“It fell from my pocket when we got here,” says Jack, looking around at the dirt and grass. “We just have to find it, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“Okay, well, good luck, then!” says Filomena.
Alistair looks stricken. “You’re leaving us?!”
“Um, yeah. Do you have any idea how grounded I’m going to be if I don’t get back to school in time for my mom or dad to pick me up?”
She doesn’t even know if she has enough money to pay for another cab ride home. She might have to take the bus. Come to think of it, they probably should have taken the bus to get here.
As curious as she is about Never After, she’s also a bit afraid of the whole thing. While she’s accepted that Jack and Alistair are real, part of her is still unconvinced that everything about Never After is real. Besides, her parents would want her safely back home, not traipsing around some fantasyland.
But as she backs away, she notices Jack pulling what looks like a small glass marble out of his pocket. It begins to transform in his hands, stretching and changing and shifting shape, making all sorts of funny noises until it settles into its true shape and he sets it over his left eye.
It looks like an ordinary brass telescope, the kind of thing her dad would buy on a hobby website. Except Jack is pointing it not to the sky but at the ground. When he swings it in her direction, she can see a large open eye staring at her from the glass. It’s not gray, like Jack’s eyes. It’s golden.
“That’s a Seeing Eye!” she breathes. She’s only ever read about it and can’t hide her delight—here it is, in real life! She stops walking backward and instead walks closer to Jack to get a better look at it. Maybe if she hovers, he’ll offer her a peek.
“Ahem,” she says, clearing her throat three times.
Except of course boys never notice the obvious. Jack keeps using the magical telescope to sweep over the landscape, oblivious.
Finally, Filomena speaks up. “Hey, can I see that?” She’s trying to sound cool and nonchalant, definitely not like the hyperventilating superfan she is in her heart.
“Oh, sure,” he says. “Just be careful with it, please. It’s our only hope of finding the Pied Pipe. There’s too much brush here. It’s way too dense. But this thing should be able to find it if it’s close. After all, its glass is made of—”
“Stardust,” Filomena says, finishing his sentence. “I know, and I know how precious it is. I read all the books, remember?”
She lifts it to her eye and peers through the glass. It looks heavy and chunky, but in reality it’s delicate, made of pearls and stardust, so wispy and weightless you could place it on a butterfly’s wing with ease.
“It has to be around here,” says Jack, who doesn’t seem all that worried, just like in the books when he’s presented with terrifying obstacles.
“The Pied Pipe will only show itself if it wants to be found,” Filomena whispers as she swings the Seeing Eye over the immediate terrain.
Like Jack, Filomena is not discouraged, but when she spots something small and flute-shaped glimmering with light on the ground not too far from the tree, she’s so astonished that she almost drops the thing. “I saw it! The Pied Pipe! It’s over there!” she says, handing the Seeing Eye back to Jack.
He puts it up to his own eye and nods. “Good work. Let’s go!”
He starts moving forward with steady and determined steps, pausing to gaze through the Seeing Eye every few feet, Alistair and Filomena close behind.
“I don’t see it,” Alistair says.
“That’s because the Pied Pipe has a mind of its own, Alistair,” Filomena tells him. “It can hide, or it can show itself if it wants to be found.”
“Exactly,” says Jack. “Stubborn thing, probably doesn’t want to go home just yet.”
Sure enough, the pipe keeps hiding in and out of vision as they walk closer to the tree, but Jack’s got a lock on its location and jumps on it before it can hide again.
“Aha!” he says, holding up the pipe as the Seeing Eye transforms back into a small marble and he puts it in his pocket. “Will you do the honors?” he asks Alistair.
Alistair beams and puts the flute to his lips.
But before he can play a note, a loud boom of thunder crashes in a proximity too close for comfort, and a lightning bolt zaps Jack Stalker where he stands. Alistair and Filomena duck down, covering their heads. The haunting, menacing cackling begins, escalating into mad screeching and ear-piercing howls.
“She’s back!” cries Alistair.
“It’s just her malice!” wheezes Jack, writhing on the ground, his vines blackened and smoking. “We’re near the portal and she can sense us!”
“Jack!” Filomena cries, running to his side.
“We gotta get out of here!” says Alistair as more thunderbolts crash all around them.
“Open the portal!” Filomena yells. “Hurry!”
But Alistair is frozen, gaping at the flames. He’s too frightened to think, and the flute trembles in his grasp.
Filomena grabs the Pied Pipe from his hands and lifts it to her lips. Without thinking, she plays the first tune that comes to mind: the theme from the movies based on the Never After books, of course. Sure enough, it unlocks the Heart Tree.
Before she can think about whether it’s a good idea, she’s helping Alistair bring Jack through the portal, and all three of them are hurtling into the darkness.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NEVER AFTER
Reading all the books in the world couldn’t have prepared Filomena for the descent into not just another world, but a world she has seen so vividly in her imagination. She wasn’t even ready—or willing—for the departure. She took not just a leap but a lunge of faith, if you will. One giant leap for Filomena-kind. A footstep fueled by fear and desperation. A moment in time she can never take back. A chapter in a life story that if told would never be believed.
By the way, how late is it now? Her poor parents—she hopes her mom has anxiety medication on hand.
There’s no time to think, because as she falls through the void, she feels what she can only describe as galaxies encompassing her. But words don’t exist in this plane, only thought and image and memory. The word stop might come to mind, if she still has one.
She was swallowed into a tree.
And just as quickly another tree spits her out.
When she tumbles from the portal, she lands on the ground with a thud, falling hard on her backside. Ouch!
Her cheeks burn, thinking of the many times she’s fallen before.
Oh, has she fallen!
There was the time she fell spectacularly in gym class during dodgeball when she was trying to, well, dodge the ball. Isn’t that the point?
She’s heard about her slow-motion stumble and subsequent fast-forward lurch so many times that she could have written a book about it, thus becoming the third and youngest author in the family. However, she’s chosen to spare herself further embarrassment by not elaborating on her “epic spill” (as it went down in history), and instead listening humorlessly to tales told by her peers about it, complete with tear-filled eyes and fits of laughter.