by N. D. Wilson
“Why?” Rhonda asked from behind Alex. “What’s the prize?”
“Is this your consort?” Scipio asked. His eyes leaked when he blinked.
“I don’t know what that is,” Alex said. “But probably not. She’s my neighbor.”
“Absolutely not!” Rhonda said. “And I’m more like his manager. He wouldn’t be out here meeting you alien-eyed freaks right now if it weren’t for me. So what’s the prize? Money? A house? Or is it something more sci-fi? Twelve free rides in your spaceship? A time machine?”
The men with the torches looked at each other, and then back into the dark arch. After a moment, they nodded.
The younger one, who had claimed to be Father Tiempo, raised his torch and scanned the sky on every side.
“Choose, boy,” Scipio said. “Be the heir of Sam Miracle or not. We must leave soon, and it will not be offered again.”
“Choose what?” Alex asked. “A lot’s been happening today, and I’m really not sure what’s going on.”
“What does it mean if he’s this guy’s heir?” Rhonda asked.
“It means everything,” the false Tiempo said. “And every when. The ability to fly through the darkness between times. To walk the future and the past. To be when others are not. To gain wealth beyond imagining. To gain power beyond kings. To know every secret you choose to.”
“Wow,” Rhonda said. “But there has to be a catch. What does he have to do?”
“He need only speak the words,” faux Tiempo said. “Claim for himself what his father took from the Vulture.”
“Wait. How did my dad die?” Alex asked. “I care more about that. And when? You said he killed the Vulture and then was killed. But who killed him?”
“Do you want your inheritance?” faux Tiempo countered. “Tell me you want it and tell me now.”
Alex shuffled on shovel-packed snow. He wanted answers, but this guy was definitely not Tiempo. Which made him a liar. Still, he wanted to hear more.
“Seems like you really want to give me this inheritance,” Alex said. “And whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll want it. But tell me how my dad died, first. When, where, all the details. Then I’ll say whatever.”
“You want it?” the young man asked. “If this year is 1982, then your father died for his final time in Tenochtitlán, four hundred and sixty-two years ago. He killed himself.”
“Liar.” Alex took a step backward. “No way Sam Miracle would do that.”
The young man shrugged. “So I’ve been told, and so I hope to see. Reality is much darker than stories often let on. And now, you shall receive your inheritance.”
The two men strode out from the arch and swung their torches through the swirling walls of snow. Instantly, the cylinder collapsed, and sharp cold air washed in around Alex, prickling his skin.
“He has chosen!” the young man shouted, and he spun back around, grinning, liquid eyes dancing with torchlight. “His family will try to defend him now. Send up the hunters to hold them off!”
Scipio whistled back into the arch and two misshapen winged creatures lumbered out of the darkness.
Rhonda screamed.
They were vultures, with bare human arms visible in the wings, fingers curled in the black feathers. The creatures leapt up, flapping, and the stench from their wings rocked Alex backward.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “What’s . . .”
A short thick woman stepped onto the sidewalk, wearing a black dress that reached the ground with a high waist cinched tight and lace just beneath her plump jaw, clamped tight by a two-headed vulture brooch at her throat. She was holding a thin golden spear, tipped with a deadly barb. Seven watch chains dangled from the vicious tip down to her fist. One chain was broken, but the others were intact, and just below her fleshy grip, six golden watches were swinging from those chains. Her black-and-gray hair was pulled back into a tight ballerina bun and her eyes were wide and hungry.
“Hello, Alexander,” the woman said. Her voice was like the purring of a hunting cat. “I knew your parents well. Much better than you ever will.”
“Mrs. Dervish,” Alex gasped. He recognized her easily. He was looking at the woman behind the Vulture. The woman who had cultivated the arch-outlaw’s dark powers. She was Father Tiempo’s truest rival. This was not good. Not good at all. Grabbing Rhonda, Alex slipped, turning, trying to run.
