It was strange how much the ordinary scene around Jonah made his heart ache.
This was supposed to be an incredible night, Jonah told himself. This was supposed to be a moment the FBI would still be puzzling over thirteen years from now.
But now this stream of time wouldn’t even exist thirteen years from now; everything connecting Jonah to this time period would collapse and vanish.
In the other stream of time, Jonah guessed—the one that would be allowed to continue and flourish and lead to Gary and Hodge becoming incredibly wealthy by selling Jonah’s sister and friends in the future—Jonah would just be an anonymous little boy who died of malnutrition in the 1930s.
Jonah looked down at the baby sleeping against his chest, huddled under the oversize coat Jonah had grabbed from the lost and found and wrapped around both of them.
“I’m doing the best I can for you,” Jonah whispered to the baby—whispered to himself. “If I could change anything else, I promise you, I would.”
The shuttle bus pulled onto the highway, then onto the Liston exit.
Jonah found he couldn’t look out the window anymore. His brain still ticked off the sights he would be seeing at every stoplight: the church where I would have had Cub Scout meetings, the Dairy Queen where my baseball team in third grade would have held its end-of-season party, the park where Mom would have taken Katherine and me when we were little kids . . .
The shuttle turned and stopped, and the motor sputtered into silence. They were at the hotel. Jonah got out behind everyone else.
Should I walk into the hotel and keep pretending I’m with that other family? he wondered. Just so nobody gets suspicious?
What did it matter if anyone suspected anything now? What was the shuttle driver going to do—threaten to take him back to the airport?
Jonah wrapped the oversized lost-and-found coat more securely around himself and the baby, and took off running into the darkness.
Everything looked strange around him. Wasn’t there supposed to be a Walgreens on the corner of Main and Pine?
No, because they didn’t build that until I was in kindergarten, Jonah reminded himself. Remember how I always made Mom and Dad drive past so I could see the bulldozers?
The entire Woodland Falls subdivision was missing too. The house at the corner of Archer Springs was yellow when it should have been brown. An auto parts store stood in front of the Kroger where there should have been an insurance office.
I guess thirteen years is a long time, Jonah thought. Time enough for lots of things to change.
Time enough for lots of things to be undone if you went back thirteen years in time.
Jonah tried to make himself focus solely on running. He turned onto Harley Street, which had no sidewalks, and he had to run on the uneven ground alongside the road. The jostling made the baby moan.
Yeah, I agree, kid, Jonah thought. But we’re almost there, and time hasn’t run out on us yet. . . .
His house was in the fourth subdivision along Harley. First came Forest Glen, then Summer Vista, then River Gable . . . Jonah’s feet pounded faster and faster. He turned in to his own neighborhood, sped around the corner toward his own house—and stopped.
Even his own house looked unfamiliar. The picket fence out front was missing.
Duh, Jonah told himself. Mom and Dad put that up when you and Katherine were little—remember? When the neighbors got a big dog?
The trees and bushes were too small, too—duh again, Jonah scolded himself. Everything would be thirteen years smaller, right?
But it was enough to make Jonah wonder: What if other, more important things had changed too? What if Jonah was wrong about how everything worked, and Mom and Dad didn’t even live here now?
A shadow moved across the front window, which was oddly unprotected by any curtains or blinds. Jonah stepped a little closer so his view wasn’t blocked by the tree in the front yard. Now he could see into the well-lit house, even though he was pretty sure he was still far enough away that no one looking out would see him in the dark yard.
Oh, Jonah realized. Mom and Dad are painting the living room. That’s why the curtains are down.
Dimly he remembered that in some versions of the “night that we got Jonah” story there was a mention of Mom and Dad being in the middle of a painting project. Even more dimly he could sort of remember Katherine—and maybe Jonah, as well—complaining that that detail wasn’t important enough to talk about. Who cared about paint on walls? Who cared that much about anything that had happened before Mom and Dad became parents, before Jonah and Katherine had arrived on the scene?
But now Jonah watched the steady way Mom ran her paintbrush up and down in the corners while Dad used the roller behind her.
They were a good team, even before they were parents, Jonah thought, blinking hard. I was really lucky, getting them.
Jonah recognized the paisley bandanna tied around Mom’s hair, the dark T-shirt Dad was wearing—those were details from Jonah’s earliest baby pictures. Jonah definitely had the right moment for giving them the baby in his arms.
But how do I do it? he wondered.
He thought about putting the baby on the doorstep and ringing the doorbell and running away. But that was too much like the ding-dong-ditch pranks that all the boys in the neighborhood had started doing in sixth grade—had it been sixth grade? Just last year?
You don’t ding-dong-ditch and leave a baby behind, Jonah thought.
Leaving a baby behind made it—what? Child abandonment? Child cruelty?
Whatever it was called, it’d be something Mom and Dad would be horrified by. Something that would make them look at him differently the rest of his life.
And even if the rest of his life with them was only a matter of minutes or hours or days, he didn’t want to ruin it.
So I ring the doorbell and hand them the baby directly and tell them a story that makes them think I’m just someone from the adoption agency?
