What if Maggie and I have actually done something to the whole space-time continuum? What happened to everyone I know in that alternate-reality version of the future, where The Elms wasn’t a museum? Was Dad trapped somewhere else in time? I refuse to believe, even if he was, like, king of the world in that time line, that he was happier without me. And I definitely was born in that time line too, because I didn’t shimmer away to dust particles when I hung the painting. What if what we’ve done isn’t fixable? Would I be willing to live out the rest of my days here in this century, to keep everyone I love in the future they’re supposed to be having? Sure, Dad would be raising Maggie-me instead of real-me, but he wouldn’t know that. And, I mean, I always wished so hard that I could see this place in its glory . . . but not for forever!
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
A few hours ago I was having so much fun playing detective with Jonah, aside from the boring waiting-around part. We solved a real-life art heist, for crying out loud.
But now?
Now I’m scared. Legit scared.
And I don’t like it one bit. Okay, so, Slender Man is super-creepy and that Doctor Who episode with the weeping angel statues mega-freaks me out, and I’m dying to see that new zombie movie that just got released, but this is a different kind of fear. Those are hide-under-the-covers, tiptoes-up-your-spine, but secretly-kinda-love-the-adrenaline fears.
This is a cold, raw, brick-size-battery-leaking-acid-in-my-belly fear.
I feel light-headed, and it’s not because my dress is laced too tight. It’s because my whole life is feeling very unlaced.
No. No, no, no. I can’t fall apart. Or give up. That is not the Hannah Jordan way. The Hannah Jordan way is to choose a new plan of attack.
It’s what I do on the soccer field when the opposing team’s defender intentionally jabs her elbow into my side as we fight for possession.
It’s what I did last summer when Trent threatened to get the Antiquities Society to say I couldn’t swim in the fountain after the museum closed for the day, and I retaliated by putting on Dad’s Halloween werewolf mask and hiding out in the Narnia wardrobe in the Satinwood Room until he appeared. (Let’s just say he was very invested in keeping his reaction just between us.)
And it’s what I need to do now.
I square my shoulders and suck in a deep breath that almost makes its way into the super-deep part of my lungs. Then I face Maggie.
“I’m good. Just needed a sec. Okay, so now we gotta figure our way outta this mess. Do you have any ideas?”
Maggie shakes her head slowly, and I drop my chin. “Me neither.”
I raise my eyes when I hear her whisper. “What?” I ask. “I didn’t catch that.”
“I’m scared,” she repeats. I can only nod, because the lump in my throat is growing by the second, much as I try to push it down through sheer will. She puts her fingertips to the mirror, and I match mine to hers. Even though I know it won’t switch us back through time, it’s comforting to connect with a friend at a moment like this. I wish she were here in person, so I could actually feel her touch. So I’d have a friend to turn to, instead of being stuck a hundred years in the past, entirely on my own.
Except . . . I’m not entirely alone. Jonah’s been the very best kind of friend. The kind who helps first and asks questions later. And he’s smart. Supersmart. Maybe three heads are better than two.
“Maggie, I think—I think maybe we should tell Jonah the whole story. We don’t have any bright ideas, and I just have this feeling about him. Like maybe he will.”
It’s so weird to watch my own face in the mirror as all kinds of expressions pass over it. But in the end, she nods. “If you feel you can trust him, I suppose it couldn’t hurt at this point.”
She barely gets the words out before I’m off the sideboard and racing for the kitchen, my dress flapping.
I try to make myself invisible as I sneak past and head straight for the coal tunnel. When I left Jonah after we brought the real painting back to the drawing room, he confided in me that he was planning to catch a nap in his secret spot, before reporting to work to help during the ball. I hate waking him up, but if this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, I don’t know what would.
I rap on the door, and step back when he opens it.
“Maggie?” He squints at me in the shadows, and I can hear the sleep in his voice.
“Can you come with me again?” I ask, gasping for breath.
