11:39

by Holly Hook

  The waiter lunges forward. Grabs my arm.

  I recoil. His skin is slimy. Rubbery. Loose and disgusting.

  He looks me in the eyes with those sad pits of despair. “Julia,” he says, his voice still clear and alive. “Go back. Help us.”

  Chapter Two

  I pull Simon out into the hallway. The dead man’s grip loosens, freeing my wrist. We tumble out, crashing into the wall. Simon closes the door on the scene, standing against the carved wood for good measure while I suck in the most precious breaths I've ever taken.

  Silence falls. I shake my arm, but the slimy feeling stays, like I’m wearing a bracelet of ooze that I can’t get off. I gag again and the inside of my mouth burns. My eyes water. I’m going to be sick.

  “Julia. I'm so sorry. I didn't know this was going to happen.” Simon takes one step away from the door and pauses, waiting for it to come open. It doesn't. There's only silence on the other end. He sighs in relief. “Let’s get out of here. Do you remember how to shift back up to the Main Chamber?”

  I swallow and my stomach settles a little. The dead waiter's voice still rings in my head. Go back, go back...

  “Hold on a minute,” I say. “I don't think they're coming out after us. I need to get my bearings. They're just our creations, aren't they? They can't hurt us in that case.” Not physically, I want to finish.

  “You're right. They can't. But that was too real.” Simon checks the door again to confirm it's still shut. His cheeks have a sick greenish tint like he's about to throw up. “The Main Chamber. The faster, the better. Hold my hand.”

  We have to leave for Simon's sake. “I didn't realize you had a weak stomach.”

  “I'm a man. Of course I wasn't going to tell you that.” He manages a smile at me. The color returns to his cheeks.

  “To be truthful, I didn't do so well myself.”

  “You did better than I did.”

  I cough the last of the stale air out of my lungs and stare at the red carpet on the floor. Can the Timeless throw up? That’s not an answer I want. “Okay. Main Chamber. Look up and focus, right?”

  “Yes.” He pulls me farther away from the door, as if I need any convincing.

  I blink away the final tears of disgust. I have to leave just as much as Simon and it's not all due to the zombies. We look at the white ceiling together. I remember Simon’s earlier instructions. Look up. Think about returning to the Main Chamber. Think about standing there already with the cathedral over our heads. It might take a few seconds, but then a rift will open and--

  A brilliant flash of light explodes around us. It's a rift. The body of Time is full of them. I’m flying through sunlight, through glitter, through waving curtains of gold. My skin tingles with power. We must be travelling through the fabric of Time itself. Simon can't say that's the case when this happens, but it's the conclusion I've reached.

  The slimy pressure of the dead waiter’s hand dissipates like a bad dream. Simon keeps his gentle grip on my arm. It’s warm and inviting. Understanding.

  There's one more flash of gold and the crystal floor of the Main Chamber races up to meet us.

  I land on my feet, letting my knees bend to absorb the shock. My hands meet the cold crystal floor and the chill of the Hub wraps around my skin. Simon’s standing next to me, smiling and steady on his feet. He’s had far more practice going through rifts than I have.

  “Feel better?” he asks, leaning down to help me up.

  “I think so.” I stand and slap him on the arm. “You're the one who was ready to throw up back there.”

  “Like I mentioned, I'm a man.”

  He releases me and I twirl around, taking in the enormity of the Main Chamber. We stand in the ballroom of the gods, a white crystal dome large enough to cover a small city. The ceiling’s so high that if weather happened here in the body of Time, clouds would form and rain down on us. I keep waiting for that to happen. There are nothing but miracles—and nightmares—here where all times and places meet.

  “Julia, I don’t understand what happened back in the restaurant.” Simon paces in front of me, digging his sneakers into the floor like he's a child who's been caught writing on the wall. “I’ve never had anything like that go on in there before. To be honest, I’m pretty alarmed.”

