“I don’t know,” she says. “My father wasn’t home to ask. A long line of pirates?”

  Captain Every laughs again. The Beautiful Librarian and Captain Every catch eyes and exchange a knowing look. “No. Not pirates.”

  “Not pirates?” She sounds a little disappointed.

  “Carson Curie Shackleton, also known as Pirate Girl, you are a descendant of many great and fearless explorers and scientists. Crossers of the oceans and the continents, wayfarers to the farthest-most corners of our planet, protectors of the earth, who seek to understand the universe as a whole. Who keep going forward when others stop. Sometimes traveling solo, always traveling fierce and tenderhearted. Spell breakers.”

  “I am?”

  “You are.”

  Her face flushes. Henry can see her taking in this news and holding it close. He understands what this means for her. The land and the sea. Ships and sled dogs. The North and the South Poles, with all of the treacherous, magnificent space between. “I can hardly believe it,” she says.

  “I believe it.” The Beautiful Librarian sets a hand on her shoulder.

  “And you, Henry. You.”

  Now Grandfather Every turns to him. He takes Henry’s small, thin hands in his large, warm, enveloping ones. He fixes his strong gaze right into Henry’s eyes.

  “Well, a long time ago, there was a bad seed, which means that sometimes there are more and more bad seeds. Regular bad seeds, with ordinary evil. And I’m sorry, son, I am so sorry that you live where parents roar at you, where rough hands shove, and stingy hands grab, and where you are hungry, and unseen, and afraid, always afraid, even when your eyes close at night.”

  Henry’s throat gets tight. His eyes get watery with tears. He can’t speak, so he only swallows and nods.

  “It makes it hard to find the light inside, son. You have to dig down deep, so deep, to find it. You have to keep believing in it, when it’s most hard to. I live here and you live there now, and that there now is awful. But you must remember, Henry. You must hold on to this with all your might: Awful is never permanent. Never. Never ever.”

  A tear escapes and wets Henry’s cheek. He wipes it away with the back of his hand.

  “Something else happens, too,” Grandfather continues, “when you are someone who must listen and watch closely out of fear, waiting to see if a face is about to turn dark, or a voice is about to lower. When you know what it’s like to feel sad, and bad, and alone. You develop a different, far greater skill. A skill I wish you didn’t have already, but you do: an ability to truly see others. To understand what they might be feeling. To notice the things others sometimes don’t, and to take things sincerely into your heart. It’s a great power against evil, son, a great one, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.”

  Henry sees that Pirate Girl’s eyes are watering along with his. He feels so much that all of it gathers in his chest in a big ball. He feels so much that maybe he, like Rocco, is too small to have the words for it yet.

  “And so you, Henry—you are from a long, long line, a line that shoots this way and that, of people who go through hard things without losing their hearts. People who see deeply, and understand deeply, and feel deeply. Spell breakers.”

  Another tear drops down his face, and another drops down his nose, but Henry just lets them come. He lets his hands be held all warm in his grandfather’s. He lets his eyes be held, too. It’s like the best and safest rest you can imagine.

  “You saw, Henry, you really saw who was there in front of you. A sad little boy, not a bad one. And all of you,” Captain Every says, to Jo and Apollo and Pirate Girl and even Button. “Your desire to help others, your intelligence and kindness and bravery, your patience with an annoying naked lizard, your stand against evil . . . That is what brought the Dante family their joy again.”

  Jo clears her throat. Her eyes glisten with tears, too. And when she speaks, her voice is hoarse with emotion. “Henry? Thank you for being such a good friend. Thank you for being our not-a-bad-seed-but-the-best-seed leader.”

  Now Jo does something amazing and incredible: She kisses Henry’s cheek. The kiss, the spell, Grandfather and The Beautiful Librarian, Pirate Girl and Apollo and Button, these friends—the flicker of light is a blaze in Henry’s chest.

