Sabotaged

3

Does anyone ever get completely used to time travel? Jonah wondered.

He knew, because he’d done it before, that it just seemed like he was falling endlessly through nothingness, toward nothingness. He knew that eventually lights would rush up at him, and he’d feel as if his whole body was being torn apart, down to each individual atom. And then he’d land, and he’d sort of feel like himself again. After a while.

He knew all that, but it was still horrifying to fall and fall and fall…

It must be worse for Andrea.

“Are you doing all right?” he yelled across to her, the words ripped from his mouth by the air rushing past.

Still, she nodded. She had a resigned look on her face, as if she was braced for anything.

Or-as if she didn’t really think this was that bad, because she’d already gone through something that was much worse?

Jonah reached out to her with his free hand. If he linked his left arm around her elbow the same way he’d linked his right arm around Katherine’s, they could travel through time in a circle, with the dog in the middle. When he and Katherine and Chip had traveled back to 1483, they’d formed a circle like that, and it had been comforting, a way to close out at least a little of the void around them.

But Andrea jerked back from Jonah’s touch, swinging away from him.

“Hold on-I’m scared the Elucidator is going to fall off,” she called.

The pouch on the dog’s collar had looked secure to Jonah, but he couldn’t really see it clearly now, in the dark nothingness. He sensed, more than saw, that Andrea was leaning in toward the dog’s collar.

“The strap’s loose,” Andrea said. “I’ll just hold the Elucidator myself.”

Your hand might go numb at the end, Jonah wanted to tell her. When you land, you may not even be able to be sure that the Elucidator is in your hand… That’s what had happened to him in the fifteenth century.

But some random air current hit Andrea just then, and she swung even farther away from Jonah. She still had her left arm linked around Katherine’s elbow and her left hand clenched around the dog’s collar. But the rest of her body flipped almost completely behind Katherine’s back.

“Watch out!” Katherine shrieked, just as Jonah called, “Andrea! Hold on!”

He reached over to put his free hand on top of her hand on the dog’s collar, to hold her in place. It seemed entirely possible that she could be yanked away. And then what would happen to her?

He jerked his head to the right, trying to see behind Katherine’s back. This was kind of like playing three-dimensional Twister-his hand had to stay on Andrea’s hand, his arm had to stay linked through Katherine’s, and that didn’t leave him much room for arcing back, trying to see where Andrea was now. He got a quick glimpse before his head jerked forward again and Katherine’s shoulder blocked his view. Oddly, Andrea wasn’t flailing about, trying to swing back around. Instead, she seemed to be curled into a ball, hunched over the Elucidator. It made Jonah think of how kids at school would hunch over their cell phones when they got some text message they didn’t want anyone else to see.

“Andrea!” Jonah yelled. “Try to, like, swim back around! Here! I’ll help you!”

He kept his left hand clasped tightly over hers, both of them clutching the dog collar together. But he took his right hand off the collar just for a second, just long enough to give Andrea’s arm a little yank. This was like physics, wasn’t it? If they were traveling through a vacuum, his pull should bring Andrea back into place and him…

Oops. It sent him swinging too far out to the left-and crashing into Andrea, as she swung back.

The dog began to bark. Katherine was screaming, “Hold on! Just-everyone hold on!” Jonah could hear that clearly, because he’d bounced back this time in a way that put his ear right in front of Katherine’s mouth. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder-he thought Andrea was screaming something too, but he couldn’t hear what it was.

And then he couldn’t even hear Katherine or the dog, because they’d hit the part of the trip when the lights rushed up at them and Jonah felt as though his whole body was being torn apart by gravity and time. His ears roared with his own pulse, faster, faster, faster… This had happened before, but what if his heart actually exploded this time?

They landed. Jonah was too blinded, too deafened, too numbed, to be able to tell where they were. They could be on a soft sandy beach, basking in the sun, or in the middle of a blizzard, constantly slammed by ice crystals. It would be all the same to Jonah. He blinked frantically, trying to recover his sight. He tried to get his hands to reach up to his head, succeeding only on his left side… What was that? Had he gotten pine needles in his ear?

He did his best to brush away everything from his left ear, and that made a difference. Now he could hear someone screaming, though the voice seemed far away.

“… lose…”

“… lose…”

“… you made me lose…”

“Who made you lose? Lose what?” This wasn’t screaming. This was Katherine, sounding weak but relatively calm.

“Jonah… It was Jonah…”

It seemed to require superhuman effort, but Jonah managed to struggle up a little and blink his eyesight slightly back into focus. Was that dog fur? Oh. The dog had landed sprawled across the right side of Jonah’s body. No wonder Jonah had been able to move only his left arm. But now Dare squirmed off with an offended yelp. Once the dog moved, Jonah could see and hear much better.

“What did Jonah make you lose?” Katherine was demanding, even as she swayed in and out of focus.

Andrea had her face clutched in her hands. Her voice soared into a wail.

“He made me lose the Elucidator!”