Timescape (5 page)

More than the temperature
.
Shock. Fear.
“I know,” his father said.

“There was a lifeboat,” David said. “I wanted to get on, but they wouldn't let me. They just kept lowering it. They wouldn't let me on.”

“It's okay, son. I have something better. I have items from the antechamber, Dae. They'll lead us home.”

David blinked at him. “Really?”

He nodded and looked around. “We just have to get away from the ship. It's going to break in two any minute.”
And right about where we are
, he thought, but didn't say.

“But . . . but . . .”

“What, son?”

“Mom,” David said. His eyes were as wide as they had been when the spearman had pulled him into this world.

“What about her? We'll find her. We will. But we have to get back home first.”

“It's why I stopped here,” David said. “Dad, look!” He pointed to the wall beside him. Scrawled in what looked like lipstick was the King family mascot: Bob.

CHAPTER
ten

WEDNESDAY, 7:07 P.M.

Toria's arms were starting to ache from hugging Nana so tightly. She pushed her face into her grandmother's neck, getting it wet with tears. She didn't want to cry, but the more she tried to stop, the harder she sobbed. She hitched in ragged breaths, then let them out in wet mumblings: “I was so scared . . . I thought you were gone . . . and, and then that man showed up . . .”

When Dad had burst into the hallway, that horrible thing on his back, she'd been too stunned to call out at first. Finally, she had, and somehow Dad made it all better, as he did so often. Now that Nana was okay, it struck her just how weird her father's appearance was: Where had he come from, and were Keal and David and Xander with him? How had Keal gotten a gun? And what was that hideous creature on his back, and where had
it
come from?

That made her curious: where was it now?

She sniffed, said, “I'm just glad you're all right.” She lifted her face and brushed away the strands of Nana's hair clinging to it. Then she straightened to her full height, wiping at her eyes.

Nana smiled at her. She stroked Toria's cheek and said, “You're only nine? Are you
sure
?” She shook her head. “My son certainly raised a fighter.” She gripped Toria by the shoulders to look at her square on. “Toria,
thank you
.”

Toria smiled, a little shyly. She didn't feel like she'd done anything special. What was she supposed to do, watch the house eat Nana? Her eyes shifted to the open antechamber. The skin at the back of her neck tingled. If the doorway was a mouth, she wondered if it had been fed; is that what had made it stop pulling at Nana?

She spun her head around and saw Keal in the hallway, groaning as he rose to his feet. Where was everyone else?

“Dad?” she called to the door. “Xander! David!”

The creature wasn't screeching anymore, as it had been doing between bites at Dad's head and neck. Where was it? Where were
they
?

Nana was looking from her to the door, back to her. Toria could tell she was getting scared too.

“Dad!” Toria said.

A shadow slid over the door frame, and Xander stuck his head out. He frowned at her. “Dad went over,” he said. “David too.”

“Why?” Toria and Nana said in unison.

“I guess that creature pulled Dae over. Dad went after him.”

He looked
between
Toria and Nana, not at either of them. Toria knew her brother enough to know there was something he wasn't saying.

“What else, Xander?” she said. “What happened?”

“I'll go,” Keal's deep voice said behind her. He looked ready to do it, to go do whatever had to be done.

“No,” Xander said. “I promised Dad we'd wait.”

There's that look in his eyes again
, Toria thought.
He's not telling everything.

Keal looked over his shoulder. He stiffened. “Hey, what's the wheelchair doing up here?” he said. “Where's Jesse?” He turned wide eyes on them. “Anyone seen him? Jesse?”

“He was downstairs,” Toria said. “He came to help when Nana started to get pulled away. He tried to stop her from going, but I guess he had to let go.”

“I thought someone was with him,” Nana said. “When Jesse let go, someone else was there, in the hall. I thought it was you or Eddie. I was so panicked, I didn't think about it until now.”

Then it dawned on Toria: “Taksidian!” she said.

Keal started for the staircase. “Downstairs?”

“By my bedroom.”

“Wait!” Xander said, coming out of the antechamber. “He might still be here . . . waiting.” He looked back into the small room. “It can't change, right? The portal can't go away until they come back, can it?”

“I thought you knew that stuff!” Toria said.

He nodded. “It'll be okay.” He bit his lower lip. “Just in case, could you and Nana sit in here? Just for a minute?”

“Xander!” Toria yelled. “It tried to
eat
her!”

“Never mind,” he said, starting for Keal.

Toria grabbed his wrist. “What about Dad and Dae?” she said.

“I told you—”

“What else?” She raised her eyebrows.

His worried look grew deeper, became something like pain. He said, “It was wet and cold over there. I could feel it blowing in, and I saw Dad land in water.”

Toria nodded. She remembered the bitter chill blowing in when she'd approached the antechamber. He tried to shake off her hand, but she clenched it tighter. She said, “And?”

“One of the items he took,” her brother said. “It was a life preserver. It had the word
Titanic
on it.”

His eyes found Nana's, and Toria knew what he wanted: he hoped she would say something like,
Oh, that old thing? That's nothing. I've seen it before. Leads to a museum.

Nana didn't say that. She just stared, her face muscles tight.

Xander pulled himself free. “I'll be right back.” And he ran.

When Keal saw him coming, he disappeared through the landing doorway to shoot down the stairs.

“Nana?” Toria said.

“It'll be all right, dear.” Her eyes were on the antechamber. They didn't match her words. They said,
Maybe it won't be all right. Maybe nothing will be all right ever again.

CHAPTER
eleven

“We can't stay here, David,” Dad said. “The ship's going to break in half any minute now.”

