Timescape

  “That’s a lot of maybes,” David said. But Xander was probably right. He just didn’t want to think about it now.

  Xander grabbed the edge of the tub and hoisted himself up. David could tell he wasn’t happy.

  “The next thing that hits us might force us out of the house for good. Then what are we going to do about Mom?” Xander crossed the room. “Think about it, David. For Mom.” He stepped out and closed the door behind him.

  David stared at the door. He’s playing me, he thought. And he knows the exact buttons to push. He leaned back against the tub, determined to find the peace his brother had disrupted. But the water had cooled and his heartbeat wasn’t slowing and his brother’s concerns had invaded his mind.

  Aaaahhhh! He slapped the water and yanked on the chain that unplugged the drain.

  CHAPTER

  eighteen

  WEDNESDAY, 9:00 P.M.

  “Can’t we at least go see Jesse?” David said.

  Xander, Toria, David, and Dad were sitting around the dining room table, the remnants of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup in front of them. Though Toria had set a plate and bowl out for Nana, their grandmother was still asleep upstairs. Toria had also remembered to put a place setting down for Mom. Dad had told them it was a way of honoring a missing loved one and anticipating her return, but it only made David sad, and Xander even more agitated.

  Dad said, “Not tonight, Dae. We’ll see how things look in the morning. When Keal called, Jesse was just getting wheeled into the emergency room. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “But he’s going to be all right?”

  “He’s in good hands, Dae.”

  David scratched his cast. After his bath, Dad had wrapped an Ace bandage around it to keep it from falling apart. But under all that crumbling plaster, his skin tingled and itched like a thousand mosquito bites.

  He pushed a piece of crust across his plate. Despite being sick with worry for Jesse, he had wolfed down more than he thought he could. The whole family had eaten like starving dogs. All that exertion, he guessed, like how hungry he always was after a hard practice.

  A knock sounded at the door. They all jumped and looked at each other. David was getting tired of being so jumpy. It was like getting zapped with a cattle prod every time you relaxed.

  Dad got up. Xander pushed back from the table, but Dad pointed at him and said, “Wait here.” He went into the foyer.

  “If it’s Taksidian, I’m going to pound him,” Xander whispered.

  David prayed it wasn’t for a million reasons, not the least of which was the image of Taksidian’s clawlike fingernails slashing at his brother.

  They heard the door open and Dad mumbling something.

  A deep voice answered.

  Dad and Keal walked into the dining room.

  David almost jumped up. He said, “How is he? How’s Jesse?”

  Keal shook his head. “Can’t tell you, David. After they rushed him into a treatment room, a nurse started asking questions. You know, who is he, who am I, how’d he get hurt, when’d it happen. I realized that was a can of worms I didn’t want to open. None of it would affect the care Jesse got, but it could bring a lot of grief down on you guys. You’re having enough trouble staying in the house. Last thing you need is an attempted murder here.” He looked at Dad. “I assume you’re not ready to leave.”

  “We’re not,” Dad said. He locked eyes with Xander. “Not till we get Mom back.”

  “I went to use the bathroom,” Keal continued. “When I came out, I slipped away.”

  “You just left him?” David felt like he’d been punched.

  “Had to,” Keal said.

  David thought Keal looked as sad as anyone could look. He knew Keal loved the old man. He wouldn’t have left him unless he felt he had no other choice. Still . . . “Shouldn’t someone be there for him?” David said.

  “They’re taking care of him,” Keal said. “We’ll figure out a way to keep tabs on his condition later.”

  Dad said, “No way they can trace him back to us?”

  Keal shook his head. “I didn’t give them any information.”

  Dad patted Keal on the back and headed for his seat. As he passed Nana’s setting, he gestured toward it. “Hungry?”

  Toria, ever the hostess, said, “That’s Nana’s, but she’s sleeping. You can have it.”

  Keal dropped into the seat, nodding his thanks. Half of a sandwich disappeared into his mouth.

