by C. J. Farley
It was dark and they were tumbling down falls stretching from the clouds to the earth.
Suddenly they hit an invisible barrier and stopped falling. They seemed to be on the deck of a ship, but it was like nothing Dylan had ever seen. In fact, he could barely see it. Everything in the vessel was made of glass. But it was more than glass—upon close inspection, the stairs, the deck, everything was composed of some sort of hard crystalline substance that sparkled in the night sky. They were in an almost-invisible sailing ship, several hundred feet long, with a single mast in the center. The sails were made of a material that was lighter than a spider’s web and could scarcely be seen. The sharp smell of citrus fruits and sea salt blew across the deck.
The ship began to drop. Not as quickly as the falls, but fast enough.
Eli gripped the wheels of his chair. “Dude—where are we?”
“No idea—but do you see any sign of my sister on this boat?”
Eli and Ines peered around the deck and Dylan leaned over the ship’s railing. There was a name on the side of the vessel in nearly transparent letters: BLACK STARR.
“The Black Starr—I’ve heard of this ship,” Dylan said. “Mom used to sing a lullaby about it to Emma—it’s one of the few things I can remember. Something about the sea . . . it’s coming back to me now. It’s an old legend—it belongs to the pirate Ma Sinéad.”
The ship was another piece of his parental puzzle. Of all the places in the world—or out of the world—Dylan never thought he’d find clues about his family here. He could feel the puzzle rearranging itself in his brain. Why would a pirate ditty stick in his head? And why was his mom singing a video game song? “We must be dreaming.”
“Dude—dreams aren’t multiplayer,” Eli said.
The ship continued to plunge downward, keel first. They were hundreds of feet in the air and heading straight down the waterfall.
“We’d better strap ourselves in,” Ines said.
They all looked around the deck until Eli found some rope. They tied themselves together and wrapped the end around the main mast. Then Eli pointed out a glowing red dot on the horizon. It was quickly joined by another, and very soon there was a swarm. Whatever the things were, they were approaching fast.
“Could that be . . . ?” Dylan began.
“Yup, it’s the red-eyed stalker,” Ines broke in. “Looks like he has pals.”
“They’re swarming like mosquitoes,” Eli said.
“Could those be . . . Higues?” Dylan asked.
“You’re right,” Eli affirmed. “I’ve heard other players talk about them! I guess a real one was chasing the limo! They’re like mosquitoes crossed with vampires.”
“The mosquito part I can deal with,” Ines shuddered. “But that vampire part is freaking me out. Can this boat go faster?”
“Chill,” Eli said. “I thought you were used to adventures. It’s basically all you do on that reality show of yours. I once saw you ride an elephant—sidesaddle.”
“I saw you use a boa constrictor as a lasso,” Dylan added.
“Whatever. I’d feel a lot more confident if we could actually see who was piloting our ship,” Ines muttered.
“I think it’s piloting itself,” Eli said.
Ines began to run her hand along the ship’s railing.
“What are you doing?” Eli asked.
“Looking for a lifeboat,” Ines replied.
“To go where?”
They continued to sail down the waterfall into a wall of continual wet, like the air was full of firehoses. Dylan raised his arm and pointed—in a far corner of the sky, there loomed a shape the color of congealed blood. It was surrounded by swarms of Higues, but it soon outdistanced them. It was faster, stronger, bigger. And, unlike the Higues, it was catching up with the ship. In fact, it was on a collision course with the Black Starr.
“Do you think you can die in a dream?” Dylan asked.
“My grandma died in her sleep,” Eli answered. “I always wondered what she was dreaming about. Maybe this is it.”
“I’m officially freaking out,” Ines declared.
From another corner of the sky, a second shape appeared. It was smaller, darker, faster, and sped toward the first. They were about to collide in midair above the ship. Then, louder than all thunder, the atmosphere echoed with the same soul-shaking roar Dylan had first heard when he was wounded on the chest and again when Emma vanished.
Everything went white.