He nods quickly, stepping into the tunnel. I’m head lookout as we (yet again) sneak back up to the drawing room. I breathe a sigh of relief when I spot Maggie patiently waiting in the mirror.
Jonah’s reaction is . . . not quite a sigh of relief. He nearly jumps out of his shoes, and I grab his arm to steady him.
“Okay, so I know this is going to sound loony tunes,” I say.
“Completely insane,” Maggie adds, and Jonah jumps again.
“Who’s she?” He chokes out the words, not taking his eyes off the mirror.
“She’s me,” I reply.
“And I’m her,” Maggie adds.
Jonah sinks to the floor. I plop down beside him. I’m pretty sure I hear Maggie catch a breath at how unladylike I am about it, but she keeps quiet.
“So it’s like this . . . ,” I begin. With a little help from Maggie, I bring him up to speed on the last twenty-four hours.
He shakes his head a lot. A lot a lot. I even catch him pinching his own arm to try to wake himself up. But when Maggie demonstrates my iPhone for him in the mirror, I can see him start to come around to the fact that—as crazy as it sounds—we might be telling the truth. “I—I don’t even know what to say, what to think. I did puzzle at your manner of speaking,” he says, looking at me in wonder, “but I told myself it was only that I didn’t spend any time among the upper class.”
I can’t help a tiny giggle. “Nope. It’s a futuristic thing. We all talk like this.”
“I’m sorry if I’m struggling to wrap my brain around this. I am trying,” he says.
I snort, which seems to surprise him. Not sure if it’s because I’m not taking his apology seriously or if girls in 1905 just never snort. Or maybe both. “Like that’s something to be sorry about? If some weirdo popped up in my basement and started going on about psychics and body swaps, I’d have called 911 faster than you can say, ‘Hey, Siri, dial 911.’ ”
“I—I don’t—”
“It’s a phone number for the cops. You know. The po-po? The fuzz? Five-oh?”
Jonah just gives me a look and shakes his head. “The future must be a very odd place indeed.”
“Oh, you have NO idea. We have Kardashians, my friend.”
I don’t have a chance to explain (probably best, since how could you ever explain them?), because Maggie speaks from behind me.
“It is odder than you could ever imagine.”
I jump a little. I was so distracted, I kind of forgot she was still here(ish).
“Maybe, but I’m pretty eager to get back there,” I say as I stand up and begin pacing the room, like my grandpa Fred does when we play chess and I have him almost cornered. He claims pacing helps him see “the big picture” and all the possible outcomes. Considering that I’ve beaten Grandpa Fred at chess exactly once (and even that was on a technicality), I’m thinking that pacing might work. Plus, I’m desperate to try anything at this point. “Call me crazy, but in my gut I still feel like the answer to switching back has to do with the painting. It’s the only thing that makes sense with the timing, and the fact that taking it down from the mirror made us swap in the first place, and hanging it back up made the time line shift,” I say.
I was mostly speaking this out loud to puzzle through it on my own, but from behind me Maggie pops up with the same follow-up question I was about to ask myself.
“But then why didn’t it work when we hung the painting back in its rightful place?”
I turn to face her, my eyes big and sad. “I don’t know. And how can we
restore the painting to where it belongs without creating a ripple effect in the events of history?”
Jonah is quiet, leaning against an upholstered chair in the center of the room, his eyes all faraway-like. He even rubs his chin the way people on TV do when they want everyone watching to know they’re thinking deep thoughts.
After a second he says, “What if you didn’t have to?”
“Didn’t have to what?” I ask.
He lifts his head and looks back and forth from Maggie to me.
“What if the painting could still hang in its rightful place at the conclusion of all this, but you could put it there without disturbing this time line?”
“How would we accomplish that?” Maggie asks, but my own brain is whirring.
I blurt out, “By hanging it there in the future! Jonah, I’m picking up what you’re putting down! I’ll say it again: you’re brilliant, Einstein!”
He blushes and ducks his head. “Hardly. I have barely any schooling.”
