Thirty years after the fire, in the ruins of his father’s once-great estate, Robert Baron IV fumbled through the books and papers that remained in the dark library. A clear inch of dust had settled on the leather-bound volumes and richly patterned carpet, and built up inside the gilded frames of forgotten paintings. Outside the filthy windows, the moon cast its dim light on the black and deserted streets of Candlewick.
His long fingers paused on an old newspaper article dated from 1921. The page was yellow, and some of the text was nearly faded.
ELBERT THE EXCELLENT REAPPEARS TO SHUN
CANDLEWICK’S CANDLES
May 22, 1921
New York, N.Y.—More than a decade after his rise and fall as a stage magician with a talent for hypnosis, thirty-year-old Elbert Walsh, formerly known as Elbert the Excellent, appeared in public again to denounce Candlewick’s Candles, the highly successful enterprise owned by Mr. Robert Tweed Baron I and his son, Robert Tweed Baron II. “The swine cheated me,” Walsh stated in an angry speech, which he delivered Saturday in a crowded downtown fish market. “The rights to those candles that you all love belong to me. And once I master the secrets of the time touch, Baron will be sorry.”
When prompted to explain what exactly he meant by “time touch,” the ex-magician refused to comment further.
It is known that the ex-magician used to work for a clockmaker.
“The time touch,” Robert Baron IV murmured softly to himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d come across this term. His father and grandfather often mentioned it at family reunions whenever business topics came up. They’d recount dreamily, over sparkling wine and fat cigars, how the first Robert Baron had secured the candles’ formula from a lunatic—“the schmuck had no idea he was sitting on a fortune, and bless our great Baron name to have the insight.”
They did agree, however, that one impressive thing about the schmuck had been his golden pendulum, which the first Robert Baron had had the presence of mind to steal when he’d ransacked the lunatic’s apartment all those years ago. He didn’t realize just how valuable it was until a group of butlers spontaneously broke into song and tap dance when he’d dangled the pendulum in the air.
“Great for keeping the workers in their place,” Robert Baron II had crowed, putting his arms around his son’s and grandson’s shoulders. “Works well on officials, too. I’ve gotten out of paying for every single accident at the factory. The nifty thing helps you avoid giving pay raises, too.”
Robert Baron IV stiffened at the memory. He never did find that nifty thing, despite searching every inch of the charred factory twenty years ago.
When he was a boy, he’d asked his family if they believed Great-Grandfather Robert I’s theft of the pendulum would result in backlash or danger from the magician. They merely scoffed. “What’s he going to do?” his grandfather had said. “The kid was cuckoo back then. Still is now. You know what his grand plan is? Claims he is going to reverse time and take back the candles. Says he’s going to ‘touch time’ or some nonsense. Ha! Imagine if more people were like that pea-brain. I tell you, we’re doing the working class a favor by keeping the wealth safe from them. The world does not need their kind. Steward! More wine, please.”
Robert Baron IV carefully tucked the article into the pocket of his black suit, where he’d collected several dozen pages of notes on his quest to understand the phrase. Unlike his predecessors, he was far more cautious, and more open to certain possibilities. In the last two decades, he’d endlessly ruminated on how to restore his family’s fortune and fame. The precious pendulum was missing, but perhaps there was another way. Time travel certainly seemed absurd, but if it existed, he knew it could be the answer to recovering his family’s lost fortune. He could rewind the years and prevent the fire from happening, the same way Elbert had apparently sought to touch time and reverse it.
He unfolded one of those other notes and reread the short poem he had come across while conducting his research.
One in which all is foretold,
One in which lie gifts of gold,
One in which past days unfold.
He had gleaned the rhyme off an odd trio of travelers a few years ago. He’d chanced upon them in a dank tavern north of New York City, not far from Candlewick. After a few merry mugs of ale, the eldest of the travelers revealed to him that they were on a quest. For several years now, they had been trying to find three valuables that only a handful of people throughout history have known about. The trio had apparently gone all over the world in search of these treasures.
“The three treasures are all connected,” her companion clarified, scratching his bushy beard.
“That’s right, legend says time broke into three pieces long ago, and each piece is hidden somewhere in the world,” said the third traveler, a middle-aged woman with a large backpack. The dim lightbulb hanging above her head revealed a small tattoo of a compass rose on the back of her neck, underneath strands of coarse hair that had come loose from her ponytail. On closer inspection, Robert Baron IV realized all three travelers bore the same insignia—on the wrist of the elderly woman, on the forearm of the man with the beard.
“We’ve been searching for one particular piece for about twenty years,” the traveler continued. “Old Claudia here has searched for over seventy.”
The wrinkled woman next to her nodded. “I was one of the first in the group,” she said. “I’m the only one of us who knew the original founder. He was a brilliant man. An odd one for sure, but brilliant. He committed himself to the quest practically his entire lifetime, then suddenly quit. Said he’d finally come to terms with his past.”
“Elbert the Eccentric,” the others chuckled.
“He had a loyal following even after he retired, people dedicated to finding the treasures in his stead,” continued the traveler with the backpack. “We all pay our respects any time we’re in the area. He’s buried not far from here.”
