Autumn's Kiss (5 page)

We get kicked out after that, but it's totally worth it. And I get a ton of pictures, the best of which I immediately Snapchat to Sean, Taylor, and Reenzie.

Jack's revenge is he won't sit on the towel J.J. gives him. He cuddles his bird-poo-stained body right into the upholstery. J.J. swears it's worth the car wash bill.

When I get home, I really need to work. We started reading
Les Misérables
in English, and so far I've succeeded in opening the front cover, then downloading and watching the Hugh Jackman musical, which we all loved (except for Russell Crowe, who sings like I read), but Reenzie tells me that doesn't count as reading the book. First, though, I have to tell Mom all about Butterfly World, because I'd texted her the picture of me with the birds on my shoulders. She's entranced and wants to have a family outing there immediately, but I'm pretty sure I've already had the peak Butterfly World experience. Plus, my friends and I are banned for life. Still, the whole thing was so fun I nearly forget about the missing
zemi,
until I see Erick and almost blurt out,
I'm sorry I accused you of stealing my journal.

That would have been seriously weird, since I only accused him in my head. Plus, it would have clued him in that I
have
a journal, at which point he totally
would
steal it.

Still, it gets me thinking about the journal and how Eddy said I should look a little harder, so I excuse myself after dessert and go up to my room. I check my phone first. Sean and Reenzie both texted about the Jack/lorikeet picture.

REENZIE:
I am totally having lorikeets at my Halloween party next week.

SEAN:
Can't talk. Stuffing lorikeets in Jack's locker.

Both funny…and both kind of similar, which gives me evil suspicious thoughts of them sitting together and gazing into one another's eyes as they composed the texts, then only reluctantly letting go of each other's hands so they could type and send them…but that's pure paranoia.

I flop onto my bed and pull the journal out of my bag. The cover is exactly the way it was this morning: blank. How am I supposed to look closer? I hold the thing right up to my face; I shine the flashlight from my phone on it…nothing. Then I Google “hidden places in books,” which takes me to a site about secret compartments you can make out of books, coins, watches, and clocks, all of which I clearly need immediately. Google is a bottomless hole of awesome distraction on this one, so I put my phone down and go back to the journal. I flip the pages next to my ear, like I'm a safecracker in a movie and it'll tell me its secrets, but I only succeed in blowing an irritating gust of wind into my eardrum.

Now I'm ready to give up. I flop onto my side and absently peel back the front cover of the book. Slowly, like I'm raising a backbone one vertebra at a time. The cover's pliable—I've rolled it back like this before; it's something I do with my hands sometimes when I have it out and I'm on the phone. Like doodling.

Only this time I notice the cover doesn't roll. It goes back in a single, unbending flap, perfectly flat.

I sit up straight and flap the cover, back and forth.

No bend.

That's weird.

I specifically try to peel it back slowly and roll it, but it doesn't happen. The front cover is stiff. When I rub the cover between my fingers, it feels like something's
inside
it—something hard and rectangular between the leather and whatever worn, pliable material it's wrapped around.

That's new.

I look closely at the cover, but there's no sign of a cut. It doesn't look like anyone sliced into it to place something inside…but something's there.

This, of course, is impossible.

Just like it's impossible for a journal to grant wishes. And impossible for an embossed
zemi
to fade off a book.

I need to get inside the cover. I run downstairs. Mom and Erick are both in their rooms, so no one but Schmidt sees me as I rummage through Mom's junk drawer and take out an X-Acto knife. As I race it back to my room, I can't help but imagine myself tripping and stabbing myself with it, but thankfully that doesn't happen. I also don't slice off my thumb as I run the blade gently around the front cover. The knife is sharp and slices through the leather so easily that I soon peel back a huge flap that hangs like dead skin.

Ugh—that's a nasty image. I must be hanging out with Jack too much.

I don't linger on it. Something else has my attention. Sticking out behind the flap—tucked between the leather and the piece of soft, worn cardboard that gives the cover its shape—is a piece of plastic, matchbook-thick. I tweeze its edge with my thumb and forefinger and pull it out. It's just a little smaller than the book cover itself—big enough that my flat hand would fit inside with a couple inches all around. It's blue, with a blob of green printed in the middle. When I turn it over I gasp.

The three-point
zemi
is printed there.

I call Jenna immediately.

“If you're calling to tell me you're running away with Kyler Leeds,” she says, “I'm registering an official complaint.”

“I found another
zemi,
” I say, “and you wouldn't complain because Kyler Leeds is my destiny.”

I tell her about the sheet of material and text a picture of it.

“It looks sort of like a map,” Jenna says. “Like Australia surrounded by the ocean.”

“My dad wants me to go to Australia? I'm totally on that! I would love to hold a koala bear!”

