I ran closer. As my feet pounded against the ground, they felt stronger than normal. I looked down—the harder I stepped, the more puffs of brown smoke leaked from my shoes.

  “Where is her head?” the Smoke Keeper cried. “Cheating! Everyone besides the King must wear a head! It’s not fair!” The Smoke Keeper pointed at me. “Seize her!”

  Two more massive stones broke away from the game board and stomped toward me.

  I had to do something. I didn’t have time for guards. I needed to get up to the Smoke Keeper.

  “Hit him with a sledgehammer,” the imaginary Alejandro in my head whispered. But I didn’t have a sledgehammer. Maybe here, however, my fists were close enough. I could feel the power running through them, and I got into Jackie Chan position, my knees bent, ready to fight.

  “I got this,” I whispered.

  As soon as the first guard reached me, I kicked off the ground, using my new leg strength to fly into the air. A cloud of smoke shot behind me as I bounced off the guard’s rock face.

  “Why is her smoke that color? Grab the child! Grab her!” the King screamed.

  I pinged back and forth between the guards’ heads, leaping over their arms every time they tried to snatch me.

  In my last jump I managed to kick off one guard’s arm and scramble to the top of his flat head. He looked from side to side, but I used all the strength in my fingers to hold on.

  I could hear the gasps and whoops of the onlooking checkers pieces. I slowly straightened my legs, balancing on the head like it was a surfboard.

  The King growled.

  “Losers! You’re all weaklings. Do I have to do everything myself?” He stomped again toward me. “To the girl!”

  His stone head lurched forward while I leaped from head to head, away from him, until I got to the final row. I jumped off the last head onto the grass.

  “King me!” I cried.

  I hoped the King would follow me onto the ground from his perch. It seemed like my odds of fulfilling my mission would be much better down here than atop a giant head.

  “All right, I will,” the Smoke Keeper snarled. He leaped off his stone head straight to the ground, stalking toward me.

  “You think you can win against me, little girl?”

  As he approached, I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t win against this tall man, with his hollow eyes and the puffs of smoke steaming off him. I barely even knew how to use my powers here.

  “No, I don’t,” I said honestly.

  “Then why,” he snarled, his long teeth peeking out from a white beard, “are you challenging me?” He thrust an arm out, pinning my neck to the stone head behind me.

  I used all of my strength to push against him, and he responded in kind, releasing his strength magic into a cloud around my throat.

  “Because I don’t have to beat you to win,” I whispered, my windpipe crushed beneath his grip.

  I managed to thrust the Smoke Ball into the cloud, absorbing his tan smoke.

  “Wha—!” he shouted, letting go as he reached for the Smoke Ball. As soon as his hand released me, I let out the loudest, strongest shout I could: “Alejandro!”

  Boom.

  Smoke flooded me as I screamed again. “Alejandro!” The Smoke Keeper covered his ears.

  Boom.

  I heard a stone head shatter behind me.

  Boom.

  * * *

  I startled awake, gasping for air. Alejandro was still knocking the pew above me, making the whole bench rattle.

  “You okay down there, Rose? Any news from dreamland?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked, still groggy from sleep. “Big stone heads. White and gray. The King makes them play checkers. The losers are killed.”

  “But did you find out if the people are in the heads, bent over under the heads, or just are the heads?”

  “In the heads.”

  “Perfect, that’s all I needed to know. Thanks, Rose!”

  “You got it.” I stretched in my pillow fort, preparing for the next battle. “What time is it?”

  “Uh, six eighteen.”

  I wasn’t in there for too long. Good.

  “I’m going back,” I said, straightening my blanket back over me.

  “Good luck,” Alejandro said with a laugh.

  If only you knew.

  I clicked open the watch. What was Six again? I thought, my eyes already half closed. Oh, yes, the apple. Fleck.

  I smiled thinking about her, and before I knew it, I was gone again.

