Risked

  How could there be some things that were supposed to be changed, and some things that were dangerous to change? How was anyone supposed to know the difference?

  “It’s like we’re back to talking about fate,” Jonah complained. “Why don’t you just tell me everything I’m supposed to do, and I’ll just do it, and that’ll be that?”

  “Because that’s too much of a difference,” JB said. “That’s just you obeying orders, not making up your own mind. That’s you being trapped.”

  And I’m not already trapped? Jonah wondered. When I can’t leave this hospital room and I’ve been shot and so much that happened to me in the past few months was totally out of my control?

  But he could also think of moments—even moments in 1918—when he’d taken matters into his own hands. When he’d done something to be proud of.

  So why couldn’t I have figured out a way to save all the Romanovs? Jonah wondered.

  He sighed. He really didn’t feel well enough yet to think about all of that, or to discuss it with JB.

  “Okay,” Jonah said. “We won’t go into any of that. But if you won’t tell me my future, then tell me my past. Tell me which famous missing kid of history I used to be.”

  “Jonah,” JB groaned. “You know I can’t do that. You know your past is too closely connected to your future.”

  “You mean because I still have to go back to my original time,” Jonah said quietly, trying to hold back the fear in his voice.

  “Well . . .,” JB began, his eyes darting around. “Right now I can tell you—”

  “Never mind,” Jonah said quickly. How could JB be hedging even on this, when Jonah already knew it was true?

  Jonah looked across the room, to where Gavin was still chatting with Daniella by computer. They seemed to be exchanging jokes—Russian jokes.

  Actually, it sounds like they’re reminding each other about jokes their father told them when they were growing up in the early 1900s, Jonah realized. Which is why they’re both crying and laughing, all at once.

  “I started looking for my identity on my own,” Jonah said defiantly, glancing back at JB. “Back home, with Katherine. And then here, last night when I couldn’t sleep. . . .”

  “But you didn’t find anything, did you?” JB asked.

  Jonah knew that JB would have made a lot of information off-limits on the hospital computer. But was he keeping information away from Jonah that he would have had access to in the twenty-first century?

  “When I go back home, you can’t control my computer there,” Jonah said.

  An awful thought struck him.

  “Katherine and I didn’t set everything in motion, did we?” Jonah asked. “We were looking up the Romanovs, and then Daniella was on our front porch, and a few minutes later Gavin was kidnapping all of us . . .”

  JB looked startled.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think there’s still room for total coincidences. . . . But maybe we’ve been wrong about that, too.”

  JB seemed so rattled by this thought that Jonah almost felt sorry for him.

  Jonah shook his hair back from his face. It was getting a little too long—he’d have to have it cut before he actually went home. Or else that alone would tip off Mom and Dad that something very strange had happened, that Jonah had been away from home for more than just an instant.

  And could that mess up time?

  Could it mess up Jonah’s fate?

  “The whole thought of destiny and fate makes my head hurt,” Jonah complained to JB. “After we came back from 1903, you were saying it would be God who determined that. But this time around, in 1918, who died? Who survived? The only people who lived were the ones Gary and Hodge picked. It’s kind of like Leonid and Maria owe their lives to Gary and Hodge just as much as they owe Katherine.”

  “You don’t think good can come out of bad?” JB asked. “That bad people can’t do bad things and have there be some good results too?”

  He sounded more confident, making that argument.

  “I guess none of us missing children from history would have lived, period, if it hadn’t been for Gary and Hodge kidnapping us way back at the beginning of all this,” Jonah said. He peeked toward JB, hoping his expression would give away an answer—and maybe some sort of indication about Jonah’s original fate.

  JB stayed poker-faced.

  “And that’s why Gavin thought he should work for Gary and Hodge in the first place,” Jonah continued.

  “He’s not working for them anymore,” JB said.

