by M. G. Harris
The Bracelet of Itzamna had taken us to some “dark places”, that’s what Montoyo reckoned. Tough times call for tough measures, all that sort of talk.
He told me, “I intended to explain everything to you. Even now, Josh, I believe you’d have chosen to go of your own free will, once yourealized what was at stake. Time travel is an intrinsic part of the solution to 2012. It’s written in the Ix Codex.”
I didn’t argue with Montoyo because I’m actually pretty chuffed that he thinks I’d be so daring or brave. Yet, he’s wrong. I would never have gone into the Mayan past of my own free will. No matter what is written in the Ix Codex. Somewhere along the line, he’s mistaken me for a daredevil.
Or else he’s playing with my mind, making me believe things that aren’t true. Montoyo is too clever for me, too tricky. I doubt whether I’ll ever know for sure.
Montoyo is worried about the problems we have right now in Ek Naab.
There’s unrest, whispers of dissent with the way things are being handled. Meanwhile Blanco Vigores is still missing.
The Ruling Executive of Ek Naab are so worried that all travel outside Ek Naab will now be forbidden. Even for Montoyo.
“I looked more carefully at the document we found in Blanco Vigores’s apartment,” he told me, showing me the handwritten instructions for using the Bracelet of Itzamna. “Look what he’s written here at the end. About the possibility that there are parallel times, realities. ‘Time forks perpetually towards innumerable futures. In one of them, I am your enemy.’”
But I’ve heard that before. Susannah said it to me. I guess it must be a quote.
“Blanco was dedicated to Ek Naab,” Montoyo said. “To join the Sect goes against his life’s work.”
I couldn’t tell if he was sad to think that Vigores might have switched sides, or worried that he’d been captured. So I said nothing. Martineau must have got the Bracelet of Itzamna from someone. That someone is probably Vigores. Did he give it freely? Or was he forced?
If Vigores had a functional Bracelet then there are only two possible solutions.
Either there are two Bracelets after all. Or else he had the same one I’m wearing . . . but from the future.
Is someone going to travel back in time and give my Bracelet to Blanco Vigores? Will it be me? Arcadio? Itzamna himself? What if Zsolt Bosch changes his mind about settling down in some nice corner of Mexico in the twentieth century? Maybe he’ll decide to take up time travel again. Maybe Bosch is both Itzamna and Arcadio?
Yet, I feel as though there’s something I’m missing, something in plain sight. Arcadio seems to hold the key to my future. The closer I get to his trail, the more it melts away.
It’s a horrible idea, that Blanco Vigores might have gone over to the Sect. The alternative is almost worse. If the Sect have captured him, who knows what they’ve done to him to get information?
He might not even be alive.
Montoyo left me in the hospital room with my mother, who weirded me out a bit by kissing me whilst sobbing. She didn’t blame me, though, for going on a risky adventure. What I said about Montoyo bites just a little too close to the bone. Mum doesn’t even want to discuss it. She wants to keep believing that Montoyo will protect me, no matter what.
Then in a bizarre change of mood, she asked me what I want for my fifteenth birthday next month.
Mums. They’re crazy.
Finally, Ixchel arrived. My heart started thumping. I tried to act calm.
Now that we’re back . . . is she ready to finish with Benicio? On the motorbike ride to Becan, I felt sure I’d be ready to force her hand. But it’s not that simple. I want her to choose me over him. Being second best isn’t good enough.
Eventually, Ixchel and I got around to the inevitable subject.
Ixchel reaches forward tentatively, touches my fringe with her fingers, sweeps it out of my eyes. “Well, I guess your time-travelling days are over.”
“Says who?”
“Your mother. And Montoyo. I heard her outside, making him promise to lock away the Bracelet of Itzamna. She’s furious, you know that? It’s a miracle she’s still talking to him. Convinced that her poor son almost died. . .”
“Like that would ever stop him,” I mutter.
”So. . .” Ixchel says, not quite looking at me.
”So. . .?”
She blushes, unusual for Ixchel. “So . . . do you still want . . . do you still feel the same way you did that night on the beach?”
”Do I still want . . . what?”
The words are practically torn from her. “You know. The arranged marriage.”
I stare in astonishment. “Right. OK. We’re gonna talk about that, are we?”
“Do you want to. . .?”
Now I’m as embarrassed as her. “What, get married?”
She looks surprised. “No! Talk about it. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Oh! Well, um, honestly. . .”
We both shrug.
“You don’t,” Ixchel says, a little hesitant. It’s impossible to read her. I get the feeling that one wrong word and I’m in trouble.
“I just want us to be together,” I say after what seems like way too long.
Ixchel frowns a bit, but there’s a hint of a wry grin, enough to give me hope that I haven’t totally messed up.
