“I’m thinking … maybe Edna Milton wasn’t a victim of this thing. Maybe she’s behind it all.”

“The old woman from the article?” Serena shook her head. “She’d be over a hundred.”

“Unless she can literally freeze time,” Hazel said. “Or, I don’t know … maybe she’s a ghost haunting the hourglass. Maybe she isn’t human anymore.”

“All good theories,” said Emrys. Then, remembering they were in the presence of a traumatized survivor, he said, “I mean, your theories have merit. None of this is good.”

“Why would she come back now?” Serena cast a suspicious look at Emrys’s tote bag, as if directing the question at Van Stavern. “After all this time?”

“Maybe she got hungry,” said Mr. Pierce flatly.

Emrys felt queasy. If Edna Milton was feeding …

How many kids would it take to sate her?

“Thank you, Mr. Pierce,” said Hazel. “For telling us your story. This is more than we’d hoped for.”

“We should go,” Emrys said. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Pierce. He unlocked the dead bolt and opened the door. “Just … be careful out there, all right?” He smiled wanly. “And tell your dads about that escritoire, Serena. It really is a stellar piece.”

“I will,” she promised. “But … just one more thing. You said this whole … ordeal lasted for an hour. That’s awfully precise …”

“An hour. Precisely.” Mr. Pierce pulled back his sleeve to reveal an old analogue watch. “My dad’s watch. I still wear it, for luck. And I was wearing it that day. When I woke up in the hospital, this watch was exactly one hour ahead.”

“The Wandering Hour,” Emrys said, breathless.

“Funny,” said Mr. Pierce quietly. “It felt longer.” He closed the door behind them.

The Orchid from Outer Space

From the New Rotterdam Wiki Project

McNee’s Flower Emporium holds the record for the longest-running shop in New Rotterdam, open from 1931 until its closure in May 1964. Barnabas McNee, the sole proprietor, grew up in the neighborhood informally known as the Shallows, then a loose collection of public houses for seasonal fishermen.

During its first decade of existence, the shop earned meager returns. The Shallows was not yet the affluent shopping district it would become, and what plants Barnabas could source at the time were local blooms, most of them grown in his home garden behind the business. That all changed the night of the 1940 Meteor Shower.

While watching the falling stars from the shore with his sweetheart, a young woman named Aubrey Halfurd, Barnabas came across what he later claimed was a mysterious seed. Upon planting the seed in his garden, Barnabas was surprised at how it took to the arid New Rotterdam soil, quickly sprouting into a full, blooming orchid plant.

But what set this particular plant apart were the small, thornlike growths that lined the center of every bloom—each pointed and red, like rows of blood-stained teeth. Barnabas named his new discovery Cymbidium aubreyi, after his sweetheart. (The plant was never officially designated as a new species, however. Barnabas refused to surrender it to scientists from the Smithsonian Museum.)

McNee quickly capitalized on the bloom, dubbing it “the Orchid from Outer Space” and advertising its existence in the local papers. Curious onlookers flooded the shop. Soon Barnabas was earning enough to source rare blossoms from around the world and transform McNee’s Flower Emporium from a local flower shop into a purveyor of exotic plants and hybrids.

It was at the height of Barnabas’s success, however, that Aubrey Halfurd vanished. What happened to Barnabas’s love remains a mystery, though her disappearance had a profound effect on the man. He became reclusive, rarely venturing from the leaf-choked twilight of the shop. Most believed Aubrey simply left Barnabas, no longer inclined to wilt in the business’s shadow.

But Aubrey was only the first disappearance connected to Barnabas. In the twenty years that followed, nine individuals went missing. One, a shop clerk named Symon Krelbin, even approached police with suspicions about his boss, claiming to have spied him feeding hunks of meat to the now-famous orchid. Symon disappeared the following week. Though police questioned Barnabas, no evidence was ever found to implicate him.

Barnabas abruptly closed the shop in 1964, locking himself inside the doors. Concerned for the man’s health, a neighbor visited one morning and found the front door open and the shop abandoned. Most of the plants had withered from neglect, except for the orchid. It alone stood tall and healthy, practically overgrown.

The neighbor reported an uneasy feeling at the sight of all those blossoms grinning with bloody jaws. She claimed the plant looked “hungry.” She hurried home and alerted the authorities to McNee’s disappearance. When emergency services arrived, however, they found no sign of the shopkeeper or his prized bloom.

10

Despite Mr. Pierce’s harrowing account of the Wandering Hour—and the nauseating horror of what that meant for Edna Milton’s victims—Emrys found he was now buzzing with excitement.

He marched ahead of Hazel and Serena, then pivoted around to face the girls.

“This is it,” he said. All around them, the shops in the Shallows were closing for the evening, windows and doorways blinking out like snuffed candles. “Not only do we have proof that the red-sand hourglass exists, we’ve found a lead for tracking it.”

“A lead?” asked Serena. “How do you figure? All I heard was a sad story about an old lady who eats kids.”

Emrys shook his head. “Mr. Pierce said the disappearances in his time were all in a specific area—the neighborhood around the YMCA. But Gideon, where Brian was last seen, is nowhere near there.”

Serena quirked a brow. “So?”

“So maybe Edna—or the Hour or whatever—moves around, hunting in a particular territory before going dormant.”

Hazel’s eyes lit up. “If we can figure out her territory, then we’ll know where to look. We might even be able to sense her with our Order powers.”

Emrys nodded. “Exactly! Let’s head home. We can check if anyone else has gone missing recently. Maybe someone from the wiki would know. Oh! I bet Mom and Dad would let you both stay over for dinner, too.”

Hazel frowned. “Sorry, Em, but I’m hanging with my mom tonight. She’s got the night off from the hospital, so we’re going out to dinner.” Hazel lifted her phone, frowning at the time. “Actually, I should go. We’re supposed to meet at Pepe’s Pies in half an hour.”

Emrys fought to keep his expression neutral, but in that moment he empathized with Mr. Pierce’s story about plunging into the freezing cold ocean, at least a little. He glanced nervously at Serena. Hazel was leaving them? Alone?

“Right!” he said. “Of course! Have a good dinner. We’ll, uh, text.”

“Whatever that’s worth,” Serena muttered.

With a nod, Hazel shifted her backpack onto her shoulders and turned north, in the opposite direction of their building. In moments, she was gone.

Emrys, meanwhile, turned to Serena. “So!” he said, attempting to keep the mood light. “You want to google for disappearances while I check the wiki chat?”

Based on the withering look he received, Emrys suspected she did not favor this plan.

The wind had gone quiet. Emrys found the stillness far louder than the usual howling seaside gales. In just a few months, he’d gotten used to New Rotterdam—to its cold fog and crashing waves. Even to its monsters. And now Alyx Van Stavern had given him something far better than familiarity—a true key to the city.

Power. Agency. The ability to change things for the better.

Finally, it felt like Emrys belonged in New Rotterdam. So why couldn’t he and Serena find the same sense of belonging? She had so many friends. All Emrys had was this.

She brushed past him, walking until her back was to Emrys. Then she stopped.

“I saw things, too, you know,” she said.