He prepared to double back, to actually do his job this time. The growl stopped him.

  The foliage over the main corridor created deep shadows where the sound seeped from. In those shadows, a pair of red eyes glowed.

  Sheed ran back the way he’d come, yelling, “Warm World has pets!”

  He sprinted toward Otto, as did the thing chasing him. It wasn’t clear what sort of animal it was, but quick glances over his shoulder confirmed it sure had a lot of teeth.

  “Tell me you found a mirror!” Sheed shouted.

  Not exactly. There were some low possibilities. The mirror with the frame made up entirely of doll heads seemed a better choice than the frame depicting a black hole. But that didn’t make it ideal. Because . . . doll heads.

  Otto spun in a circle, trying to gauge which of the frames would be the best of his potentially bad choices.

  Ski mask and machete frame? Nope.

  Terrifying robot frame? Probably not.

  Icicle and earmuffs? Hmmmm.

  “You better pick fast,” Sheed said, almost on him. The snarling beast gaining.

  “From warm to cold,” Otto mumbled, grabbing Sheed’s shirt and dragging him through their next mirror.

  They plopped through, landing face first in a foot of crisp snow.

  The boys pushed themselves up on their knees; they were now clad in thick parkas with hoods and fur lining.

  “Winter World?” Sheed said, trying the designation on for size.

  “Works for me,” said Otto.

  They scanned the aisle of mirrors, used to the constant similarities of each emporium, while taking in the big differences (the shelves here were made of solid carved ice). There was a stillness to this chilly emporium . . . no immediate danger detected, but they were already shivering despite the cold-weather gear they’d gained on the trip.

  “We . . . can’t,” Otto began, his chattering teeth chomping his sentence into bite-size segments, “stay here for . . . long.”

  Sheed agreed. “We’ll freeze.”

  So the search began in earnest, with the temperature seeming to plummet every minute they were there. Unable to find the clown-framed funhouse mirror that would take them back to Warped World before tiny icicles began forming in their eyebrows, Otto and Sheed opted for an early jump through a mirror with a frame made of orange, brown, and rust-colored leaves.

  This brought them into a perfectly temperate emporium—their outfits in this world were thin jackets and jeans. This should’ve allowed for a more leisurely search, but tiny hurricanes began developing, forcing them to make another leap through a pink mirror that spat them into an emporium constructed entirely of cotton candy. Then the next frame, one made of stone, put them in a world that excited Otto greatly.

  He said, “Dude, we’re dinosaurs. Judging by the plates running up your back, you’re a—”

  “Shut. Up. Otto!”

  They leapt again.

  This pattern repeated a dozen times, a forced leap through a seemingly safe mirror only to arrive in a place that ranged from intolerably inconvenient (it’s hard to walk on cotton candy) to outright deadly until, finally, in an emporium made of giant, looming dominoes, they found the Warped World mirror.

  They stood before it, staring at their weirdly warbling reflections in the distorted glass. Neither seemed anxious to make a move.

  “We should talk before we go through,” Sheed said.

  “Yes. We don’t know what will be waiting on the other side. We should be ready for a fight.”

  “Yeah. That, too. But I meant I should tell you about the Black Mirror.”

  Otto had been jittery and anxious over the potential of running smack-dab into Nevan, his Jurors, and the spiders. Sheed’s sudden willingness to share amplified both sensations. “Okay,” he said, though it didn’t feel okay.

  “I looked a little older,” Sheed said, sounding like a robot. “I had some hair on my face. Maybe three or four years from now.”

  “Three—” Otto couldn’t get the second word up, was too busy holding back a sudden, barely controllable sob.

  Sheed said, “It was hard to tell because I was really thin. I looked sick.”

  Otto’s throat felt tight, still he said, “Sheed, that reflection doesn’t have to be true.”

  “That’s not what TimeStar—I mean you—said, right?”

  “We can fix it.” Otto thought of the stolen vial still in his pocket. “In Warped World. The medicine.”

  “You know it will work? For sure?”

