by N. D. Wilson
“And her batteries,” Jude said.
“Fair trade.” Flip the Lip burst out laughing. “Just saying, I’d take batteries over that girl of yours any day.”
“I could like her,” Barto mumbled into the floor. “But not more than a pack of nine volts. Man, just imagine actually running something.”
Levi Finn tugged on his beard and growled in frustration.
“Forget batteries,” Matt Cat said, wriggling forward. “I’m betting that Sam kills this piece of red-bearded beef before the Vulture gets anywhere near him. Who’s taking?”
“Nothing wrong with red beards,” Jimmy Z mumbled. Johnny Z rolled onto his back and managed to rock himself up into a sitting position. “Agreed,” he said. “Red beards are the best beards.”
“You boys will never have beards,” Sir T said. “What’s the bet, Matt?”
“My dessert for a week,” Matt said. “Against yours for a month.”
“Ha!” Sir T kicked Matt in the thigh. “No way. Week for a week.”
“Hush,” Drew said, and all the boys went quiet. Sticking his face into the marble floor, he managed to walk his knees forward, get his rear into the air, and then grunt his way upright. Finally kneeling, he looked across the living room at Levi Finn and his men.
“Hey!” Drew said. “Mr. Leviathan, help us out here, and not only will Sam not kill you, I will personally make sure he scores you more batteries than you can carry by yourself.”
“You don’t get it,” Levi said. “You think I would turn a kid I don’t know over to people I’m pretty sure are awful just to make a TV remote work when I have enough gas to run a generator to have a movie night?”
“Yeah,” Jude said. “I think so.”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” Levi said. “Not me. She offered me a lot more than that. You have to understand, I come from the world before. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it. I remember football and pizza and fresh donuts. Ice cream! Man . . . unless you know what it used to be like, you don’t understand what this place does to me.”
The boys all twisted, giving one another wide-eyed whatever looks, waiting to see who was going to speak up and make the big man feel stupid.
“I think we can understand that,” Millie said. “We—most of us—come from better places.”
“Thank you,” Levi said. “Years ago, this lady shows up and gives me ice cream. Ice cream! Tells me to keep an eye out for a boy with snake arms. I tell her she’s crazy, that no boy could have that kind of problem, but I’ll still take the ice cream. So she brings me this comic book and shows me pictures and tells me to spread the word to keep a lookout. And every few months she’d check in, drop off more comics and batteries and bullets, pretty much whatever we asked for. And weird enough, even though years and years passed, she always looked the same. Even wore the same clothes, like for her it had only been five minutes when it had been a full year on this end. Well, those comics spread far and wide over the years, and after a while, we hear rumors the snake boy has actually been spotted. The real deal. Sam Miracle from the comics himself.”
Levi held up a bone pen, spinning it between his finger and thumb. “She’d given me this pen to send her a message if I ever heard anything like that. And so I did. And she comes running. And that’s when she changed everything. She tells me that whoever gets her this boy and whoever he might be running with, well . . . she’ll take him and his whole family to a different time when Seattle didn’t blow up. A whole new life. The kind I never thought would be possible again.” Levi looked around. “And that’s what it took for me to say, ‘Sign me up.’ It was never about the Vulture. I don’t know him beyond what I seen in the comics, which is mostly just a man who’s mean clean to the bone. But until you can promise me better and make me believe you, that’s the team I’m on.”
GLORY WOKE SLOWLY, BLURRING HER BUS STATION DREAM with reality. But it was the dream that seemed more real. One moment, she was hugging her knees and trying to explain that she couldn’t leave the station in case her brother came back, and then her knees were suddenly covered with thick grass. Green blades were cool against her cheek and chin. They were in her mouth, tickling her tongue.
Spitting, blinking quickly, she sat up. Sam and Samra were looking at her, both seated in the grass with their backs against thick cloudy glass.
“Where are we?” Glory asked, but she looked around the cylinder and then up to the sky. The darkness high above her was all she needed to remember. “We fell,” she said.
