The World Between Blinks

by Ryan Graudin

  Beside him, Oz made a chuffing sound that Jake thought might just be agreement.

  “Let me take them away,” the Administrator said, taking a slow step forward.

  “I miss Nana so much,” Jake whispered. “But that’s because of how much love we had. I miss my friends when we move, but it’s because we did so many great things together. The sadness is the peanut butter to the chocolate of happiness.”

  “What? What do snacks have to do with it?” the Administrator demanded, his tone growing annoyed.

  “They go together,” Jake said simply. “And sometimes it’s hard, but that’s okay.”

  He could see the beach house in front of him, its walls held up by his grandmother’s many photos and maps. He could hear all of the stories she’d shared—pointing out different frames with a laugh. Did I ever tell you about that time . . . ? Sometimes the memories were happy, and other times they were sad, but they were all there.

  Even the picture of Christopher and Hazel.

  “Memories aren’t supposed to drag you down,” he realized. “They’re supposed to come along for the ride! Even the ones that hurt. My cousin says you have to be calm on the route, and that’s right. Not every memory needs to stay with you, but you can’t just leave them all behind. Even when the route is tough. I’d rather keep my memories, thanks.”

  The Administrator studied him for a long moment, blinking slowly. There wasn’t any sign on his face that he understood what Jake meant. Even a little bit. Eventually, he sighed. “I was hoping to avoid this, but I cannot allow you to remove any memories from the repository.”

  And with no more warning than that, he lunged at Jake, arms outstretched, grabbing for the hourglasses. Oz threw himself forward and tangled with the Administrator’s legs, causing the man to stumble into a set of shelves. For a heart-skipping second, they wobbled.

  And then the entire aisle of hourglasses came crashing down.

  Glass and memories sprayed everywhere.

  “NO!” The Administrator was on his hands and knees, trying to scoop sand into his palms. “NO! NO! NO!”

  Jake didn’t stick around to help. There was no point bothering with windows anymore. Holding tight to the hourglasses, he ran straight for the door, bursting back into the main library with Oz at his heels.

  The guards were surprised, to say the least.

  The explorers were only slightly more prepared—with twitchy legs and decoy hourglasses hidden in their jackets.

  “Good luck!” Percy clapped Jake on the shoulder and turned to run. “You’ve been most helpful!” he called to his Curator as he bolted along the hallway, pulling his hourglass from his jacket and lifting it high above his head.

  “Thank you, Jake! Enjoy your next adventure!” shouted Leichhardt, who took off in the other direction.

  “This way, Curators!” yelled Raleigh, running along a narrow passageway, waving his hourglass in the air.

  The explorers were laying down three other trails for the Curators to follow, creating as much confusion as possible by waving their hourglasses about, forcing the Curators to chase them in case they were real.

  Jake wished he had time to say one more goodbye to his friends, but they were already off enjoying this newest adventure.

  “Thank-you-for-your-visit!” a dazed Curator called from the doorway, as the Administrator bellowed his frustration and elbowed his way past. “Please-rate-the-service-you-have-received-on-a-scale-of-OOF!”

  Jake and Oz bolted down the staircases, nearly slipping on the polished marble, and he could hear the clatter of footsteps behind them. He rushed past two ladies in curled silver wigs that could’ve doubled as beehives, and then dodged around a man in a tuxedo. The last few steps almost caused him to do the splits.

  When they reached the bottom, Jake and Oz ducked behind the statue of a stern-looking goddess, and they both stood there, panting, as two Curators hurried past, disappearing into some papyrus-stuffed shelves.

  The coast was clear.

  It was now or never!

  Marble scribbled under claws and sneakers as they made a break for the front door. “Ten!” Jake shouted, before the exiting Curator could ask the usual survey question. “Definitely ten!”

  “Thank you!” the official called after him, sounding delighted.

  But Jake was already halfway down the steps to the courtyard, where Christopher, Jack, and Naomi were holding the reins of . . . What the heck were those? The two animals looked like zebras at the front and horses down the back, brown-and-white stripes on their heads and shoulders, solid brown rumps bringing up the, uh, rear.

