Compass of Dreams

by Pierdomenico Baccalario

  He yanked it twice. The staircase tensed, then immediately dropped me about two hundred feet.

  “DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!” I cried. Desperately, I tried to dig my fingers into a crack in the rock. I crammed them in and braced my ribs against the wall. As I wiggled my fingers farther inside, I felt something brush against them.

  I glanced inside the crack and discovered a ring. I blinked hard, then looked at it again. There was definitely an iron ring inside the rock.

  “There’s a ring here!” I yelled. “I found a ring!”

  “What type of ring?” Mr. Lily called back.

  “I don’t know!” I moved my free foot to explore the rock below me. “And there’s another one below it!”

  “Oh, good!” Mr. Lily yelled. “Then we’re in the right place. That has to be George Mallory’s climbing trail!”

  “Who’s George Mallory?” I yelled.

  “The British hiker who first put these climbing rings here!” he yelled. “He was the first man to ever climb Mount Everest, but he never climbed back down the mountain.”

  I grabbed onto the rock even tighter. “That’s fascinating, Mr. Lily,” I snapped. “But what about us?!”

  “The good news is,” Mr. Lily said, “we must be close to the Flower of Vertigo! Look around for it, boy!”

  “What does it look like?” I asked.

  “It’s a blue flower that’s a little bit bigger than a penny.”

  I glanced around. “And if I find one, can we go back home?” I asked.

  “Yes, so start looking!”

  But there was nothing to see besides clouds and rocks. And the rings left by that British hiker. Mr. Lily searched the rock near him with his hands. He was moving cautiously, one foot at a time, one arm at a time. I got vertigo just watching him.

  I tried to move, but everything was more difficult with Patches hanging from me. I crab-walked to the right where I hoped to find more rings. As I inched along, I thought of a bunch of good deeds I would do if I managed to get out of this situation alive. I had a lot to make up for, to be honest. I mean, I’d thrown stones at signs and pestered Aiby about the Enchanted Emporium’s secrets. I endlessly mocked Doug about the smell of his aftershave. I’d even lied to my dad and said I’d fed the sheep when it was raining. And yeah, skipping school to go fishing for an entire semester was probably the worst thing I’d done that year.

  As I squirmed across the wall looking for this stupid blue flower, I tried to convince myself that this situation wasn’t so weird after all. Thinking of all the weird things that had happened to me since I first met the Lilys kept me grounded. I’d been kidnapped by a raving Dutchman who spoke an absurd language. I’d fought a stone giant using the powers of an ancient Scottish hero — and then defeated him in a game of riddles.

  When I really thought about it, climbing a sky-high wall wasn’t all that tall of a tale.

  Patches, now with his teeth clenched into my belt, started to wiggle furiously. “What’s wrong, Patches?” I asked, looking down. Once again, I got struck by vertigo and I felt a knot tighten in my stomach.

  “What’s up, boy?” I said, fighting back the urge to vomit. My dog just kept wiggling.

  “Patches,” I said. “Please stay still . . .”

  But he wouldn’t listen. All of a sudden, my belt went loose . . . and so did my pants.

  “PAAAATCHES!” I yelled, feeling the cold mountain wind sting my butt. I was quick enough to pinch my feet together and catch my pants — and my dog — before they fell to their doom.

  Patches continued to wiggle. “Are you trying to get us both killed, Patches?!” I yelled at my dog. That’s when I saw them.

  “Mr. Lily!” I cried.

  “What?” Mr. Lily yelled back.

  “I found those flowers!” I cried. “Actually, Patches found them!”

  “Where are they?”

  “Down here, a few feet below me!”

  “What the heck happened to your pants?”

  “My dog did it,” I said, immediately realizing how silly that sounded. “Can you see Patches, Mr. Lily?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Well, the flowers you’re looking for are right next to him!”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let go!”

  “Let go what?”

  “Let go of the rock!”

  “MR. LILY I CAN’T!”

  “JUST DO IT!”