Jonah did not look like a grown-up. Even if he hadn’t been wearing a ridiculously large coat and a nerdy-looking sweater and goofy knickers, there was no way he could pass himself off as an adoption agency employee.
So . . . do I have to tell them the truth?
Just as Jonah thought that, he heard a car pulling up behind him. He turned around to see a window gliding down in a dark car.
And then a woman’s voice called out to him: “Are you the boy who’s bringing the baby for the Skidmores to adopt?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Y-yes?” Jonah said, squinting toward the car. “I mean, yes. Absolutely. This is the Skidmores’ baby.”
He took a few steps closer to the car and lifted the infant sleeping in his arms. But his mind was racing: Besides Gary and Hodge, who knows I’m here in this time period? Who would know that I’m not only in this time period but standing in front of my own house? Time agents? Wouldn’t a time agent just say, “Jonah, let’s get you out of here! Let’s fix this mess!”
The woman in the car opened her door and stepped out. She was shorter than Jonah and middle-aged lumpy, but maybe she just looked that way because she was wearing a bulky coat. She stuck out her hand.
“Eva Ronkowski from the Hope for Children adoption agency,” she said, introducing herself.
Didn’t Dad say the social worker who helped them get me was named Eva? Jonah thought, stunned. And didn’t she work for the Hope for Children agency?
But how would she have known that Jonah was here, now, with the baby? Why would she think the baby for the Skidmores would be delivered by a teenage boy standing in the middle of their yard?
Automatically Jonah put out his own hand and shook Eva’s.
“I’m Jonah Sk—” He barely managed to stop himself from saying his last name. “Just call me Jonah.”
The woman regarded him solemnly.
“It’s okay—I understand that you probably feel strange about this whole business,” she said. “Please don’t be mad at your older sist
er. It’s a very difficult decision, putting a child up for adoption. This is one of the most unorthodox ways I’ve ever handled it, but your sister was most insistent yesterday when she came in to sign all the paperwork. She must trust you a lot, that she wants you to be the one who sees where the baby goes. And the Skidmores were willing to go with the idea of an open adoption, so if she changes her mind, and she wants to make arrangements to meet with them herself at some point in the future, then . . .”
The woman was still talking, but Jonah blanked out from listening.
Sister? Yesterday? Paperwork? Open adoption?
None of it made any sense.
“Could I get a look at the little fellow?” Eva asked.
Numbly Jonah shrugged back one side of the coat. The sleeping baby stiffened at the cold air rushing in.
“It’s too cold for him,” Jonah explained.
“Of course,” Eva said, nodding as if she was proud of Jonah for noticing that. “I can see that you’re a good uncle. It’s probably hard for you, too, to give him up.”
Jonah didn’t know what to say to that. Eva filled in the silence.
“Perhaps we should get the baby inside as quickly as possible?” she suggested.
Did she mean that she and Jonah together were supposed to ring the doorbell and walk inside? Is that what Jonah’s supposed “older sister” had told Eva yesterday that he’d want to do?
Is this “older sister” on my side? Jonah wondered. Or Gary and Hodge’s? Why would Gary and Hodge make these arrangements for a time after they’d already won? Why would they care what happened when this time period is about to collapse anyhow?
While Jonah was pondering all this, Eva had started easing the baby from his arms.
Jonah let her.
“Your sister said you might not want to wait for me to come back out of the house,” Eva said. “But if you do, I would be happy to give you a ride home afterward.”
“No thanks,” Jonah said, shocked into answering.
He was afraid she’d ask for a reason, and in the stunned state he was in, he might accidentally tell the truth: Because I don’t have a home anymore. This is the only home I’ve ever known. Where else could I go?
Eva just nodded as if she understood.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I know this is an emotional time. Tell your sister to call me if she needs to talk. Or—you can do the same.”
She started to walk toward the house; then she turned back around.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “When your sister was in my office yesterday, she left this behind. Could you give it back to her?”
Eva skillfully shifted the baby to one side so she could hold him with just one arm. With her other hand she reached into a purse hanging from her shoulder. She pulled out some kind of electronic device and pressed it into Jonah’s hands—an old-style BlackBerry, maybe? Had BlackBerrys been around thirteen years ago?
Jonah turned the object over in his hands. It wasn’t a BlackBerry; it was one of those old-fashioned handheld games, from before people had everything on their phones. This game said CONNECT 4 at the top.
Then the letters in “Connect 4” rearranged and changed, and Jonah finally understood. The social worker hadn’t just handed him a game.
She’d handed him an Elucidator.
THIRTY-NINE
Jonah resisted the urge to pump his fist in the air and scream out, Whoo-hoo! I’m saved! He barely remembered to keep his expression solemn and sober for Eva’s sake.
“Uh, thanks,” Jonah said. “My, uh, sister will be happy to get this back.”
He quickly tucked the Elucidator Connect 4 game into his pocket before Eva could see that the words on its face now read, WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?
I have choices now, Jonah thought. I’m not helpless anymore. I can go back to 1932 and fix this mess. I can find Angela and JB; I can help them; I can rescue Katherine and the others; I can make my parents the right age again. . . .
