Finn took a breath to ask who was locking the nodes, but Mom’s next words derailed his train of thought. “I chose to hide here because there are so many closed nodes in and around this moment in time. You found one of the few that’s still accessible. When you Traveled here through the tree, it was painful, wasn’t it?”
Finn wanted to point out what an understatement that was. “I thought I’d be torn apart.”
“That’s because it was your first time and there are so many closed nodes around this one. It will help to think of it like a thread next time, and hold on, feel for the nodes. When your mind comes across one, you can jump or hold on. Let yourself be guided by that thread and the trip won’t be so violent.”
Next time? There was nothing about that experience he wanted to repeat. “Why do I have to do it again?” His body shuddered at the thought.
“Because this is 1878.”
“I’m in 1878?!” Finn looked around as if the year would somehow make itself evident. There was nothing but snow and trees. Then he realized Mom was using that brass lantern instead of a decent flashlight and wearing clothes that were certainly not ideal for the weather. A funny seed planted in his head: Was it possible time only made itself blatantly evident on humans and what they made?
As if in answer to his thoughts, Mom said, “This mountain has pretty much stayed the same for hundreds of years. The trails are fewer and more traveled, but otherwise you wouldn’t be able to tell 1810 from 2010.”
She reached slightly behind him and picked up what looked like a flannel blanket. She placed it around him and Finn was surprised at how heavy it was. It smelled like hay and horses. He wondered what kind of life she had made for herself here already. How long had it been for her?
“We’ve wanted to tell you for so long, your father and I. We told you too early before. This time, well, I think I have it all worked out correctly. I know what the last few weeks have been like for you.” She paused and Finn could see her searching for the right words. “I’m sorry. It’s not easy being a Traveler. It can be lonely. You have to keep secrets from those you love the most and sometimes you have to lie.”
“You could have told me. I would have kept your secret. You didn’t have to lie to me.”
“It’s not like that. I’ve always known I could trust you with anything. It’s that my telling you at any given time has other consequences. A Traveler like me has to play out versions of history so many times with different choices, trying to choose the best possible one. It’s hard to explain.”
“Like chess. There are different ways the game can play out.”
She looked surprised that he had already thought this through and gave him a faint smile. “Yes, I suppose it is a bit like chess. I’ve been trying to find the right choices, the right game I suppose, where you both suffer the least.”
Finn thought about his dad. They had both been suffering. It was true. “Dad hasn’t been at all like himself. He doesn’t even talk to me anymore.”
“Your father?” Mom seemed confused, as if she wasn’t the one who had brought him up. “Oh James . . . I’m so sorry.” She said this into the night as if his father would be able to hear it from more than one hundred years away. “Be kind to him, Finn. It’s a hard life, being married to someone like me.”
A loud snap of a twig came from their left. Finn jumped up and was surprised at how ready he was to defend them both.
“Don’t worry. We’re safe here.”
“Well, it’s not safe back home!” Finn said. “Doc and Mr. Wells and the other members of ISTA are after me—and Gabi—”
Mom nodded. “Yes, I suspect Doc’s trying to cover his tracks. He and some others in ISTA have been working against the majority. They believe the timeline should be altered, and they want to be the judges on how and what.”
Finn blurted out the first thought that occurred to him. “Does Doc want to be the one to marry Gran?”
Mom gave him a surprised sort of smile. “Maybe, but I think ISTA’s plans are more ambitious and far reaching than that. Doc and his faction of ISTA have been making decisions about what should be changed in history.”
Finn’s mind flashed to Gabi in the clearing, surrounded by sun and the bright green of the ferns. Where Finn had wasted no time in thinking of what he would change in his life, given the opportunity, Gabi was the one who thought of all it would change about their present. He wasn’t sure he liked what that said about what faction of ISTA he would belong in. He wondered what their motivations to change the past were.
“I do not believe we should be the sole arbiters of what is best for the world,” Mom went on. “Gran and her allies have always agreed with me. Doc went out on his own. I didn’t see it right away, because a lot of the changed nodes were closed to hide the changes, but my imprints couldn’t be erased.”
“Imprints?” More language he didn’t understand.
“Travelers can remember alternate timelines we’ve experienced. We call them imprints, because that’s what they feel like, indelible stamps in the brain. Gran and her sisters have imprints too, but I’m the only one who has a prime imprint. I can see what the timeline originally looked like, before any Traveler altered it. As soon as Doc’s allies began altering the timeline, I could sense the changes. Gran didn’t believe it because her eyes were closed by her love for him.”
“I don’t get it. How could they fool you? You and Gran—you’re the best.”
She smiled faintly at him. “I see our reputation has reached you? Well, it’s overstated. I can’t Travel where nodes are shut. No one has ever been able to do that. We can Travel over them, but not directly to them. Once a node is shut, it can block an entire decade, sometimes more.”
“But Doc can’t time travel! How could he beat the two of you?”
“Oh, it’s not only him. There are others who want to change the timeline, not protect it.”
“Like Aunt Billie? But she’s not very good! Aunt Ev told me.”
