In fact, I never managed to reach Thackary at all. The curator stepped forward, deftly seizing my arms and throwing me to the floor like a ninja master. “There will be no fighting in my museum!” he shouted. “Another stunt like that and I will not hesitate to throw you out.”
I pulled myself up off the floor. I didn’t doubt the curator’s threats. He was much stronger than he looked and I was no match without Ridge.
“I do not show favoritism among guests,” he said. “If you are foolish enough to go ahead, you will all enter the cave together.”
From inside his jar, I heard Ridge moan. If the curator was going to let Thackary and Jathon enter the cave, then we’d have to race every step of the way, neck and neck until the final moment.
“What are ye waiting for?” Thackary yelled at the curator. “Take us to the cave!”
The odd man adjusted his glasses and waddled off past an exhibit of empty plastic tubs. I, Tina, Jathon, and Thackary followed. The man was wearing some kind of cheap cologne that made my nose tickle. It was horrible to walk beside my enemies, knowing that the Universe had charged me to stop them. But without Ridge, I didn’t know what to do. I’d have to bide my time and swipe the victory from Thackary at the last second.
“So Thackary was behind us, again?” said Ridge’s voice, echoing up from inside his jar. “I thought we were supposed to be following him. So far, we’ve beat him to every location.”
“That be no fault of ours,” Thackary cut in, hearing my genie’s voice. “’Tis a consequence we’ve been forced to endure. Me boy made a wish when we set sail to accomplish the three tasks.”
“But a consequence followed,” Jathon said. “If anyone else was seeking the cave, we were cursed to always arrive just moments behind them.”
“That must have been irritating,” Ridge’s voice offered.
“Until now,” said Thackary. “This be the final stop, and we have managed to catch up, despite all odds and consequences.”
The curator guided us past a few more uninteresting exhibits: bottles, barrels, cardboard boxes. Then we rounded a corner and stopped in a room that seemed secluded from the rest of the museum.
This exhibit didn’t seem any more extraordinary than the last ones we’d passed. It had a low shelf, lined with lidless jars of varying sizes. Some were ceramic, others made of glass, metal, and wood. The wide tops were open and they all appeared to be empty.
“The door to the cave is not a door,” explained the curator. “It’s a jar.”
“As in, it’s slightly open?” I clarified.
The curator shook his head. “As in, a jar,” he answered. “A series of three jars, to be exact.” He gestured to the display on the shelf. “If you have completed the three tasks, you may now use the keys to enter the cave.”
“Enough blabberin’,” Thackary said. “I did what I was instructed to do. Let me have the key!”
The curator held up a hand. “These jars are unbreakable,” he said. “But each of you must break them.”
“How?” Tina asked. Thackary seemed ready to pounce on the shelf.
“The jars will break when you use the keys,” answered the curator. “Each of you pick up a jar and peer inside.”
Thackary pulled his son back as he stepped up to the shelf. “Not you, boy. I was the one who completed the tasks. The keys be mine.” He picked a glass jar off the shelf, but I wasn’t about to let him get ahead of me.
Leaping forward, I snatched up a wooden jar. I saw Tina moving beside me, but I couldn’t worry about what she did. Squinting one eye closed, I lifted the wooden jar and peered into the empty space.
Immediately, the jar cracked. I didn’t know wood could shatter, but the jar seemed to do just that. I jumped in shock as the container fell to splinters around my feet.
At the same time, something odd began happening around me. The museum suddenly seemed to fade. Tina and the curator remained normal, but the walls of the building, as well as Thackary and Jathon, took on a ghostly transparence.
As the museum began to fade out, a new environment seemed to fade in. Beyond the walls of the museum, I saw smooth stone. But the transition wasn’t complete. In fact, it seemed to freeze partway between the two scenes.
The sounds around me had changed as well. The first thing I noticed was Thackary’s pirate voice. He was facing us and screaming, but somehow he seemed farther away. Even the smell of his cologne dwindled, for which my nose was grateful.
