The tether.
I sprinted as fast as I could, away from the edge of the cliff. I still had a vivid memory of snapping the tether in the Lindons’ front yard. From what Ridge had explained, it would force both of us halfway back until we met at the central point.
That meant I had to be at least twenty-one feet from the edge of the cliff or else I would get pulled over, too.
Something hit me in the chest. It was like a punch that originated inside my body. At the same moment I felt the jarring pain, my legs were whisked out from under me and I was flung backward through the air like a puppet on a string.
Just when I thought I’d go flying off the cliff, wham! Ridge sailed upward and slammed into me with such force that we both flopped to the ground.
It worked!
The breath had been knocked from my lungs like a blow from a sledgehammer, and my head was throbbing from colliding with Ridge’s bony shoulder. But it worked! The tether had snapped us both to the edge of the cliff.
Disentangling from Ridge, I clawed the ground, dragging myself away from the edge and gasping for air. I sucked in a breath, coughing. Ridge didn’t seem to be doing much better, though the painful stunt had saved his life.
Someone grabbed my arm, helping me away from the dangerous drop-off. My vision was slightly blurred from the collision, but as it cleared, I saw Tina at my side.
“Thackary!” I gasped. My gaze darted around the top of the mount, but the boy, his genie, and the pirate man were nowhere to be seen.
“We’ve got to hurry,” Tina said, hauling me up to my feet. “The rockmen are climbing.”
“But Thackary was here!” I cried.
She glanced around and shrugged. “Well, he’s gone now.” She pulled awkwardly at something around her neck. When I finally focused on her, I realized she was wearing a pink feather boa, wrapped around her neck like a scarf.
“Hey,” I said, “what’s up with the fancy boa?”
“Consequences happen,” she snapped. “Now get down there and poke Roosevelt in the eye!”
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked Tina.
“I already did it,” she said, gesturing to her feather boa, as though it were evidence of the deed.
I stepped over to the edge and looked down. I couldn’t simply go down it without some sort of magical help. The question was, what could I wish for that would yield me a manageable consequence?
“Anything you can do to speed things up?” Vale said, pointing across the mountaintop. The first of the rockmen were summiting George Washington’s head. They’d be on us in moments.
I looked to Ridge for advice, but he was sitting far from the cliff’s edge, his teeth chattering in shock.
“How far down to the eye?” I asked. “If I go over the edge alone, are we going to snap the tether again?”
Tina shook her head. “It’s probably only twenty feet down to the eye.”
“Okay,” I said. “I wish I could walk down Roosevelt’s stone face.”
My hourglass watch clicked open and Ridge had to compose himself enough to fulfill his genie duties.
“If you want to be able to walk down Roosevelt’s face,” he said, “then your pants will be turned backward every time you put them on.”
“All pants?” I asked. “Or just the ones I’m currently wearing?”
“All shorts and pants,” Ridge said. “For the rest of the week.”
“Take it,” urged Tina. “Hurry up.”
Of course she wanted me to take the deal. My backward pants would make her feather boa look normal. I glanced back at the approaching rock figures. If I didn’t accept the consequence now, things would only get more complicated when the rockmen caught up.
“I’ll take it,” I said. “Bazang.”
Poof. My pants were now backward and incredibly uncomfortable. The rear pockets of my jeans were now in the front, and the zipper was inconveniently on my backside. I looked down at my feet to see if I had suction cups on my shoes or something. But nothing seemed different.
“Let’s do this,” I said, taking a deep breath as I approached the edge.
“Watch out for the face,” Tina said.
“Whose face?” I asked, pausing at the drop-off.
“Roosevelt’s,” said Tina. “I don’t think he likes getting poked in the eye.”
“Honestly, who does like getting poked in the eye?” Ridge asked.
But I had a more sensible comment. “He’s a carving, guys. Carvings don’t have feelings.”
“Would you hurry up?” Vale urged.
The height was dizzying. I was putting a lot of trust in the wish as I took that first step downward. I felt my shoes suction firmly to the stone of Roosevelt’s hairline. As I took another brave step, gravity seemed to shift. This actually wasn’t so bad. In no time, I was standing comfortably on Roosevelt’s forehead. I must have looked sideways, but I felt right side up.
“You almost there?” Ridge shouted from above. “Because the rockmen are nearly here!”
Now that I was just about in position, my mind was blanking. “Which eye was it?” I shouted.
“The right,” answered Tina.
“My right?” I responded. “Or Roosevelt’s right?”
“My right,” Roosevelt said.
Yes. The giant stone face of Roosevelt was speaking. And now I identified it as the unnatural voice I had heard from atop the cliffs.
I gave a shriek. Roosevelt abruptly wrinkled his forehead, throwing me forward. I landed on the bridge of his nose, sliding down to the tip. My sweaty hands clutched the cold rock, and I barely got my feet under me.
“Young traveler,” Roosevelt said, “I cannot let you touch my eye.”
“It won’t hurt!” I shouted. “I promise!”
“I am a guardian of the Ancient Consequence,” he answered. “I feel no pain.”
“See?” I muttered, even though I knew Ridge and Tina couldn’t hear me. “I knew rocks didn’t have feelings.”
