Pirate Girl skips ahead. “I love it here,” she sings to the sky.

  Well, who wouldn’t? The lighthouse is the kind of place you just have to explore. When you’re there, you want to race around its bottom, and climb to its top. You want to hide while someone seeks. You want to run while someone chases and chase while someone runs.

  Captain Every’s command on the engine order telegraph has reached his officer in the engine room. Or rather, Grandfather’s message has reached The Beautiful Librarian, who now stands at the open door of the lighthouse. The Beautiful Librarian has an elaborate hairdo, sprayed to perfection, and a pair of serious glasses perched on her exquisite nose. She is always ready to shush, or turn a page, or pluck a volume from a shelf.

  Elaborate Hairdo, Sprayed to Perfection

  More than that, though, whenever Henry visits, she is always ready to gather him in a hug, or show him an unusual beetle, or hand him a tissue just when he needs one. When he stumbles, The Beautiful Librarian never points and laughs like his father does. Instead, she bends down to check his knees for scrapes, and asks if he’s all right.

  “Henry,” The Beautiful Librarian says. Her eyes light up when she sees him, as if his presence actually makes her happy. To Henry, this seems incredible. There’s the fragrance of lotus blossoms as she leans down and kisses his cheek, too. His heart fills, and it’s another kiss he wishes he could keep forever. “Button,” she says, and pats the dog’s delighted head. “And you must be Apollo. And Jo. And Pirate Girl.” Henry can’t imagine how she knows his classmates, who now wait at the entrance to the lighthouse. Of course, librarians know many unexpected things.

  “Well, Big,” she says to Captain Every, “the children have arrived.”

  “Yes, darling,” he says. “Lead the way.”

  The children have gone nearly speechless at her beauty. They move forward in a thunderstruck huddle. Then Pirate Girl lets out a squeal, because she can’t wait to see what’s beyond the door.

  And what’s beyond the door? Well, at first you see only the small and tidy living quarters of The Beautiful Librarian. While Grandfather’s house is huge and sprawling, with ceilings so tall, they’re the perfect haven for a spider or two, The Beautiful Librarian lives in a small square room that’s snug and comfortable and shipshape. It has everything a person might need—charming windows with many panes that look out toward the sea, an inviting reading chair, and a roomy down bed with the fluffiest of pillows. There’s a kettle and a small stove, and there are tins of butter cookies.

  But something else soon catches your eye.

  Something immense.

  Something magical.

  Something that you’ve never before seen in your life.

  A spiral stairway. A stairway that curves up toward the very top of the lighthouse, where the huge lantern spins its beam.

  But this is not just any spiral stairway. It’s colossal enough to take your breath away. And its walls . . . Well, they’re covered in books. Books, and books, and more books! The lighthouse is the most astonishing and astonishingly tall library you could ever imagine, with book after lovely book rising toward the sky. There are shelves and shelves of ancient books, all with that fine and musty old-book smell. There are shelves and shelves of dazzlingly shiny ones, each with that delicious new-book smell. There are red books and blue ones, fancy books and plain ones. Books tiny enough to fit on your thumb. Books large enough that they couldn’t fit back out the door.

  When you first see it, you want to dash up the stairs, dragging your fingers along every spine. You want to stand at the bottom and look up, and stand at the top and look down, so that you can take in the enormous number of books and books and books. You want to grab greedily, fling and open, feast your hungry eyes on all those words and words and pictures and pictures and adventures and voyages and knowledge. You want to smooch the spines and bite into the pages. You want to chew the sentences and swallow up the paragraphs.

  But you also want to stand in hushed respect, too, and that is what they all do first. Button sits like a good dog, chin high, gazing upward. Rocco is fully awake now, and even he is respectfully silent. They blink and blink at the enormity of that enchantment. The only thing they can do is take in the moment, the moment where they understand for the first time that beyond one door there can be thousands of others.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Impossible Solution

  Of course, a terrible thing has just occurred. A brother has been turned into a naked lizard. The day has brought unforeseen stress and trauma. There is still no solution in sight. Clearly, there are more difficult and challenging events yet to come.

