The Hourglass Academy

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

It was the opening line in one of Burton's erotic sci-fi novellas, the ones he thinks are cleverly hidden. (Hallway bookcase, top shelf, behind the encyclopedias.) I’d read it in a day; eyes scrunched, nose wrinkled in horrible fascination. But in the end it wasn’t the extraterrestrial orgy that most disturbed me, it was the thought of dying in space. Floating away, alone and untethered, into a vast nothing.

Irrational, perhaps. Still, it’s my greatest fear.

And now, the irony of it all finds me, even through the thick haze of frenzied panic.

You drown quickly in cold water. It’s the shock of it—you gasp, suck in water, panic and pass out. Papa told me that once, many winters ago when I ran down the icy docks to meet his boat. It stuck, because Papa hardly ever scolded, and it was the last thought in my head when the black waters sucked me under.

Don’t gasp.

I bite my lips. Hard. I taste blood, but I don’t gasp.

The force of the sinking ship had somersaulted me, and upside-down and right-side up feel the same. It’s so cold, like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’m trying to swim, but my left leg is deadweight and throbbing. Broken, feels like.

My lungs are burning inside my chest. Swim, Papa’s voice is in my head. Swim through the pain.

I try.

Then, through the murky darkness, I sense the others. Hundreds of them, thrashing and disoriented, just like me.

I already know how it ends. Everybody dies. And I’m going to die right along with them this time. Just one more casualty for the history books.

The pain begins to ease. The water is numbing me; soothing the terror, making my thoughts come in slow motion. I’m tired. So tired. It would be awfully simple to just fall asleep. Maybe then it won’t feel like drowning. Maybe it would just seem like a nightmare. A bad dream.

I stop struggling and drift down, down, down.

My head hits the metal table and the blunt pain and echoing clang wrench me back to consciousness. I glance over to see if they noticed me nod off. It’s a reflex—I know I can’t see them. All I can see is myself, paler and thinner than I’d been before, the beginnings of a bruise on my left cheek. They’re watching me from the other side of the mirror. Taking notes, probably. Humming and hawing over my appearance, my exhaustion.

The order to arrest us immediately upon our return to Now came down from the high-ups at Pendulum, and they’re out for blood. As soon as we were pulled from the water they’d separated us—Owen was taken below deck while Montana and I were transferred to smaller speedboats. Probably so we couldn’t make up a lie.

I shiver. My hair is still wet.

A stack of lined papers sits in the middle of the table, and beside it, a ballpoint pen. I’m not leaving until I fill those pages with my version of The Incident, as they’re calling it. We botched the assignment but there’s more to it—something catastrophic happened. In the chaos of the sinking, one of us was left behind. The staticky transmission came over the radio on the speedboat, and just before the man at the controls picked up the receiver I’d heard it:

“Be advised, Student Zero’s status has been changed from missing to deceased, over.”

Deceased.

The word is still floating around my waterlogged brain, refusing to anchor, impossible to accept. One of us is dead. But who? We don’t use code names, Student Zero means nothing to me.

I stare at the pile of blank paper. Whatever I write, it can’t be the truth. I have nothing to do with someone getting killed, but the messy mission is another story. Our mistakes have affected the Fall In, and whatever damage we did to the timeline is being taken personally. No question, we’ve screwed over Pendulum in a big way and they want to know who to blame.

And truthfully? It’s me. I’m the one who failed. And worse—I failed on purpose.

But they can’t know that—they can never know that. Pendulum makes people disappear for much less. And when Pendulum makes you disappear, they don’t just make you vanish, they make it so you never existed at all.

I reach for the pen and the first sheet of paper. If I’m going to tell a story, I’m going to start at the beginning. Before it all went wrong.

My name is Windlass Hoyt. It was ten months ago that I first learned of The Hourglass Academy…

Before

It happened on a Friday. Rotten timing. Fridays are the worst, and this one was shaping up to be every bit as disastrous as the hurricane headed our way.

The national news had been warning everyone for days but Port Clyders are nothing if not stubborn and besides, I’d heard more than one person say, Maine hasn’t seen a hurricane in over a decade. Well. It was seeing one now, and all of Port Clyde was scrambling to prepare.

I was rescuing Mama’s linens from the laundry line where they’d been flapping wildly in the mounting wind, but my focus was on the water that lay just beyond. The storm was supposed to hit us by nightfall but the waves were already large enough to soak the docks and toss the tethered boats in the harbor like they were cardboard.

Papa.

