“Maybe it went out,” Wiley said.
“Or it coulda been a dud,” Brocco said. “No, wait!”
The tapestry suddenly flared with a bright light. It began to smoke, a thin vapor that swirled around the fabric like ghostly ribbons. It smelled to Santiago faintly sweet but rancid. The fabric began to burn and unravel. There was a flash and a small boom, a shower of sparks. The man came unfrozen for just a moment. He gasped for air. He started to flicker in and out like a sputtering candle. Finally he faded completely, leaving behind only a portion of his time tapestry.
“Where’d he go?” Wiley said, looking around as though he had simply hidden somewhere.
The captain bent down and picked up the fallen fabric, which instantly began to dim so there was no luminescence, only a dull glow, and the images within it faded to shadow. He turned the tapestry over in his hands, then inspected the cake-woman’s tapestry. The images were again jumping around, reorganizing themselves.
“Did it work? Did it?” Brocco asked excitedly.
“Close,” the captain said. “Very close indeed.”
Brocco bounced on his feet and clapped his hands. “Shall we try it again? I can get more dynamite! Loads more. It’s not hard to get. The boys and I used to use this stuff all the time back in the day.”
“Maybe,” the captain said, still inspecting the time tapestries. Santiago could feel the wheels turning and clicking in his brain, piecing things together. “We will need to run more experiments, certainly, but I think I should like to meet the person who invented this dynamite. Do you know who that is?”
Brocco opened his mouth and then shut it when he realized he didn’t know the answer.
“Alfred Nobel,” Wiley said, pulling out his pipe. “I’ve read some about him. Famous Swedish chemist, though I think his first passion was literature. Poetry. He wrote some fine poetry from what I recall.”
“I do not care about his poetry,” the captain said disdainfully. “Just tell me where and when I can find this Nobel.”
“He’s alive now, I believe,” Wiley said, “though toward the end of his life. He lived in a fair few places around the world throughout his life and traveled a great deal besides. You could find him in any number of places.”
The captain considered. Again, Santiago could feel the wheels turning in his mind, even if he didn’t know precisely what he was thinking. He was cooking up a plan. “All right, then. I want to see this Nobel, but the timing is important. Wiley, I’ll need you to do a bit of research on Mr. Nobel’s life, see what moments would be best to insert ourselves in. A tragedy would be best. Something he would wish to be different. You know what I mean.”
Wiley nodded. “I believe he has a brother who dies rather young. A tragic accident, very sorrowful.”
Santiago felt the captain’s neck twitch at the word brother.
“Better make sure Mr. Nobel actually mourned for his brother before we use that.”
And Santiago felt that familiar sting of hate run through him from his whiskers to his tail. The captain certainly didn’t mourn his own brother, and his death was no accident.
Wiley shivered a little, seeming to understand the captain’s thinly veiled meaning. “I’ll look it up in my library,” he said.
“And I’ll prepare our disguises!” Brocco said.
The captain nodded and dismissed them, and then the captain and Santiago were left alone in the midst of the frozen party.
“We’re getting close, my friend,” the captain said. “I can feel it. Soon the Hudsons will be gone and everything will be as it always should have been. Nothing will stand in the way of our happiness.”
Santiago squeaked.
The captain shook his head. “How many times must I tell you, Santiago, Mateo is on our side.”
Santiago squeaked again. How certain?
“Positive,” he said. “I know it doesn’t seem like it to you, but I know better. Don’t worry. You’ll see. It will all come out right in the end. And the beginning. And the middle!” He tipped his head back and laughed. Santiago didn’t laugh. It was not one of the things he’d learned to do since coming to meet the captain, and truly he didn’t see what was so amusing. He couldn’t help but think the captain had gone a little bit mad ever since his most recent triumph.
“Come, Santiago, let’s enjoy the party a little before we go, shall we?” the captain said. With a few motions he unfroze time and the party was revived. The band started playing again, and the dancing continued.
Marie Antoinette seemed a little confused. She looked around for her husband, until the captain slipped into his place, and they danced together as if her husband had never been there at all.
Santiago went back to the feast and watched the spectacle as he ate and ate but was never filled.
More, more, more.
2New Compass Tricks
June 5, 2019
Hudson River Valley, New York
Matt shot up from sleep, gasping for breath, sweaty and shaking. He looked around, saw the heaps of boxes and furniture, smelled the musty scent of old books and rusty tools, the silhouettes of sleeping bodies all around him. He was at Gaga’s house, on her vineyard in upstate New York. Safe. He was safe. His family was safe. It was only a nightmare. But it had felt so real. So real he’d even felt the ground shaking beneath him. He could still feel it, he thought, or was that just his imagination?
The shaking stopped. Just his
