No, Matt had to agree.
“I’m so sorry, Gloria,” Mrs. Hudson said. “And, Henry. If I’d had any idea Vincent would do this . . .”
“You’d what?” Gaga said, her voice bitter through her tears. “Not have married Matthew? Stayed where you were?”
Mrs. Hudson closed her mouth and shrunk back a little. Mr. Hudson put his arm around his wife. “Belamie is saying she’s sorry, that’s all. We were all doing what we thought was best at the time. None of us could have predicted all that it would affect. Surely you can appreciate that.”
Gaga took a deep breath. “I can. I’m sorry, Belamie. I know it’s not your fault, and maybe there’s nothing you can do, but it’s all just . . . so overwhelming.”
“We have to do something,” Ruby said. “We can’t give up. We have to fight.”
“Yeah,” Corey said. “Nobody messes with the Hudsons and gets away with it! This means war!”
“Whoa, there. Hold your horses,” Mr. Hudson said. “We’re not quite ready to run off to battle just yet.”
“We couldn’t even if we wanted to,” Matt said. “The compass needs repairs.”
“And we all need some rest,” Mrs. Hudson said.
The last drama of the day was the sleeping arrangements. Gaga usually slept in Ruby’s room when she visited, but with Jia and Albert, as well as the sudden and very unexpected return of Henry Hudson, it made things awkward, to say the least. After about ten minutes of volleying ideas back and forth it was settled that Gaga would sleep in the master bedroom, Mr. and Mrs. Hudson in the living room to “keep an eye on things” (in other words, make sure their children didn’t sneak away in the middle of the night, as they had been known to do). Henry and Uncle Chuck would sleep out in Blossom, under the guise that they would “keep eyes on the street” in case Vincent should approach.
Matt wanted to tell Jia that she could sleep in his room but then wondered if that would be weird, then wondered why he would wonder if it was weird. They’d slept in the same room plenty of times before, just as if they were brother and sister. But they weren’t brother and sister, and he had no wish to be. But what did that mean? And what if he just felt that way and she didn’t? While Matt was working through these thoughts, Ruby offered for Jia to sleep in her room, and before Matt could say so much as a good night she was gone. Matt watched her go with a weird mixture of longing and relief. He was starting to feel that relationships of any kind were far more complicated than even the most complex math. There was no formula. No proof. And sometimes they could throw you some serious curve balls, as both his parents and grandparents could attest.
“Albert, you can sleep in the boys’ room,” Mrs. Hudson said.
“What? No!” Corey protested. Albert didn’t look any more pleased by the idea.
“Where would you suggest he sleep?” Mrs. Hudson asked. “The bathtub?”
“That’s a good idea,” Corey said. “Maybe he’ll wake up smelling better.”
“I’m not sleeping with them,” Albert said. “They’ll probably murder me in my sleep!”
“Probably,” Corey said. “Why can’t he just sleep out in Blossom?”
Mrs. Hudson gave a long sigh and pressed her fingers to her temples. “If you two don’t stop it this instant I’m going to make you wear the ‘get-along shirt.’”
Corey made a horrified expression. “You wouldn’t!”
“Watch me.”
Matt sniggered until his mom said, “Don’t think I won’t shove you in there, too, Mateo,” and he stopped. The “get-along shirt” was legendary in their family. It was a huge T-shirt that Mrs. Hudson would make the kids wear together whenever they fought. It was usually Corey and Matt, or Corey and Ruby, but occasionally all three of them had to wear it, and then things got really squishy and horrible. Corey clearly had strong enough memories to shut his mouth.
“Albert will sleep in your room,” Mrs. Hudson said with a note of finality. “And, Corey, you can make his bed for him.”
Corey pressed his lips into a thin line and stomped away.
Their bedroom looked just the same as Matt remembered. Their bunk beds took up most of the room. Matt’s top bunk was made up neatly from the day they’d left for the vineyard. Corey’s bottom bunk was still a tangle of blankets and sheets. He never made his bed, no matter how much Mrs. Hudson nagged him. “What’s the point?” he always said. “I’m just going to sleep in it again.” The old Shea Stadium seats sat beneath the window, a few T-shirts and hoodies draped over the arms.
