9

Smig, once known as Cosmo deSmiglia, had not been dealt a favorable hand by life. Scaring people wasn’t fun. Nor was the constant snuffling, drooling, and farting that came with his predicament.

But his hearing and sight were better than ever. There were some advantages to the curse of time travel.

They called this transspeciating, a fancy name for transforming into an extinct species. This supposedly prevented you from duplicating any living thing when you time-hopped. But this was a cruel joke—a stinked species, it seemed to him.

That was funny. Smig snorted. But he hated the smell of his own breath.

He thought of all the other things he could have become. Like a Neanderthal. Or a flying reptile. Those would have been fun.

Staying safely hidden behind the Glen Span Arch, he watched the trio on the park bench and the skyline behind them. He’d heard every word the old man and the girl had said. By rights he should have been furious. If there really was a cure, the timing was horrible. Way too late for him.

Also, the girl had called him a rat. He hated when people called him a rat.

Still, he couldn’t keep his eyes from the sight across the street. The gleaming new high-rise silhouetted against the setting sun. A high-rise that had never, ever been there.

As one-time keeper of the Knickerbocker logs, Smig had read all the legends, the ancient tales of mythical people who could do the impossible. Who could change history and thus bend the course of present-day events.

They were called Throwbacks.

But these were myths, tall tales. Silly creatures conjured out of a need to explain something unexplainable. Like sprites in the woods who people claimed to see but never actually caught. No one ever took those stories seriously.

Now, Smig thought, no one would ever not.

He knew people who would like to learn about this. Powerful people. Maybe powerful enough to get this cure for themselves and restore him to the way he had been.

He heard a noise and looked up. The three were leaving now.

With a snuffle that could not be helped, Smig backed away, deeper into the woods.