  Mr. Lily yanked the Silky Staircase twice. It loosened and made him fall. But I stayed right where I was, holding onto the rock, as Mr. Lily fell right past me. When the staircase tensed again, he was right below me, next to Patches.

  “My dog is falling, Mr. Lily!”

  “You’re right!” he chirped. “It’s the Flower of Vertigo!”

  I clenched my teeth in frustration. I was about to yell at Mr. Lily when I felt my shoes start to slip off my feet. Patches barked and tried to jump on Mr. Lily’s head.

  “Got it!” Mr. Lily said, plucking a blue, penny-sized flower.

  “MR. LILY!” I howled. “DO SOMETHING!”

  He looked at me through his big goggles and smiled like everything was right in the world. “I told you to let go of it.”

  “No way!” I said.

  “Then you’ll have to stay here,” Mr. Lily said. He placed the Flower of Vertigo in a pocket inside his cape, then picked another one. “The Trip Stick only works if you beat it on the ground, you know.”

  My eyes went wide. “But the ground is miles below us.”

  Mr. Lily smiled. “Correct.”

  My shoe fell off my foot, followed by my jeans. Patches barked and landed on Mr. Lily’s shoulder.

  “Just pretend you’re the greatest magical bungee jumper in the whole world,” Mr. Lily said. His enthusiasm made me furious.

  I didn’t want to go bungee jumping — whether it was magical or not. But I didn’t seem to have any other options.

  “One!” Mr. Lily said. “Two!”

  For some reason, I started laughing.

  “Three! LET GO!” he cried.

  I closed my eyes and pushed myself away from the wall. I felt weightless and very cold. The wind howled, Patches barked, and then Mr. Lily yelled a strange word:

  Then I passed out.

  “I’m dead,” I said. I spoke calmly and with the dignity of acceptance. After all, I was surprised to have made it this far after meeting Aiby’s dad.

  I opened my eyes to see a blurry, red surface above me. It seemed an odd color for the afterlife. I blinked once, then twice, but the red surface stayed right where it was. I couldn’t feel my body. Rather, I felt like I was surrounded by cottony clouds. Floating.

  It reminded me of one of those boring philosophical movies that Doug used to watch so he’d have something to talk to girls about. One of them claimed the soul weighs twenty-one grams. Considering the fuzzy way I felt, that sounded about right.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled deliriously. “I only weigh twenty-one grams now.”

  Suddenly Aiby Lily’s face appeared above me with one eyebrow raised. “McPhee, what are you mumbling about?” she said.

  I lurched upright. “Where am I?!”

  Aiby didn’t answer right away. “Where do you think you are?” she finally asked.

  I looked around to find I was sitting on a couch in a living room with a red ceiling. There was a big carpet beneath the couch. A furry shape rested on the floor.

  “Patches!” I cried.

  Aiby smiled. “He ate everything I had in the kitchen and then stayed by your side for two straight hours,” she said. “Hungry and loyal — like owner, like dog, I guess.”

  She put one hand on my shoulder. Our eyes met. Oh man, I thought. She’s so beautiful. I could handle being dead if she were my guar
dian angel.

  Aiby sighed and stood up. She was wearing a white and blue striped tank top over an orange and green t-shirt. As usual, she looked really weird, but also elegant.

  “My dad is in the lab mixing the Flowers of Vertigo with the Gardener of Pages,” Aiby said, breaking the silence.

  I nodded. That meant I could only be in the Enchanted Emporium. I rubbed my eyes, taking in all the details around me. The small living room was filled to the brim with shelves of books. The shelves were painted red, just like the floor and ceiling. There was a wide variety of multi-colored books. In fact, there were weird objects all over the place. I spotted a little stuffed elephant with buttons for eyes, a silver bag with smoke billowing from it, a crystal submarine, a tin soldier that marched from one side of the room to the other, and an unsettling painting of an old lady who yawned or made faces when you looked at her.