  As Christopher mounted one bareback, it tossed its head and pranced in place, making a sound like kwa-ha-ha!

  Jack was waiting to boost Jake up onto his, and he grinned when he read the question on the boy’s face. “Quaggas! They’re from Africa. Relatives of a zebra. Aren’t they something?”

  Naomi gave him a nod, then hurried toward the library’s main entrance, managing to collide squarely with the Administrator, who was just running out. As the Administrator desperately tried to duck around Naomi, the Japanese explorer bowed courteously, then bowed again, apologizing profusely for the collision, and delaying him a vital ten seconds.

  “Safe journey, mates!” cried Jack, and slapped both quaggas on the butt. With Oz racing ahead of them, Jake and his great-uncle galloped out of the courtyard.

  17

  Marisol

  THE ARAL SEA WAS STILL MONSTERLESS.

  Marisol sat by its shore, trying not to worry as the sun sank low, lower, lowest. Amelia’s emergency clouds had scattered, so the sky and its mirror were both smooth, except where Hazel kept leaning in to see her own reflection.

  “Hello!” Marisol’s heart skipped every time the woman greeted herself. “Hello there!”

  She looked back over her shoulder at the St. Helena olive tree. Jake and Christopher still hadn’t arrived and even though they hadn’t set a firm time, the Crystal Palace was on fire again—catching the sunset and spitting rays back. Ember orange everywhere. It felt so close. It felt too late.

  Her hourglass had lost a single grain of sand.

  Marisol held the timepiece between her fingers, counting the missing memory over and over. What if Jake had gotten caught? What if all their plans fell through? What if Hazel never really learned her name? What if they never got to go home? Victor would probably love being an only child. . . .

  Each thought made Marisol squeeze tighter, until her fist ached. Until she realized that this was the bad kind of holding on . . . The kind that kept her from being alive, enjoying a gorgeous sunset by a lost sea in a world with just enough magic to make happy endings possible.

  Just as she slipped her necklace back into her shirt, four silhouettes appeared. Sharp black, clean cut. Against the neon sky they were all elbows and shoulders and one very happy tail.

  “Hey there!” The accent was unmistakably Amelia’s. “Look who I found trotting down the Via Hadriana! Well, walking really. Those poor quaggas were running out of steam. . . .”

  “Jake!” Marisol dashed toward her cousin. “¡Estás bien!”

  His hug smelled like sand and old books. “¡Sí! I’m okay! It looks like you are too.” He sounded relieved. “Did you have any trouble getting the ledger?”

  Um . . .

  At the sight of the newcomers, Hazel had stopped splashing. She wore her pleasant poppy smile as Christopher waded into the water, arms stretched for an embrace.

  “Hazel! My love!”

  “Hello!” The nurse held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  A heartbroken look stole over their great-uncle’s face. It knew just where to fit—right around the chin dimple, clinging to his golden eyelashes. This wasn’t the first time Christopher had worn such sadness.

  Hopefully, though, it would be the last.

  “We had a few close calls, but we got Christopher’s ledger,” she told her cousin. “Did you guys grab the hourglasses?
”

  Jake grinned and began pulling out much larger versions of the charms around their necks. One at a time, he set them on the ground, making sure the name plaques read upside down:

  Gravity got to work.

  Sand started to sift. Memories began to return.

  “Oh!” Hers was from Nana’s last visit to Bolivia—they’d eaten picana at midnight on Christmas Eve, letting the spicy chicken, beef, and corn simmer on their tongues while they sang carols.

  “The bonfire!” Jake exclaimed at the same time; his face lighting up with memories of the flames. “You’re right, Mari! I wrote Nana a letter on that lantern and let it float up to the stars—I can’t believe I forgot!”

  Marisol wanted to cry—happy tears, as well as sad—when she looked back at the couple standing in the sea. Their reflections rippled, not quite meeting, as Hazel kept trying to introduce herself.

  “Hello! My name is Hazel Susan Clive—” She gasped, hands clasping over her mouth. Her eyes widened. Fuller. “I—I remember my name!”

  “Haven’t we told her like twelve times?” Amelia wondered.

