The Forbidden Lock

by Liesl Shurtliff

  He’d almost told Corey and Ruby and Jia. The first night they’d returned. The information was still so new to him, so mind-boggling, he felt he might explode with it. But before he could even begin to get it out, Corey had declared in a venomous tone that Quine was the real enemy in all this, that he clearly had teamed up with Captain Vincent and given him the Aeternum. Matt had tried to defend Quine, said he might have his reasons.

  “Yeah,” Corey had said. “To rip our family to shreds.”

  “He didn’t seem all that bad when I met him. It didn’t seem like he wanted to destroy us or anything.”

  Corey snorted. “We thought the same thing about Captain Vincent when we first met him. I don’t think we can go by first impressions here. Nice doesn’t always mean ‘good.’ It doesn’t mean he’s on our side.”

  “I think Corey’s right,” Ruby said. “We can’t be naïve about these things anymore. We need to look at the facts.”

  Matt looked to Jia, hoping she would back him up, but she remained silent. She’d been unusually quiet since they’d returned from Asilah.

  Matt could see he wasn’t going to win this argument. He didn’t know how to refute Corey and Ruby’s logic. The facts as they stood were not in his favor. Matt knew he would do anything to protect his family, but he couldn’t fathom the thinking or desires of his older self. Quine had even told him they were very different people. Where did Mateo end and Marius Quine begin? And when?

  Without these answers Matt did not feel he could reveal his and Quine’s shared identity. It was too much for them to deal with, and they were dealing with too much as it was. So he closed his mouth, tucked the information away. But it gnawed at him, like mice on a rope. The questions kept him awake and anxious at all hours. He felt increasingly alone.

  The weather was unusually cold that morning. Definitely not summer weather.

  When the rest of the household had woken, they’d all shivered and wrapped themselves in sweaters and blankets. Matt looked out the big kitchen window and saw that a heavy mist had descended over the Hudson River Valley. A light frost covered the ground. Uncle Chuck brought in a load of wood and lit a fire in the big fireplace in the living room. Gaga grumbled something about climate change and the world going to pieces.

  Matt didn’t think this was climate change, at least not in the way Gaga was thinking, but he feared she was right about the world going to pieces. Not that he could talk to her about it, because Gaga still knew nothing about anything that had gone on in the past few days. Or years, decades, centuries, however you wanted to look at it. She knew nothing about her family being a bunch of time travelers, nor the fact that Chuck was really her long-lost son, Charles, or that her husband hadn’t really disappeared or died while hiking in Patagonia, but had, in fact, been kidnapped by a time pirate/maniac with infinite powers. Corey kept arguing that they should tell her, but both Mr. Hudson and Uncle Chuck kept putting it off. They said it wasn’t quite the right time, though Matt wondered what would the right time be to share such information.

  Shortly after breakfast, Matt sat with his family (plus Jia and Pike) at the kitchen table, huddled around a globe covered in little red dots and gold stars.

  “Tell me again, Charles,” Mr. Hudson said, staring at the globe. “Everything you can remember about where Vincent took you and Dad.”

  His dark hair was messy, and his glasses did nothing to cover the dark circles under his eyes. His mom had them too. Clearly Matt wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping.

  Uncle Chuck, sitting next to Mr. Hudson, tugged his long silvery beard. “I don’t know,” he said. “It all happened so fast. I remember it was cold. There were icebergs, I think. And that’s it. I didn’t see anyone else. No people. No buildings. Nothing.”

  Mr. Hudson puffed his cheeks full of air and then let it out. “That’s not much to go on.”

  A few days ago, before everything had happened on the beach in Asilah, Matt had discovered, quite by accident, that Chuck, his grandmother’s quirky hippie farm manager, was actually Mr. Hudson’s long-lost brother, Charles. The resemblance was quite clear now, but no one had ever suspected who Chuck really was because he was supposed to be Mr. Hudson’s younger brother by six years. However, due to unforeseen circumstances involving time travel, Chuck was now a good two decades older, with long gray hair and a scraggly beard that reached his chest. He and his father, Henry Hudson, had both been abducted by Captain Vincent, who had mistaken them both for Matt’s dad at different points in time. Captain Vincent had been trying to prevent Mr. Hudson from meeting or marrying Mrs. Hudson. Uncle Chuck had managed to get away, though he’d escaped into the wrong decade. He’d come back home to his mom and brother but never told either of them who he really was.