David's teeth clattered. His entire body trembled with cold. It felt like he'd been sprayed down and put in a freezer. Dad didn't look much better. “But, D-D-Dad . . . B-B-Bob!”

They both looked at it. Smeared, shaky, incomplete.

“You,” Dad said, “you didn't draw it?”

“It w-w-was Mom. Had-had to be.”
Or Nana
, David thought. Had she ever been here? Had she been putting Bob on things for the same reason they had started do it, to let someone know she'd been there, to help them find her?

“If it was Mom,” Dad said, “she would have gotten into a lifeboat by now.” He stood, pulling David up with him. “We have to go. When the ship breaks up, it sinks right away. We can't be on it or even near it.” He tugged David toward the railing. “Hold this.” He gave him a life preserver. “It's from the house. If we get separated, it'll lead you to the portal home.”

David slipped the ring over his cast. He grabbed his father's life vest, one hand on the sleeve hole, the other on the collar. “Don't leave me,” he said. His breath turned into a cloud between them.

“I won't.” Dad wrapped an arm around David's waist and lifted him over the railing. “We'll go together.”

David kept holding on. It occurred to him that Dad might throw him over, then go back into the ship, looking for Mom. The prospect of being alone in the water with Dad inside a sinking ship, terrified him. But as soon as David was on the other side, his feet on the edge of the deck, Dad stepped over. He looked down. The water was twenty feet below, churning against the ship, rushing onto the decks below them.

Dad said, “On three . . .”

CHAPTER
twelve

WEDNESDAY, 7:09 P.M.

Xander moved down the stairs, right behind Keal. The man tromped over the collapsed walls, making them rock and rattle.

Xander followed, remembering how Phemus—the huge brute who'd taken Mom—had pushed down the walls like they were dominoes. Then he'd come after them—Xander, David, and Toria. If Keal had not come and fought Phemus off, they'd be dead for sure.

So many close calls. He didn't know if he should be angry that the house and whatever made it tick were out to get them—or glad that it seemed Someone was protecting them.

“Jesse?” Keal called and rounded the corner into the main second-floor hallway. “Jesse!”

Xander felt his spine grow cold. That last call wasn't an inquiry; it was a cry of anguished concern. In a movie, it was the scream that signaled serious trouble. He didn't have to see it to know Keal had found Jesse, and it wasn't good.

He stopped before he reached the corner. He pressed his palms against the wall, lowered his head, and closed his eyes.

Breathe
, he thought.
Just breathe.

Keal's footsteps pounded down the hall. “Jesse! Jesse!”

No reply.

Xander listened . . . He should be there, helping any way he could—watching out for Taksidian while Keal tended to Jesse. But Xander didn't want to know what had happened. Yesterday David had said, “We need a
break
, Xander. Ever since we moved in, it's been one bad thing after another. Why can't something good happen for once?”

He knew now exactly how David had felt. It had taken him a little longer to reach that point, but he was there. Oh man, was he there.

We do need a break, Dae,
he thought.
You were right.
He realized something: whatever this was he was feeling—a panic attack? a closing down? frustrated paralysis?—it had little to do with the fear of seeing what had happened to Jesse. It wasn't even brought on by all the things he, Xander, had been through.

It was David. Xander feared for him, missed him. He was sorry for all the things his brother was going through. In the
Mission: Impossible
movies, Tom Cruise was too cool to be threatened into action, but as soon as a loved one was in danger, everything changed. Torture was nothing next to someone you cared about being tortured.

“Xander?” Keal yelled. “Xander!”

Shake it off
, Xander thought.
Get tough. You can do it!

“Xander!”

Xander pushed off the wall. He staggered, found his feet, went around the corner.

Keal was leaning over Jesse. The old man was on the floor where a railing separated the hallway from the foyer below. As Xander approached, he saw a red pool spreading out from Jesse's body.

Keal glanced up. “I think he's been stabbed.”

“Is he—?” Xander stopped.

Jesse's eyes were shut, but his mouth hung open. His natural paleness had hued to bluish-white. Veins coursed over his forehead, and age spots covered his bald scalp. The wispy gray hair from his temples and the back of his head fanned out behind him. He looked like a rag doll tossed out with the trash.

“Is he dead?” Xander stepped over the pool and knelt by Jesse's hip, across from Keal.

So much blood
, Xander thought. It soaked the old man's shirt, obscuring the plaid pattern on his shoulder and chest. Xander could smell it now, a little like raw hamburger. For a moment he thought he was going to puke. He swallowed and forced himself to handle it. Sometimes that's just what you had to do: handle it.

“He's got a pulse,” Keal said, “but it's weak. He's lost a lot of blood. I have to get him to a hospital.”

“I'll call 911.” Xander patted his pants, looking for his phone.

“No time,” Keal said. He pushed his arms under Jesse and lifted. Jesse's head flopped back; his mouth yawned wider. One arm dangled.

Xander grabbed Jesse's hand. It was bony and felt wrong, unnatural. It was so slick with blood it could have been skinned. He laid it on top of Jesse's chest.

Keal carried Jesse down the stairs. His gaze never left Jesse's face, as though his
watching
were a lifeline that kept the old man from slipping away. He hit the foyer, effortlessly flung open the door, and rushed out.

Xander leaned against the newel at the top of the stairs. He wanted to collapse right there, just fall to the floor, curl up into a ball, and pretend none of this was happening.

No
, he thought.
Move, start moving. Do something. Anything.

But he was achy—in his mind and every part of his body.

Aaahh!
He pictured himself screaming like that painting, the long-faced screamer that had become a popular Halloween mask after being used in the
Scream
movies.