“Highly doubt your dad's sending you to Australia,” Jenna says. “Besides, it doesn't look quite like that.”

“Oh! Maybe it's an exotic island,” I say. “Maybe Dad wants me to go to Maui. Or Jamaica. Or Bermuda.”

“Maybe you could scan it into the computer and see what place it matches,” Jenna suggests, which sounds great in theory but is actually way too complicated for me. I can scan, but I'd have no idea how to get the computer to read the scan and tell me if it looks like anyplace specific. Luckily, I know someone who loves that kind of thing.

“Erick!” I say after I hang up with Jenna, cruise into his room, and plop down on his bed. “What's up?”

He's on his computer—handy for me—and is editing some video he shot of himself and Aaron.

“Aaron thinks you're hot,” he says without looking up from his screen.

“Ew!”

“Yeah. I told him he's an idiot.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I think.”

“He still thought you were hot, so I showed him that video of you from when Amalita and Taylor slept over and you were all playing Heads Up.”

“What? You
videotaped
us?”

“You weren't in your room. The family room's a public area. Plus, I did you a favor. After he saw it, Aaron agreed you're pretty dorky. Now he likes Amalita.”

I take a deep breath. “Okay. I'm going to kill you, but first I'm going to get your help.”

“Why would I help you if you're going to kill me afterward?”

“If you don't help me, I'll kill you.”

“No deal. Doesn't end well for me either way.”

I clench my teeth. “
If
you help me, I
won't
kill you.”

“I'm in,” he says, and spins around to face me. “What's up?”

I hand him the plastic piece as casually as possible, as if it weren't at all meaningful to me. “I found this thing that looks kind of like a map, and I want to know what it's a map of.”

“Mr. Weirdo Happy Face?” He's looking at the
zemi.

“Turn it over,” I say.

“Huh,” he says, and I can tell I've piqued his interest. He scans it into his computer, and while he taps stuff out on his keyboard, I look around the room. I really should be nicer to Erick; he'll probably be supporting me one day. He has cameras everywhere—old-school film ones as well as the regular kind—and props he's made for the mini-movies he's always shooting and editing. The posters on the walls are ones he created for his own films, tricked out to look like real posters you'd see in a theater. One wall is completely covered with dry-erase boards so he can keep track of all his projects.

Of course, since I'll be with Kyler Leeds, I don't have to worry about Erick supporting me. I can make him miserable; I bet he'll still thank me in his Oscar speech.

“I've got it,” he says. He takes the plastic off his scanner bed and holds it up. “It's nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn't match anything real. Plus, it feels like dry-erase material.” He taps it. “So I guess it's like a game or something. You write stuff on it and then erase it and write stuff on it again. Pretty lame game, though.”

He wheels his desk chair across the room and grabs one of his dry-erase pens from a board shelf.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Writing on it,” he says. “I'll call it ERICKDONIA and put it up on my door.”

I whip the pen and the plastic out of his hand. “No, you won't. It's mine!”

“It's nothing, though!” Erick says. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Something,” I say, which seems like a pretty definitive final word on the subject, so I storm back to my own room and shut and lock the door. I call Jenna back and tell her what Erick said.

“Is he right?” Jenna asks. “Is it dry-erase?”

I still have Erick's dry-erase pen, so I make a little mark on the map and then wipe it away with my finger.

“Yeah…but I still have no idea what it is. Or why my dad would want me to have it.”

Jenna can't figure it out either, and soon we're talking about other things. She's a stress case these days because she's like Reenzie and totally focused on college. Jenna wants to get a running scholarship to the University of Oregon, which apparently churns out superstar runners on a daily basis, but she's also taking three AP courses, already freaking about the three she plans to take next year, and she is dealing with Grand High Drama over a guy she just broke up with who refuses to get the hint and go away.

I still have the dry-erase pen in my hand, and doodle while she fills me in. I make little circles, then wipe them away…little smiley faces…my own version of the three-point
zemi
—which looks weirdly like Homer Simpson. Then I scrawl Jenna's name across the green fake landmass on the map…

…and scream, because I'm suddenly sprawled on Jenna's bed, watching her pace around the room talking to me.

Jenna wheels around at the sound of my voice, and she screams too. Both in front of me and in my ear—we're still holding our cell phones. I hang mine up. She drops hers on the floor.

“Jenna?” her dad's voice booms from his room down the hall. “Are you okay?”

Jenna's eyes are saucers and beneath her bedtime shorts and tank top her tan skin has gone pale as mine. She doesn't take her eyes off me, but she has the wherewithal to shout, “It's okay, Dad—I just saw a bug!”

“You need me to get it?” Jenna's mom's voice rings down. I love that in Jenna's house it's her mom who's the resident bug-killer.

