by Holly Hook
My eyes fill.
But my brother and my father and Arnelia...
We will have to lead our lives back in 1912 for her to happen.
I'm ripping apart inside, but I know what I have to do. I promised my family. I won't break that now.
“Simon,” I manage. “I'm going to miss them."
“So will I,” he says, pulling me close to him. “Maybe we should go back to Nancy's for a while. So you can spend some more time with them. We can go to the Gustloff at any point. Besides, it will let plan this a little more before we dive in.”
“I like that idea.” I'll go back and we'll spend a bit more time with Nancy and Monica. I'll spend all of my time with them. Go to the Branch with Monica again. Take Nancy out to dinner. Even play with the kids at Happy Rabbit's. I love them all. I'll treasure every moment.
And I know I won't want to leave.
But Melvin--
There's a cry from down the hallway, echoing from where Arnelia disappeared.
My heart leaps and I leap off the couch. Simon does the same. Even Isabel's eyes widen and she pales. “Check on her. Now!”
Simon and I bolt down the hallway, past closed doors and branching hallways. The cry comes again, and a guy's voice echoes from one door that's, like the others, closed.
I recognize the voice. It's Frank. He's found Arnelia.
I try the door. It's locked. Simon nods at me.
Simon and I ram our shoulders into the door at the same time. It creaks, but doesn't break. It looks like wood, but it must be a different material.
“Frank!” Simon shouts. “Open the door. Stop messing around!”
There's a thump from inside the room and something about it makes me snap.
He's not going to kill another member of my family, even if they're thousands of years away.
I look at Simon, nod, and we both ram into the door again.
An ear-splitting crack sounds and it bursts open. Frank’s standing there in the middle of Arnelia’s room, his knife to her throat. Her brown eyes are wide and terrified. They bore into us, begging for help.
Terror squeezes my heart. It’s too much like Melvin. I have to save Arnelia. If I fail, it will be because I let her down.
Frank’s shaking. “Don’t come any closer,” he says. “I don’t want to stab her. I really don’t. I need to talk to the two of you about what you’re doing. I know you’re both planning to change history. You already have. Julia’s here. That proves it to me. I’m surprised you’re both still here. I have to put a stop to you. They said so.”
Frank’s talking like a crazy guy. He trembles, and the knife brushes Arnelia’s flesh. Her breaths come shallow. The butterfly hairpiece hangs in her tight fist. Frank must have no idea what it is.
“Arnelia has nothing to do with us,” I lie. “Why are you holding her hostage? Isn't that changing history?”
Frank's eyes are wide. Crazy. “You were talking to her in the bathroom before Isabel and I sent her back here. And now the two of you are here, defending her. I’ve been watching her. Now that I think about it, there was no Arnelia here in 5052 until after you went Timeless, Julia. You did something. Changed something. And now they’re going to come.”
“They?” I ask. I have to stall and get him to lower the knife. “Who are you talking about?”
“This is nothing personal.” Frank lowers the knife a bit from her throat. “I just don’t want to see them again. I don’t want that to happen to anybody else. That’s why I’m cleaning up this mess.”
“Frank, speak clearly!” Simon's fists are balled. He’s ready for another fight.
I know what Frank means. He’s going to stab Arnelia. Stop us from saving my family and Isabel’s, too. But there’s a look of terror in Frank that matches my own. He’s afraid of something.
There’s a stun prism sitting on Arnelia’s desk. If I can get to it, maybe I can stun Frank. If it worked on me, it’ll work on him. But will I know how to use it? And Frank could stab her before I even get there. Where's Isabel? I glance up and down the hall. She's nowhere.
“You'll find out what I'm talking about if you keep going with this,” Frank says. He pushes the knife closer to Arnelia's neck. She sucks in a breath. Simon's squeezing in beside me. We have to move.
