Jonah and Katherine were just talking. They were just kids. And there was nothing remotely dangerous anywhere in sight. Even the face Jordan had seen back in the lab hadn’t seemed that menacing—the guy had mostly just looked like a computer nerd with messy hair.
But Jordan still found himself having to fight the urge to shiver in fear.
“JB thinks Second is the one who taught Gary and Hodge how to make their split dimensions,” Jonah said.
“Really?” Katherine said. Evidently this was news to her, too. “So you and Jordan growing up in different dimensions—that all traces back to him too?”
“How is he at re-aging people who already lived through their teen years once and would rather just be adults again?” Mom asked, and at least she managed to sound slightly humorous about the whole thing.
“I don’t know,” Jonah said, shrugging helplessly. It was still strange how much looking at Jonah was like looking into a mirror. But Jordan had never seen his own face look so miserable. “I don’t know if that was Second when he was still Sam Chase and still loyal to JB. I don’t know if he’s told the whole time agency we were there, and now we’ve gotten JB into serious, serious trouble. I don’t know if we somehow managed to cross over into the new dimension Second created, and maybe he’d try to follow us if we went back home. I don’t even know if this plastic thing I grabbed is an Elucidator or not!”
He held up the thin sliver of plastic he’d swiped from the table back at the lab.
“Okay. Okay,” Mom said. She took a deep breath, just like she always did when she was trying to talk Katherine down from some stupid sixth-grade drama with her friends. “Let’s just look at this logically. Something got us out of that lab and into this . . . what did you call it? A time hollow? And we know the other Elucidator Jordan took from JB wasn’t working. . . .”
“Do we know that?” Jonah asked. “That Elucidator took us from our kitchen into the lab in what must have been the future. I was thinking the Elucidator was broken the same way as the light switch in our bathroom last summer, where sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t, and it was impossible to predict. Remember, Dad, you had me help you fix that?”
“Ummm . . . ,” Dad said.
“No, I helped Dad fix the bathroom light switch!” Jordan said hotly. It’d been, like, a five-minute job, and Jordan had complained the whole time. But he still didn’t want Jonah taking credit.
Dad scrunched up his face.
“I . . . can’t really remember which of you helped me,” he said. “It might have even been Katherine. . . . Sorry, guys.”
Katherine was squinting too.
“I guess it was probably both of you, just in the different dimensions,” she said. “I don’t remember doing it.”
“Anyhow,” Mom said, waving her hand as if trying to shove away any possible arguments. “Let’s get back to the Elucidator. This is all new to me, but . . . is it like an iPhone? Does it have something like Siri? Could you just ask it if you could make your dad and me the right age again? Safely, I mean?”
“Elucidators are like . . . you know that story about the Sphinx?” Jonah asked. “How it’s tricky and full of riddles? You can never get a straight answer from an Elucidator. At least, I can’t. Charles Lindbergh told me he could.”
Mom’s jaw dropped.
“You talked to Charles Lindbergh?” she asked, sounding awestruck.
“Hey, Mom, remember, Charles Lindbergh kidnapped me and turned me into a baby?” Katherine chimed in. “Not my favorite person. Just because you like history, don’t go acting like he’s Justin Bieber or something.”
“A lot of history is pretty awful,” Jonah said, and again he had that Be grateful that I am sharing some of my vast wisdom with you tone in his voice.
Dad shook his head impatiently.
“I never liked history,” he said. “I hated it in school. Bor-ing. Like school in general.”
“Michael!” Mom said, sounding horrified. “Don’t say that in front of the kids!”
Dad got a stricken look on his face. He leaned toward Jordan, Jonah, and Katherine.
“I think your mom is way more grown-up as a thirteen-year-old than I am,” he whispered, as if he were sharing a big secret. “I keep forgetting I’m supposed to be acting like a dad.”
Mom shot Dad a disgusted look. It was a lot like the looks Katherine usually gave Jordan.