There was a long stretch of empty dock where The Lobster Tail usually anchored. He should have been back already. He shouldn’t have gone out in the first place.

The hanging Dockside Inn sign on the side of our house was swinging wildly in the wind, creaking on its hinges and I reached up on my toes to retrieve it. The noise would keep the little ones up all night if I didn’t; their room was right above, overlooking the small gravel parking lot. I doubted we’d be getting tourists in the midst of the storm, and if the weather didn’t deter the local fishermen—the usual Friday crowd—well, they hardly needed a sign to find us.

I made it back inside as the first few pelts of rain began to splatter across the deck’s weathered wood.

Mama was in the kitchen peeling potatoes but her eyes were on the harbor. The ping of droplets came faster, louder. A heavy patter picked up and blurred the window with raindrop rivers. Mama looked away.

“He’ll be fine.” I tried to sound sure. The kitchen was small, too small considering Mama ran a business from it, but I found the space to fold the linens right there beside her.

“I asked him not to go out today,” she said. “He’s a fool to be out in this. And to bring Burton—”

“Burton’s with him?”

Mama nodded.

I should’ve guessed. I hadn’t seen him all day and Papa had been taking him along a lot more. Burton had wanted to go to college when he’d graduated two years ago, but his grades weren’t good enough for a full scholarship. So, he was learning to trawl.

“Your Papa’s a fool,” Mama said again, slicing the potatoes into a pot.

She wasn’t from Port Clyde, not originally, and therefore had no qualms believing the national news might know a thing or two that the locals didn’t. But Papa had gone out in his rickety old boat anyway and Mama hadn’t stopped him. Because even if we never talked about it we all knew there was something coming toward us, something more tangible than a forecasted hurricane and more dangerous than high winds and rain.

We’d run out of money, and this time it was different. We’d always been poor but we’d managed. Papa had his boat and Mama ran the inn. Tourists stayed when they were in season and local fishermen came for Mama’s cooking year-round. Ends were met. But the lobster population had dwindled in recent years and Papa was one of the last fishermen still setting traps. The others had given up. Moved away. And when you make a living trapping lobster and feeding fishermen things get tricky when neither of those things are anywhere to be found.

In the past, I’d relied on blind faith in my parents because they’d never failed us before. We’d always had necessities and we’d never once gone hungry. No matter how thin Papa claimed we were spread.

But that had changed the night before when I overheard them talking on the dock. My window had been open and their voices carried easily on the evening breeze.

“Selling the inn and the boat will give us enough to find something further inland if we’re not picky,” Papa had said. “I’ll ride to Portland this weekend and see about finding work at the lobster plant down there.”

“We have four months until Christmas—let’s not tell the children until after.” Mama was almost never sentimental and my throat clenched at the quiver in her voice. “We’ll give them one more Christmas by the sea.”

The tears had dried from my pillow by the time I woke up, and I started morning chores as if nothing had changed. If giving us one last Christmas at home was what they wanted, I wouldn’t be the one to ruin it.

But Papa might, because Mama would never forgive him if he capsized in the storm and took Burton with him to the bottom of the Atlantic.

I could tell she was having similar thoughts so I tried to conjure up something comforting to say when Keely blew in like she was part of the storm.

“Is Sailor back yet?”

That got Mama’s attention. “What do you mean is Sailor back yet? Where did she go?”

“To the mall with her friends.” Keely shrugged. “I think.”

“The mall is forty-five minutes away! Who on earth drove them there?” Mama jabbed the paring knife at the window. “Does nobody see we’re about to have a hurricane?”

Keely looked out the window as if she really hadn’t noticed. “Relax, I’m sure she’ll be home by dinner. Cars can drive in the rain, Mama.” She pulled out a tube of lipstick and leaned down to use the metal toaster as a mirror.

“Relax she tells me,” Mama said with a scoff. “You’ll eat those words when you have children of your own.” She shook her head and muttered something ugly about a fourteen-year-old not having the sense to stay home in inclement weather.

“Not gonna have my own children.” Keely smacked a glossy red kiss on Mama’s cheek and laughed at the mark it left. “They’re big on adoption in Holllywood, it’s trendier.”

Ah. There it was. Our daily reminder that she was destined for wealth and fame.

“But I’d only get one,” she said. “Children shouldn’t have to share their parents love and attention.”

That was Keely for you. Rude and delusional in the same breath.

