“Where were you?” Corey shouted.
“I went to get more firewood, so we wouldn’t, you know, freeze to death.”
“You could’ve woken us!” said Corey. “Ruby thought you’d been eaten by a shark.”
“I didn’t,” said Ruby, drying her tears. “I just thought something bad might have happened.”
“I don’t think these waters are actually shark infested,” said Matt. “And anyway, I think it would be a bit difficult for a shark to attack me on the beach.”
“Har, har,” said Corey. “You scared us half to death, you know! Next time have the decency to at least wake us and let us know where you’re going.”
Something cold seeped into Matt’s veins. The bond he’d felt with his siblings so strongly the night before seemed to suddenly fracture. “I don’t have to tell you anything,” said Matt. “You’re not my mother.”
“But Mom and Dad told us to stick together, no matter what,” said Ruby. “You can’t just leave us like that.”
Something snapped inside Matt, and he exploded. “Mom and Dad are not here!” he shouted. “They might not even be born yet! And in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re stranded on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. We’re about as stuck together as we can get!” He dropped the firewood in the sand and went to the rock where he’d left the matches and water, only to find the water bottle was half empty. He whirled around.
“Who drank all this?” said Matt.
“We were thirsty,” said Corey.
“This is our last water!” said Matt.
“What do you mean?” said Ruby. “There were at least a dozen in the raft.”
“Yeah well, the tide came in last night and carried all of it away, including the raft. While you were sleeping so peacefully, I swam out and saved the raft, and found this water bottle, but that’s it.”
“You mean . . . we have no food?” said Ruby, her face going pale.
“Go fish,” said Matt, gesturing to the ocean. He grabbed the water bottle and walked away, along the shoreline. He plopped down right in the wet sand, opened the water bottle, and took a long drink, taking it down to a quarter. He didn’t care. His head pounded even harder and tears burned in his eyes. He pushed them back. He couldn’t afford to waste the water. Oh, what did it matter? They were going to die here. They’d become skeletons, just like the guy beneath the boat. The tears spilled over, rolled down his cheeks, and fell to the sand. Their parents would never know what happened to them. No . . . their parents would never even remember them. Corey and Ruby would never have been born to their parents. They would never adopt Matt. Their mom and dad would have other children, completely unaware that they’d ever had any others. They were like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan. Two Lost Boys and a Lost Girl.
He stared out at the ocean, focusing on the blue horizon and the water glistening in the sunshine. It would have been a beautiful sight on the Vermillion. Now all Matt could think was how the sun would just make him hot and suck up all the water in his body. He was already thirsty.
It had all seemed like such a grand adventure on the Vermillion, being a time pirate, going on missions. He had felt big and important for a moment, but no more. They were time pirates no longer. They’d been discarded. They were castaways now. Time castaways.
Matt began to draw idly in the sand with his finger. Circles within circles, arrows, symbols, numbers. After a while he realized he was drawing the Obsidian Compass, the details pouring from his memory into his fingers. He brushed his hands over the sand, erasing the drawings. He turned his attention back to the horizon, the sun now lowering in the sky. It must be late afternoon now. His stomach growled with hunger and his head was now throbbing.
“Matt!” Ruby was running toward him. Matt stood abruptly.
“What is it?” Matt said. “Is Corey okay?”
Ruby reached him, completely out of breath. “You have to come see . . . ,” she gasped. She didn’t seem scared or worried. She seemed excited. “Hurry!”
Matt ran after Ruby. She led him back to their campsite, then around the tip of the island to the other side, near the place where Matt had gathered firewood. Maybe they’d found the skeleton.
Corey was crouched down in the sand, looking at something. When Matt approached, he stood and backed away, as though whatever it was belonged to Matt. Matt understood why when he saw. There were words written in the sand.
YOU KNOW HOW TO CALL THE COMPASS, MATEO.
Matt stared and stared. This had to be some kind of joke. “Did you write this?” he finally asked, looking between Corey and Ruby.