On his desk were some of Matt’s old school assignments, a Rubik’s cube, completed (he could do it in under a minute), and a few books and magazines. National Geographic and Science Today. Relics of his life before he’d boarded the Vermillion and made the Obsidian Compass. Everything was familiar and just as he’d left it, but just like the rest of the apartment, it all felt alien, something from another world.
Matt changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth. When he came back, Corey was violently placing sheets and blankets on a blow-up mattress while Albert stood in the corner.
Matt climbed up into his bunk bed and crawled beneath the cool blankets. He couldn’t remember ever being so exhausted and wired at the same time. His brain was still going in circles, remembering all that had happened since that morning at Gaga’s house. He ticked it all off in his mind. The compass reversal. The storm. The time chase. Facing Captain Vincent. Seeing the time tapestry pulled from his father. Chopping off Captain Vincent’s hand. Escaping by a nose, but not before Pike leaped to the Vermillion.
Mr. and Mrs. Hudson came into the room. Mrs. Hudson brushed her hands through Matt’s hair and kissed him on the forehead. “Good night, chéri. I love you.”
“Love you too.”
“Good night, bud,” Mr. Hudson said, tousling his hair. “You did good today.”
They repeated this to Corey on the lower bunk. Matt caught Albert staring at them with a kind of longing, like he wished Mrs. Hudson would tuck him in and tell him she loved him, too, and Mr. Hudson would call him “bud.” It gave Matt a squeamish feeling. It was like coming out of a restaurant with a full stomach only to see a hungry child with hands outstretched. There were different kinds of hunger. Matt hadn’t realized until now that Albert had been starved for a long time. It didn’t make him like him, but maybe he despised him a little less.
“Good night, Albert,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Let us know if you need anything.”
Albert started a little. His cheeks flushed like he’d been caught stealing. He nodded stiffly, then quickly lay down on the blow-up mattress. He pulled the covers up to his chin and closed his eyes.
Mr. Hudson switched off the light as they went out.
The room was quiet. Matt didn’t think either Corey or Albert fell asleep in five seconds, but it’s not as if they were going to chitchat.
9
The Initials
Matt awoke to someone tapping him on the shoulder. He shot out of bed. “Whaaaa?! What’s happening?”
“Shhhh! Calm down, it’s only us.”
It was Corey and Ruby. They both were standing on the edge of his bed with flashlights. Their faces looked ghoulish.
“What are you doing?” Matt asked.
“Secret sibling meeting,” Corey whispered. “Come down.”
Barely conscious, Matt slid down from his bunk. He looked at the clock. It was 2:03 a.m. Had they set an alarm so they could meet in the middle of the night, or had they still not gone to sleep?
“Bathroom,” Corey whispered. “We don’t want to wake Albert.”
They all crowded into the small bathroom, still using only the flashlights. It was pretty squishy and uncomfortable.
“What’s going on?” Matt whispered.
“I’d like to know the same thing,” Ruby said. “Corey woke me first, said he needed to talk to us.”
“I have to show you something,” Corey said, and he waited, like he was trying to build anticipation, but Matt onl
y felt annoyed.
Clearly Ruby felt the same because she said in a whispered huff, “Then show us something already so I can go back to bed!”
Corey reached inside the pocket of his pajamas. “The map is not the only thing I came away with from Captain Vincent,” he said. “When we landed in New York, I found this.” He pulled out a square of cloth and laid it flat on the floor. Both Corey and Ruby focused their flashlights on it.
Matt recognized it right away. It was the handkerchief that Vincent had given to him when he’d frozen time during their chase. There were the smears of his own blood, now dried to a rusty brown. He wasn’t sure what the significance of it was. Clearly Ruby didn’t either.
“You dragged us out of bed to show us a bloody handkerchief?” Ruby hissed.