  Now that they knew what had really happened to Henry Hudson, they were trying to figure where he might be, and if they could potentially rescue him. Only Uncle Chuck had seen the place where Captain Vincent had discarded him, but his information was proving to be not very useful.

  “Since you say there were icebergs,” Mr. Hudson said, “I’m thinking we should focus our efforts on the Arctic or Antarctic, but the time . . .”

  “Maybe he took them to the Ice Age,” Ruby suggested. “Like Tui.”

  Mrs. Hudson ground her teeth. Fatoumata, or “Tui,” had been one of her crew when she had been captain of the Vermillion, someone they thought they could trust. But in the end she’d been working for Captain Vincent all along. She’d been the one to turn Matt over to Quine in order to give the Aeternum to Vincent. Turns out she never forgave Mrs. Hudson for leaving her crew to go off and get married and have kids. Matt wondered what had happened to her after that moment in Asilah, when they’d all been flung back in time and space. Had Captain Vincent gone back to get her? Or did he leave her there, her uses dried up?

  “Did you see any woolly mammoths?” Corey asked. “Penguins? Polar bears?”

  “No,” said Uncle Chuck. “No animals. Just water and lots of ice. I’m sorry, that’s all I got.”

  Jia suddenly gasped and covered her mouth.

  Matt jumped and hit his funny bone on the table. “Ah! What? What is it?” he said while rubbing at his fizzing arm.

  “I think I remember your grandfather,” she said. “And you.” She nodded toward Uncle Chuck.

  “What?” Matt cried. “When? Where?”

  Jia shook her head. “I don’t know. It was so long ago for me, and you looked so different then, but I remember we brought a man on board at one point. Someone the captain didn’t like, but the man seemed confused. He was scared. And then another man showed up, younger. It was you, I think.” She nodded to Uncle Chuck. “And then he discarded you. It was the only time I’d seen him discard anyone. Before you, at least.” She nodded to Matt, referring to the time he, Corey, and Ruby had been discarded on a barren island. Definitely one of the worst moments in Matt’s life.

  “You were the one who dropped the rope!” Uncle Chuck exclaimed. Matt remembered he had told them that someone had dropped a rope from the Vermillion. He had escaped by grabbing ahold of it before the Vermillion disappeared, but he never did find out who had helped him. Until now.

  Jia nodded. “I wasn’t sure it would do any good, but it didn’t feel right, just leaving you there.”

  “Thank you. I owe you my life.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more.”

  “Perhaps you can,” said Mr. Hudson. “Do you remember where or when Captain Vincent discarded them? Did you hear them speaking about it? Any details at all?”

  Jia shook her head. “No. Nothing Chuck hasn’t told you already. I’m sorry.” She hung her head a little.

  “Oh, Jia, chérie, don’t be sorry.” Mrs. Hudson put a hand on top of Jia’s. “You’ve done so much for us, for my children, I only wish there was something we could do to repay you. And Pike too. You’ve both been such a help to our family!”

  Pike barely looked up at the sound of her name. She was sittin
g at the table, fiddling with her knotted rope while staring at an open book. It was the book about famous scientists Matt’s parents had given him for his birthday. Matt hadn’t even cracked it open, but Pike seemed to like all the pictures. Occasionally, she glanced at Matt and his compass, like she was wondering when they were going to travel again.

  Pike was still a mystery to Matt. She’d somehow stowed herself away inside of Blossom on their return from Asilah, bearing a note from Marius Quine saying she was “on our side.” She was just as silent with them as she had been on the Vermillion. Matt was thinking there had to be more to Pike’s story than what met the eye, but they had very little clues. They had no idea where she was from. Or when. Mrs. Hudson had guessed she was from a Nordic country, given her white-blond hair and fair skin, maybe Finland or Denmark. She had tried speaking a little to Pike in Finnish and Dutch. Pike had cocked her head like a curious kitten but remained mute.

