Torn

  Jonah looked around. Was the room speaking?

  “Embedded speakers—don’t anybody freak out,” the walls spoke.

  “Second,” JB said calmly. “We meet again.”

  Jonah saw that Andrea’s grandfather and a few of the more elderly Native Americans had fainted.

  “Everybody—chill out. That’s just a weird kind of thunder,” Antonio said over his shoulder as he drew.

  The natives stopped looking so worried.

  Jonah didn’t feel particularly soothed.

  “Did you say we meet again?” Second’s voice boomed out. “Not so much with the meeting thing. If you think through the possibilities, I’m sure you will realize that this message was prerecorded, like so many others. In fact if you’ve triggered this message, we shall never meet again.”

  “I’m sure you’ll understand that I wouldn’t be too upset about that—if I really believed you,” JB said wryly.

  “I’m downloading proof to your Elucidator right now,” Second said, and the voice seemed to surround them. Everyone was cringing away from it now.

  “I made a deal with Jonah and Katherine,” Second continued. “They upheld their end of the bargain and saved 1611 for me. And so now I shall uphold my end of the bargain and allow them to save their friends.”

  “We already saved JB and Andrea and Brendan and Antonio, you idiot,” Katherine yelled at the wall. “We did it ourselves—or, well, Jonah did. We don’t need your deal anymore.”

  “Yes, you do,” Second said, as if he could really hear her, could really answer. “If I wanted to, I could go on meddling in your time. But I promise from here on out I will stay only in mine.”

  “What’s this ‘your time, my time’ you’re talking about?” JB asked, looking up from the Elucidator. “Time is time is time. It’s all interconnected. Even if you stay in 1611, everything you do will affect the future. And these kids’ lives are uniquely at risk if—”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Second thundered. “Poor JB, you’re such a rule follower, you can’t even think about what’s possible if the rules are broken. I’ll walk you through this one. We’ve always known time protects itself, right? So if someone throws too many changes at time, creates too many paradoxes—”

  “Time collapses,” JB said grimly. Under the ash and soot on his face he’d gone pale.

  “Usually,” Second agreed. “But not if the paradoxes are carefully controlled. It’s like how twentieth-century scientists figured out that splitting the atom wasn’t just useful for creating incredibly destructive bombs. They could also use nuclear energy to power lightbulbs.”

  “But—think about Three Mile Island,” JB muttered. “Chernobyl. People make mistakes. It’s too dangerous to—”

  “Ah, but Jonah and Katherine protected everyone from any mistakes I might have made, splitting time,” Second said confidently. “They fixed everything.”

  “We did?” Jonah asked, startled.

  He remembered the moment in the shallop when everything had seemed to divide: one shallop full of sailors headed toward shore, the other going back to a ship that appeared out of nowhere. Time had split in that moment. One version was healed, and the tracers came back.

  The other version was changed—and completely under Second’s control.

  “I was confident that Jonah and Katherine would choose to save people—Wydowse, in the shallop, and their friends in 1605,” Second explained. “They’re very predictable.”

  “Did you predict just how many people Jonah would save from 1605?” JB muttered. He looked around at the roomful of people. Then he caught Jonah’s eye. “Not that I’m complaining. I would not wish to be mourning my friends right now.”

  JB slung his arm around the chief’s shoulder. The chief had been staring at the talking walls in befuddlement, but now he looked at JB and nodded stoutly.

  Jonah looked at Katherine. “Second did kill Wydowse in that other version of time,” Jonah said. He was certain of it now. “He’ll probably kill other people, too. He doesn’t care.”

  “Why should I?” Second answered. “These people already get their regular lives, in original time. Aren’t I being generous, giving them a second chance at life anyway? Giving them other choices?”

  “You don’t give chances or choices,” Jonah said. “You just force people to do what you want!”

  Jonah didn’t feel like he was talking to a wall, talking back to a recording. Even though he knew Second wasn’t there for real, Jonah felt like he was finally getting to tell him off.