  Patches was sleeping on Sinbad the Sailor’s Flying Carpet. He seemed to enjoy the fact that he was hovering a foot above the ground. Underneath the only window in the room, I saw a small desk with a huge book, a self-typing typewriter, and an opened suitcase that looked very familiar. There was something new about it, though: inside were two sparkling eyes and a pirate’s sword. I shivered.

  “When you’re ready, come into the lab in the back,” Aiby said. “I’m waiting for an important client.”

  “Where were you this morning?” I asked.

  Aiby ignored me and crossed the room. She peered between the curtains. “Dad!” she said. “How’s the Herbarium and the Flower of Vertigo coming together?”

  Even though I still had no idea what the Flower of Vertigo, Gardener of the Pages, and the Herbarium were, I could tell it wasn’t the right time to ask. After all, Aiby was waiting on an important client. And ignoring my questions, as usual.

  “Wait, Aiby,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”

  I leapt up from the couch. It was only then that I remembered I didn’t have pants on. I turned bright red and immediately dove back underneath the blanket.

  Aiby giggled. “I left you a pair of my dad’s pants on the side of the couch,” she said.

  She walked over to the desk where a big book lay. When she opened it, a soft trumpeting and golden light filled the room. “Dad!” she yelled, clearly upset. “How many times do I have to tell you not to leave the Flowers of Fame between the pages of great-grandpa’s book?!”

  I used the distraction to slip on my new pair of pants while staying beneath the blanket. Thankfully, the pants were my size. They were nice, too, with smooth fabric and big pockets on the sides. While I was buttoning them, Aiby took a dried flower from between the pages of the book she referred to as her great-grandfather’s. It was wrapped in a silver net.

  “This is it,” she whispered. She carefully placed it between the pages of another nearby book.

  Without disturbing Patches, I walked over to Aiby. She quickly flipped through some pages written in an alphabet with letters that actually moved. I recognized it as the Enchanted Language, a secret and magical alphabet. That also meant that the large tome must be The Big Book of Magical Objects, which was the most important of all the relics kept in the Enchanted Emporium.

  Aiby was standing stiffly like she always does when she’s upset. “What are you looking for?” I asked quietly.

  “I’m checking to see if we’re using this Herbarium correctly,” she said.

  “Oh,” I said, following the movement of her finger through the pages. The letters of the Enchanted Language shifted before my eyes. I thought I recognized some of the words among the lines, but couldn’t be sure.

  “How are you doing with the Enchanted Language?” she asked me.

  “Oh, pretty good,” I lied. I had studied the language a little bit in my free time, but I still struggled to understand it. Then again, I struggled with all foreign languages, but the Enchanted Language was definitely the toughest.

  “I’m still having trouble with some of the letters.” That was a bit of an understatement considering the only words I could read so far were “chase,” “stomp,” and “taste.” Oh, and “book.” I think.

  I glanced at the picture on the other side of the page. It showed a small metal robot holding a flower in one hand and an open book in the other. The drawing seemed to suggest that the flower was supposed to be placed inside a certain page of the robot’s book.

  I opened the other book where Aiby had placed the dry flower a second before. Once again, trumpeting and golden light filled the air.

  “Flower of Fame?” I asked, immediately closing the book.

  “Yes,” Aiby said. “The Gardener of Pages explains how to plant the flower among the pages of the book, then the emossification process begins.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

  “Emossification is the drying of the emotions of the flower,” Aiby said. “It’s done this way to distill the flower’s characteristics and grant them to the book. The technique was discovered by the botanists Hyeronimus Bock and Otto Brunfels when they created the collection of Laquedem, the librarian’s talking books.” Aiby flipped through the pages. “Now where is it . . . Grasslight, Flower of Opera, Scent of Sun . . . ah, here it is! Flower of Vertigo, used for books that are short of breath!”

  Yeah, Aiby’s a little weird.

  “Dad!” she yelled, making Patches jump. She immediately closed The Big Book of Magical Objects and entered the lab. I heard her nervously telling her dad that the book said they needed at least five days to emossify a Flower of Vertigo. “And Adele Babele is coming today!”