  “No. Not for sure. Probably. But . . .” Otto shook his head. No lies here. Too important. “Dr. Medina said she wouldn’t give it to you unless you stayed in Warped World forever. There might be side effects.”

  Sheed’s head wrenched Otto’s way. “Like what?”

  “It’s unclear.”

  Sheed laughed then. Full on, chin to the ceiling, gut-busting laughter.

  Otto flinched. “You’re being scary.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sheed said, the laughs subsiding. “I am. I shouldn’t have been mad at you for keeping it to yourself. Knowing sucks. You dealt with that suckage by yourself for weeks, and I’m sorry for that, too.”

  “We can still figure something out. Okay? Don’t give up.”

  “Give up? Three or four years is a long time. We got a lot of fights to get through. Starting now. Let’s do it.” Sheed took a step toward the Warped World mirror, but Otto grabbed his sleeve.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Solid, cuzzo. No worries.”

  Otto was worried. Sheed didn’t really seem okay, though Otto couldn’t really tell what felt off. Sheed had laughed. He said he was ready for a fight. What was he feeling, though? Grandma often said you can’t really tell what a person has going on inside them. People cover up their fears but don’t always think straight when they’re scared.

  The emporium they were in was stable. No immediate danger around. Maybe me and Sheed should talk some more, Otto thought. Before making the jump to Warped—

  Sheed leapt through the mirror.

  Well, dang.

  Otto followed.

  He emerged on the other side prepared for battle. Fortunately, the aisle was completely deserted, though voices flitted from the front of the emporium. Nevan and his crew hadn’t strayed far.

  This was a good thing, though. Time to evaluate the situation, form a plan.

  The first thing Otto evaluated was himself. Returning to Warped World had put them back in their original clothing and reactivated Otto’s physical fluctuation—to use Dr. Medina’s expression. His skin had become the impossibly strong rock that had helped them escape before. Big difference: the rockiness had spread. It now covered his face, confirmed by a quick glance at a mirror across the aisle. Also his feet, which had swelled and burst through his sneakers.

  He dug in his pocket, fishing out the vial of Fixityall that had gone clear when they left Warped World. It was back to its natural (if you could call such an elixir natural) state of glowing yellow. Even with the talk of side effects and Sheed having to stay in Warped World, making the use of the medicine unlikely, Otto’s spirit was lifted by the option of it.

  “We should talk about this medicine more,” Otto said, turning to Sheed, “because—ACK!”

  “What?” Sheed asked, yet to check a mirror.

  “Your face.”

  “What about my—” He checked the nearest mirror. “ACK!”

  Sheed’s face was gone. Erased by another Warped World physical fluctuation.

  No cheeks. No lips. No forehead.

  His ’fro and his trusty pick were still intact, though. That offered little comfort.

  A pristine Afro on a clean, bleached-white skull just wasn’t a great look.

  Not even for Sheed.

  24

  The Morty Look

  Back at D. Franklin Middle School, in Mr. Rickard’s science room, there was a skeleton named Morty who usually got some sort of makeover around Halloween. It’s been a DFMS October tradition to dress Morty up in three-piece suits or a leather jacket. It wasn’t unusual for the skeleton to get accessorized with sunglasses or a hat.

  In that moment, if someone had swapped Skull-Faced Sheed for Halloween Morty, a casual observer might have had a tough time telling them apart. It was a little too much for the usually cool-under-pressure Sheed to take. His knees buckled. Otto jumped forward to catch him before he fell.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Otto said. He lifted Sheed off the ground and couldn’t tell if it was his new rocky strength or Sheed’s sudden lack of flesh that made his cousin so light.

  “I’m fine,” Sheed said, “just a little shook from the trip.” He pushed at Otto’s chest with bony fingers that were as bare and white as his face.

  Otto set him down. “Does it hurt?”

  “Does being a walking, talking rock hurt?”

  No. It didn’t. That didn’t mean Sheed had actually answered his question either.

