by N. D. Wilson
Glory looked at Sam as the massive tail rose back into the air, trailing sand and smoke and feathers.
“Well,” Glory said. “I tried.”
12
Mama Leviathan
MILLIE AND JUDE STOOD OUTSIDE THE GLASS HOUSE, STUDYING the silver water of the moonlit sound. Leviathan stood beside them, sharpening the thick spikes in his beard one at a time. Bull and Dog and the rest of Levi’s men were loading the boats with the food and blankets and towels that Millie had given them.
“Again, Mr. Finn,” Millie said in her most formal voice. “You have our thanks for releasing us.”
“Don’t thank him,” Jude said. “He never should have attacked and tied us up in the first place.”
Levi sniffed at the air. “You had my daughter,” he said. “What’s a man supposed to do?”
“Clearly,” Jude said, crossing his arms, “he should take a group of innocent people hostage and then summon a bloodthirsty, time-walking arch-outlaw from the outer darkness.”
“Seemed reasonable,” Levi said. “I don’t trust that boy with the snakes and I don’t trust you.”
Jude laughed and began to answer, but Millie grabbed his arm.
“You should trust him,” she said. “Mr. Finn, he saved your daughter’s life. And that’s according to her. Do you trust her?”
“You mean before he kidnapped her?” Levi cracked a smile. “I know he’s your brother and I respect the love you have for your blood, but he has snakes in his arms. Snakes. In his arms. He’s a comic book freak, and my daughter is still missing. So is he. Maybe you haven’t noticed.”
“I am sorry about that,” Millie said. “I don’t know what she was thinking, running off with Sam.”
“Don’t apologize,” Jude said. “He’s a pirate and I’m sure his daughter is getting whatever she deserves, wherever she is.”
Levi bent his center spike into a hair hook and then turned to face Jude, looking down his beard into the boy’s face.
“Talk like that, boy,” he said, “is likely to get you trussed back up. Is that what you want?”
Barto coughed politely behind them all, leaning against the outside of the living room window. His mostly homemade glasses were strapped onto his head with elastic and he was wearing a blue-and-green knit beanie with a pom-pom on top. Most important, he was cradling an oversize crossbow in his arms.
“If you try anything, starfish face, I’ll try out this new bow I’ve made,” Barto said. “And I really want to try out this new bow I’ve made.” He grunted, hefting it up. “Twelve strings, two arrows per string, four triggers, three releases per trigger. I could shoot you with twenty-four arrows right now.”
“Put the bow down, Barto,” Millie said. “We have a deal with Mr. Finn. If he honors his side, we will honor ours.”
“I don’t know how he could help us and I don’t know how you could make any promises for Peter like that,” he replied. “Maybe Peter won’t want to move the pirate into a better time. I mean, it wouldn’t be nice to the people already there. And maybe Peter’ll be too dead to try, anyhow.”
Millie gave the boy her iciest look. Barto immediately lowered the crossbow, letting it dangle at his right leg. “The rest of the boys are arming up,” he said to Millie. “Just like you said.”
“In case of pirates,” said Jude.
“In case Sam and Glory need us,” Millie said.
“And Peter,” said Barto.
Jude laughed and looked back out at the sound. “Peter can take care of himself. Sam and Glory have been in some messes. But that other girl—what’s-her-face, the redhead—she’ll be the one needing help.”
But Levi was ignoring him, sniffing at the air and then squinting at the silver water.
“When I’m older,” Jude said to him. “And El Buitre is dead and we’re done jumping times, I’m going to find a nice time to settle down in and I’m going to write a story for you.”
“I don’t read,” Levi answered, but he was distracted.
“Comics,” Jude said. “With pictures. I’ll make up characters and one of those characters will be you. I’ll name him Levi, but he’ll have tiny bony shoulders and a little belly and only five red hairs on his chin. He’ll love cats, and he’ll share their food and he’ll work for the Vulture, doing something not at all cool. Something boring. Or gross.”
“Cleaning his ears,” Levi said. “And filing down his toenails.”
