JB didn’t have to finish his sentence. Jonah felt breathless just thinking about it. He and Katherine had had a split second to save Chip and Alex. A fraction of a second either way and they would have failed.
Jonah turned toward Katherine, expecting her to look as awestruck as he felt. But her expression was gripped with rage.
“And you didn’t even want me and Jonah to come!” she spit out. “How could you! What did you think was going to happen?”
“We thought history would repeat itself,” JB said. “We thought Chip and Alex and time itself would proceed exactly as they and it had the first time around.”
Katherine continued scowling at him.
“You were taking a lot of chances, weren’t you?” she said. “Chip and Alex are bigger than their tracers. That could have thrown things off. They were struggling a lot more than their tracers did. Flailing about. Couldn’t that have made them land differently? And—”
JB cut her off.
“We’re doing the best we can, all right?” he said. “This is the first time we’ve ever tried to return missing children to history. It’s not easy trying to account for every possible variable. We weren’t expecting the two of you to go jumping into the past, for example, so we had to rerun all our calculations. And you saw for yourselves what a dicey time 1483 was. …”
He gestured toward the scene of the royal family, the queen and her children holed up in sanctuary. But then his voice trailed off and his eyes goggled out slightly.
“No,” he moaned. “That’s not supposed to happen yet.”
Jonah immediately looked toward Chip and Alex, or where they’d been. The scene before him had changed. He no longer had a clear view of the queen and princes and princesses sitting in their private chambers. Instead he could see the outside of their sanctuary building, where guards stood forbiddingly on either side of the front door. Some of the guards held torches, waving them out into the night as if they were trying to ward off evil. In the dim torchlight Jonah could see a lone man approaching the guards.
The man moved briskly, authoritatively—he didn’t seem the type to be frightened off by guards or torches. At first Jonah could see only his shoulder-length brown hair, the tip of his strong nose, his long, swinging dark cape. The man walked right past the guards and the torches, unimpeded. Then the man turned, his hand on the door, and Jonah could see his face.
It was King Richard III.
TWENTY-FIVE
“No!” Jonah screamed.
He sprang up and raced toward the king. Jonah would have to tackle him and then yell loudly enough that Chip and Alex would hear and have time to hide, up in their sanctuary room. Or no, maybe Jonah wouldn’t be strong enough to knock down the king—maybe Jonah would have to settle for grabbing the king’s cape and hollering at the guards, “Don’t you know who this is? Aren’t you supposed to be protecting the queen and her kids from this man?”
But how good could these guards be if they were fooled by Alex’s bird trick? Jonah thought. I’ll have to try something else. Maybe—
Jonah ran smack into the wall. Instantly he remembered that he was only watching 1483 on an unnaturally realistic TV. Evidently the TV was part of a very hard wall, one that was quite painful to run into at full speed.
Jonah hit so hard he bounced back, lost his balance, and slammed into the floor.
“Are you all right?” JB asked, bending over him.
“Jonah!” Katherine shrieked, right behind JB.
“Chip. Alex. Must warn …” Jonah made his eyes focus on JB’s face, made his brain focus on what really mattered. “Send me back to 1483. Now. I have to tell them. Let them know—”
“Shh, shh,” JB said. “They’re all right. Remember? I promised they’d be safe. You’re the one who probably just gave yourself a concussion.”
JB was poking at Jonah’s eyes, pulling the lids back, one after the other, and peering deep into his pupils, just like Jonah’s soccer coach had done that time Jonah banged heads with another player in the championship game.
Jonah turned his head and struggled to sit up.
“But you said this wasn’t supposed to happen!” he argued.
“I said it wasn’t supposed to happen yet,” JB said. “The king’s just a little early. I’m very confident about this … let’s watch it play out. …”
Jonah jerked away from him, rolled over on his side, and began digging in his pocket.
“That’s right,” Katherine cheered him on. “Try getting out of here using the Elucidator.”
