by Holly Hook
The Chronophage pushes past me, either unable to react to me or unable to care. It brushes across my clothes and my skin, leaving a filmy feeling behind. It's the film of guilt, the worst guilt I can imagine. I'm responsible for the loss of that poor man and for the loss of his Timeless friends. Are these things devouring all the Timeless they can find? Maybe Time is destroying all of them to make room for new ones.
“What have I done?” I manage once the Chronophage passes. It doesn't matter if I make noise now. Isabel's father won't come through that Chronophage—will he? And if he does, maybe I deserve to be shot. “What I have done?” I fall to my knees.
Simon hugs me from the side. “It's okay,” he manages.
“No, it's not.” I stand and face him. “That guy just got eaten because of us.”
“Look, I don't know what's going on here. Maybe Time cleans itself out every once in a while,” he says. “It was horrible. It--”
“Time is used to dealing with Timeless who try to screw with history,” I tell him. “It's not used to mortals cheating the system with memory devices and messing up the course of events. We need to set things back to the way they were. All of us. What else do we do? We save ourselves and someone else has to suffer and die.”
“I don't know if that was death,” Monica says. She has her hand over her mouth like she's going to throw up. “That looked a lot worse than death.”
“Maybe we should just go back and let the Titanic sink.” I can't believe I'm saying these words. “Maybe we really aren't supposed to be here after all. Maybe this is the real reason Frank was freaking out so much.”
“I don't think Frank knew the Chronophages would be attacking all the other Timeless,” Isabel says. “That wasn't in his recent memory. It might have been in his older memories, which I didn't get.”
“Might have,” I say. “What do we do?”
“Well, we might have to figure out some way to save only us. And your family,” Simon says. “When I saved you, Time didn't get sick. I think it was too small of an event to bother it."
“Ahem,” Isabel says.
“When I had Isabel save you the first time, Time never got sick. It didn't even notice anything was wrong for a full year. Small changes don't affect Time so much. Maybe we can go back to the ship and work it out so that you and your family can get on a lifeboat and escape. Me, too. We'll have to let it hit the iceberg the way it should.”
“I'm not going without you. They might not let you on a boat.”
He manages a smile. “There was one side of the ship where they even let men on the boats, wasn't there?”
I search my memory for the studying I did at Nancy's. “There was. One of the officers would let anyone on board the lifeboats. The other side had a guy who refused to let any men on.”
“Exactly,” Simon says. “We can always do that. It'll kill me to let the entire ship sink, but we might not have a choice in this matter. If we want to save Nancy, that is. Our survival isn't going to make such a huge difference in history. Then, if we do that, Time won't get sick and that poor guy won't get eaten or whatever that was. Man, that was the worst thing I've ever seen. I don't even want to see that happen to Isabel's dad.”
“Neither do I,” she says.
I'm beginning to sense some hope. "We can go with your idea,” I say. “And we'll still be alive to save Isabel when she's about to get on her ship. Maybe we can all win.”
“Exactly. Think of this as a big mistake that we're going to erase,” Simon says. “But we still need to take care of Frank. He's still going to try to kill us on the Titanic as soon as he gets out of the ocean. He wants us dead whether or not we allow the ship to sink. He's so crazy and scared of the Chronophages. Let's make sure he can't come back and bother us ever again. And let's make sure his brother never has to snap out of existence.”
“But what will one more change do?” I ask, looking around at the red corridor and the bloody mist. “Time is not getting any better. It can't rid itself of what's bothering it this time.”
Simon glares at the corridors. “I'm glad Time's in pain. Maybe it deserves to feel it a little longer,” he says. “Remember what it did to us? Remember how it tore us apart?” His face draws close to mine. “It should feel this for a while. Besides, when we go back to 1912 and do things right, it'll go back to normal. Like I said, small changes aren't going to bother it that much."
