3
The Return of the Vermillion
Matt gaped at the blue vapor pouring from his compass.
“That’s Asilah!” Ruby said, pointing to the white building along the shore. “And look, there’s Quine and Captain Vincent. It’s showing when he got the Aeternum!”
It was like a shadow of the past. There was Quine and Vincent, both of them looking down at a small object in the palm of a scarred hand. Matt’s hand. He was holding the Aeternum, the Chinese symbol glowing white-hot, and then Vincent plucked it from his hand and snapped it inside his own compass (which was technically the same as Matt’s compass).
“Gee, you sure did put up a fight,” Corey said.
“Corey, hush, he couldn’t help it,” Mrs. Hudson said, but Matt’s face flushed anyway. He knew he really couldn’t have helped it at the time. He couldn’t move, but watching this moment made him feel guilty. Like he was somehow complicit. Which he was, futuristically speaking, so maybe his guilt was warranted.
The image faded. The dials turned of their own accord. Another image poured forth, a horizon of endless water in all directions.
“That’s Nowhere in No Time,” Ruby said. There were his parents, Corey, Ruby, Jia, Pike, and Uncle Chuck. And Tui, when they still thought she was on their side.
“I never knew the compass could do this,” Mrs. Hudson said in wonderment. The dials kept turning, the vapor kept coming, showing them echoes of the events that had happened not long ago but felt like ages—the Chicago World’s Fair, Yellowstone National Park, Wrangel Island.
It was coming close to the time he’d built the compass. There was Matt on board the Vermillion, the very first time he’d traveled, facing his mother before she was his mother, when she was still Captain Bonnaire. Her image flowed out of the compass and disappeared.
The compass paused. It didn’t seem like any more would come out.
“That’s the point you built the compass, isn’t it?” Ruby asked. “I told you it wouldn’t show before that.”
“Well, it was a nice try anyway,” Corey said.
Matt poked a little at the compass and it started to spark again. The dials clicked and the bluish smoke poured out the ghostly images, more of Chicago and other places, but clearly from a different point of view—Captain Vincent’s. Jia gasped as she saw herself being discarded from the Vermillion several times. There was the battle at the Met, and then before that all the Hudson children’s travels with Captain Vincent, when they thought he’d been their friend. India and the 1986 World Series and stealing the Mona Lisa, and the first time the three Hudson children boarded the Vermillion, which was supposedly only a few months ago but felt like lifetimes. He even looked younger to himself, Matt thought.
Then there were all the times Captain Vincent had tried to kidnap the Hudson kids. It seemed like he’d tried nearly every day for all their lives. The Vermillion posed as buses, taxis. The ice cream truck where Brocco, dressed in a red cape, tried to lure all the kids aboard with Popsicles.
“It seems kind of miraculous that he didn’t get us sooner,” Ruby said.
“Maybe now you can appreciate how hard your father and I worked to keep you safe,” said Mrs. Hudson. “He tried more than even I realized.”
“It was inevitable,” Matt said. “We were going to board sooner or later.”
“I know,” Mrs. Hudson said. “I just hoped it would be later.”
It was the first time Matt had heard his mother acknowledge that all of this was supposed to happen. He’d always felt she wanted to keep them out of the time-travel business entirely.
The dials kept turning, the pictures flashing of the crew of the Vermillion on various missions, stealing art and money and treasure, and every now and then returning to New York, but not necessarily in any kind of chronological order. Matt found it incredibly strange to see these images of himself and his family, in random order, like watching old family videos, but ones you didn’t know had been taken, like a spy camera.
“We must be getting close,” said Jia. “That one was not long after I came aboard.”
An image poured forth of the vineyard all lit up. “That’s our wedding day,” Mrs. Hudson said. She reached out almost as if she wanted to touch it.
“It’ll be the next one,” said Mr. Hudson. “He would have come straight to the wedding after figuring out his mistake with Dad.”
The dials turned. Another image flashed.
“That’s it!” Mr. Hudson shouted. “That’s Dad!”