“Frank,” I say, trying to sound as tough as I can. “As far as I know, you're the one messing with history. Eric, remember? That kid who wouldn't have fallen into the pond if you hadn't been there?” I don't dare look at the prism on the desk. I'm two feet from it. As soon as I move, he'll stab. “Shouldn't you be the one who's worried?”
Frank balks. I've hit something. “I...I did it for Isabel!” He's fumbling now. “You don't know anything about her history. I did it so she wouldn't have to be the one to send you back. Now they're going to come after me if I don't work for them. I made them a deal. That's it. It's nothing against any of you.”
There's real terror in Frank's voice. And anger. He's furious that Isabel left him. Maybe that's why she couldn't stick around.
“Frank, just tell us what's going--”
Simon jumps at him. Frank's grip loosens and Arnelia ducks. Simon knocks Arnelia out of the way and she falls to the side, grabbing the edges of her bed. Frank waves his knife through the air. It catches on the arm of her sky blue robe, ripping the arm. Drops of blood fly, but Arnelia grits her teeth and grabs the wound. She doesn't cry out.
I'm furious. I leap at Frank and forget all about the stun prism thing. His knife's on the floor. He keeps hurting my family. He keeps taking everyone I care about. He deserves to suffer. I can't kill him, but I can cause him pain.
Simon's holding him down on the floor, arms quivering. Frank tries to sit up, but a punch from Simon lands on the side of his face. Frank slumps back, unconscious. I grab the knife and raise it.
“No!”
It's Arnelia, standing there and holding that prism thing. I drop the knife. She's pointing it at all of us. I don't really have a choice.
“Why are you stopping me?” I ask. I'm almost gone with rage. “You of all people should realize what he's done.”
“I want to hear what he has to say.”
Frank's lying there on his back, still out. Simon scoots away from him. It's not like Frank's going to move, anyway. If he does, Arnelia's going to paralyze him.
“I want to know what can happen,” Arnelia says. “We all need to know. There are some questions even our computers can't answer.”
She's right. I suck in a breath. Force my rage back down into a dark pit. Frank blinks. He's coming to.
“Okay,” I say to Frank. His gaze shifts to me and his eyes cross. “What's going to happen to us that you're so worried about?” I don't mean to make it sound like it's not a big deal, because it probably is.
Frank blinks again. Sucks in a breath. Opens his mouth to speak.
Coughs. Gags.
Dread clutches my chest. I've seen this before. Simon had the same problem when he first wanted to tell me where we came from.
“Fantastic,” I say. He can't talk about it. Time won't let him. But Frank shouldn't have any issues talking to us. We're both Timeless now. “Does Arnelia need to leave the room for you to open up?”
Frank shakes his head and raises his hand to his face, shielding himself from Simon. He's still shaking. “It's not that. There's a secret most Timeless don't even know. If you're smart, you'll stop trying to change history now.”
Arnelia stands there, tightening her grip on the prism thing. She swallows. We can't stop. She'll cease to exist. It'll mean that I never rescue Melvin and my father like I promised.
Whatever Frank can't open up about, we have to risk facing it. There's no other way. And if the Time in his blood won't let him talk about it, there's only one way to discover what he means.
We have to face it. It's the last thing I want to do, other than giving up.
“Stun him,” I say.
"No!" Frank sits up, but flops to the floor. He stares at
the ceiling like he's dead, but his chest rises and falls. There’s no way he’s moving for a few minutes. It's our opportunity to get away.
“We need to go,” Arnelia says. She hands me the butterfly and keeps the stun prism in her hand.
We're running down the hall a second later, leaving Frank to think about whatever we're going to run into. “Simon,” I breathe. “Do you know what he's talking about?”
“No.” He looks at me, all worried. “I don’t like the sounds of this. I don’t think he was faking.”
“Neither do I.” I grasp Arnelia’s butterfly hair clip tighter. We bolt through the lobby and through the purple tunnel, passing a lone man in a tan robe.
And Arnelia is still here. That’s a good sign that our plan will still work—right?