“Can we get back to the task at hand?” Mom asked. “Jonah, it’s possible that you’re holding two Elucidators right now, though we’re not sure if either of them works, or works right. Even if you’re afraid that going home right now might create problems, couldn’t you call JB and ask him what to do? If he was using an Elucidator to communicate with people in the future, couldn’t we communicate with him?”
“Except he doesn’t have an Elucidator right now, Mom, because Jordan took it,” Katherine reminded her. And it was amazing: She didn’t sound snarky or mean like she normally would, saying, Mom, you’re wrong!
What had happened to Katherine in all her time travels, to change her so much?
Mom made a face.
“I guess I was still thinking Elucidators were like cell phones, and even if JB doesn’t have his Elucidator anymore, we could still call him on the landline. . . .” She sounded ashamed of herself for not having figured out more.
“Anyhow, our house could be swarming with time agents right now,” Katherine continued.
She made them sound like storm troopers.
“Maybe we could get these Elucidators to show us what’s going on at our house right now—I mean, right after the five of us left,” Jonah said, as if he’d just thought of that. His voice shifted into an authoritative tone: “Elucidator, show us that scene. Project it on the wall, so we can all see.”
The wall in front of them turned into a screen of sorts, though the picture was even sharper than the highest-definition TV screen Jordan had ever seen. It was even more intense than being back in the kitchen: He could see each individual hair on Angela’s head, each whorl of the granite countertop Chip was leaning against, each line on JB’s face as he called out, “Jonah? Katherine? Jonah?”
What are Mom and Dad and me? Jordan wondered jealously. Chopped liver? Doesn’t he care that the three of us disappeared too?
“So there aren’t a million time agents there and JB hasn’t gotten a replacement Elucidator,” Jonah muttered.
“Yet,” Katherine reminded him.
The scene on the wall froze.
“At least one of you is thinking of grabbing an Elucidator and zooming back there to arrive in the next instant, so we cannot project the next seconds with any confidence or accuracy,” a disembodied voice said.
“That’s how this works?” Dad marveled.
“Who was thinking of going back?” Katherine asked accusingly.
“Me,” Mom said meekly.
“Well, stop, and then we’ll see what happens next,” Jordan suggested.
He kept watching the screen. Nothing happened.
“Do you know how hard it is to keep yourself from thinking about something?” Mom asked.
Jonah ran his hand over his face.
“Let’s try this instead,” he suggested. “Elucidator, show us the room where we saw Second—er, Sam Chase, whatever he’s calling himself now—in the second after all of us Skidmores left.”
The scene on the wall changed to a crystal-clear scene of a futuristic lab. Jordan guessed it was the same place he’d seen before in a blur. But it was totally empty. Neither Second nor anyone else stood in its broad aisles.
“Um . . . show us where Second went in the instant after all of us Skidmores left,” Jonah said. He sounded stricken—why was he frightened by the sight of an empty lab?
Something weird happened with the wall. It was almost like the projection was replaced with a trick mirror, because it seemed to return an image of the same nothing-colored walls that surrounded his family (and Jonah). Jordan could see his fami
ly and Jonah reflected on the wall, too, but the view was twisted around somehow, so it showed their backs instead of the images head-on, like a regular mirror would show. There was Katherine’s ponytail, knocked off center and coming out of its rubber band. There was the back of Dad’s head, which should be balding but was so improbably covered with thick, frizzy hair. There was the back of Jonah’s nerdy sweater vest with its argyle design. There was . . .
Wait, is there a sixth person crouching down and hiding behind me and Mom? Jordan wondered. And he’s been quiet and out of sight because none of us has turned around and looked behind us since we arrived in this time hollow?
Jordan whirled around, looking behind him. Everyone else seemed to notice and turn at the same time.
Except as Katherine and Jonah whirled around, they also screamed, “Second followed us!”
EIGHT
The man crouched behind Jordan burst into a wide grin.
“Guilty as charged!” he cried. His voice didn’t match his words—he sounded as gleeful as if he were accepting a prize. “I thought you were going to take forever, deciding to look for me.”
