Behind the Bookcase Read online

  “Please,” said Sarah. “Just one more sip.”

  In answer, the Cloud Queen closed the door. Sarah dropped her hand, disappointed but still feeling energized and hopeful.

  “Am I really cured?” she asked.

  “Essentially. It will take a bit for the sunlight to push all the moonlight out. But as long as you don’t drink any more moonlight, then you should be fine.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Believe me, I’m not drinking any more moonlight.”

  “Good,” said the Cloud Queen. “Are you ready to go back now?”

  Sarah nodded, then said quickly, “Can I ask one more favor?”

  “What is it now?”

  “Can you not put me to sleep and make me think this was all a dream? I need to remember everything you said.”

  The Cloud Queen considered her request for a long moment, then nodded once.

  “Thank you,” Sarah said.

  “Away, then,” the Cloud Queen said, lifting her arm as if in blessing. “May the water and light follow you.”

  Sarah waved as the Cloud Queen lowered her arm, turned, and strolled across the courtyard.

  Sarah waited until she was gone, then looked at Dogsbody. “Do you have to put me in the bag again?”

  “I suppose not,” he said.

  “Good,” Sarah said. Dogsbody bent over and picked her up. A moment later, they shot into the sky.

  As they flew away from the courtyard, Sarah looked over her shoulder and saw that they had been in the courtyard of a giant castle built of clouds. Towers and turrets and walls rose up as far as she could see, glittering and white. The farther away they flew, the more of the castle she could see, until she realized she could not see its top or its sides. It seemed to Sarah that the cloud castle was bigger even than all of New York City. And she had seen that from the window of an airplane the summer before.

  She felt Dogsbody diving down and she faced forward just as they landed on a cloud. He set her down and pointed at a large hole in front of them. “Right through there,” he said. “But hurry now, before it closes up.”

  Sarah could hardly believe it. “You mean you know all the places to get through?”

  “Of course,” said Dogsbody.

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “We can know because we will never go through them.”

  Sarah nodded slowly. “And Balthazat can’t because he will.”

  Dogsbody nodded.

  “Thank you, Dogsbody,” she said. “And tell the Cloud Queen the same thing.”

  He nodded and she dove into the hole.

  Sarah hadn’t realized how bright Ormaz was until she crawled into the darkness at the end of the tunnel. When she pulled herself over the ledge and into the secret room behind Billy’s bookcase, she sat still, blinking her eyes, getting used to the dark.

  After a moment, she got to her feet and went into Billy’s room. It was just as she had left it. In fact, Billy and B.B. were still there.

  “What are you guys doing?” she whispered at them. “I told you to go stand guard in my room.”

  Billy and B.B. looked at each other. “That’s where we’re going,” B.B. said. “What are you doing? I thought you were going to see if you could get help.”

  Sarah opened her mouth to say that she had already done that, when she remembered what Edgar had told her about time standing still. She smiled excitedly. “Of course!” she said. “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “Come with me,” Sarah said. “I’ll explain it to you on our way back to Scotopia.”

  Billy and B.B. nodded and followed her across the dark hallway to her room.

  She held on to the journal and the key as she told Billy and B.B. about Edgar’s time theory and how her visit to Ormaz proved it. She also told them about her meeting with the Cloud Queen and how the queen had said it was up to her to stop Balthazat.

  “All of us, you mean,” B.B. said. “It’s up to all of us.”

  Sarah nodded. “Thank you, B.B.,” she said.

  “I just wish there were something I could do,” Grandma Winnie said.

  “But you’ve already helped,” Sarah said. “The trip to Ormaz was the answer to everything. Go downstairs and tell all those poor souls outside that it won’t be much longer before they’ll be let into Penumbra.”

  Grandma Winnie’s eyes brightened. “I knew you were the one,” she said.

  “What does that mean?” Sarah asked.

  “The new record keeper,” Grandma Winnie said. “Your mother never understood what I was trying to tell her. She had other ideas.”

  “You mean she was supposed to take over?”

  Grandma Winnie nodded. “I had hoped so, anyway.”

  “But what will we do? Mom and Dad are going to sell the house and then we’re going back to California.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Sarah smiled as Grandma Winnie winked at her and then went through the door and was gone.

  Billy held out his hand, palm down, and Sarah knew at once what he wanted. She put her hand on top of his, also palm down. B.B. looked at both of them and then leaned forward so he could put the hook at the tip of his wing on top of both of their hands.

  “All in?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes,” B.B. said. “Now let’s get back to work.”

  Sarah nodded and stood. She took the journal and the key and shoved them under her mattress. Then she told Billy to stick close by her side as the three of them went behind the bookcase.

  The hole was too small for all of them to jump through together. They would have to go one at a time. Sarah told B.B. to go first so that he could park himself at the exit and stop her and Billy from falling to the ground, where Lefty and the sentinel could get them. B.B. agreed and jumped into the hole.

  “Ooof!” he said from the darkness below.

  Sarah leaned over the edge and peered down. “B.B.? Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice muffled.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “It’s blocked.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the tunnel has been stopped up with something. Rocks, I think.”

