by Holly Hook
But what am I worried about nabbing something from 1915 for? I’m planning on doing something that might really screw things up.
I’m planning to save my brother and my father, even if it means stopping the Titanic from hitting that iceberg.
Monica pushes her plate away and takes it to the sink. I follow, even though I’m not completely done. Today, I’m going to make Simon wait a bit. I’ll be walking all the way to school with Monica. What's the point of making all this effort to keep my family if I don't spend time with them?
* * * * *
Simon and I are working in Independent Study during the last hour of the school day when it happens.
We have our chairs close enough to let our thighs touch. We share the same computer and I’m scrolling down a page about rainforest insects. It's our project for this class this week. I reach a picture of something that looks like a mutant walking stick when the computer screen turns off. It fizzles and leaves darkness in its place.
I jump. Simon looks at me. He raises his eyebrows. Around us, everyone else keeps working. Mr. Iris is busy grading something on his desk. Our computer’s the only one that’s gone kaput.
“That’s weird,” I say, leaning over to check the power cord.
Simon grabs my arm, stopping me. “Wait. This might be something important.”
I straighten up and let my confused look sweep over my face. “Yes, it is. Our computer’s broken and we can’t finish our assignment.”
Simon leans so close that he’s breathing into my ear. “I don't think it is,” he whispers. “The screen.”
I follow his gaze and have to keep myself from jumping out of my chair.
The inside of the monitor swirls with gold. It’s as if someone’s squeezed a bunch of that Christmas art glitter stuff under the glass and it’s making an effort to hypnotize whoever watches it.
“Um?” I ask, transfixed.
Simon wraps his arm around me and pulls me close. We watch the glitter swirl around under the glass for a few more seconds, and then it disappears back into the darkness behind it.
And then the computer just comes back on, revealing that ugly walking stick bug again.
Simon’s breath is warm on my ear. “We have to go. Now.”
“Go?” I ask. I look at the clock. It’s still half an hour before we're dismissed.
“That was a summons. From Time itself. We have to report to the Main Chamber.” I can hear the hurry in his voice. “If we don’t obey, Time could ban from leaving our quarters for a while. It’s happened to me before. That means more potential time with the walking dead.”
An assignment. My first one. My heart leaps. I'm not sure if I'm excited or scared.
Simon grins at me. “You want to try doing a mind trick on Mr. Iris? I'm right here if you mess it up.”
I stand up. A big part of me wants to learn how to alter memories. Simon did almost all of the work with Nancy and Monica, leaving me feeling useless. I've got to learn eventually.
But at the same time, I don't want to feel like I'm taking advantage of people. It's bad enough we've messed with Nancy and Monica so much to get me back into their lives.
“Mr. Iris,” I say, walking up to his desk. He looks up from the paper he’s grading. I stare hard at him, copying the way Simon's done with my teachers before. At first he blinks at me, waiting for me to speak. I focus harder on him, imagining his mind turning to a blank slate. His gaze relaxes his eyes cloud over like he's lost in a daydream.
“Simon and I needed to leave for doctor appointments,” I say. Mr. Iris nods. I'm doing it! “We have excused absences. We’ll finish our assignments tomorrow.”
He marks something down in the attendance sheet. “I've got it,” he says, almost dreamy. “Have a nice day, you two.”
I turn away. Simon's standing there at the corner of Mr. Iris's desk, smiling.
“I knew you could do it,” he says once we're out of the hall. “Now you can get yourself out of binds like that whenever you need to.”
I'm elated. I can't help it. “It's not right to do, though.”
“Of course it isn't. But we need to do our job.” Simon links his hand with mine and we leave through the corner exit, the one that leads out to the parking lot. “Now we need to find a rift. Sure, we can open one, but it would be difficult with only two of us and too risky to do here in the school. They linger for a bit after we create them, and someone could go through by mistake.” Simon stops near the wall of the school and looks over the parking lot.