  “I know,” Jonah said. “But things did change because of him. I mean, just think about what he saw on the Internet the one day, and then what Katherine and I saw the next . . . and then what actually happened . . .”

  JB nodded grimly.

  “We’re still trying to figure out how all that worked,” JB said. “How could Gavin and Gary and Hodge have caused such dramatic changes so quickly without ruining everything else? We have to face up to the possibility that Gary and Hodge might have better technology than we do, or that they figured out something in time prison that we don’t know.”

  Jonah didn’t want to think about Gary and Hodge having any advantages. He looked away. Across the room, the basketball had started to roll slowly toward him—probably proving that the floor wasn’t perfectly level. Jonah hadn’t noticed that before.

  Were there things like that in time travel, things that only showed up when you made your observations over a very long time? And then lived through lots of changes?

  Jonah sighed.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to think in here,” he said. “It’s like, people use the word ‘fate’ just to label a lot of things we don’t understand. But I still don’t understand. Just look at, I don’t know, Alexei and Anastasia’s sisters. Why was it Maria’s fate to live, but Tatiana’s and Olga’s fate to die?”

  “I don’t know,” JB said quietly. “But I’m feeling more and more certain that there must have been a reason. It’s just not something we’re going to understand anytime soon.”

  That didn’t help.

  “But you knew that some of the Romanovs had to die, didn’t you?” Jonah asked. “Even when Katherine thought she was going back to save all of them . . . it really wasn’t possible, was it?”

  “ ‘Possible’?” JB repeated. “I’ve seen a lot of things happen that I didn’t think were possible before I met you and Katherine.”

  This was such an unsatisfactory answer that Jonah could only glare at JB. After a few moments, JB gave a helpless shrug and shook his head.

  “You’re right—I don’t think there’s any way the tsar could have survived without throwing history off track,” he said. “Without causing time itself to collapse. And if Katherine had managed to save everyone but him, that would have been too much of a change too. But I’m not entirely sure where the tipping point was. It would seem that saving Chip, Leonid, and the three youngest Romanovs was the best we could hope for.”

  Jonah clenched and unclenched his fists.

  “But you took such a risk with Katherine’s life,” Jonah said. “You knew what she would do when you put the Elucidator on the table, didn’t you? And you knew there was a chance she wouldn’t even be invisible anymore, going back to 1918 . . .”

  Somehow Jonah was angrier about JB endangering Katherine’s life than he’d ever been about any risks to his own life.

  JB rubbed his hand against his forehead.

  “Of course I knew what Katherine would do, given the opportunity,” JB said. “I’ve seen the two of you in action in five different centuries, not to mention several random time hollows. Putting that Elucidator down in front of her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever made myself do. But I thought we all owed it to Chip and the others—and I knew she thought so too. And . . .”

  “And what?” Jonah challenged.

  “And I trusted her,” JB said simply. “I had faith that she’d do everything she could.”

 
But she’s my sister, Jonah wanted to scream. And she could have died.

  But how could he, when protecting Katherine would have meant condemning five other kids to die?

  Jonah didn’t say anything, and for a long moment JB didn’t either. Then JB put his hand on Jonah’s shoulder.

  “I can tell you one thing,” JB said. “We’ve thoroughly checked out the aftermath of 1918, and there’s no problem with Gavin and Daniella and Maria being saved. That night in the cellar, the guards were too drunk and disturbed to actually count the bodies. And then it looks like Gary and Hodge faked the remains after that convincingly enough. People will know the truth by my time period, but by then it won’t matter.”

  “What about Leonid?” Jonah asked.

  JB shook his head.

  “His situation was a bit more worrisome, because he was supposed to live into the 1920s,” JB said. “But everything’s all right with him now too.”

  So everything’s fixed for the ones who lived, Jonah thought. The others are being kept alive in the survivors’ memories. Is that enough?

  JB started to stand up.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said. “We’re kind of short-staffed right now, because we have so many people out looking for Gary and Hodge and trying to protect the missing kids they kidnapped. They needed me on duty five minutes ago.”

