Timepiece (Hourglass 2)

“I’m not sure.” Dune picked up the stylus and clicked a tiny button to turn it into a laser pointer. He used it to highlight documents as he explained. “It holds years’ worth of information, and it’s all about the history—the very ancient history—of not only the Infinityglass but also Chronos. I’ve skimmed it, and I haven’t processed a quarter of it.”

“The history of Chronos?” Em questioned.

“Wait,” Michael said. “The Skroll has information about the Infinityglass and Chronos. It doesn’t belong to Chronos, or Teague should’ve been able to open it. So who does it belong to?”

“There’s another answer,” Dune said. “But I don’t like it.”

Em looked at Michael, and then me. “Jack.”

I stood. “It’s time to tell my dad about the Skroll.”

Chapter 41

I’d been keeping so much from Dad. Jack’s appearances, Lily’s ability, the Skroll. I was going to be in a world of hurt when I spilled my secrets.

Since I was pretty sure Dad was going to kill me, Em offered to take Lily home. I left her at the pool house.

After a few good-bye kisses, of course.

He wasn’t upstairs or in his office. I finally spotted him in the sunroom, his back to the glass doors. When I opened them, he jumped and clamped his fingers down on the edge of the blanket he’d wrapped around himself.

Something was way off.

Not just the stoop of his shoulders, or the way he sat still, especially without a book in his hands. Since my dad had come back home, one thing had been constant. His ache for my mother.

It was gone.

I wanted to run. Instead, I stepped around the front of the couch.

“Dad?” I asked cautiously. “What are you doing out here?”

He remained still, his expression blank. I focused on his face.

Saw that he wasn’t in there. What was left sat on the couch in front of me, fingertips picking at the threads of the blanket. I could barely breathe, barely move. I dropped to my heels and put my hands on top of his.

A seeping black hole of nothing. It was what Em must have been like after Jack Landers took her memories and left her to recover in a mental hospital—what my mom would be if I could break through the wall that separated us. So empty and so, so dark.

Jack had robbed my father, and he hadn’t put anything in place of what he’d taken.

I fought to keep my voice steady. “Dad?”

He blinked a few times. “Kaleb?”

He knew me. A tiny spark of hope flashed under the surface. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me. What happened?”

“You’re so … big. I don’t know how you got to be … you’re a man, not a child.” His voice was frail, more like an eighty-year-old man’s than my father’s. How would I take care of him? How could I fix this?

“It’s okay, Dad,” I lied. “It’ll all be okay.”

“Nothing looks like it’s supposed to. I know this house, but not why I’m in it. It’s like my world stopped, but the rest of you went on … your mother. She’s upstairs in a room … there are machines. She won’t wake up.”

I swallowed the tears that burned in my throat. “What’s the last thing you remember, Dad? About me?”

“Middle school, your first day. It didn’t go well. I talked to Cat about starting an Hourglass school—even if there were just a few students and private tutors at first. For you. For kids who’d struggled the way we did.”

The first day of middle school had ripped me wide open. It had started the second I stepped on the school bus in the morning until I got off it again in the afternoon. It had been so important to me to attend school with my friends. The earlier grades had been easy— my mom was kind to my teachers and they gave me a little extra room when I got too emotional. They were always so impressed with how much sympathy I had when someone’s feelings were hurt, but less so when I latched on to someone’s anger or fear.

The middle school had twice as many students as the elementary school, and way more hormones. I’d done all I could on that first day, determined to make it work, but the second I’d seen my house come into view, my mom waiting anxiously at the end of the driveway, I’d lost it.