“Yes.” Sam rocked forward and then crawled toward Glory. She watched the scaled snake bodies in his arms as he did, and the bright eyes on the backs of his hands. “And we’re alive,” he added. “Thanks to you. But we have no idea where we are or how to get out.”
“Why are you here?” Glory nodded at Samra.
The redhead brushed back her mad hair and smiled. “Same reason you are. I jumped through a hole in the world.”
“But why?” Glory asked.
“Because you’re you,” Samra said. “Do you think I want to live my life scavenging in ruins? I’ve heard my father’s stories about the other time, when the cities were alive. You’re my best chance at ever seeing the world before.” She shrugged. “What would you do if you were me, living on smoked fish and twenty-year-old enchilada sauce, and then two comic book characters show up? Even if you are bad, I’m still glad I jumped through that hole after you.”
“We aren’t bad,” Glory said.
Samra smiled. “I don’t disagree, but that’s not what my dad says. By the way . . . the way the comic has changed after you is amazing. I can’t wait to see your hair all the way white.”
Glory looked at Sam. His face was blank, worried. She grabbed her ponytail and pulled it forward, barely visible inches from her face. Black. And then . . . not. She felt the stripe of white hair between her fingers and turned back to Samra.
The smiling girl pointed at a comic book in the grass.
“He’s Sam Miracle,” Samra said. “Seems nice enough. Creepy snakes. Fast hands. Bad memory. But you . . .”
Glory’s right hand was stuck in the grass, bound in place by the glass that wrapped around her fingers and swept across the ground and up into the towering cylinder around them. She picked up the comic book with her left hand, taking in the Vulture, the boy of black fire, the Ken-doll version of Sam, and . . . the woman who had to be her, the woman with the white hair and the whip of glass and sand.
“You can go anywhere and anywhen. That’s what the comic says.” Samra climbed up onto her knees and brushed back her red hair. “I want you to teach me. I want to learn. I want to see the world before and visit every city. I’ll be your understudy.”
Glory shook her head. “I can’t teach. I have too much to learn and no time to learn it. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Samra smiled. “But you will. You’re Glory Hallelujah. That’s the name you have in the comics, even though you’re really Mother Time.”
“And that’s not all,” Sam said. “Because of the way you move through time and space, and the shape of this blade you create from sand when you fight, you remind some of the poor comic book citizens of a little thing they like to call . . . Death.” Sam’s eyes were weary and worried, but his mouth twitched into a little smile. “I’m not sure we should hang out anymore. You might scare the rattlesnakes.”
10
Cold Doors to Now
SITTING ON GREEN GRASS IN THE BOTTOM OF A TOWERING cylinder of glass, Glory looked at Sam. Sam looked at Glory.
“Should I call you Hallelujah?” Sam asked. “Or Death?”
“Stop,” Glory said. “But I’ll take either over Mother Time. That’s the weirdest.” She looked back down at the comic book. “And the dumbest.”
Sam climbed to his feet and then tapped the thick glass wall with the toe of his boot, sending a tight echo darting up into the darkness.
“I don’t know how you did this, or what you even did, but thank you.” He smiled. “I’m pretty sure w
e’re not dead, because Ghost isn’t here, and I don’t see any pieces of myself splatted on the ground.”
Glory sighed. “We might be alive, but this isn’t great. I tried to slow us way down. I have no idea how fast time has been moving outside of this thing. For all I know, every one of your heartbeats could be taking an hour out there. Which is bad news for Peter. And us. We could turn to ash as soon as we step outside.”
“Right,” he said. “Good thing you’re Mother Time. Take us backward as far as you can before you crash it open. We have to go back in time, anyway. Then we can start hunting for baby Peter.”
“Yeah, easy as that,” Glory said. “Sure.” She tried to stand, tugging at the hourglass, but it pulled her right back down to her knees. It wouldn’t break away from the blade that grew into the cylinder wall. She scrunched her mouth up tight and jerked at the hourglass with both hands.
“Do you need help?” Samra asked, scooting closer.
“No!” Glory tossed her hair back and pointed at the redhead. “Don’t touch me.”
