THE TIME FETCH
By Amy HerrickALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Copyright © 2013 Amy Herrick
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61620-220-0
CHAPTER 1
The Short End of the Year
On a Wednesday night toward the middle of December, thetemperature dropped twenty degrees within a few hours.A wind came wolf-howling through the streets. Garbagecans were knocked over and tree branches splintered andsnapped to the ground.
Edward slept through it all until the early morning,when he became aware of an incredible racket. It soundedlike all the church bells in Brooklyn had gone crazy. Butwhen he sat up, his heart pounding, he realized that it wasjust his aunt's windchimes jangling away out in her preciousgarden.
A cold and unmotivating dawn was just now beginningto break in at his window. He saw from the clock that itwas a little after seven. He reminded himself that it was alldancing atoms. Nothing was solid.
Pulling the blankets over his head, he caught the tail endof a dream, something about an unfinished homework assignment.It slid by him like a snake into the woods, but thefrantic windchimes clanged and clamored as if they weretrying to give some sort of warning. Edward, who took hissleeping very seriously, tried to ignore them, but then heremembered. The rock. He was supposed to bring a rock toscience class. Mr. Ross had given them two weeks to finda glacial moraine somewhere in New York City and bringback a rock from it.
Edward preferred to wait till the last minute to completehomework assignments. The last minute had arrived.
There must be a rock or two out in his aunt's little garden.
"Edward!"
The voice was surely addressing some other Edward.
"Edward, take that blanket off your head."
He pulled the blanket more tightly around himself.
"Taste the air!"
Taste the air? She was a certified fruit loop.
"It will make it easier to wake up. Taste the air."
He didn't want to wake up. He wanted to stay in thiswarm soft place at least until late spring or early summer.
"You're going to be late for school."
What kind of twisted, criminal mind had come up withthis idea of school before noon?
Through the blanket he smelled something. There wasa strong burning smell, but then something else brushedlightly against the inside of his nose—something powderyand sweet. It took him a moment to remember. He slid theblanket off his face just enough to be able to stick his tonguein the air. He thought he could taste it—a very, very fainttrace of confectioner's sugar melting on his tongue.
Pfeffernusse. The little cinnamon-and-honey-flavoredcookies his aunt always made at the start of the winter season.It was an illusion, of course, like everything else. Justlittle odor molecules firing off the neurons in his nose andthen evaporating.
It was an illusion almost worth getting up for, but notquite. He snuggled back down.
There was a loud knock and the door flew open with abang.
He heard her feet making a pathway through the treacherousswamp of dirty clothing and books and debris thatcovered the floor of his room. He felt her settle herself onthe foot of his bed with a little umph.
"Why don't you just come on in?" he muttered. "Whydon't you just come in and make yourself comfy?"
"Edward, there's no time to pussyfoot around here. I havereceived a warning. The first batch of pfeffernusse caughton fire. That is something that has not happened to me inover ten years and when that occurred ... well, it was avery close call. I think it would be prudent to prepare thehouse now. I want you to come straight home today. We'llstart hanging the evergreens and putting the lights in thewindows. The sooner the better. We don't want to wait tillthe last minute. Time doesn't grow on trees."
"That's money," he muttered from inside his little nest.
"What?"
"Money. Money doesn't grow on trees."
"Yes, but money is piffle. And time is one of the greattreasures."
If he asked her to explain herself, it would encourage her.He never encouraged her.
"Do you know why it is one of the great treasures?"
He didn't make a peep.
"Because without time everything would happen atonce."
Whooooaaa. He always wondered where she got thisstuff from.
"If everything happened at once," she continued, "therewould be only darkness and chaos. Don't you wonder whatthe world would look like without it?"
Uh—no.
"Time is the One who gives birth to order, the One whomakes the weaving of the Great Web possible."
No, no. Not the Great Web. Not this early in the morning.
The windchimes continued their demented clinking andclanging.
She paused and then, as was her way, she abruptly changedthe subject. "Now, I have a wonderful idea," she said brightly."Why don't you bring someone home from school today togive us a hand? There's lots of extra pfeffernusse. The secondbatch came out fine."
She was so obvious, he sometimes felt sorry for her. Shewanted him to care about his state of lonely geekhood.
But he didn't. He was very close to perfecting his cloak ofinvisibility. Soon he would be able to walk straight acrossthe school lunchroom without anyone seeing him, or snoozethrough an entire class without the teacher noticing a thing.
"Maybe you could invite that girl next door. She's insome of your classes, isn't she? She always seems so niceand ... perky."
Edward snorted. Perky as a Cuisinart on high speed.About the very last thing he needed was Feenix sitting inhis aunt's kitchen eating pfeffernusse.