“Did Aunt Ev help you this time? Good.” A smile lived briefly on her face, then dissipated. “I’ve actually been wondering for a while if all Billie’s bumbling is just an act. But it’s far more serious than that. We’re the only family of Travelers in Dorset, but there are more in other places.”
So much for Aunt Ev’s theory about Dorset marble being the source of the Travelers’ power, Finn thought. Gabi would be disappointed.
“And the Others have a Traveler on their side more powerful than Gran and myself combined. A Traveler who can go back and forth in time without any limitations or side effects, and even shut the rest of us out of nodes.”
“Who?”
“Your sister. Faith.”
Chapter 20
It was as if Earth itself shifted on its axis.
“That’s not possible. My sister’s dead.” He took ownership of her. My sister. He would prove his reality was not askew.
But even as he denied it, something inside his chest leapt to life. It was as if a long-dead piece of his charred insides sparked a flame.
“She’s alive, Finn. She’s always alive. They take her from us every time. That’s why she was never found in the quarry.” The sadness in her eyes was familiar even if this new story wasn’t.
“But where is she? Who has her? Why didn’t you go get her?” And then, the familiar anger. The feeling that he was only a pawn. “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you have any idea what it’s been like—what my whole life has been like—”
“I’m sorry.” She rubbed tears away, and Finn noticed that the skin of her hands was calloused and cracked. “You have to understand that whenever I could tell you something, I have. I’ve been working to keep you both alive. Try and understand.”
Both alive. Him and Faith.
Finn tried to imagine living hundreds of lifetimes inside only one. That’s what Mom had been doing, and he never once had a clue. She was a computer playing the same game of chess over and over, only a computer had the benefit of not fee
ling any pain or being related to a sacrificed pawn. While Finn was growing up, she had always been there for him, always had time for him. In fact, she had all the time in the world. It must be exhausting. She did look tired and drawn, the light flickering over hollows in her cheeks that hadn’t been there only a few weeks ago. How long had she been here?
Finn woke up his scientific brain. He began to assemble the known facts. “They took Faith because they knew . . . they knew what she’d be able to do.”
“Yes. The latest daughter in the family line. The most powerful yet, with skills we could only guess at till she grew up. Someone they could use to bring about the utopia they envision. They think they’re capable of making such decisions.” She looked off into the distance and shook her head ever so slightly. “They send someone—sometimes it’s Billie, sometimes it’s one of the Others. In your timeline, they took her from us that day at the quarry.”
Finn’s mind was spinning. Many timelines existed in his world. It was true, and Gran and Mom could actually see them for themselves! “Why didn’t you and Gran go back and change it? You can, can’t you?”
“It happens over and over, Finn. If it’s not the quarry, it’s the lake, or the green, or the school. If it’s not Doc himself, it’s one or more of his allies. There is no stopping it. I’ve lived it over and over.”
Finn had only lived it once and it was a crushing memory. He couldn’t imagine how Mom dealt with so many memories.
“Someone always takes Faith and raises her—and tells her many lies. She is always turned against us, Finn.”
Finn shuddered and shifted on the snow. It was melting through the horse blanket she had given him and his jeans were now wet. The cold didn’t bother him as much as it should. There was a fiery ember inside of him now that kept repeating She’s alive.
“You need to know something else about your sister. Faith ends up doing terrible things. She grows into someone who can do great harm, without remorse.”
“You’re saying not only is Faith alive, she’s also evil?”
“Evil is a finite word. Hearts can change, please remember that. It’s a great emotional burden to do what we do. Faith developed her abilities at such a young age; it’s too much knowledge for anyone, much less a child. Then the Others take her and influence her. I need more time with her, to help her understand her power.”
Finn’s brain flashed back to all the conversations that had abruptly stopped when he entered a room, the look in his parents’ eyes when Faith’s name was mentioned. For years Finn had been processing the information incorrectly, and it all had to be recalculated. The looks of disappointment weren’t directed at him. They had been for Faith and what she had become.
He found himself hating everyone who was involved in her disappearance. Whoever took her had broken his family. Broken him.
The memories of that day came unbidden. First, the happy, calm ones. The look of his own chubby fingers playing in the shallows. The bright sun shining on the ripples of the water, glittering at him and making him wish they made a high tinkling noise.
There were disconnected snapshots of memory he could grab on to and hold in front of himself. The joy he’d felt in making his sister laugh. She had a loud little-girl belly laugh that was infectious. There was no way a little girl who laughed like that could grow up to be evil.
The good snapshots then quickly dissolved away into pain. The part where it all came crashing down. The frantic screaming of Faith’s name by many grown-ups, him sitting alone on a rock crying and not knowing why. The word lost and all the dread it carried. Lost was the worst thing you could be at three years old.
And the worst memory: his father shaking his shoulders violently. “Did she go in the water? Did you see? Did you see anyone else?”
“My sister is alive and is an evil time traveler.” Finn half-whispered this to himself in the hopes that it would become a logical statement upon utterance. It didn’t. It sounded even more ridiculous out loud.
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that, Finn,” Mom said. “You have to go back there for me.”
