Without another more urgent destination in mind, Nate drove to Limerick Court. He got out of his car, rang the doorbell twice, said, “Archmus, I am a friend indeed,” then rang the doorbell again. He heard the locks inside the door clicking.
Pushing open the front door, Nate entered the quiet house. He passed down the hall to the room where the Flatman lived, opened the door, and approached the basin where the fleshy pancake floated, fins curling languidly.
“Hi, Flatman,” Nate said. “You may not recognize me, but I’m Nate. I’ve been missing ever since Mr. Stott took me to find Gary yesterday. I take it Mr. Stott hasn’t been back.”
The larger eye blinked. One of the slits puckered.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Nate said. He glanced around, saw a small can of fish flakes, and shook several into the bowl as he talked. “Look, if you want to save Mr. Stott, and all of us, you have to tell him to give Nate the Grains of Time. Nate. I’m actually a fifth grader. And a boy. Anyhow, the Grains of Time are how I’m here now. Things are a mess. We were ambushed. If Mr. Stott hadn’t given me the sand, we’d already be sunk. I had the Grains of Time because you told him. So be sure to tell him. In the past. Got it?”
The eye blinked.
“Great. In this future, Mrs. White ended up drinking from the Fountain of Youth. Do you have any advice on how to stop her?”
The eye blinked twice.
“Thought I’d ask,” Nate said. “I’d better be going. I’ll be traveling back to the present to fix things soon. You sit tight.”
On his way out, Nate saw that it was 4:15. He trotted out to the Sentra. With only a few minutes left, he decided to check out the candy shop, see if that meeting was still in progress.
He drove down Greenway, but had to pull over and park before he reached Main. The intersection was thronged with fudge fanatics. Male and female, black and white, young, old, and middle-aged.
Nate got out of the car and joined the crowd. They were all pressing toward the Sweet Tooth Ice Cream and Candy Shoppe, trying to get nearer. Messages came percolating through the multitude, repeated from person to person.
“Linda said Tammy Speckler will be in charge of everyone who lives in Redwood Homes.”
“Linda said the next wave of fudge will be parceled out on Saturday!”
“Linda said if we work together we can accomplish anything.”
After hanging around at the edge of the mob for a few minutes, Nate gathered that they were gearing up to widen the distribution of white fudge to neighboring communities, with team leaders and awards for those who dispensed the most. The crowd seemed zealous to hear and obey Linda’s commands.
“I have an important message for Linda!” Nate cried in a strident voice.
His words flowed forward through the crowd. People craned to get a look at him as his words were repeated all the way to the front. The crowd parted around him, allowing him to walk into the store. He started to feel a little woozy, the same sensation that had preceded his departure from the past.
A young girl stood on the counter wearing a red dress and a ruffled white apron. A pink satin patch covered one eye. She wore white ribbons in her auburn hair, and had a light spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Pigeon was right—even with the patch, she was pretty cute.
“I hear you bring a message,” she said imperiously as Nate walked down the impromptu aisle.
Nate felt dizzy. He wanted to sit down. Instead, he glared at the little girl standing on the counter. “Belinda, enjoy this now, because none of it is ever going to happen.”
The girl frowned. “I’m Linda,” she said. “Who are you?”
“Somebody willing to do anything to prevent all of this.” Nate blinked several times. Blackness was creeping in from all directions.
“Too late,” the girl said, smirking. “Care for some fudge?”
“See you yesterday,” Nate said, looking at her through a tunnel.
The little girl’s eyes narrowed, and then widened. “You!” he heard her say as he fell backwards into darkness. He began to soar, and then slowed, feeling compressed, like he was folding in on himself. He had not experienced this uncomfortable sensation previously. Without form, Nate struggled. With a final burst of exertion that he could not explain, he was soaring again, leaving everything behind, dwindling into nothing.
Chapter Twenty
Yellow
“I should have warned you,” said the coyote embodiment of Mr. Stott. “You went to see Belinda, didn’t you?”
Nate nodded, back in the Candy Wagon, feeling unexpectedly weary. He wiped drool from his lips. “She won,” he mumbled. “She was young. She had control over everybody who had eaten the fudge.”
“You almost didn’t make it back,” the coyote said. “Belinda must not have realized who you were until the last moment; otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Having regained her youth, she had become the most powerful magician in history. Puissant enough to override any enchantment of mine. I should have forewarned you to avoid her. I did what I could to pull from this end. You were thrashing around and foaming at the mouth.”
“Can she still get to us?” Nate asked.
“You were visiting a possibility,” the coyote said. “Now that you’re back, the possibility does not yet exist. You should be safe for the moment. Just make sure you stop her.”
