A Clatter of Jars Read online

  ALSO BY LISA GRAFF

  Lost in the Sun

  Absolutely Almost

  A Tangle of Knots

  Double Dog Dare

  Sophie Simon Solves Them All

  Umbrella Summer

  The Life and Crimes of Bernetta Wallflower

  The Thing About Georgie

  PHILOMEL BOOKS

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Lisa Graff.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Philomel Books is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-698-19592-9

  Edited by Jill Santopolo.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Many thanks to Isaias Mercado for his help with the Spanish lyrics in this book.

  Jacket art © 2016 by Fernando Juarez

  Cover design by Kristin Smith

  Version_1

  To Aria,

  a fizzy grape soda

  Contents

  Also by Lisa Graff

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Five Years Later . . .

  Lily’s Watermelon Limeade Float

  1: Lily

  2: Jo

  3: Renny

  4: Chuck

  5: Lily

  Jo’s Blackberry Sage Iced Tea

  6: Jo

  The Following Week . . .

  7: Lily

  Chuck’s Frozen Mint Hot Chocolate

  8: Chuck

  9: Renny

  10: Lily

  11: Renny

  12: Chuck

  13: Renny

  14: Lily

  15: Renny

  16: Lily

  17: Jo

  18: Lily

  19: Chuck

  20: Lily

  21: Renny

  22: Lily

  23: Chuck

  24: Lily

  25: Renny

  26: Chuck

  Renny’s Orange Cream Smoothie

  27: Renny

  28: Lily

  29: Renny

  30: Jo

  31: Chuck

  32: Lily

  33: Renny

  34: Lily

  35: Jo

  36: Chuck

  37: Jo

  38: Lily

  39: Renny

  40: Chuck

  41: Jo

  42: Renny

  43: Lily

  Camp Atropos Sunset Punch

  One Year Later . . .

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  ON THE DARK WATERS OF LAKE ATROPOS, JUST OUTSIDE of Poughkeepsie, New York, there bobbed a single sailboat. At the boat’s bow stood a black-haired pixie of a girl. Cadence, her name was. She and her parents were celebrating the one-year anniversary of her adoption.

  The sky was offering a dazzling farewell to the sun—a fiery orange nearest the water, edging into watermelon pink farther up, then, at its height, a deep blackberry—and lily pads dotted the shore. Cady stared at the painted sky, passing an object between her hands.

  It was a glass jar, sample-size, no larger than a Ping-Pong ball, with the words Darlington Peanut Butter embossed on the bottom. The jar was empty, save for the speck of light glowing at its center. Cady had seen the sight many times, and she never tired of it. The lower the sun dipped, the brighter the orb burned—dazzling yellow, like a firefly, smoldering purple at the extremities. The sphere always glowed brightest at the moment the sun set completely, then dulled to nothingness by morning.

  When she heard her mother approach from the stern, Cady tucked the jar away.

  “Toby and I were thinking of heading back to shore,” her mother told her.

  Toby was Cady’s father—had always been her father, although they’d only recently discovered each other. Cady fit with Toby as though he were the matching left mitten to her right. Cady had known her mother, Jennifer, much longer, although they’d only recently become family. Cady fit with Jennifer as though she were the right mitten to Cady’s left.

  Somehow, though, Toby and Jennifer did not match each other, not in the slightest. Whether it was their stitching, or the dye of their yarn, Cady’s parents did not make a pair. Toby didn’t seem to mind so much, being unmatched. But Jennifer . . .

  Sometimes Cady wondered if there wasn’t another mitten out there somewhere for her mother. But whenever Cady broached the subject, Jennifer insisted she wasn’t interested in mittens.

  In the past year, Cady had gained more family than she’d ever dared dream of. A mother, a father, and two grandparents—a grandmother who spoke in music instead of words, and a thieving grandfather who’d left Cady a peanut butter factory, her new home. Most times, Cady felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

  But sometimes, like when the sun blazed an orange-watermelon-blackberry trail across the lake, Cady dared dream for just a little bit more. An aunt, perhaps. Or a brother. A sister, even.

  It might be awfully nice to have a sister.

  “Two more minutes?” Cady asked her mother.

  “Two more minutes,” Jennifer agreed, then returned to the stern of the boat.

  Alone once more, Cady took out her jar, examining it in the light of the setting sun. The glass glowed with possibility.

  A Talent, that’s what gave the jar its yellow-purple glow. A mysterious Talent stolen by Cady’s grandfather. A Talent for acrobatics, perhaps, or for mending sweaters. It might allow Cady to translate Swahili, or train cats, or even turn raindrops into sparks of lightning. For a girl who just one year ago had lost all but a sliver of her own Talent, those were great possibilities indeed.

  The only way to discover what lay inside the jar was to open it.

  Cady studied the horizon, letting the jar and its glow of possibility dangle over the sailboat’s edge. Then, unclasping her hand, she let the jar fall.

  Plop!

  The jar hit the water and sank swiftly down.

  The things Cady dared dream of, she knew, couldn’t be found in a jar.

