But Emrys felt the officers’ eyes on him the whole way out.
The Wandering Hour
From the New Rotterdam Wiki Project
The Wandering Hour is the name given to a phenomenon that is little understood and all but impossible to document. Its survivors are few in number, whereas its victims are uncountable and unverifiable.
At the heart of the mystery is a strange object: an hourglass containing red sand. Witnesses have described the sand’s hue as being anywhere from a bright scarlet to a dark, purplish maroon. But all accounts agree that setting eyes on the hourglass is tantamount to a death sentence.
Its first documented appearance comes from a 1965 estate sale, where it was listed among the personal effects of sixty-two-year-old Edna Milton. Edna had opened her home to more than a dozen foster children between 1962 and 1964, and at least five of those children went missing under her care. Edna herself disappeared and was presumed dead in 1964. The strange red-sand hourglass found among her belongings vanished shortly before it could be put up for sale.
Although the missing children were assumed to have run away, it is possible that they may have been the earliest victims of the Wandering Hour, along with Edna Milton herself.
The hourglass resurfaced under tragic circumstances in 1968. Teenage sweethearts Biff Bentley and Betty Grimm were eating ice cream in Arcadia Park when Betty noticed the hourglass nearby. She called it to Biff’s attention, and as he took a closer look, something uncanny happened. The red sand, which had been gathered entirely in the top bulb of the hourglass, suddenly appeared in the bottom bulb instead. It was as if the hourglass had run its course in the time it took Biff to blink. Even more alarming, Betty was gone, with only a melted ice cream to indicate she’d ever been there. Betty was never seen again, and although there was no evidence to indict him, Biff lived under the suspicion that he had murdered the love of his life until he died of a heart attack at the age of forty-three.
No further mention of the hourglass appears in any records until December of 1984, when teenager Enoch Pierce was found floating in the waters of Cimmerian Bay. Suffering from hypothermia and shock, Enoch was taken to Saint Azazel Hospital, where he reportedly shared an incoherent story of being pursued across town by a ravenous monster. Further details of the tale he told were not recorded, but for a brief time following the incident, Enoch became a frequent presence at various NRPD precincts, where he insisted that the children of New Rotterdam were being eaten alive and that police should seek out and destroy a red-sand hourglass. Records indicate he spent at least one night in jail for disturbing the peace.
Many years later, in 2003, thirteen-year-old Emma Winthrop disappeared from her mother’s side during a grocery trip—only to reappear minutes later, wild-eyed and battered, all the way across town on the outskirts of Effigy Grove. Emma told a confused tale about an hourglass set amongst sugary cereal, a witch with snake fangs, and a desperate flight for her life that lasted “about an hour,” despite the fact she’d been missing for only minutes. Emma’s story was soundly dismissed by her furious parents, but Emma remained vocal about her experience online, until she was institutionalized for psychosis and paranoid delusions at the age of eighteen. It was Emma who first coined the term “the Wandering Hour” in a poem that she shared online before her accounts were deactivated in 2008: “Make not a sound beneath the bower / Still your heart as you there cower / Else fork-tongued witch will hear the clangor / You’ll not survive the Wand’ring Hour.”
The red-sand hourglass has not been seen since, but the New Rotterdam Department of Child Welfare estimates that roughly two dozen youth go missing in New Rotterdam each year. Official statistics list the vast majority of those youth as runaways, although there is some debate about the accuracy of those statistics, and city officials have come under fire for being too quick to declare missing-persons cases closed. How many of these so-called runaways might have fallen victim to the “fork-tongued witch” inside the Wandering Hour, we may never know.
9
“You’re serious?” said Van Stavern. “All that information … the Wandering Hour, details from the incident report, the victims’ names … it’s all right there on your phone?”
“Not on his phone, exactly,” said Hazel. “It’s on the internet. We’re able to use our phones to access—”
“I know what the internet is,” snapped Van Stavern. “Honestly, it’s like you children think I hail from some distant century.”
“Sorry!” Hazel said, and then, leaning in toward Emrys, she whispered, “I just thought he was more of a book guy.”
Emrys grinned despite himself. Hazel knew he was always up for a corny joke, even if their lives might be in peril.
“Those in the Order are meant to be the keepers of knowledge concerning those relics,” said Van Stavern. “It is disconcerting to think that this wiki might be a more reliable source of information. Who is responsible for it?”
“Nobody,” Emrys answered. “And everybody. The whole point of a wiki is that it’s updated and maintained by the people who use it. Hazel and I have contributed, actually. A little bit.”
“How very democratic. It must be rife with misinformation.” Van Stavern’s gaze focused on Emrys. “Just as long as you don’t divulge any secrets.”
Emrys blushed. “Of course not. But speaking of secrets … are you sure we should be talking in broad daylight?”
Even as he said it, Emrys realized “broad daylight” was overstating things a bit. The scant sunlight that shone through the overhead gauze of clouds was cold and diffuse. But his point remained: he and Hazel were out in public, sitting upon a bench, the Atlas set between them in its undisguised state.
“It’s New Rotterdam,” Hazel said, by way of answering. “People mind their own business to a fault.”
Emrys took in the scene before him. They were in the Shallows, a bustling shopping district situated between their school and home. But while they were surrounded by people coming and going, those people all kept their heads down and their eyes averted. Some wore masks covering their mouths and noses; others wore little earbuds, and they moved to their own personal soundtracks. Back in Cape Cod, people had greeted their neighbors and smiled at strangers. Not so in New Rotterdam. No one spared a glance for the kids on the bench, or their unsettlingly bound book.
No one except the startlingly intense girl cutting a swath through the foot traffic, stomping right toward them.
“Serena—” began Emrys.
“Oh good, you remember my name,” Serena said, and though Emrys hurriedly picked up the Atlas to make room for her on the bench, she remained standing, looming over them. “The way you ignored my texts, I thought maybe the brainwashing had set in completely.”
“You know I keep my phone off during the day,” Hazel said.
“And I also know you never met a rule you did not embrace with your whole heart.” She turned her gaze on Emrys. “That’s why I texted our mutual friend.”
“My teacher took my phone,” Emrys said meekly. He didn’t like the weird emphasis she’d put on the word “friend.” Like she didn’t really mean it.
“A boy at our school went missing,” Hazel said, drawing Serena’s attention back onto her. “We think … we have reason to believe he’s …”
“He’s dead,” said Emrys, and though he spoke quietly, the words were too loud in his ears—too final. He hadn’t known Brian, and this terrible knowledge felt far too intimate to have fallen to him to share. “Who’s going to tell his parents?”
“This boy,” said Serena. “He’s dead because of these … relics?”
“One relic in particular,” answered Van Stavern.
“Ah-ah!” said Serena. “I’m talking to my friends, not the encyclops-pedia.”
Well, okay, thought Emrys. At least he rated above Van Stavern.
Hazel passed her phone to Serena—she must have pulled up the wiki entry, too. While Serena read, Hazel squeezed Emrys’s hand. “We need a plan,” she said, adjusting her headband. “We can’t just crisscross town until our spooky-sense starts tingling.”
“The survivors could tell us more,” Emrys suggested.