It would seem that Roosevelt didn’t like my remark. He promptly pursed his lips, stone mustache bumping me at the end of his nose. I thought for sure I was about to get swallowed by a great American landmark. Instead, he began to blow.
For being only a head, this guy had some impressive lungs. His breath hit me like a windstorm, blasting me upward. I clung to the edge of his stone nostril, but my fingers were slipping. And apparently, Roosevelt didn’t need to stop and inhale.
I quickly realized what the old president was trying to do. If I slipped, his hurricane breath would send me hurtling off the face and I’d plummet to the rockmen on the slope below.
“Ridge!” I screamed, desperate to make any kind of lifesaving wish. “I wish I could touch Roosevelt’s right eye!”
I went for the direct wish—one that Roosevelt couldn’t stop. There wasn’t time to think of something more inventive. And I was pretty sure that whatever deal Ridge spelled out for me, I was going to accept.
“If you want to touch his eye,” Ridge shouted from atop the president’s head, “then your right eye will turn yellow!”
“My eyeball is going to turn yellow?” I shrieked.
“Just accept it!” Tina’s voice echoed down.
My hand began to slip. And in desperation, I shouted, “Bazang!”
I guess my eyeball changed color. Without a mirror, it was hard to tell. Luckily, it didn’t affect my actual vision. It would have been pretty awful to see everything with a yellow haze.
On the plus side, my wish was answered. Roosevelt stopped blowing, and I suddenly felt myself propelled safely upward as though the Universe were giving me a huge boost. I was deposited on the lower eyelid, my hands finding a grip on the rim of the president’s glasses.
I wasn’t really sure about my eye-poking technique. In the end, I decided to poke it just like I would a real eye. I held out my index finger and jabbed it against the carved stone eyeball.
Nothing happened.
Except, of cours
e, it hurt my finger. Part of me expected a secret chamber to open, displaying a magic key on a velvet pillow. But that’s not what the notebook had said. The key would be presented at the cave, if I accomplished all the tasks.
“You have completed the first task,” Roosevelt said. “My rock minions stand down. But you must not continue your quest,” he warned. “The Undiscovered Genie has his eye set on dominion. He is stone cold, with powers great and terrible.”
“If Thackary Anderthon continues,” I said, “then so do I.”
I stood up, my shoes adhering to Roosevelt’s face as I jogged up his forehead and crested the president’s hairline.
“I don’t know what you did,” called Ridge, “but the rocks are just rocks again.”
On top of the mountain, I was surprised to see Tina and Ridge in the company of a large gray wolf. “Paradiddle,” Tina said, resulting in Vale’s instant transformation back into a human-looking girl.
“How do you—” I began to ask.
But Tina cut me off, pointing to the fresh piles of rock gathered around the top of the mountain. Those definitely hadn’t been there when I’d gone over the edge. “The rockmen went lifeless,” she said. “I’m guessing it’s because you touched the eye.”
“Roosevelt said the rockmen worked for him,” I said. “They must have been trying to stop us from reaching his eye. But once we all completed the first task, he called them off.”
“Good thing, too,” Ridge said. “They were about to pulverize us.”
I turned to Tina. “I didn’t know Roosevelt would try to kill me. A warning would have been nice.”
“I did warn you,” Tina said. “Besides, the consequence wasn’t that bad.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “Now I’ve got a creepy eye.”
Tina stepped forward, tugging at her own eyelid. In the moonlight, I saw that the colorful part of her eye, which had previously been a dark brown, had also turned yellow. “It could have been a lot worse,” she pointed out.
“You made the same wish as me?” I asked. “How long will it last?” I hadn’t been able to ask for specifics while dangling like a booger from Roosevelt’s nose.
“Well . . . forever,” Tina muttered.
“Forever?” I shrieked.
“I’d rather have a yellow eye than get munched by Teddy Roosevelt,” Tina justified.
“Did he say anything to you?” I asked.
Tina squinted in thought. “He said something about an Ancient Consequence. I didn’t understand.”
“Me neither,” I admitted. “He said he was a guardian. And he warned me about the Undiscovered Genie.”
“What did he say about it?” Tina asked.
“That he’s powerful,” I answered. Ridge could grant me any wish I wanted if I was willing to take the consequence. Could another genie really be more powerful than that?
“You said you saw Thackary?” Vale asked.
I nodded. “He was here. And he has a genie of his own.”
“Then he’s not an ex-Wishmaker,” Tina muttered.
“Not yet,” I answered. “Maybe his time is about to expire.”
“I wonder if Thackary touched the eye,” Ridge said.
“We saw someone climbing the faces,” Tina said. “But it looked like an adult.”
“Well, they must have succeeded at the first task,” Vale added. “Otherwise they wouldn’t have left.”
“It was the pirate man from the interstate,” I said with a groan. “And they stole my backpack!”
“So they got a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches,” said Vale. “Big deal.”
“I don’t care about the sandwiches,” I said. “Ridge’s jar was in there, too!”
I saw Tina subconsciously reach down and touch her pocket, as if to reassure herself that Vale’s lip balm jar was still in place.