  Sarah put her hand over her mouth. The only explanation she could think of was that Balthazat had already found another way through from Penumbra. He had found another house with three doors and had used it to start transferring the sleeping souls. Knowing that Sarah might try to come through this way, he had ordered the passage blocked to stop her. Sarah called B.B. out of the tunnel and explained her suspicions.

  “Come on,” she said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We have to find another way through.”

  “What about the basement? Couldn’t we go through the door to Penumbra and find where Balthazat went through?”

  “No,” Sarah said. “Balthazat probably thinks that’s what we’ll do when we find this passage blocked. He probably has sentinels waiting for us there. We need to find a completely new way through.”

  “But how?”

  “Back to Ormaz.”

  Billy and B.B. went out ahead of her and Sarah started to follow, but then stopped short. “Oops,” she said. “I almost forgot.” She bent down to pick up the glass case with Jeb’s face in it, but she couldn’t find it.

  B.B. poked his head back through. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “In a minute,” Sarah said. “Pull the bookcase out. I need some more light.”

  B.B. did, but even with the extra light, Sarah still couldn’t find Jeb’s face.

  “What’s wrong?” B.B. asked.

  “I left something here. A glass box.”

  “Oh, that?” B.B. said. “I hope it wasn’t important.”

  Sarah felt her stomach drop. “It’s very important. Do you know what happened to it?”

  B.B. backed up slowly, now looking very worried and upset. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” he said. “But when I was cl
imbing through earlier, I knocked it down the tunnel with my wing. I was too scared about the giant hand and the guy with the head in a sling to try to get it back.”

  Sarah’s stomach dropped still further. Now that the tunnel was blocked, they couldn’t even check to see if Lefty or the sentinel had found it.

  “What was it, anyway?”

  Sarah could see how upset B.B. was. And she also knew that what had happened was an accident. “Let’s worry about it later,” she said, and went into her room.

  With B.B.’s help, she closed the bookcase back up; then all three of them returned to Billy’s room and slid through the tunnel, into Ormaz.

  Just like before, as soon as they slid through, Dogsbody was there with his feather bag. “You,” he said. “What are you doing here again? Who are they?”

  “We need your help, Dogsbody,” Sarah said. “You need to take us to another way over.”

  Dogsbody shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “But you’re not the one going through. It’ll just be us.”

  Dogsbody stared at her.

  “Please,” Sarah said. “There’s no time to explain everything that’s happened. I think Balthazat has already found another way through, and if we can’t get back to Scotopia, we’ll never be able to stop him.”

  “I need to ask the Cloud Queen,” he said.

  “There’s no time for that, either.” Dogsbody stared at her and she stared back, her eyes pleading with him. “Please,” she went on, “can’t you help us just this little bit? So B.B. can get his name back and my brother can get his mouth back?”

  At last Dogsbody nodded. “This way,” he said, and picked up Sarah and Billy. “You,” he said to B.B., “look like you don’t need me to carry you, right?”

  “Right,” B.B. said, and flapped his wings.

  Dogsbody took off into the clouds, flying over some and under others until they reached a flat field of clouds with a small cloud hill in the middle. They landed on the hill and Dogsbody put Sarah and Billy down. He pointed at a hole.

  “That’s the next closest way through.”

  Sarah thanked him and then pushed Billy and B.B. through ahead of her. She took one last look at Ormaz, then blew Dogsbody a kiss and climbed in.

  The darkness at the end of the tunnel was so complete that she didn’t know which way to go. She thrust her hands in front of her, waving them around, trying to find something solid.

  “Over here,” B.B. whispered, and Sarah followed his voice. “I think this is the way through.”

  Sarah pushed against the wall and it creaked.

  “Let me try,” B.B. said, and Sarah stepped aside. He threw his weight into it and the wall opened up. The bookcase, just like in Sarah’s and Billy’s rooms, slid forward and fell with a thunderous crash. “Oops,” B.B. said.

  The three of them froze, staring at a room that was exactly the same as Billy’s room, only it wasn’t Billy’s room. And the old man standing in front of them was nothing like Billy.

  “Oh, my,” the old man said with a foreign accent. “I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen.”

  Sarah looked at Billy and B.B., then back at the old man. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s my fault,” said B.B. “I shouldn’t have pushed so hard.”

  The old man stepped toward them. “That bookcase is the least of our problems,” he said. “I’m guessing that you are Sarah Steiner?”

  Sarah nodded. “How did you know that?”

  “A message went out yesterday,” he said. “You’re from the house in Pennsylvania, aren’t you?”

  “Isn’t that where we are?”

  The old man shook his head. “This house is in London.”

  “England?” Sarah said. For a moment, she didn’t believe him. But then she remembered what the Cloud Queen had told her. “Of course,” she said, stepping forward and going to the window. “These houses are all over the world. With record keepers like you living in them. That’s what you are, right?”

  The old man nodded. “They warned us you might come through anywhere. And they said if I see you, I’m supposed to stop you.”

  “If you stop us,” Sarah said, “Balthazat will succeed for sure.”