I wave him off. “Pfft. Whatevs. You have street smarts. In lots of ways that’s even better.”
“Might someone kindly explain what it is we’re speaking of?” Maggie asks. “The two of you appear to be on the same page, but I’m afraid I have no idea at all what you’re going on about. Whatever do you mean by ‘hanging it there in the future’?”
I share an excited smile with Jonah, then turn to Maggie. “The only way we can be sure we’re not affecting anything that happened between now—I mean, then—I mean, now for me—ugh. Sorry. This space-time continuum stuff is mega-confusing.”
Maggie is squinting at me. I’m sure what I’m saying is harder to decipher than those Instagram posts that are nothing but a zillion hashtags strung together. I take a deep breath and try again.
“The future rippled because if the painting was never stolen, that fact changes the way things unfold from that moment forward. A hundred tiny things could happen differently all because Augustus-You-Bustus never took off with the portrait, and that’s how we end up with a totally different time line, one where The Elms is some little kid’s house instead of a museum. We changed the past, and in doing so we changed the future.”
I pause to take a deep breath and make sure Maggie is still with me here. She’s nodding, so I race on. “What I’m trying to say is that we have to make sure everything happens exactly the way it already does in the history books. Anything that’s recorded there has to stay exactly that way. But we can still return the painting to the wall and set things right. You’ll just have to do it in modern time. No one has written the future into any history books yet, so there’s nothing to disturb. And then we get to switch back to our own times. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.”
Jonah laughs. “I like that expression.”
“Heck yeah, ya do,” I reply.
His eyebrows come together above his nose, but then he smiles and shakes his head.
I shrug and smile back.
For her part, Maggie still looks a little confused. “But if you have the painting there, how am I meant to hang it here?”
I’m ready for that question. The answer has been bouncing around in my head ever since I caught on to what Jonah was saying. “We leave it for you to find. Somewhere where it will be safe for the next hundred-plus years. Somewhere, say, in a tunnel under the house, for example.”
Jonah grins and waves the key to the tiny hidden room. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
I know it’s the perfect hiding spot. Clearly no one in my time has any clue that place even exists. At least I’m pretty sure they don’t. Dad definitely would have mentioned it to me. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d geek out over.
The painting will be safe there.
All we have to do is hide it in the tunnel room and then hide the key to the door somewhere where Maggie can find it in the future. She’ll pretend she stumbled across the hidden room, discover the painting, and alert the proper authorities. Then we’ll swap back right in time for me to be the one basking in the fame and glory of finding The Elms’ precious missing masterpiece. I wonder if the Smithsonian will want to interview me. Or maybe even the Today show! Either way, I will finally, finally get the respect I deserve from the docents and everyone else who thought I was just a bratty kid getting in their way. It’s going to feel amazing! Honestly, this scenario is even better than just swapping back and having the painting hanging there because it was never stolen. My heart trips in excitement!
“Okay, Maggie. Hang tight. Jonah and I are going to sneak the portrait to its hiding spot and lock it up. Then we’ll figure out where to hide the key so you can find it in the future.”
I step closer to Jonah and gasp when I take a good look at the key in his hand! I didn’t get to see it clearly when we were in the dark tunnel, but in the bright drawing room it’s clear that it’s not just any key but an old-timey skeleton one that—
No. It can’t be.
“Can I see that for a sec?” I ask.
Jonah nods and passes it to me. I cradle it carefully in my hand, step to the sideboard, and climb up. Maggie’s eyes go wide when I hold the key so she can see it.
“It looks just like . . .”
She doesn’t even have to finish, because I’m already nodding hard. “I know.”
We both blink as I carefully set the key flat against the mirror age spot that Maggie and I were both touching when we swapped places. It lines up perfectly.
The key and the age spot are an exact match.
For a second I think maybe that’s going to be the thing that switches us back, but nothing happens. Even still. It’s all the sign I need. We’re totally on the right track now!