  • • •

  Only two living creatures knew which Talent gave that jar its glow. The first was Cady’s grandfather, Mason Darlington Burgess, who had Eked the Talent from a woman named Maevis Marvallous some thirty years previous.

  The second was a man who knew what was inside most everything.

  • • •

  The woods of Camp Atropos for Fair Children, situated on the southernmost bank of the lake, were generally reserved for campers. The man in the gray suit was most certainly not a camper, and yet he stood watching the tide lap gently at the pebbly shore. He might have been forty, he might have been older—no one ever seemed able to tell for sure—and he was
so large that his head had brushed several tree branches that were not used to being brushed. Bits of knotted rope peeked out from under his suit jacket, dancing with the summer breeze. Mason Darlington Burgess, the infamous Eker, had once tried to steal the man’s Talent for knot-tying, trapping it in a jar, as he’d done with so many other Talents. But as Fate would have it, the Talent had not remained trapped.

  At the man’s foot squatted a frog, bright green on top and white at the throat, with bulby pads at the ends of his toes.

  Hdup-hdup! went the frog.

  “The lake should be nice and warm this summer,” the man said. “Prime opportunity for swimming.” Anyone who happened upon the scene would have sworn it was the frog the man was speaking to. “Might be warm for at least five summers to come.”

  Hdup-hdup! agreed the frog.

  The sky continued to darken, the frog remained still but for the occasional billowing of his throat, and the man in the gray suit watched the water, wearing the sort of sideways grin that suggested he knew more about the world than he was letting on. When the last rays of light sank below the water, the man left the shore and cut through the thicket of trees. The frog followed. When they reached a sturdy log building at the center of the camp, the man in the gray suit started up the steps.

  “We ought to let her know,” he said.

  Together, the man and the frog entered the lodge, passing beneath a moose head keeping guard above the doorway. An office was tucked just to the left of the lodge’s entrance, with a plaque on the door that read CAMP DIRECTOR. The man in the gray suit knocked.

  “Ah. My new bread vendor.” The woman who tugged open the door had wild curly black hair, and creases around her mouth from years of frowning. She frowned now. “I thought we scheduled the delivery for tomorrow.”

  “It’s awfully buggy down at the lake,” the man in the gray suit replied, which was no response at all. “Especially at sunset. Too much brush, I suppose. Ought to be cleared up.”

  The woman patted the pocket of her knitted sweater. “Is that a frog?” she asked, of the creature squatting in the doorway.

  “Sunset,” the man repeated. “Don’t forget.”

  And then, without warning, the bright green frog with the white throat and the bulby pads at the ends of his toes leapt—hdup-hdup!—directly at the woman, landing on her shoulder.

  Ignoring the camp director’s squawk of surprise, the frog leapt again. The woman turned to follow the creature’s path out the open window, but he was impossible to track in the dark night.

  “Well, that was odd,” the woman said. But when she spun back to the doorway, the man in the gray suit had disappeared as well.

  • • •

  As Fate would have it, the small glass jar that read Darlington Peanut Butter did not sink to the bottom of the lake entirely undisturbed. Anyone who happened upon the scene—although of course no one would ever happen upon such a scene, not at the bottom of a lake—would have noticed that on its way down, the jar struck a large black stone.

  Just a titch.

  Just enough.

  The stone dislodged the jar’s lid.

  But, of course, no one saw.

  Five Years Later . . .

  Lily’s Watermelon Limeade Float

  a drink reminiscent of all the best birthday parties

  FOR THE WATERMELON LIMEADE:

  4 cups chopped watermelon, from half of one small watermelon

  2 tbsp lime juice, from one lime

  1/2 cup sugar

  1 liter (4 cups) seltzer

  FOR THE FLOAT:

  vanilla ice cream

  1. In a blender or food processor, blend the watermelon, lime juice, sugar, and seltzer for just a few seconds, until smooth. Carefully pour through a wire-mesh strainer into a 2-quart pitcher. Discard the solids.

  2. To serve, scoop ice cream into the bottom of a short glass. Pour the watermelon limeade over the top, and enjoy!

  [Serves 8]

  Lily

  LILY STOOD OUTSIDE THE DOOR TO THE INFIRMARY, winding the length of swampy green yarn around her right thumb. In every corner of the woods, campers were squealing, laughing, making friends, and generally kicking up a lot of dust. But Lily was focused on that length of yarn.

  “Liliana Vera?”

  In front of Lily stood a lanky counselor wearing a pine green Camp Atropos T-shirt, the name Del printed below the neckline.

  “Are you Liliana?” Del asked. “I’m gathering Cabin Eight campers.”

  Lily glanced past Del to the flag circle, where four campers stood amid their luggage. “I’m Lily,” she said.

  “Great!” Del jerked his chin toward her duffel bag. “Need help with that?”

  Lily shook her head, her wavy brown hair grazing her shoulders. “I got it,” she said. Del looked skeptical, probably because Lily was hardly taller than the duffel was long. But Lily focused her thoughts at the bridge of her nose and, darting her eyes to the duffel, the bag rose—one inch, then five—off the ground. Lily took a step forward in the dirt, and the bag took a step with her.