“No, look here,” Corey said, pointing to the corner of the handkerchief. Some letters had been embroidered into the cloth in pale blue thread. Matt hadn’t noticed those before. Of course he wouldn’t have in the moment. He was far too focused on Vincent and keeping him from destroying his family. Matt leaned in and squinted to see the letters more clearly. They were very loopy letters, but Matt could read them clearly.
V.Q.
Ruby gasped. “Oh no . . . you don’t think . . . ?”
“I do think,” Corey said. “Vincent is a Quine! It makes perfect sense. This confirms that Marius Quine is really on his side because they’re somehow related!”
“Related how, do you think?” Ruby asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe Quine is Vincent’s father or brother. Or he could be his son!”
Matt almost threw up right there and then. He was glad Corey and Ruby couldn’t see him. He was sure his face was green. This couldn’t be. There had to be another explanation. Some mistake . . .
“Do you think Mom knows?” Ruby said. “That Vincent is a Quine?”
“I don’t think so,” Corey said. “My guess is he kept it from her on purpose. He was playing her all along. They both were.”
“I’m not sure we should be so hasty in drawing conclusions,” Matt said. “It’s possible this is just coincidence. There are plenty of last names that begin with Q.”
Corey scoffed. “Really, bro? Still going to try to convince us that Quine’s on our side?”
“He is on our side,” Matt said, sounding more convinced than he actually felt.
“He also said Pike was on our side,” Corey said, “and where is she now? When are you going to wake up? Quine is messing with you.”
“You have to admit, Matt,” Ruby said, “the fact that Vincent got the Aeternum from Quine makes it look pretty clear, no matter what he said to you in Asilah.”
Matt didn’t say anything. He was glad now, very glad that he hadn’t told Corey and Ruby or anyone the truth about his true identity. It would have been a mistake considering this new revelation. They wouldn’t understand. Matt didn’t understand. He was trying to reorder everything in his brain. Vincent had just told him he was not the enemy, that they were on the same side. Vincent said Matt, at some point in his future, had already come to Vincent in his past and helped him figure out what he needed to do in order to get the Aeternum, thereby assuring him that they were on the same side. And Vincent knew Matt was really Marius Quine, or would become him at some point in his future. And if they really did share a name . . . if they were family . . . No. He refused to believe this. It couldn’t be. Matt stared down at the handkerchief as if he could force the letters to change somehow. “Are you sure that’s really a Q?” he asked. “Could be a fancy O, couldn’t it?”
Corey rolled his eyes. “You know, I think you don’t want to admit that you were wrong about Quine, that he’s been against us all along, because then you have to own everything that happened in Asilah and everything that’s happening now and will happen, whatever that is.”
Matt flinched. “I’ll admit I’ve made mistakes, but I’m not wrong about Quine.”
“How can you think that?” Corey spat. “Everything points to him being in league with Vincent. He handed Vincent the Aeternum! They have the same name, for crying out loud!”
“You don’t know why he did that,” Matt said. “And even if they do have the same name, so what? We have the same name. Doesn’t mean we’re always on the same side, does it?”
Matt regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. Even in the shadows, he could see Corey’s and Ruby’s expressions. They looked as though he’d just slapped them across their faces.
“No,” Corey said coldly, “I guess it doesn’t.”
Matt held Corey’s gaze until the shame boiled over and he looked away. He wished he could take those words back. He should say he was sorry, but somehow the words wouldn’t come out.
“Let’s not fight,” Ruby said. “It doesn’t help anything. Let’s just focus on what we can do. We can’t go back in time and change anything. We know that doesn’t work, so we have to look ahead.”
“You mean travel to the future?” Matt asked, his voice squeaking a little. He’d only traveled to the future once, and it was on accident. And up to this point, nobody had been able to travel past June 1, 2019, because that was when Matt had invented the compass.
Ruby shook her head. “I don’t think traveling to the future will help us any either. I’ve been thinking . . . you guys, we’ve been so focused on time travel, on the past or the future, we’ve forgotten the most important thing. Our present.”
