The Legend of the Rift (12 page)

I
DIDN'T NEED
the Loculus of Language to know that the waiter was throwing some choice Turkish curses at the black cat.

“It's okay!” I said. “Don't—”

But the cat had disappeared out of the café, and the waiter was looking at me as if I had a screw loose.

Maybe I did.

I left the café and glanced over the outdoor tables. Torquin and Brother Dimitrios seemed to be in some kind of argument. Cass and Marco were laughing, and Eloise was stuffing fistfuls of calamari into her mouth.

For a moment I thought of going back and telling them what I'd experienced. But even I didn't trust what
I'd experienced. A cat with lambda-shaped pupils? It didn't make sense. How could it even see?

I had to find it and look at those eyes again. Just to be sure.

To my left, the white stucco walls of the building ended in an alleyway. I casually walked to the alley and looked in. On one side of it was a tightly closed Dumpster. The ground was covered with cobblestones stained brownish gray with food. At the end, the cat was sitting on its haunches.

When I made eye contact, it stood and cocked its head, then walked behind the building. I ran down the alley and followed it around the corner.

And I tripped over the leg of a grizzled old man slumped against the wall. “Whoa!” I shouted, just managing to stay upright. “Sorry!”

The man pulled his legs in and looked up. He was wearing black sunglasses, and his face was covered with a scraggly salt-and-pepper beard. “Australia?” he said, rising slowly to his feet.

“Uh . . . no!” I said. “America.”

He was blocking my path back to the café. I looked over my shoulder, but the cat was gone.

“Ah, good. America,” he said. “You take me to America?”

Oh, great. A total wacko. I knew this was a dumb idea. I backed away, figuring I could sneak around the other side
of the building. “Yeah. Sure,” I said. “Uh, well, great to meet you—”

“Herostratus,” the guy said. “And you?”

“Jack. See you!”

I turned on my heel and bolted, but I didn't get far. The back alley ended in a chain-link fence.

Spinning around, I said, “Oops. Look, I have to get back to my—”

“Orange juice,” he said. “I know.” He was reaching into his pocket, and I felt the hair prickle at the back of my neck. “Take this. We go to America someday.”

Out of his pocket, he pulled a dirty, ragged-edged business card and held it out to me. I grabbed it, mumbled thanks, and shoved it in my pocket. He stepped aside, gesturing for me to pass by.

I couldn't help brushing against him as I squeezed by, back the way I'd come.

I bolted for the café, where the waiter was already serving the main courses. Someone had ordered me a cheeseburger. Marco was slurping the last drops of a chocolate shake. “Did you fall in to the toilet, bro?” he said. “You were gone a long time.”

“I—I went looking for that weird cat,” I said lamely. “It had . . . strange eyes.”

“Did you find it?” Eloise asked.

“No,” I replied.

“Chef probably needed it . . . for cheeseburger!” Torquin laughed at his own joke, a hideous snorting, choking noise that made the people in the nearby table drop their silverware.

“Well, there are plenty more cats,” Cass said, gesturing around the café floor, where at least three more were twining around the tables. No one seemed to be paying them much attention.

And neither should you
, I told myself. As I took a deep breath and picked up my burger, I noticed something strange about my sleeve.

Hairs. Black cat hairs, up and down the length. Exactly where I had brushed against the homeless guy.

“Slow day,” Torquin remarked as we walked up the path to the temple site.

He was right. The sky was overcast, the air had a chill, and we were among the few visitors to the Temple of Artemis. “How much of it is left?” I asked.

Cass gestured to a marble column about two stories high that looked like it had been put together out of mismatched blocks by a baby giant. “That much.”

“That's it?” Eloise said.

“The temple was destroyed by the attacking Goths in the third century
B.C
.,” Cass said. “Many of the stones were used in other buildings over the years. Others were looted.”

As we walked closer, we seemed to be the only visitors speaking English. I heard what sounded like German, Greek, Turkish, maybe Swedish. Aside from the patched-together column, the site was basically a flat field strewn with relics—a piece of column here, a chunk of sculpture there. Mostly weeds and soil, and a wide, swampy puddle.

“Some Wonder of the World,” Eloise sniffed. “Are the others just as spectacular?”

Brother Dimitrios was stepping cautiously. “I have seen how this works,” he said. “These children can conjure life out of rocks. They can cause the formation of statues, Loculi, and all manner of creatures. It is a terrifying thing to behold.”

“I'm waiting. . . .” Eloise said, tapping her foot impatiently.

I walked around the field, but I felt nothing. Not the slightest vibration, nothing close to the Song of the Heptakiklos. “Be patient,” I said. “This happened at the Mausoleum in Bodrum, too. All we needed was the right stone. . . .”

Cass was kneeling by a piece of column that was charred black. “Hey, maybe this is from the time that goofball burned down the second temple, before they built the third and most awesome one.”

“Ancient goofballs,” Marco said. “Sounds like a book series.”

As I picked up a stone, Torquin pulled out his phone and began thumbing away. “Wikipedia. Temple arsonist wanted to be famous. Burned it down so people would know his name.” He scratched his head. “Didn't work. Herostratus. Never heard of him.”

At the sound of that name, I dropped the rock on my foot. But I didn't feel a thing.

