by N. D. Wilson
“Fine.” Alex rolled his freshly broadened shoulders. “I hope you paid attention in geography class, because finding our way around the world is going to be brutal. And we have no way of knowing what year it is or where we are right now.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Rhonda said. “They are six gardens scattered around the world, rooted in space but not time. From each of those, the time outside can be rolled backward or forward like we did in France. We should start by checking all of them out. We’ll use our eyeballs and our brains. Worst case, we find a garden, give it a look, and crank on the dial till we like what’s outside.”
“We, we, we,” Alex muttered. “There are four sides to this pyramid. Just pick one and let’s go.”
“Sunset,” Rhonda said, pointing. “It will be prettier.”
Alex walked through the garden toward the large triangular wall that framed a dying sun. As he walked, he pulled out each of his six watches one at a time, winding them in turn. With each twist, he felt less of a desire for home, and more heat in his blood, more urgency to fly, to fight to . . . smash something.
When he reached the sloping wall, he let the watches float above him, moving into their slow swirl. Rhonda squeezed in tight against his right side, one arm around his back, one hand hanging on to his holster.
“Go,” she said.
He growled back at her. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Just shut up and go,” she said, and she tugged on his holster.
Alex went. Two steps forward and his head was through the pyramid barrier and into hot dry air. A third step and he and Rhonda were off the edge of the garden and swallowed by darkness.
When they were gone, Mrs. Dervish rose slowly up a flight of recessed stairs into the garden. Alexander and Scipio followed behind her, their liquid eyes rolling.
“The bait is back in play,” Scipio said. “He looks every bit the outlaw in the Vulture’s old gear.” He elbowed the younger man. “And not at all like his uncle. Strange, your sister naming him for you after all you’ve done. Stranger that Miracle went along with it.”
“Keep speaking, old man,” Alexander said. “If you’d like me to take your tongue.” Turning, he focused on Mrs. Dervish. “That was a near miss. If he had gone straight home . . .”
“But he didn’t, did he?” Mrs. Dervish snapped. And then she exhaled in relief. “Darkness help me if I’m not becoming almost grateful for that mouthy girl.”
Pulling open a flap on the side of her skirt, Mrs. Dervish reached into a pouch and plucked out an ink cartridge full of deep bloody red. Then, producing a fountain pen from the recesses of her hair, she combined the two.
“All right, my hunters,” she said. “The trap is set. The time has come for vengeance to fall on all my enemies with a single blow. Glory Hallelujah, Sam Miracle, and the filthy Spanish Empire cut off nearly at the roots.”
“How the Spanish?” bald Scipio asked.
“And why?” asked Alexander. “The Miracles I understand. You must avenge the death of El Buitre and their overthrow of the Tzitzimime. But the Spanish? What did they do?”
“Fool,” Mrs. Dervish said. “They destroyed the empire of my mothers with their steel, their gunpowder, their filthy diseases, and the lies of black-robed tyrants like that foul Father Tiempo. Their wealth came entirely from pillage of the so-called New World, my world, a world which was actually more ancient than their own. Now that pillage will be mine instead. Their empire will die in its first infancy, and I will rule a new New World without them. Kit is in place and waiting with his mayhem. I have my army ready and waiting in the tower below us. Soon I shall have a nation of new worshippers. The Miracles will not be able to resist attending such a dance. And there they will die.”
Scipio grunted. “But what if your Terremoto chooses another garden?”
“He will choose the watch I make him choose. I am deep in his mind with my own. Even if he somehow resists my influence and chooses another watch to follow, we still have enough of his blood to find him anywhere. Once his choice is certain, I will inform the writer of their location with a bloody message beneath his skin. That fool will inform the other fools—Tiempo or his brother or the Miracles directly—and they will not expect a trap if it comes from him. The Miracles will come rushing to save their poor lamb. And we will have them. Finally.”