  I put my hand on the book cover. It was thick and well worn. Beneath my fingers, a tiny light gleamed. It was like the pages of The Big Book of Magical Objects could feel my presence. A voice in my head told me to let go, but I ignored it and read the ex libris, or bookplate on the first page. It wasn’t written in the Enchanted Language, but in Latin, in pale ink.

  Diamond Lily

  The Big Book of Magical Objects

  868 A.D.

  It seemed impossible to me that the book could be that old. Then again, Aiby once told me that her ancestors created the book centuries before the invention of print. I tried to get a better look when I realized that the letters were floating above the actual page.

  I quickly slammed the book shut. Then I wandered aimlessly around the room like I usually did whenever I was inside the Enchanted Emporium. I didn’t want to touch anything for fear that it might attack me, explode, or who knows what else.

  I stopped in front of a shelf of books and put one hand in my pants pocket. As soon as my fingers slipped inside, I felt something grab them.

  “What’s that?!” I cried. I tried to free myself, but my hand was definitely being grasped by another hand.

  “AIBY!” I yelled. “Aiby, there’s something inside these pants!”

  I heard her bare feet slap against the hardwood floor as she came running. “What’s wrong, Finley?”

  I pointed at my trapped arm and held the elbow out. “I’m stuck!” I said.

  Aiby slapped her forehead. “Oh, right! I forgot! Sorry!” she said quickly. “We’ll get you free in a second.”

  “Free from what, Aiby?!” I cried.

  “It’s called a Dark Pocket. It’s used by people who need to carry around a bunch of things that wouldn’t fit in a normal pocket.” Aiby glanced toward the window. “Just a second, my customer has arrived!”

  The dream-catcher at the entrance door of the Enchanted Emporium chimed as the door opened.

  “Oh, no you don’t, Aiby!” I said. “You can’t leave me like this!”

  Just then, a large lady wrapped in layers of veils and black lace entered the Emporium. Her face was pale and covered with a thick layer of makeup. Her hair was made into a big bun that reminded me of a sombrero. She had an intense scent wafting around her that was pleasant and d
isgusting at the same time.

  I hid behind a wall, making sure no one could see me. I’d never witnessed a business transaction at the Enchanted Emporium before, so I didn’t know what to expect.

  As I peeked out, I saw Aiby give a tiny bow. “Welcome in our humble store, Madame Babele,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s the young Lily daughter!” Madame Babele said. The scents of apple pie and rotting garbage filled my nostrils. “What a nice surprise to see you working here! My dear, you look exactly like your mother.”

  Mr. Lily appeared behind his daughter. “Um, Welcome, Adele,” he said. He was still wearing his aviator goggles. “Good to see you found your way here.”

  “It was an easy trip!” she boomed. “I never travel without my Suitcase of Stars, and it never sends me to the wrong place. Speaking of places, you’ve got yourselves a really nice shop here! Reginald always had good taste as far as locations are concerned. Very peaceful and quiet.”

  You wouldn’t say that if you’d been here when the stone giant was rampaging around, I thought.

  The lady set her tattered suitcase on the counter. I immediately recognized it, but couldn’t remember from where . . .

  “Yes, Reginald clearly had a knack for locations,” Adele continued. “And he definitely had a knack for finding books!” She chuckled. “You wonderful Lilys.”

  “At your service, Madame Babele,” said Aiby. “As is our endless library of magical books.”

  “Sadly, I can’t read the Enchanted Language as well as I used to,” she said. “Which is why I came here to buy more dried flowers.”

  Mr. Lily retrieved an object from underneath the counter. It looked somewhat like a shoe box. He opened it and peered inside. A look of disgust grew on his face. “I’m sorry to say this, Adele, but none of your old flowers can be replaced or fixed . . .”

  “Oh?” she said flatly. “What a shame . . .”

  Mr. Lily lifted a few silver nets with flowers inside them. As he did, they broke into pieces. “You really need to stop putting them inside books written in dead languages. They require fresh air at least every twenty years, or they end up dead, too.”