Fumbling in my pocket, I pulled out the business card the homeless guy had given me.

B
ROTHER
D
IMITRIOS MUST
have tipped well at lunch, because the Amazon Café waiter just smiled and nodded as we barged back into the outdoor restaurant. I led everybody around to the back alley, but it was totally empty save for an old newspaper blowing lazily in the wind.

“He was right here!” I said, inching my way down the narrow passageway toward the chain-link fence. “I followed the cat with the orange eyes, but when I got here it was gone. That's when I saw the old guy.”

“Wait,
orange
?” Eloise said.

“Yes, and its pupils were shaped like lambdas,” I said. “I tried to show you, but you guys were all over the menu.”

I saw Cass give Marco a look. “Are you sure you're
feeling all right, Jack?” Cass asked.

“The calamari did taste a little funny to me,” Marco said.

I stopped when I reached the end of the alley. Just before the fence, in the back wall of the restaurant, was a closed door. From a distance, it looked black and featureless, but up close I noticed words carved into the metal but blackened with age and paint.

“I don't remember seeing this,” I said.

“Restaurant kitchens generally do have back doors,” Brother Dimitrios said.

“I mean the words,” I said.

“Stand still,” Cass said, reaching into my backpack. “This is a job for the Loculus of Language.”

I took out the old man's business card. “I'm taking a wild bet this says Amazon Legacy Solutions.”

“Uh . . . yup,” Cass replied.

“It's on the card that weird guy gave me,” I said. “He must work here.”

“I guess Amazon's just starting out in Turkey,” Marco said. “Maybe we should order a book.”

I knocked on the door and heard it echo on the inside. “Hello?” I called out.

After waiting for a few moments, I knocked again.

“No one there,” Eloise said. “Can we go now? This places stinks, and it gives me the creeps.”

I pressed down on the latch. With a deep click, the door swung open into complete blackness. A blast of cold, dry, musty air whooshed out.

“Anyone home?” I couldn't remember the name on the card, so I checked it in the light from outside and said, “Um . . . Herostratus? Hello?”

As we all stepped in, Brother Dimitrios said, “This is clearly some sort of meat locker. Unless you would like to have a run-in with a side of beef, I suggest we—”

“Yeeeeeeiiiiii!”
A baby's scream pierced the darkness. I jumped back, knocking Eloise off her feet. As we tumbled to the floor, I heard a click.

I scrambled to stand up. Above us a single lightbulb flashed on, and from it hung a long string almost all the way to the floor. At the end of the string was a fuzzy, chewed-up plush mouse.

A black tail disappeared into a half-open doorway. “That's it!” I said. “That's the cat!”

My heart thudding, I took in the surroundings—an empty, square room with a vaulted ceiling that seemed higher than the building looked from outside.

“Close the door!”
a voice with a thick accent called out from the next room.

“Herostratus?” I called out. “Is that—”

“Am I not being clear?” the voice boomed.

Torquin reached behind him and pulled the door shut.

The room fell silent. Everything we had been hearing—distant car horns and revving motors, planes, radios—was totally gone. Not the slightest hint of a sound.

“Echo!” Marco called out. “Echo! Echo!”

Eloise poked him in the side.
“Will you stop that!”

For a moment, absolutely nothing happened. Slowly, the light from above seemed to soften, and I blinked, thinking my eyes were adjusting weirdly to the light. Near the half-open door, the harsh white wall seemed to be darkening. Its flatness grew wavy, as if it were suddenly melting. But one by one, the waves swelled and took on solid form. They became rounded like cups, bowing outward until each one
took the shape of a sconce, each holding a flickering candle. Their surfaces took on the weight and shine of polished marble, carved with faces, shoulders, and arms of women. Each one looked as if she were holding up the light herself, the sconce fires dancing brightly.

“Jack, look!” Cass exclaimed, pointing upward.

I craned my neck to see the ceiling, which was now at least twice as high as it had been. Its squarish shape was now vaulted marble, its walls carved with the shapes of vines, leaves, and jumping deer. The bare lightbulb at the top was now a chandelier made of deer antlers, their tips blazing with candlelight.

Brother Dimitrios let out a gasp and began to dance weirdly. I felt a movement under my feet, and I realized he was just spooked over the fact that the bare cement floor was changing shape, transforming into a mosaic of colorful glazed tiles.

Eloise let out a scream. “I want to go home!”

She headed for the door and pressed down on the latch, but it wouldn't move. Brother Dimitrios joined her, but he wasn't having much success either.

Marco ignored them both, creeping toward the half-open door, where the cat had disappeared. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty . . .”

I stepped closer to him. At the transom, we both leaned inward, pushing the door open. I reached in and felt around
the inner wall. “There's got to be a light switch somewhere. . . .” I said.

“Careful, Brother Jack,” Marco said.

I stepped into the room. And I put my foot down on . . . nothing.

Losing my balance, I grabbed Marco. But his weight was pitched forward, too. “Whoa!” he said. “What are you—”

Marco reached for the doorjamb but I felt my weight pitching downward. I let go of Marco's shirt and windmilled my arms.

“DOOOOIIINNNNG!” Marco's voice echoed against the walls as we both fell into blackness.