  “We’re a team of spell breakers,” Henry says. He feels so much, he can hardly talk. It’s the happiest and least lonely he’s ever been in his whole life. It seems as if he’s reached the very mountaintop and gone to the farthest-most corner of every feeling, but of course he’s wrong. In the coming days and years he will be much more miserable, and much, much more full of joy.

  The Beautiful Librarian closes the book. But then Captain Every taps the ancient cover with his fingers. “Of course, a closed book does not mean the end of the story.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Unfortunately and fortunately in equal measures. There are a few further matters we must discuss. Darling, will you kindly fetch the dusty bottle to the farthest right of the bottles?”

  The Dusty Bottle to the Farthest Right of the Bottles

  “Big,” The Beautiful Librarian says with a stern look and a small shake of her head.

  “Ugh! Truly sorry, my darling. How could I forget? I’ll be right back,” he says.

  CHAPTER 39

  The Forward Clock

  This time the liquid is a deep scarlet, and the bubbles are as large and clear as ice cubes. Pirate Girl holds her green glass and looks into it questioningly. Then she tips it down her throat.

  “Holy gladioli! Surprisingly scrumptious.” She covers her mouth with her napkin in a polite burp.

  Jo sips. Henry takes a drink, feeling the big ruby bubbles on his tongue. If deep scarlet had a taste, this would be it. It’s a rich and delectable combination of raspberry and cherry and every red fruit you can think of. He sets his hands around the glass.

  Grandfather gulps his down and pours another.

  “Those further matters we need to discuss?” Apollo reminds.

  Grandfather removes his pocket watch and gazes down his nose at the second hand. “Not. Quite. Yet . . . All right. Now.”

  Just as Grandfather tucks the watch back into his pocket, Henry hears the rumble of a truck coming up the road, and the sound of heavy tires on gravel. From the table, the children crane their necks, but it’s hard to see out the window from there.

  “I think it’s the Big Meats truck,” Jo says.

  “Is that old man Loinshank getting out?” Apollo asks. “I see a bit of a white apron.”

  “Should I let him—” Henry begins to push back his chair, but Grandfather sets his large hand on Henry’s arm.

  “Wait. You’ll see.”

  Henry hears a large clunk. Next, there’s a knock at the old wooden door, causing Button to bark. There’s the sound of footsteps retreating, and then the grumble of an engine starting up before the truck drives away.

  An Ornate but Somewhat Garish Mantel Clock

  “I wonder what it is today.” The Beautiful Librarian heads toward the door. The children meet each other’s eyes in question, but Henry remembers. Those gifts. The presents his grandfather sometimes gets. In a moment, The Beautiful Librarian is back. She’s carrying an ornate but somewhat garish mantel clock.

  “Oof, this thing weighs a ton,” she says, before setting it hard and heavy on the table.

  “And its hands are frozen at ten minutes before two,” Pirate Girl notices. “It’s almost that time now.”

  “This must have been in his family for generations,” The Beautiful Librarian says. “Let me read the card.” She opens a tiny square of butcher paper, taped to the clock. “‘This was in my family for generations. Sir Loinshank Jr.’”

  Grandfather sits back in his chair with his arms folded calmly across his large chest. “Do you understand, children?” he says. “Already this week there was a Chinese vase and a platter of marzipan fruits. The gifts are rolling in.”

  Henry does understand. His voice is solemn. “The people in the province know there will be a lot more spells to break.”

  “A lot more?” Apollo looks slightly ill.

  “A lot more?” Pirate Girl looks slightly pleased.

  “And we should discuss one last thing. A rather gigantic and hideous piece of business,” Grandfather says.

  “This is the part I’m really afraid to hear.” Apollo hunches his shoulders up toward his ears.

  “Well, you’ve likely guessed by now that you have an even larger job to do. The largest,” Captain Every says.

  “I can’t even say his name. I am still shaking at the thought of him at that gate,” Jo says.

  Henry also shudders at the memory. But then he gets that confusing feeling where you are filled with excitement and dread at the same time, like when you stand at the edge of a diving board, or it’s the first day of school, or you’re about to try some grown-up food like Tuna Tofu.

