“That’s it?” I said. “You just wade through, drop the memory, and you’re free?”
“Not free,” Skilaki said. “All good things require a sacrifice.”
Cass paled. “Sacrifice? Are we talking body parts?”
Skilaki gave a wet, rattling chuckle and drew forth a yellowing scroll from her pocket. “If we should become separated,” she said, “this will help you reach Artemisia’s palace.”
Cass stared at it with intensity. I could tell he was memorizing it. I pointed to the river marked Photia, close to the center of the map. “Is this one a memory sucker, too?”
“The River Photia protects the palace,” Skilaki said. “For those who have passed through Nostalgikos, who come to Artemisia with a true heart, it will allow safe passage. But if it senses intruders, it will destroy them. And you have no idea how difficult it will be for me to explain that to my queen.”
“Wait, that’s the sacrifice?” Aly said. “We have to approach with a true heart? Are we going to Artemisia or the Brothers Grimm? I mean, how can we be sure our hearts are true?”
“You cannot,” Skilaki replied. “Photia will determine that.”
“And if it makes a mistake, we’re drowned in a flood?” Cass said.
“Photia is not a river of water,” Skilaki said, turning to leave. “And neither is Nostalgikos. Remember, all of you must give in to Nostalgikos. Or the process shall not be complete. I shall meet you at the other side. I have a long path to the bridge. If, by some ludicrously unlikely chance, you should arrive first, wait for me.”
“Why can’t we take the bridge, too?” Cass pleaded.
Skilaki spun so fast a clump of her hair flew off. “If you do not follow the rules, then you will not see Artemisia. You forfeit your promise. And there are consequences to that.”
“Like what?” Aly said.
Skilaki turned away. “You will all share the fate of Radamanthus.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
COLD FEET
CASS STOOD FROZEN at the side of the river, staring downward. “I can’t.”
“You were the one who wanted to do this,” Aly reminded him. “Why the cold feet now?”
The face of a howling wolf rushed up from the sludgy bottom. Its teeth were sharp and bloody. “That’s why!” Cass said.
“Those are just images, Cass,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder as if I weren’t scared to my bones. Which I was.
“Hey,” Aly said. “What would Marco do?”
Cass spun around. “He’d get us to the other side. He’d face down whatever is in there. And he’d do it with a smile.”
“So let him be your inspiration,” Aly said.
“I don’t see either of you jumping in!” Cass shot back. “We can’t do this without Marco. We fail without him. He’s brave. Competitive. Fearless. All the things we’re not.”
Marco.
I’d been doing my best to forget about him. But Cass was right. It didn’t feel the same. It hadn’t, ever since he’d gone over to the Dark Side.
We needed him. Badly.
And for the first time, I was beginning to feel like we had a chance of getting him back.
“He is competitive,” I said. “And right now, our side is winning. We have the Loculi. If there’s any chance to get Marco to come back, this is it, guys. Make the Massa fail. Gain power. Continue with the mission of the KI. Marco wants to be with a winner.”
Professor Bhegad nodded. “Wisely said.”
“Okay, so who’s going to lead us?” Cass said, looking at me. “You, Jack?”
“You must all lead,” Professor Bhegad said. “Marco will follo-o-o-o-ow!”
His voice became a weak shout as he allowed himself to fall into the river. His body jittered like a scarecrow’s, his hair waving like cobwebs in a wind and his glasses flying into the river.
I looked at Aly and Cass. There was no going back now.
I slid off the bank next. My legs made contact with the surface. Like water, it slowed my descent. Like water, it gave me a feeling of buoyancy.
But unlike water, the Nostalgikos felt tickly, like feathers. It flowed in bands of liquid silver, churning hundreds of moving images that boiled upward and sank. Some were minuscule and vague, others enormous and lifelike. I screamed and jumped away as a head the size of a medicine ball emerged directly below me. It rolled back, revealing thick eyebrows raised high into a sharply wrinkled forehead. A face emerged, oozing blood from one eye. Its nose was strangely twisted and its mouth wide open in a silent scream, framed by a matted silver-black beard.
