The Forbidden Lock

by Liesl Shurtliff

  “Marta!” Jia called. Marta paused for just a moment. She smiled and waved at Jia, and then she jumped right into the fray of the two vehicles as they melded together. Matt had a feeling she would next show up in a pantry on the Vermillion, eating a sack of sugar.

  The jungle waves softened and stilled, returning to their natural hills and mountains. The Lost City was re-formed. The terraces rose and the ground smoothed. The rain and wind stopped, and the sky cleared. The earth gave a deep shudder and all was quiet.

  Ruby let out a breath. “Did we do it?” she asked.

  “I think we did,” Corey said.

  Matt walked over to the spot where Captain Vincent had been, right in the center of the city. All that remained was a small puddle of water. Something caught the sunlight and sparkled beneath the water’s surface. Matt reached down and picked up a small, shiny black stone. He held it in his hand. It was smooth. There were no markings on it, but he knew exactly what it was.

  Jia gasped. “The Aeternum?” she whispered in a reverent tone.

  He nodded. Even now he felt its stabilizing effects, like it was grounding him, holding him together. It must have been formed by all their collective cells coming together, that searing jolt. He slipped it inside his pocket.

  Matt heard a groan. He looked to his right and saw two forms on the ground. Matt raced to them, Corey and Ruby too. “Mom? Dad?” They were still their younger selves, but right before their eyes they began to change. Both Belamie and Matthew clutched at their heads as their bodies shifted ever so slightly. Mrs. Hudson held out her hands before her, watching them age. Her eyes shifted, too, as her brain seemed to expand and reclaim the memories she’d lost. Matthew Hudson touched his face as a few wrinkles settled in his eyes and the lines around his mouth deepened. His hair grew a bit longer, his shoulders rounded as all his years of reading and research caught back up to him. He glanced at the woman beside him.

  “Belamie, are you all right?”

  She nodded. “I . . . I think so. You?”

  Mr. Hudson nodded, and then they both looked at the children before them. Belamie glanced at each of them in turn. Her chin quivered, her eyes brimmed with tears, and then with one swift motion, she gathered all three of them in her arms, crushing them against her chest. Mr. Hudson wrapped his arms around them from the other side, so all three children were sandwiched between their parents. Matt felt all the love and happiness in the world existed right there in that moment.

  They broke apart, though, when they heard someone crying. Matt soon saw the source, and his heart turned to ice. Gaga and Uncle Chuck were on the ground, each of them holding Haha, who was propped up against the side of the lower terrace. He still had Captain Vincent’s dagger in his ribs. Jia was there, too, kneeling on the ground in front of Haha. She had some strips of cloth that she was gently pressing over the wound, trying to stanch the bleeding that was starting to soak into the ground beneath him. She had torn the sleeves off her shirt, Matt realized.

  “Dad,” Mr. Hudson said, kneeling down. Haha was pale and gasping for breath. Gaga was also gasping for breath as she cried. She looked up at the rest of them in desperation.

  “Please do something,” she cried. “Please save him!”

  “He needs a hospital,” Mrs. Hudson said. “I can transport him right away. I can get him there in moments.” She still had the compass around her neck.

  “I think moments are all he has,” Mr. Hudson said.

  “It’s okay, Gloria,” Haha said with effort. He reached for Gaga’s hand. “This is how it’s supposed to be.”

  “No, Henry,” Gaga said. “We’re going to get you help. You’re going to be okay.” But she cried all the harder as she spoke.

  “Yes,” Haha said, his voice little more than a whisper. “I’m going to be okay. I’m okay. When I was stranded, and I . . . didn’t think I’d make it,” Haha said, gasping for breath between his words, “all I wanted was to see you one more time. All I wanted was . . . my family.”