  It felt really good.

  For a long moment the wall was silent. Jonah thought maybe he’d won the argument. Maybe Second was completely done talking.

  Then Second whispered back.

  “Oh, Jonah, haven’t you been making your own choices all along?” Second asked. “What choice do you want that you don’t have?”

  “The choice to …,” Jonah began, and then he stopped. This felt dangerous, like telling a genie your wishes in a fairy tale. What if it really mattered what he said?

  He thought about what he’d wanted so badly ever since he’d landed on the deck of Henry Hudson’s ship. Fix time, save Andrea, save everyone else … Now that he and Katherine had accomplished those things, anything else he might ask for seemed childish and silly.

  I want Andrea to be my girlfriend. Well that wasn’t going to work out if she was eighteen and he was thirteen. And, anyhow that would have to be her choice, too.

  I want all the natives and John White and even Dare to be taken care of, to have good lives, and the people back in 1611 to be okay.

  Again, that wasn’t really something he could control.

  I want a million dollars, I want a TV and a computer in my room at home, I want all the kids at school to like me, I want to just be Jonah Skidmore and not have to be anybody else anywhere else or any time else….

  He realized that everyone was watching him, waiting for his answer. And he realized what he wanted most.

  “I just want to go home,” he said. “Me and Katherine—we’ve been away a long time.”

  “But of course.” Second’s voice poured from the walls. “Of course you want to go home. Don’t you know this is all over now, and you can?”

  That’s prerecorded, Jonah reminded himself. Once again Second knew exactly what I was going to say.

  But he couldn’t worry about that right now. Because JB was nodding, agreeing with Second. And then Katherine was grabbing Jonah and hugging him and jumping up and down, all at the same time.

  “We’re going home!” she shrieked.

  “We’re going home,” Jonah repeated, almost too dazed to believe it. “We get to go home.”

  Jonah stood in front of the open refrigerator.

  “Turkey, ham, pepperoni, Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, mustard …,” he muttered as he grabbed each item.

  “Jonah, what are you doing?” his mother asked behind him. “You just had breakfast an hour ago.”

  Jonah shrugged.

  “I’m hungry again,” he said. “Any sourdough bread left?”

  “Yes—er, no. Katherine finished it yesterday. Have the whole wheat.” Mom handed it to him. “How could you both be having such massive growth spurts at the same time?” she asked.

  Jonah decided not to tell his mother the real reason he and Katherine were eating like starving people—because they had been starving. It’d been a week since they’d arrived home from their time travels, and Jonah still felt as if he needed to make up for all the calories he’d missed in 1600 and 1611.

  Now Jonah had all the food he wanted, but he still stood in front of the refrigerator admiring everything that was available to him: the full gallon jug of milk, the brightly colored carton of orange juice, the Tupperware container of beef stew left over from last night …

  Hmm. Maybe that would be good with my sandwich, he thought. Or maybe as another snack in an hour or so.

  “Jonah?”
Mom said. “If you’re going to be doubling our grocery bills, could you at least try to keep the electricity bill down?”

  “Huh?” Jonah said.

  “Shut the refrigerator!” Mom said. But she didn’t sound mad. Just puzzled. She kept watching Jonah as he jumped back and shoved the door forward. “People warned me the teen years would be interesting,” she muttered, mostly to herself.

  Jonah assembled his sandwich as quickly as he could, and took it outside to eat. He didn’t want Mom noticing anything else. It wasn’t as if he thought Mom would actually figure out on her own, Oh, yeah! Jonah and Katherine have been flitting in and out of various life-threatening situations in history! That’s why they’re acting weird! But she seemed to know that something was going on.

  And Jonah still didn’t quite trust himself not to throw his arms around his mother and cry out, “Thank you for having food in the house! Thank you for not making me hunt for it myself! And thank you for not sending me off to be a ship’s boy with a bunch of mean sailors when I was a little kid!”