Jonah tugged on Dad’s arm to shove him back; Katherine did the same thing to Mom and Jordan.
They’re trying to shield us, Jordan thought numbly. What do they think this man’s going to do?
In the next moment Jordan felt his body freeze. He could still move his head and neck, but everything below his neck seemed immobile. He had no control over his arms or legs or torso, and his limbs were stuck in the most awkward positions. Katherine had only halfway succeeded in shoving him behind her, so Jordan was balanced improbably on his right knee and his left fingertips.
“Once again, your primitive instincts have failed you,” Second taunted them. “Jonah, you’re under the impression that you’re holding two Elucidators, correct? Why didn’t you just immobilize me before I had the chance to do the same to you? Were your instincts to protect your family that overpowering? That’s actually kind of sweet.”
“Stop making fun of us,” Jonah muttered.
Katherine went for a more direct approach: “What do you want?” she demanded.
“What do you think I want?” Second asked. His eyes danced merrily. Combined with his messy hair, this made him look a little crazy. “I would be so interested in hearing your theories. We’ve just had such a fascinating turn of events! So much is in flux right now. . . .”
Jordan decided to use the same strategy he adopted when teachers asked hard questions in class: As far as he was concerned, somebody else could do all the talking. He turned his head toward Mom, but she looked white-faced and speechless. Katherine was biting her lip, a sign that she was spitting mad, maybe even too mad to speak. Dad kept opening and closing his mouth, but no sound came out.
That left Jonah. And of course wise, calm Jonah was up to the task.
“You promised,” Jonah said, his eyes burning into Second’s. “After Katherine and I saved time back in the sixteen hundreds, you said you would stay in your dimension of time and stay out of ours. But then you helped Gary and Hodge. You taught them how to ruin everything, how to ruin my life . . .”
Why did he turn his head and glare at Jordan just then? Why was he acting like Jordan, not Second, had ruined “everything”?
Second held up his hands, palms out, in one of those Hey, man, don’t blame me gestures of innocence.
“To use a phrase that has echoed through recorded history—in all dimensions—’Am I my brother’s keeper?’ ” Second asked. “And I say: No. I am not.”
Katherine gasped.
“You mean—you’re related to Gary? Or Hodge?” she asked. “Is that why—”
Second sighed. “I keep forgetting that I am dealing with children,” he muttered. “And children from a more primitive time . . . I only meant that figuratively. I claim no kinship with either of those bumblers.”
“You’re quoting the Bible,” Mom said. “That’s what Cain said after he killed his own brother, and he tried to pretend he didn’t know where his brother was. But he was responsible. He was guilty.” She whipped her head side to side, gazing frantically at Jonah and Katherine and Jordan. “Is this man a murderer? Do we have to worry about that, too?”
It was really scary to hear Mom say words like “killed” and “murderer.” Those weren’t things Jordan was used to hearing either of his parents fret about.
It was even scarier that neither Katherine nor Jonah answered Mom.
Second pressed his lips into a thin line of annoyance.
“You’re getting off track,” he said. “Let me clarify: Neither Gary nor Hodge was ever my protégé. I made no effort to teach them anything. I was just as stunned as anyone else that they were able to enter my separate time and learn from my examples. And . . . everything I desire is just as endangered by the potential results of their actions as you are. So I think I am justified in breaking my promise. You don’t know this yet, but you need me to.”
For a moment everyone was silent. Then Katherine whispered, “So you want us to help you again? You want to work together?”
Second smiled. But it was just a matter of moving the corners of his mouth. The smile didn’t make him look happy or pleasant.
“That would be one way of looking at this,” he said in a tight voice. “But . . . that’s not how any of you are going to view things a moment from now.”
“Why? What are you going to do?” Mom asked frantically. “Please—can’t we just talk things out before anyone does anything?”
“Don’t make me have to beat you up!” Dad said.
And then both of them vanished.
So did Second.