“Now I have to eat the yellow,” Nate said.
“Right. Did you learn what you needed?”
“I don’t know. I hope so. I know how Mrs. White succeeded. I’m still working out the details of how to prevent everything from happening the same. I’m not sure if this is something I can do, Mr. Stott.”
“You have to try,” the coyote said. “You’ve come this far, Nate. At least you have a chance of stopping her. You’ve already done better than most people would have. Try to stay calm. During the drive back into town you’ll have to try to piece everything together and come up with a plan.”
“We’ll see,” Nate said, shaking his head. “The magic guarding the water from the Fountain of Youth makes people age. Pigeon looked like he was in his eighties. If that happens again, could he be cured?”
“Aging due to a spell is different from natural aging,” the coyote said. “It would be beyond my capabilities, but I know that some types of aging magic can be reversed.”
“I’ll try to keep it from happening in the first place,” Nate said.
“You need to eat the yellow sand promptly, but let me explain a thing or two first,” the coyote said. “This magic does not produce clones. It will divide you into three linked manifestations of the same individual. If one gets hurt, they all suffer the same injury, because they are the same person. If one uses magic candy, they will all exhibit the effects. If one self uses a certain candy while another self ingests a different treat, you risk the side effects of mixing magic.”
“Will my candy be linked also?” Nate asked.
“Yes, the same way you are,” the coyote said. “Everything the yellow sand splits into three is connected. You will not triple your candy supply. If one of your selves eats a particular candy, the corresponding candy will vanish from the other two selves as it is chewed and digested. If you use up the magic of a candy and spit it out, the other two corresponding candies will become useless.”
“And you said before that I can’t keep anything I find, because only linked items will teleport with me when my selves reunite,” Nate said.
“I think you’ve got the idea,” the coyote said. “Hurry and finish the sand. You may want to go outside—it will get cramped in here with two more of you.”
Nate held up the hourglass, examining the sphere of yellow sand trapped in the central chamber. “Do I break the glass to get it out?”
“We merged the yellow sand into a solid lump to keep the rest of the sand separate. You’ll find that the glass is edible—just chew it all up and swallow. Nate, this is a tough assignment. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Nate
said. “I’ll do my best.”
With the Candy Wagon on its side, the passenger door was facing the sky. Hanging the hourglass chain back around his neck, Nate unclipped his seatbelt, stood on the side of his seat, and pushed the door open. He boosted himself up onto the side of the truck, surprised by how far away the brushy ground looked.
Nate crouched and dropped into the brush, rolling when he struck the dirt to help break the fall. The glass portion of the hourglass did not feel edible, but, trusting Mr. Stott, Nate put it in his mouth and chewed it up. The glass was sugary, like fragile rock candy. The sourness of the yellow sand made his mouth pucker.
As Nate swallowed, he realized that he was staring at two other exact replicas of himself who were also swallowing. In unison, the three Nates raised a hand, waved, and said, “Hi.”
They laughed at the simultaneous action, and then all together said, “It’s going to be fun working with such studly guys.”
Again the three Nates laughed. “Seriously,” they said. “We better get going.”
The three Nates all ran toward the bushes where they had hidden the Explorer. “I hope it’s still there,” they all said.
“We need to stop speaking all at once,” they complained, chuckling at how they couldn’t get out of sync. “Great minds think alike,” they muttered.
Racing around to the back of the bushes, they found the Explorer parked where they had left it. The tires had sunk into the ground a little, but otherwise the vehicle looked fine. They crouched together. The nearest Nate poked a finger into the tailpipe and retrieved the keys.
“We need to figure out a way to tell ourselves apart,” they all said. “How about the Nate holding the keys is number one? Okay, sounds good.”
“You’ll be Two,” One said, pointing. “And you’ll be Three. Remember, we’re all the same guy. We need to trust that about each other as we split up.” Nate thumbed the unlock button twice. “I’ll drive.”
“Shotgun,” the other two Nates called simultaneously.
“Two, you take shotgun,” One said.
They loaded into the SUV, and One started the engine. “The pedals are a lot harder to reach,” One said, adjusting the seat as much as possible.
“Need me to work the pedals?” Two asked.
“I think I can manage,” One said, backing out from the bushes, stretching to both reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel. “We’re not tall, but we’re not tiny.”
“Do we all have the same plan in mind?” Three asked.
“What are you thinking?” One and Two inquired.
“We’ll probably want to split up to make the most of our advantage,” Three said. “One of us should go to the school to meet up with Pigeon and try to make that turn out better, hopefully ending up with the goblet.” One and Two nodded.