“Glory?” Sam moved to the glass blade between Glory’s hands and the tunnel wall, and he raised his boot to stomp on it. Glory shook her head and fired him a look of sweaty irritation. The last thing she needed was for Sam to break her hourglass. If anyone was going to do that, it would be her.
“Put your foot down.” She pointed at a spot in the grass. “Hard. Grind it in deep.” When Sam obeyed, Glory sat down on the ground and spun her legs around, bracing her feet against the outside of Sam’s foot. Then, shutting her eyes, she focused on what she needed the glass to do.
She was pretty sure that they had landed on the island—she remembered seeing it flying up at her before she blacked out—but she was also pretty sure that she and Sam and Samra and the glass cylinder were just as invisible to anyone in the normal time stream as Peter’s body and the bed had become to her. If the cylinder were visible, the Lost Boys would have smashed the glass by now.
“Kill the Vulture, save Peter,” Sam said. “That’s all you have to do.”
Glory opened her eyes and looked up at Sam. “What? Why are you telling me this?”
Sam grinned. “I’m being Glory Spalding. Helping you keep things straight. Maintaining your focus. Just like you did for me.”
Despite the situation, Glory laughed. “You think that’s my punch list, Sam?” she asked. “Because it isn’t. I need this cylinder to move us back in time before I break it or we’re dead. Hopefully more than a century, because then I need to find a way through time and a whole bunch of space to get to Peter in the moments before his heart is taken. And then I need to find a way to the Vulture. You and Cindy and Speck are going to be doing the killing and saving.”
“What will I be doing?” Samra asked. “How can I help?”
Glory shrugged. “Follow your heart. Believe in yourself. Whatever floats your boat. Stay out of the way and try not to cause problems.”
Samra cocked her head. “What? Seriously?”
“I can find the Vulture,” Sam said. “I mean, maybe. I can in a dream. We should try it in the darkness between times.”
“No, Sam. You will find the Vulture,” Glory said. “But first things first.” Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, Glory tried to pour her loudest desires into the glass in her hands.
Backward. Don’t break. Don’t collapse. Grow stronger. Backward.
As the hourglass grew warm in her hands, Glory pushed with her feet against Sam’s boot and pulled with everything else, like she was rowing an oar. She was half expecting to lurch backward beneath a wave of cold sand. Or to lurch backward with the crack of broken glass and bleeding hands. Instead, the hourglass bent slowly toward her. Her arms trembled with the exertion, but she was strong enough. She opened her eyes and saw that the glass blade connecting her to the wall was still intact. It pulled her forward again, but she fought it, pushing off of Sam and flexing her body backward, dragging her hands and the hourglass and the blade up to her chest.
The tunnel tower groaned. Warmth became heat and it flowed through her, buzzing her ears and roaring behind her eyes.
Glory fell onto her back, looking straight up, blinking. The hourglass was still in her hands. The massive uneven cylinder was turning in place around them. The ground quaked, bouncing her on the surface.
“Glory!” Sam shouted. “Glory!”
He leaned in above her, grabbing her shoulders and jerking her to her feet.
“Ow,” Glory said. “Sam!” She knocked his hands away, and saw that the glass blade still trailed her hourglass, but it was molten, barely more than thick water.
All around her, the glass of the cylinder had gone clear. And it was moving.
“Oh,” she said, and she turned in a slow circle. As she did, the cylinder accelerated. Sam hopped in the air next to her. And then Samra. And then Sam again. The slow groan of the glass was deafening, loud enough and deep enough to disrupt her stomach. She felt dizzy.
“Glory!” Sam yelled again.
“Make it stop!” Samra screamed. “Please!”
Glory looked down. The glass blade was spinning around her at ground level, attached to the turning tunnel wall. It had already cut the grass down to mud. Sam jumped it again. And again. It would take his feet off. And it was winding a tight glass shell around Glory’s feet.
The glass was still accelerating. Sam wasn’t jumping anymore; he was running in place, like a kid trapped inside whirling jump ropes that were only getting faster. Samra was crying.
“Jump high!” Glory yelled. “Now!”