  “Is Pike her real name?” Mrs. Hudson had asked Jia.

  “Oh, no,” Jia said. “It’s just a nickname. I have no idea what her real name is.”

  Matt had never considered this, but of course that made sense. According to Jia, shortly after Pike had boarded the Vermillion, she caught a huge pike fish with nothing but her rope and a string of paper clips. Brocco started calling her “Li’l Pike” and it stuck. Matt felt a range of conflicting emotions at this tale. Brocco had nicknamed all the kids on Captain Vincent’s crew. Matt was “Li’l Professor.” He had liked Brocco a lot, right up until that moment he found out he was helping Captain Vincent try to destroy his family. Maybe even then he was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, until he shot Corey and almost killed him. The lines had been clearly drawn.

  Mr. Hudson kept studying the globe, and everyone continued to offer different theories about where or when Captain Vincent could have taken their grandfather. The table started shaking. It jerked so hard, a table leg hit Matt in the knee.

  “Corey, quit it,” Matt said.

  “Quit what?”

  “Quit shaking the table.”

  Corey lifted his hands. “Dude, I’m not even touching the table. Back off.” He glared at Matt, but the shaking stopped. Matt shook his head. Of course it had been Corey. He was always fidgeting, rattling things and knocking things over, but Matt didn’t see any point in arguing with him. Corey had been a bit touchy since their return from Morocco. He hadn’t joked nearly as much. He’d been through a lot, too, including getting shot in the arm. He said it was fine, good as new, but Matt caught him rubbing it every now and then or rotating it like there was a kink that he couldn’t quite work out.

  Gaga came into the kitchen just then with a basketful of laundry. She plopped herself down at the end of the table and started folding. Everyone stared at her like she was an alien that had just joined them for a meal.

  “Why are you all staring at me like that?” Gaga asked. “Am I interrupting a secret meeting?”

  “No, of course not!” Mr. Hudson said a bit too loudly. Mrs. Hudson gave him an exasperated look. He was perhaps a worse liar than Matt.

  Gaga adjusted her square-framed glasses and squinted at the globe full of stickers. “Are you having a geography lesson or something?”

  “Yep,” said Corey, spinning the globe. “We just love our geography. Can’t get enough.”

  Gaga frowned. “Matthew, don’t you go trying to turn my grandchildren into a bunch of nerds like you. Let them have a little fun, will you?”

  Mr. Hudson looked highly affronted. “They think geography is fun, don’t you, kids?”

  “Yep!” “Yes!” “Can’t get enough.” They all chirped perhaps a little too enthusiastically. Gaga looked dubious.

  “We were just learning about Antarctica,” Ruby said.

  “Antarctica!” Gaga blurted. “Oh my Lord, that reminds me. You would not believe the things I was hearing on the news this morning. They found a family of penguins wandering around in the middle of the Gobi Desert! Can you believe it? Unbelievable. And if that wasn’t enough, a blizzard hit Jamaica! Tourists are actually asking for refunds.”

  Matt glanced at his mom. Her eyes flickered toward him for just a moment. He wondered if these were signs of Vincent’s new powers, of him meddling with time. How else could a flightless Antarctic bird suddenly end up almost ten thousand miles away, on a completely different continent? What else could explain a snowstorm in a tropical climate? They seemed like sure signs of glitches in the timeline. But the bigger question was, why hadn’t Vincent tried to do anything to them yet? When would they have to face him again? Because it was surely a question of when and not if. The one “if” in question was if they would stand any chance against him now that he had the Aeternum.

  “I’m telling you, the world is going to pieces,” Gaga continued. “Scientists are beside themselves, trying to explain everything with climate change or whatever. Then of course there’s always the preacher who says the world is coming to an end and we’re all doomed, and I say what’s the difference? Recycle and repent. Doesn’t hurt to try both.”

  “Amen,” said Uncle Chuck.

  “Oh, Chuck, I meant to tell you,” Gaga said. “I just saw some strange fissures in the vineyard. Maybe it was caused by that ridiculous storm, or maybe we have a mole again. Will you take a look?”

  “Sure thing, Mrs. Hudson.” Uncle Chuck put on his fishing hat and sunglasses and hurried outside as though he couldn’t wait to get away.

