The object of their wrath appeared. Mom drew in a sharp breath and covered her mouth. “That poor man,” she said.
“What?” David said. Then he saw. A man stumbled down the center of the street. Soldiers slapped him with whips, poked him with spears. The onlookers spat at him and stepped in to punch him. “Why are they doing that to him?” he said. His heart ached, as it had for the man on the torturer’s rack. It was inhumane, cruel . . . evil, no matter what the man had done.
The man was beaten and bloody, barely able to carry the heavy cross on his back. Its crossbeam rose over his head, and the vertical post dragged along the stones behind him. The man tripped and fell, and the cross tipped and thudded onto the stones. Soldiers moved in to lash him.
Mom pulled Toria close and covered her eyes. “David, Xander,” she said. “Don’t look.”
But David stepped forward. “Dad, who is he?”
“Rome conducted a lot of crucifixions,” Dad said. “Could be anyone.”
“But it’s not!” Xander said. “Look what they’ve put on his head. It’s a crown of thorns! Like . . . like . . . The Passion of the Christ! ”
David’s mouth dropped open. He watched as the man hefted up the cross and slipped beneath it, buckling under its weight, his back so whipped that his flesh resembled raw meat. The man gazed into the sky, his mouth gaping wide as he gasped for breath. He took a slow, agonizing step.
“Dad,” David said, hurting for the man, “what did he do?”
Dad stepped beside him and held his head. “If you’re brother’s right, Dae, he didn’t do anything.”
“What are you saying?” David said. His guts—every organ—tightened. They felt heavy, like stones jammed inside a scarecrow’s body. “Jesus? That’s Jesus?”
“I . . . don’t know,” Dad said.
The progression flowed past. David began walking toward it.
“David!” Mom said.
He caught her eye. “I have to see,” he said.
She opened her mouth, meaning—he knew—to call him back. But her lips closed and she nodded.
David ran up to the backs of people who were lurching forward to hurl rocks or sharp-sounding words. He ducked under their arms and pushed through. Someone kicked him. Someone else planted a hard fist or elbow into his back. A knee came up into his face. He touched his lip and saw blood on his fingers. He was knocked left, then right. Still he shoved through, wending his way toward the front. A protester in front of him got knocked away by a passing soldier, and the people behind him surged forward. He tumbled onto the stones. He rose to his knees at the front of the crowd.
A shadow passed over him. He squinted up as the top of the cross bobbed overhead and went by. The beaten man was steps away. David stretched his hand out to him, knowing he couldn’t help, couldn’t even reach, wanting to so badly.
The strands of a whip slapped down on the back of his hand. David snapped it back, saw blood in three lines, as though a tiger had swiped at him. The soldier who’d lashed him kneed him in the side of the head and continued on.
Directly in front of him, the beaten man fell to his knees, the cross pushing down on him. Blood streamed from his face. The crown of thorns, as sharp and long as nails, pierced his head in a dozen places. The man turned his head, and David stared into his eyes. Blood had filled one eye, making it dark, the other was as bloodshot as any eye could be.
The man leaned closer to David, the cross shifting, grinding into his back. Air rushed from his mouth with a groan, with blood. The tip of his tongue ran along his bottom lip. With a voice as soft and trembling as a dove’s wing, he said, “David.”
David’s breath stuck in his chest.
A whip cracked against the man’s back—against Jesus’ back, David was sure now—and he flinched.
Blood splattered across David’s face. He closed his eyes and moaned. He felt something press against his hand, and he looked to find Jesus reaching out and touching it.
A comforting coolness, like plunging into a lake on a hot summer day, traveled up David’s arm, filled his chest, head, arms, and legs. He gasped at the strangeness of it. He lifted his hand. The whip marks were gone, no sign of them at all.
When he looked again, Jesus had lifted his cross and staggered on.
CHAPTER
fifty - three
David stayed on his knees as people streamed by. They knocked into him, kicked him. He ran his fingers over the back of his hand. Smooth skin, nothing more. He pulled off the clips on the Ace bandages and unwrapped his arm. The rulers splinting his bone fell away and clattered to the stones. He peeled away the remaining wrap and saw nothing but healthy flesh: no mottled, bruised skin, no bump of bone. He squeezed it. No pain. He pushed his fingers into his cheek and dabbed under his eye. The soreness was gone.
The crowd moved on, filling some other part of the city with its hate and fear.
He rubbed his shoulder, feeling no pain where the arrow had grazed it. Then he thought of something. He shifted his leg forward and pulled up his pant leg. The teeth marks were gone, but the stitches remained, tied into healthy skin. He pushed his pant leg down.
Dad kneeled beside him and put his arm around him. “You okay?” he whispered.
David nodded. He looked at the stone-paved street where Jesus had passed, and his eyes settled on the blood. He held up his arm. “It’s healed,” he said.
Dad smiled, not seeming surprised. He showed David his hand, the one that had been struck by a padlock when the house shook them off the antechamber doors. Since then, the hand had been swollen and bruised. Now it was perfect.
“But . . . how?” David said.
“Like in the Bible,” Mom said from his other side. Xander and Toria stood beside her. Mom knelt and touched his arm. “Jesus healed a man’s son, even though the boy was in another city.”