“I swear I didn’t,” said Corey. “Ruby found it first.”
“I think it’s from Dad!” said Ruby. “Somehow he found out where we are, and he came and left this message.”
Matt bent down in the sand and inspected the message more closely. The sand was wet, and he could still see the finger grooves in the words. “It’s not from Dad,” he said. “It’s from me.”
“Oh,” said Corey, clearly disappointed. “I guess we got excited for nothing, Ruby. Matt was just talking to himself in the sand.”
“I mean it’s from future me.”
“Future you?” said Corey. “How do you know?”
“Look at the M,” said Matt. “It’s my M, just like the one in the mast.” He traced the letters. A wave of dizziness crashed into him. This had to have been done very recently, within hours, otherwise the tide would have washed it out. He could almost sense the forememory of writing the words. He even thought he sensed himself, or the essence of his future self. It was a crazy feeling, like he’d been split in two, and yet each part was the same thing.
“Why didn’t you rescue us, then?” said Corey. “If future you was here, why didn’t you get us off of this stinking island?”
“He couldn’t do that,” said Ruby. “You can’t meet yourself, remember? That would have caused a glitch for certain, maybe even a big one, like a hurricane or something, depending on how old he was when he came.”
“He could have at least left us some food and water,” said Corey. “Seriously, I can’t stand you, future Mateo. You send messages to help the captain, who’s clearly our enemy, and now you’re sending us cryptic messages that don’t help us at all! If future Mateo were here, I would punch him in the face. Or should I just do it now as a preemptive strike?”
Matt couldn’t blame Corey. He didn’t understand his future self at all and even felt quite frustrated with his future self. It was a really bizarre feeling.
“So what does this mean?” Ruby asked. “Why does it say you know how to call the compass?”
Matt reached for his bracelet, his brain doing somersaults. He remembered the Mets game and the strange, glitchy showing of time. He’d convinced himself it had been a figment of his imagination. But now, seeing this message, he began to wonder if it had been something more than even he had imagined.
“My bracelet . . . ,” he said, rubbing over the stone. He suddenly felt as though it were warming at his touch. “I think it’s connected to the compass somehow.”
“How do you know?” Ruby asked.
“Remember the Mets game? Remember how after we saw Dad we caused a glitch and changed the game? I think maybe I saved it somehow, or my bracelet did. It caused that glitch that led to Bill Buckner missing the ball. I think when I was pumping my fist in the air, I somehow triggered something that shifted time and space just enough to cause a ripple.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Ruby asked.
“Because I wasn’t sure it really happened,” said Matt. “I thought I was about to black out. I think I actually might have for a moment. Everything got really slow and weird. It was almost like the whole stadium, or earth, was shifting beneath our feet, right at the moment when Bill Buckner missed the ball, and then the next thing I knew the game was over.”
Matt paused for Corey and Ruby’s reactions. They were both just staring at him. He couldn’t tell what they t
hought.
“Anyway,” he went on. “It might have just been some freaky thing that can’t be explained. Even if I did cause it with my bracelet, I’m not sure how this can help us now. I mean, I didn’t call the compass to me then, did I?”
“Maybe you did, and you just didn’t know it,” said Ruby. “The compass was right next to you when it happened, wasn’t it? Maybe that’s why it only caused a tiny glitch. It wasn’t far enough away in time or space to do anything too big. But what if you did the same thing when the compass was a farther distance from you in time and space? What if you could call the compass, wherever it is, and make it come to you?”
Matt’s mind raced. Could he have done that before? He thought of Wiley’s record book, all the times the Vermillion had traveled to New York. What if it hadn’t been the captain using the compass to get there? What if Matt had unwittingly been calling the compass to him with his bracelet?
“Well, there’s no harm in trying,” said Matt, untying his bracelet.
“Wait,” said Corey, grabbing onto Matt’s wrist. “Say we get the Vermillion to come to us? Then what?”
“We have to steal the compass and get ourselves home,” said Matt.
