“Reginald!”
At ten years old, I was well-versed in my mother’s acoustic range and recognized this dangerous pitch. I peered out from under my covers—the clock announced “8:00 a.m.” in bright red. On a Saturday morning. Why was I already in trouble?
Panic pulsated through me.
“Sorcha, wait!” Mr. Devereaux calls. The pompous old duck is always telling me to wait. “Feudal Japan isn’t safe for foreigners. Europeans could be killed on sight.”
“Did anyone warn my brother of that?” I yell over my shoulder.
I plunge through the dripping trees to the road beyond.
“Show me how to save Jem!” Sorcha snarls.
“Call off your men first.” I match her glare, ignoring the ropes chafing my wrists. “I want to speak to your leader.”
It’s my fault Sorcha’s brother is hurtling through the time vortex in a wayward time machine, bound for God knows where… and
Melvin trudged through the downpour, head down in an effort to avoid the wind and wet.
Getting fired wasn’t enough. He’d returned home to endure yet another lecture from his parents. Over dinner, they again complained about his lack of potential and the detrimental effects of his juvenile obsessions, specifically “that stupid role game
Percy blinked. After glancing around the room, he blinked again, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He stood naked in a giant glass tube. In his last memory, he’d been fully clothed and curled up beside a campfire in the Brazilian jungle…
That wasn’t the most startling revelation though. No. What
“You said we were going to the beach.”
We both stared at the frozen wasteland. A gust of frigid wind blew into the time machine, swirling around us and stealing our breath away.
“Um.” With one last glance at the desert of ice and snow, I slammed the door shut and frowned…
“You’re telling me that in the future, Australia is overrun by cannibalistic koalas called drop bears?”
I blinked at my large companion—Squatch, our resident bigfoot—as I tried to make sense of the vision that had guided me and my cryptid companions Down Under.
He adjusted his Outback hat. “Yup.
I knew I would regret taking Cuthbert Devereaux’s navigation advice.
When my old nemesis butted into my mission in Nazi Germany, he brought nothing but trouble. It’s entirely his fault we landed in colonial Australia. Now we’re trussed like roasted chickens and propped against a pile of dusty saddlebags in an outlaw camp.
There was a girl… in my bed.
Great, another “weary traveler” Dex decided to help. Huffing, I tossed my purse onto the bucket chair beside my door. “Guess I’m not getting a nap anytime soon,” I grumbled as I tiptoed to my closet. After wrenching a neon purple jumpsuit off its hanger…
“Hold on—we’re crashing!” the bigfoot bellowed as he pulled back on the aircraft’s controls.
I tucked my wings against my body and gripped the armrests. Squatch was not our regular pilot, and it showed.
Again I wished that Gob and Flats hadn’t had to deal with the Werewolf Plague of 1346.
“Wait! Stop!” Brynn shouted between panting breaths. His lungs burned. His legs burned. And though the sun was dipping below the rim of the canyon, putting the structures around him into shadow, Brynn could feel the rock’s residual heat, even through his boots.
The girl kept climbing.
“You know they can’t understand you, right?”
“It’s too quiet.” Uchu leaned forward. The stone palace’s open balcony emphasized the unnatural stillness within the Kwaco. “The animals aren’t speaking, Ayara.” She caressed the feathered head of the red macaw perched on her shoulder. “Where is everyone?”
The bird nuzzled her, burying her beak in Uchu’s long braid.
Though the presence
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