And what was going on, exactly? What did their future hold? The things Albert had told them haunted Matt every moment. Could Captain Vincent really make his dad not exist? Make him, Matt, a totally different person with a different life? He thought of the initials on the handkerchief. The Aeternum must create an alternate universe, he was thinking. Because his dad existed now. So even if Captain Vincent erased his existence, there would always be some space in the universe where he did exist in some form or another. He couldn’t just make something not exist, right? That was just basic physics. It all had to go somewhere.
But Matt knew his thoughts were all theoretical, and who knew if anything he understood about the universe even applied in this situation? Who knew how it all really worked in reality? Matt considered himself a smart person, but he knew in the grand scheme of things, he was about as knowledgeable as a flea.
A light flicked on outside Matt’s door. He heard a bit of shuffling, the opening of drawers and cupboards. It had to be one of his parents. Matt climbed out of bed, careful not to step on Albert, and slipped out of his bedroom.
He found his mom standing at the dining table with a steaming mug of tea and one hand pressed to her temple, like she was trying to stanch a headache. She seemed to get a lot of headaches lately. Maybe it was all the time travel, a touch of time sickness. Matt stepped into his mom’s line of sight. She whipped out a dagger and jumped from her seat, spilling hot tea all over herself. “Ah!” She winced and cursed under her breath.
“Sorry!” Matt rushed to the kitchen and got a towel.
“You’d think an expert with blades would know not to handle knives while drinking hot beverages,” his mom said while blotting up the mess. When it was all cleaned up she finally looked at Matt and then at the clock. “Why are you awake, chéri?”
Matt shrugged. He didn’t want to tell his mom about the nightmares, partly because he didn’t want her to worry any more than she already was, and partly because he felt saying it out loud would make it even more real and solid in his own mind. He just wanted it to fade away, to forget.
His mom ran her fingers through his hair. “You’re turning into an insomniac like your mother.” She patted the chair for him to sit next to her. He did and she wrapped a strong, comforting arm around him. He leaned against her and breathed in her scent—a mix of soap, old leather, metal, and varnish. The smells of home.
“Mom?” Matt asked.
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you some questions?”
“About?”
“About my adoption. Where I came from. And maybe some other things.”
“Of course, chéri. You know you can ask me anything.”
Matt nodded. His parents had never tried to hide anything from him. As soon as he could understand, they had told him that he’d been adopted and what that meant. He knew he came from Colombia, that his biological parents were unknown, and that was pretty much it. He’d never cared to know more. His parents were his parents as much as if he’d been born to them. Corey and Ruby were his brother and sister. End of story. And that was all still largely true, but with the recent revelations about his identity, as well as Captain Vincent’s, he felt he needed to know more, even if his mom didn’t like the questions, even if he didn’t like the answers.
“When you adopted me,” he asked, “where did I come from, exactly? I mean, where was I found?” He knew he had been adopted in Santa Marta, a small seaside city in the Caribbean, but he didn’t know where he’d come from before that, and he could tell by the look on his mother’s face that this was not an insignificant question, but she still answered, as she said she always would.
“The agency told us you were found somewhere in the jungle,” she said. “They believed you had come from one of the tribal villages, but even when government officials investigated, no one claimed you. There were no missing babies, they said. They speculated you’d maybe been born to some young woman who was frightened and not ready to have a child, and she abandoned you in a place where you’d be easily found by someone who would take you.”
“Who found me?”
“A tourist, they said. Someone who’d been hiking to Ciudad Perdida.”
The Lost City . . . Matt had read a little about Ciudad Perdida in National Geographic. It was an ancient ruin, predating Machu Picchu, that had once been a great civilization until Spanish conquistadors invaded. He wondered if his origins could have anything to do with that place.
“Do you know the name of the person who brought me in?”
“No. They did not wish to have their name on the record,” his mom said.
“But they knew my name,” he said. Matt had memorized every word of the adoption papers he’d gotten from Vincent. Liaison claims infant’s name is Mateo. Requested name to remain in adoption terms.
“Yes,” Mrs. Hudson said.
“Didn’t that make you wonder . . . ?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hudson said plainly.
Matt’s mind was buzzing in erratic circles. He had half a mind to travel to Colombia at the time of his adoption and see who brought him in, maybe question them. But the compass was still in pieces, and anyway, he didn’t think he could handle any more revelations right now.
His next