  Family. All Matt had wanted to do was save his family, for them all to be together. Shouldn’t he be able to save all of them? Shouldn’t Haha get to live too? “We can still save him, maybe,” Matt said. “I can pull his time tapestry. We can go back and . . . and . . .” Matt wasn’t sure what he was saying. He knew he was grasping at straws, but he had to do something. He had to try. He felt for the threads of Haha’s time tapestry, pulled at them from his hands. The tapestry was barely there. It was nothing more than a faint, shimmering mist. He couldn’t see any images inside of it, and he realized there wasn’t anything he could do. Haha’s time tapestry hadn’t been blown up, destroyed, or damaged. Matt’s cells were not attached to it in a way that he could pull it back together. It was simply fading, because Haha was fading.

  Haha took a breath, and his next words seemed to take every last ounce of energy he had. “I love you,” Haha said, his voice fading. “I love you all . . . so much.”

  Gaga grabbed his hand. She pulled it to her chest. “I love you, Henry,” she said. “We all love you.” Henry smiled, squeezed his wife’s hand. He closed his eyes, took one final rattling breath, and was still. His time tapestry began to fade. Gaga reached for it, brushed it with her fingers, until it was gone. She fell over him and cried.

  32

  Baby Beginnings

  They buried Henry Hudson on the edge of the Lost City. Gaga said he would like it, being buried in a jungle, no gravestone to mark his whereabouts. Uncle Chuck and Mr. Hudson dug the grave, while Gaga and Mrs. Hudson wrapped Henry Hudson in some of Uncle Chuck’s colorful crocheted blankets.

  “Henry loved to be in nature,” Gaga said as they all gathered around the burial site to pay their respects and say goodbye. “He liked the feeling of being lost. Sometimes I told him to get lost, and he didn’t seem to mind following my orders.” She laughed a little through her tears. “But I’m glad we found him in the end, even if just for a moment.”

  Mr. Hudson and Uncle Chuck shared stories, things they remembered about their dad from when they were little, how he loved to play board games, and give the boys “horse rides” on his back, and take them hiking and fishing in the Catskills and give them candy and soda and told them not to tell their mother, which all sounded very familiar to Matt. Gaga laughed at this, and then cried. They all cried. But it was a good cry.

  When all was said and done, there was quiet for a time. Matt felt strangely peaceful, like all was right with the world even though he was sad at the loss of his grandfather. They stayed for a long time. No one seemed to want to move.

  Finally, someone said something about going home. Matt wondered if they still had a home. Would it be the same? Would everything be back as it was before? Or would there still be battles on the Brooklyn Bridge and in Central Park? Would dinosaurs still be roaming the subway and flying around the Statue of Liberty?

  They all made their way up the stone steps that led to the Lost City. Gaga moved slowly. Burying her husband seemed to age her twenty years, and the other adults stayed with her.

  “Go on ahead,” Mrs. Hudson said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

  Matt, Corey, Ruby, and Jia made their way back to the grassy terraces of the Lost City. It was as empty as it had been when they arrived. Only Blossom stood in the center. Well, it was mostly Blossom. Oddly, she had a mast sticking out of her with the flag of the Vermillion. The two vehicles seemed to have melded together in the battle, and Matt thought his theory that they were one and the same was probably correct. Just as he and Marius Quine were one and the same, and every now and then they overlapped.

  Corey climbed onto the roof of the bus. “Hey!” he said. “Our names aren’t here!”

  “You’d better carve them in then,” Jia said. “Or else how will you know when you’re supposed to stay?”

  “I don’t have anything to carve it with,” Matt said.

  “I lost my sword in all the chaos,” Ruby said.

  Jia reached inside one of the pockets o
f her vest and found a small chisel. She handed it to Matt, along with her little hammer. He took them. “Do you want to come?”

  She shook her head. “No, it should just be you three.” She smiled, but it was a sad smile. Matt had this feeling he knew what her sadness was about, but he wasn’t ready to hear it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Matt climbed on the top of Blossom, and the three of them carved their names into the mast. Matt was sure to use his signature M with the lines crossing each other, forming an X at the center. When they finished, he was filled with that familiar feeling of déjà vu. Everything was coming full circle now. This was the end, but also the beginning.

  “It feels like lifetimes ago, doesn’t it?” Ruby said. “When we first boarded the Vermillion.”