“But what about saving Frank?” I ask. I'm scared. Scared to proceed and scared to try anything more. I know the Chronophages won't try to eat mortals...for now. What if Time becomes so sick that that changes and they come after us? There won't be any point to our mission anymore...and no point at all because we'll cease to exist.
“Saving Frank is a small change,” Simon says. He kisses me, lips brushing mine. They're warm in the cold air. I take in his kiss and press my body against his. His heart's pounding. He's sharing my terror, but being a guy, he's trying to hide it. It's just like the Simon I've always known.
“Okay, “I say. “We go the Civil War. We save Frank, get our butts back to our own times, and make sure only you and my family survive the sinking. Wow, I hate leaving all those other people behind. There's fifteen hundred of them. All those other little kids and families and--”
“We're doing our best,” he says, lifting one finger to my lips. “Our best. That's all we can do. Killing others isn't worth it. But if we do it this way, things should turn out okay for everyone.”
“Okay.”
Isabel peels herself from the wall. “The Chronophage is almost out of the corridor,” she says, peering through the mist. “If we wait until it leaves that opening free, my father might come through looking for us. We need to get to the rift and make ourselves scarce before that happens. He could be standing out there, waiting.”
We all get away from the walls and the tingling on my skin stops. Whether it's the tingling from the nearby rift or from Simon's kiss, I'm not sure.
The four of us break into a jog again.
“How much father?” I ask. One more thing, I think to myself. One more thing, and then we can set everything back to the way it should be.
“About another mile down this way,” Isabel says. "Then we're to Frank's time." She breaks into a full run. Is the end of our corridor free yet? Her father must have heard that guy screaming at us even if he was still trapped in the mass of Chronophages.
We break into a run again. My sides scream out and I'm not sure how much longer we can do this. I wish Time had installed some kind of moving walkway or something that would have been in Arnelia's time. Teleporters, even. The distances here are too great.
“Isabel!”
Yes. He's coming this way. He's distant, but that'll change.
The thing has moved out of the way, not caring that he's going to try killing us. I wonder if the Chronophage somehow told him that we're this way.
“Faster,” Monica huffs. “We should duck into one of these rifts again.”
“No,” Simon says. “He'll just wait for us to come back out. As long as he can't see us, we're good.” Simon coughs. We're all running out of breath.
He might be there when we exit the Civil War, I think. We'll have to deal with the issue then, but I don't bring that up. My skirt slaps against my legs as we run. How much longer? I gasp for breath. I hope that he's at least getting as tired as we are. And what if we run into another Chronophage? Is there more than one per corridor? It would block our way forward and we'd have no choice but to go through some other rift. Or wait for Isabel's father to get closer.
At last, Isabel slows. "This one.” She's hoarse. Exhausted.
It's another archway that looks exactly like the others. The sound of footfalls reach my ears, growing louder and louder. I look at Simon. We're going through no matter what's on the other side, and we had better do it now.
“You ready, Monica?” I ask.
She nods. I can tell that means no.
I make sure I'm still wearing the
hair clip. It's still there. I rub my hand over the body and my scalp tingles as it sucks in my new memories. I clutch Simon's hand in mine and Monica's in the other. Isabel takes Monica's free hand and makes the jump. She wavers and vanishes as if the red crystal has swallowed her whole.
Then Monica goes.
Then me and Simon.
We fall through the universe. It screams all around us as if in pain.
Chapter Thirteen
The moon peeks through trees.
I blink. The ground's solid under my feet.
We're in a forest. At night.
I shake my head. Where are we? I squint and let my eyes adjust in the moonlight. I stand with my hands linked with a girl and a guy who stares at me, probably wondering the same thing. I let go of his hand, blushing.
Men's voices float through the trees. They're distant. In the distance, behind another wall of trees, white tents huddle together as if protecting themselves from something. Dark figures move in front of them, restless. The night air smells of smoke and flames flicker from campfires. Crickets chirp.
