Sabotaged

42

“Oh, that,” Second said. “It’s temporary. See?”

He rubbed the surface of the thing Jonah had thought was a stopwatch. Once again Jonah heard the pounding of the surf against the sand. The bird soared out of sight. Dare landed on the sand at Andrea’s side and brushed his head against her leg. The dog looked up at her as if he expected to be petted.

Brendan, Antonio, and John White laughed.

“Our canine friend admires you,” John White said.

Jonah turned his attention back to Second.

“That’s an Elucidator you’re holding, isn’t it?” Jonah asked, gesturing toward the watchlike object. “You can stop time with an Elucidator?”

“Not really,” Second said. “That’s just how it looks to the uneducated eye. In reality, I pulled the three of us out of time. It’s like-you’ve gone into time hollows with JB, haven’t you? And the time cave? This is the same kind of thing, except easier. Not so much travel and wear and tear. We just hide in between the nanoseconds.”

Jonah was only half-listening. He was keeping his eye-educated or not-on the Elucidator. After a moment, Second slipped it back into his pocket without pressing it again. He shrugged.

“We might as well watch what happens next,” he said.

In the canoe, John White was shaking his head at Andrea.

“I have been confused these many days,” he said. “I have dreamed of you, my child, dreamed of your voice…”

Andrea did not say, You mean, because I’ve been talking to you for two days, but you’ve been too out of it to really listen? Or to open your eyes and see me? Instead, she flipped her braids over her shoulder and said, “I’ve dreamed of you, too, Grandfather. My mother used to tell me stories of you. She promised you would do everything you could to come back.”

“I did,” her grandfather murmured. “I have.”

“Amazing,” Second whispered beside Jonah. “Even with the time shift, time can still adjust itself. The human mind can adjust itself. John White will never again wonder why he sort of remembers hearing Andrea before-he’ll always think that was just a dream. Because time would never have allowed him to see and hear her for real, to recognize her without her tracer…”

“I thought he was unconscious and couldn’t see or hear her because you put a sedative in his food,” Jonah said. “And because of his head injury.”

“You don’t think time could have caused his head injury?” Second asked.

“Time’s not a person,” Jonah objected. “Time can’t make someone hurt his head.”

“Can’t it?” Second asked.

“But-” Jonah began.

“Shh,” Katherine interrupted. “Argue later. I’m trying to hear.”

In the canoe, John White was clearing his throat, peering down awkwardly at his hands, then back up at Andrea.

“I fear to ask,” he began. “Your mother, my Eleanor. And Ananias, your father. Are they…”

Andrea was already shaking her head.

“Their spirits took flight,” she said. “Five summers ago, when the sickness came…”

John White had tears glistening in his eyes, but he spoke gently.

“And you, child. Who takes care of you?”

“The Croatoan tribe is kind, those few who are left,” Andrea said. “They count me as one of their own. We have moved in with distant relatives…”

“Kind?” Antonio interrupted. “They sent you, a girl, alone, to an evil island? You call that kind?”

Andrea frowned.

“That is not their fault,” Andrea said. “The sickness has come back, and many are weak again. I chose this myself, as a way to make peace with the evil spirits. I thought if I could bury the dead, bury the animal bones, it would show that the Croatoans are worthy people… worthy to live on, not die, not all die out…”

Her voice was thick with grief.

The fresh grave, Jonah thought with a jolt. That’s the explanation! It was Andrea-or, Virginia Dare, rather-she was burying all the skeletons of the dead Croatoans from some plague from years ago. Maybe she put them all in one grave, or maybe there were other fresh graves I didn’t see…

Katherine turned her head to whisper in Jonah’s ear.

“Doesn’t it seem like they’ve forgotten we’re even here?” she asked. She waved her arms and raised her voice. “Hey, Andrea! Remember us?”

Second immediately clamped his hand over Katherine’s mouth.

“Shh! Stop interfering!” he hissed, which Jonah thought was a little funny, given what Second had done.

A flicker of irritation appeared on Andrea’s face, but she didn’t turn her head. Brendan and Antonio didn’t look up either. John White, however, squinted toward the woods.

“Do my eyes and ears betray me?” he muttered. “Or do I see more figments from my dreams, come terrifyingly to life?” He blinked-maybe his vision wasn’t the clearest. He looked back at Andrea. “Perhaps I was mistaken-are you but a figment too? Do I dream and think I am awake?”

“I’m real,” Andrea insisted. “You’re not dreaming. But lie back, Grandfather, and rest.”

Obediently, he slid back down in the canoe. It seemed barely a second before Jonah could hear the old man snoring.

A moment later, Andrea came stomping toward Jonah and Katherine and Second.

“Don’t ruin it!” she ordered Katherine. “When my grandfather sees or hears something he doesn’t understand, he gets confused. He has to fall asleep again. And you and Jonah don’t fit for him. You-”

“What, you’re saying we don’t belong here?” Katherine asked indignantly. “After all we’ve done for you? The help we’ve given you?”

Impatience played over Andrea’s face.

“That’s not it,” she said. “I’m grateful. I appreciate everything you’ve done. But can’t you feel how fragile this is? One wrong move, and time could snatch me back. I’ll be running toward the woods”-she pointed into the trees, and for an instant, Jonah thought he could see the other ghostly tracer again-”and my grandfather will be floating away. Out of reach.”

“Really?” Second said, as if Andrea had just provided him with an amazing detail. “You still feel the pull of the original tracer?”

“Less and less with each moment that passes,” Andrea said. “But still…”

Second frowned.

“But I was so sure,” he muttered.

Jonah decided it was time to take control of the conversation.

“Don’t worry, Andrea,” Jonah said. “Remember, this is all just temporary. We’re going to fix time-well, whatever that means now-and then we’re all going back to the twenty-first century and have our normal lives.”

Normal was sounding especially good to Jonah right now. Even the most boring moments of his ordinary twenty-first-century life seemed achingly precious. The time he’d spent brushing his teeth. Opening the refrigerator to look for a snack. Flipping through the TV channels with the remote control. Waiting for the computer to fire up. Sitting through Social Studies class at school and feeling like none of it really mattered-it was all history and dead and gone and past…

“Oh, Jonah,” Andrea said, shaking her head sadly. A hint of tears glittered in her eyes once again. But, oddly, this time it seemed as if she was about to cry over Jonah. She was staring straight at him, just as intently as she’d always stared at her grandfather. “You never give up, do you? I just hope…”

She broke off, because something strange was happening to Second. He let out a strangled cry: “Erp-” It sounded like he was having trouble swallowing.

No. It was more like he was being swallowed.

In the next moment, Second seemed to age several years at once. His blond hair suddenly looked blond and brown, all at once. His face seemed to unravel and reknit itself into a completely different form.

And then Second pitched forward, looking like himself again. But he left behind someone else in the space he’d occupied a moment earlier. Someone taller and older, with darker hair.