“Perfect,” Jude said. “You’re good at this.”
“No,” Levi said. “I have seen that character in my daughter’s comics before. He’s nothing like me, so it’s not insulting and you did not even make it up.” He looked around at the three kids and pointed out at the water. “Are you seeing this?”
Millie tried to follow the big man’s thick finger, but the moon glare on the water was too bright. Raising one hand, she blocked the stripe of reflection and immediately saw what Levi was worried about.
In the darkness, the water was churning and swirling beneath a long bandage of rising fog on an otherwise clear night.
“This air,” Levi said.
Millie already knew what he was going to say and she shivered. The breeze had an icy bite to it.
“Snow,” Levi said. “And a lot of it, unless I’m wrong, which I am not. A winter storm is building high above us. But the water out there is hot and tossing up steam.”
“What’s your point?” Jude asked.
Leviathan leaned down until he was eye to eye with Jude and his hooked beard spike bent back against the boy’s chest.
“My point,” the big man said, “is that someone is playing games. Someone very large, because these are very large games.”
A boom shook the ground beneath their feet. Every window in the house beside them rippled and clattered. Jude slipped but caught himself. Barto jumped away from the wall of windows.
Millie dropped into a crouch, bracing herself against the ground. Her heart was fluttering with adrenaline, trying to fly against her rib cage. “Was that an earthquake?” she asked. All over the island, her chickens began to squall.
“No,” Barto said. “That was just here.”
“Large games,” Levi said, straightening back up to full height. Boat engines roared to life on the other side of the island.
“Time for you to go,” Jude said.
A second boom rolled across the island. This time, windows cracked.
“It came from the other side.” Barto turned around.
“Did you bring bombs?” Jude asked.
“Always,” said Levi. “But they don’t sound like that.”
Levi, Jude, and Barto were all still, listening to the cluck-screamed fear of chickens. Millie was the only one who moved, inching back toward the house, passing Barto. With Sam, Glory, and Peter all gone, she had to be in charge of more than just the kitchen. And the gardens. And the house.
“Don’t you think we should find out what that is?” Millie paused, clearing her throat to raise her voice. “Jude? Bartholomew?”
The boys didn’t hear her. Two large shadowy shapes flew above the island, above the water, above the islands across the water, and out of sight. The sky tore open along their path with a sound like a traveling waterfall. A vast darkness spread along the tear, rippling like a curtain, swallowing even the moonlight.
Cold frosty air roared out of the black opening, combing the steaming water with wind.
Billowing in behind the frost, flashing worlds of snow attacked the air in armies thicker than clouds.
In seconds, the moon was gone.
CINDY AND SPECK WERE DRAGGING SAMRA BACKWARD BY the shoulders while Sam ran and Glory shuffle-walked the glass dome back with them. The blind monster’s throat bulged and pulsed and bulged and pulsed as it sneezed the air above the island completely full of twisting white sparks the size of birds. Snail grass was burning on every side, and Glory’s glass had molten streaks where sparks had made contact.
The beast had its tail raised f
or a third strike.
“In the water!” Sam yelled and he veered with Samra down the bank toward the little harbor, banging his shoulder against the glass to force Glory along.
The third blow from the beast’s tail glanced off the outside of the island and splashed into the water of the sound, sending a sheet of foam and spray up as high as the sparks.
“I don’t know about this,” Glory said.
“I do,” said Sam. “Come on! Come!”
The glass warped and elongated with Sam’s pressure and Glory’s movement, all the way down to the water’s edge and then into it.
Water lapped up the side of the dome, but the ground beneath Sam’s feet was still the lush grass and fern from another time. The grass path they were leaving behind almost instantly lost its moisture and yellowed in the heat. And wherever the white sparks landed on it, low red fire sprang up and spread beneath curtains of black smoke.
The glass between times held back three feet of water. Four feet. Sam slipped, slamming against the side, jolting Glory and Samra further down. Cold water finally splashed around Sam’s toes. He had found the water level. Even better, he had found an iron hook set in concrete—the corner of the dock. He might not be able to see, but now he knew where he was.