  “Yeah,” Corey said. “Do you really think it’s all over? Is Captain Vincent really gone?”

  “He won’t bother us again,” Matt said. He felt certain of that, though he wasn’t certain of anything else. What would the future bring them? What parts of their past would come back to haunt or delight them?

  The adults finally made it to the top of the city, and they were all gathering, getting ready to head home, when Matt heard a very strange sound coming from somewhere behind him.

  “What’s that sound?” Ruby asked.

  They all stopped and listened.

  “It sounds like crying,” Corey said. “Like a baby.”

  Matt, Corey, and Ruby all looked at each other, clearly wondering the same thing. They searched for the source of the crying. It buzzed in Matt’s ears and seemed to echo like it was inside a cave.

  They came to the huge boulder with the star chart carved into it. It had been cracked in half during the battle, and between it was a wriggling, squalling bundle.

  Mrs. Hudson gasped and covered her mouth.

  Matt felt himself go a little fuzzy.

  “It’s Matt, isn’t it?” Corey said.

  Corey was right. This baby was him. But how did he get there? He looked around. There was no one else here.

  Mrs. Hudson knelt down and scooped up the crying infant in her arms. She cuddled and cooed to the baby, and then she started to sing the lullaby. The baby instantly stopped crying, and even Matt felt soothed.

  “Aw, he knows his mama,” Uncle Chuck said.

  “But . . . how?” Matt asked. How did he get here?

  “You must have pulled yourself out of your own time tapestry, somehow,” Ruby said. “During the time storm.”

  “So . . . basically he orphaned himself?” Corey asked.

  “I . . . I didn’t mean to,” Matt said.

  “Or maybe you did,” Corey said. “Maybe even as a baby you knew where you belonged. Right here with us.”

  He had orphaned himself? But why? Was he supposed to put himself back? Was that even possible? Matt felt his mind whirling, trying to think of all the answers, all the possibilities. Maybe this was the only way to fix things. Maybe this was the sacrifice that needed to be made. Himself. His own timeline.

  Mr. Hudson knelt down next to his wife, smiling at baby Mateo, who was now sleeping.

  “Aw,” Jia said quietly. “You were a cute baby, Matt.”

  “I wish we could keep him with us,” Ruby said.

  “As much as I’d love that,” Mrs. Hudson said, “I think it might cause a few problems.”

  “Plus, he poops his pants now,” Corey said. “Love you, bro, but I don’t want to change your diapers.”

  “I don’t want you to either,” Matt said.

  “We’d better get him to his parents, shouldn’t we?” Mr. Hudson said.

  Mrs. Hudson pulled the baby tighter to her chest. She looked at her husband like he’d just suggested they abandon the baby to a pack of wolves.

  “I meant us!” he said. “We should get him to the adoption agency, so they can, you know, give us a call?”

  “Oh,” Belamie said, relaxing a little. “Right.” But she still looked reluctant, as though she wished she really could keep him with her now.

  “Make sure they tell you the baby’s name is Mateo!” Ruby said.

  “Yeah,” Corey added. “We wouldn’t want you naming him something else, like Marius or whatever.”

  “Well, I think that’s up to your brother, isn’t it?” Mr. Hudson said. “What’s it going to be, kiddo?” he said, looking at Matt.

  He didn’t hesitate for a second. “I’m Mateo,” he said. And that felt truer than it ever had. He was Mateo. Mateo Hudson. And this was his family. He didn’t need to have all the answers. He didn’t need to know where or when he had come from. No one really knows that anyway. They just know when they’ve found home. They know who their family is. And Matt had found his. This was how it was always meant to be.

  They all gathered inside of Blossom. Mrs. Hudson cradled baby Mateo gently in her arms. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. Just as Matt was about to get inside of Blossom, he realized Jia wasn’t there. He turned around. She was still by the cracked boulder, staring at the star chart.

  Matt went to her. “Jia? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing . . . I . . . I just . . .”

  Ruby stepped up beside Jia. “You need to go home,” she said. “To China?”

