by N. D. Wilson
“Sam Miracle!” The loudspeaker outside sounded upset. “Samuel Miracle, report to the Commons!”
“Do you remember who I am?” Glory asked.
Sam snorted. “Why wouldn’t I? Can you leave? I need to get dressed.”
“Yeah, you do.” Glory turned around, but she didn’t leave. “We’re twenty minutes late already.”
Sam threw his blankets off and then dug a pair of jeans out of a drawer below his bed.
“Do you remember what we’re doing today?” Glory glanced back over her shoulder. Sam snarled and she quickly looked away. “Sorry. But today is huge. Today is the most insane, most exciting, most dangerous day of my life. I know you’ve had lots of dangerous days, but I haven’t. This is new for me. I’m actually pretty nervous.”
Sam was concentrating on putting on his socks. He was nervous, too, but there was no way he would admit that.
“So what is it that we’re doing?”
Glory spun around. Eyebrows down. Serious face.
“I’m not joking,” Sam said. “I’m not even sure what day it is.”
“Father Tiempo,” Glory said. “Today. He called it the day of reliving.”
Sam reached for his shoes.
“It’s been one night.” Glory shook her head. “How could you forget when absolutely nothing else happened since then?”
Sam smiled. With Glory flustered, he felt less nervous. A little.
“I just wanted you to feel useful,” he said. “You’re supposed to be the one who remembers everything. I just have to go back in time and—”
“Survive,” Glory finished.
“Right,” said Sam. He began slowly tying his shoes with his rigid arms. Glory watched. Impatient, she dropped onto one knee and swatted his hands away.
“I’ll do it. I need to feel useful.”
Sam never would have accepted help like that from one of the other boys. But he didn’t feel up to fighting Glory.
She jerked the laces into a hard double knot and moved on to the next foot. “I know you can do this,” she said. “It’s just . . .”
“It’s hard,” Sam said. “Thanks.” He smiled, but the expression didn’t feel real. Nothing did. He had a sandbag in his stomach and fear whispering in his head. The priest had made his whole plan sound pretty awful.
“Remind me why I’m doing this,” Sam said. “Why can’t I just stay here?”
“Because you don’t want to stay here,” said Glory. She stood up, adjusted her backpack, and put her hands on her hips. “Because somewhere else, you matter. A lot. And here you don’t. At all. And you never will.”
Sam shrugged. “You don’t know that. Maybe I’ll invent a new kind of barbed wire or discover how to talk to cactuses.”
“Cacti,” said Glory. “And if you stay here, they will kill you. Like they killed your sister.”
Sam inflated his cheeks.
“You might not remember it, but it happened. To your sister. And if you don’t go back, you’re letting it stay that way forever. It’s like you want it to.”
“Shut up.” Sam bounced himself up onto his feet. “You didn’t even know her. I don’t even know how much I remember her and how much I just made up.”
“You’ve read the book,” Glory said. She slung off her bag, pulled out the old paperback copy of The Legend of Poncho, and held it up. The pages were yellow and splayed with use, and the cover was creased, but it still shone like blood on old silver. The hero stood in a graveyard at sunset, surrounded by enemies. His head was down, and his tough hands were just visible beneath his poncho, ready to draw his weapons.
“She’s in here,” Glory said. “I totally know her. She’s my favorite character. Want to know why I was glad you died at the end? Because you ran and hid when she faced the outlaws alone. Because you made your choice and your sister died and that was your fault, and no matter how much you wanted to blame El Buitre, you were the one who needed to die.”
“Don’t. That wasn’t me,” Sam said. “Not this me. I remember reading it, but I don’t remember doing it.”
“Then who was it?” Glory sniffed. “I’m pretty sure there’s only one of you even if that you has tried living the same thing a whole bunch of different ways.” She tucked Poncho back into her bag. “Or maybe you make the same mistake and leave her every single time. Seems like you’re thinking about doing that again right now.”
Sam took a step toward Glory. He didn’t care if she was a girl—he was ready to fight.
The Bunk House door flew open and Mr. Spalding stepped inside, looking angry.
