“Once, Charlie, I was just like Imogen and Frank. About ten years ago, Harold had just died, and I was alone. At least I felt alone and that there was nothing keeping me tied to the earth. I didn’t want to be anywhere but with him. Then, on my first Christmas without him, I found a hole with a little door over the top of it underneath my bed.”
“The hatch!” Elliott said.
“I was curious,” Edna continued. “There was something that drew me to it. Harold always smelled like this mixture of cedar and aftershave. That’s what it smelled like.”
Charlie remembered back to the first day he had found the hatch. Mom’s flowery scent had been all around it.
“I went down into it and was sucked into this other world. Most everything was the same, but—”
Charlie finished the sentence for her. “But Harold was alive.”
Edna smiled a sad smile. Her eyes had a faraway look. “That’s what I thought at first. I loved being back with him. We’d dance together again, and his arm around my waist felt just like it used to. Until it didn’t.” Charlie knew the feeling. “And I’d bake for him. I’d make the cakes and cookies he loved so much, but he always told me he wasn’t hungry.”
“Not-Mom was like that,” Charlie said. “She’d make us dinner, but she wouldn’t eat a single bite.”
“That’s because they don’t feed on normal things like we do. They need memories to survive.” Things were finally starting to fit into place. The pain he had felt at the back of his head and the not being able to remember other spaghetti dinners and scavenger hunts. Not-Mom wasn’t only stealing memories, she was feeding on them. On his and on Imogen’s. The thought made him want to throw up.
Elliott’s face twisted up and puckered like she had taken a big bite of a sour pickle. “What are they? They sound like some kind of monster.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” Edna said. “You know when you shout out into a canyon and your voice returns to you? Maybe someone who’s not listening very carefully might think it’s your voice, but it’s not. That’s what these things are. They’re Echoes.”
Charlie thought that over slowly. “I thought it was Mom at first. But maybe because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I really wanted it to be her.”
Edna nodded. “Yes. I wasn’t listening carefully at first. I kept going again and again. I felt so good when I was there, but up here I felt—”
“Awful,” Charlie said. “Like everything hurt.”
“Exactly,” Edna said. “But by the time I realized the Harold down there wasn’t the Harold I knew, the Harold in here”—she tapped her heart—“it was almost too late. I had lost almost all my true memories of him.”
“Like Frank?” Elliott asked slowly, considering Edna’s words. “He’s lost all his true memories of his grandma?”
Charlie thought about all the bowling outings and Korean dinners and trips to the amusement park—Frank wouldn’t be able to remember any of them.
“He has. And that’s the problem. Once you lose all your memories, you don’t get to come back here, because it’s like you’ve run out of money. You spend time there, thinking you’re with the person you’re missing. You give up some memories and you get to come back. If you don’t have any left, well—” Edna’s face was grim.
The first time Charlie had traveled from one side to the other, he had tried to go right back through from the Not-World to the real one and he couldn’t—the hatch wouldn’t let him through. It must have been because he hadn’t given up a memory yet.
Something wild and desperate clawed at Charlie now. “How many more memories does Imogen have to give up?” He desperately tried to remember how long it had been since the time he first noticed a change in Frank to the day he disappeared. “Six months. Frank disappeared after six months. Does Imogen have that long, too?”
“It’s not the same for everyone,” Edna said. “Imogen’s younger. She has fewer memories to give.”
“So what are you telling me?” Charlie asked. He forced his voice to be calm and sat on his hands because he felt like tearing things down off the walls until everything was as upended as his life had become.
“If you don’t find Imogen soon,” Edna said, “she could disappear from this world forever. Just like Frank.”
FOLLOW THE LIGHT
The room seemed to be shrinking in on Charlie, putting pressure on his lungs and heart. He struggled to breathe.
“Can you help her? You’ve been there. Go down there and save her now,” Charlie said. His voice was desperate.