“So,” David said, “all of us?”
“Look,” Xander said. He lifted his hair to show the place on his forehead where the ladder had gouged it when Phemus and his friends came after him three days ago. “And . . .” He turned and hiked up the back of his T-shirt. No one would have known that minutes ago his back had been badly bruised.
David looked into his mother’s eyes. “You mean, because he touched me, healed me . . . ?”
“And you love us,” Mom said. She squeezed his arm. “We’re family.”
“Dae,” Xander said, his face twisting with worry. “Your cheek.”
David wiped it and looked at the blood on his palm. “Jesus’ blood,” he said. He stared at it a long time, then said, “With that kind of power, why did he let it happen? He was so beat up. It was awful.” He dropped his head.
“Because he loves you,” Dad said. “And this is the price he’s willing to pay to make sure you know that.”
Sandaled feet pounded past them. David looked to see two men, a woman, and a little girl running toward a corner, around which the crowd had disappeared with Jesus. The woman spun to stare at David. Her eyes were as wild as her hair. She seemed angry and confused. He thought she wanted to say something, some pleading question, but then she turned and rushed with the others around the corner. He supposed not everyone welcomed Jesus’ punishment, but there was nothing they could do.
He said, “Why do you think we ended up here . . . now, of all places in all times?”
“The house sent you and Xander to Atlantis,” Dad said. “Why not here? Why not now?”
“Mom,” David said. “He knew my name.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?” Mom whispered.
Dad got to his feet. “The pull’s getting really strong now. We’d better go.”
The pull . . . the house . . . It seemed weird to David that after all this, he still had things to do. He still had to eat and sleep and breathe. He had to go to school and do the dishes. People still wanted him dead.
He looked at Dad. “What about Taksidian?”
“Let’s hope he’s gone when we get home,” Dad said.
“Then we’ll just have to take care of him, won’t we?” Dad said.
Xander shook his head. “It’s not right, what he’s doing. He told me he was king of our house, and that’s how he acts, like he can do anything and get away with it.”
Dad said, “It’s not over yet, son.”
David looked down the street where Jesus and the mob had gone. It was empty now, nothing to mark what had happened. “My heart hurts for him,” David said.
“Heart,” Xander repeated, pointing at David, and David saw the wheels turning behind his eyes. “I’ll be right back.” He ran off, heading the way they had come before finding Mom.
“Xander!” Dad called.
“Don’t leave without me!”
CHAPTER
fifty - four
SATURDAY, 1:07 P.M.
Jesse bolted upright in the hospital bed. He felt fantastic. All the energy that had drained out of him with his blood was back. Even his ninety-two-year-old joints didn’t ache, and he hadn’t been free of that burden for ten years.
What in the world . . . ?
He felt the place just under his bottom rib where Taksidian had stabbed him. Through stiff tape and bandages, there was no pain. He pulled his gown up, worked his fingernails under the tape, and ripped the bandages away. Nothing, not even a scab or a scar.
He looked at his hand. Still missing a finger. Oh, well. Guess he couldn’t have everything. He tore the bandages off the stub. Skin had grown over the end, as though he had been born that way.
He scratched his head. He didn’t know any medicine or surgical procedure that could fix all his ailments like this.
Movement caught his eye. The covers at the end of the bed were moving. Holding his breath, he whipped them off. His feet were tapping the air, as if to some unheard tune! He wiggled his toes. He bent his knees and pulled his legs up. Eight years—that’s how long it’d been since he could do that, could move his legs at all.
He looked down at the floor. What was the worst that could happen?
He ripped the IV needle out of his arm. Tore the oxygen tubes from his nose—wincing as the tape plucked whiskers out of his mustache. Stripped the heart monitor sensor and wires from his chest. An alarm sounded.
Glory be! he thought. The sound of health and freedom!
He sprang out of bed. His landing was anything but graceful. He stumbled forward, wobbled back, grabbed the bed to keep from spilling onto the floor. But he was standing! He tested his knees, felt his weight on his legs, and let go of the bed. He shuffled, then walked to the window. Nice, sunny day. He turned. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He took a step, clenched the bedspread, and leaned against the bed.
Here it comes, he thought. The memories . . . the history that changed, somehow resulting in his recovery.
But the typical flood of images, of events that had been erased, didn’t come. Instead he became aware of something else, something even more incredible. More miraculous. The dizziness passed, and he raised his face toward the ceiling. “Thank you,” he whispered.
A nurse ran in. She saw him, and her expression couldn’t have expressed more shock if he’d been a green elephant sipping tea. “Mr. Wagner!” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Getting out of here, dear,” he said, striding to a cabinet setup that acted as the room’s closet. “Where are my clothes?”
“They . . . uh . . .” the nurse stammered. “They’re gone. You have to get back to bed.”
“Why? I’m fine.”
“You can’t be,” she said. “You . . . you . . . I’m getting security.”
“Miss!” he said, stopping her movement toward the door. He held his arms out from his sides. “Do I really look like I need to be in that bed?”
She stared, at a loss for words.
