The city was a circus. Not an actual circus, but some kind of time circus. People wandered the streets, all in clothing from different eras. Some looked completely lost and terrified, while others looked around in wonder, pointing and jabbering in all different languages at the buildings, the cars, the people. Across from the museum, Central Park looked like it had been turned into a zoo. The trees were full of gorillas and monkeys and brightly colored birds that were clearly not native to New York. A herd of zebras trotted along the paths.
“I always knew Manhattan was a melting pot,” Uncle Chuck said, “but this is something else altogether, isn’t it?”
“This is Vincent’s doing,” Mrs. Hudson said, frowning at all the people.
“Looks like he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, does it?” Mr. Hudson said.
Mrs. Hudson didn’t say anything, just kept frowning at the chaos. A group of men wearing togas passed them, speaking in what sounded like Greek.
“What’s going on at the museum?” Ruby asked. A legion of soldiers in blue coats with tails, white breeches, and tall hats with feathers stood on the steps of the Met. In front of the soldiers was a short man wearing a similar but more decorated uniform. Instead of the tall hat the other soldiers wore, his was like an upside-down boat sitting sideways on his head. He spoke loudly in French. He seemed to be issuing some kind of proclamation to the crowd before him, though most were not listening.
“Who is that dude?” Corey asked, pointing.
“And what’s he saying?” Ruby asked. “Something about a castle?”
Matt listened and interpreted it in English as best he could. “He says the castle is his and that he is the emperor of this land. Those who resist his rule will be thrown in the dungeons or put to death.”
Mr. Hudson squinted at the man. “He sort of looks like Napoleon Bonaparte. Hang on, I think that is Napoleon Bonaparte!”
“Looks like you’re not getting your job back any time soon, huh, Dad?” Corey said. Mr. Hudson’s face dropped.
“Let’s get home,” Mrs. Hudson said, ushering all the children. “Come on.” They started walking, but then Mrs. Hudson looked back. Albert was still by Blossom. He looked like he wasn’t sure if he was invited or should follow.
“You’re free to do as you like, Albert,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Wait here for Vincent if you want, but if you want to stay with us, you’re going to have to keep up.” She turned around and started walking without looking to see if Albert followed. But he did, because where else was he going to go?
Matt kept close to Jia as they walked. She hugged Pike’s book to her chest. She didn’t seem like she wanted to talk, so Matt didn’t say anything, even though he wished there was something he could do to comfort her.
“So,” Corey said, addressing Henry as they walked. “What should we call you?”
“Call me? What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re technically our grandpa, right? But you don’t look like a grandpa. You look younger than our dad! So it would be kind of weird to call you Grandpa, don’t you think?”
“I do,” Henry said. “I guess you can just call me Henry.”
Corey screwed up his face. “No. I don’t think that’s right. We can’t call you Henry. It’s like calling our dad Matthew or a teacher by their first name. Totally disrespectful. We have to give you some kind of title. Like how we call Grandma Gaga, you know?”
Henry glanced at his wife who was clearly avoiding eye contact with her husband. “How did you come to call her Gaga?”
“Mateo couldn’t say Grandma Gloria when he was little,” Ruby said. “He called her Gaga, and the name stuck.”
“Much to my chagrin,” Gaga mumbled.
“Well, I like it,” Henry said. “Seems to suit you. More than Grandma, anyway.”
“Ha. Ha,” Gaga said dryly.
“Hey, I got it!” Corey said. “We could call you Haha! Get it? I mean your name is Henry Hudson, and I’ll bet if Matt had tried to say that when he was little, it probably would have sounded like Haha, wouldn’t it?”
Henry Hudson wrinkled his brow. “Ha-ha?”
There was a moment of silence, and then a strange sound emitted from Gaga, sort of like water sputtering from a hose, and then she let out a loud snort. “Haha! Haha!” she doubled over laughing. At this point everyone else cracked up, too, though whether it was more at Gaga’s glee or the name itself, no one was sure.