“I really hate that guy,” Ridge said, scuffing his shoe against the stone ground.
“Who is he, anyway?” Tina asked.
“He must be Thackary’s dad,” I answered. I’d heard the man refer to the boy as son twice.
“Poor kid,” Ridge said. “No wonder the Universe described him as a very bad person. He has a horrible father for a role model.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“We need to find out where Thackary is headed next,” answered Tina. “We need to find out what was on the second ripped-out page of that notebook.”
It took me a second to realize that everyone was staring at me. “What?” I said.
“We’re just waiting for you,” Ridge said.
“To do what?” I asked.
“You need to wish to learn the second page,” he answered.
“Now, wait a minute,” I said. “I’m not the only one here who can make wishes.” I gestured toward Tina. “I thought we were in this together,” I said to her. “I’m already illiterate from learning the first page. I think it’s your turn.”
Tina didn’t seem too excited by the idea of playing fair. She put her hands on her hips in momentary thought. “Rock, paper, scissors?” she asked.
I remembered how I had squashed her last time we played. “Fine,” I said. “But we’re doing best out of three.” She nodded and I prepared my fist to win.
I lost.
The first round, Tina crushed my scissors with her rock. The second round her scissors cut my paper.
I was pretty bummed, but I wasn’t going to be a sore loser. I folded my arms and turned to Ridge. “All right, I’ll make the wish,” I said. “But let’s do it in the morning. I want to get some sleep before we go after Thackary. What if the consequence makes it so that every time I lie down, I slide headfirst off the bed?”
“I don’t think we’ll be sleeping in beds tonight,” Vale pointed out, brushing past me.
Chapter 16
Vale was right. There were no beds in the forest. We had to pick our way carefully down a crevasse in the back of Mount Rushmore before making our way several miles into the dark forest of the Black Hills.
I’m guessing it was way past midnight when we finally decided to stop for sleep. It was a good idea to put some distance between us and the national monument. I didn’t know how the Universe’s shield would explain the strange magical happenings at the park, but none of us wanted to stick around and find out.
Ridge and I found a comfortable spot below a pine tree where we could lie down without too many little rocks jabbing us in the back. Tina and Vale bedded down several yards away. They were close enough that I could shout for help, but not too close in case Tina snored.
Have you ever slept outside in the forest without a tent or a blanket? I didn’t even have my backpack to use as a pillow anymore. I just couldn’t get comfortable. And after several minutes of tossing and turning, I decided that my inability to sleep was also due to something that I couldn’t get out of my mind.
“Ridge,” I whispered, reaching over and poking him in the shoulder. “You awake?”
“I am now,” he said.
“We could have died today,” I said.
“Tell me about it,” he answered. “You’re not the one who got pushed off a cliff.”
“I know. But we’re tethered together, so I would have gone over with you,” I said. “Can genies die?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, sitting up under the pine tree. “Just like you or Tina.” He scratched a hand through his curly black hair.
“And it hurts to die?” I asked.
“Maybe?” he answered. “I’ve never done it before. This is kind of morbid, Ace. Are you all right?”
“Tomorrow probably isn’t going to be any less dangerous,” I said. “And there’s something I have to know in case I don’t make it through the week.”
I sat up next to Ridge, reaching into my pocket for the only item that had ever truly been mine. It was a bit awkward to reach into a backward pocket, but in a moment I had retrieved my folded card.
“What’s that?” he asked, seeing me flick
the edge of the card with my thumb—a nervous habit that had led to a worn and frayed spot.
“I don’t remember anything about my family,” I said.
“The Lindons?”
“Not my foster parents,” I said. “My real family. My memories begin three years ago, when I was nine years old. I woke up in a hospital. The doctors said I just stumbled in. Nobody knew where I came from or what happened to me. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew my name.”
“But . . .” Ridge stammered. “You’re Ace.”
I unfolded the small card and handed it to him. The moonlight glimmered on the glossy coating and Ridge held it close to his face for inspection.
“The ace of hearts,” I said. “From a deck of playing cards.” Ridge turned it over to look at the back, but I knew from countless hours of studying it that he wouldn’t find anything. “That was the only thing I had with me when I came into the hospital.”
“Ace,” Ridge muttered.
“So,” I began, taking a deep breath. “I guess what I want the Universe to tell me . . .” I started the sentence over, making it official. “I wish I knew my past.”
At the sound of those magical words, my hourglass watch clicked open and Ridge took a deep breath.
“I had no idea,” he said, still staring at the card I had handed him. “I’m sorry.”
“Time’s ticking,” I replied, holding up my wrist so he could see the white sand spilling. “It took me two days to build up the courage to make this wish. Just tell me the consequence.”
“You won’t like it,” Ridge said. “It seems the Universe holds that knowledge at a very high price.”
“What is it?” My hands were sweating despite the coolness of the night. My throat felt tight.
“If you want to know about your past,” said Ridge, “then every person who has ever seen you will cease to exist.”
I felt my hopes leak out like air from a punctured balloon. I thought of all the people who had seen me in the last three years since my memories began. People at school. People around town. Thousands, if not more. “What will happen to them?” I asked.