  Xander pushed his plate away, crossed his arms on the table, and dropped his head on them. He said, “I wish we’d never come here.”

  David couldn’t tell if Xander was finally feeling his exhaustion or if he was taking a jab at Dad for bringing them to Pinedale and into the house on purpose. Xander had been furious about it, once Mom had been taken and the King kids had found out that Dad had known about the portals all along. Xander had claimed to be over it, but with everything getting worse and their inability to find Mom as quickly as they’d hoped, David thought it was a wound Xander had opened up again.

  Dad said, “Me too, Xander. Me too.”

  “But then we wouldn’t have found Nana!” Toria said.

  Xander lifted his head as if to say something, but apparently thought better of it. David could have guessed what was on his brother’s mind: Was finding Nana worth losing Mom? Was it worth risking our own lives time and time again? Was it worth Jesse’s injury?

  David closed his eyes. Were these things he thought Xander would think . . . or did he, David, think them? He didn’t want to think that way, weighing the value of one person’s life over another’s. He supposed that was the way of things, though: Parents cared more for their own kids than other people’s, even if they were compassionate for everyone. Kids felt the same for their parents. Families—weren’t they the ties that bind? Blood thicker than water, and all that. But nothing was that simple. After all, Nana was family. So was Jesse.

  He said, “Dad, do you know what Jesse meant when he said we were gatekeepers?”

  Dad squinted at him. “He said that?”

  “When we first met him,” Xander confirmed. “Right here at this table. You were in jail.”

  “I don’t know,” Dad said. “Maybe it has something to do with keeping people like Taksidian from using the portals. Jesse said he thought the destruction we saw in the future world was Taksidian’s doing.”

  “That’s why he wants us out of the house,” Xander said. “So he can use it.”

  Dad said, “Like he probably has been doing all these years. He’s never lived here. You can tell by what the house looked like when we moved in. It was just the way my father, sister, and I left it thirty years ago.”

  “Why didn’t he just buy it?” Xander said.

  Dad shook his head. “Can’t. I found out when I inquired about buying it that the house is deeded to a trust in the family name. Only people in our family tree can live here. I had all the right paperwork to prove who we were.”

  Keal cleared his throat. He said, “ ’Course Taksidian could get it condemned so no one could ever live in it. If he could prove it’s too dangerous for people.”

  “It is,” David said.

  “But for reasons I’m sure he’s not going to reveal,” Keal said. “Like you, he doesn’t want anyone to know about the portals, not if he’s planning to use them. He just wants it empty.”

  “Well,” Dad said, “that’s not going to happen.” He turned to Keal. “Jesse said what we found in the future, the destroyed city—most likely, a destroyed world—is Taksidian’s doing. Did he tell you anything that would shed some light on that, like why Taksidian would do that, or what he’s up to that leads to it?”

  “Nothing,” Keal said. “I can’t imagine somebody intentionally wiping out the world.”

  “Maybe it’s not intentional,” Dad said. “Doesn’t matter.

  What’s important is that it does happen. We know it. We saw it. We have to find a way to stop him.”


  “We need to figure out what he’s up to,” Xander said.

  “How?” David said.

  “We turn the tables,” Xander said. “We go after him.”

  CHAPTER

  nineteen

  WEDNESDAY, 9:27 P.M.

  Yep, David thought, his brother was losing it. Go after Taksidian. Sounded good, in a Bruce Willis or Matt Damon kind of way, but: “How?” David said.

  He glanced around the table at the faces all turned toward Xander. It appeared that even Dad and Keal were interested in the answer.

  Xander said, “Find out where he lives, what he does for a living, what other things he is up to—besides terrorizing us, I mean. Maybe we’ll find something that will put the pressure on him for a change, get him to back off.”

  “Or come at us with an army or something,” David said.

  “Like he hasn’t already? Come on, there’s gotta be something. Dad, you know, the best defense is a good offense, right?”

  “Well . . .” Dad said, thinking.