“What is this?” Thackary threw his glass jar against the floor of the museum, but it wouldn’t shatter. “How have ye tricked me?” He strode toward us, his face trembling. Thackary raised his arm to strike the curator. I was afraid for a second, but then Thackary’s blow passed right through the strange little man.
“It’s quite all right,” the curator said to me and Tina. “We are now on a different plane from them.”
“I can hear you, scurvy dog!” Thackary’s diminished voice cried. “This be not fair! I did what was required. I was at Mount Rushmore and poked the eye of Roosevelt just as they did!” He pointed at us. “Jathon, me boy. Vouch for yer father. Tell this scallywag curator that I did what was needed.”
But Jathon wasn’t listening to his father. The bearded boy had crossed to the shelf and lifted a ceramic jar of his own. Raising it to his face, he peered inside. Instantly, the jar shattered and Jathon’s ghostly figure came into full view. He was now on our plane, much to the surprise of his raging father.
“What?” Thackary called. “How did that happen?” He plucked another jar from the shelf and slammed it against the floor with no result. “Me son didn’t do any of the required tasks. ’Twas I who touched the stone eye, ate the cotton candy, and reached the bed of the lake. This is me moment! Yarrrrr!”
The curator turned to the three of us. “Quite a sore loser, isn’t he?” I was glad to know that other adults found Thackary just as awful. Though the curator didn’t really seem like a normal adult.
“I don’t understand,” Jathon said. “My father is right. I didn’t do any of the tasks.”
“Oh, but the tasks were quite unnecessary,” said the curator.
“Unnecessary?” I cried. We had spent almost all week doing something that was useless? “What do you mean?” Even Thackary had fallen silent to hear the explanation.
“You see,” said the little man, “anyone can touch the faces of Mount Rushmore, eat candy from a park, or scuba dive to the depths of a lake. The Universe wasn’t interested in what you could do. It was interested in what price you would pay to do it.”
“Our consequences,” muttered Tina.
“Precisely,” said the curator. “The three of you share a trait that no other possesses.” His glasses slipped down his nose and he pointed at his eye.
Of course! It made sense now. The consequence we had all paid to reach Roosevelt’s eye was a change in our eyeballs. Now unnaturally yellow, the jars reacted when we looked inside. We had paid the price to be there.
The Universe had told us that we would receive the keys to the cave when we needed them. Little did we know that the keys were with us all along, disguised as useless consequences.
“But as you can see,” said the curator, gesturing around the room, “we’re not quite there yet.” He pointed to the ghostly jars in the museum. “Each of you take another jar from the shelf. It is time to use your second key.”
Chapter 35
Tina, Jathon, and I stepped forward. I picked a metal jar from the shelf this time. I wondered how I would be able to pick up the ghostly-looking jar, but when I touched it, the metal object seemed to cross into our plane, becoming as solid as a regular jar should be.
“Ye can’t leave me behind, Jathon!” Thackary cried. “The Undiscovered Genie jar is not for you to open! Yer quest is to help me. Don’t ye forget that!”
“I won’t, Father,” answered Jathon. “I’ll bring you the jar.”
The curator clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention, causing
my shoelaces to come untied. “Your eyes were changed by a choice you made,” said the curator. “Now let us see about your tongues. Everybody give the jar a lick.”
The jar in my hand didn’t taste like anything whatsoever. But then, the point of doing this strange activity wasn’t for the flavor. It was for my tongue. A tongue that had turned bright green ever since I’d eaten that cotton candy at Super-Fun-Happy Place.
And the Universe must have recognized my discolored licker, because as soon as my tongue passed over the metal, the jar shattered.
The room around us faded further as I continued into another plane. Things in the museum, namely Thackary Anderthon, continued to grow transparent, while beyond the walls, the image of a spacious cavern seemed more real.
Thackary now looked like a ghost, running around the room like a maniac and waving his arms in disgust. He was definitely shouting, but I could hear only the faintest sound.
“I can’t believe you’d help that guy,” I said, turning to Jathon. “I mean, I know he’s your father, but . . .”