NEVERLAND. THE MORNING SUN WAS HALFWAY TO NOON above the island. Young Sam Miracle watched as Glory peeled the plastic tarp off the motorcycle. The air was warming quickly but his scaled arms were still tense and cold. The wind had picked up and the water around the crescent-moon-shaped island had grown rough. Even the little inlet was choppy and the metal boat banged against the dock with every wave. Beside the dock, the boys had several sheds to store various machines and canoes and projects that they had accumulated over the months. The motorcycle and sidecar, rarely used these days, had been buried in paddle boards and oars in the back of the biggest shed.
“Listen to me, Glory,” Sam said. “We should wait for Peter. He might know something. All we have to go on is a bunch of writing on pigs.”
“Writing from Jude in the future,” Glory said. “Don’t you trust Jude?”
Sam laughed. “First off, it might be from Jude in the past for all we know. Second off, no. I don’t really trust him. How many times did The Legend of Poncho change? Everything we did changed it.”
“Exactly,” Glory said. “That’s the whole point.” She unscrewed the gas cap on the motorcycle and peered in. “What we did changed it, Sam. Sitting around didn’t change anything.” She looked up and pointed at a red plastic jug by Sam’s feet. “Hand me the gas can.”
“No,” Sam said. “I won’t hand you anything. We’re waiting for Peter.”
Glory crossed her arms. “Right. You trust Peter more than me? Is it a guy thing?”
“Oh, come on,” Sam said. “Peter might know something that you don’t. He goes places you don’t. He knows people you don’t. We know the pig-writing thing, maybe he knows who the Vulture’s heir is or where he comes from. Even a general time frame would help.”
“He’s going to be all over time, Sam.” She picked her way out of the shed, stopping in front of him. “But we have the Vulture’s old watch with the broken chain. And with that, you know we can track him, even in the darkness. Listen, we might not catch this guy right away, but we have to try. It would be so much better to nip this thing in the bud than to just sit back and wait for him to try and kill us. Or worse, he ignores us completely, and we’re stuck trying to track him through catastrophes and carnage. Now hand me the gas can.” The can was right between them, but she held out her hand.
Sam raised his eyebrows. Cindy’s rattle quivered. “Seriously?” he asked.
“Don’t you rattle at me, Samuel Miracle,” Glory said. “We’re going whether you like it or not. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “There are too many possible worsts to count. I’m not going.”
“Then you’re giving me the pocket watch,” Glory said.
“No,” Sam said. “I’m not.” Cindy buzzed again and he shoved his left hand into his jeans. Even if he agreed with her, she wasn’t always helpful.
“Then you’re coming,” Glory said. “It’s the only lead we have.”
“No!” Sam yelled. “No, it’s not. Trolling around the centuries hoping for a watch tug is completely pointless.”
Glory shut her eyes and inhaled slowly. When she spoke, her voice was smooth, empty of all irritation, almost sweet. But there were still sparks in her eyes.
“Let’s say you’re right, Sam. So where would you start?”
Sam knew exactly what she was doing. By being inhumanly calm, she was trying to make him feel like the unreasonable one for yelling. But it was worth yelling about.
“It won’t work,” Sam said. “You’re not going to draw me into the planning phase of this little quest.”
“Okay,” Glory said. “But
I’m obligated to go. And I’m going to. It’s a family thing. And you can’t stop me. But you could help me. So, where should I start?”
Sam crossed his arms and sniffed. It was a trap. But he didn’t see any way out of it. He could say nothing and walk away. Then she would leave and he would feel like an idiot for sitting home sulking and worrying about whether she was okay.
“You know I’ve gotten a lot better moving between times,” Glory said.
“I know,” Sam said. “And you know it still makes me foggy. I have flashbacks.”
“But fewer,” Glory said. “It’s been months since your last one. We’ve done better with that.”
Sam rocked in place and looked out over the inlet. The island was perfect as far as he was concerned. He could hear a couple of the Lost Boys hammering on something and laughing. Probably still fixing the pigpen. Someone was walking through the brush in a white bee suit. Millie was almost certainly up in the glass house making something fantastic for lunch. They’d been on this island for almost a year and it still felt like a life worth living. Even more, it was the one life he could remember that he had ever loved living. And he was afraid. He could admit that. This couldn’t last forever. All the boys had to move on sometime. There were lives and wives and kids out there in the future for all of them. Or that’s what he hoped. And that’s what frightened him.