"Was that a snort?" Aunt Kit asked. "Are you ready toemerge? I do hope so. Because it's getting late and if youdon't start moving soon, I shall have to lift up the blanketand let this quite large spider go on your leg."
He took the blanket off his face and stared at her.
He thought about how it was hard to really see peopleyou've been living with for a long time. He'd been livingwith her since before he could remember. She'd adoptedhim when his mother died. He'd been three. The onlymemory he had of his mother was her voice singing himto sleep. Sometimes, just as he was drifting off, he heardher again. But that was it. His father had apparently neverbeen in the picture. All he'd been left with in the way offamily was his aunt. Lately, he'd been feeling that she wasway more than enough. When he tried to imagine what itwould be like to have two parents and maybe even a brotheror a sister, his mind boggled. Other people were such majorenergy suckers. He stared at her. Possibly others might regardher as not bad looking. He couldn't tell. He'd beenlooking at her for too many years. He warned himself notto make the mistake of thinking she was harmless. He'dmade this error many times.
In her lap was a small plastic container with a lid on it.He looked at it uneasily. "What's that?"
"I told you. A spider. I saw it climbing up the outside ofthe bathroom window. I imagine it was trying to get warm,so I brought it inside. I'm going to let it make a little placefor itself in my herb pots."
She grew oregano and parsley and thyme on the windowsillover the kitchen sink.
"Or I could let it go on your leg."
He sat up, keeping his eye on the container. "Do youthink you might get up off my bed and remove yourselffrom this room? I have to dress."
"Good." She rose, holding the container in her hands.But then she didn't move. "I realize that what I'm about tosay is probably a waste of perfectly good breath, but I wantyou to be careful. It's the short end of the year. The curtainbetween here and there grows thin. It would be much betterif you didn't travel alone. Isn't there anyone you could walkto school with?"
He stared at her. "You think I'm gonna get mugged becauseit's almost the winter solstice?" She had a bee up herbutt about the solstices.
She made a little tcching sound of impatience. "There arealways dangerously powerful forces abroad when the shortestday draws near, but this time, I sense, one of those reallyloaded moments is going to arrive. A sneeze at one end ofthe world may change the whole course of things to come.At least do me a favor and try to stay awake. And probablybest to stay away from the park for now. Too many ancientthings astir in there."
He laughed at her. He hadn't gone walking in ProspectPark since back in the day when he used to play tee ball.
"And make sure you wear your winter jacket. It's hangingon the coatrack."
When she was gone, he lay down again and sighed. Hecouldn't have fallen back asleep if he'd wanted to. He wonderedwhat she was going on about this time. The windchimes tinkled and clanged away. With a start, he rememberedthe rock for science class. He would have to hurry.
By the time he got down to the kitchen, she was gone. Shetaught a pastry class in the city several mornings a week.He sat down on one of the tall stools and slowly ate ahalf dozen of the little confectioner sugar–coated cookiemounds at the counter. He had to admit, if nothing wasreally real, eating, at least, seemed sometimes worth the effort.He was about to take another when his aunt's cuckooclock made its little whirring noise and then sounded thehalf hour. Edward rose with a sigh and took a deep breath.He opened the kitchen door, which led to her little garden,and stepped outside.
The wind nearly knocked him over. It had turned bittercold.
Hurriedly, he poked around in the herb beds. Nothing.Not a rock in sight. The squirrels must have eaten them all.
He pushed at the rose bush and pricked himself on athorn. Nothing there either. He sucked his thumb angrily.Why did everything have to be such a hassle? Was it somuch to ask for, just one little glacial moraine rock?
In the western corner of the garden was an old oak tree.Its branches were whipping back and forth in the wind.Edward trotted along the brick path and stopped at the baseof the tree. There were acorn shells and crunchy old brownleaves everywhere and a tangle of dying ivy. He kicked hisway through this mess until his foot encountered somethinghard.
He bent to examine his find.
Hallelujah. A rock.
The windchimes jangled frantically.
The rock looked like a perfectly ordinary rock, roughand greenish gray. He reached out and grabbed hold of it.To his annoyance it didn't come free. It must have beenpartly buried. He scrabbled around it with his fingers andgave another heave. Again, the stupid thing resisted. Thistime he found a stick and jabbed it into the ground beneaththe rock. A sharp sensation, like an electrical shock, wentthrough his arm.
Now, he was ticked off. He dropped the stick and grabbedthe stone with both hands and heaved mightily. This turnedout not to be necessary. Like it was playing with him, thestone now seemed to fly up into his hand. He fell backward,with a plunk, onto his butt.
"Very funny," he said. The stone felt oddly warm in hishands. Weird. He stuck it in his pocket and went inside.He hoped it was the sort of thing you could find at a glacialmoraine.