“And the rift at the Branch isn't still there?” I ask. We went through that one when Simon took me to the failed dinner a couple of nights ago.
“If it is, it's very weak. And besides, that's too far to go.”
“I take it we don't have much time to report to the Main Chamber.” Butterflies form in my stomach like I'm about to be late to class. I am not going back to our quarters where those zombies could still be for all I know. What if I see one that I recognize, all dead and rotten?
What if I see Melvin's corpse, begging me for help?
I can't do that. No, I won't do that.
I look around the open baseball diamond for any sign of shimmering gold. Nothing. The lot. The air's clear and the wind light. The sun reflects off the windows of the bus garage, but there's no other sign of a rift. What are the chances of finding one here, anyway? Simon once said that on average, there's a stray rift once every ten miles or so and they open in random places. That's how regular people get lost in Time by mistake. “We might have to open one ourselves. I don't know how to do that.”
“Time wouldn’t have summoned us if there wasn’t a weak spot somewhere close that leads to the Hub.” Simon's searching the wall of the school. "If it wants us badly enough, it'll open one for us. We just have to find it."
There.
I pause, staring at the bleachers on the other side of the football field. “Is that it?”
The air next to them looks like it's warping, like pavement on a really hot day. The chain-link fence wavers, reflecting gold. The space has a yellow tint that I can't help but find beautiful. This rift is so faint that I would have missed it if I wasn't looking so hard.
“You see it?” Simon asks. He appears at my side, smiling at me.
I point. “I guess it's a good thing that no one's over there right now, isn't it? Who knows where they'd end up?”
Simon's already running towards the ripple in time, sighing in relief. I follow. “That's probably why we were called. Someone did walk through a rift somewhere and wound up where they're not supposed to be.”
I jog to catch up. My insides turn cold and the rift no longer looks pretty. Simon's words tighten around me.
Someone like me has to go back to where they came from. It's our job to keep time in order. Like Frank. Like Isabel. I'm hoping we don't have to send them back to anything terrible.
I face the school. Nobody's coming out after us.
What if our assignment—our victim—came from a disaster like we did?
Simon stops at the fence. The rift's on the other side, shimmering and waiting. My hair stands up. Not as much as it did around those rifts in the Hub, but the energy's there.
“Here. I'll help you over the fence.” He bends down and cups his hands.
I put my foot into Simon's hands and hoist myself over the fence. I'm on autopilot now. The only thing that's making me go any closer to that rift is the thought of Time punishing us and making us stay on that memory Titanic for who knows how long.
I can see more and more why Simon hates it.
We're over the fence now. I keep staring at the rift. Simon brushes his hair from his face. He's seen this tons of times. He's probably been to hundreds of places. Hundreds of times. Without me.
Without me for over a hundred years. And yet, he never moved on. He never left me behind.
I can do this. Have to do this.
Simon pulls me close to him, so that I’m leaning on his shoulder. �
�If you’re nervous, just close your eyes. That’s what I had to do the first few times.”
“That makes me feel better.” And it’s the truth. Simon had a couple of people with him, too, on his first assignment. I don't feel like such a wimp.
“It’s better to go through fast.” Simon gently pushes me forward and we move together. A car pulls into the school lot, passing the chain link fence. They don’t pause or show any signs of seeing the golden ripple feet away from them.
We’re the only ones it reveals itself to.
The swishing sound comes from everywhere now. Gold wavers around me, transparent and casting a yellow tint over the football field. I feel like I’ve walked into a sunbeam turned electric silk. The rift makes the hair stand up on my arms, on the back of my neck. It’s hard to breathe. Simon slides his hand down to mine and squeezes. “Get ready.”
The ground falls out from under us and we plunge.
Chapter Four
We plunge through a golden abyss.
Glitter swirls around me and sails away. The whooshing sound crushes my ears. Wind screams against my skin and it’s almost like I’m falling off the Titanic again. I hold onto Simon’s hand so hard I might break it. Bite in a scream.