Jonah pulled the Elucidator out, but before he could even glance at the screen, JB wrapped his hand around Jonah’s wrist. In one motion JB jerked the Elucidator away, stabbed a button on its surface, and tossed it toward the ceiling. It turned invisible in midair, but Jonah scrambled up and ran over to where he thought it might land.
JB threw it a little sideways, so let’s see, a normal trajectory would end up right about … Jonah listened closely, hoping he could hear the Elucidator hit the floor. But any sound it made was lost in the echo of the footsteps from 1483, King Richard III walking up the stairs toward the room where Chip and Alex sat, unaware.
Jonah dropped to the ground and began sweeping his hands right to left, left to right, groping for the Elucidator. At least he wasn’t searching for a stone on a stone floor again—this floor was smooth as glass. His hand hit something … but it was only Katherine’s hand. For the first time Jonah realized Katherine had also dropped to her knees and was searching.
“You two are indomitable,” JB said, sounding amazed. “I’m glad we’re on the same side—I just wish I could get you to believe we’re all on the same side.”
Neither Jonah nor Katherine answered him. They just kept sweeping their hands across the floor. Jonah was starting to feel discouraged. The Elucidator had to have hit the floor somewhere. Didn’t it? Could JB have activated some other function besides just invisibility—something that made the Elucidator impossible to feel, too?
JB let out an exasperated sigh.
“Look,” he said. “Just watch what’s going on in 1483. The king’s at the top of the stairs. …”
Jonah lifted his head and stared at the scene before him. A servant was greeting the king, promising to tell her mistress that he was there.
“See?” JB said. “The king came alone. He didn’t bring soldiers to carry out any murders. He isn’t brandishing knives or swords—he wouldn’t do that, anyway. Kings usually want other people to do their dirty work for them. At least … well, I know this is still the Middle Ages, but …”
Jonah stopped listening to JB. He also stopped searching for the Elucidator. He could only watch the screen as the king stepped into the chambers where Chip and Alex had been talking with their mother and sisters.
Chip and Alex were no longer there.
The queen—ex-queen, really—sat straight-backed and regal on her bed, her daughters arranged like miniature versions beside her. Amazingly, even the youngest had mastered their mother’s air of contemptuous hauteur.
“Richard,” the queen said. It was hard for Jonah to believe that one spoken word could sound so accusing and yet still polite, both at the same time.
Jonah noticed that the queen did not call him “king.”
“My dear, grieving sister-in-law,” Richard said, taking her hand and kissing it. “And my lovely nieces.”
He kissed their hands as well, then sat in the same chair Chip had occupied only a few moments earlier.
“I would have thought you would be feasting yet,” the queen said with an air of feigned interest. “Celebrating your coronation.”
The way she said “coronation” was masterful, implying in four short syllables that he didn’t deserve a coronation, and that everyone knew he had stolen the crown, and that if he had any shame at all, he would be throwing himself at her feet and begging her forgiveness for tarring her good name and his dead brother’s good name on his way to the throne. And yet, she smiled pol
itely.
“My brother would have been feasting still,” Richard conceded, sounding only slightly humbled. “Feasting and drinking and dancing with all the most beautiful women in the kingdom. But”—his gaze was steely—“I am not my brother.”
The queen’s eyes narrowed slightly, but she gave no other sign that Richard had just insulted her dead husband.
“More’s the pity,” the queen said, and just enough grief throbbed in her voice that Richard could hardly have claimed that she was insulting him, though she clearly was.
“I’m sorry he’s gone,” Richard said softly, and just those four words seemed to turn the conversation from a nasty fight veiled in politeness to something more like a condolence call.
Had Richard really liked his brother? Jonah wondered. Was Richard maybe even sorry that Edward IV was dead, even though it meant that Richard himself got to be king?
“That is not what you came here to say, the night of your coronation,” the queen said. But her voice was softer now, and kinder. “You’ve told me that before.”