“Another of us should go to the candy shop,” Three continued. “We know that Mauricio and Wyatt will both be gone, along with Denny, Eric, and Kyle. While they’re away, we might have a chance to free Summer and John, which could create a second chance to intercept the goblet if the Nate at the school fails.”
“Still with you,” the other Nates said.
“And, as I know we’ve been thinking, the last of us should go home and use a Mirror Mint to try to save Trevor.”
“It’ll be risky,” One said, guiding the SUV along the dirt road. The road was significantly more rutted than when he had driven the Explorer along it earlier. The rains must have caused the erosion.
“We have two mints,” Two said. “We use one to get into the mirror, and give Trevor the other to get out.”
“And we hope that by having two of us outside the mirror, the one inside will teleport out when we reunite at a central point,” Three concluded.
“We have to try,” they all said.
“Who goes where?” Three asked.
“Let’s go by number, in the order you laid out the plan,” One said. “I’ll go to the school, Two will lurk around the Candy Shoppe, and Three will go into the mirror.”
“Not that the mirror is the riskiest part,” Three grumbled.
“They’re all risky,” Two said. “If any of us get hurt, we all get hurt.”
“What if being in the mirror keeps me from getting drawn back to you guys when we’re supposed to reunite?” Three said. “I could exist as a Nate duplicate trapped in the mirror forever. I’m just as much Nate as you guys!”
“I bet we’ll either all get sucked into the mirror, or you’ll get sucked out,” One speculated.
“Easy to say when you’re not the guy in the mirror,” Three muttered. “One of us has to take the risk—I’ll do it. But if I end up stuck in there, you guys better never rest until you get me out.”
“We won’t,” One and Two promised.
“I know you won’t,” Three sighed. “I wouldn’t.”
“We should drop off One first,” Two said. “He most needs to be early. Then drop me off near the store, then Three can take the car home.”
“Sounds like a plan,” One said. “I’ll drive to the back of the school. I don’t want to risk being spotted by entering from the front.”
“Let’s spend some time thinking separately about our own missions,” Two said.
“Good idea,” One and Three agreed.
The truck bounced along the rutted road for a while in silence.
“Are we getting close to the paved road?” Three asked.
“Not far,” One said.
They continued for some time without speaking.
“I thought up a joke,” Three announced. “Want to hear it?”
“You’re supposed to be planning for your mission,” Two said.
“My mission is easy,” Three said. “Go into the mirror, give Trevor the candy, and wait.”
“There’s Gold Coast Drive,” One said as the street came into view.
“What has three heads, six arms, and half a brain?” Three asked.
One and Two answered in unison. “Nate Sutter.”
*****
“I’ve never actually bitten anyone,” Diego said. “I mean, I’ve fantasized about it, but now that I might have to actually do it, the thought makes me a little squeamish.”
“You’ll do great,” Pigeon said, patting his Labrador reassuringly as they hurried up the ramp at the rear of Mt. Diablo Elementary.
“Most of my food isn’t much more than meaty porridge,” the dog said. “I’m not complaining, it tastes good, but it doesn’t really test my teeth. Do you think I could break skin?”
“For sure,” Pigeon said. “You just need more confidence. Don’t you think I’m worried too? How am I supposed to succeed where everybody else failed? But we have to give it a shot. The bad guys will probably show up here soon to claim their treasure. We have the element of surprise on our side. If we’re stealthy, we might find a way to stop them.”
“I can do stealthy,” Diego assured him. “You wouldn’t believe how many birds I’ve almost caught.”
Pigeon knelt just before they reached the top of the ramp. He held out some Brain Feed in his palm. “You better have a little more,” Pigeon said. “I don’t want you to relapse.”
Diego ate the kibbles. “You say I get all slobbery and stop responding to your commands?”
“Pretty much,” Pigeon said. “Without the Brain Feed, your only tricks are sit and shake. And I have to help you shake by grabbing your paw.”
“Funny, I can’t picture that. If you say so.”
“Don’t let me forget to give you more in a few minutes,” Pigeon said.
They arrived at the top of the ramp to find Nate racing toward them. Nate stopped running and waved his arms.
Pigeon rushed over to greet Nate. “Am I glad to see you!” Pigeon gushed.
“Me too,” Nate said. “I was starting to worry I’d missed you. I’ve been searching all over.”
“Where are Summer and John?” Pigeon asked.
“They were captured,” Nate said. “Only
I got away. I have a lot to explain. Where were you going to wait for the bad guys?”
“We were planning to set up a stakeout over by the Dumpster,” Diego said, making Nate jump.
“Forgot about the talking dog,” Nate said. “Okay, you two didn’t get caught there last time, so that sounds good.” They started walking across a playing field toward the front of the school.