Every time he had ridden with Glory through time, he had expected new demons, a new threat, a new El Buitre. He expected disaster. Enemies they couldn’t conquer. Traps that they wouldn’t be able to escape. When shadows rippled in the darkness between times, even his snakes went cold, and he felt their hearts hitch as well as his own.
Had the Tzitzimime returned?
Were the skin-walkers hunting him?
Had El Buitre risen from the dead for vengeance?
Would they cross paths with Ghost, the boy Reaper? He had promised to gather their souls the next time they saw him.
Was life on the island over? Was it time to face horrors once more?
But he knew Glory’s thoughts had been different on their treks. In the darkness, her eyes had been straining for any glimpse of family. She wasn’t searching for demons and enemies, she was hoping to catch sight of her brother, Alexander—emptied of his eyes and maybe even his soul, taken and completely controlled by Mrs. Dervish. Or her mother, Laila, blind and wandering, slave to the darkness. People she had loved had chosen to walk bitter paths, paths that grieved her. And she couldn’t help but hope that some desire for light would be kindled within them, even in that outer darkness.
Glory jumped at every excuse to wander the emptiness between times. And when she and Sam were deep in that oily and foul nothingness, she even sang. And while it helped Sam’s memory when an unbroken song straddled two different times, he knew that Glory didn’t just sing for him. She threw her voice through that outer darkness as a call to the ones she had loved and lost, and she hoped they would hear it, and know her voice, and be stirred.
This was hardly the first time that the two of them had stood beside the motorcycle and argued. But this was the first time Sam had argued from completely reasonable fear. Which meant that Glory had every reason to go.
Scary things were their prey. They were supposed to run toward the frightening things. They were supposed to seek them. Sam knew that. And he knew—call it a premonition—that this time, their island life on Neverland was probably over.
“What is it?” Glory asked suddenly.
Sam blinked himself back out of his thoughts. Glory touched his right arm and Speck arched Sam’s arm against her fingers, eager for the friction.
“A family thing,” Sam said quietly. “Glory, I’m sorry about your brother and your mom, you know I am. But aren’t we all your family now?”
Glory’s shoulders sagged, and she brushed back her lightning-white hair.
“You are,” Glory said. “More than you know. And I know hopping in and out of the darkness is hard for you. Believe me. And if Jude’s pig writing is wrong, then we don’t lose anything by searching. But if he’s right, then we really, really don’t want this new guy to get a head start on his hell-raising, do we?”
Sam nodded. “If we knew exactly when and where Jude sent that pig writing from in the first place, we could start there. Ask him to explain. But the watch is the best bet. Whoever this guy is, he has to move through the darkness, right? And if we’re in the darkness, too, the watch chain will point the way, right?”
“So . . . you’re coming?” Glory asked.
“Well, it’s going to be awful,” Sam said. “You’re not going alone.”
9
Bait
ON A QUIET STREET IN IDAHO, CIRCA 1982, IN THE TINY DINING room in one half of a mustard-colored duplex, middle-aged Jude and Millie sat leaning over the table beneath a dangling one-bulb light fixture.
The police were gone, but muffled anger and grief from Chong-Won and Gi-Hung still drifted through the duplex wall. Their voices, the refrigerator’s thrumming, and Jude’s slow breathing provided background for Millie’s meditation.
Two neighboring teenagers gone in the night? The cops hadn’t shown much interest at all. Middle school runaways weren’t of that much concern to the boys in blue. The kids wouldn’t get far in this cold. They’d turn up.
Not that Millie and Jude had expected the cops to help . . . how could they when the disappearance involved time travel and ghostly owls? They had actually become impatient for law enforcement to get a move on and clear out so they could focus on real solutions. Millie didn’t even offer them coffee or homemade pastries.
