“No, we don’t know how long the Reverend will be away,” the choirmaster said to me, stroking his long, sinister beard. I could never remember his real name.
“And he didn’t say anything about me?” I asked. “We’d agreed to meet at eight to start my new job.” I checked my watch. “And it’s almost eight.”
The choirmaster glanced at McStay, who then glanced at the housekeeper. Miss Finla quickly shuffled back into the rectory.
I listened to the sounds coming from inside, which made me realize Miss Finla was moving things around. I realized she was looking for a note. “Can I consider myself free from my commitment?” I said before she could turn up a list of chores left by the Reverend.
“I’d say so,” the choirmaster replied.
I walked past the front windows of the Curious Traveler, Mr. Everett’s souvenir shop. It turned out to be closed, too. I saw Meb just as she was leaving her shop.
“Hi, Finley!” she said.
“Meb, do you know where the Reverend is?” I asked.
“Nope,” Meb said. She turned the sign on her tiny store from OPEN to CLOSED and offered me a ride in her car. I declined since I had my bike, but saw an impressive leather suitcase on the passenger seat of her car.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing.
Meb shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, that? It’s a special suitcase that wasn’t staying shut. I think I’ve managed to fix it. Now it should only activate when it’s outside the house, and only when it’s commanded to depart.”
I nodded despite my complete confusion. Our tasks for the Enchanted Emporium were very different. I’d received the scorpion key and was its defender. Meb had the bee key, which made her the shop’s repairperson.
Meb caught me eyeing the suitcase with a raised eyebrow. She handed me a pair of glasses with polished brass frames. “Try these on,” she said.
“How do they work?” I asked.
“You put them on your face, silly,” she said.
I shrugged and put on the glasses. I looked at Patches, then at Meb.
“Nothing’s happening,” I said.
“Perfect!” Meb exclaimed with a big smile. She tied her hair behind her head with a yellow elastic band. “According to the Big Book of Magical Objects, these are phobo-sensitive glasses.” Meb raised her hand to stop me from speaking. “Yes, you heard that correctly! Not photosensitive — phobo-sensitive. They can see fear.”
“You fixed them, then?” I asked.
“It took me three days to figure out how they worked,” Meb said. “I studied them, took them apart, then put them back together. Maybe one day I’ll show you how to work with magical objects.”
“I’d rather not,” I said. I had no intention of getting chased by a bloodthirsty sword or anything remotely similar to that experience ever again.
Meb shrugged. “At first, I was absolutely sure that Locan — I mean, Mr. Lily — had just given me a pair of regular old glasses. That is, until I put them on yesterday evening to watch a movie. And suddenly, in the middle of a scene, the lenses turned completely black. Then they went back to normal at the end of the scene. That’s when I figured it out!”
“Figured what out?” I asked.
“That the phobo-sensitive lenses get dark a moment before something scary happens. That way you won’t see anything that might frighten you.”
“Brilliant!” I said, and I meant it.
“Best used for watching horror movies, I’d say,” Meb answered, taking back the glasses. “What do you say? Shall we go? You sure you don’t want a ride?”
Patches barked. “I know, Patches. You’d rather go with her,” I said. “But a little run will do you good, don’t you think?” I waved goodbye to Meb and started pedaling.
The Enchanted Emporium was just north of town in Reginald Bay. An unusual, arrow-shaped sign pointed toward the store, though it changed direction depending on where you were standing when you looked at it. To get to the Emporium, you had to cross the old, incinerated oak forest. Then you had to follow the white, oval stones that bordered Reginald Bay. The area had been named in honor of the Lily family’s ancestor whose red-hulled ship had gotten wrecked there. Aiby had explained to me that the Enchanted Emporium — which was sheltered by the cliff in a spot protected from the wind — had been built from the red boat’s wood.
The seagulls guarding the store twirled over the roof in ever-widening circles. Meb’s little car had already arrived. I pedaled hard and covered the last stretch at top speed, Patches barking furiously at the seagulls as he ran.