  SIX

  Well whatten we got here?”

  The smell of dirt wafted over me in a wave. I looked up to see the farmer from the picture, only now he seemed different. His cheeks sucked in over sharp bones, his eyes were practically holes, and his teeth were long and rotten.

  “You popped up out of nowhere!”

  As soon as he said it, he started glowing with red smoke. Before I could whip the Smoke Ball out and get the heck out of there, he began to grow, as tall as a house.

  “That must make you an outsider, huh? Ain’t never seen one like you before. How did you get here?”

  He snatched me up in one of his big, meaty hands and held me up so that I could see the rows of apple trees around us, tended to by hundreds of tiny people, picking giant apples. Surrounding the farm was the long, swirling Wall, like a fence.

  We’re so close to it, I have to get away.

  “Time to meet the Wall, outsider.”

  I tried to remember Alejandro’s advice: use a wheat stem to make him sneeze. But there was no wheat in sight, only apples, and we were getting closer and closer to the Wall.

  But I had one idea.

  I didn’t know how to shrink, but I held my body in tight and imagined it. I imagined getting smaller, the way I tried to picture images before I drew them, the way Jo had taught me.

  I tried to imagine it was real, what it felt like.

  “What in tarnation?”

  “Oops!” I had succeeded in growing small, but in doing so, I’d slipped right through the farmer’s fingers.

  As he fumbled for me, I climbed up one of his arms, heading straight for a place I didn’t even want to think about: his dirty, crooked nose.

  “Where are you—”

  “Ha!” I lunged at his face and grabbed one long nose hair.

  “Let go of me, rat!” He shook his head from side to side before stopping to take in a big breath.

  “Ahhh…” This is it! “… CHOO,” he sneezed.

  At the same time, I imagined being bigger now—just big enough to pinch his nose as he blew, causing his ears to burst with red smoke.

  I flung the Smoke Ball sideways to catch the smoke, then immediately tucked it away and jumped off him.

  I hit the ground and ran into the orchard.

  “Why, you little…!”

  I grew to my regular size as I ran…

  Boom.

  … hiding from his giant, stomping feet…

  Boom.

  … screaming the whole way. “Alejandro!”

  Boom.

  * * *

  “I’m awake!” I cried, bathed in sweat. “I was running from the farmer. You were right. I had to make him sneeze.”

  “Oh?”

  “But there was no wheat. I had to make myself tiny, then swing from his nose hair.”

  “Gross.”

  “I know. What time is it now?”

  “Four minutes past seven.”

  “Perfect. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Alejandro repeated, chuckling again.

  It had become a rhythm. I didn’t even have to prepare myself as I descended into the vision of the metal- covered woman.

  SEVEN

  Mine! Mine! Mine!” A horrible shriek made my eyes shoot open, and it was good they did, because I was falling down a steep slide.

  “Whoa!” I managed to catch the edge of the slide, barely holding on with my fingertips. When I looked down, I saw the swirling energy of the Wall below.

  Below? How can it be below?

  “Give that to me!” a voice hissed from above. I looked up to see a massive maze of metal tracks running in many directions. A woman, glittering with metal stuck to every part of her body (there were chains, rings, cutlery, and even a teakettle), stalked above me. She hummed with silver energy—especially her feet every time she stepped.

  Maybe, I considered, she magnetized herself to the track?

  I tested it myself, trying to magnetize my feet to the metal slide. It worked. I stood up (or sideways, I guess) and followed the woman.

  She was trudging toward a girl who was running from her. On the little girl’s back was a frying pan.

  “Mine!” The woman held out a hand. The pan shot to her arm, sticking to the mass of metal around her. “It’s all mine!”

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness, you can have anything you want,” the girl squeaked. But she was too late. The woman snatched the girl by the arm, yanking her free of the metal rail. The girl screamed.

  I positioned myself on a track below them. When I looked up, I could see their feet, glowing silver above me.