“Yeah,” I continue. “Can I be your boyfriend? After you’ve had a chance to break it off with Benicio, I mean.”
Heck, why even bother? Let Benicio concentrate on healing his bones.
The hint of a grin is bigger. “Well,” she begins. I catch a glimpse of a cute and very rare dimple. “It’s just that you said some things on the beach. . .” Then it’s my turn to redden. “Maybe you got carried away,” she adds. There’s a definite teasing tone. “I’d understand. It was a very romantic situation.”
“Oh . . . I get it,” I say, nodding. “This is you having a laugh with me.”
She chuckles. “Maybe a little. But you said other things too. About how we’d spend our lives by the sea.” She gazes into my eyes. “If you really meant it . . . I think maybe I’d like that.”
“Yeah,” I reply quietly. “I meant it.”
When I think back to that night, my heart could break. It was so great to be that happy; I felt like it would last for ever. That night, I thought Ixchel and I had it made. We were going to be together, rich and free. Now I don’t know if we’ll ever get that future back.
The outcome of 2012 is still totally uncertain. In Bosch’s future, the Sect will win. Maybe Bosch’s intervention in our past will change things. But maybe, like when I tried to break my dad out of the Area 51 prison, Bosch changes nothing at all.
Just the same, it’s a future worth aiming for. So I take Ixchel’s hand in mine. “We’ll get back to that beach one day. You and me. That’s a promise.”
Ixchel gives this sad smile and hugs me tight. For a second I wonder if she’s going to cry. If she does, for once I’ll know exactly what to say.
Being so close to her I get this deep, quiet kind of feeling, like being in a bubble suspended in time. It’s not that I don’t want to grow up, even with all the dangers we face. But right now, I wish that time itself would stand perfectly still.
Thank you for reading DARK PARALLEL (The Joshua Files #4)
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Acknowledgements
Massive thanks to Polly Nolan for wonderful editorial suggestions and ongoing support for Joshua’s missions. To Jessica White, whose scrutiny of continuity issues becomes more crucial with each instalment. To fellow kids’ author Susie Day, for reliably enthusiastic company in our “office” (i.e., Summertown Starbucks). To Alex Richardson, Steven Salisbury and Catherine Alport, the brilliant publicity team at Scholastic Children’s Books UK. To my Twitter friends (hello tweeps) for minute-to-minute, 24/7 support, including @Redwoods1
and @AlyxP1 (the inimitable Lisa Edwards and Alyx Price of Scholastic Children’s Books UK), @NosyCrow (Kate Wilson) and Joshua superfans @LyanaMiranda, @nyall97 and @beccachaplin’s son Josh. To my wonderful agent, the charming yet formidable Peter Cox of Redhammer. To my gorgeous girls for being adorable. To my lovely husband, David, who reads every book I write before anyone else – if it keeps him awake at night I know we’re on to something good.
First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd., 2011
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Darkwater Books
An imprint of Harris Oxford Limited.
41 Cornmarket Street, Oxford, OX1 3HA
Text copyright © M. G. Harris, 2011
The right of M. G. Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her.
eISBN 978-1-909072-10-7
A CIP catalogue record for this work is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical or otherwise, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express prior written permission of Harris Oxford Limited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Gareth Stranks
www.themgharris.com
Contents
Beginning
BLOG ENTRY: THE JOSHUA DOOMSDAY MANIFESTO OR HOW TO DEAL WITH THE POSSIBLE END OF THE WORLD
BLOG ENTRY: CRAZY BENICIO
BLOG ENTRY: SIGNS OF RENEWED ACTIVITY FROM SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE AT CENTRE OF THE MILKY WAY
BLOG ENTRY: CRAZY JOSH (PASSWORD PROTECTED)
BLOG ENTRY: WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS
BLOG ENTRY: SIXTEEN
BLOG ENTRY –THE WORLD-DIDN’T-END PARTY
Acknowledgements
Apocalypse Moon Copyright Page
About MG Harris
The Descendant Alternate Reality Game
The Joshua Files on the Internet
Praise for The Joshua Files
For Reba Bandyopadhyay,
thanks for a treasured friendship, all your advice, ideas and support, and the memory of The Aquitar Files.
‘Ek Naab’ Map design by Megan Evans from Birmingham, winner of the Joshua Files “Design a Map” competition
BLOG ENTRY: THE JOSHUA DOOMSDAY MANIFESTO OR HOW TO DEAL WITH THE POSSIBLE END OF THE WORLD
1. Keep busy. Learn a skill or trade. Do your exams. Take me, for example: I’m learning to be a pilot. OK, I’ll admit that I’m partly doing it to impress a girl, but also, it might come in handy, especially if the end of the world starts to look likely.