I used the folded sheets as an excuse to get out before things escalated. Mama rarely shouted, but Keely had a particular knack for agitating her, especially on Fridays when things were already tense. Fridays used to mean that all the weekend tourists and returning fishermen would be cramming into our dining hall at suppertime. Fridays used to be loud and chaotic. Exhausting and productive.

Now, Fridays were quiet. And that was so much worse.

The rain was quickly reaching monsoon-status so I did a sweep of the house—our side and the inn’s side—because it would be just like one of us to leave a window open and cause water damage. I’d found and closed three by the time I came across Jenny in the third-floor hallway. She was perched on top of the cupboard where Mama kept toiletries for the inn, cross-legged and staring out the row of windows at the churning sea.

“Keeping an eye out for Papa?” I asked it softly so I didn’t startle her.

She turned to look at me with her big eyes and solemn stare. On good days she talked to me, a few words here and there. Most days she just stared. It was more than she offered anyone else though. Even Mama. There were therapists, specialists who could work with her, we’d been told. But that cost money. Papa said she’d talk when she was ready, and that had been that.

Jenny began sliding her tiny finger across the windowpane, drawing a figure eight in the condensation. She had the same blue eyes and white-blond hair that made all seven of us the most obvious siblings in Port Clyde, which made it hard to pin down what made her so different. She was, though. Different.

And sometimes, though I’d never told anyone, Jenny seemed to know things. Not normal four-year-old things like her home phone number or her ABCs, but things that hadn’t happened yet. Like a while back when she told me Brig was going to get hurt, and that Bay would be leaving us soon. Well. Over the summer, Bay got engaged. Two weeks ago, Brig had broken his arm back flipping off the docks.

I asked her how she’d known. She hadn’t answered. She hadn’t spoken since.

“Brig and Burton went blueberry picking yesterday,” I said, trying to lure her from that unreachable place. “How about we see if Mama wants us to bake a blueberry pie for tonight?”

No answer.

I sighed. My fingers found the smooth shard of green sea glass that hung from a string around her neck. Two summers ago, she’d gone missing for an hour. We’d all been on the beach but no one saw her wander off, almost like we’d all blinked at the exact same moment. Mama had been frantic and Papa had organized a search party of locals and tourists alike.

But then she’d just reappeared, out of nowhere it seemed, clutching a piece of sea glass and staring off as Mama cried and smothered her with thankful hugs and kisses.

Papa turned the piece of glass into a necklace. It was a Hoyt family tradition, making crafts out of odds and ends that washed up on shore. We had so many traditions, so many memories on the beach. My stomach sunk. It was the end of August and school would start in a week. Our last summer on the wharf of Port Clyde had come and gone and we hadn’t even known to savor it.

“What’s going to happen to us, Jenny?”

Outside the dark sky was tinted green and slate-colored waves were battering the boats.

“I saw.”

I’d just noticed a boat much bigger than Papa’s knocked on its side by a massive swell. I swallowed. Then it dawned on me that she’d spoken.

“Saw what? What happens to us?”

She nodded.

“What did you see?”

She traced the figure eight on the window. “You go,” the slightest crease appeared between her eyebrows, “and everything changes.”

“What do you mean, Jenny?” I whispered, afraid that any second she’d stop talking.

She fixed her eyes on mine and the moment stretched between us. And then, out of nowhere, her little face lit up with a rare smile.

“Papa’s back.” She slid off the cupboard and disappeared down the stairs.

Sure enough, the bright red hull of Papa’s boat had just come into view at the edge of the harbor.

I bounded downstairs, shouting for Mama the whole way.

♾ ♾ ♾

The worst of the hurricane hit just before midnight. I was nearly asleep when something clunked against the side of the house, followed immediately by two high-pitched shrieks.

“Could you not?” I groaned. “The wind is picking up everything that isn’t tied down. If you’re going to scream every time a lawn chair collides with our house then I’m going to sleep in Bay’s room.”

“Someone’s in a mood.”

“I was trying to sleep.” I felt around my nightstand for my glasses.

We didn’t have power but Papa had brought lanterns up from the cellar and in the opposite corner Keely was huddled on her bed with Sailor, reading something by the flickering light.

“What are you doing?”

Sailor’s head snapped up. She shoved her hand behind her back, but not before I saw that she was holding some kind of folder. She and Keely shared a look like they were debating whether or not to tell me. I hated that look. Like the two of them were their own sorority, and including me required special consideration. It might’ve made sense if they were both older or younger than me, but I was right in the middle—two years older than Sailor and only eleven months younger than Keely.