  “Come on,” said Sheed, “what’s the plan here?

  A gruff Nevan continued to speak loudly, with authority, near the entrance of the emporium. They were too far away to make out any of his words, though.

  “We should sneak a little closer. Try to see what he’s talking about. Could be important.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Otto took a step—a clunky, loud, lumbering step. A rock foot on a concrete floor did not make for stealthy approach. “Dude, I can’t sneak.”

  “Wait here.” Sheed yanked up the hood of his coat, cinched the drawstring so it constricted tight around his face, giving him a look similar to the Grim Reaper. “I got this.”

  He skittered around the corner, feeling nearly weightless in his new form. As he moved closer to Nevan and company, he ran his bony hands across his chest and stomach. Awesome! They were still there. It was only his face and hands missing flesh.

  But would the condition spread like Otto’s? Why was it happening at all?

  A few mirror rows from Nevan’s gathering, Sheed slunk into the shadows, straining to listen, peering through the gaps in the shelves for a limited view of all present.

  The sloth Juror with the fancy fingernails held a notebook before her. “After a cursory review of Evian Nedraw’s logs, I see that insane Executioner of yours has been imposing his unique brand of justice on the residents of this world for some time. There are several dozen of his prisoners here in the emporium.”

  Nevan bounced around, his heavy body shaking the foundation. “Interesting. Now that I’ve reclaimed my role in overseeing all of the emporiums across the various realms, we should reach out to the highest powers in this world to settle the matter of prisoner accommodations.”

  The Jurors mumbled agreement, but Spencer didn’t seem all that clear on the instruction. “You mean like a president or king? So we can get permission to release the wrongly imprisoned?”

  Nevan’s voice was syrupy sweet. “I was thinking more like a banker or treasurer.”

  Harvey Hippo said, “Because they can pay us.”

  “Harvey,” Nevan said, “we’ve been over this.”

  Harvey shut his big mouth.

  “I don’t know much about that part of it, mate,” said Spencer. “Can’t we just let the people go like you did for us?”

  Nevan said, “That was a situation of imminent danger. When Evie Nedraw and my Executioner were still on the loose. Now that they’ve been apprehended, there’s a certain order to these things. Don’t worry, we’ll release the innocent. Just after we talk to a banker or a treasurer.”

  Spencer crossed his six arms, obviously unsatisfied. Nevan leaned in, placing a comforting hand on one of the spider’s shoulder and giving Sheed a better view of him.

  Sheed gasped.

  Nevan was more huge, more muscular (still with that tiny head) than before. The jewelry he’d been rocking hadn’t adjusted to his new form. It was too tight, embedded in his flesh like it was a part of him. He caressed the gold chain that looked etched into his collarbone and said, “Don’t worry, friend. I have every intention of making things right here.”

  Sheed didn’t like the sound of that at all. He slid around the shelving closest to him onto the next aisle, which was less organized. More like loose storage for a number of randomly sized mirrors. Moving past one, he detected motion from the corner of his eye and clamped a bony hand over his bony mouth to prevent a yelp.

  The Judge—Sheed felt way more comfortable granting him that title over Executioner—loomed hulking and silent in his glass cage. His shoulders heaved with each breath, but he didn’t move otherwise. Backing up a step, Sheed checked other mirrors stored along with the Judge’s. Sure enough, just a few feet away, was Missus Nedraw’s.

  She was much more animated in her cell than the Judge. Mouthing things and pointing frantically. Sheed couldn’t understand what she was trying to say, so he whispered, “Slow down.”

  Her fists clenched and she took deep breaths. Moving her lips slowly, she mouthed, Emergency exit, while pointing the way Sheed had come from.

  “Where exactly?” he whispered.

  She pointed down, then shoved her palms toward Sheed in a pushing motion.

  Her mirror rested on a wheeled trolley. Sheed grabbed her frame and tugged, testing the ease of movement and noise. The wheels turned with barely a hiss.

  He began wheeling her to where Otto waited, but she made more jerky pointing motions and mouthed, extra slowly, Get the Law.