“Close your eyes!” Simon shouts. “It’ll be over soon.”
I don’t respond. Even though I've done this before, my stomach churns as I watch the glitter zoom past us, flying up into some invisible maw. I’m going to throw up right on myself or worse, Simon. It’ll be the most embarrassing way to start my first assignment.
And then, it stops and the world snaps back into place.
We’re standing back in the Main Chamber, alone. I catch my breath and stomp my feet to make sure they’re on solid ground.
Simon lets go of my hand and grins. “How was that?”
“Wonderful.”
“You don’t seem to think so.” The grin's gone. Pain takes its place and Simon squints. He turns away to hide it, but it's too late.
The fall through the rifts brings back the memory of the Titanic for him, too.
Even though it can't really darken, the Main Chamber seems to dim like it's responding to the mood we're sharing. Simon's putting up a mask for me.
"Simon, you don't have to pretend that these things don't bother you. Not to me. You don't have to hide."
He faces me, eyebrows rising. He holds up his hands. “Like I said before, I'm a man."
"That's not it. I don't think you're any weaker for not showing your feelings. Besides, you don't have a problem showing how much you hate Time."
"That's different." He glances upward at the top of the Main Chamber like he's waiting for someone to come down and chastise him. I don't see why. Time isn't a person or anything. It's just a force. I've never seen it so much as sneeze at any of us, other than that gold stuff that appeared in our computer screens. How can it? The Hub is its body. We're inside of it.
"So, when do we get this assignment?"
Simon studies the Chamber above us again. It reminds me of the planetarium that my Astronomy class visited last semester, only bigger--much bigger. "Time should be showing us the person we need to track and find any second now. It almost seems like it's waiting for something." He cups his hands around his mouth. "Hello? We're here! Show us who we need to find so we can leave."
"Simon!" I laugh.
He gives a dismissive wave. "Trust me. Time only seems to notice when someone tries to mess with the course of history or if one of us fails to respond to its calls. I've tested that theory by shouting some very vulgar things in here at it."
I can believe it. If Time were a man, I'd kill him. Simon's words ring in my head again.
There's a flash of golden light next to us, flaring out of the middle of the Main Chamber. Gold curtains swish, glitter, and reach for us. I jump back and this time, I can't hold in a little scream. A fiery glow shines on the crystal floor and the air's charged. Is this what Time does to communicate with us?
“What?” I explode before I realize it's another rift.
“It’s okay. Someone else is just coming in. We came in the same way.” Simon hugs me close. Protectively, almost. "There must be people working with us. That's what Time was waiting for."
The rift winks away. I blink and a brilliant pink afterimage fades from my eyes. Two people stand there in its place.
My heart sinks and I tense.
It's a girl with a pointed face and a thick, long blond mane. And a guy with long, dark hair that hangs in his face like a ragged curtain. He's wearing baggy pants and a punk band T-shirt that I've seen before.
It's Isabel and Frank.
The two who tracked me when I was still mortal.
Frank stands there, blinking away the light. Isabel starts to say something to him, but then her gaze lands on us and her mouth hangs open.
Time put the four of us together for this assignment.
I take a deep breath. My blood roars in my ears. How could it?
We stand there, staring each other down. I can focus on nothing but Frank. His dark, deceptive locks and those green eyes that fooled me on the night of the dance. The hand that held the knife he tried to stab me with on the Titanic. This is the piece of crap that pushed Eric into the pond at Happy Rabbit’s Daycare just to get to me. The monster that made sure my younger brother and my father drowned. He stands there, giving me a blank stare like nothing's ever happened.
“Frank!” I’m lunging at him. Swinging my fists. Shouting insults that would make Nancy ashamed.
Everybody’s moving. Frank backs away and I hit him in the chest. My fist stings. Isabel shouts something. It’s still rock solid, like the night he tried to send me back to my real past. The first time I almost died. But I swing again. He backs away and I get him on the arm. Frank flinches and grabs it, saying nothing. He has no defense and he knows it.