In the darkness above him, Alex saw owls swooping in against the giant vultures. He heard their shrieking, and he saw the feathers torn loose in their claws. He saw the men with liquid eyes swing their hissing torches like weapons as the owls dove at them. It dawned on him that the owls were on his side. Anything fighting those vultures must be. But they wouldn’t be enough.
And then Mrs. Dervish raised her golden spear and leapt after Alex. Rhonda screamed, but it was too late. Alex had walked into the woman’s trap and now he was going to pay the price. With a piercing shock like lightning, the thin golden spear plunged into the left side of Alex’s back. Through his heart. Erupted out of his chest.
Alex felt like he was floating. Pain was everything. His lungs stopped. His heart stopped. His mind was . . . ticking. He looked down at the barbed tip of the bloody spear emerging from his chest, wrapped with gold-and-pearl watch chains. He felt every link sliding out of his skin.
His heart was ice cold. Heavy. And still.
The spear was ripped out of him and he spun around on his heels, dying, but somehow still upright.
Mrs. Dervish stood just in front of him, smiling.
“Your father and mother killed my William,” she said. “But I won’t be killing you. They’ll only wish I had. You’re going to be my clay. It’s time I sculpted another hero for the darkness.”
Mrs. Dervish slid the spear into his heart, but this time there was no pain. Nothing hurt. She could have been poking him with her finger. Alex fell stiffly, like a tree.
Alex blinked at the stars. Coldness was tying knots in his heart and sending out tendrils into every part of him. He was on his back with concrete and ice beneath him. The woman was touching his head, his chest, his palms, his eyes; she was performing a ritual while she spoke, and her voice moved between languages and understanding.
“Heir of El Buitre,” she said. “Your soul is tethered with chains you cannot break. Shadows will carry you. Time will yield to you. You will be El Terremoto, the Earthquake, for beneath you, worlds will shake. The fifth sun will set. The fifth era will end. And you will rule the sixth, answering only to me. Terremoto’s heart is chained by the power of the Tzitzimime, the mothers. Terremoto feasts on the fear of mortals. Terremoto.”
Darkness descended, swallowing the stars, swallowing time, fossilizing Alexander Miracle in a bed of heavy nothingness.
When Alex opened his eyes, his body felt like frozen mud. Rhonda was leaning over him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You tell me,” she said. “That was amazing. I was about to try CPR. How are you still alive?”
“What was amazing?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said. “That green lightning fire doorway. Those dudes with torches. You being stabbed through the heart and still talking.”
“With chains,” Alex said. He could feel metal weights on his chest, arranged carefully underneath his shirt. Watches? Somehow they felt warmer than his skin. But his skin was so cold that wouldn’t be hard.
“I thought that lady killed you,” Rhonda said. “And there were huge birds everywhere, owls and vultures fighting, and then I woke up in the snow.”
Alex sat up slowly. He expected the watches to slide down his chest to his stomach, but they didn’t. They clung to him like magnets to a fridge.
The night was almost perfectly silent. One old streetlight was humming across the street. A car started in the distance. He heard his mother’s laugh inside the duplex behind him.
“Your parents are coming,” Rhonda said. “Get up. Hurry. And be cool.”
She tried to grab Alex�
��s hands, but he jerked them free. Rhonda backed away.
“Touch me and I’ll kill you.” The words came out in a snarl, and a rage thundered through him like he had never felt before, flooding from somewhere else to somewhere else. He was just the storm drain. A conduit. It was terrifying. And warm. And . . . powerful.
He tried to leap up to his feet, but his heels slipped on the snow and he sat back down. His body felt oddly clumsy.
“Never mind,” he said, reaching up. “Help.”
Rhonda cocked one eyebrow. “You’re sure?”
Alex nodded and the girl stepped forward, gripped his hands, and pulled him up onto his feet. Ice water drained out of his head and his vision went blurry. Behind him, he heard the front door open. He shoved the girl away. They had been practically hugging.
“Hey, you two,” Millie said. “Have a good walk or have you just been here?”
“Just here,” Rhonda answered. “Saw a few shooting stars.”
“Any northern lights?” Jude asked.