  Still, even in the direst circumstances, one must take in beauty and magic when it’s right there in front of you. So, before getting down to business, the children stare from the bottom up, and race to the top to look down—at the books, at the sea stretching out, at the enormous lantern with its many-sided glass. Apollo tips the book spines and smells their pages. Rocco tries to annoy his brother by covering random words with his bottom and wiggling it so that Apollo can’t read. Pirate Girl gazes at a few glorious and extravagant images of lions and jungles, sea monsters and foreign lands. Jo hugs a red velvet volume to her chest. Henry and Button look with wonder at the greatest hope they have against evil: knowledge and light.

  Extravagant Image of a Lion

  Finally, the keeper of the knowledge and the keeper of the light look at each other and nod. “It’s time,” The Beautiful Librarian says to Captain Every.

  “Come, children! Spells!” Grandfather calls in a big, booming voice.

  The word spells—it’s like a command, an invitation the children can’t help but answer. They run from their various spots in the library to gather around a curved table in the middle of the lighthouse, where The Beautiful Librarian has already stacked the thick, dusty tomes. They’re dusty enough to make Jo sneeze. Henry’s heart beats with excitement when he sees one particularly enormous book. He’s dying to touch it. The cover is leathery, and the edges of the pages are a dim gold. When Captain Every opens it, Henry sneaks his finger out to feel the ancient, crispy paper.

  “Excuse me, Captain Every,” Apollo says. “Can any of these books even help us without a . . . you know.”

  Grandfather ignores the question. “Lizard, lizard . . . ,” he says. He and The Beautiful Librarian are both scanning the index of the giant book.

  “Wait,” she says. “What am I thinking? There are—”

  “Five thousand six hundred species of lizard on earth!” Apollo says.

  “Exactly.” The Beautiful Librarian smiles. “Let’s try this another way. Spell characteristics?”

  “Reptilian,” Captain Every says. “Butt naked.”

  Pirate Girl giggles. So does Henry.

  “Big. Please. Without clothing,” she corrects. “Preexisting conditions of the victim?”

  “Brattiness, show-offiness, begging for attention.”

  “Ugh,” The Beautiful Librarian says.

  “Copying in an annoying fashion,” Grandfather says.

  “Copying in an annoying fashion,” The Beautiful Librarian repeats with a wink.

  “You better quit that now or you’ll be sorry.” Grandpa winks back.

  “Here,” The Beautiful Librarian says, pointing. Henry stands right beside his grandfather and looks down. Pirate Girl stands at his other side. Rocco is sitting on the desk, looking quite small compared with the giant image of the lizard in the book. Apollo and Jo are on the other side of the table, way too close together, in Henry’s opinion.

  “‘Lizardo Nakedismo,’” Grandfather reads. “Yes. This must be it. Oh, how awful. ‘Duration, permanent.’”

  Apollo looks like he might cry again. Jo notices, too, and takes Apollo’s hand, which is rather yucky for Henry to watch. Rocco looks distraught. If you’ve never seen a distraught naked lizard, be advised, it is an extraordinarily upsetting sight.

  “Is it all coming back to you, Big?” The Beautiful Librarian asks Grandfather.

  “Ah, it most certainly is,” he says.

  “What’s this part?” Pirate Girl asks. She’s reading ahead. Reading ahead can always get on your nerves, though maybe Henry’s mood was already turning a little sour. Gushy handholding can sometimes do that to a person.

  “This is where you come in,” Grandfather says, and then he fixes each and every one of them with a serious gaze. “It’s the section for the spell breakers.”

  “The spell breakers?” Jo asks. She drops Apollo’s hand.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Grandfather silently reads.

  “I thought we didn’t have those anymore.”

