using this as an excuse. I think you’re happy we’re stuck here!”
Even opened her mouth to object. She wasn’t happy! They were cut off from home! Of course, she’d been excited to see the magic world—she’d only asked Mom a billion times if she could come with her to visit their former home—but that was before the gateway had closed behind them. “How can you think I’d be happy about this?”
“Because I know you. You want to be here!”
“When I’m eighteen and fully trained and prepared. Not now. Not like this.” Yes, she had always wanted to see a giant stride across the landscape. She wanted to witness a wizard calling a thunderstorm out of the sky. She wanted to watch a herd of centaurs gallop freely across a valley and to see phoenixes burn in the sky as the sun set and to taste an enchanted river and to hear a mermaid sing and to touch a dragon’s scales. But I never wanted this to happen!
“Fine. Sorry,” Odd said. “So what do we do?”
Even had no idea if other gateways were having problems or if it was just this one. They had very little information at all. “We need to find out if other gateways are open and where they are. Maybe we can find someone to ask?”
“You can ask my parents,” Jeremy said behind them.
Even gave a little jump. She’d been so focused on the vanished gateway that she’d forgotten he was still there.
“My family has a magic mirror,” he said. “We can use it to find out about the other gateways—where they are, where they lead, and if they’re open.”
“Your family would help us?” Odd asked.
“Absolutely,” Jeremy said, “and you know I can’t lie. Ooh, but you can lie! Can you tell my parents that I found you here and offered to bring you to my family for their help, and you gave me the soda and Farmcats cards as a thank-you? That way I won’t even have to hide my loot. It’s a perfect solution!”
“Kind of think finding a way home is more important than soda, especially since he’s not even un-cursing anything,” Odd muttered to Even. “Just wants to drink it.”
Jeremy heard her. “You know what they say: don’t look a gift unicorn in the mouth. Do you want my help or not?”
“Absolutely,” Even said. “Thank you.”
“Sorry,” Odd said. “We’d love your help.”
Shaking his mane majestically, he reared back on his hind hooves. “Follow me!”
The sisters followed him. Glancing back at where the gateway was supposed to be, Even hoped they were making the right choice.
8
“It’s not far,” Jeremy said as he trotted toward the road. His tail swatted away a flower fairy as if it were a fly. Even and Odd hurried after him.
Even wished she’d been home during the brief moment the gateway was open. Dad could have transformed her back into herself, and then she wouldn’t be waddling on short, stubby, furry legs, trying to keep up. No, that wasn’t her wish. She wished they hadn’t followed Jeremy to the bagel store at all, and she especially wished she hadn’t had the bright idea to test the gateway.
This is all my fault.
But I’m going to make up for it. I’m going to get us to the unicorns, and they’re going to help us find our way home. Of course, it would be easier to feel like she was leading the way if she weren’t scurrying behind. “How far is ‘not far’?”
“Just beyond the witch’s house.”
“A witch?” Odd asked. “What kind of witch? Evil fairy-tale witch, or friendly helpful witch? Is she going to keep us from reaching your family?”
“Oh no, she’s nice,” Jeremy said. “A witch is just a name for a magic user without a medallion. You know, not affiliated with the Academy of Magic.”
“You can be a magic user without a medallion?” Even asked. She’d thought it was required by the Academy. They oversaw all magic use in Firoth, to ensure no one used it for evil purposes. And if you did use it for evil, they sent a hero, one of their wizards, to stop you.
“Sure, you can use magic without a medallion,” Jeremy said. “The witch always said she meant to get one, but there was too much paperwork.”
What was he talking about? He made getting a m
edallion sound as dull as paying a parking ticket, a long and tedious errand she’d gone on once with Dad.
“You’ll see the hill soon,” Jeremy continued, blithely unaware of Even’s reaction. “We live both on it and in it. The dwarves built us caves for shelter from the rain, modeled after their underground palaces. I have my own cave room with Farmcats posters on all the walls. I’ll show it to you!”
Even was so intent on looking ahead of them, trying to see the witch’s house and the unicorns’ hill beyond it, that when they suddenly reached a road, she stumbled over the bricks. She got her paws underneath her again and shook out her fur. Only then did she notice that the road was made of yellow bricks. The bricks were crumbling, laced with moss, and coated in a slimy lichen, but they were undeniably yellow.