“Gloria?” Mr. Spalding froze. “What are you doing here? I dropped you at the bus station two hours ago.”
Glory shrugged. “I came back.”
“We talked about this. You can come back for Christmas. Right now, you should be on your way to St. Angela’s.”
“I’ll go,” Glory said. “Don’t worry.”
Mr. Spalding stepped forward. “As for you, Sam, Peter has been lying for you again. It has to stop. Why did you skip roll call this morning?”
Sam blinked in surprised. If he wanted Mr. Spalding to leave him alone, he had to seem delusional. Which would be easy, even without lying. He gave his guardian his widest and most ominous smile. “I’m going on an adventure today, Mr. Spalding. A big one.”
Mr. Spalding shook his speckled head. “Absolutely not. No. You are doing your schoolwork as per usual and then you will attend to your regularly scheduled chores.”
Sam flexed his stiff arms. “I’m going to meet a priest in the desert and he’s going to take me back in time to when my arms got wrecked. This time, maybe I’ll live it better and they’ll keep bending.”
“Right. Okay.” Mr. Spalding looked concerned. “Sam, I want you to go back to bed. Lie down and shut your eyes and go wherever you want in your head. And I hope your arms bend. I do. May you have the bendiest arms in the whole wide dream-world.” He backed toward the door. “Gloria, you’re coming with me.”
An alarm bell began to clatter in the courtyard. A flood of shouts followed. Mr. Spalding sniffed at the air. Sam could smell it, too. Smoke. And a lot of it.
“Peter,” Mr. Spalding said, his eyes widening. “Peter!” And he sprinted out the door.
Peter’s voice roared above the sound of the alarm. Jimmy and Johnny Z were whooping. A gun fired.
Glory and Sam looked at each other. And then they began to run.
Beyond the Bunk House, beyond the Blood Barn and its nervous goats, Sam and Glory hopped rocks, ducked through fences, and raced along the narrow paths through the saguaro groves. Behind them smoke seethed slowly up into the sky, eclipsing the low sun and throwing a long shadow deep into the desert.
The Commons was engulfed in flames. The shouting had died. The gunshots had dwindled.
“We should go back,” Sam said, looking over his shoulder. “They might need help.”
Glory didn’t even give the smoke a glance. “Whoever is doing this will leave them alone as soon as they’re sure you’re not there.”
“I hope they’re okay.”
Glory hopped a boulder and Sam followed.
“They’ll be fine. Dad is tough if you push him. And I feel bad for anyone who messes with SADDYR boys.”
The two of them reached the top of a small hill and paused beneath the sprawling arms of an enormous cactus. An owl peered down at them from a small hole wedged between the rows of needles. A snake tail vanished beneath a stone by Sam’s feet.
Sam hooded his eyes with a rigid arm and looked back into the smoke-filtered sun. The twelve fenced acres were empty. Thirteen shapes were scurrying around the courtyard—one tall, one female and in a bathrobe. Eleven boys.
“They’re okay,” Sam said. He felt lighter just saying it.
But SADDYR was definitely not okay. The flames had moved from the Commons to the Spaldings’ house.
“Why would they do that?” Sam asked.
“To flush you out,” Glory said. “Th
at’s where you were supposed to be. Remember the book. When the Tinman was looking for you in a hotel, he didn’t go room to room, he just set a fire and waited by the exit with his gun ready.”
“That wasn’t me,” Sam said. “Stop talking about that stuff like it was me.”
Glory scrunched her lips. “Fine. But it’s more you than anyone else.”
Sam turned away from the smoke. Glory didn’t. She had her hands cupped around her eyes.
“Why are you doing this?” Sam asked. “I’ve known you for, like, not long at all.”
Glory didn’t look at him.
“Your mom and dad are down there. Your whole life. Maybe it’s not a normal life, but a not-too-bad one. If you come with me . . .” Sam thought about the possibilities. If even half of his scattered daydreams were real memories, the story Glory was stepping into could go very painfully wrong for her. Sam cleared his throat. “Seriously,” he said. “I have to do this. I even almost want to do this. But you don’t. Anything could happen. Think about my sister. Or me. It won’t be safe.”
