The Journal of Curious Letters (The 13th Reality #1) (34 page)

Master George ran his hand down the length of the device. “
This
is how we control travel between the barriers of the Realities—what we call winking, because it literally happens in the blink of an eye. Without this Barrier Wand, and the few others like it, there would be no study of the Realities, no travel between them, no . . . Mistress Jane problem, actually. If we can remove her Barrier Wand from the Thirteenth Reality, she and her twisted powers will be trapped there for a very long time. Enough time for us to devise a more permanent solution to the problem.”

“How does the Barrier Wand work?” Paul asked.

“Oh, yes, thank you for asking.” Master George held the golden rod up so everyone could clearly see as he pointed out the controls running down the near side. “You simply adjust the doohickey here, then the thingamajig here, then the whatchamacallit here, and so forth and so on. It’s simple really. Trust me—it
does
work. With this Wand, you can control the Chi’karda to such a degree that it will transport you between Realities.”

“Ooh, can I see it?” Sofia asked, her hands twitching with curiosity to hold the Wand.

“Of course. Come on up, all of you. Have a look!”

Tick shot out of his chair, grimacing at the coldness of his still-damp pants, and got to Master George first. He laughed out loud when he was close enough to read the labels on the instrument. “I thought you were joking.”

“Joking about what?” Master George asked.

“The most important scientific discovery of all time, and the first dial is called the Doohickey?” Tick pointed to a neatly printed label on the Wand.

Sofia chuckled as she pointed at a small switch. “And there’s the Thingamajig.”

“That’s for a very important reason, thank you very much,” Master George said, momentarily pulling the Barrier Wand away from the kids. “It’s so spying eyes can’t figure out how it works. We’ve labeled them that way on purpose.”

“Ingenious,” Paul snickered.

Tick looked over at Sato, still sitting on the couch, arms folded in defiance. “Don’t you want to see it?”

Sato stared at the floor. “Leave me alone.”

Tick shrugged, then surprised himself when he let out a huge yawn. He glanced at his watch, surprised to see it was almost three o’clock in the morning.

Master George seemed to sense Tick’s thoughts. “It’s grown very late indeed, my good associates. It’s almost morning here. I think we should all be off to bed. We can finish our discussion tomorrow. There is still much to learn—and much to prepare for.”

“Wait a minute—” Paul began.

“No, no, no,” Master George said, waving his Wand like a great magician. “We must have fresh minds to continue. To bed it is—no arguments. No need to worry about the dirty plates; I’ll be happy to clean up.”

A hand grabbed Tick’s shoulder and he turned to see Mothball.

“Come on,” she said. “Off we go. I’ll be showin’ ya to yer sleepin’ quarters. Methinks we could all use a good night’s rest, I do. Come on.”

She moved toward the side door. Tick, Sofia, and Paul fell in line behind her, grumbling like two year olds who didn’t want to go to bed.

Sato didn’t move a muscle.

“Looks like Mr. Happy will be sleeping on the couch,” Paul whispered to Tick as they stepped through the door.

~

Sato fumed on the inside as he sat alone in the big room, the fire spitting, slowly fading to ashes. Master George hadn’t so much as given him a glance, completely ignoring Sato’s obvious distrust and unhappiness. They
all
ignored him for the most part, thinking they were so smart and so funny.
Better
than Sato.

Little did they know he’d listened intently to every single word that came out of the old man’s mouth, storing them away inside his computer of a mind, learning every morsel. He had to know every piece of the puzzle if he hoped to accomplish what he’d planned to do from the very first day he’d received the letter from M.G.

He had to make things right. To quench the thirst for revenge that consumed him. To avenge the death of his family.

I need to stay sharp,
he thought.
Befriend no one.
He couldn’t trust anyone, precisely for the very reason his family died.

No, Sato would never make the same fatal mistake his parents had. And he’d never trust another person ever again.

Especially
Master George.

~

These
are our digs?” Paul asked.

“I miss my mansion,” Sofia moaned.

Tick agreed. Their “sleeping quarters” didn’t look very inviting. They stood in a small rectangular room in which six cots had been set up, three along each of the longer walls. Folded gray and black blankets and pillows lay stacked on top of each cot. The only other furniture in the room was a desk and a three-drawer wooden dresser. The floor of the room was a flat metallic gray.

“Would you rather sleep out in the raft?” Rutger asked. “We can arrange it.”

“Mister Tick,” Mothball said, nudging him. “There’s some dry clothes in the chest of drawers there. Better be changin’ out of yer soppies, ya should.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Tick walked over to the dresser as everyone else chose a cot and started spreading out their blankets. After a full minute of rummaging through the drawers, the only thing Tick found that was close to wearable was an enormous one-piece nightshirt. “This thing looks like a dress,” he said to Mothball.

“If ya’d rather soak in yer wet undies all night, fine by me,” she replied.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

She nodded toward a short metal door. Sighing, Tick went and changed into his ridiculous pajamas.

~

Frazier Gunn had listened to the muffled murmurs of people talking all night. His captor had
guests,
apparently. Almost insane from the months of isolation, Frazier felt like chewing through the metal and killing every last one of them.

I’d need stronger teeth,
he thought.