I felt Professor Bhegad’s hand on my shoulder. Cass and Aly were in the river now, too. Even though we were different heights, we were all chest deep in the not-water. I had no sensation of sinking, but I couldn’t feel the bottom under my feet, either.
“I s-s-saw that face,” Cass said. “I want to look for the bridge.”
I took a deep breath. “These are images, that’s all. Memories that belong to other people.”
A severe-looking woman rose up from below, her hair tied back into a bun, a hairy mole on her left cheek. She wore a tight-necked tweed jacket and long skirt, and she tapped a yardstick in her hand.
You will not let this frighten you.
I reached out for the yardstick and felt nothing. My hand passed through the image, and the old woman plunged back downward and out of sight. “Harmless,” I said. “Now, come on. Let’s get to the other side. Swim. Wade. Whatever.”
“Okay,” Aly said, stepping toward the other side. “Okay . . .”
As I moved with her, I heard a phone ring. The river seemed to dissolve into whiteness before my eyes. Another image rose up, this one so big and encompassing that it blotted out everything else.
Our old cordless phone. Just the way it was, sitting by the desk in the kitchen. The ring jangles my whole body head to toe.
I’m eating mac and cheese and I nearly jump out of my chair. I hope it’s Mom.
But Dad gets there first. He’s excited, too. At first I’m mad, mad, mad. I wanted to talk. Then I step back and listen. When he says “Hello?” I get all excited again. My legs can’t stay still. I’m dancing like a scratchy monkey. Like I have to pee.
And that’s what I remember most. The dancing. The way Dad’s face changes. The darkness. The words.
The news that tells me what has just happened in a place at the bottom of the world.
What does “crevasse” mean? I am shouting now. Screaming.
WHAT DOES “CREVASSE” MEAN?
I wanted it to go away.
Every part of me, every nerve in my brain, was trying to dull the image, to shove it away, make it disappear.
“Stay with it . . .” Professor Bhegad was holding on to me.
Remember, all of you must give in to Nostalgikos. Or the process shall not be complete.
I had to do it. But the memory was killing me.
NO!
I had to take a break. Just a moment.
I would do it. I would try again and succeed. Just not now. I needed to gather strength.
Somehow I managed to turn my head, somehow I made myself stop seeing the phone, the kitchen, Dad’s eyes.
Amazingly, the professor had found his glasses, but they were slipping down his nose. His face was twisted into a pained grimace. Next to him, Aly breathed hard, talking to herself, her eyes buggy and white. Cass was far ahead. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing. But I could only pay attention briefly. My own pain tore at my insides like wild horses.
Ahead of us, Cass let out a shriek that shocked me out of my own nightmare.
“Cass . . . Cass, my son, let it go!” Bhegad was releasing me, trying to wade toward Cass.
He was twisting side to side, chest high in the tinselly stream, his arms raised above the surface. “Let go, let go, let go, go, go!”
“It’s an image!” Aly cried out. “Release it! Do not fight it, Cass!”
“I can’t!” he said. ?
??Get it away! Get it away!”
His teeth were bared now, his eyes enormous. Below him, a blotch of red slithered slowly toward him, taking shape along the river bottom.
I grabbed Cass by one arm and Aly took the other, but his eyes were fixed on the river’s surface. “No . . .” he said. “Not you . . .”
“Jack, look!” Aly cried out.
A pair of yellow eyes burst through the surface, followed by a snout filled with knifelike teeth, and a pair of leathery wings that seemed to suck the stagnant air from around us.
A blast of putrid breath nearly knocked me off my feet.
The griffin was back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LOST
MY EARPLUGS COULDN’T dim one decibel of Cass’s scream. I could smell the griffin, hear its ugly cry, feel its heat. It sprang upward, lifting its talons like just-sharpened daggers above our heads. A spray of toxic spittle flew off to both sides as it opened its jaws.
Aly was yelling something. Cass’s arms windmilled as he tried to backstroke away. I knew in that moment we were toast.