  I squinted higher and caught a glimpse of the woman’s long-toothed smile.

  I tentatively stuck my feet to the wall of the track and climbed up it, crouched, quiet, taking big magnetized steps.

  I held my Smoke Ball to her feet, sucking up the silver energy.

  Yes, that’s it.

  I was about to scream, to signal Alejandro, when the girl above me did instead.

  I watched as the Queen let go of her. The girl fell straight toward the Wall below us.

  As she passed me, I reached out. I didn’t want to see someone else get sucked into the Wall.

  I didn’t catch her, but a wave of brown smoke bloomed from my hand, enveloping hers and shooting it to the metal—magnetized stuck.

  She looked at me, out of breath, as shocked as I was.

  “Who are you?” the Queen shouted above me.

  “Run,” I said to the girl. She did, detaching her body from the metal and dropping to a rail below.

  The Queen’s face dangled through the track above mine.

  “Now your turn.” Her clawed hand reached for me, plucking my hanging fingers off, one by one.

  Boom.

  Wait, I thought, already feeling dizzy.

  Boom.

  I hadn’t even said Alejandro’s name yet.

  Boom.

  * * *

  “Rose! Hey, Rose! Come on!” Alejandro was rapping on the wood above me. I rubbed the dream away. “We’re going to be late for class.”

  Good thing I managed to get the smoke in time.

  We left the church quickly. I didn’t have time to pack up my pillow and blanket, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t keep the big smile from stretching across my face. I had done it—three worlds in as many hours. I felt brave, and strong, and important. Now there were only two worlds left. With the pictures from the book, Jo’s instructions, and Alejandro’s help, I felt unstoppable.

  I was going to save Jeremiah after all.

  As Alejandro and I rushed to class, I told him all about my quick and dirty adventures, and he showed me the outline of the game he was making, based on my dreams.

  “It’s cool—it’ll be like Warp Jump and Torch Throwers and your new elements all mixed together.”

  It actually looked pretty fun.

  By the time we entered the building, the first bell had just rung and we had to push past masses of kids rushing to class. We were so busy talking that I didn’t care that other people were bumping into me.

  “No, you’re not just extra strong with your hands, see? It’s like everything. You can run faster because your legs are stronger, and you can scream louder because your throat is stronger, and—” I was saying.

  “Wait, I don’t think that’s how you scream,” Alejandro interrupted.

  “Well, whatever, you get it—it’s just all of you. All of you gets stronger.”

  “Yeah, that’s cool! We can add in double jumps for that level so you can go extra high, and maybe there can be a—whoa!”

  Alejandro stumbled into me. I caught his shoulder as the culprit breezed past us. Samantha had bumped into him, flouncing after a bobbing blond ponytail that hurried in front of her. Fallon.

  “But I don’t understand,” Samantha whined to Fallon’s back. “Why are you here?”

  I listened as we followed them to class, curious.

  “I told you, I was bored at home.”

  “Bored? You were bored?”

  Fallon didn’t answer. I could hear the eye roll in Samantha’s words. “Shouldn’t you be with Jeremiah, though?”

  Fallon turned to look at her, to say something. I could see her face scrunch up in pain, but then she turned around again. “I just wanted to come back to school.”

  I wanted to say something, but I worried I would make it worse. Maybe I’m not unstoppable after all.

  “I’m just saying, if it were my brother, I’d be with him.”

  Fallon stayed quiet after that, but Alejandro spoke beside me. “It’s easy to say that you’d do something when you don’t know what it actually feels like.”

  Samantha stopped, forcing us to stop too, as she spun around. Her face looked like she’d sucked on a lemon.

  “This has nothing to do with you.”

  Alejandro shrugged, mimicking her words. “I’m just saying.” Then he continued, “I’ve had lots of bad things happen—stuff that I never would have understood before I knew what they felt like.”

  “Oh, okay, so your brother is in the hospital too?” Samantha spat at him.

