Right?
As soon as Brooks set us down on the sand, I saw Ren, Rosie, and the now-awake devourer. Ren came running over. “He’s gone. Marco’s gone.”
“Gone?” Fire erupted across my knuckles. “How can he be gone?”
“We checked the bench!” Ren cried. “He’s not there.”
I was flooded with relief. “He moved,” I said as Brooks changed into her human form. I was glad there were only a few loiterers on the beach, far away and not looking in our direction.
“He’s buried!” Brooks shouted as she ran across the sand. “Over here.”
We all followed as she made her way to Marco. His face still poked out of the sand, and his eyes were closed. When we approached, he opened them, and they went wide. With one mighty heave, he launched himself out of his makeshift grave. Then he danced around us, fists up. Thankfully, the time rope was still gripped in his hand.
“You can’t have it!” he shouted with crazed eyes.
“What’s the dude’s deal?” Jazz asked.
The devourer studied Marco’s face. Her scaly skin looked slick in the moonlight. “He’s in shock,” she said with a voice as soft as velvet. It wasn’t the sound I expected from the Mexica goddess, who did kind of resemble Jabba the Hutt.
I wished she could expel the gods right then and there, but we had agreed that they should be released in the future they came from.
With her hands out in front of her, Ren approached Marco slowly, carefully. While Marco’s attention was on Ren, Rosie came up from behind and began licking the back of his neck.
I thought Marco would scream or try to fight, but instead he collapsed to his knees. After a few seconds of catching his breath, he looked up at us with calmer eyes. “You guys took too long.”
“Are you okay?” Brooks asked.
“Okay?” Marco repeated. “This stupid rope has a mind of its own and…” His gaze landed on Jazz. “Can we just go home?”
Jazz started to say something, when Adrik closed the distance.
“Wait!” Brooks said, stepping between them. She whispered to Adrik, “Can you let him keep one memory? Of when you told him about his future?”
Adrik shrugged. “I can try.”
“Thanks for everything, Jazz,” I told my future giant friend. “You’re a real hero.”
He beamed and stood three feet taller. “Will I see you guys again?”
“You can count on it,” Brooks said with a knowing grin.
We all hooked arms. I kept one hand on Rosie. Adrik turned to Jazz, blew a breath toward the boy, and said, “Remember the demon-burning flashlight, Mr. Inventor.”
And just as his words landed, the rope tugged us back to the present.
We stepped into the Old World, keeping a strong hold on one another. Sharp branches stabbed at our arms, necks, and faces as we weaved through a tight path toward the place where we had left Hondo.
He wasn’t alone.
The Sparkstriker stood over his slumped form.
“Hurry!” the Sparkstriker said. That’s when I saw she was carrying Itzamna’s sunglasses.
Hondo, shivering and moaning, still held tight to the thread. I rushed over and jerked it out of his hands. The rope burned my palm as I tossed it away. It ricocheted off the metallic trees with a loud snap and burned itself into the sand.
“Hondo!” I pried off the warrior mask, and it turned to ash. Beneath it was the face of an old man—wrinkled and hollow, sunken and sickly. His eyes stared off into space like his mind was gone.
Everything inside me turned to mush.
Brooks was instantly at my side. Rosie was right behind her, and she immediately began licking Hondo, trying to heal him. But he stayed the same zoned-out old man.
“Why isn’t it working?” I choked out.
Panic dug its stupid claws into me as Ren ran up. Waves of fear and pity washed over her face as she stooped in front of Hondo and gripped his hand. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Come back to us,” she whispered.
“I waited here with him,” the Sparkstriker said, “to make sure he didn’t let go.”
“He’d never let go,” Brooks whispered, wiping her eyes with both hands.
The Sparkstriker said, “We’ve run out of time. I talked to Itzamna.” She held up his glasses. “The enemy has landed in SHIHOM.”
Gasps rose up around me, followed by “How?” “When?” “No!”
Marco said, “How ’bout the devourer gives us back the gods before we go storming SHIHOM?”
The goddess was hunched over, gripping her stomach like she was going to hurl.
“I’m trying,” she moaned. “It’s not working.”
“Maybe it’s like having a baby,” Ren said, “and you just have to let it happen on its own time.”
Adrik’s mouth fell open. “Please say that was just a joke.”
“We must get to SHIHOM now!” the Sparkstriker yelled. She dashed toward a metallic tree and slammed her ax into it. The reverberation rang so hard my spine and skull trembled. Itzamna’s glasses dropped from her grasp.
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
“Summoning my warriors,” the Sparkstriker said.
As if once wasn’t enough, she banged her ax against another tree and another until I was sure all my bones were shattered and the world had broken into a million tiny pieces.
I tugged Hondo into a protective hug as the trees vibrated violently. The Old World became a colossal blur as brutal winds raged against us.
The ground quaked. My friends clung to me. The warriors arrived, their capes fluttering. Rosie howled fire. Waves of flame rolled across the sky, making it burn red.
Yeah, it pretty much felt like the apocalypse. But I didn’t yet know how bad the apocalypse could look.
After a dizzying few minutes, we found ourselves inside a tree house. Everyone had made it except the Sparkstriker’s warriors—I guessed she had sent them somewhere on the ground.
It was daytime, but the air was thick with ash and the smell of smoke. Gray light spilled into the large room where we stood. A thin white trunk poked up through the floor and extended all the way through an opening in the ceiling. Above us, plump green leaves drooped from bowing branches. The space was decked floor to ceiling with books and furnished with modern sofas and chrome tables.
Before I could ask where we were exactly, the Sparkstriker said, “This is Hurakan’s place. Hidden from any eyes below. We will be safe here.”
“Safe?” The word came out in a long shuddering breath as I laid down my uncle on one of the couches. I didn’t think we would ever be safe again.
“No such thing as safe,” Marco muttered, looking around.
“Gods have tree houses?” Adrik asked.
A lump formed in my throat. “Hurakan?” My eyes landed on the open book set facedown on the coffee table: The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda. I thought two things: My dad reads? And: He has questions?
That didn’t exactly inspire confidence.
I glanced at the devourer goddess asleep on the rug. “What’s she waiting for?”
“I bet it takes a lot of time and energy to throw up that many people,” Adrik said.