“It’s no less true today, milady. I assure you,” Richard said.
“Liar,” Katherine muttered under her breath. “You’re probably glad your brother died, so you could be king.”
“Shh,” Jonah hissed, afraid he’d miss something.
Richard and the queen sat silently for a moment, but Jonah glanced quickly around, wondering where in the room Chip and Alex were hiding. They hadn’t had time to go anywhere else, had they?
Richard leaned forward suddenly.
“Milady, this morning at … at Westminster, I was gifted with a vision,” he said.
“Indeed?” the queen said coldly.
“Indeed,” Richard said. “A vision of your two sons, in a happier place. Away from the struggles and travails of our mortal lives.”
“Oh. My. Gosh,” Katherine practically shrieked. “Is he trying to tell her that her sons are better off dead? Because he thinks they are dead. Because he hired murderers. Because we convinced him he saw their angels. This is incredible! This is better than a soap opera!”
Before them, the queen froze at Richard’s words.
“Right, right, that’s what you have to do,” Katherine coached. “Pretend that you’re devastated so he’ll think that you think that Chip and Alex are dead. That way he won’t try again to kill them. And—”
“Katherine, she can’t hear you,” Jonah said disgustedly.
“I know, I know,” Katherine said excitedly. “But …” She broke off because the queen was speaking again.
“You had a vision of my boys,” the queen repeated numbly. “In heaven?”
“They were such saintly boys,” Richard said, bowing his head slightly, as if in tribute.
“He’s using past tense now!” Katherine screamed. “Don’t let him get away with this!”
The queen inclined her head slightly.
“Henry the Sixth was a saintly man,” she said with studied casualness. “Too saintly to be king, don’t you think? And yet, others fought to restore him to the throne.”
“What?” Katherine screeched. “Henry the Sixth? Who’s that? What’s he got to do with anything?”
“Former king of England,” JB said quickly. “Very holy, occasionally crazy. But he took the throne from Edward the Fourth for a few years. Because of Henry, Edward the Fourth was in exile when Edward the Fifth—er, Chip—was born.”
However Henry VI was connected, King Richard definitely recognized the name. His face drained of color; he opened his mouth and then shut it again without speaking.
“You remember?” the queen said almost airily. “You remember what a painful experience that was for my husband?”
“Wow,” JB muttered. “She’s really good at this.”
In the scene before them Richard seemed to be struggling to regain his composure.
“E-everyone knew where Henry was,” Richard finally said. “Until your husband ensured his death.”
“Richard’s not bad at this either,” JB said.
“Wait. Is he accusing his brother of murder?” Katherine asked. “To make it sound better that he’s murdering people too?”
JB waved his hands quickly at her, signaling for silence. “Later,” he whispered. “I’ll explain later.”
The queen raised one elegant eyebrow.
“You wish it to be a fight to the death, then?” she said. “Very well. I assure you, others do as well.”
Richard bolted upright in his chair.
“You dare to threaten me? Me, the king of England?”
“Game over,” JB muttered. “See? Right there? He just lost his cool.”
The queen looked shocked, though Jonah thought it was probably fake shock.
“You think I could threaten anyone?” she asked, her voice tremulous. “Me, a defenseless widow?”
“Defenseless, my foot,” JB murmured.
Richard looked like he wanted to say the same thing. He grimaced, as if struggling to regain his composure. Finally he gave a tight nod.
“I see my sympathies were unnecessary,” he said in a clipped voice. “I should return to the festivities.”
“Aye,” the queen said. “For who but God knows how long any mortal has left to celebrate?”
JB began clapping.
“Bravo!” he cried. “What a performance!”
Jonah sank back on his haunches, his search for the Elucidator completely forgotten.
“Performance?” he repeated numbly. “You mean that wasn’t real? It was just a play or something? Just … acting?”
“Oh, it was real, all right,” JB assured him. “But incredible acting, too, couldn’t you tell? Neither one of them could come out and say what they were really thinking, but they both got their messages across.”
