“And you were hired to help him destroy it,” Matt said.
A shadow fell over Nobel’s face. “I didn’t want to,” he said. “But he gave me no choice. His power. The things he could do . . .” He glanced at the photo sitting next to Matt and unmistakable pain slashed through his stoic features.
“Is that your brother?” Jia asked.
Nobel nodded. “Emil, Marta’s father.”
“He died in an explosion,” Jia said. “We read about it.”
Nobel stiffened slightly. His already pale face became white as a sheet. “You did, did you? Well, that was only his first death. I’m guessing the book didn’t tell you about his second.”
“His second death?” Matt and Jia spoke at once.
Nobel glanced at Marta, who was now busily knitting with her new yarn, her little hands flying with the needles in a smooth, speedy rhythm. “I had better start from the beginning, if there is a beginning,” Nobel said. He removed some books from the chair across from Matt and Jia and sat down.
“Many years ago,” Nobel began, “when I was a young and hopeful chemist, I had a dream to create the most powerful explosive the world had ever seen, fifty times more powerful than gunpowder. I had been experimenting with nitroglycerin for years. Most people thought it was too dangerous, that it couldn’t be compounded and stabilized for safe production and use. I could see it had potential, and so despite warnings and criticisms I forged ahead. Emil was always by my side assisting with the work. We succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. I invented dynamite, and the railway and mining companies were in awe when we showed them the tests. And then one day, the lab exploded.” He paused. His eyes went glassy. “I blamed myself. I wasn’t there. If I had been there, I believed it never would have happened. I would have taken the proper precautions. Emil was intelligent and a hard worker, but he and my lab assistant were sometimes careless. The nitroglycerin had to be kept under a certain temperature. I was always careful to keep it well below, but something must have happened. Our burners must have overheated, gotten too close to our nitroglycerin stores. I don’t know. There was an investigation and the explosion was officially reported as an accident, but still I came under great censure. Everyone blamed the accident on me. I had tampered with things that should not have been touched. One French paper even called me ‘the merchant of death.’ I was horrified. I fell into a deep depression. I moved to Paris to try to get away from it all. I vowed I would never touch explosives again, but the heaviness of Emil’s death stayed with me. I had no peace. No rest. And then he showed up.”
“Captain Vincent, you mean?” Matt asked.
Nobel nodded. “I’ll admit, I felt wary of him from the beginning. Perhaps it was the shoes. Ridiculous shoes, something a clown in a circus would wear. But he told me he could bring back Emil, that he could make it so the explosion never happened at all. I thought he was a lunatic, but he showed me the most incredible things, impossible things. He took me on board his ship. He took me to the future. He showed me how he could manipulate time and space. I thought to myself that this man was either an angel from heaven or the devil himself, but I didn’t much care who or what he was so long as he could save Emil. I begged him to do it, and he said he would but only if I would help him. I said I would do anything. That’s when he showed me the time tapestries. I’d never seen anything like it. He pulled them out of people and sometimes animals. I could not understand its chemical makeup. It wasn’t solid, exactly, but neither was it liquid nor gas. It was something out of this world. The captain had the power to manipulate the fabric, to cut and rearrange and change certain things, but he wanted to find a way to destroy the fabric entirely. He wanted me to find a chemical that would effectively erase the time tapestries forever. He told me my dynamite had come closer than anything else, but it was still not quite right. Some semblance of the tapestry still remained. He wanted me to find a way to get rid of all of it.”
“And you agreed to do this,” Matt said.
“How could I refuse?” Nobel said. “He said he could save Emil. He said he could bring him back and make everything right, but only if I helped him, only if I succeeded with destroying the time tapestries. He’s my brother. How could I refuse? How could I?”
Matt didn’t blame him. There were some people you would do anything to save. Anything to bring back. Matt thought of his grandparents and Uncle Chuck. His mom. There were others, he was pretty sure, but he couldn’t remember them. He couldn’t see their faces.
“But how did you do it?” Jia asked. “How did you destroy the time tapestries?”
Nobel shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But the explosive worked,” Matt said. “We saw you on the Vermillion with it, and then Captain Vincent changed things, erased people.”
“He took away Matt’s family,” Jia said.
“I know,” Nobel said. “I know I must have done it somehow, but I don’t remember how I did it. I don’t know if Captain Vincent changed my own memories so I wouldn’t remember. Maybe he knew you two would come looking for me. Maybe he didn’t want me to be able to tell everything that happened, but then why would he allow me to remember anything at all? I do not know. I was not in the best shape after Emil’s death. Captain Vincent insisted I come on board the Vermillion with him, that I conduct my experiments there, so he