  Keal nodded. “He does seem to be coming at you with guns blazing. Wouldn’t hurt to try to find something to throw back at him.”

  “Like a hand grenade,” David said. “You don’t happen to have one, do you?”

  Keal smiled. “Figuratively, maybe we can find one, if we can dig up some dirt on the guy.” He eyed Xander. “And Xander, for you the operative word in that sentence is figuratively. Don’t go trying to get your hands on any weapons.”

  Xander’s face said that he was either insulted that Keal felt the need to tell him that or disappointed that real bombs weren’t involved in the plan.

  “Wait a minute,” David said. “You’re the guy who led us right into those creatures today. Of course you’re going to say, ‘Let’s charge Taksidian.’ That’s what you’d do.”

  Keal shrugged. “It worked,” he said.

  “Barely,” David said weakly. It was hard to argue with success.

  “ ‘Barely’ is the difference between sitting at this table now

  . . . and not,” Keal said.

  “Okay, then,” Xander said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Do what?” Toria said.

  For a moment Xander looked as perplexed as Toria did. Then he said, “Computers. We can tap into all kinds of databases. Like the movie War Games . . . or Eagle Eye. I bet we can find out the brand of his underwear!” He looked around the table and offered a little shrug. “If we wanted to.”

  “That’s how it’s done,” Keal said, nodding. “One puzzle piece at a time. Before you know it, you have something you can act on. Sometimes.”

  “We can ask around too,” Xander continued, his eyes wide with excitement. “See what people know. And, and . . . why not confront him? We can go to him and—”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Keal said, holding his hand up. “We have to remember this is one bad dude.” He grabbed his index finger. “Anyone who—” He stopped, looked around, lowered his hands.

  “What?” David said. He knew there was something more, something Keal wasn’t saying.

  “Nothing.” Keal looked down at his plate.

  Dad reached across the table and touched his arm. “Keal, if there’s something else . . . I think we need to know everything.”

  “He . . .” Keal said. “He took one of Jesse’s fingers.”

  Toria gasped and covered her mouth.

  “His finger?” David said. “Jesse’s finger?” The image in his head wasn’t of a missing finger, it was of a finger being cut off. The snap of the bone, the . . . Like Toria, he covered his mouth, but in his case it was to help him keep his sandwich down.

  Keal nodded. “It’s bad enough that Taksidian stabbed him.

  There’s something . . . I don’t know . . . more gruesome about taking the man’s finger.”

  “I thought there was something wrong with his hand when I lifted it,” Xander said. “But then I saw the blood and figured that was it, just a lot of blood.”

  They looked at each other, all of them apparently at a loss for words. When David felt that he had his stomach under control, he said, “Why would he do that?”

  Keal frowned. “When murderers do it, it’s called taking a trophy. It reminds them of their deed.”

  “That’s sick,” Toria said.

  “It goes beyond murder,” Keal agreed. “It indicates a sort of bloodlust, something the killer does, not out of some perceived need but because he likes it.”

  “We can’t stay,” Dad pronounced. “Not with someone like that after us.”

  “We’re not leaving,” Xander said. “You promised, and you just said it again, not five minutes ago.”

  “Xander—”

  “No! You said until we find Mom!”

  Dad sighed. “That was when we had only the portals and the people who came out of them to worry about. It’s different now.”

  “No!” Xander said again. “I knew this would happen. I knew you’d changed your mind! Just like Grandpa Hank did!”

  “I don’t want to leave, Xander,” Dad said, “but surely you can see that it’s too dangerous to stay. I just—” He shook his head. He looked like horses were pulling him in different directions.

  David was glad it was a decision he didn’t have to make: run from a cold-blooded madman and leave Mom, or stay and hope they could keep Taksidian from killing them.

  Keal cleared his throat. He touched a napkin to his lips. He said, “I know it isn’t my place to say anything, but . . .” He looked Dad square in the eyes, his face conveying sympathy, even shared pain. “You can’t leave,” he said. “You can’t. Not without your wife.” He took a deep breath. “And not after seeing the future.”