“That sounds awesome,” said Corey. “Except we don’t know how to use the compass, do we?”
“I think I do,” said Matt.
“You think?” said Ruby.
“I’m pretty sure. I paid attention when we traveled. I really wanted to know how the compass and ship worked, so it’s been sort of a hobby to figure it out, I guess. Here, I’ll show you.”
Matt knelt down in the sand and drew three circles within each other, then the notches and symbols.
“The center of the compass is much like a regular compass,” he said, pointing. “North, south, east, west, three hundred and sixty degrees. That’s how you determine where you are traveling. You only have to know the coordinates of where you want to go. But the outer dials have to do with time.”
“That makes sense,” said Ruby. “They have twelve notches, like a clock or the months of the year.”
“But which is which?” said Corey. “Probably not gonna help if we mix up our months with our hours or years.”
“Right, but there are symbols around the compass too.” He drew the Chinese characters he’d seen on the compass. “I didn’t know what these meant at first, but I’ve been studying Chinese with Jia. This character is specific for time as it relates to broader time, like years and centuries, but this character relates to more specific times, like months, days, and hours. It’s like a clock, a very sophisticated one. A clock has twelve notches, but they can mean two things at once, depending on the hand that’s pointing to it.”
“But there’s only one needle,” said Corey. “It doesn’t have two hands like a clock.”
“We don’t need two hands. The dials work like a combination lock. Each layer turns both ways.”
“Of course!” said Ruby. “This makes perfect sense.”
“So the very center dial determines place; it goes left for latitude, right for longitude. The second layer goes right for the century, then left for the year. The third layer you have to turn three times—left for month, right for day, left for time.”
“How do you distinguish between morning and night?” said Ruby. “There’s still only twelve numbers.”
Matt was stumped for a moment. He hadn’t thought of that particular detail.
“Maybe,” said Corey, “it’s like a locker combination? You know how you have to go a full round on the second number? So going a second round on the last turn of the dial could determine whether it’s a.m. or p.m.?”
Matt stared at his brother. “I never would have thought of that,” he said.
Corey tried to hide his smile, but Matt could tell he was pleased with himself.
Matt looked back at the drawing of the compass in the sand, going over every detail. “It all makes sense,” said Matt. “If we can get to the compass, we can get home.”
“Yes,” said Ruby, “but how do you expect to get to the compass, exactly? The captain has it chained to his wrist at all times. I doubt he’ll hand it over for us to have a look.”
“Yeah,” said Matt, rubbing at his bracelet. “I don’t know how to solve that one.” They all sat there, staring at the compass and message in the sand.
“We must figure it out somehow,” said Corey. “Future Matt wouldn’t have been able to put this message in the sand if we didn’t, right? And it’s not like we can wait around to figure it out. We’ve got no food or water.”
Matt looked to Ruby. As rash as it sounded, Corey was right. They were going to have to take a leap of faith and trust that they’d be able to get to the compass somehow.
“I guess there’s no point in waiting then,” said Ruby. “Go ahead, Matt.”
Matt took a breath and balled the bracelet up in his hand. At the game, he had been pumping his fist with the bracelet inside. He raised his fist in the air. Ruby and Corey watched Matt closely, which made him feel self-conscious and awkward. He began to punch the air over and over. Nothing happened.
“Maybe you need to do it harder,” said Corey.
“And faster,” Ruby added.
Matt tried again, trying to simulate the excitement and force he’d had at the game. He felt a slight tremor in the sand. The ocean waves seemed to slow and hush.
“Whoa,” said Corey, stumbling to the side a bit. Ruby grabbed Matt’s arm and looked around.
That was it. Matt was sure he’d done something, but was it enough to call the compass to them? He looked around for any sign of the captain or the Vermillion. Would they just appear?
“I think it needs to go faster,” said Ruby. “Maybe try twirling it?”
“Yeah, maybe wind it up tight and let it spin out,” said Corey. “Like one of those button spinners we used to make in preschool.”