Samra slipped down beside him. Glory came more cautiously, stopping at the water line. Sweat was pouring from her flushed face and she gripped the hourglass with both hands, concentrating more than Sam had ever seen.
Six feet of water lapped around the glass that encased the three of them. Above their heads, the raging beast swayed against the sky and a storm of sparks crackled with heat. Below them, cold, cold water sucked the warmth right out of the air.
Glory may have stopped moving—one foot on a mossy rock and another wedged below a thick driftwood limb—but her focus hadn’t broken. Puffing two quick breaths, she managed to blow droplets of sweat off the tip of her nose.
Sam did nothing but breathe hard and enjoy the brief bit of coolness.
After a moment, Glory spoke, without taking her eyes off the hourglass in her hands. Sand was trickling out of one end and tumbling across the ground to be swept up into the glass wall, and sand was peeling off of the glass wall and being sucked into the other end.
“Samra,” Glory said. “Could you push this hair out of my face?”
“Are you kidding? We need a plan,” Sam said. “There’s a for-real dragon monster out there, and you want to fix your hair?”
“I’m not kidding,” Glory said. “It’s driving me nuts, and I can’t believe I haven’t screwed this up yet. We’re talking life or death, Sam. Do you want to get all the way back into the right time or not? I have to figure out how to close that time all the way out and open this one all the way up and I have no clue how to do it and all I’m thinking about is my stupid hair!”
Samra climbed up beside Glory and carefully pushed the loose clusters of black hair back behind her ears. Glory flashed her a quick smile, but without shifting her eyes.
“It’s not a dragon,” Samra said. “It’s a leviathan, and they’re in the comic books, too. Where do you think my dad got his nickname?” She pulled the rumpled comic book out of her hip pocket and flipped to the back, holding the book open for Glory. “See? It’s pretty close. Of course, I never thought they were real. But then, I never thought you two were real, either.”
Samra tossed Sam the comic book, pulled a rubber band off of her wrist, and then sat down on a rock by Glory’s feet, pulling her own wild hair back into a curly, pom-pom ponytail while sand streamed across her feet, coming and going from the hourglass. When she had finished, she looked up.
“Now what?” Samra asked.
“Good question,” Glory said quietly. “Sam?”
Sam had his feet in the cold water up to his shins and his shoulders pressed against the glass holding back six feet of warm water. He was flipping pages, glancing over the Ken-doll version of himself and his trusty band of outlaws doing battle in the streets of Seattle with thousands of gun- and sword-wielding men and women in matching black uniforms. Flipping toward the front, he paused on a full-page illustration. He was leaning forward, driving a motorcycle and sidecar—Father Tiempo’s old Triumph—across the smooth surface of the Puget Sound. Glory—with all-white hair—was leaning out of the sidecar, hourglass in hand, spinning sand onto the water beneath the bike.
A redheaded beauty was on the bike behind Sam, with her arms around his waist. But she was twisting in her seat, looking back at what was pursuing them.
Leviathan—massive and spiny and spewing sparks, its scab-colored body the size of a train tunnel—was mounding and dolphining after them with its tusk-lined mouth agape.
“Sam?” Glory said again. “Talk to me. What now? I don’t think I can just hold this until that monster gets bored.”
Something hard knocked against the glass behind Sam. Samra bit a scream in half and covered her mouth.
Sam scrambled forward, twisting around and sitting on the slope beside Glory. Cindy buzzed on his shoulder.
“What is it?” Glory ask. “Sam?”
“Another one,” Sam said. “A smaller one.”
A lesser leviathan ground its face against the glass, and then swam on, bending and rubbing its serpentine body against Glory’s dome.
Glory looked up from her hourglass as the tail disappeared in the dark water.
“How big was that?” she asked.
“Telephone pole,” Sam said. Cindy began to buzz and flex and twist Sam’s arm into a striking position, and then another shadowy snake swam into view, levering its mouth open to slide and scrabble its young tusks on the glass.
Kill. Poison. Pain.