  Dad started to protest, and Keal patted the air between them in a calming gesture. “I know, I know. But maybe we can find Mrs. King and fight off Taksidian at the same time.”

  “And save the world,” Xander said.

  Keal looked at him. Something passed between them that bent their lips into smiles. Keal let out a short laugh. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  He swung his smile toward David, and David couldn’t help but smile back.

  “What’s crazy is smiling about it,” David said.

  “Absolutely,” Keal said, showing all his teeth. He lowered and raised his head in an exaggerated nod. “My mama used to say, when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, laugh. I don’t know why it is we’re here, in this impossible situation, but I do believe we can make anything better.” He turned back to Dad. “If we try.”

  Xander slapped David on the back. He said, “That’s your cue, Dae.”

  David smiled and said, “Let’s do it.”

  CHAPTER

  twenty

  WEDNESDAY, 9:33 P.M.

  David knew his father’s heart. If there were any way they could stay, they would. Dad looked at Keal a long time, then at each of them in turn. He stopped on Xander and said, “All right. We stay. But we’re going to have to fortify this place.”

  Xander said, “Locks everywhere. Cameras. An alarm system. Whatever it takes.”

  “And a plan to get the job done,” Keal said. He held up his index finger. “We have to keep Taksidian at bay. Maybe we can find out something about him that’ll help.” A second finger went up. “We have to find your mother.” Finger number three: “We have to do something about the future.”

  “What can we do?” David said. Keal might as well have told them they had to flap their arms and fly to the moon. But then, David thought, everything he thought he’d known about the world, about what was possible and what wasn’t, had pretty much gone out the window when they’d moved into the house. So far they’d teleported from a linen closet to a school locker miles away in a matter of seconds; they’d flown through the air and hovered forty feet above the ground; they’d fought gladiators and the German army; they’d traveled back in time and saved a little girl who in turn saved the world from smallpox. Keal’s list of tasks did sound crazy, but possible, doable.
r />   “One piece of the puzzle at a time,” Keal reminded him. “You got yourself a pretty cool command center upstairs.”

  “Mission Control Center,” Toria corrected.

  “The MC. Right,” said Keal. “Let’s start using it, really using it. We’ll gather everything we know about this house, the portals, Taksidian. Maybe something will pop out at us.”

  “I hope it’s not Phemus,” David said.

  Keal pointed at him. “Phemus . . . he’s another problem we gotta figure out. How do we keep him from coming into the house?”

  Okay, David thought. Anything else? An earthquake? The ground opening up and swallowing us? The plague?

  He didn’t say any of that, though. Instead he told Keal, “We already tried putting locks on the doors. The house tore them off.”

  Keal squinted at him, nodded. “Good to know,” he said. “Let’s gather everything together and make a plan.”

  “Nana,” Xander said. “She was on the other side—I guess that’s what you’d call it—for thirty years. She told Toria that she moved from one world to another. She’s gotta know a lot. We need to debrief her.”

  “Do what to her?” Toria said.

  “Talk to her,” Xander said. “Find out what she knows.”

  “I’ll bet Jesse knows more,” David said. “But he’s . . .” He let a frown finish for him.

  Xander seemed to remember something. He leaned over the table toward Keal. “Did you see the symbols Jesse wrote?”

  “The what?”

  “Hold on.” Xander hopped up, ran out of the room, and clambered up the stairs.

  “Symbols?” Keal asked Dad, who shook his head.

  A few moments later, Xander darted into the room. He slapped a pad of notebook paper on the table. “Okay, look,” he said. “Jesse wants us to do something. He wrote these symbols on the floor.”

  “On the floor?” David said. “How—”

  Xander’s look made him stop. Oh, he thought.

  They leaned in.

  “What are they?” Toria asked.

  “A house,” David said, pointing. “Is that an umbrella?”