My Diary from the Edge of the World (10 page)

“But you don't want to go back the way you've come,” Grandma went on. “And if you were to set off on the Atlantic, the sea serpents wouldn't let you get past Halifax.” She shook her head and pointed west. “Now . . . LA, city of Lost Angels. So hard to get to with the roads being what they are, and the west being what it is . . . but it's the best port to launch from. . . .” She paused here for a moment, thinking, and then moved on.

“Washington, the Brain City.” (Washington is home to the country's biggest, dustiest library, a white monolith which—I've heard from Millie who went on a school field trip there in sixth grade—is covered in cobwebs.) “You could find some good old maps there, but I don't think you'll need them. Florida,” she went
on, sliding her hand south, “has too many alligators.”

I sighed, disappointed. I've always wanted to see Disney World, which was built in the seventies but quickly grew over with strangler vines and swamp grass. Now most of what's left of the state of Florida is swamps littered with gators and old cemeteries and, in the Everglades, a monster named Guyascatus who snatches lumberjacks. And of course, Mausoleum Headquarters . . . but only foreign dignitaries, elected officials, and certain celebrities get to go there.

“There's really no place in the country where a Cloud won't be able to follow you, of course. . . .” Grandma leaned her elbows on the table, lost in thought. Then she let out a short, decisive breath. “The long and short of it is, you're gonna have to sail south, and you're gonna need to hire a guardian angel to have any chance of making it.” She looked around at us, discouraged. “And all the angels for hire are in LA.”

She jabbed her finger at the west coast again.

“But the roads,” Dad said, adjusting his glasses to see better. “The west is uncrossable.”

Grandma shrugged. “People do it. But it's not easy. With any luck, the Great Western Road is open. If not . . .” Her voice trailed off. “You'll figure out a way.”

Mom and Dad looked more tense by the second, but I was still back at
guardian angel.

“And we can't afford to hire an angel,” Dad said.

Grandma waved a hand, and suddenly Dad's lips shut tight. He gave Grandma an exasperated look. “Don't talk back to your mother,” she said. “You can't afford
not
to hire one. There are creatures in the ocean that no human stands a chance against . . . and the ocean is the only way to get where you're going. Of course, an angel is only under contract until he or she has saved your life
once
, which is pretty paltry under the circumstances, but I guess that's up to the lawyers and not me. It's better than nothing. Anyway, I've got some savings I'll give you, and you'll use that to pay for it all—the ship, the angel, everything.” I expected Mom and Dad to protest, but they were silent, and I wondered again if we really
are
broke.

Finally, Mom leaned closer over the map, her cheeks flushing with sudden excitement. “It looks like,” she said as she tucked her dark hair back behind her ear, “if we make it through Arizona, we'll go right by Luck City. Why not try our luck with the genie? Genies can change anything they want to, even Clouds, can't they?” She looked at Dad, who also looked suddenly hopeful.

My heart fluttered with excitement. Luck City is the only city in the country (maybe even the world) run by beasts and supernatural creatures. It's a place where people bet all sorts of things in hopes of winning big: A game of poker can get you the services of a giant (who'll build you your own mansion, or anything else you desire). Slot machines and roulette wheels are run by wish-granting creatures like leprechauns. You can win rides on mystical creatures or a kiss from a mermaid . . . The city is said to be both dangerous and wonderful; the kind of place where all your dreams can come true or where you can lose everything in the blink of an eye. And it's almost impossible to get to. (The ads only come on during daytime TV, between soap operas and court shows, and Mom says that's because they're targeting people who don't have much to lose.) I don't know much about genies, but I know they're vaguely related to angels—kind of the way tigers are vaguely related to pet cats. And there are only a handful of them in the world.

But Grandma's eyes darkened. Her mouth drooped into a severe frown, and her hands moved and tapped with agitation on the table. For the first time I could picture the powerful witch I'd always heard about.

“Promise me,” she said, “that you'll never go through
with such an idea. Luck City is for monsters and fools. And people who try their luck with the genie are the biggest fools of all.”