“How do you mean?” Matt said.
“The present is the only time we have real control over. Right now, this very moment, everything we do or say we’re choosing. Don’t you see?”
Matt didn’t, but he didn’t want to admit it. Corey wasn’t afraid though.
“No, I don’t see,” Corey said. “I mean, I agree that right now we’re choosing to be here having this conversation, but there are, like, a thousand things that brought us to this moment that we didn’t have any control over, you know? I mean, if Vincent were to show up right here and now and blast us all, there wouldn’t be much that we could do. And what if he goes to our past and changes things? Then what?”
“Our past selves would fight,” Ruby said. “We’d fight to stay together, and our present selves should too. And our future selves. Whenever or wherever Vincent goes to pull us apart or make us disappear or whatever, we can’t let him.”
“But that’s just it,” Matt said. “It’s not about us letting him or not. With the Aeternum, Vincent can tear us apart. He can change things and we won’t have any control over it. He controls everything.”
Ruby shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. Oh, how do I explain this? I don’t even fully understand, but I can feel it! I think we’re missing something really important, guys. Something about us, our family. Vincent wants to tear us apart, but so far he hasn’t been able to, and we can’t let him. We have to keep fighting, refuse to let go. We have to stick together.”
Corey and Matt just stared at her. Matt thought Ruby was vastly oversimplifying things. Sweet as her sentiment was, he did not think they could fight Vincent simply by “sticking together.” Corey seemed to feel the same.
“Okay, so what should we do?” Corey said. “Superglue ourselves together or something?”
Ruby rolled her eyes. “You’re not getting what I’m saying.”
“No, I’m not,” Corey said. “I don’t get any of this. Do you, Matt?”
Matt just shrugged. “I guess I sort of do? But not really.”
Corey snorted, shaking his head. “I’m going back to bed. I’m sorry I woke you two up. This is going nowhere.” He grabbed the handkerchief and stuffed it back in his pocket, then started to stand.
“Wait!” Ruby said. She held out her fist into the beam of her flashlight. “For luck.”
Matt glanced at Corey, who raised an eyebrow at him. Matt put his fist next to Ruby’s, and Corey finally stuck his in, completing their three-way family fist bump. But it felt weird. Like some tether between them had come unraveled.
Matt went back to bed, but any thoughts of sleep were long gone. The initials from the handkerchief swirled in his brain. VQ . . . It couldn’t be. There had to be some mistake. Or it was a coincidence. Or something. Matt could not, would not accept that he was on Vincent’s side, that they couldn’t be related in any way. They didn’t even look alike. (As an adopted child he knew that disproved nothing, but still.)
But then he remembered how Vincent had told him he’d visited him before he came on board the Vermillion. Matt had given him his Mets hat, which had contained a message leading him to the Mona Lisa and the key that ultimately led him to the Aeternum. All signs that he was trying to help Vincent. But why? They couldn’t be on the same side. Marius Quine had said they weren’t. Hadn’t he? Matt tried to recall their conversation from Asilah. Quine said he didn’t care for Vincent. But he gave no other details or clues as to their relationship or what would happen in his future. He only said it would be difficult. That more sacrifices would have to be made. And he wouldn’t tell him when or why he changed his name to Marius Quine. Or was that supposed to be his name all along?
Everything was a blur, Matt thought, including himself.
10
Vincent’s Plans
It was clear that no one slept well, if at all, because they were all up at the crack of dawn, except Gaga, who was still recovering from time sickness. They all had dark circles under their eyes. Albert eyed everyone like they might attack him at any moment. Matt noticed Jia’s face was slightly puffy, like she’d been crying all night. He’d almost forgotten Pike was no longer with them, and he felt a twinge of guilt that he hadn’t been able to stop her or go back and rescue her.
“Hey,” he said to Jia when she came into the kitchen. “You doing okay?”
She nodded. “I’m okay.”
The Forbidden Lock Page 10