  Jia cast her eyes down at her feet. Matt felt his heart fall into his stomach. He’d known this was coming, probably for longer than he wanted to admit, but that didn’t make it any less painful. “Why?” he asked.

  Jia looked up at him. “Because it’s home, and . . . and I think my father needs me.”

  No. Matt wanted to tell her to forget China. Forget her father. She could live with them. They needed her more. He needed her. But then he realized he wasn’t thinking about what Jia needed. He was being selfish. He wanted to keep her to himself, not realizing that she had her own family and home, and it was time for her to go back.

  Mrs. Hudson appeared then. She handed Mr. Hudson the baby, then took the Obsidian Compass off from around her neck and handed it to Matt.

  Matt understood. He handed the compass to Jia. “Here,” he said. “You take it. So you can come and visit whenever you want.”

  “Oh,” Jia said, her eyes widening. “I couldn’t possibly. It’s yours, Matt. It belongs to you.”

  “But I don’t need it,” he said. “I can get everyone home myself, and I want you to have it.”

  “But what about your mom?” Jia said, glancing at Mrs. Hudson. “Aren’t you supposed to give it to her at some point? What if something happens and you never get it back?”

  “You’ll bring it back,” Matt said. “Someday.” He placed the gold chain around Jia’s neck. She gently touched the compass, then looked up at Matt with tears in her eyes. “I’ll never forget you,” she said. “Any of you.”

  “Of course you won’t forget us,” Corey said. “We’re totally unforgettable.”

  Jia laughed and wiped at her tears. She hugged each of them and told them goodbye. She hugged Matt last and longest but still not long enough.

  “Goodbye,” she said. “I’ll see you all again. I promise.” And before Matt could beg her one more time to stay, she turned the dials, and she was gone.

  The space where she had just stood suddenly felt so empty. More empty than empty. Like a black hole. Matt felt the emptiness in his heart too. He knew it would never be filled.

  “I’ll miss her,” Ruby said.

  “Me too,” Corey said. “But Matt will miss her most.” At first Matt thought he was teasing him, but then Corey put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and he knew he was trying to comfort him.

  “It always hurts to say goodbye to those we love,” Gaga said, her voice a little hoarse. “But it’s a good kind of pain, because it means we are living well.”

  They took baby Mateo into Santa Marta, and his parents found the adoption agency where they’d adopted Matt twelve years earlier. The rest would take care of itself, he knew. Still, his mom looked extra worried after they’d left him, and she gave Matt an extra-long hug before
they left for home, like she was worried he might disappear on her any moment. And he could, he realized. Anytime he wanted, he could just disappear and go anywhere, anytime. But he didn’t want to. He just wanted to be here right now, with his family.

  Epilogue

  Peanut Butter and Bubble Gum

  April 26, 2039

  New York, New York

  It was a perfect day in Central Park. The air was warm with a gentle breeze and the sun shone through the trees. Mateo Hudson was sitting on a park bench. Ruby sat next to him, a cup of coffee in hand. They were both gazing at a skyscraper in the distance. It was still under construction, but it was already a marvel. It was straight and sleek until it peeked above the surrounding buildings, and then it split and curved into loops.

  Ruby looked down at her watch, then turned around, searching.

  “He’s on his way,” Matt said.

  “He’s always late, and I have an appointment in thirty.”

  “Give him a break. He’s got a lot on his plate right now.”

  “So do I! What makes his time more valuable than mine?”

  Matt gave her a look.

  “Okay, okay.”

  “There he is.” Matt nodded toward Corey walking down a path pushing a double stroller with two toddlers, not more than two years old, a boy and a girl. “Hey, Henry! Hi, Gloria!” Matt waved at his little niece and nephew, both of them dark-haired and rosy-cheeked.

  Corey ambled toward them slowly, like he was pushing a heavy load. His Superman T-shirt was covered in various stains, some that looked like ink and paint, and others Matt didn’t really want to know. His hair was long and shaggy. His face had a few days’ worth of stubble and his eyes had dark circles under them. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, unfastening the seat belts while the children squirmed to get out. “Henry peed his pants, and then Glory was hungry, and she’s a total pig. Took forever.”