Sam and Samra both did. Glory spun, whipping the blade even faster. The groaning of the tunnel hummed suddenly to a higher frequency. The blade became a slippery, solid, spinning floor. Sam and Samra both landed on it, whirling around twice before stopping in a pile as it throbbed beneath them.
Glory stood on a glass floor, slick and alive, like the icy floor of an elevator, but manageable.
Sam and Samra pulled themselves free of each other and tested the floor. Cindy was rattling on Sam’s shoulder, and as he stood, his left arm bent into a tense S, eyeing Glory, clearly hoping to strike.
“Are you seeing this?” Glory asked. She moved as close to the turning but perfectly clear glass wall as she could.
“It’s like we’re in a tornado,” Sam said. “But we don’t touch anything.”
Outside, Glory watched the modern world flicker like fire.
“Watch,” Glory said. “Just watch.”
“Are we fast?” Sam asked. “Or slow and they’re fast?”
Samra rose to her feet, but Glory barely noticed her.
“No,” Glory said. “We’re slow. We’ve slowed to still while everything else moves.” She was looking at the world. At first, it was like something from a movie, played at high speed. Clouds snapped and lashed at mountains like frantic whips. The sun rose and fell and rose and fell until it suddenly became an unflickering, solid fiery band in the sky that wobbled south and then north and south again as years passed as fast as breaths.
“And we’re getting slower,” Sam said. “The sun is a solid ring.”
Glory watched the water, and the faster everything else went, the more solid it became. The forests on the mountains were the new liquid. Green forestation ebbed and flowed up and down hills like a splashing tide while the sea looked as still as stone. She’d seen the same thing standing in the Vulture’s tower in San Francisco.
And then every single thing moved at once. The planet began turning beneath them, spinning from east to west. Glory and Sam watched Seattle coming toward them, shrinking as it came—buildings vanished, roads erased themselves, flattened hills rose back up. By the time the city passed around them, it was barely more than a village, and it was moving at high speed.
“Is this good?” Sam asked. From the fear in his voice, Glory knew he didn’t think so. Neither did she. “Are we breaking away from space and time?”
“I think we’re getting slow enough to han
g on to our spot in space. The planet is moving back through its motions,” she said.
“Should we stop?” Sam asked. “This is far enough, right?”
Seattle was gone. They roared through ghostly mountains, over a desert, and into Montana.
“Whoa!” Samra grabbed onto Sam’s right arm and pulled herself close to him. “Are we flying?”
Cindy lashed out across Sam’s body and smacked Sam’s palm into the side of Samra’s head, knocking her down onto the glassy floor. Samra looked up, shocked and angry, while Cindy rattled at her for good measure.
“Sorry,” Sam said, but he didn’t even look down.
“Usually best not to touch him,” Glory said. “Ever.” She gave the redhead a glance before looking back out at the world. “See, I’m teaching you already.”
Samra climbed back to her feet, but this time she put Glory between herself and Sam.
“So are we?” she asked. “Flying?”
“Yes,” Sam said.
“No,” said Glory. “The world is.”
“Stop, Glory,” Sam said. “Make it stop.”
“Next time around,” Glory said. “We’re already in Minnesota. Or . . . somewhere.”
Glory didn’t just see the movement, she felt it. It was like having her hand inside a waterfall, if waterfalls could be perfectly smooth and more powerful than planets. She was seeing the world how angels must see it. She was watching a dance and hearing a song that was too big for human eyes and too grand for human ears. And there was more, ever so much more.
Europe rolled beneath them as close and as quickly as yellow paint on a highway.
“We’re slowing down,” Glory said. “In space.”
“It feels faster.” Sam looked at her. “A lot faster.”
“Exactly. Because we are becoming more and more still. I wonder if we’ll completely stop.” Glory reached out and put her hand on the glass. Russia. The Pacific again. North America.
“I didn’t even see Seattle that time,” Sam said. “Glory, stop us anywhere. Please.”
But Glory wasn’t sure how to stop it. She didn’t really even know how she had started it. The Earth turning beneath her wasn’t just a day. Not even a year. Each turn was the blur of centuries unwinding. Just as the sun’s path had become a solid ring, the years were uniting.