Jude had combed through the snow in the front yard, collecting every charred scrap and fragment of pig vellum that he could find. The eighteen pieces he’d come up with were now spread out on the table like a puzzle—a puzzle that could never be solved. Jude slid them around with his fingertips, flipping them over and rearranging them, scanning every smudgy and bloody typed letter and burnt edge countless times.
Millie watched him do it again. Eighteen little pigskin continents that could never fit together. But she knew Jude wasn’t trying to fit them together physically, he was trying to fit them together in his mind. He was a man trying to remember a dream.
“Anything?” she asked.
Jude didn’t quite shake his head. He bobbed it slightly, side to side. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s . . . vapor. Normally, when things come to me like that, I can read the manuscript right afterward. It wakes the dream memories back up and keeps them in place. All I’m getting is what Manuelito already told us. Alex is El Terremoto. The Earthquake set to throw the nations into the sea—metaphorically, I hope—and undo the modern industrial age. The Vulture’s watches are chained to Alex’s heart, like golden puppet strings. That Dervish woman is probably controlling him.”
“But why did you use the vellum?” Millie asked. “Do you remember? You’ve never done that before. You sent the whole story to your younger self. All that writing would have showed up on our little living herd of pigs. Right?”
Jude puffed out his cheeks, exhaling slowly.
“You wanted us to read it when we were younger,” Millie said. “When we were still in Neverland. But why? Can you at least remember that?”
Jude didn’t answer.
“Jude.” Millie leaned forward, gripping her husband’s hand. Middle life had not been easy for Jude, not after a youth boiling with adventure and then, when they were first married, books that had brought him money and travel and fame. Reaching up, Millie brushed the overgrown curly hair flecked with gray on the side of her husband’s head. Now, without Sam and Glory, without the Lost Boys, alone and helpless in a duplex in 1982, adventure was not nearly as appealing as it had once been.
Of course, adventure had never been appealing to Millie. She was far too familiar with it to want any more.
“Jude,” she said again. “Tell me the truth. You typed the book on vellum so we could read it on Neverland. But
why?”
Jude looked up. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, you know that. Two days ago, I wouldn’t even have been able to tell you where the vellum was.”
“Under the bed,” Millie said. “You’ve always kept it under the bed. Now tell me why your dream brain did it? I know you remember.”
Jude sighed. “If Sam and Glory knew the story, if they knew what their son would become, then maybe they wouldn’t get married. Alex never would have been born. I needed them to make a better choice.”
Millie let go of her husband and straightened in her seat. “But you don’t think that now, do you? That it would have been better if Alex hadn’t been born?” she asked.
“Maybe.” Jude grimaced. “I don’t want to think that. But if there were only two choices . . .”
“There aren’t just two choices,” Millie said. “There are never just two choices. That can’t be the best way.”
“I’m not saying there is,” Jude said. “They could have chosen not to walk out that front door so many Christmases ago, when Alex was just a toddler. But they did. And they’re gone. So, I passed the choice back to us on Neverland. Would it be better for Sam and Glory to never have Alex, or to be the ones to hunt down and kill their own son? Because they’re the only ones who can do it. You know that. That’s their other choice. Never have him, or be the ones to hunt him down.”
Millie flattened her palms on the tabletop. “He’s already been born. We raised him. We love him and he loves us, and he won’t become what your dream story said. He won’t.” Her gaze bounced across the fragmented lines on the burnt scraps. She saw blood. And verbs she didn’t care for. Violent verbs.
“You know I love him,” Jude said. “He’s been my son since the day the front door closed behind his parents. But Sam and Glory should know when they’re young enough to prevent it. Let them decide what to do. They’re the ones who brought him into this world. They’re the ones who’ll have to stop him. And they’ll have to do it before they even have him. Before they get married. When they’re basically the same age as the son they will eventually have and leave. Because they’re gone, Millie. They’ve been missing his whole life. And if there’s one thing I could change, that would be it.”