  Christopher stood, waiting.

  Hazel’s eyelashes fluttered, her stare getting more and more crowded. It was like seeing someone’s soul poured back into their body. Thought by thought. Story by story. Until . . .

  “Christopher?” It dawned on her face and in her voice. “Oh my stars and garters! Christopher Jacob Creaturo!!! You found me!”

  “Hazel . . .” was all he could say.

  She threw herself into Christopher’s open arms. They spun together in the water. Their joy was almost too pure to look at, brighter than the burned-out stars in the sky above. When they kissed, Marisol knew that everything—even giving up the Great Mogul Diamond—had been worth it.

  Jake made an ew face. Amelia clapped. Oz gave a husky, triumphant bark, which then turned into something of a growl. . . . The thylacine’s hackles rose as his snout pointed back at the olive tree.

  Leaning against its trunk was a Curator.

  Marisol felt every season at once—summer heat, ice in her veins, the dread of lengthening nights—before she realized that it wasn’t just any old official. It was Min-jun. There was a frown on his normally kind face, but that might’ve been to keep the monocle set in his eye.

  “Ah!” Jake yelled. Then, seeing past the glass. “Oh!”

  “Hola, Min-jun.”

  “Hola, Marisol. Hello, Jake.” He pushed himself off the tree, scanning through the scene through his monocle. “What creatures of habit you are! Not only did you return to the scene of the crime to commit the same crime, but you repeated your rendezvous too!”

  “You didn’t tell the others, did you?” There were no more silhouettes on the horizon, but Marisol had to be sure.

  “And risk my perfect rating?” Min-jun shook his head. “No. But I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before they show up. They’re still very upset. You’ve made a terrible mess of things.” He stared straight at Christopher. “Cracks everywhere! Fissures forever!”

  Hazel frowned. “Cracks? What cracks? Christopher, what did you do?”

  “I broke the world for you,” he answered softly. “But don’t worry, love. We’re going to fix everything and return home, where we can keep our memories.”

  The Curator’s gaze flitted from the reversed hourglasses to Hazel. No doubt he was seeing how much more of her there was now. “Sometimes Curators get too carried away with cataloging. The memory repository isn’t a very fair system, is it?”

  Marisol and Jake answered at the same time. “No!”

  “People need their memories, even the painful ones,” her primo went on. “It’s what makes them them. If Amelia forgot how to fly, she’d still be Amelia Earhart, but she wouldn’t be the Amelia Earhart anymore, would she?”

  The pilot scuffed some sand with her boot. “Huh. I hadn’t thought about it like that before.”

  “Me neither,” Min-jun admitted.

  “I don’t want to forget how to fly! I can’t! Then I’d have to walk everywhere or . . . or . . . sail!” Amelia looked flustered—curls licked out from under her cap. Her shoulders hunched.

  Marisol peeled off the borrowed jacket and handed it back to their friend. “Don’t worry. You’re the Amelia Earhart. No one in my world is forgetting you any time soon. I know I won’t.”

  “Thanks, pal!” she sniffed.

  “You could also file a complaint with the Administrator,” Min-jun suggested. “Though he’ll be more amenable to changes once the worlds aren’t in danger of ending.”

  “I think it might be a stretch, even then,” Jake said with a guilty sort of look.

  “In that case . . . I’ll have to think about it,” Min-jun said quietly.

  “You and me both,” Amelia added.

  Marisol cleared her throat. “Speaking of the end of the world . . .”

  The page filled with Christopher Creaturo’s illegal entries was still in her pocket. She handed it to her great-uncle, careful not to let it fall into the water. Christopher stepped out of the Aral Sea, hand in hand with Hazel, and even though he had to let go to pull out his ballpoint pen, their shoulders kept touching.

  “Here,” Min-jun offered up the fountain pen from his necklace. “You’d better use this one.”

  “Are they charmed to do something special?” Marisol wondered.

  “They make anyone’s handwriting legible. Nothing is worse than a form you can’t read! I mean, except for the collapse of the Unknown,” Min-jun admitted. “And eternal amnesia.”