* * *
Dylan woke up floating down a canal.
He was soaking wet. He staggered out of the warm water, untangled himself from a length of frayed rope, and collapsed on the bank. He looked up to see the giant golden waterfall. Shards of crystal were scattered all around him. Had the Black Starr crashed?
Something had attacked them. He didn’t quite know what it was, or why. Maybe it was some sort of guardian of the threshold, the same beast that had clawed his chest when he played the game. The doctors told him he’d had an episode. He sensed there was more to it. But he didn’t know if it would strike again.
He felt a sharp sting against his cheek. He’d been cut by a piece of glass. All around him, he noticed that the shattered remains of the Black Starr were sliding along the ground, whizzing through the air, and colliding against one another, forming big pieces. It was as if the invisible ship was struggling to rebuild itself. A rough outline of the vessel was beginning to take shape. It was like watching a crystal form.
It was weird, but Dylan had other stuff to worry about. Where was his sister? Where were his friends? Where was he?
Then, at the base of a giant palm tree, he saw it: the letter D.
Just where he had carved it when he was playing the game.
This had to be Xamaica. There was no question that this was the forty-fourth level. He had always thought of it as a dream world, but now that he was here, it felt as if it was his old world that had been a dream. Everything seemed bigger, richer, deeper than anything he had encountered in his previous life before this place. He was beyond the golden mists of the mountain regions. His senses seemed to be working for the first time in his life. This was no video game. He could feel this world. He could smell it. He could taste it.
Dylan began to run for joy. All those goons on the bus who called him Loopy and pushed him around and broke his stuff—he wished they could see him now. No, he was glad they couldn’t, because he wanted this world, this feeling, this moment, all to himself. He felt like the people he had seen in books, or in movies, who had gone someplace nobody had ever been, somewhere everyone had always wanted to go, and they made it there despite all the haters saying they couldn’t, like Earhart across the Atlantic, Armstrong on the moon, or Obama in the White House.
Dylan found himself sprinting quicker than he ever had—faster than a skateboard or a bike. Soon he was leaping in the air, running, jumping, and through a break in the trees sunlight washed over him. He saw a purple river, a green lake, and a white waterfall. He noticed a school of Wata Mamas frolicking in the river below. He could glimpse, beyond the hills, a procession of mountains, their peaks tipped by a green cloud.
The sky was a stunning shade of blue so blue it blew away his blues. Arching through the sky was something else: a huge spider web that stretched across the entire expanse, from one horizon to the other. Silvery strands sparkled in the sunlight. It both blended into the sky and stood out, depending on how the light caught it. It was tied down to the earth on the edges of the sky by four huge strands that must have been the size of ten thousand tree trunks. The web hadn’t been visible when he played the game, perhaps because the mists obscured it.
This was a strange place. And his sister was lost and alone somewhere here. Dylan’s joy swirled away, like a bubble bath going down the drain.
He couldn’t just enjoy being in Xamaica. He had a mission—he had to find his sister.
A fury bubbled up in him, lava dripping over the lip of a volcano. Emma was always friggin’ messi
ng up his life. He gets invited to the Tournament of Xamaica, and she has to tag along. He goes to Ines Mee’s mansion, and she has to butt in. She goads him about being a Game Changer, and when he finally gets on the list she tries to tell him it’s too dangerous. It was bad enough having her in the same grade as him, taking the same tests. He used to be one of the best students in school, but now what was the point in trying so hard if he was just going to finish second to his freakishly tall rocket scientist sister? Now here he was, trying to get her out of a mess she should have never been in. This was so Emma it was unbelievable.
Then he felt mean for thinking these thoughts with his sister still MIA. But there was something cleansing about it, like when you pop a zit and all the pus squirts out. Yeah, sure, maybe he had a responsibility to rescue her, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Anyway, none of this was real. It wasn’t really happening. He closed his eyes. Maybe if he thought hard about his apartment, when he woke up his sister would be there.
Suddenly, two screams sounded across paradise.
