…but yes. It’s definitely one of the worst. And even scarier because we know so little. All I can say is, if you ever spot a strange hourglass—run. And don’t stop running. @LongNeckedDoug (user) 08:11, 14 August [reply]
Godspeed everyone! @AmberBishop (user) 13:48, 14 August [reply]
12
Emrys quickly averted his gaze from the red-sand hourglass. He turned to Serena, who stared back at him, her eyes wide with horror. “I saw it first,” she said, her voice thick with fear.
Emrys knew with dreadful clarity what would happen next. He would blink, and Serena would be gone, disappearing like a shadow in sunlight. For him, only a moment would pass, but she would endure a cruel and lonesome hour. An hour in which she would be hunted. Taunted. Devoured.
Less than an hour, maybe. I wouldn’t last five seconds.
It would happen right under Emrys’s nose, and he would be powerless to stop it. As powerless as Biff Bentley had been when his girlfriend, Betty, had seen the hourglass a moment before he had.
Although … Enoch Pierce hadn’t been helpless. Emrys’s mind began to race in the few seconds Serena had left.
Enoch had been able to hide in the water, which continued to flow even though the water should have been solid, frozen in time as surely as if it had been ice. Because Enoch had been in contact with the water. Just like he’d been in contact with the football helmet! He’d been able to take the helmet with him into the Wandering Hour and wield it like a weapon. His mistake had been in letting it go when he threw it at Edna Milton.
Emrys lunged out and grabbed Serena’s wrist. She startled, pulling away instinctively, but he gripped her even tighter. “Hold on to me!” he said. “Don’t let go even for a second.”
It was then that the sand in the hourglass began to trickle down in a steady streak of red. As the relic became unstuck in time, everything else froze. Emrys could tell by the sudden absence of the ever-present buzz of the electric lights. The color of that light seemed to shift, as if a veil had settled between Emrys and his surroundings.
Serena gasped, and Emrys felt a thrill of relief. His hunch had been right! Contact with Serena had brought him into the Wandering Hour right beside her. Whatever happened next, they would face it together.
It was the thought of whatever happened next that instantly quelled his enthusiasm.
A creak came from the floor above—Van Stavern’s ruined apartment. In the utter silence that surrounded them, it sounded impossibly loud—and the threat it carried wrapped Emrys’s heart in icy tendrils.
He willed himself to be silent and still. He could feel Serena do the same.
As they watched, a shadow unfurled above them, stretching across the wall farther up the stairwell. It was a human figure—or it appeared human, anyway.
“Serena, dear?” called a voice, kindly and frail. “Is that you?”
A shudder of terror and revulsion traveled through Serena’s body and up Emrys’s arm. His grip was clammy against her skin.
“What do we do?” Serena whispered, so quiet her words were almost lost in the sound of her trembling breath.
“Run,” said Emrys.
They bounded down the narrow staircase hand in hand, hurtling past the hourglass. Red sand slid between the glass bulbs, unhurriedly counting the seconds as Emrys and Serena scrambled for their lives.
“Oh my, Serena, you’ve brought a friend along!” Edna Milton called from above, a spark of excitement touching her brittle voice. “It’s been quite a while since anyone thought of that.”
A crash echoed down from the penthouse floor. Something astonishingly large and heavy glided toward them, its weight shaking the whole building.
Emrys made a hard turn. His shoulder scraped against the wall, but he was careful to keep his hand linked with Serena’s. One slip and she would disappear forever.
They passed Emrys’s apartment, where his mom was leaving to walk the dog before dinner. Grace Houtman stooped over Sir Galahound, who was frozen in excitement, his front paws suspended in the air.
The sight of his mother sent a hitch through Emrys’s chest. He wanted to call out to her, to beg her to save them. Maybe if he and Serena touched her, they could bring her into the Hour, too.
And then? What could even a grown-up possibly do against something as impossible and horrible as this? And what kind of danger might Emrys be exposing his mother to by dragging her into Edna’s twisted game? He and Serena needed to hide. Their only chance was in waiting out the time limit.
Down and down they careened, Emrys jostling against the building walls, Serena gripping the rail for balance with her free hand. All the while, the heavy slithering weight drew closer. Soon they reached Serena’s floor—just as a dark shape occluded the light above them.
“In!” Serena screamed, slamming open the door to her apartment with a shoulder check. She dashed inside, yanking Emrys behind her. Together, the two of them flung the door closed.
Serena quickly slid the dead bolt into place, huffing with fear and exertion. “What do we do? Oh god, Emrys. I don’t … I can’t …”
Emrys frantically took in the space, looking for a place to hide. Serena’s whole family was home—each of them frozen in time. Her dads were in the kitchen, Mr. Navarro preparing dinner while Mr. Dubose poured two glasses of wine. A glittering braid of magenta hung suspended between the bottle and glass like a liquid garland.
Serena’s brother, Dom, reclined on the couch, still half-dressed in his lacrosse clothes. His hand was raised with the remote pointed at the TV, where Mayor Royce’s face loomed large on the screen. Apparently he’d been in the process of muting it.
“Is she still out there?” Serena asked. “Do you think she saw us come in?”
Emrys pressed his ear against the door. He didn’t hear anything.
But whatever had been chasing them was immense. Shouldn’t he hear something?
Then, the eerie sound of laughter—high and light and fragile as a glass bell. Except it wasn’t coming from outside.
It was coming from Serena’s bedroom.
As Emrys and Serena both snapped around, a figure emerged from the doorway: a wizened old woman in a delicate knit sweater.
At first glance, Edna Milton looked for all the world like a harmless granny. But Emrys didn’t need the Order’s second sight to sense the menace that lurked behind that disguise. She moved in a strange, circuitous track, and her bewildered smile couldn’t quite conceal the hunger in her gaze.