Mom was speechless. She fingered her turquoise engagement ring, seeming unsure whether to argue back or not. I'd never seen her so uncertain—my mom could out-argue a lion if she wanted. Dad covered her hand with his own, protectively. “Okay, Mom, okay. We promise.”

Grandma studied the both of them, her mouth pressed together in a thin, worried line. And then she jabbed at California again with her index finger. “That's where you launch from. That's where you find your angel and a captain who might be brave enough to take you. It's your one good shot.”

Dad's brow was wrinkled as he stared down at the map. “It would take us a year to do everything you're telling us to do. And the Cloud would be after us the whole time.”

“Not a year,” Grandma said. “But maybe half a year, yes.” She frowned, softening. “I didn't say it would be easy. But it's your only chance.”

Slowly, the map scrolled itself up and floated back across the room and into the cupboard.

Grandma looked at each of us—Mom, Dad, Millie,
me, and Oliver. “You'll all need to stick together. That's the most important thing. You're going to need each other.” Then she reached a hand out and rested it on my dad's arm. “I believe in you, Theodore.” She turned to my mom. “I believe in all of you. You'll make it through.”

I tried to feel encouraged by her words, but I have to admit that the edge of the world seems so beyond our reach that I can barely believe we could ever get there at all.

Something has just happened that I hate to put on paper. It means that, whether the edge of the world is reachable or not, we have no choice but to try.

About an hour ago I walked out onto the side porch. Dad was standing at the railing, staring into the trees. I stood beside him and rested my hand near his, breathing in the smell of the piney air. Since we were alone, I was thinking that maybe I should make some kind of big apology to him for doubting the Extraordinary World all these years—I've been trying to think of a way to say it for days. But before I could get it out, he took my wrist gently and pulled me close to his side. He pointed up into the sliver of washed-out blue sky peeking through the tops of the trees.

A dark shape was floating a few miles away, just above the treetops, gray and thick and unmistakable, with its familiar black hole in the middle. It was drifting back and forth slightly, as if searching the trees for something. Of course, I knew what it was searching for.

I suppose if we had any hope of the Cloud giving up, it's gone now.

Dad says we'll leave tomorrow night after dark.

I woke this morning to
the sound of Millie crying. My first thought, which took my breath away, was that the Cloud had arrived. But ducking to the window, I could see it still in the distance, drifting slowly. Down in the glade below me, the ghosts were gathered around a pair of Grandma's binoculars and fighting over who would get the next look at it over the treetops.

Hurrying downstairs, I found Millie in the kitchen, leaning on my mom, her hair all askew and her face puffy. I thought that maybe she was on her period, because every time she is, she gets so upset her eyes become like the eyes of this killer in a horror movie I watched one night after Mom and Dad had gone to
bed. Here's a list of the top three most angry moments I ever remember her having:

1. The time I put the Poochie the dog (may she rest in peace), on the counter to eat the honey-glazed ham she'd baked for Christmas dinner

2. The time I took a photo of her barfing during the flu

3. The time Dad showed her homecoming date his collection of taxidermied ducks, especially pointing out the tail feathers (his favorite part)—basically putting all the duck butts in his face

“I can't spend another day in the Winnebago,” she said as my mom hugged her and tried to comfort her. Across the room Oliver and Sam had just walked in holding—of all things—Ping-Pong paddles. They looked bewildered, turning and hurrying away before Millie could spot them.

“I know you guys have to go,” Millie sniffed, sucking in deep breaths. “I know the Cloud's coming. But I don't see why we
all
have to go. If Dad would just let me stay . . .” She sniffed again. “It's not normal to be sixteen and living in an RV with your whole family. It's psychologically . . . traumatic.”

“You know you don't mean that, honey,” Mom said, looking at me as if urging me to add something sympathetic. “You wouldn't be happy if we left you behind. We know how hard it is for you without your privacy. Right, Gracie?”