“Go where?”
She corrected him: “When.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I need you to go back to the day Faith was taken and bring her here, to me. You need to take her before they do.”
Chapter 21
“What? I can’t do that!” Finn nearly fell backward in the snow at the suggestion.
“Yes, you can. You can use the tree. You got here, didn’t you?” Something about the tone of her voice didn’t ring true. It was the same tone she’d used when he was little and she was trying to cajole him into doing something.
Finn jumped up, crunched noisily through the snow back to the tree, and pointed to it.
“Why can’t you go get her? And then we can all go home.” Sure, it would be weird having to explain a sudden three-year-old sister who bore so much resemblance to Faith, but that’s what the Firths did best. Weird.
Mom hadn’t moved a muscle as Finn made his case. The way her coat fell around her made her look like she might be part stone. Rooted to the mountain.
“I can’t, Finn. I have to stay here. I can’t go back to that node again, not without risking my life. Repeated visits to the same node take a toll on me—similar to the effects that Future Travel have on Gran.”
Finn flinched. “Had on Gran,” he murmured. Mom looked away. “What about Dad? Could he use the tree?”
“No, it won’t work for him. You have to be the one to do this, Finn. It’s supposed to be you.”
“Even if I can get back there, how am I supposed to grab Faith, get her all the way up the mountain, and bring her back to the tree? It took Gabi and me hours. How can I do that dragging a little kid?”
She looked at him funny for a moment, like she was sizing him up. She then stood up, revealing that her skirt was more voluminous than he’d thought—it went all the way past her ankles. She tugged at a cord around her waist and pulled something out of a small pocket that hung by a rope from her side.
“The portal will take you to the quarry this time. Put this on as soon as you have a good hold on Faith. It will bring you both back here.”
Finn automatically reached for the object, out of curiosity more than acceptance of the task. He expected it to be another grounding stone. It was something entirely different.
He held it up in the meager light. It was a bright silver skeleton key that had been bent into a spiral shape. The loop of the warped shaft was the right size to fit around a finger. It was a ring. A “key ring,” to be exact.
“It’s all bent.” It didn’t look the least bit impressive.
“It’s the key for the tree,” said Mom. “You don’t put it in the lock. You wear it. It will help you get back to the tree and then back to me. Show it to your father. He’ll understand.”
Everything in Finn’s rational brain warred with what she was saying. Time travel could not possibly rely on such silly totems. It was about subatomic particles and quantum physics, not rocks and . . . and . . . jewelry!
“Why do I have to kidnap her? What if I just go back in time and warn Dad, and then he can keep us home that day, or—”
“No!” Her voice grew urgent. “They will keep taking her. They do keep taking her! You must understand, I’ve already tried the most obvious plans—I’ve played out so many options that you never even experienced. The only solution is to hide her somewhere else in time.”
“Okay, even if I managed to bring her back,” said Finn, fighting to keep the frustration out of his voice, “then what?”
“Then I keep her safe, here.” She stretched out her arm and gestured to the darkness that surrounded them. Her wrist and forearm were thinner than before, like if she lost any more of herself she’d disappear entirely.
Suddenly Mom’s plan became all too clear.
“You don’t plan on coming home. You don’t plan on coming back with me!”
Her face fel
l. Her eyes glistened in the glow of the lantern. He had figured her out.
“It’s the only way, Finn. The only way that can work. We can make a difference. I can change what she becomes. She needs one of us to raise her, to love her, to teach her. It has to be me. Changing the future is not always easy, it’s not always flipping a switch. Sometimes it takes . . . well . . . time.”
Resentment exploded inside him. It created a vacuum and left no space for anything else. It was an anger he didn’t know he was capable of until now.
“NO! I climbed the mountain to save you, not Faith! I need you home. Dad needs you at home. You don’t get to choose her over us.”
Finn couldn’t stop the hot tears from rolling down his cheeks. They turned cold against his skin as they fell and he brushed them away with the back of his hand. Faith had always been more important.
“Oh, my darling boy. I’m not choosing her over you. I’m saving you. If this works, if I can change what she becomes, then I will be able to come home.”
“So you’ve seen it. You’ve seen that this works?” He clutched the ring so hard it hurt.
She turned away and didn’t answer him.
“You haven’t, have you? You don’t know for sure!” Finn paced through the snow. This was a horrible plan.
“No.” Her tone was resigned. “I haven’t seen it work like that . . . yet.”
“Then no! I won’t do it. You have to come back with me.” Finn held the key out in his shaking hand.
She grabbed his hand, not the key, and held it still. Finn was astonished at how weak her grip was. Even when the migraines were at their worst, she had never seemed this fragile. He wanted to get her home, away from here. The 1800s had already not been kind to her. He toyed with the idea of dragging her to the tree. She was frail enough that he thought he might be able to. What he didn’t know was if the tree would take them both if she resisted.
She was the one crying now, big tears streaming down her face and leaving wet trails of reflected light. “If you don’t do this, if you let things go the way they are, she kills you, Finn. She kills you and me.”
A Time Traveler's Theory of Relativity Page 13