Mainly, keep your mind off the possible impending doom. The trade/skill/exam thing is just a bonus.
2. Stay in denial. The world is NOT going to end. Tell yourself this a few times a day. Thoughts of what might happen may spring up on you when you’re least expecting it. In those moments, you’ll need that denial to be rock solid.
3. DO NOT look at videos on YouTube about the world ending. Most of them have got it badly wrong anyway. They talk about asteroids crashing into Earth or the Planet Nibiru or some other rubbish. You won’t find much about a galactic superwave and a gigantic electromagnetic pulse wiping out all the computer technologies. That’s so much less photogenic. Instead of massive fireballs, there will be a massive no-show. No TV, no interweb, no money going through the banking system and no twenty-pound notes in the ATMs. No food trucks going to the supermarkets, no power in the hospitals. The whole developed world relies on computer technology. Very definitely don’t think about what would happen if there was suddenly a great big OUTAGE.
4. Make a bucket list – a list of all the things you want to do before you “kick the bucket”. Quietly. Show it to no one. This is just for you. You’ll never have to use it, probably, because the world won’t end. It’s a just-in-case. Look at it for a long time and think about what really matters, what you really want to DO or BE. You might surprise yourself. I did.
5. Stop reading this blog. How did you find it anyway? What makes you think I’m not making it all up?
6. Trust the adults to sort everything out and save the world. Hey, they usually do, right?
7. If you’ve tried all of the above and you still wake at three a.m. with a cold, vacant pit where your stomach should be, wondering if civilization is on the brink of destruction – then there’s always this: GET INVOLVED.
Lately, I’ve been having the feeling that people aren’t being straight with me. Or some people in particular: my parents.
By “parents” I mean my mother (Eleanor) and her partner, Carlos Montoyo. If it weren’t for the fact that my real father died pretty recently, Mum would probably already be married to Montoyo. They fell for each other after a few months. Now they’re definitely a couple. But when you marry a widow, I think you’re probably meant to leave a polite interval.
Montoyo is an interesting guy and I won’t deny that I respect him. He’s been on the ruling Executive of Ek Naab – a hidden “invisible city” – ever since the last proper Bakab Ix died: my grandfather. Now I’m the Bakab Ix; I’m next in line to succeed to the ruling Executive. When I turn sixteen.
That’s if Montoyo will give up his place for me. If ever there was a wheeler-dealer, it’s him. About nine months ago Montoyo played a sneaky trick on me. Since then things have gone downhill. Nine months ago, he tricked me into travelling in time in search of an ancient Mayan codex – the Ix Codex. Montoyo might say he had his reasons for tricking me, but it’s not easy to get over being conned into risking your life. It’s probably fair to say that if Montoyo could have managed the time travel bit, he’d have done the deed himself. If he could have touched the Ix Codex, that is. Like my dad used to say, If we had eggs, we could have ham and eggs, if we had ham.
Of all the people in Ek Naab, only I can use the time travel device, the Bracelet of Itzamna. Only I can touch the Ix Codex. It’s not a magical power, it’s a genetic ability: I was born with it.
Until nine months ago, Montoyo didn’t think twice about risking me on a dangerous time-travel adventure. If the Ix Codex went missing, I was the guy for the job. It’s what I was born for, after all. Prince William doesn’t whine about being second in line to the British throne. And I try not to whine about being what I am, the Bakab Ix – genetically tweaked to be the protector of the Ix Codex.
There’s an ancient legend that the world as we know it will end in December 2012. The bad news is that it’s true. What is going to happen, has happened before. It will all happen again, too. The good news is that this time, we’re meant to be prepared – thanks to the Ix Codex.
The instructions for how to save the world from the coming galactic superwave of 2012 are in the Ix Codex. But the cover of the Ix Codex is impregnated with a poisonous gas. Only a Bakab Ix can touch the book and survive.
There were times when it was very hard to carry all that responsibility. I didn’t ask for the job; I was born into it. I wasn’t always keen. But I did what was needed; I risked my life again and again. I’ve been shot in the leg, attacked with knives, experimented on, watched people I care about being hurt by my enemies, seen my father in prison, seen him plunge to his death saving my life.
All to try to protect the Ix Codex, to do my bit to save the world from the galactic superwave.
So when apparently I’m too young and too inexperienced to play a part in this incredible plan to save the world . . . when I’m completely sidelined and ordered to “Get
on with your studies and leave everything to us”. . .
I get pretty annoyed. I get a bit suspicious too.
It has something to do with what happened nine months ago, when I time travelled. That’s when everything changed. Before that, I felt like I was on the inside, allowed to know what was going on, how the 2012 plan was coming along.