“I wish you were here,” he said out loud.
“What was that, kid?” the bus driver asked.
“Oh, nothing, just singing out loud,” Danny said, his cheeks growing warm with embarrassment. The last thing he needed was an adult to think he was talking to himself. He had pulled his backpack onto his lap when he realized it wasn’t zipped all the way. Before he could close it, a burst of gold escaped from inside. Startled, he dropped the bag. He glanced around, but none of the other kids filing in had noticed anything. Danny’s heart hammered, and he reached for his pack again. There was another burst of gold, like the sparkler candles the twins had for their birthday two weeks ago. It popped, like it was trying to get his attention, then vanished.
Danny reached into his bag.
There was something there that shouldn’t have been.
A worn old hardcover book. He hadn’t checked anything out of the library and the only person who had gone through his bag was one of the twins. Had the twins done this to get him in trouble? Danny glanced around the bus, a sinking feeling in his chest. He pulled the book out and held it with trembling hands.
The book jacket was wrapped in dark blue cloth with embroidered gold leaves twisting like vines and a giant bright eight-pointed star at the center. He turned it in his hands, the palms of his skin buzzing with a numb sensation, like he’d fallen asleep with his arm over his head. He shook a hand to make the feeling go away, then traced the letters on the spine with his index finger. The Way to Rio Luna by Ella St. Clay.
“No way,” Danny exhaled. His mouth was dry and he blinked several times to make sure he was seeing things right. His whole body felt lit up from the inside, like there were cherry bombs in his heart. He repeated, “No way.”
Yes way, said a little voice in the back of his head. The voice that sounded like Pili giving him advice.
Danny thumbed through the pages. Each handwritten story had a small illustration at the top. The paper was thick, unlike most books. The ink had faded in some sections, but he recognized the stories. “The Moon Witch in the Red Woods,” “Sinchi and the Cliffs of Nowhere,” and another one about giants and a runaway king. It felt like seeing old friends.
The book was real and solid.
And then it occurred to him … he most definitely shouldn’t have it. How had it gotten in his backpack from the glass casing?
More of his classmates boarded the bus, laughing and showing one another trinkets from the store. No one looked his way or at what he was holding. Just in case, Danny shoved the book back in his pack and worried at his lip. What should he do? If he confessed to having the book, he might get in trouble for stealing. If he took it, he would actually be stealing. Could Freddy and Teddy have done it to mess with him again? Once, they took their father’s signed Derek Jeter baseball and hid it under Danny’s pillow. Danny thought Mr. Garner would shake the house apart with all his screaming.
But how could the twins have gotten their hands on the book to begin with? It had been well protected. If not them, then who?
The golden light. Danny was sure of it. But who would believe that golden sparks brought the book to him? It couldn’t be a coincidence that the arrows showed him the way to the locked room, and then sparks of the same color appeared in his pack. There was something at work that he couldn’t explain yet, but he needed answers. He wasn’t going to get them on this bus.
As everyone took their seats, Danny knew what he had to do. He took the book out of his backpack and clutched it against his chest. Ms. Esposito was crossing everyone’s names off her attendance list.
“Ms. Esposito,” he said. His whole mouth was as dry as Mrs. Garner’s meat loaf. He breathed hard and fast. He didn’t want to get in trouble, but he couldn’t take the book home, even if it meant looking like a thief.
“Yes, Danny?” she said. “Ashley, sit down! Gaby, raise your hand. Put that down right now!”
As he held the book, he gave it one last look. He wished he could keep it. But it wouldn’t be right. When he thumbed through the pages, something fell from the back and fluttered to the ground at his feet.
He bent down to pick up it up. It was the library checkout card. Danny stared at the names. Even those were written in gold! There were dates stamped in different colors and fonts, but one specific name leapt out at him. It was a name he would know anywhere. A name he’d said thousands of times. For a moment, his vision was blurred, like looking out the window while it was raining. Danny pressed the checkout card to his chest, right over his heart. The name there was clear and real and he had not imagined it. Pili Monteverde was written in round letters. The date was marked today exactly two years ago, after his sister was believed to have run away.
He took a deep breath and wiped at his cheeks. He started to sit but his teacher finally noticed him.
“Danny, what is it?” Ms. Esposito asked hurriedly.
He felt a jolt of panic. Danny couldn’t leave now. For the first time, he had proof that Pili was out there. She’d written her name on the card herself. Did she truly run away or was she hiding somewhere? He thought of the times he’d seen her in his dreams or the moments when he thought he caught sight of her at the corner of his eye. Could those moments have been messages? Was that why the arrows had guided him?
He had to go back inside the library. Perhaps the girl in the sun-yellow dress could help. She knew where this book had been found. If Pili was the last person to have checked it out, then maybe, just maybe, there was some information that could lead Danny to her. He knew that he could not stay on that bus. He couldn’t go back to the Garners. He wished he had a distraction.
“Well?” Ms. Esposito asked, but she wasn’t looking at him. “We have to leave now or we’ll be stuck on the bridge for hours.”
And his wish was answered when a scream came from the back of the bus.
“Get it off me!” Teddy shouted.
Everyone screamed except for Danny. A thin gray squirrel had gripped Teddy’s head and was scratching him. Ms. Esposito dropped her clipboard on her seat, and everyone moved toward the back to save Teddy, even the bus driver.
At any other moment, this sight would’ve filled Danny with glee. But right now he couldn’t focus on anything except the rectangular card with his sister’s name on it. He closed his eyes and counted backward from ten, out of habit. Mrs. Contreras had tried to convince him that magic wasn’t real, but today proved that Danny was onto something. The moving shadows, the dream, the golden arrows. Even the girl in the yellow dress and her dog. Now this book. Magic was around him, and he couldn’t doubt himself again.
“Magic is real,” he said instead.
When he looked, Pili’s name was still written there.
He knew he had to go. Perhaps no family would ever want to take him in again. But Danny didn’t care. Without Pili, he’d always be an orphan, lost and alone and invisible. She had written her name in this book two years ago. She was somewhere out there now. Adults weren’t good at listening to him, so he had to find another way to help.
Danny draped his sweater on the back of his seat, zipped up his backpack, and while everyone was paying attention to Teddy and the squirrel, Danny hopped off the bus and raced up the library steps.
When he reached the top of the steps, he turned to look back. The thin squirrel hopped out of the doors just as they shut. The bus was leaving without him.