  “Of course not,” he answered.

  I stayed by Alejandro’s side, feeling more confident than usual with him next to me. Brave enough to tell Samantha, “But that doesn’t mean she’s a bad sister for coming to school. I know that Fallon’s a really good sister, actually.”

  Fallon caught my eye.

  “Whatever, I don’t have to listen to you,” Samantha sneered, looking at me. “You don’t even have any friends.”

  “I’m her friend,” Alejandro said.

  For a moment I thought I saw Fallon grimace, but I was distracted when Samantha turned back to Alejandro and snickered, “Oh yeah, you. I remember you.”

  “Huh?” I turned to Alejandro, expecting to see him as confused as I was, but instead, his face went pale.

  “What do you mean?” Fallon asked.

  “You don’t remember him? Alejandro Fuentes. He went to kindergarten with us.”

  He did? I don’t remember that. I looked at him again. He never said anything about it.

  “Then he had to leave because he burned his house down. My mom told me all about it. The news said that his dad got, like, really hurt from it.”

  “No, he didn’t,” I automatically snapped.

  “Ask him,” Samantha snapped back, spinning around. “I don’t have to listen to any of you.”

  Samantha stormed off into the classroom just as the final bell rang.

  “Thanks, you guys” came Fallon’s small voice before she rushed into class after her.

  I stayed where I was with Alejandro. We were late, but I didn’t care. I was reeling from everything that had just happened.

  “Is that true?” I asked him. He stood across from me, his head down.

  “Remember…,” he said after a pause. “Remember when I told you that I was born here? But that there was an accident and we had to move?”

  I nodded, not sure what to say.

  “I really didn’t mean to do it. Then we had to leave so that we could live with our family. So they could take care of my dad. He got burned really bad.” He looked up at me. “It was an accident. A big accident. There have been lots of accidents. I’m just…” He sighed. “I’m just really unlucky.”

  “That’s okay. I understand,” I said.

  He raised his head.

  “I’ve been really unlucky too,” I told him. “And I’ve made some bad mistakes myself.” I couldn’t stop the image of Jeremiah’s lifeless face from floating into my mind.

  “Really? You’re not scared off by me?” he asked quietly.

  “You’ve been nice to me, Alejandro. Nicer than anyone else. An accident doesn’t change that.”

  He smiled. Before he could say anything else, however, Mr. Topinka’s bald head popped out the cracked door.

  “What are you two doing outside? You’re late!”

  THE LOST HOUR

  The rest of school was the best day I’ve had in a long time. Alejandro was my first real friend in forever, and after the fight in the hall we felt even more comfortable with each other, I think. We talked about our “game” all day, and I used our ideas to prepare for the final two hours: the mysterious Twelve and, lastly, back to Eleven.

  I convinced Mom to let me stream a movie about knights, swords, and fighting that night. I wondered if the castle in Twelve would be like the one in the movie.

  I would probably have to fight there—a duel, maybe?

  That felt extra scary because I didn’t even know what my powers were going to be there. I had no way to plan for that world.

  And yet, I had so quickly conquered the other worlds… was there any way I could do it again?

  I stayed up until midnight. I was beyond tired when I crawled into bed, but my nerves kept me up until Mom quietly checked on me at 12:30 on her own way to bed.

  I watched the minute hand on the watch.

  I imagined the castle from the missing petal.

  I wondered how I was going to find the Smoke Keeper. It was easy with the other hours because that Amisi guy had put the Kings and Queens in the book so I could picture them as I fell asleep.

  Probably, though, the King or Queen of Twelve would be in the castle, right? Yeah. That must be why Jo didn’t leave me a hint. It would probably be obvious.

  I yawned, rolling onto my side.

  I was about to go there, to see the castle—a real castle.

  I closed my eyes and held the watch to my chest. That was all it took as the warmth of the watch pulsed in time with the beat of my heart.