  Jonah wasn’t going to let this bit of news get past him.

  “You mean, all the kidnapped kids are in danger?” Jonah asked. “Even people like Andrea and Emily and Alex who lived out their pasts already?”

  JB put his hands on Jonah’s shoulders.

  “Don’t worry about it,” JB said. “We’ve got guards posted with everyone, whether they know it or not. Everything’s under control.”

  He gave Jonah one last pat on the shoulders and then went back out the door.

  Jonah did not feel comforted.

  He looked up and saw that Gavin was watching him. The other boy had finished his Skype conversation and closed the laptop.

  “Daniella had an idea,” Gavin said. “She thinks I should transfer to your school.”

  Jonah blinked.

  “You mean, back home?” he asked. “You want to go to Harris Middle School?”

  “Daniella’s starting there new, so why shouldn’t I?” Gavin asked.

  “Well, because . . . your family didn’t move, did they?” Jonah asked.

  “No, but I can do some kind of in-district transfer,” Gavin said. “My, um, my mom was trying to talk me into something like that right before we all went back to 1918.”

  Jonah squinted at Gavin. It was hard to get his brain to adjust to thinking about middle school, not about the big topics like life and death and fate and danger. But Gavin acted like Jonah’s silence was a question.

  “All right, all right, I’ll tell you why,” Gavin said. “I kind of . . . got in with a bad crowd in my regular school. You remember those kids I was hanging out with at the adoption conference?”

  “In the matching skull sweatshirts,” Jonah said. “The kids who were mean to Katherine and me.”

  “Yeah,” Gavin said, sounding embarrassed. “Those were my friends. Most of them aren’t even adopted. They were just . . .”

  “Making trouble,” Jonah said.

  Gavin nodded.

  “And I get in trouble when I hang out with them,” he admitted. “But if I switched to Harris Middle School . . . well, you and Chip and Katherine and Daniella would hang out with me, wouldn’t you?”

  For a minute Jonah was afraid Gavin would even ask, You’d be my friend, wouldn’t you? Which would have been really weird. Jonah had gone back to 1918 with Gavin and seen him on the verge of death and been willing to risk his own life to save his. But there were some lines that just shouldn’t be crossed.

  “Sure,” Jonah said quickly, before Gavin went any further. “I’d hang out with you. Maybe you could even try out for basketball with Chip and me.”

  Instantly Jonah recognized his mistake.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I guess that wouldn’t work with your hemophilia, would it?” Jonah asked.

  Gavin lifted his head.

  “Maybe it could,” he said. “Maybe this is the bargain I need to make with my mom. I switch schools and stop hanging out with juvenile delinquents; she stops babying me so much; I promise to always do my injections on game days. . . . We can work things out.”

  Gavin looked so pleased, Jonah almost felt bad telling him the truth. But he had to.

  “Gavin, it’s not like Chip and me . . . well, we’re not the popular kids at Harris,” Jonah said. “Nobody really knows or cares who we are. I mean, I don’t even know who I am! Or who I was in history . . .”

  Gavin shook his head.

  “Jonah, of course you know who you are,” he said. “You’re the one everyone trusts. You’re the one who tried and tried and tried to save my family, even when Chip and Katherine were ready to give up. You’re the one who wanted to save my life even after I put your life in danger. Doesn’t that matter more than knowing a name from the past?”

  If Jonah had thought it would have been awkward and embarrassing to hear Gavin ask, You’d be my friend, wouldn’t you? then this was almost worse.

  “But what if . . .” Jonah stopped. He thought about what he was going to say, then went ahead. If Gavin was going to be so blindingly earnest, then Jonah could do that too. “What if, when it’s my turn, in my own time period, I’m not that person? What if I fail when it comes time to live out my own part of history?”

  Gavin stood up and walked unsteadily toward Jonah, just to punch him in the arm.