  This past week he’d been even more tempted to tell too much to his dad. On Tuesday night, when Dad was helping Jonah with his math homework, Jonah had come very close to slipping and saying, “Dad, I’m really glad you didn’t want your name written on the tablets of the sea! You may not go down in history, but I’d rather have you as my dad than crazy old Henry Hudson!”

  Maybe Jonah just needed to avoid both his parents for a little while. At least he could still talk to Katherine.

  As soon as Jonah stepped out onto the front porch, Katherine yelled over to him from the driveway.

  “Want to play basketball?” she asked. “We were just getting started.”

  She was with their friend Chip. The last time the three of them had played basketball in the driveway—along with another friend, Alex—JB had shown up and whisked the two siblings off to the 1600s. As far as Chip or Alex could tell, on that Saturday afternoon a week ago, no time at all had passed before Jonah and Katherine were back again.

  “I think time travel has kind of ruined basketball for me,” Jonah said now, trying to keep his voice even. “Want to walk over to the park and see if anyone’s got a game of soccer going?”

  “No, thanks,” Katherine said.

  Jonah looked to Chip, then realized that Katherine had spoken for him, too. Jonah and Chip had been friends before Chip and Katherine had become boyfriend-girlfriend, but suddenly Jonah felt like an outsider in his own front yard.

  A third wheel.

  “Okay,” Jonah said. “See you later.”

  He went into the garage to grab a soccer ball as he gobbled down his sandwich. He yelled into the house to let Mom know where he was going.

  “Take your cell phone!” Mom called after him.

  Jonah wished he could see how she’d react if he said, You know, Katherine and I were roaming around a remote area of oldtimey Canada without a cell phone or a working Elucidator, and we had to deal with a crazy guy who didn’t care who lived or died—and we did just fine. Do you really think it’s going to be that dangerous for me, just walking over to the park?

  Actually, he probably didn’t want to see how she’d react to that. What if she believed him?

  Jonah kicked at dead leaves on the sidewalk as he headed toward the park. It was the second week of November, but still warmer than June had been in James Bay back in 1611. Several of his neighbors were out in their yards raking leaves, reseeding their grass, or planting flower bulbs that would bloom in the spring.

  All this could have been different, Jonah thought. Or—all this could have ceased to exist.

  Was that still possible?

  Jonah decided he’d concentrate on kicking the soccer ball along the sidewalk, rather than thinking about the fate of the world. He went five blocks without losing control of the ball. Then he had to give it an extra-hard kick to cross Albans Street.

  A man bent over to scoop up the ball on the opposite corner. When he stood up, Jonah saw who it was: JB.

  Jonah felt like turning around and running back to his house. And then maybe going up to his room and locking the door and climbing into bed and pulling the covers over his face.

  “I’m not ready,” Jonah said. “If you’re here to send me on another trip through time—”

  JB held up his hands like he was surrendering.

  “No one’s ready,” JB said. “No more trips through time for a while. I promise.”

  He tossed the ball back to Jonah. Jonah caught it and finished crossing the street.

  “Then why are you here?” Jonah asked. The words were out of his mouth before he realized how rude they sounded. “I mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” JB said. “I came to walk to the park with you.”

  He began heading on down Albans.

  “You know, it’s really creepy that you know where I’m going,” Jonah objected.

  “Soccer ball, soccer fields,” JB said, pointing first to the ball Jonah was carrying, then toward the park just around the next corner. “It was a deduction, not any time-travel spying.”

  “Oh,” Jonah said. He caught up with JB.

  “I thought I’d let you and Katherine know how things stand with Second’s little, uh, time experiment,” JB said. “But when I checked in at your house, it looked like Katherine was busy.”

  “Ugh,” Jonah said, making a disgusted face. “Don’t remind me.”

  “She and Chip are only playing basketball,” JB said, looking down at the screen of something that appeared to be an iPhone but was probably his Elucidator. “Though it seems like an unusually friendly competition.”

  Jonah rolled his eyes.

  “Have the time police caught up with Second yet?” he asked, ready to change the subject.