An image poured out of the compass of a man who looked very much like Mr. Hudson, but with a short beard and no glasses. He wore a flannel shirt, much like the ones Gaga always wore. He looked terrified. Next to him was a young man, no more than twenty.
“And that’s Uncle Chuck!” Corey said.
“Matt, stop the dials if you can,” said Mrs. Hudson. “Check the date and location.”
Matt held the dials in place. “Sixty degrees north and eighty-five degrees west.”
Mr. Hudson quickly went to look at the globe, tracing his finger along the lines. “That’s in the Hudson Bay! The Hudson Bay! Vincent would dump him there, that unimaginative ba—”
“The date, the date!” shouted Mrs. Hudson, cutting off her husband. “We’ve got nothing if we don’t know the date.”
Matt studied the dials. “The year is 1611, and the month is May, no, June—” The table started shaking, and the dials of the compass slipped.
“Corey, stop shaking the table!” Mr. Hudson shouted.
Corey threw up his hand. “Why does everyone always think it’s me? I’m not doing anything!”
The tremor grew stronger. It vibrated the floors, shook the walls and ceiling.
“Earthquake! Earthquake!” Gaga shouted, running into the kitchen. The smoky image of Grandpa Hudson was still hovering in the air. Mr. Hudson quickly swiped his hand through it. “There’s an earthquake! Everyone get under the table. Oh! My vineyard!” She pointed out the window.
Matt looked. His jaw dropped. The vineyard had split clean down the middle, forming a ravine that was widening and deepening every second.
“Uncle Chuck!” Corey shouted. “Uncle Chuck is out there!” He pointed to where Uncle Chuck was, right in the midst of the splitting vineyard, clinging to a few grapevines while the earth literally fell out from under his feet.
The ground shook more violently. And then the window shattered.
Matt shielded himself as glass flew over the table and floor. A cold wind gusted through, knocking over chairs, a mug of coffee, and the compass. Its loose pieces scattered. Matt fell to the trembling floor and crawled after the pieces. He gathered them all up, tried to put them back together, but the ground was shaking so hard it was impossible.
Another window shattered. Pictures fell off the walls.
“Get everyone to Blossom, Belamie,” Mr. Hudson said. “I have to go help Chuck.”
“Be careful!” Mrs. Hudson called after him as he raced out of the house.
The house tilted violently. Everyone went sprawling. Matt clutched the pieces of his compass to his chest as he fell. Flaming logs spilled out of the fireplace. Cinders and ash billowed out. The living room rug caught fire. The fire spread quickly. It caught on to the drapes and the room began to fill with smoke and flame. The smoke detectors started beeping.
“Fire! Fire!” Gaga ran to the kitchen and came back with the fire extinguisher, but by that time the fire had spread well beyond containment by a single fire extinguisher, and she couldn’t figure out how to use it anyway.
“Why are these things so impossible!” she shouted as she shook the red canister. “I’m going to sue whoever made this thing! Where’s my cell phone? Somebody call the fire department!”
“Gloria, we have to get out of the house now!” Mrs. Hudson shouted and then coughed. “Everyone outside now!”
Corey and Ruby were already running for the door. Pike ran to Jia, still clutching the book. Jia took her hand and they
ran. The wall cracked. The ceiling groaned. The light fixture crashed to the floor. Matt was still frantically trying to get the pieces back into the compass as the smoke thickened and the flames crept closer to him.
“Matt!” his mom shouted. “What are you doing? Get out of the house now!”
Matt clutched the pieces of his compass and hurried out of the burning, smoking house.
Outside, the ground still shook violently. The vineyard was completely gone. Now there was a small canyon in its place. It continued to widen and deepen. Mr. Hudson was on the edge of a cliff, pulling Uncle Chuck to safety.
The house was now engulfed in fire. Flames crawled out the windows and licked the sides of the house. Gaga pulled her phone out of her purse and dialed 911. “Hello! My house is on fire! My address is—What is that!”
