Timepiece: An Hourglass Novel (19 page)

Chapter 40

I

went inside Murphy’s Law with Lily to do the basics, like double checking that all the machines were off and the doors were locked.

“Okay. We can go. We’re all good.” She hung up her apron. Before she could say another word, I slid my hand behind her head, pulling her in close for a kiss.

“Yes, we are,” I said, not letting her go.

“Do it again,” she murmured against my lips.

I did.

I helped her into the truck, backed out, and drove down Main Street, holding her hand. Pumpkins lined the sidewalk, fresh from the carving contest. They’d be illuminated through Halloween. After trick-or-treating, they’d be thrown into a fire for the Pumpkin Smash, a combination dance/bonfire/pumpkin demolition party that happened downtown.

Maybe everything would be resolved by then. It had to be.

I pulled into my driveway and parked close to the pool house. When I walked around to help Lily down from the truck, I took her hand again. “Is it okay if I hang on to this?”

“I’d prefer it.”

I held her hand all the way inside, and didn’t let go when everyone looked up from the table. Em and Michael smiled at us. Dune seemed disappointed.

“How did you manage it?” I asked, determined to concentrate on the task at hand, and not think about how smooth Lily’s skin was. “Did you just keep trying?”

“Do or do not, there is no try,” Dune said, looking wise.

Nate entered the living room, so quickly I couldn’t tell from which direction. “Seriously, you’re like … the antithesis of Yoda.”

“Oh, look at you, using the big words.” Dune clapped his hands like a proud parent.

“Okay, y’all,” Em said. “Sheathe your light sabers and let’s get down to business.”

Nate’s eyes grew as big as saucers. “I’m not going to make a ‘that’s what she said’ joke. I’m just telling you. I am not.”

I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t laugh. I didn’t want to give Lily any reason to let go of my hand.

Dune gave a saintly sigh and motioned for all of us to gather around the coffee table. “Okay. There’s a USB, so I knew it most likely needed a charge, but I went through six cords before I figured out the right sequence to use to keep it from blowing a fuse.” He grinned at Michael. “You and Em aren’t the only ones who are electric around here.”

“It’s not electricity,” Em argued. “Or chemistry. It’s physics.”

“Anyway,” Dune continued, “I knew there was more data on it than I could see. I used the biggest external drive I could buy in town, 3TB, and I still couldn’t get it to transfer or open. So I ordered this handy-dandy one from the Internet.” He tapped the top of a shiny black box. “I still only got enough to break the encryption.”

“The what?” Em had to stand on her tiptoes to try to see over everyone else’s shoulders. Finally, she just punched Nate in the arm until he moved.

“The encryption. It makes data unreadable to anyone who doesn’t have a key or password. Skrolls are super futuristic and still in development for the masses.” He touched a button, and the screen lit up. He flipped it around so we could see it and pulled a stylus out of his pocket. “Everyone sit so you can all see, and so Em will stop punching.”

Once we did, he pushed a release button on the side of the Skroll and a flat, flexible screen slid out. It looked like it was made of silicon. Images popped up all over it, and then, with the touch of another button, the backlit screen became a holographic projector. Images, documents, diaries, maps—from the most simplistic to the most advanced—spun around in the air with one touch.

“Sweet,” Nate said under his breath.

“How does it work exactly?” Em asked.

“I shall demonstrate. But I need to come clean about something first.” Dune put down the stylus. “I’ve known about the Infinity-glass for a long time. It’s sort of an obsession. So is Chronos.”

“What?” Dune was firmly locked in logic and facts. His ability to control the tides meant he couldn’t use it without serious consequences. Like tsunamis. Something as impossible as a mythical, all-controlling hourglass didn’t seem like his thing. “How did you find out about them?”

“My dad told me stories when I was younger. And then, as I got older, I did lots of research. The Infinityglass is part of the reason I’m so good at it.” He grinned. “What I’ve learned recently is that Chronos claims that they’re widely varied in their pursuits, but the Hourglass isn’t the only group focusing on time-related abilities. Chronos has been connected to every important horological discovery in the last one hundred years, at least. Have you ever heard of horology?”

Nate giggled.

“I’m sorry. It sounds dirty. I’m not going to say anything else today. Swear.” Nate locked his lips with an imaginary key and then threw it over his shoulder.

Dune shook his head and moved on. “Horology is the science of time and the study of timekeeping devices, from the water clock to the hourglass to the pendulum and beyond. You could call the Infinityglass the ultimate timepiece in the field of horology. Some think it’s mythical, others believe it’s real. And that’s what’s on the Skroll. Information about the Infinityglass.”