He opened his eyes . . . Emma?
In a small vine-draped clearing, Dylan noticed an odd-looking black spider. The creature was unusual for several reasons. For one, the thing was the size of a dog—and not a poodle, a Great Dane. Plus, it was wearing a hat—a knit cap colored black, gold, and green, with dreadlocks tumbling out of the sides. On four of its eight legs, it wore shoes—all of them untied with laces dangling. On its back, instead of the hourglass-shaped spots some spiders have, it had two ivory markings like a woman’s long-lashed eyes. They seemed to stare back at Dylan and he half expected them to blink.
Then he saw Ines and Eli, who were caught in a large web that spanned the space between two trees and extended upward twice the length of Dylan’s body. But the web’s size was not the most unusual thing about it. What made it truly bizarre was the weird way it was all tied together. Instead of radiating out from a central point like a proper web, the strands of this ropey mess seemed to have been spun almost at random. Some were strung this way, others that way. Still others were rolled into balls, while others were twirled into curlicues. Some came down in diagonals, others hung in sad drooping arcs, while still others lay discarded on the ground like gray garden hoses.
Dylan was still considering this disaster of a web when the spider that had most likely made it looked at him, and when a creature with eight eyes looks right at you it’s an intensely ophthalmological experience.
A giant spider? Really? What did he do to deserve this? How could this be happening to him? He was just a sixth grader from New Rock! The weirdness, the unfairness of the whole situation, was making him mad. How was he going to find his sister if eight-legged, wall-crawling monsters kept getting in his way?
Dylan decided it was time to unleash the Duppy Defender.
In the Xamaica game, Dylan could take on the powers of every magical beast in the land. This time he opted to draw on the abilities of a Chupacabra, a hunched lizardlike creature with spines on its back, a mouthful of fangs, and eyes that shoot lava. He whispered the cheat code and then prepared to unleash a molten blast at the spider.
Nothing happened.
What was wrong? What did he have to do to trigger his powers? Did he need more Xamaican sunlight? A spell of some sort? He didn’t seem to have any special powers anymore, much less his enhanced abilities. He could run and jump and smell the flowers a bit better, and that was about it.
“None of our powers are working,” Eli observed.
“And did I tell you I’m an arachnophobe?” Ines complained.
“In fact you did,” Eli sighed. “Several times.”
The spider took a step toward Dylan, or rather a tentative crawl.
Dylan grabbed a stick and jabbed it at the giant creature. He felt like a crossing guard waving a stop sign at a runaway truck. The spider grabbed the stick in its mandibles and crushed it before picking up Dylan in its front two legs. Dylan was eye to eye with the beast and his human eyes were totally outnumbered. Dylan squirmed. “Let me go!”
The monster stopped. A look of surprise passed over its face, or what Dylan imagined surprise would look like if an arachnid could register such a thing. It dropped Dylan onto the ferny forest floor.
“Mon, you can talk!” exclaimed the spider, in a lilting island accent.
Dylan did a double take. “I can’t believe you can talk!”
“Course I talk, mon. Spiders the greatest storytellers in Xamaica!”
“So this is Xamaica!”
“Of course, mon! Are you from Babylon?”
“Where’s Babylon?”
“Chuh—if you have to ask, you living in Babylon and don’t even know it. Truth.”
“Why did you tie up my friends?”
“I’m not trying to do no hurty-hurt. I’m saving them!”
“For dinner?”
“No, mon, me don’t eat humans for dinner. Dem more for dessert!”
Alarm bells went off in Dylan’s head. “Did you do anything with my sister?”
“Dat was a joke, mon! You’re the first humans I’ve seen!”
Ines and Eli had escaped the web and were now by Dylan’s side.
“You’re free!” the spider exclaimed. He sounded distraught. “I and I a spider who cannot spin a web. I can’t even tie my shoes!”
The spider began to cry, huge tears flowing out of all eight eyes. If the creature hadn’t been so terrifying, it might have been pitiful.