“You can’t tell anyone,” Keely said, motioning me over. “Sailor went to—”

“Hey!” Sailor elbowed her in the rib. “It’s my story, let me tell.” She ignored Keely’s dramatic sigh. “I went to Rockland with Derek and his brother today—”

“I thought you went to the mall?”

“No one goes to the mall, Winnie, that’s just what I told Keely to tell Mama. Randy drove me and Derek to Rockland because there’s an army recruiting place there and Derek’s wanted to sign up ever since his Dad caught him smoking and took away his TV.”

“We’re talking about Derek Funnel, your current boyfriend?”

“Okay, you don’t need to say current like that—”

“Don’t you have to be eighteen to join the army?”

“We know that now, obviously. God, you’re ruining the story.”

“Sorry. Continue.”

“They told Derek there was another option. An admissions scout was in town to recruit high-schoolers for some boarding school, so we went in because whatever, we were already there. But oh my God, Win, it was so weird.”

A massive gust made the whole house creak and all three of us winced at the resounding bang that came from the harbor. One of the larger boats probably, slamming into the docks. Then the howling started. I’d never heard wind like that before. Loud and angry. The rain shifted direction and began pummeling the house sideways, every droplet like a hammer.

At dinner, Papa had promised we were safe, said we’d take a battering but that there was no need to evacuate. And Papa was always right about things. Usually. A good amount of the time at least.

“What was so weird about it?” I asked. “Sailor?”

Her eyes had been on the rattling windows but they flicked back to mine. “Um,” she swallowed, “it was weird because the guy was so secretive.”

“Secretive?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “It’s like this elite military boarding school and they don’t tell anyone where it is or what it’s like, and if you get in you have to stay for three years, no going home for school holidays or anything. Randy said it’s probably a training ground for the CIA.”

“How do you get in?”

“They’re holding interviews all day tomorrow.”

I held in a laugh. “Interviews? For the CIA?”

Sailor shrugged.

“And Derek’s going?”

“God, no! He hates authority, Win, he’d be the last person to sign three years of his life over to some rigid boarding school.”

“Someone should probably explain the army to him.”

“I’m going.” Sailor bit her lip, stifling a squeal. “I signed up for an interview.”

“What?” I glanced at Keely, who rolled her eyes and unfurled her fingers in a just-humor-her way.

Sailor shoved a sleek black folder into my hands.

“The Hourglass Academy,” I read.

There was an elegant slant to the textured writing on the front. The ‘g’ in hourglass was like an elongated infinity symbol, just like Bay’s engagement ring only this one was turned vertically to look more like the letter it replaced.

“It’s a cool idea, Sail,” I handed back the folder, “but even if you got in, Mama and Papa can't afford it.”

They’re selling the boat, the inn, our home...I wanted to say. But none of that was Sailor’s fault, so I kept my tone kind as I slipped back into my bed.

“A school like that probably costs more than they could make in five years.”

“I’m not stupid, Winnie, I asked the guy about that before I put my name down. He said it isn’t like other boarding schools.”

There was a rustling of papers and then the sound of bare footsteps on hardwood. Sailor appeared by my pillow, setting the lantern on the nightstand and holding a paper in front of my face.

“He said if you get in, The Hourglass Academy pays you.”

Wait. “Seriously?” I took the paper and sat up.

“Yeah, like a crazy lot.” She climbed under the covers at the opposite end of my bed.

My eyes were frantically scanning the page she’d handed me. The Pendulum Promise, it said at the top. My heartbeat sped up. Then the room started spinning and the sounds of the hurricane faded away because there, at the bottom of the page in tiny print, was the miraculous solution to our family’s problem:

The Pendulum Family Compensation Trust.

“Oh my God.” I looked up at Sailor, then over to Keely. “Did you read this, Keel?”

She grunted and rolled over on her bed. “The families get money, blah blah blah.”

I was reading the details, doing the math in my head. There were nine of us. It would be hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would fix everything.

I looked Sailor square in the eye. “You have to get in.”

“Greedy.” She giggled and grabbed the paper. I didn’t let go. She looked at me, questioning.

“You have to.” I waited another second before I let go.

“Jeez, Winnie.” Keely’s blanket-muffled voice came from across the room.

Sailor nodded slightly. “I’ll try.” She was looking at me like I was nuts, but she didn’t know what I knew.

Lightning sliced a jagged tear in the blackness above the harbor. Thunder crackled into a resounding boom that shook the entire wharf. I wasn’t all that surprised when Brig and Jenny showed up in our doorway two minutes later.