“What is it?” Em asked. “What’s it supposed to do?”

“The Infinityglass was initially created for a pure purpose,” Dune said. “It was supposed to channel time-related abilities from person to person, but instead, whoever had possession of the Infinityglass could use it to steal the time-related ability of anyone he or she touched.”

Helpless. Hopeless.
Em’s emotions slammed into my chest.

“The Infinityglass is the other alternative.” Emerson’s defeat had worked its way into her voice. “Jack trying to travel on his own didn’t work out, I didn’t work out, so now he’s looking for the Infinityglass. It puts all of us in danger.”

“Not if he can’t find it,” Dune said, an unmistakable look of determination on his face. “Reports of the Infinityglass dropped off around the early 1900s. It resurfaced briefly in the 1940s, and then again in the 1980s. Both times, it was rumored to be somewhere in Egypt, but then it was lost again.”

“
Egypt?
” Lily and I said at the same time.

“There were rumors of it associated with a pyrami … oh hell.” Dune dropped his head.

“Well, at least half of it makes sense now,” Em said. “The headquarters of a mythical time mafia would totally be located in an abandoned pyramid in downtown Memphis.”

“That only explains the 1980s, though. Not the 1940s,” Dune said. I could almost hear him computing the information inside his head.

“Why would Teague lay down the ultimatum for us to find Jack if she didn’t think she was close to finding him or the Infinityglass?” I asked. “And if Jack was close to finding it, why would he risk so much just to show up to taunt us?”

“Who knows what Jack’s thinking,” Em said.

“There’s so much information about the Infinityglass on the Skroll that you can’t access it all.” Nate stood up and disappeared into the kitchen, grabbing a drink from the fridge. “Who put it there?”

“I’m not sure.” Dune picked up the stylus and clicked a tiny button to turn it into a laser pointer. He used it to highlight documents as he explained. “It holds years’ worth of information, and it’s all about the history—the very ancient history—of not only the Infinityglass but also Chronos. I’ve skimmed it, and I haven’t processed a quarter of it.”

“The history of Chronos?” Em questioned.

“Wait,” Michael said. “The Skroll has information about the Infinityglass and Chronos. It doesn’t belong to Chronos, or Teague should’ve been able to open it. So who does it belong to?”

“There’s another answer,” Dune said. “But I don’t like it.”

Em looked at Michael, and then me. “Jack.”

I stood. “It’s time to tell my dad about the Skroll.”

Chapter 41

I

’d been keeping so much from Dad. Jack’s appearances, Lily’s ability, the Skroll. I was going to be in a world of hurt when I spilled my secrets.

Since I was pretty sure Dad was going to kill me, Em offered to take Lily home. I left her at the pool house.

After a few good-bye kisses, of course.

He wasn’t upstairs or in his office. I finally spotted him in the sunroom, his back to the glass doors. When I opened them, he jumped and clamped his fingers down on the edge of the blanket he’d wrapped around himself.

Something was way off.

Not just the stoop of his shoulders, or the way he sat still, especially without a book in his hands. Since my dad had come back home, one thing had been constant. His ache for my mother.

It was gone.

I wanted to run. Instead, I stepped around the front of the couch.

“Dad?” I asked cautiously. “What are you doing out here?”

He remained still, his expression blank. I focused on his face.

Saw that he wasn’t in there. What was left sat on the couch in front of me, fingertips picking at the threads of the blanket. I could barely breathe, barely move. I dropped to my heels and put my hands on top of his.

A seeping black hole of nothing. It was what Em must have been like after Jack Landers took her memories and left her to recover in a mental hospital—what my mom would be if I could break through the wall that separated us. So empty and so, so dark.

Jack had robbed my father, and he hadn’t put anything in place of what he’d taken.

I fought to keep my voice steady. “Dad?”

He blinked a few times. “Kaleb?”

He knew me. A tiny spark of hope flashed under the surface. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me. What happened?”

“You’re so … big. I don’t know how you got to be … you’re a man, not a child.” His voice was frail, more like an eighty-year-old man’s than my father’s. How would I take care of him? How could I fix this?

“It’s okay, Dad,” I lied. “It’ll all be okay.”

“Nothing looks like it’s supposed to. I know this house, but not why I’m in it. It’s like my world stopped, but the rest of you went on … your mother. She’s upstairs in a room … there are machines. She won’t wake up.”