Meb and Mr. Lily were sitting in front of the shop. Meb was in a wicker rocking chair rocking slowly. Mr. Lily was perched on a cushion that floated in the air inside what looked like a big soap bubble. The bubble was suspended between the wide-open mouths of two opalescent snakes. Inside the bubble, a golden powder swirled. Locan Lily was wearing an ivory tunic. His eyes were closed and his face was lined with deep wrinkles. His pale hair, which was usually wild, fell limply to his shoulders.
I approached cautiously. Patches didn’t follow. Instead, he stretched out on the ground next to the bike and placed his nose between his paws to survey us from a safe distance.
“Tell your dog that our family won’t harm him,” Mr. Lily mumbled from inside his bubble.
I hesitated. Was he actually encouraging me to talk to my dog?
“Each family has animal guardians,” Meb said, reading the confusion on my face. “You have Patches. The Lilys have the seagulls.”
“And Askell has the ravens!” I recalled. I quickly recounted to them what had happened in my room the night before.
“He wanted to frighten you,” Mr. Lily said, his eyes still closed.
“Mission accomplished,” I admitted. “He even scared Doug a little.”
“Doug’s not a problem,” Aiby said from inside the Enchanted Emporium.
“I know,” I confirmed. “I made him swear not to talk about it with anyone.”
“Of all the magical animals,” Mr. Lily said, “ravens are to be feared the most. Though very few of them are also Borderpassers.”
“Of course, of course,” I muttered sarcastically. For just one day I wished the Lily family would stop assuming that I always knew what they were talking about. “In fact, Patches is a champion Borderpasser — especially if you throw a tennis ball into another dimension.”
Aiby laughed. “Goofball” she said, joining us outside. “A Borderpasser is someone who can pass from our world to the world of magic. It’s a very rare and important ability.” And as if to help me better understand the concept, she came over to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I certainly felt myself transport from my world to the world of magic. I stood there, looking at her. She was wearing a pair of torn jeans and a checkered shirt tied just above her belly button. She handed Meb a cup of steaming tea and brought another toward the bubble that her father was floating in.
Mr. Lily stretched out a hand, grabbed the cup, and pulled it inside the sphere. Miniscule sparkles of confetti-like light scattered across the surface.
“Dad’s getting healed by a Naga Bubble of Silence,” Aiby explained, since neither Meb nor I could stop staring at her floating father. “It is said to have been created in the Patala, the Naga’s subterranean kingdom.” I raised an eyebrow at her. “The Naga are snake-like people,” she added.
I pointed to the swirling, golden powder. “What’s that inside it?” I asked.
“It takes away pain, heals bodily wounds, and relaxes the mind,” Aiby said. “Anyway, weren’t we talking about Askell’s ravens and Borderpassers?”
I nodded.
“Want a cup of tea while we chat?” she asked.
I decided then and there that I’d never be able to keep up with the Lilys. “Why not,” I said.
“The families are very wo
rried,” Mr. Lily said while Aiby grabbed my tea. “Even we Lilys don’t feel safe. That’s why we called you both here.”
“Thanks,” I said to Aiby, taking the tea. It smelled of strange spice and burned my tongue upon sipping it. I sat down on the floor with my legs crossed and waited to hear the rest of the story.
“Aiby and I wrote to the other families to ask for a meeting with all the representatives,” Mr. Lily said. “It’s something I should have done on the day the store opened, when we first noticed that something was happening. I just didn’t think it would get to this point.”
Mr. Lily slowly sipped his tea, his eyes still closed. “In order to understand what I’m about to tell you, first you need to know a few things,” he said. “The Enchanted Emporium is over a thousand years old now. Ever since our ancestor Diamond Lily began writing the first pages of the Big Book of Magical Objects and opened the first Emporium in China, seven families have continued to take turns passing on the four keys that we now hold. This has happened without interruption, generation after generation after generation, following the code of rules that Diamond Lily decided on with the other families. Their pact has remained intact to this day for exactly one reason: it was a fair pact. Fair to us, the People of Time, who live in this part of the world, and fair to the Others, the magical creatures who live in that part of the world where time cannot reach. We shopkeepers call it the Hollow World.”