I rub my hair out of my face and over a pointed hair clip. My scalp tingles and my head throbs. I double over and the guy leans over me. "Are you okay?" he asks.
I catch my breath, almost glad that I don't have to anticipate that pain every time I go to a new time. "Yes, Simon," I say. "Except for the fact that we're standing in the Civil War during the Battle of Gettysburg."
"Huh?" Monica asks. She backs away into Isabel, who stands against a tree.
"Hold on," I say, removing the clip. "I really wish Arnelia had made more than one of these."
It's hard to convince Isabel and Monica to restore their memories after my painful display, but I get it done. Once again, I have to have Isabel's help putting the clip on Simon's head. When it's done, we stand there, staring at each other.
“Well, welcome to the Civil War. Well, the American Civil War," Isabel says. “This is Frank's memory, all right. I caught little glimpses of it when I put on the clip.”
I search my mind for Frank's memories. I must not have them as clear as Isabel does since she was the first person to receive them. There's a faint memory of men in blue uniforms and caps. Of blasting noises and smoke. Of a rift, swishing with gold curtains and forbidding Frank entry. Of pain.
It's something I know too well.
"Where exactly are we?" Simon asks.
"Frank and I did a project on Civil War battles back when I first met him in Independent Study," I say. I'm the one who will be the most help here. "If Frank remembers blue uniforms, he must have fought on the Union side of the war. I hope that we're standing on that side of the battle now, or we're never going to find him." My heart pounds. If we're standing on the wrong side, how will we ever cross lines?
The sound of men talking floats through the trees again. There are soldiers around. The land slopes downward to where the trees open up into a field and more tents and fires huddle down. There's no fighting going on now. "Either both sides are taking a break, or the battle hasn't started yet," I say.
"This was a three day battle, right?" Monica asks. "I'm trying to remember things from my eighth grade history class."
"I think. I hope this isn't the night before the final day of the battle. That one was the deadliest. It had the most fighting." I look around, trying to recall my project that I now never did, any landmarks that will tell us where we are. "Isabel, have you ever been here?"
"Never," she says. "Time has never given me an assignment here. Well, when I was Timeless. I don't think it wanted me to meddle in anything that involved someone that I thought I knew so well.” She shakes her head. “I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about seeing him again. He's here. He has to be. Him and his twin that he spoke about.”
I study my surroundings again. Two soldiers walk in front of a campfire about a hundred feet away. They're wearing blue uniforms.
I breathe a sigh of relief. "We're on the right side of the battle, at least," I say, careful to keep my voice down. What will the soldiers do if they find us? They won't want us to be here and for good reason.
"I think we're standing on a landmark called Culp's Hill," I say. "That would make sense." I swallow. "This is one of the places where the Union retreated towards the end of the battle. We might be facing the final day here. We had better move before the sun comes up."
Monica curses. "There must be thousands of soldiers here. How do we find this Frank? I've never seen him, so I'm not sure how much help I would be. My memory of him isn't very clear."
“And what do we do when we do find Frank?” Simon asks.
“You don't have the answers anymore?” I joke. "I guess we tell him not go into the battle and we're home free. We might even have to injure him so he doesn't go. Then we go back and find a way not to screw up all the times after ours. Done."
"Frank will have a gun," Simon says.
"Good point." Are we going to have to deal with him trying to kill us all over again?
“Just finding him won't be easy," Isabel says. “We had better start now while we have the cover of darkness."
I glance down at my dress. It might not stick out too badly here, not like it would in Monica's time. Isabel's also in a dress and Simon's in his overalls. But poor Monica is still in a T shirt and jeans. She'll be the one standing out.
“Monica,” I say. “We might have to leave you here while we go and do this.” I look around at the forest. We're in a sheltered area. The trees block us from the view of everyone in the field. “Besides, we need someone to make sure we know where to go when it's time to leave. You'll have to be our rift marker.”