“Haha it is, then,” Henry said, smiling at Gaga, who now had tears streaming down her cheeks, and then her face suddenly crumbled, and her laughter really turned to sobs. All the merriment of the moment shriveled up in a hot second.
Mr. Hudson went to his mom and wrapped an arm around her. “It’s okay, Mom. Everything will get worked out.”
Henry (or Haha now) stepped toward Gaga, but then paused. He looked completely helpless.
“Come on, Henry,” Mrs. Hudson said, putting her arm through his. “We’re almost home and then you can rest. I know it’s been a long day for you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure has.”
Matt thought he could use a rest as well. His brains felt like scrambled eggs. Vikings and Roman armies taking over the Brooklyn Bridge, Napoleon Bonaparte taking over the Met, his long-lost grandfather coming back, not to mention everything that had happened before all that. Matt wondered if there would be any home to come home to, and even if there was, would it remain? Would his family? Would they ever be free of the threat of Captain Vincent?
8
Home Again
When they reached their apartment door, Mrs. Hudson motioned for everyone to be quiet, in case their past or future selves were home for some reason, and slowly put the key in the lock. It turned and clicked. She opened the door just a crack and called inside, “Hello? Anybody home?”
No one answered. Mrs. Hudson pushed open the door. Matt saw just a glimpse of the dining room and kitchen. All was still and quiet.
“We’d better do a search,” Mr. Hudson said.
Mrs. Hudson nodded. “Wait here,” she said to Matt and the rest. She pulled out her dagger and went inside.
Mr. Hudson took one of Mrs. Hudson’s swords off the living room wall and held it like a baseball bat as they proceeded to search every room, under every table, chair, and bed, and behind every curtain and cupboard. When they at last deemed it safe, the rest all shuffled inside like weary soldiers coming home from battle. All except for Albert. He stood on the edge of the entryway, as though he were on the edge of a cliff.
“Albert, either come in or stay out, but shut the door, please,” Mrs. Hudson said. Albert quickly stepped inside and shut the door. He then stood in the hallway like a helpless lump. It looked like he was waiting for someone to greet him and take his coat. Matt wasn’t about to try to make him feel comfortable. It wasn’t as though Albert had gone to any lengths to make him and Corey and Ruby feel welcome on the Vermillion.
Matt looked around. Everything in their apartment was as he remembered it—the furniture, the photos and paintings, mementos, and knickknacks. His mom’s swords and knives on the wall (minus the one his dad had taken down). The only major difference was the blank wall above the dining table, where the map used to hang. The empty frame was on the floor, leaning against the wall. Mr. Hudson was looking at it like a loved one who had just died.
The apartment felt strange to Matt for some reason. Off. Even though it looked the same, it almost felt like a replica of their home, and not their real home at all. A set in a play. Maybe it was because they had been away for so long, and so much had happened since the last time they’d come here. So much had changed. Matt had changed. When had that happened, exactly? Was it in a moment? Or had it been a gradual thing? How much more would he change before this was all over?
Corey went to the living room and turned on the television.
“Corey, no television right now, okay?” Mr. Hudson said.
“Wait just a second,” Corey said as he flipped through the cha
nnels. “I want to see what they’re reporting on the news.”
“I’d like to see that myself,” Haha said.
“You probably won’t be able to get the news in this mess,” Gaga said.
But they could. Corey landed on a news channel with a blue banner that read NYC’s Dinosaur Crisis. It showed footage of the Statue of Liberty, closing in on the crown where a grouping of pterodactyls had nested. So Matt had seen pterodactyls on top of the Statue of Liberty!
“Cool!” Corey said. “The dinosaurs are back! Do you think we got a T. rex?”
As if the news had heard Corey’s questions, next they reported dinosaur sightings in other parts of the city, including a herd of velociraptors wandering the subway tunnels, and a female Tyrannosaurus rex that had taken over Yankee Stadium and was now laying eggs. “All games have been canceled for the foreseeable future,” the anchor stated, “and citizens are advised to keep away as the female T. rex is particularly volatile while nesting.” The footage showed a Tyrannosaurus rex roaring and tearing its teeth into the seats of Yankee Stadium, flinging them over the field. Helicopters were circling.