“No, I'm good!” Jenna yells. “I got it!”

She races to the bed and crouches down in front of me. “How are you here?”

“I have no idea,” I say. “I wrote your name on the map….”

A chill floods over me. The map!

“Right there,” Jenna says.

The map's right in front of me on the bed. I wasn't holding it, but it came with me. I have no clue how, but that seems like the least of the moment's impossibilities. Jenna picks it up and sits next to me on the bed so we can both look at it.

“Where?” she says.

I'd written it right across the green landmass, but it's not there anymore. “It erased,” I say.

“Or soaked in,” Jenna says, “when it brought you here.”

There is no one else in the universe like Jenna. She's crazy smart and so rational it hurts, but when her best friend magically and impossibly appears on her bed, she doesn't even bother looking for a logical reason. She jumps right to the
illogical
but only reasonable solution: the map brought me.

“So that's what the map does,” I marvel. “It brings me to people.” I think about it a second, then gasp. “I could go see Kyler Leeds
right now
!”

“You
don't
want to pop into Kyler Leeds's room out of nowhere,” Jenna says, “especially when he knows who you are. He'll think you're a crazed stalker.”

I bob my head from side to side, weighing the label in my mind.

“Yes, I know you
are
his crazed stalker,” Jenna says, “but you don't want him to know that or he'll call the cops.”

“Still might be worth it,” I say.

Jenna rolls her eyes. “Then you'll never see him again and you'll lose your destiny.”

That clinches it. “Not Kyler, then. Who should I go see?”

A whole list of people runs through my head, from celebrities to my school principal, Ms. Dorio, who's the most uptight woman I've ever met. I'd love to peek in and see what she does on a Saturday night.

“Stop, stop,” Jenna says. “You need to be careful about this. This is amazing, but it's like the journal. It's powerful, and it can get you into huge trouble.”

I nod. When I first started using the journal, Jenna told me about “The Monkey's Paw,” a short story about wishes that came true but with horrible consequences. If I'd listened to her then, I probably would have saved myself a lot of agony. “Okay,” I say. “What do we do? How do I use it?”

Jenna hops back up so she can pace. Her ponytail swishes against her back with every step. Jenna always thinks better in motion.

“Well, you wrote down my name and you got to me….” She freezes and gasps. “How will you get home? You're a thousand miles away from Florida. How are you going to explain to your mom that you're here?”

“The map will get me back, right?”

“How? Write down your mom's name? What if you show up in bed with her when she's sitting up watching TV?”

I laugh out loud, picturing her face if I just appeared in bed next to her.

“I'm serious!” Jenna says. “Or what if you write down Erick's name and—”

“Stop,” I cut her off. “Erick's a twelve-year-old walking hormone. I don't want to be anywhere near what he does alone in his room at night.”

“Ew,” Jenna agrees.

“I could write down Schmidt's name.”

“He could be in the room with Erick or your mom.”

“I could write down my own name,” I suggest. “Maybe that would take me to my room?”

“Try it.”

I still have the dry-erase marker in my hand. I'm shaking a little, but I scrawl
Autumn
across the green patch. I close my eyes and wait to disappear.

“You're still here,” Jenna finally says.

“I am?” I snap my eyes open. She's right.

“I just realized something,” she says. “There's a lot of Jennas and a lot of Autumns. How did you get to
me,
and how did you not just end up next to some other girl named Autumn?”

She has a point. I chew on a strand of my hair and think it over.

“Well…if the
zemi
holds some part of my dad's spirit,” I say, “it's not dumb. It probably knows which person I mean, even if I don't spell it out.”

“That makes sense.”

She says it so seriously that I snort laughing, because sense is the last thing any of this makes. She laughs too, but still picks up one of her pillows and hurls it at me. “Shut up! You know what I mean. Okay, so if the map has an idea of what's on your mind, how do you think it would get you home?”

Her eyes meet mine, and I know what she's saying. I nod to her cell phone, which is still on the floor where she dropped it. “Grab your phone,” I say as I tuck my own in my pocket. “I'll call you.”

I uncap the pen and write
Home
on the map…

…and suddenly I'm coughing because I'm under my bed and I haven't dusted in, oh, ever.

I roll out and dial Jenna's number, but I'm still coughing.

“Are you okay?” she screeches when she hears me. “Is there a fire?”

“Is there a
fire
? Wouldn't I be screaming if there was a fire?”

“I thought the coughing…Forget it. Where are you?”

“My room. Coughing from the dust bunnies under the bed. Dust bunnies, by the way, nowhere near as cute as actual bunnies.”

“This is amazing,” Jenna says, and I can tell from her voice she's smiling super-wide.

Then I remember I don't have to tell from her voice.