His brain spun with all the things he needed to do.
But Eva was still standing in front of him, holding the baby and watching Jonah.
“Thanks for helping your sister so well,” Eva said. “At a time like this, she needs people around her who will be sympathetic and understanding, and—”
There was no way Jonah was going to stand there listening for advice about dealing with a fictional sister with a fictional problem. Not when he had a real sister to find, and lots of other real problems he needed to solve.
“I know all that,” he said. “Shouldn’t you get the baby inside before he catches cold?”
“Oh, right,” Eva said. “Do you want to give him a hug or kiss good-bye?”
No, Jonah thought.
But he dipped his head toward the baby, ruffled the baby’s hair, and muttered, “Stay cool, dude.”
The words running through his head were more detailed: Don’t worry. I’m going to make everything okay for you—and me, too. I’m going to make it so this time period doesn’t end, so you can grow up into me, so our lives—I mean, my life—can go on and on and on. . . .
But evidently he’d already met Eva’s low standards for a teenage boy’s emotional good-bye. She nodded, patted Jonah’s shoulder, and turned up the front walk.
Jonah stepped back into the shadows. Every cell in his body seemed to be screaming, Go now! Hurry! Get back to 1932 and fix everything! But Jonah waited. He crouched down beside Eva’s car and watched as she rang the doorbell. The door opened. As far as Jonah could tell, Eva didn’t even say a word at first—she just placed the baby in Mom’s arms.
Mom and Dad looked confused at first, then tentatively hopeful, as if they were both thinking, Could this possibly be true? Is this real? Then overwhelming joy broke over both of their faces. Watching them come to understand that they finally had a baby of their own was like watching a sunrise. It was like looking at the sun—too intense for Jonah’s eyes.
I’ll make it so this really is an entirely good moment in your lives, he promised them in his head. I’ll make it so this isn’t the beginning of the end, so I don’t ruin your lives or anybody else’s. . . .
He bent down close to the Elucidator in his coat pocket and murmured, “Now. Take me back to August 15, 1932.”
And then everything around him vanished.
FORTY
Jonah was already floating through time when he thought to add a slight modification. He took the Elucidator out of his pocket and told it, “Make me arrive right after Lindbergh and Gary and Hodge left.”
Finally I’m learning how to talk to Elucidators so they don’t constantly put me into even more danger, he thought.
But as he floated through darkness, the Elucidator flashed up at him, LINDBERGH AND GARY AND HODGE DIDN’T LEAVE TOGETHER.
“Then get me there a minute after the last of them left,” Jonah said. “Sheesh, do I have to spell out everything?”
YES, the Elucidator flashed back.
Jonah wished he had someone else traveling through time with him, so they could make fun of the Elucidator together. It would have even been comforting to have baby Katherine back, to hold on to.
Soon, Jonah told himself. After I meet up with Angela and JB, after we track down Lindbergh’s plane in the future, after time agents arrest Gary and Hodge—then we’ll get Katherine back.
Though he’d want Katherine turned back into an eleven-year-old again as quickly as possible. And he wanted all his friends back from the future; he wanted time fixed so all of them could just go home.
An uncomfortable thought flitted through his mind about how Gary and Hodge had said his life in the twenty-first century had always been doomed. According to them, that was true for all the other missing children from history too.
Gary and Hodge could have been lying, Jonah thought. They’re liars and kidnappers, and they cheat, and even they admit that they don’t keep their promises. . . .
But some of the other information they’d told Jonah seemed to
be true. They were right about him never seeing tracers in the twenty-first century. And as Jonah had thought before, why would they bother lying when they already thought they’d defeated Jonah?
Habit, Jonah told himself. Just like they said I wasn’t any good at thinking like a criminal, they’re not any good at not thinking like criminals and liars and cheats. . . .
But Jonah didn’t feel like pumping his fist in the air and screaming anymore.
What if Angela’s not there when I get to 1932? he wondered. What if she didn’t ever read the note I gave her at the airport?
A new, dreadful thought hit Jonah: Why would Angela have read and obeyed the note? How could she have? Sure, time had split, but in both new versions of time Gary and Hodge had changed everything, and in each new version the planeload of babies had vanished from the airport almost immediately after it arrived. In the version that was going to collapse and die, Jonah’s parents were left with him as a baby, but none of the other missing children’s adoptive parents even knew that their children existed. In the version that led to Gary and Hodge’s glorious wealthy future, none of the endangered children from history would have any connection to the twenty-first century. In both cases, the FBI would never get involved; even if Angela got a glimpse of the time-crashed plane, she wouldn’t have thought anything of it. She would have blinked, and it would have been gone.
Speeding through time, Jonah clutched his Elucidator more tightly, as if to reassure himself it was there. His mind reeled, sorting through what was possible—and what wasn’t.
Is everything I thought wrong? he wondered.
Without fully experiencing the weirdness and mystery of the time-crashed plane, Angela would have had no reason to hang on to a confusing scribbled note an oddly dressed kid had handed her on her first day at a new job.
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