“Like at school, when Caitlin Deets tells Alexis Raypole, ‘Wow, that shirt is really flattering on you. Very slimming,’ she’s not really giving her a compliment,” Katherine said. “She’s really saying, ‘You’re fat and ugly and nowhere near cool enough to be my friend.’ And then when Alexis tells Caitlin—”
“Katherine, stop!” Jonah said. “Nobody cares about that right now!”
JB grinned.
“She’s right, though,” he said. “It’s the same kind of double-talk. Richard left his own coronation to tell Elizabeth, ‘Look, your sons are dead. I’m the king now. Give up.’ He expected to find her weak and sobbing, and then he could be charitable and comforting, as if he’d had nothing to do with her sons’ deaths. But she told him, ‘Hey, you can’t bully me. How can you be so sure my boys are dead? Even if they were, how can you be so sure that I wouldn’t pretend that they’re still alive and have my friends mount a campaign to put them or some impostor on the throne? You may have the Crown tonight, but that doesn’t mean you’ll still be alive next week!’” JB grew so animated acting out each side’s hidden message that he swung his fists, punching the air. “And they said all that without actually uttering a single discourteous word.”
Jonah frowned. Did people do that kind of double-talk all the time—not just sixth-grade girls and medieval royalty? Why hadn’t he noticed? Most of the time he just said exactly what he meant. Who needed the complications?
Katherine scrunched up her face.
“Yeah, well … Caitlin Deets is really nasty, but even she’s not threatening to kill anyone,” she said doubtfully.
JB shrugged.
“What if she lived in a society where certain types of murder were considered perfectly acceptable—would she be making death threats then?” he asked.
“Caitlin Deets? Oh, yeah, in a heartbeat,” Katherine said. “She’d probably start strangling other kids with her bare hands.”
Jonah couldn’t quite remember which girl in Katherine’s class was Caitlin Deets—the really skinny one with the big nose, long blond hair, and triple-pierced ears? The tall girl who always wore platform shoes and pink clothing? He decided, whoever she was, he’d want to avoid
her if he ever got back to the twenty-first century.
JB gestured toward the scene before them, King Richard slowly climbing down the winding stairs.
“There’s a lot of blood on the English Crown at this point in history,” JB said. “The York and Lancaster families have been fighting for thirty years over who deserves the throne.”
“But Richard and Chip and Alex are all in the same family, right?” Jonah said. “And anyhow, Chip and Alex aren’t dead. Why didn’t the ‘murderers’ tell the king the boys escaped? Is Richard supposed to think they’re dead? Or does he think they’re dead just because we made him think he saw their ghosts?”
“If you worked for a king who ordered people killed in the middle of the night, would you tell him you’d messed up?” JB asked.
In the scene before them Richard stepped out of the building and nodded curtly at the guards around the front door. Then the scene shifted: Chip and Alex were climbing out of a cupboard of sorts, one that blended neatly into the stone wall. They were grinning triumphantly.
“So they knew to hide,” Katherine said. “Somebody warned them the king was coming.”
“Elizabeth Woodville has very loyal servants,” JB said, nodding. “She may be out of power, but she’s not out of plans.”
As the princesses gathered around them, Chip raised his right hand and smacked Alex’s right hand in a very dramatic high five.
“They had high fives in 1483?” Jonah asked, surprised. Had Chip’s arm separated from his tracer’s arm for just that long?
“No,” JB said disapprovingly.
“Then, they’re still in there,” Jonah said. “The real Chip and Alex.”
“No doubt,” JB said, though he didn’t sound as happy about it as Jonah.
The princesses, who had gathered around Chip and Alex, were shooting them puzzled glances. One girl flipped a long lock of blond hair over her shoulder and whispered to her sisters. Jonah imagined she was saying, “Methinks our brothers have gone crazy. Wherever did they learn those bizarre hand signals?”