Matthew felt alarm bells going off in his head. He needed to get away, but where could he go?
“Don’t worry,” said the man in black. “This will be the last mistake you ever make.”
And before Matthew could move or say another word, the man in black grabbed him by the throat. He was paralyzed.
The man pulled Matthew close to his face so he was forced to look in his eyes, dark, depthless, almost inhuman. His heart raced. He tried to move, told his arms to swing, his legs to run, but they wouldn’t obey.
“Whatever did she see in you, I wonder?” the man said.
Who was he talking about? The woman? That couldn’t be. They hadn’t even met. It looked like they never would.
“Ah, well, I suppose we’ll never know,” the man said. “Because she never will see you, and you will never see her. In fact, you won’t exist at all.”
The man then pulled something from Matthew’s throat. It almost felt like he was unraveling him, pulling out his blood and sinew by some invisible force. But there was no blood or sinew. Streams of watery material poured out of him, shimmering, iridescent. What was happening? What was that? He saw people in the material. Himself at various moments of his life. His mother. His father! His brother, Charles. And there was the woman. She was holding a baby, smiling up at him. She seemed to glow with the purest love and complete joy. Matthew’s heart almost burst inside his chest. He tried to speak, to shout, but no sound would come.
“You are probably wondering what is happening,” Captain Vincent said. “I know how frustrating it is to be left in the dark with no explanation, so I will tell you. Your existence is in the way of my happiness, and so I’m sorry to tell you that I must eliminate it altogether. Actually, no. That is incorrect. I’m not sorry at all.”
He brought out what looked like a stick of dynamite. It glowed blue, just like the symbols on the map. The man wrapped the shimmering fabric around the strange dynamite. The woman holding the child disappeared in its folds.
The fabric began to disintegrate. Matthew felt no pain, but still he was terrified. The world seemed to be fading. He felt he was being sucked into a black hole. His own reality of existence began to slip. Who was he? Where was he? What was happening to him?
The last conscious thought of Matthew Hudson was fixated on that mysterious woman.
14Unraveling
Matt was getting restless. The others were too. They’d been cooped up for three days. Only Uncle Chuck and Haha had gone out once more to get food and supplies, and they came back with news that a battle was happening in Central Park that looked to be from the Civil War. Matt could hear the cannons and gunshots from their apartment. The news reported more strange happenings, not just in New York City, but in other parts of the world too. Buildings were relocating themselves. Landmasses were spreading, sinking, or crashing together. The Eiffel Tower had disappeared completely. Wars were breaking out all over the place. And people were disappearing and reappearing in different times and places. The whole world was in chaos.
Matt still had not fixed the compass. He was having a hard time replacing the piece he had lost back at Gaga’s, during the storm, and he didn’t have all the tools he needed, so everything took longer. A couple of times he thought he had it, but then he’d run a test and it wouldn’t work and he’d have to take it all apart again.
Tensions escalated as the family began to argue over what they should do once the compass was fixed, whether they should stay put or move somewhere else. Mr. Hudson felt they should stay put, while Mrs. Hudson thought they should keep on the move.
“The longer we stay in one place the more likely it is that Vincent will find us,” Mrs. Hudson argued. “We have to keep on the move.”
“What are you suggesting?” Gaga said. “That we time-travel from place to place and century to century for the rest of our lives like a bunch of . . . of . . .”
“Pirates?” Corey said.
“Not pirates,” Mrs. Hudson said. “That’s Vincent. Not us.”
“Castaways,” Ruby said. “We’re time castaways.”
“I don’t want to be a pirate or a castaway,” Gaga said, pulling at her silver hair. “I want to go home! I just want to live what’s left of my life!”
Haha tried to comfort her, patting her awkwardly on the back. “It’s okay, Gloria. At least we’re together.” But this only seemed to make Gaga cry harder.
“I’m sorry, Gloria,” Mrs. Hudson said. “We’re doing the best we can.”
“It doesn’t really matter what you do or where you go,” Albert said. “Captain Vincent will find you anyway.”
“Well, he hasn’t found us yet,” Ruby said. “Maybe he’s not as powerful as you think.”
Albert simply shrugged. “Believe what you like.”
Jia was unusually quiet throughout all these arguments, Matt noticed. She mostly stared blankly out the window. Occasionally, she reached inside one of her vest pockets, but she never brought anything out that he could see. Matt tried to talk to her, ask her how she was doing, but she avoided him, preferring to spend her time with Ruby. The most she ever spoke was when Mr. Hudson brought out a stack of board games to fight their restlessness. Chinese checkers was at the top, and upon seeing it Jia became indignant.
“Ridiculous name. There’s nothing Chinese about that game at all.”
“How do you know?” Matt said. “You didn’t live in China that long. It could