  “Then you can count on the rest of us to help you,” he said. “We’ve got your back! You’ll be fine!”

  Jonah knew that Gavin was sincere. He knew that Gavin wanted to make up for everything he’d done wrong. But Gavin had only gone back in time to one dangerous time period. Jonah had centuries more experience than that. Jonah felt like an old man listening to a little kid tell him that everything was going to work out great.

  Is this how all those old time-travel experts felt listening to Katherine argue for saving the Romanovs? Jonah wondered. But—she was right! Sort of. At least, she managed to save some of them.

  “Uh, thanks,” Jonah told Gavin. And then, because he didn’t want to talk about anything else right now, he added, “Want to go back to playing basketball?”

  Gavin shrugged and nodded, and Jonah picked up the ball. But the game had changed. This time, with every thud of the ball against the floor, Jonah felt time passing, time zooming forward.

  And all of that time was bringing Jonah closer and closer to his own fate.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When I started writing the Missing series in early 2007, it seemed like a no-brainer to include Alexei Romanov and Anastasia Romanova as two of the famous missing children from history. As the only son and youngest daughter of the last tsar of Russia, they’d led fascinating and tragic lives. I knew it was likely that they’d died with the rest of their family on July 17, 1918, but as of early 2007—even after nearly ninety years—there was still enough evidence missing that it seemed possible at least one Romanov might have survived that gruesome night.

  But our knowledge of history can change dramatically even without time travel. And even ninety years is not long enough to be sure that all the evidence is in. New discoveries in the summer of 2007 and new revelations in 2009 eliminated virtually all doubt about what really happened to the youngest Romanovs.

  Since I’d already mentioned the Romanov kids in Found, I decided to keep them in the series regardless. I reasoned that if people from the future had mastered time travel, they could also master faking human remains well enough to trick twenty-first-century DNA tests.

  In reality, the Romanov mystery has been solved. But it’s still a fascinating story.

  Alexei and Anastasia were part of a family that began ruling Russia in 1613. Their father, Nicholas II, became tsar when his own f
ather, Alexander III, died suddenly in 1894. Nicholas II was largely unprepared to lead such a vast country, and his shy, mild-mannered personality was hardly suited to the role of an autocratic monarch. His wife, Alexandra, was more forceful—and she was fully convinced that Nicholas had the divine right to rule. But the Russians generally disliked her because she was viewed as an outsider, a German princess meddling in Russian affairs.

  The birth of Nicholas and Alexandra’s children complicated matters even more.

  In the Russian system, only a male could inherit the throne. So when Nicholas and Alexandra began by having four daughters—Olga in 1895, Tatiana in 1897, Maria in 1899, and Anastasia in 1901—it just set everyone up to be that much more thrilled when Alexei was born in 1904. His birth was welcomed with a 301-gun salute in St. Petersburg and the pealing of church bells across the country.

  But the family’s excitement soon turned to worry, sorrow, and fear.

  When Alexei was only six weeks old, he started bleeding from the navel, the first sign of his hemophilia. Hemophilia is a hereditary condition, and it had entered the royal families of not just Russia but also Germany and Spain through the female descendants of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Alexandra, Alexei’s mother, had unknowingly been a carrier.

  The treatment of hemophilia has changed immensely over the past century, as scientists have figured out ways to compensate for the blood’s inability to clot. The same week I started writing this author’s note, scientists announced very promising results of gene-therapy tests that enhanced clotting ability for people with hemophilia for more than a year.

  But in the early 1900s, little could be done for Alexei, aside from trying to keep him from getting any cut, scrape, or bruise. This, of course, was impossible to prevent completely, and Alexei spent much of his childhood in pain. Even the most minor bump could lead to burst veins and arteries that bled into his joints, causing great agony and sometimes weeks of not being able to walk. And with each bleed there was the possibility that this would be the one that didn’t stop—the one that would kill him.