Cindy was communicating with it. She was announcing her intentions. But the serpents didn’t care. To them, she was tiny.
Suddenly two more similar-sized shapes were approaching. And then two more. Even Speck was buzzing his rattle now. All the beasts tested the glass with open mouths, rubbing their scaled skin against it as they circled back around.
Slower, longer, thicker shadows were gliding past in the background.
The sand had stopped moving in and out of Glory’s hourglass. The glass dome was hardening, becoming brittle, cracking a little every time a beast touched it.
Glory wiped her sweaty forehead on the back of her forearm.
“Okay, so I think our harbor is a hatchery.” She looked at Sam. “Man. If these guys are babies, I’d hate to see the mother.” Her mouth twitched. “Oh, wait . . .”
Sam snorted in surprise and then slumped back onto his elbows and laughed in exhaustion.
Glory grinned, tried to make her face serious, and then grinned again. “We are in serious trouble, Sam.”
Sam nodded and bit his lip, trying not to laugh. His cheeks were streaked with hot tears, his belly shaking. Samra was gaping at him, and then at Glory.
“How is this funny?” Samra asked, eyes wide. “Are we going to die?”
The ground shook with another Mama Leviathan tail quake. The thirty-foot-long babies twitched into a split second of rapid speed before slowing back down into a steady prowl.
Glory dropped onto the ground beside Sam, leaning back on her elbows.
“You know,” she said. “This little glass ball we’re in is going to break.”
“I know,” said Sam.
“So we are going to die,” Samra said.
“Well, we’re alive now,” Sam said. “Focus on that.”
“You want to know something else?” Glory asked him.
“Maybe.” Sam shrugged. He smiled. “But the way things are going, maybe not.”
Glory held up her right hand, gripped tight around the hourglass.
“I haven’t been able to let go of this glass. Not since we fell in the darkness and . . . all that happened. It’s like the glass burned through my skin and is growing into my bones. And I can feel sand in my veins, Sam. Sand. I can’t even handle sand in my shoes, and now it’s in my blood. I am
living itchiness.”
Glory laughed but Sam’s face was serious. He sat up, taking Glory’s hand in his two, testing her fingers with his own. Glory was watching Sam’s hands and he knew it—Cindy’s horns and angry eyes, Speck’s bright eyes beneath rosy pink scales.
“Funny,” Glory said. “Me complaining to you about having something stuck in my hand.”
Sam grinned, tugging at her fingers. She wasn’t lying. Her fingers were frozen in a death grip around the open-ended hourglass.
“This is sweet and all,” Samra said. “But is there some kind of plan?”
“Good question,” Glory said. “Maybe she should have asked it before she jumped into the outer darkness after us.”
“There’s a plan,” Sam said, his eyes brightening. “And she already knows it.” Leaning forward, he picked the comic book up off the ground where he’d dropped it. He flopped it across Glory’s lap, open to the picture of the motorcycle on the water.
“That’s the plan,” he said. “According to the comics.”
The glass groaned, and then squeaked with the gnawing of tusks. Glory studied the picture.
“Think you can do that?” Sam asked.
“Two questions,” Glory said. “First, where’s the motorcycle?”
Sam pointed straight at the leviathan aquarium wall. “Out there. Still strapped into our boat that’s tied up to our dock at a water level that’s about six feet under this water level, and I don’t even know how many thousands of years in the future.”
“Just as many years in the future as we are in here,” Glory said. “I got us to the right time, Sam. You saw Carrot Cake.” Glory sniffed and then nodded. “Okay. Second question.” She tapped the version of Samra in the picture, with her arms around Sam’s waist. “Who the heck decided to let this Finn girl into our comic book?”
“What?” Samra hopped and crawled forward, looking over Glory’s shoulder. Sam watched the girl’s eyes widen. “I was never there before,” she said. “Never!”
Samra laughed out loud and grabbed the book out of Glory’s hands.
“I’ll have to read the whole thing over again.” She beamed beneath her burnt skin. “I wonder if I could find other copies. Do you think that looks like me?”