back to me now. It’s an old legend—it belongs to the pirate Ma Sinéad.”
The ship was another piece of his parental puzzle. Of all the places in the world—or out of the world—Dylan never thought he’d find clues about his family here. He could feel the puzzle rearranging itself in his brain. Why would a pirate ditty stick in his head? And why was his mom singing a video game song? “We must be dreaming.”
“Dude—dreams aren’t multiplayer,” Eli said.
The ship continued to plunge downward, keel first. They were hundreds of feet in the air and heading straight down the waterfall.
“We’d better strap ourselves in,” Ines said.
They all looked around the deck until Eli found some rope. They tied themselves together and wrapped the end around the main mast. Then Eli pointed out a glowing red dot on the horizon. It was quickly joined by another, and very soon there was a swarm. Whatever the things were, they were approaching fast.
“Could that be . . . ?” Dylan began.
“Yup, it’s the red-eyed stalker,” Ines broke in. “Looks like he has pals.”
“They’re swarming like mosquitoes,” Eli said.
“Could those be . . . Higues?” Dylan asked.
“You’re right,” Eli affirmed. “I’ve heard other players talk about them! I guess a real one was chasing the limo! They’re like mosquitoes crossed with vampires.”
“The mosquito part I can deal with,” Ines shuddered. “But that vampire part is freaking me out. Can this boat go faster?”
“Chill,” Eli said. “I thought you were used to adventures. It’s basically all you do on that reality show of yours. I once saw you ride an elephant—sidesaddle.”
“I saw you use a boa constrictor as a lasso,” Dylan added.
“Whatever. I’d feel a lot more confident if we could actually see who was piloting our ship,” Ines muttered.
“I think it’s piloting itself,” Eli said.
Ines began to run her hand along the ship’s railing.
“What are you doing?” Eli asked.
“Looking for a lifeboat,” Ines replied.
“To go where?”
They continued to sail down the waterfall into a wall of continual wet, like the air was full of firehoses. Dylan raised his arm and pointed—in a far corner of the sky, there loomed a shape the color of congealed blood. It was surrounded by swarms of Higues, but it soon outdistanced them. It was faster, stronger, bigger. And, unlike the Higues, it was catching up with the ship. In fact, it was on a collision course with the Black Starr.
“Do you think you can die in a dream?” Dylan asked.
“My grandma died in her sleep,” Eli answered. “I always wondered what she was dreaming about. Maybe this is it.”
“I’m officially freaking out,” Ines declared.
From another corner of the sky, a second shape appeared. It was smaller, darker, faster, and sped toward the first. They were about to collide in midair above the ship. Then, louder than all thunder, the atmosphere echoed with the same soul-shaking roar Dylan had first heard when he was wounded on the chest and again when Emma vanished.
Everything went white.
* * *
Dylan woke up floating down a canal.
He was soaking wet. He staggered out of the warm water, untangled himself from a length of frayed rope, and collapsed on the bank. He looked up to see the giant golden waterfall. Shards of crystal were scattered all around him. Had the Black Starr crashed?
Something had attacked them. He didn’t quite know what it was, or why. Maybe it was some sort of guardian of the threshold, the same beast that had clawed his chest when he played the game. The doctors told him he’d had an episode. He sensed there was more to it. But he didn’t know if it would strike again.
He felt a sharp sting against his cheek. He’d been cut by a piece of glass. All around him, he noticed that the shattered remains of the Black Starr were sliding along the ground, whizzing through the air, and colliding against one another, forming big pieces. It was as if the invisible ship was struggling to rebuild itself. A rough outline of the vessel was beginning to take shape. It was like watching a crystal form.
It was weird, but Dylan had other stuff to worry about. Where was his sister? Where were his friends? Where was he?
Then, at the base of a giant palm tree, he saw it: the letter D.
Just where he had carved it when he was playing the game.
This had to be Xamaica. There was no question that this was the forty-fourth level. He had always thought of it as a dream world, but now that he was here, it felt as if it was his old world that had been a dream. Everything seemed bigger, richer, deeper than anything he had encountered in his previous life before this place. He was beyond the golden mists of the mountain regions. His senses seemed to be working for the first time in his life. This was no video game. He could feel this world. He could smell it. He could taste it.
Dylan began to run for joy. All those goons on the bus who called him Loopy and pushed him around and broke his stuff—he wished they could see him now. No, he was glad they couldn’t, because he wanted this world, this feeling, this moment, all to himself. He felt like the people he had seen in books, or in movies, who had gone someplace nobody had ever been, somewhere everyone had always wanted to go, and they made it there despite all the haters saying they couldn’t, like Earhart across the Atlantic, Armstrong on the moon, or Obama in the White House.
Dylan found himself sprinting quicker than he ever had—faster than a skateboard or a bike. Soon he was leaping in the air, running, jumping, and through a break in the trees sunlight washed over him. He saw a purple river, a green lake, and a white waterfall. He noticed a school of Wata Mamas frolicking in the river below. He could glimpse, beyond the hills, a procession of mountains, their peaks tipped by a green cloud.
The sky was a stunning shade of blue so blue it blew away his blues. Arching through the sky was something else: a huge spider web that stretched across the entire expanse, from one horizon to the other. Silvery strands sparkled in the sunlight. It both blended into the sky and stood out, depending on how the light caught it. It was tied down to the earth on the edges of the sky by four huge strands that must have been the size of ten thousand tree trunks. The web hadn’t been visible when he played the game, perhaps because the mists obscured it.
This was a strange place. And his sister was lost and alone somewhere here. Dylan’s joy swirled away, like a bubble bath going down the drain.
He couldn’t just enjoy being in Xamaica. He had a mission—he had to find his sister.
A fury bubbled up in him, lava dripping over the lip of a volcano. Emma was always friggin’ messing up his life. He gets invited to the Tournament of Xamaica, and she has to tag along. He goes to Ines Mee’s mansion, and she has to butt in. She goads him about being