“Of course, our group’s membership has changed throughout the years,” Claudia said. “But new and old members alike, we are all united in the search. We each have our own theories on what powers the pieces hold. You’ve heard such stories, I’m sure. Stories of cursed objects that bring death. Stories of strange people who pop up at random times throughout history, who never seem to age. Of course, most of those stories don’t have much meat to them, details-wise, so for us they’ve ended up being dead ends.…”
“Well, there was one good lead,” interjected the man with the bushy beard, banging his sloshing mug of beer on the counter. “A piping hot lead.”
The woman with the backpack groaned. “Not this again, Sam—”
“Those humanitarians,” the tipsy traveler went on. “You know they found something big, Marlene. Suddenly stopped joining us in our expeditions. Said they were taking a break. I knew something was fishy at the time. Should’ve made them explain themselves that night at their house—”
“You’ll have to forgive us, Sam gets riled up easily,” said the traveler called Marlene with an apologetic glance at the newcomer. “First of all, we have no proof. It was likely just a harmless toy—”
“It was real and you know it,” argued Sam. “They found it on their own and kept quiet about it.” He turned to Robert Baron IV and said, “When the Tripps wouldn’t tell us anything, we questioned their neighbors. One of them had a story that the Tripps appeared from thin air one evening, wearing winter coats when it was eighty-five degrees out. And then another time, another person claimed to have met the Tripps—exactly as they were—fifty years ago as a child. Said they looked exactly the same.”
Robert Baron IV had straightened up in his seat. “You’re saying this—this object that your former comrades found—it allowed them to travel to the past?”
The three travelers glanced at one another uneasily. The tipsy traveler blurted, “Oh, to the devil with it!” With a hiccup, he turned in his stool, nearly falling off in the process, and said, “One of the pieces we were looking
for is supposed to rewind time. And based on the stories, it sounds exactly like what Lin and Thomas Tripp had found.”
“The rumors were indeed odd,” murmured Claudia. “But even if they were true, I’m sure they had their reasons for not being forthcoming with us. They always liked helping people, and perhaps there was something that had more pressing needs than our simple fascination. Perhaps they realized the item was dangerous. Perhaps something that powerful can wreak havoc on the world.” The old woman bowed her head. Her fingers tightened around the mug she held. “Either way, they died in a plane crash a few years ago, leaving behind a son. That little boy lost everything. We shouldn’t speak ill of our lost comrades.”
There was a somber silence.
“If the Tripps did have a piece of the time touch, I’m sure they kept it on them at all times, and it likely broke in the rubble of the plane accident,” sniffed Marlene. She clanked her empty mug on the counter. “So for all we know, the piece of time is out there, floating free again. And we know there are other pieces of the time touch out there, too. We’ll keep looking. We won’t give up.” Then she looked at her backpack and sighed. “Although, I won’t lie, sometimes I feel like giving up.”
“What’s meant to be will be,” replied Claudia, folding her ancient hands together. “I’ve always said if you aren’t meant to own something, it won’t come to you. Same with the time touch. Something that magical must have a mind of its own, almost.” She smiled at her friends. “Besides, what adventures we’ve had on the hunt, eh?”
The others murmured in agreement. At that point, the newcomer spoke up and quietly asked what the object the Tripps had been seen carrying looked like.
“It was a glass ball,” answered the tipsy traveler. “A snow globe, wasn’t it?”
To the dubious credit of the notorious Barons, each son had possessed a sharp memory, which was necessary for keeping track of all their blackmailing and legal loopholes. The last Baron, Robert Baron IV, used this ability to his advantage as he tracked down the elusive snow globe.
By the time he’d run into the trio of travelers, he’d been painstakingly following clues for almost thirty years. He’d trailed people, asked questions, pursued leads, snuffed out dead ends. In an old antique shop, he’d devoured the tale of an oddly dressed boy with “glowing shoes” that was chronicled in a butcher’s diary from the 1930s. In a recently published journal of unexplained phenomena, he’d come across a quote from an elderly fellow claiming to have witnessed a lad vanish in front of a Midtown pretzel cart sometime in the 1960s. Robert Baron IV latched on to these leads like a tick on to thick hair. He adopted a new moniker as he followed the trail: M for Mysterious—partly to conceal his identity, partly because it suited the nature of his secretive research, and partly because he lacked the imagination to come up with anything better.
When he’d found the Biscuit Basket, he almost laughed out loud. How ironic that the world’s most valuable possession lay inside that shack of a place.
His first attempt at obtaining the item hadn’t worked. He’d meant to bribe the wretched child for the snow globe, but the kid was stubborn. Horrible creatures, children were—he never understood why people wanted them. Maybe that was why his own father had never given him the time of day.
His second attempt hadn’t worked either. Theft was harder than people made it out to be, especially when one must navigate a rickety bakery surrounded by dozens of customers.
So he had one option left. He would do what any self-respecting Baron would do, and what every self-respecting Baron had done to get what he wanted: he would put everything on the line. He needed that snow globe, no matter the cost.