From behind the curtain, he saw Feenix come out of herhouse and go striding down the street in her cowboy bootsand long black coat. The coat was open and flapped behindher. She tossed her black mane of hair as if she imaginedcameras going off all around her. Her many earringsflashed once in the morning light and then she turned thecorner and was gone.
Feenix. How could her parents have been so lame as toname her something like that?
Not that he couldn't handle her. Not that he couldn't usehis mind's eye to turn her into a harmless mass of positiveand negative electrical charges, but he waited a few carefulminutes and then stepped out into the morning.
He moved slowly, keeping his head down and his shouldershunched. Because he did not believe in exercise, Edwarddid not generally walk to school. But he knew that Feenixwould take the bus on a day like this, so he figured he wassafer staying on foot. The school was an entire seven blocksaway, but in this case, it was worth the tremendous effort.
The street was busy as always at this time of morning,people emerging from the coffee shop, gingerly holdingtheir steamy four-dollar caramel macchiatos out in front ofthemselves like little bombs that might go off at any second.They hurried along to the subway, trying not to blow themselvesup. Little whiny kids got pushed in strollers to theirdaycares or wherever. Here and there, among the crowdwere other prisoners of the state like him, heading towardtheir six-hour dates with unrelenting boredom. You couldrecognize them easily from the way they tried to keep theirfaces really blank and unreadable. He supposed he probablylooked the same.
There were actually little patches of ice here and thereon the ground. In spite of himself, he was glad his aunt hadmade him wear the jacket.
The sky was gray and low, and the wind blew in little bursts.
Red and green plastic holiday decorations hung fromwires strung over the street. They swung wildly. The storewindows, still mostly locked behind steel gates at this timeof the morning, were fully loaded with Christmas trees andelectric menorahs and smiling snowmen.
Edward paid very little attention to the holiday stuff. As akid, he'd gone along with all of his aunt's crazy winter solsticecelebrations—the baking, the decorating, the singing,the big party, but now he no longer believed in it.
As a general rule, Edward didn't believe in anything.That is, he'd come to understand that reality was largelya hoax. One of the many useful things that Mr. Ross hadtaught them was that everything was made of atoms, andatoms were mostly empty space. Everything might appearsolid. But it wasn't. It was 99 percent empty space.
When you took for granted that the floor you were standingon was solid, you were making a big mistake. When youput your butt down on a chair and didn't go through thechair and the chair didn't go through you, it was because ofthe magnetic repulsion of electrons against each other. Youwere really floating a minuscule fraction of an inch over thesurface of the chair. If it weren't for that force of repulsion,everything would just pass right through everything else.
Other people looked like they were solid whole things.But they were really mostly full of emptiness. Most of whatthey had to say was just hot air, too. All this stuff they filledthe store windows at this time of year with was worthlessjunk.
The things that people believed in, the things they keptthemselves so busy with, were just ways of convincingthemselves that their lives weren't completely random andunimportant.
Although he liked the smells. He breathed deeply andcaught a whiff of the pfeffernusse that was traveling in hispocket and then that particular scent the air has when it'sabout to hit freezing. At the corner he nearly lost his wayfor a moment as he passed through the rows of pine treesfor sale, but he was pulled out the other side by the smellsof cinnamon and coffee that floated through the door ofthe donut shop.
He stopped there and gazed inside. It was always nice tocheck this window out, even if it was illusion. There was arow of donuts in the front decorated with bright wreathsof red and green icing. He felt someone's eyes upon him.Looking up, he saw a policeman with a donut halfway tohis mouth, staring at him oddly. Edward preferred not tohave policemen looking at him. He made his face as blankas possible and kept on moving.
Overhead a cloud of pigeons went scouting by, keepingtheir eyes open for any sort of edible garbage to make amiraculous appearance. At the corner, Edward waited forthe light to change. He could see his breath in the air andstood there for a while, watching it. He got so busy lookingat the little puffs of steam he was making, he didn't noticethe light turn to green and then back to red again. Suddenlyhe felt something pulling on his jacket. Startled, he lookeddown and saw a little runny-nosed kid in a stroller whoseemed to be trying to pick his pocket.
"Hey," Edward said indignantly. The light changed andthe woman in charge of the stroller pushed forward. For amoment, the kid held tight to Edward's pocket, but thenhis hand was yanked away. The kid let out a loud scream ofprotest, but the woman, either deaf or very used to this sortof thing, just kept on going. Edward examined his jacketfor damage, but it looked all right. He crossed the street.
(Continues...)Excerpted from THE TIME FETCH by Amy Herrick. Copyright © 2013 Amy Herrick. Excerpted by permission of ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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