  The Main Chamber’s very tall and quiet. Vast and empty. It’s leaving us alone with our thoughts. I glance at the dome entrances to all the corridors. Hundreds of them form a ring around us. There aren't even any other Timeless here, escorting lost people back to the original times and places. Usually when Simon and I are here, there's some life here in the Hub.

  Go back. Help us.

  The dead waiter’s plea rings in my head, over and over and over again. It'll get more desperate and harder to ignore when I sleep tonight. It’s a seed that’s going to grow and grow until its vines choke me to death.

  Because I am going to go back to the night Titanic sank.

  I am going to rescue my little brother.

  But everyone else—

  “It was me who caused that scene,” I say. “I think we both know that. Simon, thank you for trying to take me to a nice dinner. I didn't mean to let my bad mood come in and ruin it.”

  “Julia, it's not your fault. I should have taken you somewhere else. It's just that--” he turns away and studies the other side of the Main Chamber for a moment. “It's just that sometimes, we'll have to spend time in our quarters between assignments. You won't be living with Nancy and Monica forever. I wanted to do something nice, to show you that with some work, it's not so bad.” I can hear the frustration in his voice. I'm making this hard for him. He feels like it's his responsibility to make me happy after the decision I made.

  “Simon, you shoulder enough. I'm the one who tricked Time into making me like you.”

  He faces me and takes my arms. “Because you would have died if you didn't. You had no choice. I didn't want this fate inflicted on you.”

  “Then I'm going to make the most of it,” I say. “Like you always say, Time doesn't care how anyone feels about anything. That means I don't care how it feels about what I do. When are we going to go back and get my father and my brother off the ship?” I eye the corridors. I have no idea which one leads to the Titanic rift. There must be millions—no, billions or trillions—of rifts here, all going to different times or places. I'll never find the right one if I walk around here for an eternity, searching. For some reason, I can remember where the gateway to Nancy and Monica's time is—it's down that corridor to the left and behind me, about two miles down the hallway. Since I went Timeless there's something like a mental map working inside of me, no matter where I go in the Hub. There's even a sign hanging above the rift that reads Trenton that I couldn't see while I was still mortal.

  Simon glances down again and back at me. “Don't worry. We will get them back. I just need to figure out a way to do it. It's not as easy as it seems like it should be.”

  “Because once we rescue Melvin, he's going to be a Rogue like I was.” I've thought of that. A regular, mortal person becomes a Rogue if they end up in the wrong time. Time sends the Timeless to go capture them and send them back to where they belong. It's why Frank and Isabel came for me a few months after I started living with Nancy and Monica.

  “And Time will send someone after him,” Simon finishes.

  “Then we need another way to save him and my father.”

  “Exactly.” He hugs me so tight that I press my face against his shirt. “We'll think of something. We just have to give it time. The rift to the Titanic will never disappear.”

  I close my eyes and breathe in Simon’s salty scent. He’s the ocean. The beach on a sunny day, and on a stormy day. “Simon, how come nothing like those zombies happened when you were in your quarters by yourself? Frankly, you do get upset quite a lot. It should have manifested something bad for you. Or has it?”

  We separate and look at each other. I’m so close to Simon that I have to struggle not to cross my
eyes. “I think it happened this time because there’s two of us from the same tragedy now. Maybe our combined mental energy is much for our quarters to handle.”

  “I’m never going to understand this place,” I say, taking a few steps towards the hallway that leads to Nancy and Monica's rift. How do I know which one is right? All the corridors look the same from here.

  “I never will, either,” Simon admits. “One of these days, I should draw a road map of the Hub or something. We could work on it together. That would be a fun project.”

  “It would take forever.”

  “We have forever.”

  His words hang in the huge room, echoing off the walls and bouncing farther and farther away. The chill returns now that we're not embracing.

  Forever.

  It's a scary, horrifying word.

  But before I can dwell on it, another sound floats towards us. It’s miles away at first, then closer, bouncing around a curve somewhere.

  Voices. Two of them. One male, one female.

  Someone’s coming.

