The Edge of the Ocean

L. D. Lapinski

• Publisher: Aladdin
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781534483552
• eBook ISBN: 9781534483569

Flick tries to save a watery world from total destruction in this magical, "fantastic, from start to (the zinger of a) finish" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review) second book in the Strangeworlds Travel Agency series. Flick is now a badge-wearing member of the Strangeworlds Travel Agency, so when an urgent summons arrives at from Pirate Queen Nyfe, she and Strangeworlds Society guardian Jonathan immediately pack their bags for an adventure to The Break, a world of magic and piracy.Nyfe's world is falling apart. The Break is used to having ships vanish without a trace, but there has been a sudden increase that can't be explained by giant squid or merpeople. The edge of their flat world is coming ever closer to them and they need to escape before it collapses entirely.But how do you sail a ship through a suitcase? Or fit in a mer-queen the size of a whale? Flick and Jonathan must find a way to transport the inhabitants of the Break to another world before theirs disappears forever.

1

Flick twirled the magnifying glass between her fingers. The brass handle was speckled with little marks and imperfections. There was a deep scrape close to the round lens, there were little scratches running down the slender, pen-like handle, and a dark smudge of something that refused to budge, no matter how often Flick cleaned it.

She looked over the little instrument, not through the glass itself for the moment, enjoying the anticipation. Looking through the magnifier was a treat to be savored.

She spun the handle quickly, tripping it through her fingers in a practiced movement that she’d spent far too many nights perfecting. She was lying on her bed, the pink glow from the agate slice on top of her old lamp lighting up the room in a way that reminded her of the gentle glow of a forest made of crystal and magic, a whole other world away. A world she had walked in.

Flick closed her eyes and took a steadying breath. Then she raised the magnifying glass to her right eye, keeping her left closed. The first time she had tried this, lying on her bed, she had dropped the instrument on her head.

Because this was no ordinary magnifying glass. And Felicity Hudson was no ordinary person. The magnifying glass in Flick’s hand contained glass that came from another world, and the little instrument had been made by someone who knew the nature of the enchantment.

To look through it—if you had the right gift—was to see a hidden magic. Quite literally. And as Flick looked through it, she smiled.

The air around her swarmed with magic. Glittering, golden, white-crested glimmers on the air that drifted silently, unseen by everyone but her. Flick’s smile grew into a wide grin as she watched the golden sparkles swirl and ballet-dance around her bedroom. They rolled and dived through the air like glitter in water, tumbling in a swarm of magical particles.

Flick raised a hand, and the swarm of magic floated soundlessly over to her, draping across her hand, fitting around her fingers like a glove. Flick could feel nothing at all, even when she squeezed her fist around some of the particles.

Flick lowered the magnifying glass and pressed the round bit of it to her mouth. It was cold, and tasted a bit like a two-pence coin she’d once licked, just to see what it was like.

The magnifying glass had been made more than one hundred years ago and had once belonged to a member of her friend Jonathan Mercator’s family (the initials N.M. were scratched into the rim of brass). The magnifying glass wasn’t exactly magical by itself—it was merely a way to see the magic that was already there. Magic, Flick now knew, was everywhere in the whole world.

But that wasn’t all that Flick could see.

She got up off her bed and clicked the bedside lamp off before peeping through her curtains. With the light off, she could see past her own reflection, right into the garden and the housing development beyond.

The rows of houses looked dark and gloomy in the overcast night. It had been a hot and muggy day, the air full of moisture that refused to condense into rain. There was no moon to be seen, and the sky was the sort of deep purple that promised a thunderstorm later. Flick pressed a palm to the glass and wondered if that static feel in the air you got just before a storm really was just static, or something more magical. A prickle crept over her back at the thought. It was entirely possible that storms stirred up magic in the air. Anything was possible, really.

She stared out at the dark for a few minutes, watching the occasional light come on in a house she didn’t recognize. She waited until she couldn’t stand it any longer, before raising the tiny brass magnifying glass to her eye once again.

This time the effect was electric.

A bright scratch of light lit up the play area in the center of the housing development. It was jagged, like a lightning bolt drawn by someone whose hands were shaking. The line in the air glowed with yellow-white light, tiny particles of magic moving in and out of it. It was carved into the air about two meters above the top of the slide, just waiting.

A schism.

A tear in the fabric of reality.

A gateway to another world.

A massive shiver ran over Flick’s body. She had spotted the schism the day before yesterday. Although it wasn’t hurting a soul, the schism reminded Flick of what could happen. And what she had done, only a few weeks ago, in another world.

Flick stared at it until her eye started to water, then lowered the magnifying glass and rested her head on the window. The cold glass felt nice against her warm skin, and as she listened to the creaking nighttime sounds of her home, gradually the frightened feeling gave way to a soft calm. She was safe here, and loved, and with the family she had come so close to losing. The memory of that near loss was now forever associated with schisms. Even looking at one through the magnifying glass made her feel sick with nerves.

Flick had only found out about schisms recently, when she had joined the secret society that was part of the Strangeworlds Travel Agency.

A place of travel, and magical objects, and the home of the only friend Flick had made since her family moved to Little Wyverns.

The Strangeworlds Travel Agency was also the reason she was grounded right now. Her parents were acting as though Flick had gone out and robbed a bank, when all she’d really done was disappear for a day and a night.