For an instant, seeing the road, she forgot about her rush to reach the unicorns, her worry about being on the wrong side of the border, and everything. “Whoa, yellow brick road! Does it lead to the Emerald City?”
“What?” Jeremy asked.
“Like in The Wizard of Oz. It’s a movie. And a book.” She’d heard there was a history of magical immigrants influencing mundane artists, or becoming writers and artists and actors themselves. “There’s a rumor that the author may have been from Firoth. In fact, there are a lot of famous people in our world who came from here. Actors and actresses, mostly. There used to be some Olympic athletes who were part troll. Really strong. But they can’t do it now because of the blood testing.”
“I literally don’t understand half the words you just said,” Jeremy complained.
Prodded by Odd, Even started walking again. As they continued, Odd tried to explain what the Olympics were. Before she could get very far, though, Jeremy gasped. “My hill!”
Even looked ahead but didn’t see any hills.
Maybe I’m too short to see it, she thought. She considered asking Odd to lift her up, but that seemed way too embarrassing.
Jeremy broke into a gallop. His hooves sounded like bells ringing as they hit the yellow brick road. Odd ran after him, and Even tried to keep up, but with her skunk legs, the best she could do was an enthusiastic waddle. She arrived a few minutes later, panting, at the edge of a lake.
The lake glistened darkly. It was opaque, and its ripples held the same bright sea-blue as the sky. The western shore was obscured by the border mist, which swirled silently, licking at the water with bits of fog.
Tossing his mane and snorting, Jeremy paced back and forth on the shore. “It should be here! Our hill. Our flowers. Our clover. Our caves. Our home! It was here when I left!”
“Your home flooded?” Even asked.
She’d seen photos in the news of flooded areas, though, and this didn’t look like that. No roofs half-submerged in water. No trees sticking up out of the water. This lake had a shore with rocks and sand and driftwood, as if it had been here for years. It certainly didn’t look like an underwater hill.
“Are you sure this is the right spot?” Odd asked.
He let out a panicky neigh as he raced back and forth on the shore. “Of course I am! I’ve been on that road countless times. Over there, those are the trees that are supposed to be next to Unicorn Hill. And there’s the witch’s house, exactly where it always is. But no hill!”
Splash!
Using her tail for balance, Even rose up onto her hind legs and looked out over to the water. She saw a swirl of waves a few yards off from shore and a flash of an orange fish tail.
Slowing, Jeremy said, with disgust in his voice, “Mermaids.”
“Really?” Even had never seen one, at least not that she could remember, and certainly not since they’d left Firoth. You couldn’t swim across the border, or at least you couldn’t if you used a gateway that opened into a bagel-store parking lot, so there had never been one in her family’s shop. If the situation were different, she would have asked Jeremy a dozen questions about them. As it was . . .
“Maybe they know what happened,” Odd suggested.
Shouting across the water, Even called, “Hello? Can you help us, please?”
“I don’t think they’ll help,” Jeremy warned.
Odd waved. “Over here! Hi!”
A woman’s head popped out of the water. She swam toward them, leaping like a dolphin, and Even saw her tail as she arched above the water. Wow! Even thought. A mermaid! For a second she nearly forgot she was stuck as a skunk, trapped on the wrong side of the border. She’d always wanted to see a mermaid.
Closer to shore, the mermaid slowed, swam in a circle, and opened her mouth to speak.
Even leaned toward the water, eager to hear what she was about to say. In Greek myths, mermaid-like sirens lured sailors to their death with the beauty of their voices. A real mermaid should sound like—
“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-iiiiiiii-eeeeeeee!”
Odd clapped her hands over her ears. Sitting back, Even covered her ears with her paws. The shrill, glass-breaking squeal echoed across the lake, and a second mermaid swam closer and began to wail too. Her voice sounded like the squeak of Styrofoam but much, much louder.
“See?” Jeremy had to shout to be heard over the shrieks. “Not helpful!”
Even tried again, raising her voice as loud as she could. “Do any of you know where the unicorns are? Uni-corns. Like him. Horse with pointy horn. They’re supposed to help us get home, or at least we hope they will, if we can find them. They used to live here.”
Six mermaids squealed together, “Eee-iiiiiiii-eeeeeeey!”