“If I could go down and save her, I would already be there,” Edna said. “But I can’t open up the door to that world again. It won’t let me. I tried when I suspected that’s where Frank disappeared to. I said combinations of different words and tried to wish different things, but nothing’s worked.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “Have you ever seen a lighthouse, Charlie?”
He nodded, though he wasn’t sure why she was bringing up lighthouses at a time like this.
“Lighthouses warn approaching ships of danger. Of sharp rocks and land. Maybe that’s what I’m like, Charlie. I can’t sail the ship, but I can shine the light to show you the way. I’m telling you there’s a way to save them. It’s dangerous, but it’s doable. And I think you’ll have some help.”
She gestured at Elliott and Ruby. “But Ruby’s your dog,” Charlie said.
“Ruby showed up a few months before Harold died, scratching at the door. She’s been with me ever since. And right now, Ruby needs to be with you.” Ruby hadn’t left Charlie’s side the entire time, her head resting on his leg.
Charlie looked to Elliott. “Are you in?” He couldn’t even imagine how Elliott was feeling at this point. Probably the same as he was—overwhelmed, scared, uncertain. This wasn’t like other adventures they had gone on, where the biggest consequence would be getting grounded. This was real. They could disappear along with Frank and Imogen.
Elliott reached over and squeezed Charlie’s hand once. “You’re my friend. And I want to help Frank and Imogen. Of course I’m in.”
Charlie, Elliott, and Ruby started for the door.
“Remember, Charlie,” Edna said. “Everyone has magic. Remember how navigators have been finding their way from the beginning of time.”
Charlie looked back, and he and Edna locked eyes.
“They followed the light,” she said.
“So, I guess our first step,” Elliott said, as they neared their neighborhood, “is to figure out how to get to the other world. You weren’t able to get through the hatch in your house, and neither was I. How did the hole get created in the first place?”
Their walk had now turned into a jog. Charlie’s heart pounded in time with his feet: faster, faster, faster. They hadn’t been at Edna’s for long, twenty minutes at most, but he was certain that Imogen had lost even more memories during that time.
Charlie thought back to that night when Imogen had first found the hatch. “We were making spaghetti. I got mad. I threw the ginger at the wall.”
“Ginger?” Elliott asked.
Charlie grunted and kept going. “Imogen was sad, and then she said that she wished she could go live with Mom.” He stopped so quickly that he nearly tripped over his own sneakers. “That she didn’t want to live with me and Dad anymore. And when she said that, the ground shook.”
“It shook? Like an earthquake?”
“A little one.” The pieces were clicking into place. “Her words made the hatch, didn’t they?”
“We have to do it again, then,” Elliott said. “Let’s go to my house. Mom should be busy in her office. I can try saying words, and if that’s true, a new hatch will open up under my bed. It’ll be a way in.”
“How do we know it will even work? I tried saying stuff and nothing happened.”
“Not just random words. The right words.” She paused. “And the right person. It’s part of the puzzle. Think about it. Imogen’s birthday. Edna’s fir
st Christmas without Harold. And—”
Elliott didn’t need to say it. The end of September was when Jack died.
“Maybe those days make the missing stronger.” She shrugged, her eyes focused on the sidewalk beneath her.
“But it could create a Jack. A Not-Jack.”
“I know,” Elliott said, her voice soft. “You have to remind me that he’s not real. I don’t know how I’m going to feel if I see him again. But I don’t think there’s any other way.”
When they reached her front door, Elliott pulled her key out of her pocket and quietly slipped it into the lock. She nudged open the door, and they tiptoed in. First Elliott, then Charlie, and finally Ruby. Elliott closed the door behind them with a click and motioned them toward the steps.
“Elliott, is that you?” came a muffled voice from the basement. “You’re home early from the picnic.”
Charlie held his breath. Elliott turned to him with a panicked look. “Yeah, it’s me. It started to rain—”
Charlie frantically gestured to the window. It was cloudy outside and getting dark, but there was no rain in sight. “Well, not rain,” she continued. “More like it’s just over. It didn’t last too long. I thought I’d hang out here.” Charlie nodded. That sounded more like something her mom would want to hear.