Fight it, and the bad memories will consume you, like all diseases. I have seen it happen . . .
Skilaki’s words echoed in my head. This river was going to kill us if we let it. I took a deep breath, gulping down a blast of hot, rotten-meat air. I stared the griffin in the eye despite the fact that every twitching muscle in my body was telling me to jump away.
Instead, I opened my mouth and shouted the first thing that came to mind:
“I AM NOT AFRAID TO THINK ABOUT YOU!”
The second thing that came to mind was that I was an idiot. The talons were inches from my eyes.
I ducked. I felt the talons dig into my shoulder. Pain shot through me to my toes. I was rising upward, out of the river.
“It . . . didn’t . . . work,” I said through clenched teeth.
Cass grabbed my arm. “Let go of him, griffin!”
“The bird is your memory, Cass!” Aly shouted. “Not Jack’s. Face it. Say something!”
Cass was shaking. “Uh. Uh. I will not forget and—”
“Mean it, boy!” Professor Bhegad croaked.
“I am not afraid to think about you!” Cass shouted.
The griffin faltered. Its talons loosened and I felt myself plunging downward. Cass was still shaking. Overhead the griffin seemed to bounce away as if it had hit a Plexiglas wall. It glared at Cass, growling and spitting, but it was fading from sight, losing color.
Professor Bhegad was shaking, staring at the bird creature. “Please no, please no, please no . . .” he murmured.
The griffin seemed to take strength from this. It did a roll in midair and came down on Professor Bhegad. The old man let out a scream as the beast dug its talons into his tweed jacket, lifting him clear out of the water. His lips were shaking, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
“It’s his worst fear, too!” Aly said. “He was the first person the griffin attacked. It nearly killed him. He’s not strong enough to do what Cass did.”
“Tell it, Professor!” I said. “Find it in yourself!”
The old man was flailing miserably. The beast shrieked in triumph, carrying Bhegad toward the other shore like a hawk carrying a rat.
Aly and I began to run as fast as we could, our legs churning through the dense but transparent river. Cass was right behind us. In a moment the beast was nearly to the land. But its wings were faltering, its body losing altitude. Professor Bhegad’s body lurched downward, and then fell back into the river.
We could see him struggling to stand, throwing his shoulders back, looking straight at the beast. From this distance we couldn’t hear him, but the griffin was reacting, lurching backward.
It came across toward us again, barely keeping itself above the surface of the river. Its talons, legs, and body faded to black-and-white, a pencil cartoon of a beast. I held my arms wide and our bodies merged, the griffin and me. I could feel the beast passing through me like a wave of summer heat. It shimmered down my body, through the molecules of my legs, and into the sand below.
The obnoxious scraping of the river’s static was delightful in comparison to the griffin’s noise.
“I’ve got you, Professor . . .” Aly said as she lifted Bhegad off a boulder just below the river’s surface.
We were just a few yards from the opposite bank now. Cass was just to our right, staggering along. “His glasses,” he said. “They’re missing . . .”
“Never mind that,” Professor Bhegad replied. “They won’t be much use to me where I’m going.”
I helped Aly lift the professor out of the river and onto the land. The effort exhausted me, yet the minute I waded out onto the bank, it was as if nothing had happened. My body felt fine, even where the griffin had grabbed me. And my clothes were totally dry.
Professor Bhegad looked dazed. “Wh-what just happened?”
“Last I remember,” Cass said, “Jack was shouting something about a crevasse.”
I laughed. “A necktie?”
“It’s a big crack in the earth,” Aly said. “Wait. You don’t remember that?”
“You know . . . your mom?” Cass said.
Mom . . .
Yes, it was all coming back. The ringing phone. The awful news. Dad’s eyes . . .
Aly squinted at me, then turned toward Cass and Professor Bhegad. “Do you two guys have any recollection of . . . a griffin?”
“Like the mythological beast?” Cass said.
“At the Karai Institute, we believe it may not have been so mythological,” Professor Bhegad said.