  “No need to ask what your Talent is,” Del said, watching the bag drift forward. “Been a while since we had a Pinnacle here.” Lily swelled with the smallest inkling of pride. “Welcome to Camp Atropos for Singular Talents, Liliana Vera. A haven for the most remarkable children in the world.” As they neared the flag circle, Del pointed to each of the four campers, rattling off names. “Miles, Renny, Chuck, and Ellie.” Lily did a double take when Del named the last two. Chuck and Ellie were identical twin girls. “Your bunkmates for the next two weeks. Let’s get you all to Cabin Eight, shall we?”

  “Hi!” Ellie greeted Lily as they began their trek though the woods. Lily could tell the twins apart because, despite having identical faces and identical dark brown skin, Ellie had a headful of teeny braids pulled into a ponytail and was wearing pale blue sneakers, while Chuck’s hair was styled into wavy cornrows, and she wore Kelly-green high-tops. “Do you like frogs?” Ellie asked. “Chuck and I can identify any species.”

  “Uh,” Lily replied. “Cool.”

  That’s when one of the boys, Miles, piped up. “Singular Talents are understood as feats beyond standard human abilities and/or the laws of physics,” he said. His voice was flat, his gaze fixed on the dirt in front of him as he walked.

  “Huh?” Ellie asked.

  “I think what he means,” said the other boy, Renny, “is that identifying frogs isn’t a Singular Talent. Either that or he just likes showing off how much of that textbook he memorized.”

  Beside her sister, Chuck snorted. “Oh, man,” she said. “They’re on to us now, Ellie. I guess we’ll have to leave and go to regular person camp.”

  Ellie poked her twin in the side. “Chuck, please,” she said.

  They were deep in the shadows of the trees when Renny joined step beside Lily. He was tall and skinny, with pasty white legs. “Is this your brother?” Renny asked, his nose buried in a small photo book. He flipped a page. “Cute kid.”

  “Hey!” Lily cried, realizing what Renny was holding. “Give me that!” Focusing her thoughts at the bridge of her nose, she tugged the photo book toward her through the air. With her concentration no longer upon it, her duffel thunked to the dirt. The front pocket had been zipped open.

  Lily inspected the album for damage, wiping away a smudge from the photo of Max’s fifth birthday party three years earlier. It was one of Lily’s favorites. Her little brother was balancing a plate of chocolate cake on his pinkie, his other arm wrapped around Lily. Lily, meanwhile, was using her own Talent to push the cake toward Max’s nose. It was the last birthday she and Max had celebrated before their mother remarried and their stepsister, Hannah, buzzed into their lives like a housefly. Hannah had to go and be born the same day as Max—same year and everything—so in every birthday photo after t
hat, it was Hannah that Max had his arm around.

  At least Hannah had been assigned to a different cabin for the two weeks of camp, Lily reminded herself, zipping the photo book back in its pocket. She hoisted the duffel to her shoulder, which immediately ached in protest.

  “You should keep a better eye on your stuff,” Renny said. And when Lily scowled, he didn’t even have the decency to look sorry. Instead, he stretched out his arm, like he wanted to shake hands. “Renwick Fennelbridge,” he told her. “You might have heard of me.”

  Despite herself, Lily was impressed. She’d studied the Fennelbridges last year in her Singular Education elective, and she found them fascinating. Every family member was Singular, with some of the most fantastical Talents ever recorded.

  “Can you really read minds?” she asked.

  That’s when the other boy, Miles, piped up again. “Renwick Chester Ulysses Fennelbridge,” he said, his eyes still fixed on the dirt. “Eleven years old as of his last birthday. The only living Scanner, according to A Singular History. Fun fact: Renwick Fennelbridge was once flown to Rome, Italy, to read the mind of the pope, but got food poisoning on the plane and had to go home.”

  “Please find a new fun fact, Miles,” Renny grumbled.

  “You really know your Talent history, huh?” Lily said to Miles. Singular Education had been Lily’s favorite class last year. Her teacher had been so impressed with her report on Ekers and Coaxes that she’d had Lily read it during the opening ceremony of the Talent festival. “Do you know about Evrim Boz?”

  Miles responded without hesitation. “Evrim Biber Boz. Born 1576, died 1602. Talent: Coax. Able to wheedle Talents from one person to another and back again, even transferring Talents into inanimate objects to create Artifacts. Fun fact: The Talent Library in Munich, Germany, has eight of Evrim Boz’s Artifacts on display, including a cooking pot that makes anything boiled inside taste like lentil stew.”

  “Did you know that later in her life, Evrim Boz said she wished she’d never created any Artifacts at all?” Lily asked, scurrying to keep up with him. Unlike Ekers, who could only steal Talents, Coaxes could pass Talents on—either to other people or to objects. “Because once you make an Artifact, you can’t get the Talent back out. Evrim Boz tried once, with a pair of scissors that she’d Coaxed a beard-trimming Talent into, and instead she accidentally replaced the beard-trimming with her brother’s Talent for cartography.” Lily had always had a particular interest in Artifacts and the people who used them. “Evrim Boz’s brother never spoke to her after that.”