He knew he was going crazy, and he didn’t care. He curled up on the floor like a dog and tried to go back to sleep.

Frazier longed to hear more clearly through the cold metal walls of his terrible prison. The only word he felt confident he’d understood in all these months was
Annika.
George had mentioned the name several times, and for some reason it resonated through the metal without being distorted beyond recognition.

Annika. An unusual name for sure. Frazier had only known one person in his life named Annika. She was one of Mistress Jane’s closest servants and one of several people, including Frazier, who intensely competed for Jane’s favor.

Was it a coincidence? Did George somehow know Annika? There’d always been rumors of spies in Jane’s camp. Had Frazier discovered a gold nugget of information?

If only he could escape. If only he could warn Mistress Jane . . .

~

“Hey, looky!” Paul laughed when Tick walked out in his long nightshirt, which hung all the way to the floor. “If it’s not Ebenezer Scrooge himself! Where’s your stocking cap, Grandpa?”

“Very funny,” Tick said as he walked to an empty cot and started setting up his bed.

“I think you look right handsome, I do,” Mothball said.

“Uh-oh, looks like someone’s got a crush,” Paul said.

Sofia huffed as she settled under her blanket. “Paul, you’re almost as annoying in person as you were on the e-mail. Keep smarting off and you’ll get a Pacini fist in the nose.”

“Oh, come on, you know you love me.” He leaned back against the wall with his hands clasped behind his head. “Man, this is the life—no chores, no one yelling at me to brush my teeth. I love living in the middle of the ocean.”

“Ha!” Rutger barked from the doorway. “You’ll be wishing for chores once we send you on your initiation mission.”

Tick froze, his pillow still in his hands. “Initiation mission?”

Rutger nodded with a wicked smile. “You didn’t think Master George was kidding about retrieving Mistress Jane’s Barrier Wand, did you?”

“You can’t possibly mean
we
have to do it,” Sofia said.

“You’ll find out tomorrow. Get some sleep.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice and easy after telling us something like that,” Tick said, straightening his blankets and getting into bed.

“Dude,” Paul yawned, “where in the world
are
we anyway?”

“That’s an easy one,” Mothball said. “Middle of the ocean, we are.”

“But
where?
Which ocean?”

Mothball and Rutger exchanged a wary look. “Go on, you tell ’em,” Mothball finally said.

“This is the headquarters of the Realitants, you see,” Rutger began, “and there’s a reason we’re here. Master George has to do a lot of
winking,
a lot of working with the Chi’karda. And this is the one place in the world where it’s the most concentrated, the easiest to penetrate and control. It’s by far the strongest link between all of the Realities.”

“But where
are
we?” Sofia insisted.

Rutger rocked back and forth on his feet. “You’re going to laugh when I tell you.”

“Blimey, just tell ’em, fat man,” Mothball said, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, tell us,” Paul added.

Rutger folded his hands and rested them on his belly. “We’re smack dab in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.”

~

Master George let out a long, blissful sigh as he stuck his sore feet into a tub full of salt and warm water. Muffintops jumped onto his lap, purring as she licked his hands.

“Hello there, little friend,” he said, petting her soft fur. “Quite the day, we’ve had—busy, busy, busy. Never knew it would be so difficult explaining all the many things we know. Those poor little chaps. They’ve no idea what lies ahead of them. None at all.”

Master George leaned back and closed his eyes, wiggling his toes in the hot water. “Dear Muffintops, can we really do it? Can we really send them to that dreadful place? There’s a mighty good chance everything will fall to pieces, you know. They could be attacked or captured. I don’t know if the Sound Slicers will be enough . . .”

The cat looked up at Master George, as if it wanted to answer but couldn’t.

“Ah, yes, I know, I know. We’ve no choice really. Must let them
prove
themselves, mustn’t we?” He paused, thinking about the three eager children and how different they were from the boy Sato. Of course, Master George had expected nothing different from the troubled son of his former friend.

Master George smiled. When he really thought about the potential of the four kids he had gathered together, he didn’t know who he felt sorrier for in the coming days, weeks, and years.

His new batch of Realitants or Mistress Jane.

~

“The Bermuda Triangle?” Paul asked, sounding like he’d just been told they were living inside an alien’s big toe on Mars. “I feel like I’m in a bad made-for-TV movie.”

Rutger answered. “For some reason this area by far has the biggest concentration of Chi’karda in the world. Something tremendous must’ve happened here a long, long time ago, but we haven’t been able to figure it out. There’s certainly nothing recorded in the history books.”

“Why’s it such a big deal that there’s more Chi’karda here than anywhere else?” Tick asked, stumbling only a little over the unfamiliar word.

“Why’s it a big deal?” Rutger repeated, throwing up his arms like Tick had just asked him why he needed oxygen to breathe. “Do you have an unreasonable level of earwax, boy? Didn’t you listen to a word Master George said tonight?”

“Hey, be nice,” Sofia warned. “Unless you want a punch in the nose, too.”

Rutger ignored her. “Everything having to do with the Realities revolves around the Chi’karda. Because it’s so powerful here, it’s the easiest place to
wink
to and from the other Realities. It’s also the best place for Master George to monitor Chi’karda levels around the world. That’s how he’s watched all of you from day one so closely.”