I was about to say life in the Winnebago isn't quite
un
-psychologically-traumatizing for me, either, but I heroically kept my mouth shut and nodded. I turned so Mom couldn't see me rolling my eyes, and then went and got this diary from upstairs and came here to the living room to reflect on how selfish Millie is. I just looked out the window, but have lost sight of the Cloud. There's a strange breeze rattling the screens.

Millie—oh—something's happening. Going to find out what's going on. I'll be back.

There's so much to say.
Where do I begin?

We're back in the Winnebago, driving on a curvy road headed southwest through Tennessee. Our departure from the Crow's Nest, two days ago now, did not go as planned. I'll try to get down as much as I can, even though the curves of the road are making me woozy. I guess I'll start exactly where I last left off.

*  *  *

Millie was still crying, and I'd gone to the back deck to see what all the rattling and windiness was about. Below, in the ghost's grove, the trees were swaying like crazy. Two ghosts (both sullen-looking Victorian ladies) were standing on top of the tallest boulder, one holding the end of a rope while the other tossed the far end, looped
like a lasso, up into the sky. She was aiming for the Cloud. Other ghosts were swirling around the grass or disappearing into the Underworld cave in alarm, moaning and flipping through the air. Samson was especially agitated, glaring up at the Cloud, then poking into the cave, then floating out again.

I turned at the sound of Grandma, who was just coming in through the kitchen door with a butterfly net and a fresh crown of ivy nestled in her hair.

“Hush that crying,” she called to Millie. “You're agitating the ghosts, honey, and they're already stirred up.” She came outside to stand beside me and looked down at the scene below. “Oh dear, they're trying to catch it. Pitiful.”

Just then a blinding orange light flared up at us from the deck. Flames crawled along a railing below us.

Grandma leaned over to get a closer look, jumped back in surprise, and thrust her fists against her hips. “Well, now he's done it,” she said. “He's set the house on fire.” We all rushed to her side and looked down. “Stupid old thing!”

Samson was watching the flames as they rose, looking sheepish and a little uncertain of himself, glancing up at us, then at the flames, then at us again. He
moved back toward the cave, but kept swiveling again to stare, as if he wasn't sure whether he should feel guilty or not. He still clasped the matches in both translucent hands.

“Y'all better get your things and go,” Grandma said, running into the kitchen and grabbing a bucket, then nodding toward a hall closet that spilled suddenly open to spit out two big pots. The crows flapped around the house wildly. We all stood, stunned, until Grandma darted past again. “Things are gonna get ugly for a while. Go!”

The Crow's Nest—all wood, of course—was going up fast. Fire was soon licking toward the roofline, and the crows began a chorus of ungodly squawks.

We scattered to our rooms, grabbing our backpacks, with Mom yelling at us to forget them and get out of the house. As we banged into each other in the hall, Oliver took mine out of my arms and hoisted it onto his shoulder, but I pulled it back from him. (Side note: I'm not the kind of girl who likes boys to carry things for me, and I've decided I never will be.) There was no time to think if there was anything we were leaving behind. Mom stood in the doorway, waving me out wildly, stuffing the artifacts Grandma had given us (the postcard, the
encyclopedia page, and the Delta snack bag) into the bag in her left hand.

Dad was on the front deck with Sam clinging to his legs.

Grandma, running back and forth inside and waving her arms in the air as buckets and pots full of water swirled around her, came to an abrupt stop at the door. She wiped her hair out of her face and hesitated in the doorway. “Don't worry about me.” She pushed outside and thrust a sock, knotted at the top and bulging, into my Mom's hands. “My savings. For your angel and your ship, nothing else,” she said. “Keep it safe and put away. You'll need every penny when you get to LA.” She gave us each a fierce kiss. “I'll be fine. I promise. Stick under the trees as much as you can.” She leaned out the open doorway and whispered something toward the woods. The uppermost branches of the trees bent toward each other ever so slightly, creating a shielding canopy over the trail. “You can't fool a Cloud forever, but you can get a head start, and that's better than nothing.”