“No,” Rhonda said. “None at all. Right, Alex? Did you see any northern lights?”
Alex shook his head. Stumbling off the sidewalk and through the deep snow, he staggered across the yard toward his own front door.
“Is he okay?” Chong-Won asked behind him.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jude answered. “Probably just needs to sleep.”
Alex banged through his own front door and careened into his living room. Anger seethed inside him. He kicked his snowy boots off into the TV, grabbed a branch on the Christmas tree, pulling it over behind him as he passed, and headed straight for the dining room table and his father’s typewriter.
New rule. Jude must not be allowed to write. How much of it was lies? He’d never told him what happened to his father. And his books treated the Vulture’s watches like something evil. But they weren’t. They couldn’t be. Not anymore. They were his.
Alex grabbed the heavy typewriter and raised it to his shoulder. The anger made him feel strong, even if he didn’t know what exactly he was angry about.
He heaved the typewriter at the window above the kitchen sink. Glass exploded, and just like that the typewriter was gone. It had vanished, probably into a snowdrift by the trash cans in the alley.
Alex staggered down the hallway to his room. He needed his bed. He needed blankets and warmth. He needed sleep.
SAM MIRACLE JOGGED UP THE STAIRS TO GLORY’S BEDROOM, two at a time, his overgrown sandy hair flopping against his forehead. He’d get his sister to chop it off later. He felt good. Life on Neverland had been uneventful for months. Plus, he was chewing his last bite of biscuit, baked in a fireplace by his amazing sister, buttered by his sister, and even honeyed by his sister’s generous bees. In his right hand, he had a second biscuit and a few strips of bacon wrapped in a cloth napkin for Glory. While he climbed, Cindy forced his left hand across his body to investigate what Speck was holding in his right, and Speck veered away with his burden, keeping it to himself.
Sometimes, his hands behaved like children. And they were always fascinated by cooked meat of any kind. Not that they could taste it. But maybe they could. Maybe they tasted what he tasted and smelled what he smelled. Which would explain their interest, because his biscuit and bacon had been amazing.
As he approached Glory’s half-opened door, Speck relaxed. Sam raised his left hand to knock on the door, but instead of knocking, Cindy jerked across his body, striking the warm napkin in his right hand.
Off balance, Sam banged his left shoulder into the door and staggered into the room, colliding with Jude.
“Stop it!” he yelled. He tried to pull Cindy away, but neither she nor Speck would release their warm biscuit and bacon prey.
“Glory,” Sam said. “Can you take this? I’m sure it’s smashed and awful now, but it might still taste fine.”
Glory was staring at him. She didn’t move.
“C’mon, please?” Sam asked. He could generally force his hands into submission so long as they were only misbehaving one at a time. It was incredibly difficult when they both went bad. “I can’t unbend my fingers.”
Glory stepped forward and grabbed the napkin with both hands. Sam’s rattles immediately began to buzz beneath his shirt, and Cindy’s one yellow eye locked on Glory. Speck had the good sense not to look up at her.
“Oh, shut up.” Glory ripped the napkin free and tossed it onto the bed behind her. The snakes tracked its motion through the air, coiled and ready to strike, but the food was now well out of range.
Sam shoved his hands down into his jean pockets.
Sulks and snakish anger seeped up his arms and mingled in his mind.
STUPID. He forced the thought down into his hands. BE STILL.
Speck obeyed instantly, relaxing in Sam’s right arm. Cindy remained tense, but she stopped complaining.
“Sorry,” he said. “There’s butter and honey on that. And I know you wanted to get an early start today.”
“Sam.” Glory crossed her arms. “We have a problem.”
“Is it the pigs?” Sam asked. “I heard them last night, but Millie says they’re fine.”
“Mrs. Dervish is creating an heir for the Vulture,” Glory said. “And according to a message from an older Jude, he kills us all.”
5
The First Flight
MILLIE AND JUDE STOOD TOGETHER IN ALEX’S BEDROOM. Light spilled into the dark room through the open door behind them. Millie gripped Jude’s arm tight as she watched Alex sleep. He was fully clothed, still in the cords and sweater his mother had required, curled up in a ball on the upper bunk. His eyebrows were down and his face was frozen in an expression of pain.