“I’m tired. I think I’m going to go up and read.” At this point, Charlie and Ruby had already started to creep up the stairs toward Elliott’s bedroom.
“All right,” her mom said. “I’m going to finish some paperwork down here.”
Elliott’s shoulders relaxed, and she smiled a little at Charlie.
When they got to her room, Elliott shoved her desk chair against the door so that the top was wedged underneath the knob. She busied herself wrapping the cords of the hood of her jacket around one finger and then the next. “So what do I do now?” She sounded uncertain. “I feel like we’re in some horror movie. Jack’s not going to look scary, right?”
“He’ll look normal. Better even than you remember. He’s not going to look undead or anything. Remember,” Charlie said, “it’s not really him.”
Elliott let out a deep breath she was holding. “Okay, not like a zombie.”
“Not like a zombie.”
Ruby nudged Elliott’s hand with her nose. Elliott knelt down next to her, holding her collar. She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to live here anymore with Mom and Dad.” Her voice shook, and it made Charlie’s insides shake. He wanted to yell for her to stop, but he couldn’t seem to force the words out. They had to save Frank and Imogen. “I only want to be with Jack.”
Elliott opened her eyes. They all looked at one another for a moment. It was silent. Nothing happened.
Then the shaking started, just like Charlie remembered. He tumbled across the room, his knees sinking into the soft carpet and his palms hitting her beanbag chair. Elliott crumpled all the way to the floor, taking Ruby with her.
“Elliott?” It was her mom, calling up from downstairs again. “What was that? Are you okay?”
Elliott ran to her door, pulled out the chair from underneath the knob, and opened it, yelling, “Nothing! I’m fine!” She waited until they could hear her mom’s retreating steps. Then to Charlie she whispered, “Do you think it worked?”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Together, they braced their shoulders against the bed. It should have been harder to move than Imogen’s because of the carpet underneath, but it was easier because they were working together.
As they moved the bed closer and closer to the wall, the same rough, worn wood was revealed, right where carpet had once been. “It worked!” Elliott said. She grasped the handle and pulled. If there had been a regular hole in her bedroom floor, she would have seen straight through to the garage. But now only a little bit of light peeked through.
“Ready?” Charlie said. “Actually, wait a second.” A thought had occurred to him. He might not know how many memories Imogen still had, but there was a way he could track it. “Do you have a photo with Imogen in it?”
“Sure.” Elliott rifled through a box of pictures on her desk. Picking one out, she gasped and held it up to the light.
Charlie sidled up next to her.
It had been Frank’s tenth birthday party at the bowling alley. Charlie remembered the photograph being taken—he had been laughing because Imogen had been stuffing her face with nachos and was still mid-bite. And Frank had been goofing around with the bowling ball, making it look like he was going to drop it on Charlie’s foot.
Well, there was regular-looking Elliott and Rohan and June and Grandma. And a faded Charlie and Imogen, but Frank wasn’t in the picture at all. All you could see was the bowling ball suspended off the ground. Frank had disappeared from the photograph entirely.
Was this what was going to happen to Imogen, too? He shook his head to try to clear the thought and tucked the picture in his pocket. He couldn’t let that happen.
He lowered himself into the hatch, and Elliott did the same. The photograph felt heavy in his pocket. He imagined that the creases and edges of the photograph were digging into his skin through the thin fabric. That was what would remind him of their mission.
Charlie grabbed Elliott’s elbow and held on tight. He wouldn’t let the hatch reject him this time. “On the count of three, we’ll let go.”
“One, two—” Elliott counted. It was now or never. “Three!”
With that, Charlie and Elliott let their arms go slack, and they dropped like they were zooming down a super-tall water slide. Ruby followed with a leap.
Then all three of them disappeared.
