by N. D. Wilson
Dedication
For cousins . . .
Darby, Selah, Curran, Jack, Eden, Emma,
Faith, Julia, Cooper, Adam, Sam, Finn, Livy,
Ruby, Ryder, Nava, Max, Adeline, Rory, Lucia,
Seamus, and Marisol
In memory of one who loves them all . . .
Diane Linn Garaway
Contents
Dedication
Jude’s Journal
Prologue
1. Now and When
2. Bull and Dog
3. Super
4. Neverland
5. Dreamers
6. Ghost Sand
7. Oops
8. Hunting Party
9. Glory Hallelujah
10. Cold Doors to Now
11. Mother T
12. Mama Leviathan
13. See the Song
14. Song
15. Hunt’s End
16. Island War
17. Dark March
Jude’s Journal #21—Christmas 2034 A.D.
Gratitude
Back Ad
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Jude’s Journal
JUDE’S JOURNAL #7—THIRD ENTRY OF MAY 2013
We are stuck in a time ditch. Wandering down a time stream with no way of jumping out of it to hunt the Vulture. Our current year is some version of 2013, and we are moving through it like normal humans at the standard pace of one day per day. If Peter Eagle is going to become Father Tiempo, sooner would be a lot better than later. Wherever and whenever the Vulture is now, he isn’t knitting sweaters for the poor or selling cookies. He wants the world. He’s attacking the world somewhere, and Sam is desperate to stop him. But like I said, we’re stuck. Once or twice, Peter has moved himself and us through a little bit of time, hopping a few years back or forward, but only with great effort, many attempts, and frequent failure. He says that his older self will probably send someone to train him, but that sounds more like wishing than believing. Those days we spent complaining together in the heat of SADDYR seem like another lifetime now. I guess they are. We were hiding with Sam then. Waiting to move. Now we wander in our bus like nomads, pretending to be hunters. But our prey can move from time to time. He can journey the outer darkness between times. Sam’s chances are not good . . . if chance has anything to do with it.
After Sam shot off one of the Vulture’s seven watches and rescued Millie, we were all confident that the arch-outlaw could be defeated. Sam’s mind seemed clear for once, his purpose certain. But how quickly that vanished. Did we even weaken the Vulture? I’m not sure we did. We stole a girl from him. We ruined one plan in one time, but many others are possible. He was patient through repeated years, and Sam wrecked that patience. He’s furious, no doubt. And I’m not sure he’ll ever bother with patience again. With every day that passes, I get a stronger and stronger feeling that we are moving deeper into a trap that is being constructed all around us—above and beneath, before and behind. As long as Sam is alive, he will be feared as the boy who was destined to thwart El Buitre. Even if the Vulture conquers the entire world, he still will not rest easy until Sam is ground to powder.
I am certain that the Vulture has a plan, and that it will be bloody, cruel, and effective. Just as I am certain that our plan is clumsy, slow, and hardly a plan at all. We know that six of the Vulture’s time gardens remain. Six places where he can enter and exit time as he did in San Francisco. Our grand plan is to find one of the six, but we’ve had no clues to go on, and the more Sam guesses and leads us in the wrong direction, the more frustrated Glory becomes and the more bored my Ranch Brothers become and the more distant Peter becomes, wandering off on his own without a word.
Glory has the hourglass Old Peter (Father Tiempo) gave her. It has powers. She wants Peter to help her learn to use it. But that just makes things worse for Peter. I know he tries to explore time on his own, but he hasn’t even attempted to move us all since that night the first time garden was destroyed.
The only bright spot in our days of wandering is Sam’s sister, Millie. She has appointed herself mother of our small tribe, and she does the job well. Whenever Sam and Glory argue, or Peter teeters on the edge of rage, she simply begins to sing, and for a time, things calm down.
I miss SADDYR’s library of comics, so I’ve begun drawing my own. Short ones. Not nearly good enough to show the others. All of our accommodations are rough. 2013 is unkind to a group of orphaned kids in a crowded van, camping and cooking their way up California. We look like thieves, and sometimes we act like thieves (if we’re hungry enough). But the police haven’t nabbed any of us yet.