“But he’s a horrible person,” Jathon answered. I was surprised to hear him speak so bluntly. Perhaps the fact that his dad was out of reach made him more bold. “I can’t stand him.”
“You don’t have to go through with this,” I said. “Give up on the Undiscovered Genie.”
“I can’t give up,” Jathon said. “My dad has lived a hard life. Never had anything he wanted. I’ve never met a single person who could tolerate him. I wished for things to be different,” he said. “I wished that I could like him. But the Universe wouldn’t let me. . . .” He trailed off, stiffening. “Besides, I have a quest. I have to save the world.”
“So do I,” I whispered. “And I will stop you.” Either way, it seemed that the world was about to end. But I wasn’t going to let it end on my watch.
“Before we go on,” interrupted the curator, “let me be the final voice of warning. Nothing good will come from this cave. If only there were something I could say to convince you to turn back now.”
There was nothing he could say to convince us to turn back now. With less than thirty minutes remaining, I had to beat Jathon to the jar so he couldn’t deliver it to his rotten dad. I had to stop the world from ending with a gory woof and meow.
“The Undiscovered Genie came into existence over three thousand years ago,” the curator continued. “But the original Wishmakers who found his jar perceived that he was far too dangerous to be handled. They made a wish—the Ancient Wish—that his jar would be locked away in an unknown cave, never to be discovered by anyone.”
“But aren’t we discovering it now?” I asked.
“There was a loophole,” answered the curator. “The Ancient Wish was not phrased perfectly, which allowed the cave to be discovered if someone sought for it specifically.”
“So that’s how the cave has stayed hidden in the middle of a big city,” Tina said. “Because no one is looking for it.”
“Correct,” said the curator. “The Ancient Wish put the cave in a place that was, at the time, completely uninhabited. The wish demanded that it be a place that would never be discovered. So in the midst of the desert, I was created as a guardian.”
“No offense,” said Ridge’s voice, “but when I saw you at the desk, you didn’t seem too intimidating.”
“I wasn’t always like this,” said the curator. “I began as a deadly serpent, a sort of desert dragon.”
“Okay. That would have been way cooler,” I said.
“But as the world expanded, a city was formed,” continued the curator. “This city, San Antonio. But I couldn’t very well survive as a desert dragon in a thriving metropolis. So the Ancient Wish adapted, and I adapted with it. Ultimately, this museum was constructed as an elaborate illusion to conceal the cave that you are about to enter.”
“You went from a dragon to a museum curator?” I said. “Man, that’s a downgrade.”
“I had several forms in between,” said the small man. “Not all of them were quite as flawless as this one.” As he said it, his single eyebrow danced across his forehead. He was hardly flawless.
“The Ancient Wish protected this place and its awful jar.” The curator looked down. “But for every wish, there is a consequence.”
“The Ancient Consequence.” I remembered hearing about it while trying to complete the tasks. “What was it?”
“The original Wishmakers wished for the cave to be locked tight, but the Ancient Consequence provided a key to those who completed a series of tasks. The Sculpture, the Vendor, and the Fisher were guardians of the Ancient Consequence,” he explained. “For three thousand years, they have been adapting to fit their changing environment, as I have with mine. They have been waiting for Wishmakers like you to attempt the three tasks.”
“They kept warning us,” I said. “They were trying to stop us from getting here.”
The curator nodded solemnly. “They were giving you a choice. And when you decided to persist, they did whatever it took to force you into a wish that would yield a specific consequence.”
“The yellow eye and the green tongue,” Tina said.
“And lastly,” said the curator, “the fish breath.” The little man clenched his hands, a grave expression on his round face. “Three thousand years of wishing have tried to prevent this moment from happening. If you go on, you will discover the Undiscovered Genie. What you do with his jar is your choice alone. I will not be going with you, and your genies must remain in their jars until the Undiscovered Genie has been removed from the cave.”
“We’re ready,” Jathon said. But I suddenly felt very uncomfortable about our decision to continue. How many voices of warning had urged us not to find this cave?