  “How are we supposed to defeat Vlad Luxor?” he asks.

  “How? Well, with Avar Slaven, there was a secret code, a twist of latitude and longitude, many tormented, sleepless nights, an assortment of frightening yet amusing finger puppets—”

  An Assortment of Frightening Yet Amusing Finger Puppets

  “Big,” The Beautiful Librarian says. “Maybe we should just stick with another next spell for now. Tell them about Mr. Terrence Tortellini.”

  “You’re right as always. The first thing anyone must do if they want to change the future is to understand the past,” Grandfather says.

  Under the table, Apollo nudges Henry’s foot and gives him an insistent stare. And Apollo has a point. There’s another first thing to do before they attempt to change the future. “Um, Grandfather?” Henry asks.

  “Yes, dear boy?” Henry loves when his grandfather calls him this.

  “The cake?”

  “Oh, heavens! I almost forgot. The tall white cake suitable for a wedding!”

  A Medium Cake of the Most Beautiful Fruits

  “And I forgot! There is also a medium cake of the most beautiful fruits,” The Beautiful Librarian says.

  “Victories against evil should always be celebrated in the grandest of fashions,” Captain Every says.

  As the magnificent desserts are brought to the center of the table, and as Button watches carefully for any luscious bits to be dropped, Henry can feel it—the adventures ahead, the catastrophes, the near misses, the great escapes. They all feel it; each of them does, but Henry especially. As the splendid sea stretches and crashes outside, as the great beam of the striped lighthouse circles the sky, he can practically see all the tales of triumph and disaster that are meant to be his.

  But wait, you ask, since it is clear that you have nearly reached the end of this story. What about Mrs. Trembly, and Mr. Reese, and the terrible Mr. Needleman? What about that look that passed between Henry and Pirate Girl, and what was the meaning of that bad feeling Henry got about Apollo? Did Pirate Girl’s father even notice she was gone? Will Henry live forever in that horrible house? Is there truly such a thing as Tuna Tofu?

  Well, Henry has all of these questions, too, of course, right as those generous wedges of dessert are slipped onto his plate. Right as he takes that plate and remembers to say thank you and sets the beautiful dish in front of him. Right as all of his new friends look at each other with glee.

  But stories are ongoing things, like the wide sea and the large sky, like goodness and evil and cruelty and love and time. And while clocks mostly go forward, ticktocking into the who-knows-what-comes-next, sometimes they go backward, and sideways, and around. The hands spin to the past, and edge to the future, and sometimes they stop altogether at ten minutes before two.

  It’s ten minutes before two now. It is the perfect second for time to stop, even briefly. Henry edges his fork into the cake and brings a bite to his mouth. He closes his eyes to savor the goodness. It is, without a doubt, the most delicious moment of his life.

  Acknowledgments

  This book wouldn’t exist without Jen Klonsky and Michael Bourret, who shared my vision and brought it to life, with fun and joy and a singular like-mindedness. Oh, I love these two. Huge, huge thanks to our talented design team: Theresa Evangelista, Tony Sahara, Patrick Faricy (our incredible cover artist), and Adam Nickel (who created our delightful map). Gratitude as well to Laurel Robinson, Jacqueline Hornberger, Allyson Floridia, Caitlin Tutterow, Vanessa DeJesús, and our whole sales team. Big appreciation, too, to Carmela Iaria, Trevor Ingerson, Venessa Carson, and Summer Ogata.

  Special thanks to Sonya Sones, whose friendship and wise words led directly to this book. And to my family: love, love, love. You, too, Max.

  About the Author

  Deb Caletti lives in a far north corner of the world. She is frightened of squirrels, owns a splendid pocketknife, and writes on an Underwood Standard Typewriter, 14 inch.

  An Underwood Standard Typewriter, 14 Inch

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  Deb Caletti, A Flicker of Courage

 

 

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