  I tense and turn in a full circle, looking for the hallway that they’re coming from. We’re standing in the middle of the Main Chamber. There’s nowhere to hide. The freaky acoustics of this place loft the voices across the room at us, preserving them in the still air.

  “…that she is a danger to the stability, of, well, everything. I’m shocked time even chose her. There’s some mistake—“

  It’s Frank.

  The one who wanted me dead.

  I grab Simon's arm. “We’ve got to go.”

  We turn. Run. My footfalls shoot everywhere and reverberate through the Main Chamber like sonic ping-pong balls. Frank says something else behind us, but I don’t need to hear it. Even though he can't kill me now, I don't trust him. He's sneaky. Ruthless. There's no telling what he'll do. And he's not talking about anyone else besides me. What if there's a way he can get Time to make me mortal and send me back to the sinking? I'm new at this Timeless thing. I don't know.

  We run and run. A minute passes. I glance at Simon and he nods at the corridor that leads to Nancy and Monica's time. Why does the Main Chamber have to be so big? At least I'm not running out of breath. Maybe becoming Timeless has done something for my stamina.

  Frank's voice washes over us again. “And furthermore...”

  Isabel interrupts him. “Why do you keep repeating yourself? It's done.”

  They must be almost to the Main Chamber by now. They must be able to hear our footfalls as well as we can hear them.

  “In here.” Simon keeps his voice low and waves me into the corridor. We duck in and I hug the wall. He takes my lead and does the same. Thankfully, the hallway curves, hiding the Main Chamber from view. Simon stops, leaning against the space between rifts. I join him and he hugs me from behind.

  We wait in silence. Golden rifts swish and sparkle around us, lined in rows up and down the hall. The crystal walls down here give off light like there's a million Christmas lights hidden behind them. I can't help but stare. The Hub has come to life ever since I went Timeless. As a mortal, I couldn't see these rifts, just the archways up and down these halls that hold them. Only the strongest rifts are visible to normal people. Now I can see even those random weak ones that form out in the normal world.

  “Is Frank going to come down this way?” I ask. “You know—to go to Trenton? He must know we still spend most of our time there.”

  “I can't be certain.” Simon’s voice is tense. “We’d better listen.”

  Frank’s voice is muffled now that we're out of the Main Chamber. I crane my neck closer to the opening to the hall, which I can't see around the curve. I have to learn what he's planning. I'm a broken rule, after all. There's only supposed to be one member of the Timeless from each historical tragedy. No one knows why according to Simon, but it can't bode well for us.

  Frank's voice grows in volume. I catch my name amongst chopped words. He must be well into the Main Chamber now. Closer.

  Simon hugs me from behind and gives me a nervous squeeze. “We should go back to the main world. Have a dinner that’s not going to turn ancient right in front of us.”

  “We need to hear this.” I wiggle out of Simon’s embrace.

  “No." He closes his hand on my shoulder. “If we get any closer, he’ll see you. Frank's dangerous. I'm not even sure how much so.”

  "Which is why we need to spy on him." I inch along the wall, turning my back to Simon. I can see part of the Main Chamber now, but the center where Frank must be standing is out of view. I’m taking a huge risk here, but I need to know his plan.

  Because he killed my brother and my father.

  Not directly, but he made it impossible for me to save them. He wanted them to die and he'd do the deed himself if Time ordered him to.

  “This isn’t a good idea.” Simon’s right behind me, so close that I can feel his body heat. I ignore him. Frank says something again. A female answers. It’s Isabel. I recognize her high voice. Her accent, in which she pronounces her w’s like v’s. They’re arguing, but their words are so smeared and stretched in the dome that I can only make out a word or two.

  Isabel: “We can’t go back—“

  Frank: “Julia needs to—“

  “What?”

  “…disaster. Just watch. It will happen. It's a mistake that Time claimed her. She is too strong. Julia will never follow our rules. The unspeakable will happen.”

  Isabel's almost yelling. “What will happen, Frank? Stop being vague and just tell me. Or are you hiding the truth from me again?"

