The End of Time by P. W. Catanese, David Ho

story has many variations, all over the world,” Umber said. He poked at a page in Caspar’s notebook. “Here’s another strange fact. As we suspected, Meddlers can vanish at will and reappear in another place. But apparently they can’t disappear if they are being watched—only when no eyes are upon them!”
    “So if we see Willy Nilly again . . .”
    “Right. We don’t let him out of our sight. Now, Hap, allow me to sum up the rest of what Caspar learned. You know those filaments you’ve seen? Humans have them. And Meddlers, too. But most other creatures do not.”
    “Occo had them,” Hap said, thinking of the horrible eye-stealing creature that had once pursued him.
    “Yes. Occo, the Creep. I wonder why? Maybe because his kind is partly human. Or because they steal human eyes. Well, at least we don’t have to worry about him anymore. Now, where was I? Many of the Meddlers—most of them, probably—are just pranksters. Small-time stuff. Others have brought down whole kingdoms with their schemes and machinations. It’s impossible to say how many Meddlers there are at a given moment, because they move through time at will. A Meddler who is with us today might decide to leap forward ten years, or a century. And once they go forward, they cannot go back.
    “Meddlers seem to come in pairs—but not friendly pairs. They are rivals, nemeses, and they each manipulate events with a different goal in mind. For example, while one Meddler tries to bring two lovers together, the nemesis keeps them apart. Or they take opposing sides in a conflict of nations.” Umber closed the book and balanced it on his knee. “And that’s just about all we know. Unless you’ve learned something more.”
    Hap shook his head. “Nothing important. But I wonder who Willy Nilly’s nemesis was. Do you think . . . ?” His hands rose, subconsciously, and touched the corners of his eyes.
    Umber winced. “I had the same thought. Perhaps they were both in my world, working their mischief. And then, for some reason, Willy decided to make a new Meddler. And he might have used the eyes of his nemesis to do it.”
    “Do you think one of them caused all that trouble in your world?” Hap asked.
    Umber dwelled on that question, tapping the space between his nose and mouth with one finger. “Maybe. It would have been easy enough for a Meddler to wreak havoc there. But now Willy wants to set things right. Remember the note he’d left when I first found you? You’re supposed to undo the damage. Head off the global catastrophe. Who knows, maybe the nemesis caused it. Or Willy himself, and he came to regret it. We won’t know unless Willy shows up and tells us, will we?”
    Hap followed Umber to the main deck and nearly walked into his back when Umber abruptly stopped and looked up. He had the sort of mouth that could flash every tooth when he smiled wide, and suddenly they were all on display. “Hap, look!”
    White sails were spread wide everywhere on the Bounder , giving her a top-heavy appearance. There were vast, bulging sprawls of canvas on the foremast and mainmast, smaller spreads on the topmasts, three triangular sails stretched toward the repaired bowsprit, and more sails improvised in places Hap had never seen them before.
    Sandar shouted endless instructions to sailors who’d clambered high among the ship’s roping. He noticed Umber and Hap on deck and flung his arms wide. “Lord Umber, have you ever seen so much sail? And look how she flies—two knots faster than ever. We’ll reach the Verdant Isle in no time!”
    Every sailor on the deck and up in the rigging watched Umber, struggling to suppress their grins. Hap puzzled over it briefly, and then saw the reason: A pair of ropes had been strung across the ship’s deck, and laundry pinned there from top to bottom. Shirts, pants, and undergarments billowed in the breeze like the sails above. Umber’s eyebrows rose when he finally noticed them, and he bent and guffawed. That