“Each of you pick up a new jar,” instructed the curator.
Tina and Jathon stepped over to the transparent shelf. One of the glass jars that Thackary had thrown lay near my feet, so I stooped and lifted it.
“With this final key, the cave will appear in full reality,” said the curator. “But know this—the Undiscovered Genie is not like other genies. He will give you what you want without a price. But your life will never be the same.”
I glanced at Tina, but she was staring at the ground.
“Take a deep breath,” said the curator. I heard Tina and Jathon inhale, so I did the same. The curator sighed deeply, eyes momentarily closed. “May the Universe save us all,” he muttered. Then he looked at us. “Breathe into the jars.”
I lifted the glass jar to my mouth and exhaled all my nasty fish-smelling breath right into the open top. It shattered, though I think that had more to do with the magic of the Universe than my awful breath.
As the shards of broken glass fell to my feet, I saw the curator dissolve into a puff of smoke. The final ghostly remnants of the Museum of Cans, Crates, Cartons, and Containers vanished, taking Thackary Anderthon with it.
Tina stood on my left and Jathon on my right. All around us, ominous stone walls shimmered into perfect clarity as we moved through the final plane and entered the Cave of the Undiscovered Genie.
Chapter 36
The cave had an unnatural glow. It was as if the walls and ceiling had been rubbed with broken glow sticks, making the whole area shine in an eerie multicolored light.
It was a vast cavern that seemed both ancient and new. Ancient, because I know it takes millions of years to form a cave. But new, because we were the first human beings to set foot in this place in thousands of years.
Tina, Jathon, and I didn’t need to spread out, searching for the undiscovered jar among the luminescent cave formations. Our eyes were instantly drawn to a feature right in the center of the cavern.
There was an island. Now, this wasn’t the pleasant kind of island surrounded by an ocean where you might want to vacation. This was an island of stone, surrounded by a deep chasm on all sides, like a pillar that was cut off halfway to the ceiling of the cave.
I couldn’t tell how deep the abyss was,
but a single rope bridge spanned the distance. In the center of that stone platform was a dais, with at least half a dozen stairs leading up on all sides to a slender pedestal. And there it was, displayed upon a black stand. It looked to be made of hardened clay, and it glowed with a deep crimson aura.
The Undiscovered Genie jar.
The three of us sprinted for the rope bridge. Jathon was in the lead, but that was only because he was playing dirty. He knocked into Tina and stuck out his foot to trip me as we ran. I hit the ground hard, sliding across the smooth stone as Jathon stepped onto the narrow bridge. Scrambling, I came up just behind him, with Tina hard on my heels.
I wasn’t sure who’d designed the bridge. I guessed it was the Universe, since it seemed totally unsafe and definitely not made for kids. The bridge was constructed of wooden boards, strung together with a coarse rope. It sagged just slightly, spanning about twenty feet across a bottomless abyss. The bridge’s planks were only about three feet wide, and to make matters worse, there was absolutely no railing on the sides.
Have you ever crossed a rope bridge before? How about a rope bridge without a railing? How about a railingless rope bridge that drops off into nothingness on both sides?
“What’s happening?” Ridge shouted as the three of us Wishmakers moved slowly across the terrifying bridge. The boards swayed dangerously underfoot. Jathon’s weight ahead of me and Tina’s weight behind me made for a very precarious experience, which soon had me crawling on my hands and knees.
“You want to know?” I answered my jarred genie with a question before going on. “We’re on a bridge! I’m stuck behind Jathon.”
“Slide past him,” Ridge said.
“It’s not that kind of bridge,” I answered.
Ahead of me, Jathon stopped, but he hadn’t quite reached the other side yet. He seemed rooted in place, knees bent so the motion of the bridge didn’t buck him off to his doom.
I didn’t understand why he had frozen. From his vantage point, there would be no contest in reaching the Undiscovered Genie jar first. He slowly turned back to me, his bearded youthful face determined.