The Palace of Dreams by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Author:Jodi Lynn Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

 CHAPTER 18

“I’m familiar with the place by now, mind ye,” Homer says, “but I still get a little turned around now and then.”

We’re winding through the labyrinthine halls of the museum, but we keep having to turn around at dead ends, or stop halfway up stairwells that lead nowhere. Now Flit hops along crookedly beside us as Homer turns and leads us down a peculiarly noisy—noisy but somehow not loud—hall. The deeper in we get, the more the echoing space sounds like the inside of a big domed train station, as if a crowd is milling around and murmuring. And then I begin to see, up ahead, lines of colorful shapes—letters, I realize with a gasp—floating through the corridor in front of us.

“Are those…?” I ask, coming to a stop.

“Words. Sentences. Paragraphs. All of the above,” Homer answers, sidestepping into the hall to our right and reaching out a finger to poke a sentence snaking past through the air. “All the words ever spoken are in this part of the building.”

The sentence—in a language I don’t know—wiggles, then rights itself and slithers away. All down the hall, lines of words snake this way and that. In shock, I watch a rogue n break off the end of I’ll be there at ten and sneak into a crack in the wall. Homer nudges a coiled-up paragraph out of our way with his foot.

“So, every conversation anyone ever had is here?” Homer nods, and I promise myself I’ll come back. What better place to look for a chat between a woman and a witch?

And yet, as we wind our way deeper, the hallways of words grow only more and more numerous, bigger and bigger halls stuffed to the ceiling with exclamations and questions and paragraphs bumping into each other, crashing into walls, soaring, rolling on the ground.

“We’re only just at the periphery of it,” Homer points out. “There are multitudes of rooms the size of stadiums in here.”

My hope flags. Talking with Fen was a stroke of luck, but how will I ever find one conversation? Or a ghost named Bo who doesn’t want to be found?

I gaze at Flit ahead of me as she tries to peck the center out of the word “lethargy,” getting all tangled up in the process. Was it a stroke of luck, us finding Homer and Fen? Or did Flit lead me to Hansel and Gretel on purpose?

I think about the dream I had of her getting us into the museum. As awkward and molting as she is, I wonder if there’s more to her than I think.

“What did Fen mean, Homer, about you going to a boat? And not having a choice?”

Homer looks at me sheepishly. “Well, I was reluctant te say, Rosie. On account that it means this might be the last time we see each other.”

“Why?” I choke, startled.

The way Homer looks at me makes me remember his age, that he’s been around an incredibly long time. He is careworn and tired as he gazes into my eyes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.