  Henry has no idea what his grandfather is saying. The words alone make him kind of nervous, to be honest. Maybe a little more than nervous. Actually, he feels pinpricks of dread trickle up his arms. Apollo seems uneasy, too. He runs his hand across his forehead, and Jo begins to bite the nail of her thumb. Button lies low on the floor, chin on her paws, one ear twitching. Only Pirate Girl leans forward eagerly.

  “There are always spell breakers,” Grandfather says. “In every generation throughout history. Sometimes, they’re just not needed. Now, however, you are very, very badly needed.”

  “You’re not really saying that we—” Pirate Girl’s eyes go wide.

  “Oh yes. Why else do you think I’ve brought you all here?” Grandfather says, still perusing the book.

  “To give us your great wisdom about Rocco’s situation?” Apollo’s voice has turned quite high.

  “This is the greatest wisdom I have.” Grandfather’s eyes move across the page.

  “I’ve never broken anything before,” Henry says quietly. “Let alone a spell.”

  “I once broke my humerus,” Pirate Girl says. “Which was actually quite serious.”

  A Serious Humerus

  “I once broke my mother’s favorite garden-gnome music box,” Apollo says. “But I bought her another one with my birthday money.”

  “This is an entirely different kind of breaking. And it must be done only by an entirely different type of person. Or persons.” Now Grandfather looks up, and he does it again. That nerve-racking thing where he looks hard at each of them in turn.

  “Us?” Henry asks.

  “You,” Grandfather says.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m just a regular girl,” Jo says.

  Garden-Gnome Music Box

  “Holy ravioli! We’re spell breakers? This is fantastic!” Pirate Girl shouts. “Look at my arms! I have goose bumps.”

  “Isn’t spell breaking extremely dangerous?” Drops of sweat gather on Apollo’s forehead.

  “Well, of course it is! But this poor child has been turned into a naked lizard. A brother. A son!” Grandfather holds his hand out to indicate Rocco, who is utterly silent, not a noise coming from his tiny lips. “And you can make it right. What a glorious opportunity! What a fine responsibility, to do good in the face of evil! We have an HRM running around like a maniac.”

  Henry’s head begins to throb. He wants to help Rocco, but the idea that he himself might have to break a spell, or many spells—well, it’s a great deal more than he bargained for. He’s heard only a few whispers about the spell breaking of the past, but they were rather alarming whispers—Danger. Peril. Spine-chilling, knee-knocking, wet-your-pants fear.

  “‘Lizardo Nakedismo, spell-breaking option one. Take a sailing vessel to a distant country . . .’ Well, that won’t exactly work this time, will it, my dearest?” Grandfather says to The Beautiful Librarian.

  “Not this time. Read on.”

  “‘Option two. Gather a lantern, two black shoes, a compass, one very large piece of toast, a can of sardines, a foldout map of Australia . . .’”

  “Wait,” Pirate Girl says. “What did you say? Hold on! Stay right here! I’ll be right back.”

  She takes off. Grandfather removes his pocket watch from his jacket and keeps his eyes fixed on the second hand. Henry hears Pirate Girl’s feet, running down the lighthouse stairs. The door opens, closes, and opens again. Up the stairs she comes. She’s out of breath, and her face is flushed. She drops a pile of gear on the floor, startling Button to her feet.

  Grandfather looks at his watch. “Sixty-two seconds. Extraordinary.”

  “A lantern,” Pirate Girl puffs, out of breath. “A compass. A can of sardines. A foldout map of Australia . . . All we need are the two black shoes and a very large piece of toast.”

  “Wow,” Henry says. He knew she had a lot of stuff in that sidecar, but he’s quite impressed.

  “Maybe helping Rocco will be easier than we thought,” Jo says nervously. “Maybe it’ll be all right. I eat toast almost every morning.”

  “This is an excellent beginning,” Grandfather says to Pirate Girl. He beams at her, and she beams back. “However, one must always remember to turn the page.”

  Which is what he does next. “‘Eyelash from a white rhino,’” Pirate Girl reads.

  “One of the rarest creatures in the world.” Apollo sighs. “Next to the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the pygmy three-toed sloth.”