NINE
Jordan toppled over. He was so caught off guard at being unfrozen that he didn’t even think about putting his hands out to catch himself. His shoulder smashed into the floor. He would have hit even harder if it hadn’t been for Katherine being partly in front of him. She mostly broke his fall.
Now she’s going to yell at me for chipping her fingernail or something, Jordan thought, even though her elbow stabbed his stomach.
It didn’t actually hurt. Was pain something else being in a time hollow could prevent?
Why hadn’t the time hollow prevented Mom and Dad from vanishing? What could Jordan do to make sure Katherine didn’t vanish too?
Before Jordan could say or do anything, Jonah jerked back on Katherine’s arm, pulling her toward him and away from Jordan.
Jonah didn’t seem to care about helping Jordan up.
“You’re just trying to trick us into panicking and doing something stupid,” Jonah called out, addressing the blank space where Second had been only a moment before. “You’re just trying to manipulate us into doing what you want!”
“Jonah, he took our parents,” Katherine said. “Whatever he’s trying to manipulate us to do—it’s going to work.”
“Mom? Dad?” Jordan called. The words came out garbled. Probably the other two thought he was just whimpering.
“We’re not going to do anything to help you until you bring Mom and Dad back!” Jonah threatened. He was still talking to empty air.
Katherine sighed. Jordan was slightly relieved to see her push herself away from Jonah.
“You’re both acting like idiots,” she said. “Duh. It looks like he left us with both of the Elucidators. Elucidators, show us where Second took Mom and Dad.”
“Or just take us there,” Jordan suggested.
Instantly the bland room around them vanished.
“Jordan!” Katherine screamed. “It’s doing what you said!”
“I didn’t mean—” Jordan began.
“Stop! Turn us back around! Take us back to the time hollow!” Jonah screamed.
They were in darkness now, but Jordan could see words glowing in red lights just above Jonah’s hands. Was one of the Elucidators projecting those words somehow? Was that because the Elucidator had obeyed Jonah’s command for silence back in the lab, even i
f it hadn’t made them invisible?
Or did this just mean that only the Elucidator Jonah had picked up in the lab was working now?
Jordan decided he didn’t care about those exact questions right now. In the spinning darkness he craned his neck so he could read the glowing words. They said OVERLOAD OF COMMANDS. WILL NEED TO RECONFIGURE BEFORE ANY CHANGES ACCEPTED. NO CHANGE IN DESTINATION ALLOWED AT THIS TIME.
Did that mean they couldn’t go back?
“Please,” Jordan moaned.
“If you can’t take us back, can you just freeze us here until you reconfigure?” Jonah asked.
“Guys, shut up!” Katherine screamed. “We’re about to land! Don’t confuse the Elucidator by telling it anything el—”
Then Jordan couldn’t hear her or Jonah, because he had the sensation once again that his body was being torn in all directions.
If people are going to be smart enough to invent time travel, can’t they invent an easier way to do it? Jordan wondered, in the split second before his brain stopped working.
The next thing he knew, he was on a solid floor once more. As he began to regain his senses, he realized that Katherine had her hand pressed tightly over his mouth.
“Don’t make any noise until we know where we are,” she whispered in his ear. “Promise?”
Jordan nodded, and she slid her hand away.
Smooth, flat floor, Jordan thought. Sterile-looking tables. Glow of TV-light projections overhead . . .
“We’re back in a lab,” Jonah whispered from beside Katherine. He was sitting up already, peeking over one of the tabletops. “I think it’s the same lab as before. But—”
“It’s empty. I don’t see Mom and Dad,” Katherine said dejectedly, as she joined Jonah in cautiously sitting up and looking around.
Jordan didn’t quite trust himself to move yet. So he was at the perfect angle to see the words projected into the air above Jonah’s right hand: YOU DIDN’T SAY YOU WANTED TO BE WHERE YOUR PARENTS WENT WHILE THEY WERE STILL THERE.
Was that what Jonah meant about Elucidators being tricky? Jordan had said, Or just take us there. Who would have ever expected that he also needed to say, Take us to that exact moment?
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