I swallowed the tears that burned in my throat. “What’s the last thing you remember, Dad? About me?”

“Middle school, your first day. It didn’t go well. I talked to Cat about starting an Hourglass school—even if there were just a few students and private tutors at first. For you. For kids who’d struggled the way we did.”

The first day of middle school had ripped me wide open. It had started the second I stepped on the school bus in the morning until I got off it again in the afternoon. It had been so important to me to attend school with my friends. The earlier grades had been easy— my mom was kind to my teachers and they gave me a little extra room when I got too emotional. They were always so impressed with how much sympathy I had when someone’s feelings were hurt, but less so when I latched on to someone’s anger or fear.

The middle school had twice as many students as the elementary school, and way more hormones. I’d done all I could on that first day, determined to make it work, but the second I’d seen my house come into view, my mom waiting anxiously at the end of the driveway, I’d lost it.

I’d managed to hold off the worst of the crying until the bus had pulled away. She held me there until I stopped.

She applied for homeschool status the next morning.

A month later, we’d all moved to Ivy Springs, and the Hourglass had been born.

“Five years, Michael. He’s lost five years.” I stared out the window into the cold, gray morning.

Usually by this point in the fall, my mom had cut back the monkey grass lining her flower beds, pruned her rosebushes just so, and mulched every plant in sight to help them survive the winter. All I saw this year were frostbitten petals and wilted leaves.

I’d called Michael for help, and he’d dispersed the crowd and come up to the main house by himself. We’d spent all night trying to help Dad remember anything, but we’d only upset him. Finally, he’d yelled, told us both to go away. Locked himself in the bedroom with Mom.

I’d sat outside their closed door, listening to him cry himself to sleep, my knees pulled up to my chest like I was a little kid. I’d wanted to call Lily, just to hear her voice. But I couldn’t. What would I tell her? What would I tell everyone else?

“We’ll make it better,” Michael said, breaking into my thoughts. “We’ll fix—”

“Don’t tell me we’ll fix this. I don’t know how we can. I can’t make Jack give them their memories back.” If Jack had wanted to break me, he’d succeeded. I had no family left. I was alone. I fought against the desolation that threatened to overwhelm me. “Even if we do manage to find Jack before Chronos does, we’ll have to turn him over. Mom’s and Dad’s memories go with him.”

“We’ll find the Infinityglass before Jack does, use them both as leverage,” Michael argued. “We’ll hold him, make Chronos leave him with us if we hand the Infinityglass over, and we’ll find a way to force him to restore your parents’ memories.”

“We might as well accept the truth.” I spun around to face him. “Jack’s beaten us. He’s won.”

“You still have options.”

My lips stretched over my teeth in a grim smile. “I can’t ask Lily. There are reasons.”

It would put her in the direct path of danger. Abi had said people were watching. I believed her.

I didn’t want to lose anyone else.

“I don’t think you have a choice.” Michael started to lower himself into my dad’s empty office chair, but he stopped and stared at it. Not willing to take Dad’s place. “Lily’s going to have to be involved, whether it means she looks for Jack or for something else.”

“What else?”

“Lily could look for the Infinityglass.” Michael walked around the desk and sat down in the armchair. “You need to talk to her, Kaleb. Tell her what’s going on with your dad. That things have changed. If she finds the Infinityglass … Poe said it could help set the continuum right without any consequences. Maybe it can fix all of this.”

I was so sick of false hope and almosts. So tired of Jack screwing with my life.

“I’m supposed to pin my hope on something that could be fictional?” I grabbed one of the hourglasses from Dad’s shelf and slammed it to the floor. “Something made of sand and glass?”

“Kaleb.”

“No. I want my parents back. I can’t make it happen. An object can’t make it happen.” I swept my arm across the shelf, knocking every hourglass over, breaking two more. “All of these represent a failed attempt. All the hourglasses in Teague’s office represent a failed attempt. What makes you think we’ll find the Infinityglass when all these people haven’t?”

“Faith. Stupidity. I don’t know.” Michael folded his hands over his chest and considered me. I felt his concern and love, and for the first time in a long time, it was welcome. “But there’s so much to lose. I’m on your side, brother. I’m here for you. It’s just the two of us now.”

“Not just the two of you,” Em said, from the door of the office. “We can do this, Kaleb. We can do it together, I know it. But I agree with Michael. You’re going to have to talk to Lily. She’s on your side, too.”