  “One must always remember to turn the page, but one must always remember to read the fine print, too,” The Beautiful Librarian says.

  Henry squinches his eyes. He can barely see the tiny words written below option two. They are the most miniature black swoops and swirls, as though a tiny ant forgot to wipe his feet before he tromped across the page.

  The Beautiful Librarian slides her glasses down her nose and reads, “‘In the dreadful and appalling circumstance that option one and option two are not options, there is the optional option three. This is the Hiding in Plain Sight cure. Victim must be paraded in full view of the spell caster without being seen. Of course, this is impossible and dangerous and therefore utterly inadvisable.’”

  Apollo looks sick with fright. And Rocco himself has gone from a deep green to a light olive. “Does that mean what I think it means?” Apollo asks, horrified.

  “Are you saying we have to take Rocco somewhere where Vlad Luxor can see him, only he can’t be spotted?” Jo’s beautiful brown eyes are dark caves of terror. For a moment, they are all so silent that Henry can hear the sea crashing against the rocks.

  “Yes,” Grandfather says, nodding. “And yes again.”

  “But Rocco can’t be trusted not to try to get attention at the worst moments,” Apollo says. “Even when you try and try to tell him to behave.”

  “And this means that we will also be visible to Vlad Luxor,” Pirate Girl reminds them.

  “Precisely why it is impossible and dangerous,” Grandfather says.

  “I don’t know,” Apollo says. “I mean, we could . . . adjust. To having a reptile in the family. I could maybe make Rocco a bed out of a box of matches . . .”

  Now, along with his pounding head, Henry’s tummy tumbles with anxiety. He can’t understand how they’ve gone from being regular children to spell breakers in an afternoon. The words peril and spine-chilling and knee-knocking echo in his whole body.

  But then it’s there again, the same feeling he had that very morning—a flickery flame in his chest, that golden-rise of something he can’t name. Henry thinks of the broken-hearted Mrs. Dante, and the times he’s seen little Rocco riding his trike as fast as he can. He thinks of the times he’s heard the Dante family laughing through his open window at night while he lies in bed. That laughter seems like the most beautiful sound in the world. It’s a sound worth fighting for.

  “I’ll go alone, if I have to,” Henry says.

  “You don’t have to,” Pirate Girl says. “I’m going, too.”

  “All right,” Jo says with a solemn nod. “Same for me.”

  “I guess I will,” Apollo says, somewhat reluctantly.

  Rocco has had enough of being still and quiet. He’s climbed to the top of Apollo’s head and now droops his tail over one of Apollo’s eyes. He is snapping his fingers and hopping from foot to foot, doing a silly dance in case anyone has forgotten about him.

  “La la la,” he says in his tiny naked lizard voice. “Pee pee pee.”

  They’re doomed.

  CHAPTER 11

  The News That Comes with the Pink Mebiolo

  In Grandfather’s dining room, he reaches into a large cupboard and removes several small glasses. They are made of blue and green sea glass, same as the floats from old ships. The children sit once again at the heavy table as he rummages in a drawer and finds a tiny thimble as a cup for Rocco, who’s perched on the curved cover of the butter dish.

  “I think this calls for a celebration,” Grandfather says. “Would you mind, darling, fetching that bottle of sparkling Pink Mebiolo from Mrs. Walden Thackaray?”

  “Oh, Big, you’ve forgotten. I don’t fetch.”

  “Quite right. My bad. I’ll be back in an instant. Can you remind me which one it is again?”

  “The dusty bottle in the center of the bottles,” The Beautiful Librarian says.

  Grandfather dashes away and returns in seconds.

  “This one, my dear?”

  “That’s it.”

  Grandfather Every hands the bottle to The Beautiful Librarian, and she releases the cork with a loud pop. The sound causes Button to bark like someone’s coming, same as she does whenever a doorbell rings on TV. The liquid is a slightly dirty pink, like a smoggy sunset, and maybe there were bubbles once. Pirate Girl sniffs her glass, and decides to sip.