“I know.” Glory turned and faced him. “But I only get one life story. I don’t want mine to be safe. I want it to be worth writing a book about.” She smiled. “Like yours.”
Sam scrunched up his face, looking back down at SADDYR. “I don’t know. Safe sounds kinda awesome. I loved most of my book when I thought it wasn’t real. But now . . .”
“My mom ran off when I was born,” Glory said. “The Spaldings fostered me and my older brother. Eventually, he ran away and ditched me, too. That was four years ago. The Spaldings were nice enough to adopt me when he left, but they keep shipping me off to the most boring schools in the entire history of the planet Earth. So what’s to miss? I have nothing.”
Sam stared at her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Glory said. “I might not have had adventures, and my arms might not have been wrecked or my brains scrambled, but I’ve lived through hard things.” She hooked her thumbs in her backpack straps. “And I’m ready for more.”
Sam snorted. “My brains are fine.”
“Sure they are.” Glory smiled. “That’s why I’m here, because your brains don’t need any help at all.”
A long whistle rattled up the rocks behind them. In the distance, Father Tiempo and three fat burros were standing in a dry creek bed.
Father Tiempo was younger. His uneven black hair was tied down with a red rag across his forehead, but his face was smooth and hairless. If not for his bright eyes and the priest’s collar, Sam would never have believed that he could have been the tired white-haired man who’d told the story of Poncho.
When Sam and Glory jogged to a stop, Father Tiempo swung easily up onto the largest burro, but his eyes didn’t leave Glory. She dug a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it up to him.
“Old you wrote this about me last night.” Glory shrugged. “Just in case you didn’t know who I was or something.”
He glanced at the paper and then flicked it away into the rocks with a sneer.
“I know who you are. If I write something at any time, I know it in all times. That is why the old man wrote the note, not that I need his instruction.” He looked at Sam and Glory both, and his burro stamped in place.
“You have more attitude than the old priest,” Sam said.
“If I have more attitude,” the priest said, “maybe it is because I am not yet old and weary and near giving up.” He wrapped his hand tight in the burro’s reins. “I can smell the desperation on myself even across centuries. It angers me. That I have been sent here, guiding you as a favor to my oldest self, tells me that I have still failed to remedy your situation even at the end of my life. One mistake in my youth, and here you are, the certain assurance that yes, that mistake will haunt me forever.” He inhaled sharply, like he was sniffing at something dead and dubious. “Thus, attitude. A great deal of it. But don’t worry, on the other side, an older, gentler, less angry me will be waiting for you. Come.” His kicked his burro into a trot, leaving Sam and Glory still standing.
Sam looked at his burro. The animal seemed half-asleep in the sun. Its wide barrel body was mostly rump, and even though its legs were short and its back was low, Sam wasn’t sure if he’d be able to swing himself up into the saddle. Not with his stiff arms. He stepped closer and was surrounded by the warm sun-cooked smell of barn. Glory was already up on her burro and waiting.
Sam scrambled up onto a boulder six feet away and prepared to jump.
“You know,” Glory said. “You could just—”
Sam dove, slamming belly first onto the burro’s back. The animal blared surprise like an accordion, skittered in a tight circle in the creek bed, and then took off after the priest, flapping Sam like a pair of fat wings.
“. . . lead it closer first,” Glory finished. She stifled a laugh while Sam fought to stop the animal and right himself. When Sam sat up, embarrassed and frustrated, Glory gave him a thumbs-up. He turned his animal quickly away. Then she leaned over her burro’s neck to whisper in its ear.
“Shall we proceed like ladies?”
The burro threw back its head, butting Glory between the eyes, and then broke into a bouncy gallop.
THREE HOURS. OF BURRO. AND ROCKS. AND SUN. SAM HAD seen two lizards skitter and a few birds circling high like small black cracks in the sky. But the rest of the natural world was still. Gone. Hiding as far out of the sun as possible.