Aly stared at them in disbelief. “You called it up, Cass,” she said, “out of the river. And both of you defeated it.”
Cass’s eyes widened. “Do I get a medal?”
“Okay, okay,” Aly said, looking back over the river. “Let’s figure this out. We know this river makes you forget bad memories, but you have to stand up to them first. For you, Cass, it was a griffin. It came. We saw it. We had an adventure with it in Greece. But that’s been totally wiped out from your memory. And you, Jack . . . you don’t remember the image of the phone call. You don’t know that your mom . . .”
She looked at me and clammed up.
I knew in that moment she didn’t want to tell me news I had forgotten. She didn’t want me to know that my mom had died.
But I knew. I remembered.
I had not “lost” the bad memory at all.
“What about Aly?” Cass asked.
“I don’t know. I remember everything, still.” She grinned. “Guess it’s because I’m not afraid of anything. Now where’s Skilaki? She was going to meet us here.”
I looked up to the shore and called the old woman’s name. “Guess we’ll have to climb up there,” I said.
But Aly was leaning over the bank, gazing into the river. A pair of glasses bobbed on the glittery surface. “Hey, Professor, you’ll be able to see again!” she said. “One second . . .”
She lowered herself back into the river and grabbed the glasses. As she tossed them up, Cass and I both reached out, but they plopped down onto the soil.
“Be glad Marco wasn’t here to see that,” Cass murmured. “Be very glad.”
“Thank you, my dear . . .” As Bhegad scooped his glasses off the ground, his voice trailed off. He was staring at Aly, who remained in the river, standing motionless. Her mouth dropped open in an expression of unspeakable fear. “Jack . . . ?” she said.
I moved toward her, but a churning blur of red and white surged up from the river, inches from her.
Spinning like a basketball, a hideous clown face thrust through the surface.
I jumped back in shock. A clown?
As it bounced toward her, laughing, she let out a scream that made my hair stand on end.
“The figure of the clown has long been used to represent both horror and childlike joy,” Professor Bhegad said as we walked along a wooded path, looking for Skilaki.
“Clowns scare me,
too,” Cass said. “Those painted smiles. Creepy. I don’t blame you, Aly. I hated the circus.”
Aly looked at him as if he had just spoken Mongolian. “What are you talking about?”
“Never mind,” Cass said.
We had been walking at least fifteen minutes. Or what would have been fifteen minutes if time still worked. Aly had faced down the memory of the clown and promptly forgotten it. Cass had confronted the griffin. And so had Professor Bhegad.
But I could not shake the memory of that phone call. And the realization that I hadn’t forgotten it.
What had I done? Did I totally screw up? Did I need to go back into the river?
It was the last thing I wanted to do. I was hardly consumed by the bad memory, which Skilaki had predicted. Maybe three out of four memory confronters were enough. We were here, after all. Alive and in one piece.
I looked around for the ex-sibyl. She had asked us to wait, but I couldn’t bear the idea of staying near that horrible river. There was only one path away from it anyway. We couldn’t help but meet Skilaki if we stuck to it.
Cass was leading us, but his pace had slowed. The trees had grown thicker, and the path was narrowing and overgrown. “Is it possible . . .” Professor Bhegad said, leaning against a tree, “that this is the wrong way?”
We stopped. Aly looked back the way we’d come. “Cass? Where are we headed?”
Cass glanced around. “Actually . . . I’m not sure. I lost the map in the river.”
“Don’t play games,” Aly snapped. “You don’t need it. You know the route.”
“I did,” Cass said. “But . . . it’s not there, Aly. In my brain. I can’t call it up.”
“What do you mean, not there?” Aly said. “If you’re being insecure again, like you were in Babylon, now’s the time to stop.”
Cass’s eyes were hollow and scared. “I don’t feel insecure. This is so strange . . .”
I looked at him closely. “Cass, can you say ‘River Nostalgikos’ backward?”
“Nostalgikos . . . River?” Cass said.
“Oh, dear,” Professor Bhegad muttered.