Jonah and I are supersleuths as we institute Operation Hide Maggie’s Portrait. Fortunately, with all the preparations for the dinner party that comes before the ball, everyone is too wrapped up in their own work in the ballroom and the dining room to pay us any attention. We wait for the coast to be clear, then duck down the servants’ stairs and straight into the furnace area.
In less than ten minutes we’re back in the drawing room, smiling at Maggie.
“This is the best plan ever. I have a very good feeling about this,” I say. I walk her through exactly how to find the door in the tunnel, then add, “Okay, now to find the ideal hiding place for the key.”
I look around the room carefully, noting pieces that aren’t part of the museum in my time, and ruling out obvious spots that would never sit undisturbed for an entire century.
“What about one of the sconces?” Maggie asks.
“No good. They’re reproductions. The originals were sold at auction when Julia—”
I break off. I don’t know how much Maggie wants to know about her future. Maybe she’s been reading the signs around the museum or taking the tours. But maybe she hasn’t. If it were me, I would definitely NOT want to know what’s coming for me and everyone around me, and if she’s the same, I don’t want to be the one to tell her the house gets sold when her other aunt, Julia, dies in the early 1960s. A bunch of stuff inside went to auction before the Antiquities Society stepped in and saved the mansion from demolition.
Luckily, Maggie doesn’t question why I just clammed up on her, and Jonah saves the day by distracting us when he flips a corner of the elaborate Oriental rug on the floor and gestures to the sewn-on label.
“What if we slid it in between the stitches attaching this tag? No one would ever think to look here. Is this rug still there in your time?”
“It is, but I’ll bet the vacuum would catch on the bump the key would make.”
“Vacuum?” Jonah asks.
“Never mind. Oh! This chair!” I point to a Louis XV armchair off to the side of the rug. It’s 100 percent still there in my time and is too perfect a match to be a reproduction. Plus, the arms are padded underneath the upholstery, so if we can slip the key into the padding, there won’t be any telltale lump to hint that anything’s inside. It’s the perfect hiding spot. “Be right back. I
’m gonna grab a letter opener off Mr. Berwind’s desk upstairs.”
That takes me less than thirty seconds, and in another two I’ve made the tiniest of tears along a seam in the chair and buried the key inside.
Our timing is spot-on, because I’m just saying, “Mags, do you want to—” when voices in the hallway make me slam my lips shut.
Someone’s coming!
“And then I believe we should rearrange some of the seating in the drawing room. I don’t want the petals laid until just before arrivals, so they don’t begin curling at the edges, and I expressly do not want anyone near the portrait, of course, so please do . . .”
It’s Mrs. Berwind giving instructions to one of the staff.
I shoot a desperate glance at Maggie. Jonah is standing every bit as still as one of the statues of cherubs in the conservatory next to us. His eyes are sheer panic.
Thinking fast, I hiss, “Maggie, your aunt is coming and they’re talking about ball prep for this room! It’s going to be too crazy in here to get privacy now. I’m so, so sorry but we have to push to tomorrow for the switch. Seven a.m. your time? This is all on you now, anyway. You know what to do?”
She nods, and I turn before even making sure her image fades. I grab a vase of fresh flowers and tip it over so that the water inside splashes across the marble floor. Three steps later, I’m next to Jonah.
Mrs. Berwind enters the room with the butler, and both stop in their tracks when they see us. Maggie’s aunt’s hand flies to her neck. “Margaret! Whatever is going on in here?”
“Hello, Auntie.” Yikes, I hope I got that right. Colette used this term when she was talking about Mrs. Berwind before, but if I’m misremembering, I’ll totally blow my cover.
She doesn’t react, so I must be okay. Her eyebrows arch, though, and I realize she’s still staring at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I, um, well, I accidentally spilled some water, and everyone up here was so busy running around trying to get ready for tonight, so I slipped downstairs and grabbed this boy from the kitchen to help clean it up. I didn’t know what else to do!”
The Art of the Swap Page 14