“Is he breathing?” Millie asked. Without waiting for an answer, she moved to the bunk, studying her son’s face, placing her hand gently on his back, and then moving two fingers to the side of his throat.
“He’s burning up,” she whispered. “He needs a doctor.”
“He needs sleep,” Jude said. “And peace of mind.”
Millie rose up onto her toes and leaned forward, planting a kiss on her son’s hot forehead. “Love you, Alex,” she said. Then she retreated back to her husband, sliding her hand under Jude’s arm. Grief and worry and guilt were all bubbling in her chest. She wasn’t as tough as she used to be. She’d been tougher as a girl, as a sister, fighting to survive. But as a mother? Seeing Alex in pain made her want to go curl up in a corner and cry. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. But she wanted to.
“We did everything wrong,” Millie said. “Everything. We should have told him the stories were true. We should have told him every story we knew about Sam and Glory.” She wiped the corners of her eyes. “He should have grown up knowing who he was, who his father was, to whom he belonged. He wouldn’t have been so upset. And now someone has his blood and you lost a manuscript. Something awful is coming, I know it.”
“He would have been frustrated every day of his life,” Jude said. “We don’t know where Sam and Glory went or why they never returned. We know they wanted him hidden here, and he would have been desperate to search for them. To leave this place and wander roads through time that were never meant for him. It would have driven him mad. We gave him a real childhood, with sisters. It’s what Sam and Glory wanted.”
Millie sniffed. “He threw your typewriter out the window, Jude. He hates us. We tempted him to hate us and now he does.”
“He’s upset,” Jude said. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk. He’ll read the next story and I’ll answer every question about his parents that I can. We never lied to him. He knows that. He’ll grow through it.”
Jude moved toward the bunk and set a fat manuscript tied with string on the mattress beside his son. Then he put his hand on Alex’s head.
“Sorry, kiddo,” he said. “It’s rough.”
They didn’t shut the door all the way when they left. A wedge of light divided the floor and striped the wall up to the window.
Motionless, Alex slept. Hour
s of silence passed. His parents looked in again, and then the hall light flicked off, the door shut, and deep night settled.
Six golden watches and one broken chain rolled slowly down and out of Alex’s sweater. They floated off the bunk into the air. The impearled golden links grew taut, and Alex’s body slid toward the edge of his bunk, facedown, crushing his father’s manuscript.
First one arm flopped over the side. And then his head, sagging limply. And then his other arm. The watches and chains spread out like wings, three watches to each side, the broken chain above his head.
With only his shins and feet still on his bunk, Alex’s body was suspended in the air. The golden watches glowed, their hands marching to different rhythms, filling the room with a chaotic ticking that grew and grew, finally intermingling in one intricate and singular percussion.
Wake. Spread your watch-wings. Test your power.
The whisper belonged to Mrs. Dervish. Alex opened his eyes. He blinked, focusing on the floor. And then he spasmed with the sudden certainty that he was falling.
But he wasn’t.
His feet swung off the bunk, flinging hundreds of Jude’s pages across the room, but they all slowed to a stop in the air, a frozen cloud of swirling paper.
Alex dangled from golden chains, sinking slowly through weightless pages until his feet touched the floor. Time had slowed around him. His own existence had accelerated so much that the air around him felt like heavy liquid.
He bounced toward the door on his toes, and it felt like he was walking through a swimming pool. Beside the door, he flipped on his light. But at his new speed, the movement was much too violent. The plastic switch snapped off and spun away. He heard the hum of electricity surge through copper wires and then the light came on, but slowly to his eyes, flashing in a rhythmic pulse while the falling manuscript pages finally began to reach the pea-green floor.
Above the light, Alex’s ceiling was gone, and so was the sky. His room had opened up into some strange, otherworldly dimension. He was standing beneath a cave of endless darkness. Thick, heavy, and inexhaustible.