This morning, Flip the Lip changed the name of our tribe. We are Ranch Brothers no more. He said we are the Lost Boys, like in Peter Pan. Millie is Wendy and Peter is Peter. But our Peter is the opposite of Peter Pan. Our Peter is desperate to grow up. And soon.
JUDE’S JOURNAL #8—FIRST ENTRY OF AUGUST 2013
The Lost Boys are no longer bored. Horrible things have begun to happen in this 2013—things that never happened in this year before. Every week it seems like there’s some new and unexpected disaster in the newspapers and on televisions in gas stations. Fires killed tens of thousands on one side of Chicago while a lake tsunami attacked the other. In the west, three dams blew in the same week. The news called it terrorism. They called it man-made, but then came the earthquakes. Volcanoes. Forest fires. Now people everywhere are beginning to talk about curses. Judgment. The end. In Oregon, we found whole towns left empty. I don’t know where they thought they could hide, but I don’t blame them for trying. Some towns were choked with smoke. Others were choked with the smell of millions of dead fish floating in poisoned lakes.
We didn’t even have to try to steal our gasoline. And we didn’t need to camp. Oregon was the first time we moved into abandoned houses. We’re in Washington now, and compared to what we left, it still feels more normal.
All of us are sure the destruction is the Vulture’s doing, but there is fierce disagreement about what we should do. Sam is sure the Vulture has at least been passing through our time stream because his broken watch chain keeps moving by itself—but Sam is the only one who has seen it. He insists we’re in the correct time, and he thinks there must be a time garden in Seattle connected to a roost in one of the tallest buildings. But Glory disagrees completely. She thinks all the destruction and tragedies we’ve seen and heard about are the downstream consequences of the Vulture’s actions and that all of this is a ripple effect from the recent past. Glory thinks he has been planting the bombs and poisons and diseases before us, in previous moments, so she wants Peter to move us all backward until we find normal ground again and hunt the Vulture by going to one of the places where we now know he will strike and setting up an ambush. It makes some sense. She’s constantly carrying her hourglass these days, because it reacts when time has been altered nearby. More than once, I’ve seen her snatch it from her pocket and wait, as it trembles slightly in her hand. But it never trembles for long.
The rest of us Lost Boys have looked to Peter for advice. Sam is supposed to be a hero, but he isn’t really our leader. We want Peter to tell us what to do and where to go, but he stays quiet. My sleeping bag has been close to his the last several nights. When he thinks we’re asleep, he either rises and slips away, or he sits up and writes pencil notes on small cards—writing, waiting, erasing, rewriting, waiting, erasing. I know he must be trying to reach his older self. I hope he isn’t going mad. He’s taken to wearing his red headband at all times, and his worry has aged him. Even if his time-traveling abilities haven’t grown, his temper has, and he’s looking more like the boy w
ho will become Father Tiempo every day. There’s a fiery strength in his eyes, even if it’s hiding behind a whole lot of worry and confusion. I’ve been trying to draw him, but I still can’t get the eyes right.
JUDE’S JOURNAL #12—FIFTH ENTRY OF AUGUST 2013
We are near the center of the trap now. Everyone can feel it. We’ve spent days in Seattle and the city seems normal—none of the Vulture’s destruction has yet reached it. But Glory’s hourglass is almost always trembling, and I spend every second waiting for the world to explode around us. All day, we wander the streets, driving in whatever direction Sam’s broken watch might be pointing. At night, when Sam finally collapses, he ties his left hand up before he sleeps. The snakes are nervous. Speck buzzes at anything, but Cindy will strike. I’ve seen the watch rise up out of Sam’s pocket while he snores, tugging at the broken gold chain he has paper-clipped to his belt loop, straining for the Vulture.
The Vulture’s blow will fall. Soon.
Prologue
GLORY SPALDING STOOD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HIGH HILLTOP street and listened to the city’s Sunday noises. She was wearing tattered pale jeans tucked into short boots and a loose flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up as high as she could make them go. A small battered binocular case was belted onto her right hip, but there were no binoculars inside. The case held pencils, a knife, a small rolled-up notebook, and an hourglass with open ends, all on a perpetually sandy bottom.