“Julia!” Simon wraps his arms around me from behind and I thrash against him. Isabel moves in front of Frank, arms spread wide.
“Let me go!” I’m screaming so loud my throat burns. My eyes blur with tears. “I can’t believe you, Simon! You know what he did!”
Frank seethes. He eyes me with disgust. “I told you all she’s unstable! Do you believe me now?”
"Oh, now you talk!" I stop in Simon’s grip. Sniff. Melvin screams my name from within my memories, growing louder and louder. “What do you expect me to do after you make sure my whole family’s dead? Shake your hand?"
Frank doesn’t have an answer for that one. Isabel looks around like she’s not sure what to do.
I let out a breath and sag in Simon’s grip. “I’m okay now.” It's the only way to get Simon to let me go. As soon as that happens, Frank’s going to—
"Wait here, Julia,” he says, releasing me.
I have no time to charge again. Simon’s doing that for me. He launches himself on Frank and they both go down.
Grunting. Cursing. Punching and thrashing.
I stand there. So does Isabel. I almost can’t believe the scene playing out in front of me, the violence, the swearing. I’ve seen Simon and Frank struggle before, but back in 1912, Simon was just trying to protect me and my brother. This is different. Simon’s face surfaces from the fray, and it’s twisted in anger. Revenge. Hatred. It’s a Simon I’ve never seen before. I hate Frank as much as he does, but it turns my stomach to see that look on his face. Frank might as well be Time itself. He's the closest Simon can come to murdering Time.
He plows his fist into Frank’s nose. A golden flow gushes out, one that makes me turn my head and look away to the other side of the Main Chamber. My stomach goes from turning to heaving. That same stuff is flowing through me now. Through Simon, too. Through all of four of us.
“Stop!”
It’s Isabel’s shout that makes me jump and whirl around to face her. She stands above the two of them, hands straight at her sides. Simon and Frank untangle themselves.
"Get off the floor," Isabel says. "If we miss what our as
signment is, things could go very wrong. The Rogue we're tracking will get away. If whoever it is manages to change the flow of history, we could get into trouble for not stopping them."
I remember Simon's words about our punishment and a chill runs through me.
Simon looks up at her and wipes off his brow. Frank peels away from the floor, wiping away the liquid glitter from his nose. He sucks it in and turns away, not speaking a word. Frank’s like a dog walking away with its tail between its knees. I'm glad to see it, although another part, a growing part of me, is worried.
I’ve never seen Simon like this before.
Wild. Vengeful. More like an animal than the gentleman he is.
How much hatred is he keeping inside?
I catch my breath and I realize that Isabel’s speaking.
“Okay, everyone. I know this is pretty unfortunate that Time put all four of us on the same assignment,” she says. Her voice dips and rises, complete with her w's that sound like v's. Isabel’s trying to play the part of peacekeeper. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can go our separate ways.”
“I agree,” I say. I won't go back to where those zombies wait, even if they're not real. “The faster we do this, the faster I don't have to see your face.” I glare at Frank with that last sentence as Simon joins me. Simon's breathing heavy with rage.
Frank faces Isabel, narrowing his eyes like he’s trying to make her wither away. Their relationship has already done that. Isabel's been angry at him ever since I revealed that Frank shoved a five-year-old into the pond to get at me. I can tell from the stiff way he stands, waiting. From the way Isabel crosses her arms like she’s trying to shield her heart from Frank. I’ve driven a space between them that’s only grown bigger and bigger since I turned.
I’m not sure I like that. I don’t exactly hate Isabel, even if I don't like her, either.
Simon points at the distant ceiling like he’s trying to ignore what he’s done. “We haven’t gotten our assignment yet.”
“What if Time showed it to us while you were fighting?” I ask. Panic rises inside of me.