1500

by Holly Hook

  Something about his words makes me reach up to feel the clip in my hair. I don't know why, but it feels right to do.

  My fingers brush the metal body of the butterfly.

  And my head aches terribly like someone's hit me over the head with our washboard.

  “Julia? What's wrong?” Simon asks, running for me.

  I grab my head. My scalp tingles. Simon grabs my arms and stares me in the eyes. I meet his gaze. His own eyes are chocolate and perfect and so...human.

  The tingling stops.

  I face Father. “Pea, are you feeling unwell?” He still holds the tickets in his hands, the tickets that he's slaved for in the mines for years and years.

  I want to scream.

  But instead, I remove the hair clip for the final time and throw it onto the table. It strikes our candle and they both slide across the faded wood until they butt up against the chair, the one with the broken leg.

  The mess I left back in the Hub—it's still got to be there. Time collapsing. The universe ending. The void must be advancing through the corridors and annihilating everyone in every time it touches. I can feel it approaching us. The pulses. The nothing. Melvin turns around like he's searching for something that's going to jump out at him. Even Simon winces like he can sense it.

  But I know how to stop it.

  I snatch the tickets out of Father's hand.

  “Julia?” he asks.

  I run over to our fireplace, knowing that I'm going to land myself in huge trouble...until the bad news arrives in April.

  I turn to Melvin and Father and Simon, who watch me, unaware of what I'm about to do.

  “You'll thank me later,” I say, and toss the four tickets into the flames.

  The black pulses stop.

  “Julia!” Father's voice is a roar and he lets his hands slap down to his knees. Father's jaw falls open into an O of horror. Simon's eyes get big and Melvin continues to stare, unaware of what's just happened. I love them. I love them enough to disappoint them and make then angry and possibly even make them hate me for the next couple of months. I love them enough to say goodbye to Nancy and Monica and Arnelia and even the brave, human Frank forever.

  I love them and the world enough to sacrifice fifteen hundred lives.

  The Titanic will still sink.

  They will still change the lifeboat regulations once that happens.

  Nancy's great-grandfather will survive the first world war, and with him, her. She will be a great mother to Monica.

  Frank will never try to kill us. He will go Timeless all over again without us there to stop him, but I've done the best I could. I wish him luck in saving his brother.

  The Civil War will end—or has already ended—the way it should.

  The dictator Chalmers will never be born and Arnelia will never be eaten by nanobots. I can't help but wonder if she somehow remembers all of this, and how relieved she must be that her existence is preserved after all.

  Time will never get so sick again. Or die.

  The universe will continue to go on.

  “What did you do that for?” Simon asks. He can't believe it. “Your father worked so hard to surprise you!”

  This was the real solution we needed all along. This was all I had to do.

  “Like I said,” I say, putting my hands up to shield me from their glares. I spot the crystal of the butterfly on the table. Melvin's going to grab it, like he always does with my things. “You'll thank me on the fifteenth of April. And after that, you'll marry me. We'll find another way to the States. Trust me. We're smart. This is not the hardest thing I've ever done. And after the two of you are furious with me, I have a lot to explain.” I pry the hair clip from Melvin's hands, which I'm shocked still even exists. I send a silent thanks to Arnelia. I have all the proof I need to make Simon and Father understand. “Sit down. It's a very long story.”

  Epilogue

  Isabel's heart flutters and she surveys the growing panic in the crowd around her. Her younger sister Agnes clutches her hand, afraid of being swept away in the sea of people. Her mother keeps her arm interlocked with her father's, still dressed in his black uniform. They're running. If they can't board the Gustloff in time, they'll be left here at the mercy of the advancing Red Army.

  And the Red Army has none. They bombed people like them as they fled across the winter. Murdered them. Raped them. Everyone in this crowd knows. There are so many children here, so many mothers trying to get them to safety. It makes Isabel's stomach upset. People stampede up the gangplanks to the ship. It would be filled past capacity for the journey, but no one cared. Would they even get on? Her father searches around for an officer. He'll have to pull some strings. They have money. That always works.

  Then he tells his mother to stay still as he vanishes into the crowd.

  Isabel's sister starts to cry. Isabel tells her to stay calm and quiet, that they will be able to get on the ship after all. They might even get their own cabin. Their father will make sure of that.

  "Excuse me."

  A man speaks to them in bad German. Isabel turns to find a couple there, a middle-aged man with dark hair and a woman with red hair that's just beginning to grow out some gray. She's never seen them before. But the woman holds something tight in one hand, a beautiful hair ornament shaped like a glass butterfly. It's the first pretty thing Isabel has seen since fleeing home over a week ago. She can't help but look at it. A glance at her sister confirms that she is, too.

  Then the woman approaches with the piece and hands it to her. The crowd thins just enough here so that Isabel can reach out and take it. Is this some kind of gift?

  "Put this on," the woman says, also in bad German. But Isabel understands. She clips it on as her sister watches and feels it to make sure it's in place. What is she doing, anyway? These people could be the enemy for all she knows.

  Or maybe they're just trying to get on the ship like everyone else and they know her father has some power. This is a bribe, nothing more.

  She reaches up to make sure the clip is in place.

  A monstrous headache races through her skull and she keels over as images, sounds, and sensations race through her being. Her sister calls her name and the pant legs of the man fill her vision.

  Isabel understands.

  The ache fades. She straightens up and catches her breath. Isabel seizes her sister's arm and faces the two people who aren't strangers after all. Her parents won't board the ship without them. She reaches up and takes off the hair clip that has just saved her family's lives.

  "Come with us," Julia says. "We will take the two of you and your mother away from here."

  THE END

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