Seattle was spread out in the summer sun before Glory—towers and buildings, rows of houses, tree-covered hills, factories and streets, and where the city met the water, piers and cranes and freighters. Distant cars flowed quickly on wide, walled-in roads, too far away to hear. But tens of thousands of voices washed up the hill in a wave from the huge football stadium between Glory and the water. The sound broke around Glory like foam and was gone. But she knew the noise-wash would return, just as soon as the crowd was again disappointed or amazed.
The day was warm, and Glory’s dark ponytail was hot on the back of her neck. She pulled her hair free, gathered it up, and folded it over, binding it into a loose bundle on top of her head.
Shifting her focus away from the stadium, she turned to face the short, blocky white bus parked at the curb. It had a stubby doggish nose that reminded her of a pug’s, but the body was more elephantine. An elephant might have been more reliable. But the boys from St. Anthony of the Desert Destitute Youth Ranch had managed to keep it running, and the bus had become the closest thing to a home that Glory had, and not just for her. For Sam, Peter, Millie, and the whole gang of SADDYR boys. It had even hopped out of 1960s San Francisco with them. But right now, it wasn’t hopping anywhere. It was parked with its stubby nose pointed down the hill. Inside, she could see Jude—his dusty-brown curly hair in need of a cut—sitting beside an open window, writing in his journal. Or drawing pictures that he would refuse to share.
Sam Miracle was sitting cross-legged on the roof of the bus. His eyes were shut and his chin was down, touching his chest. He was wearing an old white tank top that left his scaled arms bare. The rattles on his shoulders were still, but both of his arms were twisting slowly, warm and active.
Glory stepped closer to the bus. “Sam?”
Sam didn’t move, but his left arm turned toward Glory, tightening into an S, fingers limp and dangling beneath a pair of yellow eyes and scaled horns on the back of his hand. The rattle on Sam’s left shoulder twitched.
“Stop it, Cindy,” Glory said. “You want me to let him sleep? Too bad. Sam!” Glory whistled and clapped. Sam didn’t move. But his speckled, pink right hand crossed his chest and eyed Glory alongside Cindy.
Jude stopped writing and looked out the open bus window at Glory.
“Is he dreaming up there?” Jude asked. “He’s supposed to be on lookout.”
Glory reached into the case on her hip and pulled out a pencil. Gripping it by the tip, she threw it up at Sam like a knife.
SAM MIRACLE WASN’T DREAMING. HE WAS SEEING. IT MIGHT feel like a dream, it might even feel like reality, but he’d gotten better at telling the difference. First, he almost always found himself acting quickly and confidently in some strange situation, but with no understanding of what his plan might be. And then there were his senses. Pain was almost absent. Fatigue was more like an idea in his brain than burning acid in his muscles. And his sense of smell could be way off.
For example, Sam heard Glory whistling at him, but from very far away. He was standing in an alley at night, walled in by tall brick buildings armored with metal fire escapes and dotted with trash. It was raining. Hard. Getting in his eyes. He spat it off his lip, but the water had no taste. And while his face was wet, his bare arms were warm and dry—hot, even.
“Sam!” Glory’s voice was far away, in another time. And he had other things to focus on. Three of them, actually, facing him from the mouth of the alley, lit by a buzzing tangerine streetlight, standing as still as tombstones.
Tombstones that wanted to kill him.
The Vulture stood in the middle, rain streaming off his black pointed beard, a long western coat flapping in the rain behind him like a cape, long-fingered hands poised and ready to draw his twin weapons. The shapes flanking him were harder to make out—both short, both draped in clothing even darker than the shadows.
“Don’t be rude now,” the Vulture said. “Aren’t you going to answer the girl? Invite her to join us.”
“Who?” Sam asked.
The Vulture laughed. “Your girl,” he said. “The smart one. Glory. I’d be more than happy to take her heart as well as yours.”