Matt held the bracelet on both ends of the string. He wound it up as far as it would go, twisting each side until the twine was coiled tightly on either side of the stone. He took a breath. “Here goes,” he said. He yanked hard on both ends of the string. The stone spun, faster and faster. Even after the twine had all unraveled it continued to spin until it was a blur, until it glowed, and the glow intensified and moved outward.
Matt felt the heat on his face. He felt the ocean pulling and the world spinning beneath him. The sun fell from the sky, the moon shot up, and then they switched again, like some invisible giant were juggling them. The whole galaxy seemed to turn, revolving around Matt and his little stone.
And then it stopped. The light evaporated. The earth stilled. Matt was drained and dizzy. He saw the blurred faces of his brother and sister just before he collapsed in the sand.
“Matt? Wake up.”
Someone slapped at Matt’s cheeks. His eyes fluttered open. Two dark shapes hovered over him. He took in a breath and immediately choked on sand. He sat up, coughed and dry heaved.
“You okay, bro?” said Corey.
“Yeah,” Matt croaked, spitting the sand out of his mouth. He felt terrible. His head ached, and he was nauseated. He wondered if this was time sickness or just a lack of food. Maybe a bit of both.
He looked around. It looked like it was nearly nighttime, even though it had been early afternoon just moments before. The sun was dipping below the water. “How long was I out?” he asked.
“It seemed like just a few minutes,” said Ruby, “but it was crazy. It was like the earth was spinning ten times as fast. The sun fell from the sky and I thought the world was ending.”
Matt felt for his bracelet, but of course it wasn’t on his wrist. He looked around until he saw just the edge of it sticking out of the sand. He pulled it up. It was warm. It seemed to pulse in his palm. He must have caused an even bigger shift than he had at the Mets game.
“It was seriously way cooler than the solar eclipse we saw a couple years ago,” said Corey. “And look!” He pointed out to the water. In the distance, may
be two hundred feet from the shore, a black fin was jutting out of the ocean. It was attached to a much larger body, long and smooth, just barely peeking out of the water.
“A whale?” said Matt.
“That’s what Ruby thought too,” said Corey, “but look closer.”
Matt squinted and then saw that the fin was not a fin at all. It had some smaller spires attached to it, very industrial looking, like radio antennae. Matt breathed out. “It’s a submarine.”
“I thought it was maybe a Russian spy submarine at first,” said Corey, “like in The Hunt for Red October?” That was one of their dad’s favorite movies. They’d all watched it at one time or another. “But then Ruby spotted the symbol. See?” Corey pointed to the middle of the submarine, where there was a painted symbol, only half visible, but unmistakable. It was the compass arrows with the red V in the center.
“The Vermillion,” said Matt. It worked. He had called it back to them. “So . . . what do we do now?” asked Ruby.
“What do you mean?” said Corey. “We row out there and get on board!”
“Yeah, but Captain Vincent probably isn’t going to welcome us back on the ship,” said Ruby. “If we’re caught we’ll just get discarded again, and maybe someplace even worse than this.”
“He doesn’t need to know,” said Corey. “We can sneak on board.”
“And then what?”
“We don’t have time to figure out every little detail,” said Matt. “Corey’s right. For now we just need to get on board before someone sees us.”
“I guess if that’s the best we’ve got, that’s the best we’ve got,” said Ruby.
They prepared the raft, tossed in their backpacks, the empty water bottle, and matches, and prepared to row out. But before they left, Matt turned back to the spot where the message was written in the sand. He bent down and erased it. Somehow it felt necessary.
20
Stowaways
They took turns rowing. Two took paddles while the third kept a lookout to make sure no one had spotted them. Matt kept a close eye on the periscope as they rowed. It didn’t seem to be pointed toward them, and it was almost full dark, but who knew what other technology or power this submarine had. The captain could be watching them right now. They could be headed straight toward an ambush, but he didn’t think so. Somehow, he thought, the Vermillion was on their side.