PILLOW SLEDS
They landed in Elliott’s room. Her other room, that is. Ruby barely clung to the left side of the hatch, her paws scrambling to find footing, so Charlie boosted her up first. Then he helped Elliott, who heaved herself over the edge.
Elliott couldn’t stop picking up things around her room, looking at them like she was seeing them for the very first time. “These are my pencils,” she said. “And my posters and my beanbag chair.” She ran to the window. “This is my street, Charlie. My street.” She lowered her voice. Her eyes went to the door. “Do you think Jack’s here?”
The way she said it worried Charlie. Instead of scared, she sounded hopeful.
Ruby busied herself sniffing every crevice: underneath Elliott’s blankets that covered her bed, the clean basket of laundry in the corner, and the narrow space between the door and the carpet.
“Maybe,” Charlie said. He was surprised that he hadn’t heard anything yet. No shouts or thundering footsteps down the stairs. Sometimes Charlie liked to imagine Jack had a windup dial on his back. He was always moving. Real Jack was loud, had a gap-toothed grin that took up his face. This version of the house, though, was quiet. Stale. “When I came down the first time, Mom was in the kitchen cooking.”
“Okay.” Elliott’s voice trailed off, and she frowned. Maybe she expected that Jack would be waiting for them and was disappointed when he wasn’t. Charlie would have to keep reminding her that if they found Jack, he wasn’t the one Elliott was hoping for.
They crept out into the hallway.
“So all of this world is the same?” Elliott asked.
“I think so,” Charlie said. “I think everything’s the same but the people in it.”
He rubbed the photograph tucked in his pocket between his thumb and forefinger. Ruby stared up at him. “We’ll find them,” he whispered.
“So what’s the plan?” Elliott said, after she had checked all the rooms on the upstairs floor.
“I think we go to my house and try to get in. I bet Imogen’s there with Mom.” He didn’t know where else they’d be. Each time he had come down, they had hung around inside, playing games and stuff.
“You know something that Jack and I used to do?” Elliott said. She looked wistfully at the staircase. It was a dangerous look. “When Mom or Dad weren’t home, we used to take pillows from our beds and slide on ou
r butts down the stairs. Let me show you!”
“Wait,” Charlie said, but Elliott hadn’t heard him as she grabbed her pillow from her room. She positioned it at the top of the steps, holding the ends of the pillowcase like a sled, and bumped down the staircase, one step at a time.
She had smiled at Charlie at the top, but by the time she got to the bottom and turned back to him, her smile had disappeared. She lifted her ponytail with one hand and grabbed the back of her neck with the other. Ruby took the steps two at a time and laid her head in Elliott’s lap.
Charlie waited at the top. That was one thing he had learned in group. Sometimes you just needed to wait, to be quiet, to listen.
Elliott scratched Ruby behind the ears. She wouldn’t look at Charlie. “That’s not the first time I did that. I know it’s not. But it feels like it is.”
“I know,” Charlie said. His stomach churned. He had gotten her into this. He had done this to her. He walked down the steps and helped Elliott up. He couldn’t help glancing at the picture on the front entry table. It was a picture of Jack and Elliott.
And the Elliott in this Not-World’s photo was a little more solid. And the one in his pocket? A little more faded. This world was now taking pieces of Elliott. She was becoming a more permanent member of the Not-World like Frank and Imogen.
Like him.
“We have to hurry,” Charlie said. And once again his heartbeat sped up. It said, Trouble, trouble, trouble.
THE LIST
Charlie went straight for the window box when they got to his house. The same two flowers stood up straight and tall. Charlie took it as a sign that Mom—Real Mom—was cheering him on.
He squatted under the window, and reaching up, he dug around till he found what he was looking for. “Bingo,” he said, holding up the house key. He rubbed the dirt off on his pants.
In other circumstances, he just would have knocked on the door, knowing that Imogen and Mom were home. But he wanted to have the element of surprise on his side.
The Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price Page 12
