by Holly Hook
“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 still 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.
That means I can never see them again.
“No,” I say, leaning into the old tree. "What if Frank goes after Nancy and Monica?"
Simon's there, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me close. I don't have to tell him why I'm upset. “Monica and Nancy will stay safe if we never go Timeless,” he says. “Their time will be rewritten. We'll never be in it. That means Frank will never be in it, either.”
“A lot of things could be rewritten. Simon, what if it's bad?”
“It can't be much worse than it already is. Saving a bunch of little kids and your family can't cause much harm, can it?”
He sounds so sure...or does he? Is that doubt plaguing him? What if we're making the wrong choice after all? But then I think of Arnelia and the future she lives in, the world where Simon and I go through with this and succeed in changing history. Arnelia's world wasn't bad. At least, not what I saw of it.
"Okay," I say. We separate. I have to do what's best for Nancy and Monica. I can't be greedy. "We go ahead with this."
“That was strange. I can't wait for the next treatment. I wonder how it's going to feel when
I'm human again.” Isabel walks up to us. She hands me the hair clip. It settles in my hands, heavy. Inside the butterfly's metal body is Isabel's entire life. "Just promise me you will not spy."
"I won't. That would be like reading someone's diary," I say. Gosh, I can't do that. It would be awful. Isabel's trusting me with all her secrets. “We'll find the past you in 1945. It might be awkward, but we'll make sure you wear this."
“Without your father shooting me,” Simon tells her. Then he bites his lip. Blushes.
Darkness creeps over her face, but Isabel says nothing. She's not looking forward to discovering that her father's a murdering piece of crap all over again. When she remembers, he might be right there.
This is something we'll have to work out.
We're through the rift and running back to the Main Chamber a minute later. There's still no sign of Frank in the hall. We pass the two guys in caveman garb again, but they don't give us a second glance. I can remember the way to the Gustloff rift now that I've used it. Through the Main Chamber, almost directly across the room, down the hall a little bit on the left about half a mile.
Isabel stays with us the entire trip. I'm not sure if we run for an hour or two. I'm super grateful for the ability since it's such a long trip from 5052 to 1945. I wonder if the Timeless can run so long without getting tired just to deal with the whole running miles through the Hub thing.
“Here,” Isabel breathes when we reach the rift. I know she can't be out of breath from running. She's out of breath from terror.
And I don't blame her. Anything could happen to her if we change history.
Or us, too, if Frank's right. A growing sense of dread rises, screaming. Frank is terrified of whatever he thinks is going to happen. He'd even tried to warn us, but Time wouldn't let him.
The last secret Time kept from me was the fact that I was supposed to die on the Titanic. This can't be good.
I clutch the butterfly harder. “We'll find you,” I say. “I'm sure you'll like your present. Or maybe not.” I force a smile and Isabel gives me one in return.
After we do this, there's no going back for any of us.
Ever.
Isabel nods. “See you,” she says.
“See you.” I mean it.
Footfalls echo down the hall. Someone's running towards us and I have a feeling I know who it is.
“Isabel!” It's Frank, yelling from around the curve. He sounds far away, but not far enough. “I need your help. Are you down here?”
She curses. “Frank knows I stand at this rift a lot,” she says. “Go!”
The rift swishes, golden and inviting. It's a mask for the terror on the other side.
Simon grabs my hand and we jump at the same time. Gold explodes around us and we leave the Timeless Isabel behind, to where she'll have to confront Frank and pretend she knows nothing about us. Will he be able to tell her what terror waits? Even if he can, there's no way she'll get that info to us. Isabel didn't download those memories onto the butterfly—just the ones up until we left the rain forest.
That's all I think about as we fall together, keeping our fingers tight and interlocked. “We need to stop the Gustloff from sinking by making sure its outside lights stay off,” Simon yells over the roar. “The Russian submarine won't see the ship then. We'll use a mind trick to tell the crew to turn them off.”
“But they won't understand us.”
“They don't have to understand words. Just gestures.”
So we're going to convince a whole crew to control a ship the way we want them to. In World War Two. Fantastic. And not to mention, we'll be letting her murdering piece of crap father live, a father who's probably done things straight out of mankind's worst nightmares.
I'm not crazy about either one of those ideas.
But it's better than trying to pull Isabel's mother and sister through a rift that doesn't exist at the right time.
Better than giving up on my family.
Better than leaving me in Nancy and Monica's time where Frank can hurt them.
We land. I blink and bodies shift in the dull light. Children sit on the floor of the same cramped hallway I emerged in before. Simon presses up next to me, squashed between me and the wall. The air's hot and stifling.
We're on the ship.