Mr. Lily opened his eyes. His pupils were the color of gold. “The Hollow World has a thousand other names. The Scottish call it sith, the Irish call it sidhe, the Welsh refer to it as cwni, and the Portuguese identify it as moura encantada. But none of them describe it well.”
I let out a sigh. Just like in class, it was noticed right away. “Is something unclear, Finley?” Mr. Lily asked.
“I get most of it,” I said. “It’s just this last part about the Hollow World that confuses me.”
“What about it?” Mr. Lily asked.
“I don’t exactly know how to say this, Mr. Lily, but it would be pretty hard to get a science teacher to believe any of this, don’t you think? I mean, what is this Hollow World? A world inside our world?”
“No one can say exactly which of the two worlds contains the other,” Mr. Lily said.
“I bet we’re on the inside track,” I said with a smirk, earning a playful kick from Aiby.
Mr. Lily closed his eyes again and continued solemnly. “What we can say with certainty is that there is a world that exists in time, which is the world of the here and now, where things are born, grow, age, and disappear. There also exists a world of magic, where none of that occurs. Or at least, where it doesn’t occur according to the same rules as in the world of time.”
“Is that why you gave me the watch with only one hand?” I asked Aiby.
“That’s a Second Chance Watch, Finley. It’s a very powerful artifact,” Mr. Lily said. “So powerful that its mechanism only works once in a lifetime.”
“In whose lifetime?” I asked.
Mr. Lily continued, ignoring my question. “It was built in the middle of the seventeenth century by a Dutch astronomer who had just lost the love of his life. From the moment it was brought to the Emporium, it’s been one of the family’s most guarded treasures. That is, until Aiby insisted we give it to you.”
I glanced at Aiby, surprised the decision had been hers. But she was watching her father.
“Always keep it wound, Finley,” Mr. Lily said. “If something irreparable should happen, you can try to move the single hand of the watch to get a second chance.”
“Do you mean I can go back in time?” I asked.
Mr. Lily nodded. “You can go back in time a little bit, with everything on your person, yes. But the Big Book of Magical Objects says you can only do that once in your lifetime. That’s how second chances work. Should there come a time when life provides you with one, do not waste the opportunity, for it will never come again.”
“Did he succeed?” I asked. “I mean, did the astronomer who built the watch get his second chance?”
“Actually, no,” Mr. Lily replied. “Christian Huygens discovered Titan, a moon of Saturn, and hypothesized that there might be life on the other planets in the solar system . . . but he never did find the woman he was hopelessly in love with ever again.”
“Then it doesn’t work so well,” I muttered, fingering the Second Chance Watch in my pocket.”
“It only works if you believe it will,” Mr. Lily said.
“I have my doubts,” I admitted.
“That’s exactly it,” Mr. Lily said. “If you have any doubts, no magic will work. That’s the Great Rule.”
“Okay, Mr. Lily,” I said. “But I still don’t understand.”
“Understanding is the first of the Great Illusions of Time,” he replied. “It’s not at all necessary to understand something in order for it to work.”
“I’m in perfect agreement with you about that,” I said. “But you’ll never convince the Widow Rozencratz.”
“And who is this Rozencratz?” Mr. Lily asked.
“She’s the superintendent at my school,” I said. “She’s making me repeat a grade because I did too many things without understanding why I did them.”
“That’s often the case with things that aren’t real,” Mr. Lily said.
“School isn’t real?” I asked.
“Exactly. Many things don’t really exist here,” Mr. Lily said. “The things that really do exist aren’t the things that are here.”