They were deep in the hills now. Solid rock rose up high around them, the dry creek had widened, and the banks had grown almost to cliffs.
Hooves cracked on stones and crunched on gravel. Burros chewed on their bits, clacking the metal on their molars and dripping mealy saliva out the sides of their mouths.
Glory had pulled a hat out of her bag. Father Tiempo’s skin was slick and polished, but he didn’t seem bothered by the heat. Or the sun. Sam was bothered by both. His scalp was burning beneath his hair. Salt had crusted above and below his eyes where his sweat had evaporated. He was wearing short sleeves and no hat, and the skin on his arms, his nose, and the tips of his ears felt ready to blister.
Glory’s burro clattered up beside Sam’s.
“Are you okay?”
Sam nodded. His tongue was a little too dry for words.
“Here.” Glory dug a water bottle out of her pack. “You didn’t eat or drink anything this morning. Have some.”
The priest squinted back at Sam and Glory.
“No. Do not waste the water. You will need it.”
“He needs it now,” Glory said. “The whole point of what we’re doing is to fix him, not to help him die from dehydration.”
“He will be fine. I know his constitution. You are the heat’s more likely casualty.” The priest slowed his burro to a stop at a sharp bend in the creek bed.
Glory extended the water bottle to Sam anyway. He licked his cracking lips, but shook his head.
“It’s okay,” said Sam. “I wouldn’t argue with someone who can walk into the future.”
Father Tiempo watched their burros approach his. For the first time, his hard young face split into creases around a smile.
“Wise boy,” he said. “But still a fool. All men walk into the future. They cannot stop themselves. The moments carry them along like bubbles on a river. A very few can fly into the future. Fewer still can return again.”
Sam slowed his burro to a stop; the priest pointed up ahead.
The creek banks had grown even taller. Sheer stone and loose slides of rubble struggled up and away from each other, ending in rough lips on both sides of the canyon. The jagged and shattered skeleton of an old railroad bridge clung to one side. The rest of the bridge was heaped up in the creek bed, with timbers tangled and splintered, occasionally jutting out of the old carnage like badly broken bones.
“I’ve been here,” Sam said. He looked up. And then down. He could picture the bridge. He could hear the river running fast, the train . . .
“I should say so,” the priest said. “You’ve died here often. More than any other place.”
“Right here?” Sam asked. “Exactly here?” He had forgotten the heat, the sun, and everything else. “How? And why don’t I remember the dying part? Seems like it would be pretty memorable.”
Father Tiempo scanned the bottom of the creek bed. And then he pointed. “Right there,” he said. “Skull fracture from falling. Too many falls to tally. There, a bullet fired from above. And there, drowning.” His finger moved again with each cause of death. “There, crushed by a train car. There, you burned.” He pointed up out of the canyon. “Thrown by a horse, crushed by a train, and, of course, bullets. You get the idea.”
Father Tiempo kicked his burro toward a narrow winding track that clung to the canyon wall. “Let your animals do the guiding here. They’ll find their own footing. Let’s postpone your next death for as long as possible.”
To Sam, the track up from the creek bed looked more like a thin scratch on the cliff face, but his burro managed to waddle along it without too much difficulty. Behind him, Glory spoke up.
“You know, I always thought time travel was impossible.”
“Most of it is,” Father Tiempo said.
“But you can do it,” Glory said. “Obviously.”
“I go where I am sent,” the priest said. “As do you.”
Between breaths, Sam was suddenly elsewhere. Somehow, he could still feel the burro moving beneath him, but he couldn’t see it. And then even that feeling was gone.
Sam was in total darkness, and he was lying on his back. In a box. He could feel the sides pressed in tight against him. His arms could bend, because they were folded on his chest. Suddenly, the lid to the box opened and he was looking up at the shape of a man holding a lantern. Gold watch chains glinted against his black vest. The man began to laugh.
Gasping, Sam teetered on his burro, suddenly back in the desert. He blinked his sticky eyelids and looked past his burro’s bulging side and down the growing cliff below him. He could have easily fallen and his final reliving would be over already, seventy-five feet down in a pile of red boulders.