The sky above them was churning. Dark clouds rolled toward them. Matt thought it almost looked like a whale swimming through the sky, and then the whale burst through the clouds.
“Is that an airship?” Gaga said. “What is an airship doing here? What is happening!”
The side of the airship was emblazoned with a black compass and red V. It was the Vermillion. It came barreling toward them on a wave of black clouds.
Corey cursed under his breath.
“We gotta get out of here,” Ruby said.
“Like out out,” Corey said.
And Matt realized they meant they had to time-travel. Of course they did, but the compass was still in pieces! Quickly, Matt tried to get the pieces in order. He’d gotten it mostly put back together, but there was a piece missing. He must have dropped it somewhere, either inside the burning house or outside. Either way, he didn’t have it and there was no way the compass would work without that piece.
“Everyone to Blossom!” Mrs. Hudson said. They all ran toward the bus.
Chuck’s orange Volkswagen bus was still stuck in the porch where they’d crashed it just three days ago. Jia had done some maintenance to it to make sure it was in working order, but Gaga hadn’t wanted the car removed until she could make sure her house wouldn’t collapse when it was moved. It was collapsing anyway now.
Everyone hurried to pile into the bus. Mr. Hudson and Uncle Chuck appeared at the same time, both of them out of breath and covered with dirt.
Uncle Chuck started Blossom’s engine. He slowly pulled out of the house. The roof groaned and scraped against the top of Blossom as they backed up. Matt could see the Vermillion in the side mirror.
“Yo, bro,” Corey said. “You going to get us out of here or what?”
Matt searched hopelessly around for the little piece. What could he do?
“Hello?” Gaga said. “Hello, yes, we were cut off before. I said my house is on fire!” She was talking on her phone again. It was an old flip phone. Totally outdated. Matt zeroed in on it, an idea forming. It was probably a stupid idea, probably wouldn’t work at all, but he had to try something. He felt a wild desperation overtake him, survival instincts kicking in. “Yes, my address is—Ah!”
Matt snatched the phone out of Gaga’s hands and cracked it in two pieces.
“Mateo, what are you doing?!”
He ripped open the case, searched the innards until he found what he was looking for. The transmitter. It was basically the right shape and design. He knew it was a Hail Mary, but it was his only shot. Matt popped it out and handed the broken phone back to Gaga, who stared at it in disbelief.
The airship was descending.
“Bro, get us out of here!” Corey shouted.
Matt shoved the transmitter inside the compass. He replaced the central dial and clicked it into place, then turned the dials as fast as he could.
Please work, please work . . .
Blossom revved her engine and spun her wheels. Dirt shot up in angry sprays all around them. There was a low growl, like some giant beast was opening its maw to swallow them. Matt grasped on to his mom as they shot away.
4
Bad Day
1611
Hudson Bay, Canada
Henry Hudson was having a bad day. One for the books, as his own father would have put it. It had all started when Gloria kicked him out of the house. Or maybe he’d kicked himself out. He wasn’t sure anymore. They’d been fighting. It was the usual stuff—work, money, leaving the cap off the toothpaste. Just regular fights that regular couples have. Gloria had told him he was a hard man to live with, and he told her that if he was such a hard man to live with maybe she’d be better off without him. He knew this was the wrong thing to say. He had a bad habit of saying the wrong things at precisely the right moment.
“Maybe I would be better off,” Gloria said coldly. “Maybe you’d be better off on your own as well.”
“I’ll go take a hike, then,” he said.
“Make it a good long one! You can hike your way to Patagonia for all I care.”
So he did. Well, he didn’t hike to Patagonia. He didn’t even know where that was, though he’d never admit that to Gloria. He went to the Catskills, trying to find some peace in the trees and fresh air. Nature was his church, he always said. On Sundays when Gloria took the boys to church to pray and sing, he’d head for the hills. Gloria said that was just fine by her so long as he came home in time for dinner.
Henry had a feeling he was not going to make it home for dinner.