She glances fearfully out of the tents. “I'll be glad to do that,” she says. “I don't want to go wandering around in this time. And I agree that we need someone to make sure the rift doesn't vanish. I feel some tingling over here so it must still be strong, but the thing is, if it starts to fade, how will I contact you?”
“You don't,” I say. “This is a risk we're going to have to take.” I reach around and out, trying to feel where the rift might be. My hands tingle when I get close the tree that's next to Monica. She's right. “It feels like it's right between these two trees. If you stand here and don't move, we'll easily know where to come back to. Or we can tie something around this tree. Let's do both, actually. In case you do have to run from here."
“I'm not surrendering my shirt or pants,” Monica says.
"Simon's coat,” I say. It's warm here and he won't need it. If we go back to 1912 after this, his coat will be the least of my concerns. “Tie that around this tree. There don't seem to be many Timeless left, so one of them shouldn't come after you or anything. I think I left mine at your house.”
“I agree,” Simon says.
The stars blink overhead, waiting to watch the bloodbath that's going to unfold at sunrise. It's not going to be pretty. I can feel the tension in the air, the fear. These men must have been here for days, holding back the enemy. I feel awful for them.
We have to convince Frank to desert at the last minute. But we have to move quickly. I want out of here before daylight, before the fighting starts. Frank is supposed to die in a cannon blast with his twin brother. I just need to find two guys who look like him. Frank mentioned they were inseparable. They'll be in the same unit, whatever that is. There must be men from multiple states here. And the fact that they're all wearing the same blue uniforms won't help us.
“Can I stay with Monica?” Isabel asks.
It's so clear she doesn't want to go. Maybe she's afraid of more war. Or of seeing Frank again. Or both.
“If you want,” I say. “But it would be easier with three of us searching. There must be thousands of soldiers here. I mean, look. They're not just camping up here on this hill. They're down in that field over there, too. And once the enemy gets here, there's going to be a lot more. We're not exactly going to flag down Frank in the middle of battle.”
“I suppose I should go,” Isab
el says.
I take Simon's hand. “Stay close to me,” he says. “They might think we're people from the town nearby. The worst they should do is order us out of danger. I don't think they're going to shoot us.”
“I hope not.” We walk away from the cluster of trees, leaving Monica inside to wait for us. If we don't get back, I hope she can find her way back on her own. But if we die or are hurt, she's going to be stuck wandering through the Hub for the rest of her life, unable to get back to her own time. What if she has to settle in some random time and place and gets caught in one that's even worse than staying with Isabel's father?
We have to take the risk. There's no time to get her back home safely before we find Frank. Not unless we want to risk getting shot in the Hub.
We have just as much risk of getting shot out here, too. We walk silently past a group of soldiers huddled around a fire. One holds a stick with a piece of meat over it. I wonder if they're enjoying their last meal. If I remember right, thousands died in this battle on both sides. Frank was supposed to be one of them.
“How are we going to find Frank in time?” Isabel asks.
The trees clear a little and I see what she means. The horizon is starting to turn pink. The soldiers are nervous. One passes us, calling into the trees for a guy named Steven. He doesn't notice us. He's tired. Exhausted. Three random strangers don't matter right now. “If this is the third day of the battle, well, it's going to be bad. We don't want to be here for that. There's going to be a huge charge from the enemy, if I remember my project right.”
Simon walks faster, keeping me close. “Frank?” he calls into the trees. “Frank?” He faces Isabel. “What was his brother's name?”
“Fred,” she says. “Frank said his twin was named Fred. I say that we call for both of them. It'll increase our chances of finding them."
We walk through the trees. I'm right that we're on some kind of high ground here, and the Union troops are defending it from the enemy. There are also too many trees, so I can't see outside of here too well, and can't see how many of the enemy are out there. But I already know. Thousands. Wasn't there something in our report about artillery, too? Both sides fired it at each before the charge. Maybe one of those was supposed to hit Frank. That leaves us even less time to make sure Time doesn't snatch him and leave his brother to die.