The baker was still on high alert, he knew. He needed to lie low and wait. Then, when the right time came, he would strike like a serpent.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE FUTURE FRANCINE
On Friday evening after dinner, Adam checked the snow globe again for what seemed like the millionth time (but was actually the fifty-eighth) since his last visit to Candlewick.
Adam was prepared this time. He had gone to the library and scanned copies of the newspaper articles about the burned-down factory. He’d arranged the printouts neatly in a folder on his desk.
He’d also printed an article he found of his parents’ plane accident.
That evening, when he opened his dresser drawer and peered hopefully inside, he was finally rewarded. Earlier that day, the snow globe had been blank. Now, a snowy cityscape of New York stood inside the glass. Adam’s heart plummeted.
It’s peculiar how sometimes the one thing we want badly makes us second-guess it once it’s finally within our reach. Adam stared at the tiny skyscrapers. Fear rose in his stomach.
It’s time, he decided. For whatever’s next.
Adam grabbed his files and put them in his backpack. He glanced at the music box on his bed and grabbed the device too, just in case he was to meet Jack again. He took a deep breath, then shook the snow globe.
The next moment, he found himself in the middle of Central Park. The ground was covered with a sheet of snow; the bare tree branches along the trails crackled with brittle ice. Above him, the sky was an endless white.
Adam looked around. He didn’t recognize anybody, nor did he know where to go. He read a sign nearby that said he was near Belvedere Castle, the miniature stone fortress that overlooked the surrounding treetops. As a biting wind picked up, Adam instinctively clutched the snow globe tighter and headed down the path toward the castle.
Belvedere Castle had been his father and Uncle Henry’s favorite spot as children. Uncle Henry once recounted how the two brothers used to race up its stone steps and reenact plays, wars, and other games, bound only by the limits of their imaginations. They’d pretend to be kings of a fairy-tale land, and make believe the sun was a pot of gold, the clouds silver, and the park their kingdom.
“Those were the special days,” Uncle Henry had told Adam. “Your father and I, we didn’t have a care in the world. We would be late coming home for dinner because we’d lose track of time. Always felt as if time stopped for us when we played.”
Adam had visited the castle with his uncle several years ago, but he had refused to go up because heights scared him, despite his uncle’s promises that it was completely safe. Uncle Henry had given up visiting the castle after that.
The castle came into view. The three-story structure, with its impressive turret and walls, belonged more to a fairy tale than a modern-day park. For a moment, Adam felt his younger self whimper, felt a familiar tug at his chest. But he cast aside the fear. Slowly, using the snow globe for strength, he went up the narrow steps.
He emerged at the topmost level. The park and surrounding cityscape sprawled before him under a quiet blanket of snow. If it weren’t for the branches in the distance, it was near impossible to tell where the sky ended and the ground began. He stood near the edge, breathlessly taking in the view that normally only birds could see, the distant trees no bigger than his thumb.
For the first time, Adam understood why his father and Uncle Henry liked this place so much.
There were a few other people enjoying the sights that day on top of the castle, some with cameras pointed at the scenery, some simply taking in the view.
“Well, heya, it’s you,” said a voice behind him. “The time traveler.”
He turned and saw a dark-skinned woman standing beside one of the stone railings, bundled in a flared gray coat and carrying a matching briefcase. Crinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes as she smiled at Adam. He knew that smile.
“Francine?” he said in disbelief.
“I was just taking a little lunchtime walk before going back to work,” said Francine.
Adam had a mountain of questions, but what came out was, “To sell candles?”
Francine chuckled. “I don’t do that anymore. Haven’t for a long, long time. I work in an office now.”
“Francine, what—what year is it?”
“I guess you came to comfort me,” she continued. “That snow globe is truly magical, isn’t it? It knows.”
Adam was afraid to ask, but he swallowed hard and asked, “Is…is Tito okay?”
“Oh, it’s not about Tito. He passed more than twenty years ago.” Francine smiled sadly. “Shortly after the last time you visited.”
Adam felt a wave of sadness clench his chest. “I’m sorry.” He made a mental note to somehow obtain a polio vaccine for Tito the next time he traveled back far enough. That would be his goal after he safeguarded Candlewick. And after he rescued his parents.
“It’s not your fault, Adam.” Francine’s expression was kind. “You’re not the only one who’s tried to save him. But magic can’t solve all the world’s ills.”
“Huh?”
Francine motioned to a nearby bench, and the friends sat. “Believe it or not, you weren’t the only time traveler to visit me in my childhood,” she said. “In fact, I was visited by two others, several years before you came along. They were very kind. They wanted to cure Tito, among other things.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t really know. They never told me much about themselves.” Francine closed her eyes. “But they were a married couple. And they were from the future, just like you.”
Adam desperately wanted to learn more, but his original goal weighed heavily on his mind. He didn’t want to waste any time. The scene in the snow globe could vanish any second.
“Francine, before anything else, there’s something I have to tell you. I need to warn the people of Candlewick about their future.” Adam placed the snow globe on the ground, then rummaged inside his backpack for the file. “You need to give this to the police,” he said, handing the file to Francine. “The Candlewick candle factory will burn down in seven years. A bunch of townspeople will die. And in 1992, my parents—my parents’ plane—”
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