I lifted up the covers and Jenny dove under, snuggling in.

Sailor got up and ruffled Brig’s hair. “Take my bed, I’ll share with Keely.”

Keely groaned but didn’t argue.

When everyone was settled, I went to extinguish the lantern, but paused for a moment and let my gaze drift over the room. The soft yellow glow barely reached the room’s edges but I could still make out Brig’s mess of white curls on Sailor’s pillow and the twin lumps under the covers on Keely’s bed. Jenny was already asleep beside me, curled up and breathing softly.

The house groaned, the wharf creaked and the storm raged, but I knew in the morning we’d wake up and Mama would be cooking breakfast with Bay, Papa and Burton would be tending to any damage on the docks and the ocean would be calm. We’d always had each other and we’d always had the sea.

Maybe we always could.

Before I drifted off to sleep, I pictured the Pendulum Promise. Put the small print up on my closed eyelids like a slide on a projector and read it over and over.

Sailor needed to get into that school. I was going to make sure she did.

♾ ♾ ♾

Mama let us sleep in. She probably knew the storm had kept us up. Still, I woke shortly after sunrise. Partly out of habit, but mostly because one of my sisters had opened all the windows in our room and the noises from the pier were floating in.

I could hear Papa and Burton talking with our neighbors, getting an early start on hurricane cleanup. The sun was back in the sky with the gulls and the water sparkled below.

If it were any other day, I’d go out to help fix up the harbor, but recent events demanded a change in plans.

First, the outfit. I ironed a black skirt that I’d found bunched in our closet—probably Keely’s from chamber choir—and a white button up that I snuck out of Brig’s dresser. On Sailor it would be fitted enough to pass as business attire. I was prepared to do Bay’s chores in order to borrow the expensive black blazer she’d bought for a job interview last year, but she handed it over with a smile, no exchange necessary. Of course she did. That was Bay for you.

Burton let me use his laptop to type up a list of Sailor’s admirable qualities and valuable strengths. That part took a bit. But I used words like confident and energetic and made it work. I printed it off, reread it and wondered if it seemed pushy. In the end, I decided it was good. It showed initiative.

I made a list of possible questions, things that might come up in the interview. Which again, tricky, because I didn’t know the first thing about private boarding schools. Except that usually you had a roommate. I started there:

Do you think you would you make a good roommate? I glanced over to her section of our room, a colorful terrain of dirty clothes, make-up accessories, a half-consumed apple and several empty soda bottles. A biohazard, basically. Right. Next question. How would you resolve issues between you and your roommate?

By the time I went looking for Sailor, I had planned for every possible aspect of the interview and a small part of me was expecting to be knighted and declared the Greatest Older Sister Anywhere Ever.

I found her sunbathing on one of the lower docks. She peered up at me, blocking the sun with her hand while I went over my morning of exhaustive groundwork.

“So, there’s no way you’re not going to make a lasting impression with all this,” I concluded, handing her the ever-so-slightly exaggerated list of assets and abilities, “but I came up with a few questions they might ask, and we should go over them now so you can practice being articulate.”

“Yeah,” her nose wrinkled and she handed back the list I’d typed, “I don’t really feel like going anymore.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s three years, Win. What if the school is in Iceland or something?”

“So what if it is?” I could feel my cheeks getting hot. “Do you know how many times you’ve told me to live a little?”

“Yeah, because you’re boring.”

“Take your own advice, Sailor! You’re always saying you want to see the world!”

“I do, eventually. Why do you want me to go so bad anyway? Wouldn’t—” Her voice faltered the tiniest bit. “Wouldn’t you miss me?”

That was a low blow. To be completely honest I hadn’t thought too much about that part. The part where she’d be away from us. Maybe I was awful.

“Of course I’d miss you.”

She smiled softly. “The thing is, I could never be away from Derek for that long. Our relationship is still so new and fragile. I think I love him, Winnie.”

It occurred to me that I’d overlooked one crucial detail: the fact that Sailor Hoyt was the most flighty, immature and utterly ridiculous person in all of Maine.

I would have told her so too, except at that very moment a scream cut across the wharf, halting all conversation and turning every head to the deck of our house where Mama was gripping the wooden rail with white knuckles.

“Rueben!” She cried out again, and Papa materialized on the dock, “Come quick!”

“What’s wrong?” Papa shouted, running toward our house with Burton close behind.

“It’s Jenny,” Mama said, and a frost began to spread through my veins. Her next words came quivering and clenched, like something barely restrained. “She won’t wake up.”