“I’d like to see you try to convince Miss Rozencratz of all this,” I said.
“You still don’t understand?” Mr. Lily asked, but it didn’t seem like a question.
I shrugged.
“I didn’t tell you the things that don’t exist do not exist at all,” Mr. Lily droned. “I only meant that they don’t exist here.”
I cradled my head between my hands. “It’s all just too complex, Mr. Lily,” I said. “Give me a sword and I’ll fight for your store without a moment’s hesitation. But please don’t expect me to understand what the heck you’re talking about.”
Mr. Lily narrowed his eyes at me. “Do you doubt whether magic exists?”
“Of course not, Mr. Lily,” I said. “I’m not that dumb. I’ve seen some of the bizarre objects inside the store. I mean, we fought with magical weapons against a giant. We climbed the mountains of Shangri-La.”
“Where do you think the giants live?” he asked.
“At the bottom of the sea, I hope,” I said.
“And the other creatures you’ve encountered?” Mr. Lily asked. “The Green Man who played you in a game of cards for ownership of your soul?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Mr. Lily. They live somewhere else, I know that much. Maybe it’s a well hidden place underground, or something. But I don’t believe they live in a Hollow World or whatever.”
“Why don’t you believe in the Hollow World?” he asked.
I was starting to get annoyed. “Because I’ve never seen it, for one thing. Like you said, it’s okay not to understand the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of a thing in order for it to work. But I do have to be able to see it to be able to believe in it.”
“So you only believe what you see?” Mr. Lily asked.
I thought for a moment. “Yes,” I said.
“Then tell me this,” Mr. Lily said, leaning forward. “Have you ever seen Greenland?”
“No.”
“How about an erupting geyser?”
“No,” I said.
“A whale?”
“No, but my brother, Doug —”
“Have you ever seen England?” Mr. Lily interrupted.
“No,” I repeated.
“France?”
“No.”
“And so you don’t believe these countries, anima
ls, or natural phenomena really exist?” Mr. Lily asked.
“Of course they exist!” I blurted out.
“Why?”
“Why? Why?” I asked angrily. “Because other people have seen them, obviously.”
“Ah!” Mr. Lily exclaimed triumphantly. “So perhaps you’d like to adjust your original statement and say that you only believe what other people have seen?”
“As long as it’s not just one person, then yes,” I said.
“Well, luckily for you, it’s not just one person who’s seen the Hollow World. Dozens, even hundreds have seen it. And they’ve described it in different ways because they’ve visited different parts of it. Just as, on the other hand, travelers from the Hollow World would have done when they found themselves in our world, the World of Time. They, too, have described it in different ways, depending on which passage they entered through.”
“Passage?” I repeated.
“Openings, portals, passages. Call them whatever you want. The passages are the connections between the two worlds that keep them joined and balance the energy between them. A little bit of magic filters into our world from the Hollow World, and a little bit of faith drifts into the Hollow World from ours.”
“Faith?” Meb repeated.
“Their magic seeps through the passages,” Mr. Lily explained. “It can accomplish small wonders and alter what normally happens to us every day. It’s the magic that the Makers put in magical objects. Faith, on the other hand, consists of the thoughts of people who believe in luck, in miracles — anything they haven’t seen with their own eyes.” Mr. Lily paused and looked me square in the eyes. “It percolates into the Hollow World and allows magical creatures to continue to exist. It’s always been like this, in perfect equilibrium, so that everything is balanced. And fair.”
“Just like how the pact between the Enchanted Emporium’s families hasn’t changed up to now,” Meb added.
“Exactly,” Mr. Lily said. “Now that the meeting has been called, we’ll know in a few days whose home it will be held at. It might be here in Applecross, the Van de Mayas’ home in the Netherlands, the Scarsellis’ in Argentina, the Legbas’ in Mali, the Tiagos’ in China, or the Moogleys’ place in New Jersey.”
Map of the Passages: 3 (Enchanted Emporium) Page 3