  “I’d like to use it next, to fill out a complaint card,” Amelia said.

  But there was a lot to rewrite first. Christopher scrawled a new monster’s name beneath the kraken—and suddenly Nessie was back in her twilight sea, swirling the last dregs of sunset with her fins.

  “What about the building in London?” Jake reminded their great-uncle.

  “The ones destroyed during the Blitz, yes . . .” A scribble. “There. They should be back in the World Between Blinks now.”

  “And the Amber Room!” Marisol added. After all, it wasn’t Nefertiti’s fault that Marisol had ditched their reward.

  “Done! You see!” Christopher returned the pen and page to Min-jun. “It’s all fixed! Everything’s back where it should be.”

  “Except for us,” said Jake.

  The monocle was in Min-jun’s eye again. He squinted at the entries, then out toward the Loch Ness Monster, who was celebrating her return with underwater cartwheels. “It looks satisfactory, but I’m afraid I need a stamp of approval to cross out entries. Especially ones from the 1940s, as yours are.”

  Even though Min-jun was a helpful Curator, he was still a Curator, and for a moment, it seemed red tape would keep Christopher, Hazel, and the cousins tied here anyway.

  Then Amelia stepped forward.

  “Well, I don’t need a stamp!” she declared. “These kids deserve to go home, by golly! So do the lovebirds.”

  Min-jun didn’t stop her from taking the stationery. He didn’t stop her from opening the other ledgers either. All four names sat out on display, waiting for the strikethrough.

  This was it.

  Time to say goodbye.

  They thanked Min-jun for not tattling on them. They hugged Amelia, then Hazel, then Christopher, who promised that they’d meet again on the other side of the Unknown. The hardest farewell was the one Marisol couldn’t say.

  Oz sat on his hind legs—same as he had at the Frost Fair, when he first came snapping for their gingerbread. His ears lay flat, and there was a sad, sad whimper behind his teeth.

  “I wish we could take you with us, Oz.” She laughed at the thought of bringing an extinct animal back to the beach house. Look, Mom and Dad! Can we keep him? ¿Por favor? I promise I’ll pick up his poop!

  “Me too.” Jake knelt down to hug the thylacine.

  “Ah-ah!”

  Marisol joined the huddle. “Thank you for being the best Tas
manian tiger I’ve ever met,” she said, her voice thick.

  “Ah-ah-ah!” Oz licked them so hard their eyelashes stuck to their eyelids. “Ah!”

  Min-jun cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to rush, but I think my colleagues will be here soon.” Sure enough, there was a long, pale line of suits marching out of the city; clipboards ready to categorize Nessie’s reappearance. “It might be best if you start disappearing!”

  “On it!” Amelia flourished the fountain pen like a wand. “Don’t worry, Oz and I will stick together! Goodbye, Hazel Clive! Goodbye, Christopher Creaturo!”

  It was strange, watching someone vanish without smoke or a sound effect. Not even a poof! The lovebirds were just there and gone, between blinks. Back to . . . somewhere.

  “Where will the Unknown send us?” Marisol reached for Jake’s hand. “Back to the lighthouse?”

  Min-jun paused. Considering. “I think you’ll find yourselves exactly where you’re supposed to be. The opposite of lost.”

  Her cousin disappeared, and Marisol was holding just air, just air. In the distance she could hear the Curators squabbling about whether to use Form 1091a or Form 1091b for the Loch Ness Monster’s reprocessing. Hopefully Min-jun and Amelia wouldn’t get in too much trouble.

  “Bye, kiddo!” The famous pilot winked at her. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  The pen struck.

  Marisol loved the air around the ocean.

  At night, in the summer, it almost felt like perfume. Or a lullaby, depending on how chatty the cicadas were. Tonight, the critters gave those extinct Amazon insects a run for their money. Welcome back! they screamed out of the marsh. You have some explaining to do!

  She and Jake stood at the end of Nana’s dock—no boat, no excuses. Good thing they didn’t need either of those things right away. The backyard sat empty. Lawn chairs yawned at shadows and the grill had that lumpy black smell that meant it hadn’t been used since the last thunderstorm.