  “Everything’s going to pieces around here,” Gaga said, shaking her head.

  Matt looked out the cracked window and watched his uncle walk into the ruined vineyard. Half the grapevines had been uprooted and scattered all over. Where there had been a quaint little cottage on the eastern end of the vineyard, there was now nothing more than a pile of wood surrounding a toilet. Gaga thought all the damage had been caused by a freak storm. Everyone else knew it had something to do with their recent time travels. Only Matt knew the whole truth. Just after they’d returned from Asilah three days ago, Matt had found a note pinned with a dagger to the willow by the pond.

  This is only the beginning, it read.

  Matt had thrown the dagger in the pond but kept the note. He had not shown it to the rest of his family. For one, he didn’t know what the note meant, exactly. It was ominous and threatening, but too vague to get any real sense for what to expect or prepare for. It was just enough to send Matt’s mind in endless spirals, thinking of all the things Captain Vincent could do now that he had the Aeternum. Discard all of them in different centuries. Kill his parents. Make it so none of them were ever born. Throw them all into a pit to rot. And that was the other reason Matt didn’t share the note with his family. It would only add to everyone’s anxiety, and they had enough already. Too much. Matt felt for his compass, still resting on his chest beneath his shirt. All that power and still he was helpless. He wished he knew what to do!

  “Well, you all have fun with your geography lesson,” Gaga said, standing up with her basket of laundry. “Let me know when you’re ready to actually go somewhere and then I’ll gain some interest.”

  After Gaga was gone, Mr. Hudson spun the globe around, tracing a finger over the little gold stars. “If only I had the map,” said Mr. Hudson for the thousandth time. He used to have a map that showed the Vermillion’s location at any given time, but Captain Vincent had it now. He seemed to hold all the aces.

  But Matt still had his compass. Vincent wouldn’t be where he was now if it weren’t for that. Matt had invented it, after all, so didn’t that put him at the advantage? It seemed a logical conclusion, and yet Matt felt like the underdog here. But there had to be something they could do . . .

  “Wait a second . . . ,” Matt said, as a realization suddenly donned on him. “What if . . . ?” He didn’t finish his thought. He pulled his compass out from beneath his shirt, lifted it over his head and set it on the table.

  “Mateo?” his mom said. “What is it?”

  “Jia, do you h
ave a small Phillips screwdriver, some tweezers, and maybe a pin or needle?”

  Jia rifled through her pocketed vest until she produced the requested items. Matt took the screwdriver first and pried open the top piece from his compass, revealing a tiny but intricate labyrinth of wires and cogs and gears, all smeared in a peanut butter–bubble gum concoction. (He’d made sure to give it a tune-up after their return from Morocco.) The smell of it made him feel like he was time-traveling. Even now, the ground almost felt like it was shifting beneath his feet.

  Matt could barely believe he’d built this thing. Staring at it now he could see things he’d hardly noticed before, things he’d designed and built without fully understanding why he was building them, but now was starting to see a bigger picture.

  He took the tweezers and started gently pulling things apart, removing small cogs, pushing aside thin wires, until he found the piece he was looking for, a thin metal disk. “I built a hard drive into the compass,” Matt said. “I meant for it to store various calendar systems and earth’s geographic coordinate system, so you know it would take us where and when we want to go, but there’s a possibility that it could have recorded and stored dates and coordinates to which it has traveled.”

  “Genius! And you think you can access them?” Mr. Hudson asked.

  “I think so, though I’m not sure exactly how. We might need to hook it up to a computer or a phone and see if we can decode it.”

  Matt had that nervous-excited feeling he always got when he knew he was onto something, and the clarity of when he could see how all the pieces fit together. “Let’s see . . . if I hook this to this wire here and that there . . . ah!”

  Matt fell back in his chair as the compass sparked and sputtered. And then something started flowing out of the compass. At first Matt thought it was just smoke. He must have triggered something, crossed some wires that weren’t supposed to be crossed. But then he saw that this was not any regular kind of smoke. It was certainly a vapor of some kind, but it had a bluish glow. And it was forming images. People and places that were all too familiar to Matt.