He’d noticed the strange man about halfway through his hike. He didn’t think anything of it at first. Plenty of people hiked around these trails. It was when he went off the trail that he started to worry. The man followed him. Henry even made random and unreasonable turns, but still the man followed. Finally, Henry turned back and confronted the man.
“Excuse me, are you lost?” Henry asked.
“I don’t believe I am, not if you are Mr. Hudson.”
Henry was startled. The man spoke in a British accent. He was younger than Henry, late twenties or early thirties, dark-haired and ruggedly handsome. He looked and sounded like one of those actors on the British dramas that Gloria was always watching that Henry couldn’t stand. (Though he wouldn’t dare say that to Gloria.) The man wore all black, except for his shoes, which were red. Henry thought that was an odd fashion choice, but not as odd as the sword hanging on his waist. That wasn’t something you saw around these parts. A rifle, maybe. But a sword?
“You are Mr. Hudson, aren’t you?” the man asked.
Henry got a bad feeling in his stomach. “No, I’m not. Wrong guy. I don’t know any Hudson.” He turned away from the strange man, ready to hightail it out of there. But he didn’t get a chance. The instant he turned around, something hard came down on his head and he was out.
When he woke, he found himself on a ship. An old ship, something he’d seen in pirate movies. Three tall masts of white sails. Henry tried to sit up. He groaned. His head felt like it had been split in two by a jackhammer. He couldn’t remember what had happened. How did he get here?
“I apologize for the inconvenience,” said a voice. “I’m afraid I have to relocate you now. It won’t take long.” Henry turned and saw the strange man who had followed him on his hike, the one with the sword and the red shoes.
“Relocate me . . .” Henry looked around. They were in some kind of lake or inlet of the ocean. He saw bits of land and rock, but no signs of civilization. Not so much as a telephone wire. And it was cold, very cold. He started to shiver.
“What do you want?” said Henry. “You want money? You’ll have to take me home for that. I didn’t bring my wallet, you know. Take me home, and I’ll give you all the money in my wallet, plus a vintage bottle of wine. Best in the Hudson Valley.”
The man pulled out a bottle of wine and took a swig. A sickening horror overcame Henry as he looked at the label. The wine was from his own vineyard.
“Why are you doing this?” Henry said. “What do you want?”
“Let’s just say your interests are not mine, Matthew Hudson.”
“Matthew? I’m not Matthew. Matthew is my son.
I’m Henry.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. He got right down in Henry’s face, observed him more closely, and then he swore and threw down the bottle of wine. The thick bottle didn’t break, but wine spilled all over the deck and splashed onto Henry’s clothes.
“Look, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Henry said, holding up a hand. “Whatever it is, I’m sure we can work it out. Just . . . just take me home and we’ll work it out.”
The man ignored him. He gave some sort of signal to someone who must have been standing behind Henry. Before he could even blink, he was knocked out again.
When Henry woke, hours or days later, he had no idea, he found himself in a much smaller boat that was being slowly lowered down the side of the ship. But he wasn’t alone. There was another person in the boat with him, a young man, late teens or early twenties. He looked familiar to Henry, though he couldn’t place why until he turned and met eyes with him. Henry felt a jolt in his heart. Those eyes. They were Gloria’s eyes. He’d recognize them anywhere. Gray and full of life and laughter, though there was more fear than laughter in them now.
“Dad?” the young man said. “Dad, is that really you?” His breath smelled of wine. He was probably a little drunk and confused. Maybe he was some unknown relative, a niece or nephew of Gloria’s he didn’t know about. She had siblings who lived far away.
“Who are you?”
“Dad, it’s me. Charles. Your son.”
Henry laughed a little. “Charles? Charles is only six.”
“Dad, you’ve been missing for over twelve years.”
“Twelve years?” How hard did they hit his head? Maybe that maniac had given him brain damage. Maybe this was all just one big hallucination.
They were about halfway down the ship now. The young man who claimed to be Charles (he did look like Charles) started to shiver. He was wearing a tuxedo, a rose pinned to his lapel.
“Did you just go to the prom or something?”
The Forbidden Lock Page 4