“Wahoo! Go, T. rex!” Corey shouted until Ruby gave him a look. “Sorry, but it is kind of exciting.”
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets their head bitten off,” Ruby said.
“Hey, how are the Mets doing anyway?” Haha asked. “What did I miss? We were shaping up to be a pretty good team when I left.”
“We won the World Series in 1986,” Mr. Hudson said.
“No way!” Matt couldn’t get over how alike his dad and Haha were, both in looks and sound. It was seriously weird.
“We were there!” Corey said. “We went to Game Six.”
“Isn’t that a little before your time?”
“We time-traveled there,” Matt said, remembering with a mixture of emotions the night that he’d almost caused the Mets to lose the World Series, but in the end was basically the reason they’d won, because he’d caused a glitch in the timeline with the stone in his bracelet, which, unbeknownst to him, was actually the Aeternum, the very powerful object Captain Vincent had been looking for all along. It had gotten him out of a couple of tight spots, actually, before he and Quine activated its full power and gave it to Vincent.
“One of the greatest games in history,” Mr. Hudson said. “You really should have been there.”
“Could we, though?” Haha asked. “I mean, with your time-traveling thing?” He nodded to Matt’s compass.
Matt shook his head. “Not a good idea. Overlapping with ourselves could cause some serious damage. We already caused a glitch overlapping with Dad.”
“We can find all the games on YouTube,” Corey said.
“YouTube? That a video store?”
“Sort of.” Matt suddenly realized there was a lot more to catch Haha up on than just their lives and baseball.
Next up, the president has declared a state of emergency . . .
“Corey, turn that off,” Mr. Hudson said. “We don’t need any more news today.”
Corey switched off the TV, and quiet settled over the apartment.
“Gloria,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Why don’t you go lie down in our room? I’ll bring you some tea.”
“Tea?” Gaga said. “Oh, no, I think I’ll need something stronger than tea.”
“I don’t think we have any wine in the house, Mom,” Mr. Hudson said.
Gaga waved him off and went to the kitchen, teetering a little. She was clearly still off-balance from their travels, and maybe a little off mentally as well, because she opened the freezer and stuck her head inside.
“Mom?” Mr. Hudson asked. “What are you doing?”
Gaga didn’t answer. She rifled around in the freezer. A few packages of frozen vegetables fell to the ground, and then Gaga emerged with two pints of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.
“Hey! Where did that come from?” Corey asked. “Mom doesn’t ever buy ice cream!”
“I know,” Gaga said as she opened a drawer and grabbed a spoon. “I keep a secret stash for when I come to visit. Been doing it for years. Sorry, Belamie, but your love of vegetables is a little intense.”
“How did I not know this?” Corey said.
“Are you sure it’s not expired?” Mr. Hudson asked.
Gaga pulled off the lid and stabbed the spoon into the ice cream. She scooped out a big hunk, stuck it in her mouth, and let it sit there for a moment. “Tastes fresh to me.” She grabbed a handful of spoons and plopped everything down at the dining table. “Dig in, everyone. And start talking. Your days of mystery are over.”
It took hours to explain everything. And another pint of Chunky Monkey. (Corey could not get over this revelation.) By the time they reached the bottom of the third carton they’d told Gaga and Haha everything, albeit in a very haphazard fashion, all of them telling their own piece of the story and talking over each other. Mrs. Hudson told her true history and how she and Matthew met by means of his magical map.
“I’m surprised I didn’t guess it before,” Gaga said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Belamie, you’re very intelligent, and I always liked you, but it’s not really a shock to me that you’re not from this century.”
Mrs. Hudson seemed a little offended by this. “What do you mean? I’ve always been able to blend into society.”
“Ha!” Gaga laughed. “Blend, my foot. You slice apples with hunting blades, and you used to think Ben and Jerry were my very helpful neighbors instead of an ice cream brand!”
They all laughed as Mrs. Hudson’s face flushed. “Well, what was I supposed to think? You told me every time there’s a crisis in your life you go straight to Ben and Jerry and they always help you out no matter what. How was I supposed to know you were talking about ice cream?”