Even winced as they hit a particularly high note. “I think they’re trying to tell us something?” Maybe it was a warning? Or an explanation? Or, ooh, a prophecy?
A gruff voice behind them said, “They’re trying to say they want fish. Never met a mermaid before? Forget the stories. They’re much more fish than person.” A short, green-skinned man with a full bright-emerald beard waddled past them, hauling a bucket. He pulled a fish out of the bucket and tossed it toward the mermaids. “Poor creatures are starving to death!”
Shrieking, the mermaids fell on the fish like ducks on a piece of bread, if ducks sounded as though police whistles had been shoved down their windpipes.
“Sir, do you know where the unicorns have gone?” Even asked the green man.
“Don’t know. Don’t care.” He tossed another fish. “If they’re the ones who caused this, then good riddance to them.”
“They were here,” Jeremy insisted. “This was my home!”
Another fish. “If you’re responsible, then you’re the worst too.”
“Responsible for what?” Jeremy shifted from hoof to hoof, shaking his mane. “What happened to Unicorn Hill? And who are you?”
Whispering, Odd asked Even, “And what is he?”
He heard her. “I’m a goblin. My name’s Joj. And as to your hill . . . You really don’t know? Huh. I’m the Academy-appointed caretaker in charge of this school of mermaids. I was doing my daily rounds, checking on the health of their scales and all that, when, whoomp, the lake up and moved here. Fine. Whatever. Except”—his voice rose higher and louder—“they’re cut off from their river. The river that leads to the ocean! You know, the ocean with lots and lots of fish that keeps them from starving to death!” His green face was now tinted purple. “Do you have any idea how much fish a school of mermaids needs to survive? And how much gold it costs to buy enough fish to keep them happy?”
Even didn’t, but he didn’t give any of them a chance to answer.
“A lot. That’s the answer. A lot of fish, and a lot of gold!” He dumped the rest of the fish from his bucket into the lake and then stomped back past them, as if the conversation were over.
“Is this a normal thing here?” Odd asked. “Lakes and hills just . . . move?”
“Does it seem normal?” the goblin snapped over his shoulder. “No!”
Fur bristling, Even stepped in front of Odd. “Don’t yell at my sister. We don’t know what’s ordinary for you.” Given where they were, all
sorts of things could be possible.
Jeremy trotted after Joj. “Do you know where my home went?”
“Told you already,” the goblin said. “No. And if you can’t help, you can go away. I’ve got a lot of work to do to keep my mermaids from dying, thanks to whoever did this.”
“But my family is supposed to be here! My mother, my father! I have aunts and uncles and cousins! Annoying, constantly underfoot cousins, but mine! They live here. With me. And sure, yes, maybe I often wished I didn’t live here because it was boring and full of other unicorns, plus every time I went for a simple prance around a meadow, flower fairies would get stuck in my mane and sting my neck, but still, when you leave home, home isn’t supposed to disappear!” His voice grew more and more panicked.
The sisters hurried after them, leaving behind the fish-chomping mermaids. Even tried to wrap her mind around the idea that a lake and a hill could move. Other than in an earthquake, places were supposed to stay, well, in place. She’d never heard any stories or myths about land shuffling around on a whim. She had read about lost towns—Brigadoon, Shangri-La, Atlantis. And lakes could suddenly dry up. Or a lake could be created, if you dammed up a river. But move?
Grumbling to himself, Joj deposited the empty bucket outside a cottage that looked in danger of tumbling down—the walls were slats of wood hammered together askew, and the roof shingles looked like loose teeth about to fall out. As he reached for the door handle, the house rose into the air on enormous chicken legs, shifted to the left, and then settled down again, several feet away from Joj and his bucket. “I hate this place,” Joj muttered.
“Is that the witch’s house?” Even asked.
“Where is the witch who lives here?” Jeremy asked. “Does she know where my parents are? We have to find her! She may know what happened.”
Picking up his bucket and moving it closer to the house again, Joj said, “The witch fled. Scared. Said it wasn’t safe near the border anymore—border magic is all messed up, she said, and it’s messing with the world. I’d flee too, except the mermaids don’t have feet or wings. Can’t leave them behind. I’m all that’s keeping them alive.”
Even and Odd Page 7