“I will let the three of you through our rift,” Arnelia says. “I will disable our security. Where did Isabel go?”
“Beats me,” I say. She can’t just walk out on us like this. She still needs our help. And we need hers.
But we find her standing there just outside the time travel room, right at the end of the blue water tunnel.
“There you are,” Simon says. “Where did you go when we needed you back there?” He’s holding down rage. I wonder if he’s going to go off on her, but he keeps his fists balled and his lips tight after that. He’s still pretty old-fashioned. He won’t start all-out screaming at a girl.
“Frank doesn’t know that I’m involved in this,” she says. “We need to keep it that way. I could be the secret weapon in all of this. That’s why I ran back here before he could see me.”
“Oh.” Simon unclenches his hands. “That makes sense. I forgot.”
“Frank thinks something is going to come after us all for changing history,” I say. “You used to date him. Do you know what he’s talking about?”
A look of confusion falls over Isabel. She glances side to side and narrows her eyebrows at me. Arnelia pushes around her and runs the lab, where she’s going to shut the security down so we can go back in. We have no choice but to wait for her, or we're all getting trapped on those walls or those metal boxes again. I don't even care about the water, not after Frank's revelation. “There isn’t anything that can come after us. We are the time police and Time can’t defend itself without us. Frank must be lying. I have never heard of anything else.”
“He sure didn’t sound that way,” I say.
Isabel makes a disgusted sigh. “Frank does have a history of lying. That boy he pushed into the pond, remember? He never told me about that. He never planned to. That’s why I broke up with him. I’m tired of having monsters in my life.”
“Ready,” Arnelia says, running back up to the tunnel. “You need to leave and get ahead of Frank.”
The three of us run into the lab. Arnelia runs up beside us, ready to dart to the rift wall and fire it up. “To use this device, press the butterfly’s head once while it is on your head. It will download your memories and feed them back into you when you wear it again. Then to erase the memories, press the butterfly's head three times fast."
“That sounds easy enough.” I run up to the rift wall. It's still boring gray. Frank will only be stunned a couple more minutes if Arnelia used the same dose on him as she did on me. "Wait--if we change history, won't our memories disappear from this thing? Since, you know, this meeting with you never would have happened?"
Arnelia smiles as she taps the rift wall. "I thought about that. That is why I included a drop of Timeless blood in the chip. The memories in the chip should never be changed no matter how many times you alter history." She's shaking. Is she sure? The keypad comes up and she puts in a combination. Her own tough wall is coming down. I don’t blame her, because she has Frank to deal with after we leave.
“Come with us,” I say. “Frank wants to kill you.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says. “I will put the security back up as soon as you leave. If Frank tries to come through here, he will be trapped and I will have him arrested. I also still have my weapon. It would be even more dangerous if I went with you. Time will send someone to hunt me down again, anyway. It is better if I stay here with all my memories intact. I will slow Frank down for you.”
She's right. Arnelia won't have the butterfly now. I can’t help but wonder how Frank got through the security in the first place. I can only hope he got the same lecture that Simon and I got. “I feel a whole lot better knowing you can defend yourself.”
“So do I,” Simon adds.
And then Arnelia and I are hugging.
“Good luck,” she says.
“You, too,” I say. She feels so small and fragile in my hug, like I’m holding her up, but I know better. She's tough. Brave. Strong. She'd have to be in order to risk traveling time and changing the past. “I hope I can see you again.”
We separate and Arnelia embraces Simon. They exchange some quiet words. No jealousy brims up in me. Not, of course, that there can be. Arnelia is family, after all.
The rift explodes in the wall, golden and bright. Even the one out by the football field was nowhere near this bright when Simon and I found it the other day.
There's no time to waste. Frank's heading this way. Isabel needs to go first.
"Go!" I push her into the rift. She starts to protest and vanishes.
Simon and I hold hands, tight and ready for the fall. I hold the butterfly to my chest with my free hand. “Stay safe,” he says to Arnelia.