“I’m an old man,” he said softly, going for a puppy-dog expression he hadn’t attempted in eighty years. “Give me this, at least. Please.”
She thought about it, walked to the cardiac monitor, and turned off the alarm. She said, “I think I have a bedpan or two to change.” She winked and walked out.
He looked into the empty closet. No matter. He reached behind him and tied his gown closed. He left the room, spotted an exit sign, and went for it.
CHAPTER
fifty - five
A few minutes after he’d left, Xander stormed up to David and the others. “I think he wants payment. He showed me some coins, but we don’t have money. What can I give him?”
“Who?” Dad said.
“The blacksmith.”
Dad got up. “What are you—”
“David,” Xander said, “your necklace.”
“Oh, the one I gave you,” Mom said, touching it. “How sweet.”
“Xander,” David said. “It’s just a cross.”
“Come on,” Xander said. “The guy will freak over it.”
David slipped it off his head and handed it to him. Xander took off again.
“Daddy!” Toria said. Her beaded necklace was extended straight out now.
“I know,” Dad said, trying to keep his tunic down. He took Toria’s necklace from her and held on to it. It was perfectly stiff in his hand, looking like a thick, bumpy stick. “Let’s get ready to go,” he said.
They started toward the pull, keeping an eye out for Xander. As they hurried down the street, Dad told Mom about the note Xander had left—would yet leave?—in Young Jesse’s world. She dropped back and put her arm around David. It felt good having her there, and he realized that as much as he had missed her when she was gone, he hadn’t missed her enough. Her love was bigger than a word like missing could replace.
He looked up at the storm clouds, churning black masses in which bolts of lightning flashed like gunfire. They were converging on the city, rolling in from all sides.
The Kings were almost around the bend in the road when David saw Xander running for them. David called to him, and Xander waved.
“Just around the corner, I think,” Dad said.
Xander caught up and David saw the piece of metal in his hand, about the size of a dinner plate. A chain hung from it.
David said, “A weapon, Xander? Really?”
He simply grinned. “We’ll see.”
“There it is!” Toria yelled. “The portal!”
David hit the antechamber’s floor and spilled onto the pile of bodies in front of him: Dad, Mom, and Toria. Xander came through the portal, landed on top, and rolled off. The portal door closed.
“Everybody off,” Dad grunted.
David pushed up from Toria, grabbed her arm, and got her to her feet. He leaned past her to help Mom. He led her to the bench, encouraged her to sit, and sat beside her. He leaned his head into her shoulder and closed his eyes. For the first time in recent memory, his arm wasn’t throbbing, he didn’t feel like their problems would crush him, and he was happy.
“Okay,” Dad said. He was holding his ear close to the hallway door. “Dae, we’re getting you out of here fast. Straight for the front door. No stopping for anything, got it?”
Everyone nodded.
“Xander, you lead the way. Then Mom, Toria, Dae, and I will follow.”
The wind blew in from under the door. “Oh, no!” Xander said, his eyes flashing wide. He clutched the metal he had brought from Jerusalem to his chest. “I need this!” he said.
“What—” Dad said.
“It’s to protect David!”
David pulled open the door. He stuck his head out and looked around. “Get out in the hall,” he said. “Go to the landing. We know it takes longer for things to get back to their worlds when they’re outside the antechambers.”
Xander bumped past him and stomped down the hall.
“But you know you can’t keep that thing for long?” Dad yelled after him.
“Just till we get David away,” Xander said.
David shook his head. “As if any weapon’s going to stop Taksidian if he c
omes after me. Keal said he fights like he’s had martial arts training.”
“Well,” Toria said, “he’s definitely taken courses in how to be a mean person.”
The wind billowed through their hair and clothes, plucking atoms of sand and dust off them. Mom quickly pulled off her tunic, leaving her sitting there in the nightgown she’d been wearing when Phemus kidnapped her. It was dirty and ripped, and David felt a new surge of sadness for her, thinking of what she must have gone through.
The tunic fluttered around the little room and whisked under the portal door.
David waited to feel a tingling on his face. When the wind left without scrubbing his skin, he touched his fingers to his cheek and looked at the blood on them. “Hey,” he said. “It didn’t take Jesus’ blood. It’s always taken the blood before. The Carthaginian soldier’s, the Civil War guy’s. It belongs back where it came from as much as dirt and clothes do.”
Dad nodded, looking puzzled.
“I know,” Mom said. “God lives outside of time. It’s all the same to him, two thousand years ago or two thousand years from now. He’s in all times all the time. He belongs everywhere.”
“All right, enough already,” David said, covering his eyes. “I’m having a hard enough time wrapping my head around time travel and changing history and meeting Jesus . . . to name just a few mind-benders.”
Mom smiled and tilted her head. “I was just thinking out loud, dear.”
Something occurred to David. “If you’re right,” he said, “if God does live outside of time, then our using the house to fix history isn’t weird to him, right? He must see us as the same people no matter what time we’re in.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
Mom patted his leg. “It’s nice to hear your voice, no matter what you say.”
Dad stepped into the hallway. “Xander, all clear?”
“As far as I can tell,” Xander called. “I don’t hear anything.”
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