  Frank coughs like he's inhaled water. "I cannot, Isabel."

  There's silence that stretches out. "I used to love you, Frank. I thought you were a good person, but what good person would try to hurt children? You're just another soldier of evil like too many others that I've known."

  Footsteps echo.

  "Isabel!" Frank calls after her. "Come back to me. I am not what I seem right now."

  "No. Never."

  I lean to the side more, peeking around the curve. I focus on Isabel’s outline. She’s got her back turned to us. All I can make out is her blond mane cascading down her back as she storms away from us, towards one of the countless openings on the other side of the Main Chamber.

  She's broken up with Frank. It makes me like her a little more. At least she hadn’t been there on the Titanic, trying to ram a knife into my chest.

  "We should go." Simon's breath is hot on my ear.

  I’m not sure if I like the thought of eating right now, but I nod. It’s better than here. I need to move my mind away from disturbing things, because they’re legion.

  “Okay." The conversation is over, anyway. As much as I want to march out there and murder Frank, now isn't the time. Revenge is another thing we will need to think through.

  Simon and I link hands. He's shaking. Sullen. He must be imaging his own ways to murder Frank. It's taking all his restraint not to run after him. We walk deeper into the hallway and around the curve. The corridor straightens and eternity stretches out in front of us. The parade of golden rifts fades into light, never stopping, never changing. And if I look close, I can see through the crystal to the billions of stars that lie beyond. Visiting the Hub is an experience I will never grow used to.

  Minutes pass, or seem to pass. I try to imagine where all the rifts go. So far, I've only seen one wooden plaque--the one above the Trenton rift. "Will I only be able to tell where a rift goes after I use it?"

  "Yes." Simon's grip relaxes. "You should be able to see a sign above the Trenton one now. Once you use a rift, you'll remember how to find it forever. I've used many of them, so I've learned my way around. I still don't know where many of them go. Don't worry. You'll learn a lot more of them."

  "I can't wait." I do like the thought of exploring.

  But there’s only one door I truly want.

  The one my brother and my father are behind.

  Until they’re safe, the rest can wa
it.

  "How long to we have before I start getting...assignments?" I ask.

  "It'll happen soon," he says. "Don't worry. Time won't send you alone after anybody. Chances are, we'll be together when it happens. After all, it takes a group of Timeless to open a rift to send someone back to where they belong. My first assignment was to go find a knight who fell through a rift and got lost up in 1930's Chicago. That was interesting." Simon smiles. "I was paired up with another Timeless named Annabelle that time. I think she's the one who was at the restaurant with Frank and Isabel when they cornered you. And I could have sworn there was someone else, but I can't for the life of me remember who they were." He looks through the wall like he's lost and confused. "There must have been a third person. Why can't I recall who it was? The knight was the most memorable Rogue I've ever hunted. He actually tried to stab me with an authentic Medieval sword. We had to knock him out with a baseball bat and drag him through the rift. I'm sure he woke back at his castle with a headache."

  "What?" I laugh even though I know it's not funny, but I can't help it.

  He shakes his head. "I'm sure I'll think of who was on assignment with us later."

  "Maybe you forgot because you were so focused on not getting your head cut off. Monica says our memories can get screwed up in situations like that."

  "True." Simon stops and faces a rift. We're here. A wooden plaque above the archway reads Trenton along with the year, date, and the time that we left as if it's saved our location. "The thing is, Timeless memories can't be tampered with. Even changing history won't alter them. That's why I can remember hiding the mortal you with Nancy and Monica even though that technically didn't happen now. I should be able to recall everything else. Oh, well. I'm sure it'll come to me." He faces our rift.

  I finger my teardrop necklace. It’s the glass one filled with coal salvaged from the sunken Titanic. It's the only reason I’m still alive, the only thing that jogged my memory of the present enough so that I’d know how to escape. I’m going to wear it for the rest of my life, no matter how long that is.

  “Are you ready to leave, Julia?” he says. “Let’s go find some real, twenty first century food."