And then we leap through, leaving her behind. I catch one last glimpse of her through the gold curtain before I fall away into the abyss.
She's smiling. Hopeful.
Chapter Sixteen
“We need to move away from this rift. Now.”
Isabel's there in the crystal hallway of the Hub, talking before Simon and I can even get our bearings. I hit the floor and blink. The year 5052 is gone. Now we stand once again in the place where all times come together. The crystal walls and the rainbow lights behind them seem warm and familiar to me.
I'm still holding the butterfly so tight against my jeans--the robe is gone now--it should break. But whatever material it's made out of holds together. Simon and I loosen our hands and separate.
Isabel's right. If Frank does come through this rift, he'll come out right here. Whatever thing is supposed to come after us might do so, too. Or will it wait until we mess up Time? That's not an answer I want now.
“I agree,” I say. The three of us break into a run. I think we're heading in the direction of the Main Chamber. “Where are we supposed to go that Frank won't expect?”
“Almost anywhere,” Isabel says. “We don't go back home and we don't go to our quarters. Frank will expect that and bring whatever reinforcements he's talking about. Arnelia can slow him, but he will come back here. We can open rifts by ourselves. It just takes an hour or two of concentrating. He will have plenty of time to do that in a prison cell."
So she's starting to worry about it, too. That doesn't make me feel any better.
“There,” Isabel says, pointing to a random doorway.
The three of us dive into the second rift. I'm already shaky from the first one and have no time to brace myself. I let out a little scream this time as I plunge through the golden abyss. I can't help it. I'll never get over my fear of falling.
We land in a world of green. It's humid just like the air inside my bathroom after I take a hot shower. A real butterfly flutters over to an ancient, mossy tree and lands, flapping its wings back and forth. It's so calm. Peaceful. I have to laugh, considering what we just came through. At least here, I'm still in jeans and a T-shirt, as is everyone else. We must have landed in a time that we're familiar with, just in another part of the world.
“You okay, Julia?” Simon's there, looking at me with concern. He knows just as much as I do that I laugh when I'm nervous. Behind him, a beautiful gold rift shimmers between a pair of trees.
“Doing great.” The real butterfly reminds me to check on the fake one. I sti
ll have a hold of it. “Where are we, anyway?”
“I've never been through this rift,” Simon says, turning in a slow circle. “I'm going to guess South America. I'm so relieved I'm not in a dress again."
"It wasn't a dress." I breathe a sigh of relief. At least this isn't a war.
“We should be safe here,” Isabel says. She's over by the tree, reaching out for the butterfly. It flutters away into the thick growth, going right past the rift and into the branches of another tree. She nods to the one I hold. “Well, I suppose it's time for me to store my memories on that thing.”
I scan the jungle around us. Something snaps. At least it's not night when jaguars are supposed to come out. I hand Isabel the butterfly. “You wear it and tap on its head. I hope it doesn't feel too weird. You'll have to tell us how it feels."
Isabel does, and the red light starts to blink. She winces. “My scalp feels like it's fallen asleep,” she says. “It doesn't hurt. I hope it doesn't take very long, though.” Then she closes her eyes and holds back a laugh. “Arnelia...she didn't get time to erase all of her memories. She made out with this really attractive guy...”
“Hey!” I resist the urge to yank that butterfly off Isabel's head. I have an urge to defend Arnelia just like I would with Monica.
"It's over now. There weren't many of her memories left on here," Isabel says, removing the butterfly. "Well, we can't wait long on our plan. The two of you can't go back to Nancy and Monica. Frank will check for you there."
It hits me.
Simon and I will need to go stop the Gustloff from sinking right after this. It's our next stop. We have to do it before Frank finds a way to keep us from getting there. We'll need to find the human Isabel after that and restore all her memories of this. Then she will have to go in and stop the Titanic from sinking right after that. Simon and I will stay human in 1912. There will be no chance to go back and see Monica or Nancy again. Frank will be expecting that.