  “Who?”

  “Balthazat,” Sarah said. “The King of Scotopia. If you don’t let us go back there, the whole world will go dark.”

  “That’s already happening because of what you’ve done!” the old man shouted. “I can’t let you leave. I can’t let you make things worse than they already are.”

  “You’ll have to,” Sarah said. “Hold him, B.B.”

  For a moment, B.B. looked surprised. But then he realized what Sarah was telling him and he moved forward quickly. He spread his wings wide and wrapped the old man in them, clicking his hooks together for the tightest grip possible.

  “Let me go!” the old man said, struggling to get free.

  “In a minute,” Sarah said, and flung the bedroom door open.

  She saw immediately that the house was identical to the one they were living in. The other bedroom, just like hers, was across from the one they were in.

  “This way,” she said. Billy ran ahead of her. B.B. waddled after, the old man still squirming in his wings.

  Billy grabbed the edge of the bookcase and pulled it from the wall.

  Sarah smiled. “Thanks, Billy,” she said. “We better let B.B. go first, just in case.”

  “What about him?” B.B. asked.

  “Do you see you can’t stop us?” Sarah asked the old man, and he nodded. “All right, then,” Sarah said. “Let him go.”

  B.B. opened his wings and the old man gasped for breath. Quickly, the three of them hurried into the dark space together and found the ledge at the end. B.B. jumped. Then Sarah helped Billy over and jumped in after him.

  When they came out the other side, Sarah saw nothing but sand stretching for miles. She picked up a handful and let it run through her fingers. It glinted green in the dim light, and Sarah smiled. “It’s green,” she said. “This must be the Green Desert. Now all we have to do is find the blemmyes.” She pulled out the map Edgar had given her, but it was no help. It only showed how Crooked Canyon connected the Green Desert with the Moonlit Sea.

  “B.B.,” she said, “you’re going to have to take us up.”

  “Both of you?” he asked.

  “Do you think you can?”

  “I don’t know. We could try.”

  Sarah nodded and helped Billy onto his back, then climbed on the other side. B.B. flapped his wings and they took off. But as soon as they were in the air, they veered to one side and fell to the ground. Sarah helped Billy to his feet.

  “I guess you’ll have to go alone,” she said.

  “Go where?”

  “Up there. Try to find out where we are. Find the blemmyes.”

  “What’ll you two do?”

  “Wait here, I guess. What else can we do?”

  B.B. nodded. “I’ll come back as soon as I can,” he said, and took off into the dark sky.

  Sarah didn’t know why, but for some reason she expected him to fly to her right. Instead, B.B. flew to her left. She almost called out to him to change direction, but then knew that it wouldn’t make much difference. After all, they had no idea where they were. Every direction would have to be checked.

  “Come on, Billy,” she said. “We might as well sit down.”

  They had waited for quite some time when Sarah heard a noise in the distance. She stood up and looked in the direction B.B. had flown. But the noise was coming from behind her. She turned around and peered into the distance, searching the sky for any sign of B.B.

  Then a flash of light low on the horizon caught her eye and she adjusted her gaze. To see farther, she climbed onto a cluster of rocks and stood on her tiptoes. In the distance she saw what looked like headlights, but they were blue. At once she realized that they were cold-fire torches and that this was the line of cyclopes that h
ad left the Black Iron Prison in search of her. She assumed they were still on their way to the blemmyes. She couldn’t believe it had taken them so long to get this far. But as they grew nearer, she saw that the squat creatures were not alone. Between every two of them was a long pole with something tied to it. Although she couldn’t tell what was tied to the poles, she guessed it must be captive blemmyes. The one-eyed creatures had apparently already been to the blemmye camp and were now on their way back to the Black Iron Prison.

  She heard a flapping behind her and whirled around as B.B. landed. He was crying.

  “What is it, B.B.?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  “It was terrible,” he said. “I found the blemmyes, all right. What’s left of them, anyway. Those things attacked them and burned their houses down until there was nothing left. Then they took the few still alive and tied them to poles and carried them off.”

  Sarah turned around and looked again at the marching line in the distance. They were moving away from them now, back to the Black Iron Prison, where she was sure they would lock the blemmyes up with Edgar and Jeb.

  She sat down on the rocks. “There has to be something we can do,” she said. “There has to be some other way that we just haven’t thought of yet.”

  “There isn’t,” B.B. said. “It’s over. We can’t stop them.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “But it’s true. I saw what they did to those poor blemmyes. We don’t stand a chance.”

  “What are you saying?” Sarah asked. “You’re going to leave? You’re going back to your hole in Crooked Canyon to sit there by yourself, always wondering what your real name is?”

  B.B.’s shoulders slumped. “No,” he said. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “All right, then,” Sarah said, and stood up. “How far is the blemmye camp from here?”

  “Not far,” B.B. said. “There’s a ridge over there and the desert drops into a kind of crater.”

  “Lead the way,” she said.

  “But why?”

  “Because I want to see it for myself.”

  The three of them started across the desert. Within a few moments, the darkness had swallowed them up, leaving only their footprints behind.