“Can I come back over?” I ask.

“YES!” she whisper-shouts. “Oh my gosh, you can come over all the time! It'll be like you never moved! Yes!”

I write her name on the map and pop right back to her room. We spend the rest of the night testing out exactly how the map works. It seems pretty clear that if I write down someone's name, I show up right around wherever that person is.
Home
gets me back to my room. For other places, I just name them, like
Jenna's kitchen pantry
or
Jenna's basement
or
Jenna's tire swing
.

I do run into a couple of problems. At one point I start writing before I really know what I want to say. I know I want to try somewhere that
isn't
on Jenna's property, but close by. Somewhere else in the development. I start by writing the word “
Outside
,” but I'm still thinking about the next word and I guess I take too long because I end up
I have no idea where,
up to my knees in snow, in the middle of a blizzard. I quickly write myself back to Jenna's room and promise myself to be extra careful…although I don't account for my dyslexia. Close to dawn I try writing
Dog park
and only figure out I wrote
God park
when I end up on a path with nothing around me except this big rock. When I shine my phone flashlight on it, I see the words “Garden of the Gods.” When I write my way back to Jenna, she looks it up on Google. It's a state park in Colorado.

Yikes.

The map's dangers are pretty clear.

What's not clear is why Dad gave it to me.

“Maybe he knew you needed more time back in Maryland?” Jenna suggests.

Maybe…but if that was the case, I'd have gotten the map
before
the diary. Back then was when I really needed Stillwater time. Now, even though I miss Jenna, Aventura's home.

We don't figure it out before dawn, and by that time we're both zombies. I give Jenna a huge hug before I write myself home, and fall asleep immediately. I dream I'm a superhero, flying around the world and soaring into a situation just in time to save the day. I break into locked cars and pull out babies and dogs before they boil to death; I show up at the scene of tiny brushfires and put them out before they burn acres of land and houses; I appear at the top of Cinderella's Castle and watch the Disney World fireworks from the number one ultimate location. The last one isn't so much a superhero moment as it is really, really cool, but I wake up totally inspired. I text Jenna:

I have it! I am a superhero!

?????
she texts back.

The map! I can go places and stop people from getting into trouble!

Jenna sends back a frowny-face emoji with the text
Be careful…

I roll my eyes and tuck my phone away. I get that she's worried about me, but I know I'm right. It makes sense. Dad believed my mission is to bring peace and harmony to the world. What better way to bring peace and harmony to the world than by saving people's lives! I can be like a guardian angel! If Dad had someone like me show up the night of his crash and tell him not to drive, he'd still be alive today.

I want to get started right away, but then I realize it's already four in the afternoon. I slept all day. Mom's probably worried. I go downstairs and see that the house is empty, but there's a note on the kitchen table from Mom saying she hopes I feel okay, there's chicken soup in the fridge if I'm sick, and she and Erick will be home when they get out of the movies.

Perfect. I have time.

But how do I get to someone who needs me? The map doesn't tell the future—it's not like I can write on it, “Take me to someone who's about to get hurt so I can stop it from happening.”

Can I?

I run back to my room and grab the map. I'm about to try it when I imagine myself appearing in a war zone, dodging bullets as I try to drag an injured soldier to safety.

Noble? Yes.

Terrifying and life-threatening? Also yes.

I remember the dog thing from my dream. That's simpler and clearer. I write on the map,
Inside a car with a dog locked in on a hot day
.

I show up in a sauna.

It's not a sauna, but it's a sweltering car. It's so hot I can barely breathe. I'm in the backseat, and next to me is a tiny Pomeranian, a fuzzball of a dog. He's on his hind legs, his paws on the window, and there's condensation on the glass from all his panting.

My heart breaks and I immediately know I did the right thing.

“You poor little guy,” I coo. “Let me help you.”

I press the button to roll down the window a crack, but nothing happens.

Of course not. The car's off.

So I click the door handle, but it doesn't work either. Child lock?

I'm getting dizzy from the heat. I should have brought water with me.

“It's okay, puppy,” I say soothingly. “I'll climb up front and open—”

That's when I hear the growls. By the time I turn around, the fuzzball has bared its fangs and it's an inch away from my face.

“Easy, puppy,” I say with a smile. “I'm just trying to help. I'm like a superhero, get it?”

The dog doesn't get it. It lunges, and I only just manage to throw my arms over my face before the attack. The Pom might be tiny, but it's strong. I can feel its little teeth and claws gnawing through my clothes and scraping my arms, but I don't want to bat it away and hurt it, so I'm basically wrestling with a teeny tornado of fur and blades. Then I hear a deep male voice shouting outside the car.

“HEY!” it yells. “Who's in there? What's going on?”