“Who are you?” Dylan asked.
“Nestuh of Akbeth Akbar,” it sobbed. “I and I am the youngest of 1,555 children.”
“Hey, look at this!” Eli was twirling around in his wheelchair. He pulled a wheelie, rolled straight up a tree, and did a back flip.
Nestuh’s mood brightened a bit. “It is the power of a spider’s web. There is magic in it. It is a reflection of the magic of the Great Web of the World.”
“You mean the giant web across the sky?” Dylan asked. “What’s the deal with that?”
If spiders could smile, it certainly appeared that Nestuh was doing so. He sat down and crossed six of his eight legs. “When we tell a story in Xamaica, we always start and end this way. We say, Krik krak, Nanni’s back.”
“Why?” Dylan said.
“To put a hex on Nanni’s evil ears! Am I telling this story or you? See, before the beginning, there was Jah, the orishas, and music.”
“What are orishas?” Dylan asked.
“The forever spirits!” Nestuh declared. “See, Jah formed the world—he make sea into mountain, and beasts into birds. But every orisha took shape based on tings dem sing—the Rolling Calves, the Iron Lions. But two creatures, dem have no song: the spider—and Nanni.”
“Nanni?” asked Dylan.
“She the greatest of witches,” Nestuh answered. “She try to stop the music—”
“I don’t get this,” Ines cut in. “We should be running or looking for a giant can of bug spray. Why are we sitting here listening to a story?”
Out of a waist-pouch, Nestuh removed a long pipe. He put it to his lips and puffed. Bubbles floated out. He waited for Ines to stop talking.
“I thought you liked stories and adventures and all that crap,” Eli said to Ines. “I mean, that’s what your stupid TV show is about anyway.”
“You’re such a hater! You don’t know anything about me or my show!”
“Quiet!” Dylan snapped. “I’m listening to Nestuh!”
“The spider went to the forest to make a drum,” Nestuh continued, as if he had never been interrupted. “He pounded out a beat. He mixed pieces of all the shattered songs. The beasts followed his riddim and made music that was even greater than before.”
“So what happened after the spider beat the drum?” Dylan asked.
“Jah came down to check what was going on. The spider hid in his drum. But Jah smiled and tapped on the drum eight times . . .”
“And the spider grew eight legs,” Eli said
.
“Jah whispered: I name you Anancy, god of all spiders. Spin your web and unite all creatures. Liberty, Equality, Vitality, and Mystery shall hold your web at the four corners of Xamaica—until world’s end.”
“Krik krak,” Dylan finished. “Nanni’s back.”
“You pick it up quickly,” Nestuh said. “The most important thing about storytelling is knowing when it’s the end! There’s another tale about Ma Sinéad, the pirate queen who sails the skies, unshatters the shattered—”
Dylan broke in: “Enough stories. Are you sure you didn’t see a little girl come by here a few minutes before us?”
The forest all around them suddenly began to shake with the sound of an enormous voice that was louder than rock concerts, airplanes, and building demolitions combined. The ground rumbled and branches tumbled from trees. The children covered their ears with their hands and still couldn’t keep the noise out.
“Nectar is dripping, so let’s get to sipping!” the voice announced.
“What in the world was that?” Eli asked.
But Nestuh was gone. All that was left were a few bubbles.
Two hummingbirds were hovering in the air in front of the children. They were bigger than normal hummingbirds—about the size of a Thanksgiving turkey. Each one was wearing a leather vest with an emblem of a golden crown with wings on the right breast and, in the center of the uniform, a glowing gold number. The number was different for each bird, and every few seconds each figure would shift, moving up or down a few places, from, say, 190 to 210 or 1,600 to 1,578.
“Look at them!” Ines said, pointing at the birds. “I used to be something of an ornithophobe—but these birds are just the cutest!”
Eli tapped her shoulder and pointed to the sky.
Hundreds of hummingbirds fluttered overhead—they looked like an army.
“I thought they were cute,” Ines groaned. “Now, not so much.”