Sam rocked his head, searching for a memory. “Have we done this before? This doesn’t feel like a memory. Not like all the times I tried to cross that canyon in Arizona. It’s something different. But it’s definitely not real.”
The Vulture straightened slowly, his features rising into the light. His skeletal hands still hovered over his weapons. “Boy, this moment is very real. But don’t you worry. I’ll make it a memory soon.” He grinned. “For one of us.”
“No,” Sam said. “Not real. I can’t smell the trash.” He looked at the wet filth that had been thrown against the walls. “And I don’t remember coming here.”
A pencil hit him in the left arm and then tumbled across the ground toward the Vulture. Glory’s voice tumbled faintly after it.
Sam smiled. “See?” he said. “We’re not really here. Glory is trying to wake me up. You know what? I think this is something that would have happened, but now it never will. It’s not a past memory. It’s like the ghost of a future that has been undone.”
Sam’s mind was working hard, straining. All his horrible phantom memories in the Arizona desert had really happened. They had all been real once, until Father Tiempo had moved his soul back in time and turned him onto a different path to try again. But this wasn’t Father Tiempo’s doing. Sam hadn’t been moved . . . which meant the Vulture had.
Sam laughed out loud. “Wow,” he said, pointing at the Vulture. “You were going to die in this alley! I totally had you, didn’t I? You’re scared! This was going to happen, and now you’re running! Well, you can’t hide! I have your watch. I will find you, and I will end you. But you already know that, don’t you?”
“Running?” The Vulture took one long step forward, spitting his words. “I am eating the whole world around you. You are no more than a worm in the apple core.”
“A worm destined to kill you,” Sam said. But his humor was cooling. He saw no fear in the hard lines of El Buitre’s face; he saw only hate. And impatience.
“Destined is an awfully big word for one who has failed as often as you have, Samuel Miracle. And this moment is no ghost future.” The Vulture’s face twitched into a grin. “I no longer work with simple outlaws and killers as servants. I have greater hunters now. The greatest, in fact. I do hope that you like them. You’ll be meeting them soon, because they have found their prey—they have found your pitiful soul for me, here, in this moment
of vision. When you wake, your soul will fly back to roost in your physical body, in your physical present . . . and my hunters will be on its heels. Wake, Sam.” The Vulture laughed. “Wake. We’ve prepared you a very real and quite spectacular nightmare.”
Sam shook his head. “You can’t find me from a dream.”
The Vulture raised his bony white hands out to the sides, gesturing to his companions.
“No, but they can,” he said. “Now wake, Miracle, it’s time you met death . . . permanently.”
The shadow shapes that flanked the Vulture began to sway and flap forward, rippling like flags. They had feminine heads and what looked like silver skin. Their arms draped like dark wings, and their bodies weren’t present in space; they were absences—holes, gashes in the air that opened on deep space—and they were slithering toward Sam.
“Sam!” Glory’s voice was distant. “Wake up! Please!”
“Don’t come near me!” Sam stepped back, grabbing for his guns.
But he had no guns. Speck and Cindy slapped his hands against nothing but wet jeans. The two shapes were growing as they approached. Sam wanted to run, to vanish, to wake—
“Sam!” The voice was Peter’s, and yelling almost directly in his left ear. “We have to go!”
Cindy rattled and lashed out sideways.
Heat washed over Sam’s body. Bright light erased the darkness and the rain and Sam was suddenly blinking in the sunlight of 2013, sitting cross-legged on the hot roof of the white bus from SADDYR, looking down at the side of a massive stadium sheltering tens of thousands of football fans and the sparkling Puget Sound beyond it.
Peter Atsa Eagle Tiempo was standing on the seat and handlebars of an old Triumph motorcycle, leaning onto the top of the bus, his hands slapping the roof in pain.
Sam’s left hand had grabbed Peter by the hair, and Cindy was still rattling.
“Sorry!” Sam forced his fingers open and jerked Cindy away from Peter’s head. More boys were running up the street toward the bus, a few of them whooping. “I’m sorry,” Sam said again. “I really am. I was dreaming and Cindy just—”