I look at Simon. He's now in overalls and a plain white shirt. I'm in the gray dress again. I nod. We don't have a lot of time to find the captain of the ship and make him do our bidding. Isabel can come later. If we stop the sinking, we'll have time to locate her.
I'm still holding the butterfly. I hold it close and stuff it into my dress pocket. If someone steals it, this whole plan is screwed. And we're so crowded in here...
Simon grabs my arm. “I hope this works,” he mutters.
We push through the crowd. I can't help but let that horrible cramped feeling wash over me again. Wash...water...freezing cold water...I look back at the rift we just came through. It's fading into nothing now, leaving us stranded here. If we don't stop the sinking, we're going to experience it again. There will be no one to pull us out of here if we fail this time. The Timeless Isabel can't get in here. And Frank will be more than happy to let us suffer here until we find another rift. The two of us could thrash in the sea for hours. Days, even, before someone picks us up. Worse, we could go under with the ship. We might sink to the bottom of the Baltic Sea with it, thrashing in that frigid water. The Timeless can't die. We'd stay entombed in this ship for a very long time, freezing and suffering and unable to breathe.
I'm falling into panic. I nearly trip over a little kid beating his life jacket into the floor like it's some kind of grinding stone. I remember something from my last time here. “Simon—we have to go up a couple of decks to where the sailors are. The captain must be up there. We have to hurry!” I pull on his arm.
I'm not alone in my fear. It's there in his chocolate eyes, wide and vulnerable. He's having the same thoughts I am. “I trust you, Julia. We didn't have time to study the deck layout here.”
“You couldn't find it anywhere, anyway.” I keep talking to keep myself under control. We weave up the stairs to the next deck. The soldier in brown doesn't look up at me this time. Simon's with me. There's no flirting now.
The happy music plays over the radio. Soon, it'll change to the horrible Hitler speech. After that, the torpedoes will hit.
And then we'll go down with over nine thousand others. My brother and my father will be lost right along with them. And so will Arnelia.
The air cools and sends its chill right under my skin. I wave Simon past the door that leads to the enclosed deck. Outside, flakes fly past the window. This is just like last time I was here, before I found Isabel's family and her secret.
There's a sailor standing nearby, smoking. Simon and I push through the blue tendril. We can't stop and ask for directions. The captain must be near the front of the ship.
The music cuts out. Rats.
We run past two more soldiers. A uniformed man who must be one of the ship's officers. He says something after us that I can't understand. We're in an area we're not supposed to be in. There's no time for rules.
The speech gets louder overhead as we pass under another speaker and into a hallway that's bare except for a couple of sailors. We're close to the bridge. This is going to be harder than that mind trick on Mr. Iris. I've never done one on more than one person at a time.
We duck through a doorway. Footfalls come after us. Will they shoot? Maybe. Some of them are Nazis. I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem with that.
"Halt!"
I glance back. One of the sailors walks after us. He pushes his way past the other two. I stare at the guy, holding up a hand and wave to order him back. The man stops, blinks like he's confused, and turns away. I'm doing it! Maybe this isn't hopeless after all.
"Great job," Simon whispers. "You're getting the hang of it. I'll need your help with the captains.”
We're free to talk now. Nobody's here to listen to u
s. “Captains?” My heart starts pounding.
“There's four of them here on the Gustloff. I found that out while you and Monica were at the Branch."
Now my heart's really on a runaway course. I've got to face four guys who I can't even talk to. Four guys who could have us arrested if we fail. Four guys we have to go through to save nine thousand lives.
We're coming up on another closed door now. The bridge must be right behind it. I can't hear the speech here. Of course the radio won't be going near the bridge.
There are raised voices on the other side of the door. An argument. I try the knob. Locked. I look at Simon and nod. We're going to have to kick it down with our Timeless strength. We have minutes left.
We kick at the same time. The door's steel. It buckles but doesn't budge. I kick again. Nothing. This isn't like Arnelia's flimsy wooden door which even some mortals could break down.
“Crap,” I say. The argument on the other side has stopped. They know we're coming in. “We've got to stop. We're in a war. They're going to think we're--”
The door bursts open. The barrel of a pistol stares me right in the face. Behind it, a captain in a black uniform trembles, all nerves. He reminds me too much of Frank. His ice blue eyes are wild, wary. The guy sighs when he sees us standing there, but he doesn't lower his weapon.
Now's the time we're supposed to explain ourselves. I open my mouth, then close it. Duh. That's not going to work here.
And then Simon does something stupid.
As in the stupidest thing he's ever done.
He charges the first captain, bowling into him and knocking him to the floor. The pistol goes off with a deafening crack, shooting sparks and filling the air with acrid smoke. The whole bridge inside explodes in noise and shouts. Simon and the captain go to the floor, wrestling. It's the same tactic he's used with Frank.