“Because everyone knows that?” Corey said.
“Exactly!” Gaga said, pointing at Corey. “I mean, there are odd people who live under rocks, but this was something else entirely.”
Matt, too, had memories of his mother’s odd ineptitudes, blank spaces of knowledge of common, everyday things. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, just chalked it up to the fact that she was an immigrant and English was not her first language, but after he learned the truth it made much more sense why she’d never learned how to ride a bike, or when she thought a jump rope was some kind of weapon, or why she could never quite understand how the internet worked.
Uncle Chuck and Haha both told their strange tales of how they’d been abducted by Captain Vincent. Apparently, when Haha had gone for a hike, Captain Vincent had mistaken him for Matthew Hudson, then realizing he’d gotten the wrong person, went back and took Charles Hudson, thinking he was Matthew, then discarded them both in the Hudson Bay in the year 1611.
“I managed to escape,” Uncle Chuck said, “thanks to Dad and Jia”—he nodded at Jia, who flushed and looked down—“but I got dropped off in the wrong decade, and well, that was that.”
“Oh, Charles,” said Gaga, placing her hand on top of his. “My baby boy. You’ve been here all these years, and I didn’t even know it. But how could I? I admit, I always thought there was something familiar about you, but how could I possibly have known? Oh, Charles!” She broke down and wrapped her arms around her long-lost son.
Chuck stiffened. He looked helplessly at his brother. Mr. Hudson nodded his head, smiling, and Chuck tentatively put his arms around his mother and patted her awkwardly on the back. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m here now.”
Matt caught Corey grimacing. Ruby gave him a sharp look, but Matt couldn’t blame him. The whole scene was a bit weird. A mother comforting her son who was now about the same age as her.
After a long embrace in which Uncle Chuck looked more trapped than anything, Gaga finally released him and pulled away. She dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve.
“And, Henry . . . ,” Gaga said, but then she seemed to lose her words.
“Gloria, I’m so sorry,” Haha said. “I can’t
imagine all you’ve been through, what you must have thought happened.”
“Well, at least I know you didn’t run off with some floozy, like Patty Chesterton always said.”
Haha sputtered a laugh. “Is that what that busybody told you? And you believed her?”
“Not really,” Gaga said. “I told the boys you disappeared while hiking in Patagonia.”
“Ha!” Haha said, slapping his knee.
“What’s so funny about that?” Corey asked.
“Because she actually told me to hike to Patagonia!”
Gaga looked away, but Matt could see her neck was reddening.
“Why did you tell him to hike to Patagonia?” Corey asked.
“I don’t know,” Gaga said. “I think I saw Patagonia on your father’s atlas and it just came out.”
“But why did you tell him to hike there?”
“We were having a fight,” Haha said.
“It was not a fight!” Gaga said. “It was a disagreement.”
“Sure, a very loud disagreement.”
“What did you fight about?” Corey asked.
“Corey, mind your own business,” Ruby chided.
“I don’t remember,” Gaga said, still turning away. “It was too long ago.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Haha said. “Oh wait, it was yesterday. We were fighting about toothpaste.”
Corey made a face. “Toothpaste? Who fights about toothpaste?”
“We fight about it all the time!” Ruby said. “You’re always leaving the cap off and the toothpaste gets squirted all over the drawer.”
“And you always squeeze from the top instead of the bottom,” Matt said. It drove him nuts.
“And you put the toilet paper on the wrong way!” Ruby shot back.
“I do not. You do!”
“Seriously, it doesn’t matter which way it goes,” Corey said. “You’re such weirdos.”
At this Haha started laughing and then Gaga joined in. It seemed this was very similar to the argument they’d had before Haha had disappeared. But Gaga’s laughter quickly dissolved into tears once more. “Oh, what are we going to do now?” she cried. “The vineyard is gone, our lives are all mixed up, and it doesn’t sound like that maniac Vincent has any intentions of allowing us to all live happily ever after together.”
The Forbidden Lock Page 9