  Following her pointer finger, Sheed spotted the Judge’s large legal manual tossed carelessly on the floor across the aisle.

  Sheed grabbed the heavy volume, wedged it onto the wheeled platform, and moved. It wasn’t hard work exactly, yet by the time he turned to the corner and found Otto waiting, his arms and legs burned; he struggled to catch his breath.

  Otto met him halfway, unsure how Sheed had gotten Missus Nedraw away from Nevan, but sensing she might be useful in whatever came next. Provided they could escape the emporium.

  “Emergency,” Sheed said, gulping air, “exit. Somewhere.”

  Missus Nedraw gestured toward the absolute backside of the emporium.

  Otto picked her mirror up, tucked it under one arm. Sheed grabbed the Law. They delved deeper into the mirror maze. Every so often, Otto flipped the mirror around to look Missus Nedraw in the face, and she’d point in another direction. They finally reached a back corner of the vast emporium. There—a three-way mirror like the kind in dressing rooms when Grandma had them try on new clothes at the mall.

  “This it?” Sheed asked.

  Missus Nedraw nodded vigorously.

  “Is this going to take us to another world?” Otto asked.

  Missus Nedraw shook her head. No, then. They’d still be in Warped World.

  Otto said, “Where will it take us?”

  What she mouthed then, neither boy could make out, even though she said it three times.

  They hesitated until an echoing voice bounced their way. Nevan’s. “Nedraw’s gone! Find her.”

  Time was up.

  Sheed went first, taking the Law. Otto passed through second, carrying Missus Nedraw’s mirror. They emerged in a place both familiar and surprising.

  25

  Joyful Noise

  The emergency exit mirror spat them out into what the boys first thought was another emporium. It was dark, and there were shelves, but a quick examination revealed not mirrors, but tools. And lawnmowers. And rolls of duct tape, among other items.

  “This is Mr. Archie’s hardware store,” Sheed said, before sneezing from all the dust.

  The light bulbs over their heads were broken, so they could barely see their surroundings. Even their own reflections were dark silhouettes in the mirror they’d come through. What little light there was came from afternoon sun beaming between boards fixed over the front windows. No one had set foot in this place in a long time.

  Otto held Missus Nedraw’s mirror at arm’s length for a face-to-face talk. “Where’s Mr. Archie, and Anna?”

  Missus Nedraw, still mute on her side of the glass, mouthed, Emporium.

  “The Judge got them, too?” An angry edge crept into Otto’s voice.

  Free me, she mouthed next, dodging the question.

  Otto raised the mirror high, intending to slam it on the ground to shatter the glass and free the warden. Sheed touched his arm, stopping him. “It wasn’t just the Judge. She helped.”

  Missus Nedraw pounded on her side of the glass. Free me.

  “No,” said Sheed. “Put her down and come here.”

  Otto spun Missus Nedraw toward the wall and leaned her mirror against it so she couldn’t see them. To Sheed, he said, “What’s the maneuver? What are we doing?”

  “Nevan’s got big plans for Warped World. It ain’t good, cuzzo.”

  “He really is a nightmare.” Otto stroked his chin, his rock-on-rock flesh making a clunking sound. “The Judge doesn’t seem much better, though.”

  Sheed made a show of looking around the Archie’s Hardware Store that didn’t have any Archies. “We need help, Otto.”

  “Wiki and Leen?”

  “No. Not this time. Someone’s gotta be out there to fight if we mess this up.”

  Otto agreed and was relieved. He was not up for more of Wiki’s gloating. “Who, then?”

  “You know where we’re supposed to go if we’re ever in real trouble.”

  Otto’s rocky shoulders slumped. “That might not be a great idea.”

  “I want to see her, Otto. Just let me call the shots for once. Please.”

  Sheed said please. And meant it. Fine. “Can you get us there?”

  “Provided Warped World cooperates, I think so.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Much like Grandma on any given Sunday, Sheed took them to church.

  * * *

 

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