  “No,” JB said. “And unless we make some massive advance in our understanding of time travel, they never will. He’s sealed off his new version of time so well that no one can get to him.”

  Jonah thought about the duplicated versions of the crew members on the Discovery, sailing along Second’s made-up Northwest Passage. Would Staffe be all right? Would Henry Hudson? What would any of them think when they found nothing left of John Hudson but his cape?

  “Katherine and I should have stopped Second when we had the chance,” Jonah said.

  “No, you did exactly what you needed to do,” JB said. “You really did save all of time. Not that you’ll ever be able to put that on your—what’s that thing that’s really important for kids in your time period? Oh, yeah—college applications. It’s a shame you won’t be able to put any of this on your college applications.”

  “College is a long way away,” Jonah mumbled, slightly embarrassed by the admiration shining in JB’s eyes. “Besides, it’s not like me and Katherine really deserve that much credit. We just did what Second expected us to do.”

  “No,” JB said, shaking his head fiercely. “You deserve a lot of credit. Second just thought he knew what you would do—he thought it’d bother you that he was so blatant, sailing the ship from the wrong direction. He thought the more he tried to distract you from Wydowse’s death, the more you’d focus on it. And—”

  “That’s what I mean,” Jonah muttered. “Second manipulated us the whole time.”

  JB’s head-shaking became even more vehement.

  “Second could only manipulate the circumstances,” JB said. “It was still you and Katherine making your own choices. You still had free will. So the world owes you for caring about Wydowse, for caring about me and Brendan and Antonio and Andrea—and for caring about all the natives in the burning village. If you hadn’t started saving everyone, John Hudson would have perished too.”

  “And that would have been enough to mess up time forever?” Jonah asked.

  “Yes,” JB said grimly. “Can you see why we’re suspending time travel for a while?”

  Jonah almost dropped his soccer ball.

  “Wait—you mean, it’s not just my trip back to my
… my other identity that’s being postponed?” Jonah asked.

  “No,” JB said. “It’s all trips before the twenty-first century. What you heard me say when you first got to 1611, about how many mistakes we made—that’s all true. Second’s escapades pointed out dozens of misconceptions we still need to overcome. We have to make sure we’re not going to make an even bigger mess of things before we go back to replacing missing children in time.”

  Jonah felt a wave of relief. Maybe he could even live out his whole life before JB got around to coming back for him. Maybe it would never matter again that Jonah belonged in a different time and place.

  “Yeah, you know, time travel—what’s it really good for if I could save the whole world and not even get a girlfriend out of it?” Jonah asked, the relief making him a little giddy.

  “Jonah, about Andrea—,” JB began.

  “Forget I said anything,” Jonah said, suddenly embarrassed.

  “No, you have to understand—the poor girl’s been through a lot,” JB said. “It’s nothing personal against you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jonah said. “Whatever.”

  “Jonah, you—oh!” JB stared down at his Elucidator in surprise. “It appears that Andrea is on her way here right now, to talk to you. She just stopped at your house, and Katherine told her where to find you.”

  “Something else to be annoyed with Katherine about,” Jonah muttered.

  But when Andrea showed up a few minutes later with a woman in a white Honda, Jonah couldn’t help being happy to see her.

  She didn’t look like she was eighteen anymore. When she got out of the passenger side of the car, she stood shorter than Jonah once again.

  “Aunt Patty, I kind of need to talk to Jonah privately,” she called back to the woman in the car.

  “That’s fine,” the woman said patiently.

  “Want to go sit on those swings?” Andrea asked, pointing across the park.

  “Sure,” Jonah said.

  He saw that JB leaned in to talk to Andrea’s aunt while they waited. Jonah wondered what JB could possibly find to say without bringing up some touchy topic: Hey, sorry about kidnapping your niece and taking her four hundred years back in time. Sorry she got stuck there for five years. Sorry we had to count on a thirteen-year-old to rescue her. Oh, wait—you don’t know about any of that, do you?