Flick pulled a face. She wished she didn’t understand why they were so mad. But she did. She hadn’t expected to be grounded for the whole of the summer vacation, though. There was only a week and a half left, and then she’d be off to her new school and would only have the weekends and holidays to visit the travel agency.

In the distance, a siren sounded and blue lights flashed. She jumped slightly at the sound, knocking a mostly empty piggy bank off the windowsill and onto the floor with a crash.

She stayed still, listening.

From her parents’ room, she heard a cough and the creak of their bedframe. She ought to be back in bed.

Flick left the piggy where it was, pulled the curtains closed again, and slipped back into bed. The magnifying glass was still clutched tightly in her hand.

2

The kitchen was so full of carrier bags and boxes the next morning that Flick wondered if they were moving again. Fortunately, it was just one of her dad’s semi-regular attempts at a clear-out. This time, he was planning on taking things to the flea market at the town hall.

“Last chance saloon,” he said, as Flick shoved some fruit loaf down into the toaster and took a swig of orange juice directly from the carton on the table. “Any old clothes, shoes, toys, books, get them bagged up. And don’t do that,” he added, nodding at the orange juice. He stacked another box onto a cardboard tower. The box at the bottom sagged. “Your mom doesn’t like it.”

“We’ve all got the same germs.” Flick rolled her eyes and went to get a glass. “Besides, you kiss Freddy and he should be condemned under the public health act.”

Isaac Hudson looked at his son, who was currently sporting two green, candle-like protrusions from his nose. “Maybe you do need a wipe, young man, eh?”

“Put him in the sterilizer,” Flick suggested.

Freddy laughed, and Flick felt mollified. At least someone was prepared to humor her for her jokes. She felt a lot more affectionate toward Freddy these days, despite the snot.

Moira Hudson came in then. She was wearing jeans instead of her post office uniform. “Aren’t you ready yet, Felicity?” she snapped.

Flick paused with her fruit toast halfway to her open mouth as she tried to remember what it was she was supposed to be ready for.

“It’s Saturday,” Moira sighed. She clicked her tongue in the way that usually meant trouble was coming. “You said you were going to come with me into town.”

“But—”

“The shopping needs doing.”

“But—”

“And Freddy needs some more trousers; he’s wearing through the knees with crawling.”

“But—”

“So get ready, and don’t spend half the day in the bathroom. You’re beautiful enough as it is. Chop-chop.”

Flick resignedly shoved the rest of her breakfast in her mouth.

---

Ever since Flick had failed to return from the Strangeworlds Travel Agency a few weeks ago, she’d had about as much freedom as a spider trapped under a glass. She had turned up at home in the small hours of the morning, with no reasonable explanation. And understandably, her parents had questions.

In an attempt to stop them giving her the third degree every five minutes, Flick had eventually come up with a half-hearted lie about getting “lost” in Little Wyverns. Her parents hadn’t bought it for a second of course, but they seemed to prefer even an obvious lie to no explanation at all. Her dad had stopped being angry after the first week or so, but Flick’s mom was like a pot of water simmering on the stove—anything could turn up the heat and send her boiling over, so Flick had been trying to just do as she was told. Her parents, and her mother in particular, were determined to keep her busy. But Flick’s parents didn’t know about Strangeworlds, and Flick had no intention of telling them about it, either.

She had made it back to the travel agency twice. The first time, shortly after her disappearance, she had managed to skive off a piano lesson to tell Jonathan she was grounded semi-permanently. The second time, Freddy had chosen the pavement outside Strangeworlds as the perfect spot to throw one of his Mega Tantrums™, giving Flick the chance to wave frantically through the glass as her mother wrestled with him.

Though Flick was grounded, apparently there was no harm in her leaving the house to entertain her baby brother around the shops.

Since it was the holidays, the supermarket was packed full of parents and their offspring, who were either being kept quiet with crisps, or screaming because they weren’t being kept quiet with crisps. Freddy was among the latter, alternating between bleating like a goat and trying to swallow the trolley’s connector key. Flick wandered over to the soft fruit while her mother complained loudly to no one that now that the cucumbers were not wrapped in plastic, they didn’t last as long. There had been an argument at home about single-use plastics the day before, when Flick crossed cling film off the shopping list in a moment of feeble rebellion. Flick was wondering why her mother thought a firmer-for-longer cucumber was more important than the great whales when she saw a familiar tousle of dark hair and a terrible tweed waistcoat that could only belong to one person. She peered around the banana display, hardly daring to hope.

But it was.

It was Jonathan Mercator.

Flick’s heart soared.

He was really there! Out of his precious travel agency, standing looking at fruit as though he was as boring as everyone else in the multiverse.

Well, not quite as boring. Though it was August, and everyone else was in shorts, Jonathan’s only concession to the weather was to have left his suit jacket off. Even his shirt was still buttoned to the neck. Flick felt weirdly tickled. Seeing Jonathan in the supermarket was like seeing a turtle out of its shell.

She walked over.

“Hey.” She grinned. She suddenly felt as though her legs were filled with springs. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Oh!” Jonathan blinked rapidly behind the lenses of his gl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Map of The World of the Break
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Prologue
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• Chapter 11
• Chapter 12
• Chapter 13
• Chapter 14
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• Chapter 18
• Chapter 19
• Chapter 20
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22
• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28
• Chapter 29
• Chapter 30
• Chapter 31
• Chapter 32
• Chapter 33
• Chapter 34
• Chapter 35
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright