Revealed (26 page)

“That's fine,” she said. “I know this is an emotional time. Tell your sister to call me if she needs to talk. Or—you can do the same.”

She started to walk toward the house; then she turned back around.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “When your sister was in my office yesterday, she left this behind. Could you give it back to her?”

Eva skillfully shifted the baby to one side so she could hold him with just one arm. With her other hand she reached into a purse hanging from her shoulder. She pulled out some kind of electronic device and pressed it into Jonah's hands—an old-style BlackBerry, maybe? Had BlackBerrys been around thirteen years ago?

Jonah turned the object over in his hands. It wasn't a BlackBerry; it was one of those old-fashioned handheld games, from before people had everything on their phones. This game said CONNECT 4 at the top.

Then the letters in “Connect 4” rearranged and changed, and Jonah finally understood. The social worker hadn't just handed him a game.

She'd handed him an Elucidator.

Jonah resisted the urge to pump his fist in the air and scream out,
Whoo-hoo! I'm saved!
He barely remembered to keep his expression solemn and sober for Eva's sake.

“Uh, thanks,” Jonah said. “My, uh, sister will be happy to get this back.”

He quickly tucked the Elucidator Connect 4 game into his pocket before Eva could see that the words on its face now read, WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?

I have choices now
, Jonah thought.
I'm not helpless anymore. I can go back to 1932 and fix this mess. I can find Angela and JB; I can help them; I can rescue Katherine and the others; I can make my parents the right age again. . . .

His brain spun with all the things he needed to do.

But Eva was still standing in front of him, holding the baby and watching Jonah.

“Thanks for helping your sister so well,” Eva said. “At a time like this, she needs people around her who will be sympathetic and understanding, and—”

There was no way Jonah was going to stand there listening for advice about dealing with a fictional sister with a fictional problem. Not when he had a real sister to find, and lots of other real problems he needed to solve.

“I know all that,” he said. “Shouldn't you get the baby inside before he catches cold?”

“Oh, right,” Eva said. “Do you want to give him a hug or kiss good-bye?”

No
, Jonah thought.

But he dipped his head toward the baby, ruffled the baby's hair, and muttered, “Stay cool, dude.”

The words running through his head were more detailed:
Don't worry. I'm going to make everything okay for you—and me, too. I'm going to make it so this time period doesn't end, so you can grow up into me, so our lives—I mean, my life—can go on and on and on. . . .

But evidently he'd already met Eva's low standards for a teenage boy's emotional good-bye. She nodded, patted Jonah's shoulder, and turned up the front walk.

Jonah stepped back into the shadows. Every cell in his body seemed to be screaming,
Go now! Hurry! Get back to 1932 and fix everything!
But Jonah waited. He crouched down
beside Eva's car and watched as she rang the doorbell. The door opened. As far as Jonah could tell, Eva didn't even say a word at first—she just placed the baby in Mom's arms.

Mom and Dad looked confused at first, then tentatively hopeful, as if they were both thinking,
Could this possibly be true? Is this real?
Then overwhelming joy broke over both of their faces. Watching them come to understand that they finally had a baby of their own was like watching a sunrise. It was like looking
at
the sun—too intense for Jonah's eyes.

I'll make it so this really is an entirely good moment in your lives
, he promised them in his head.
I'll make it so this isn't the beginning of the end, so I don't ruin your lives or anybody else's. . . .

He bent down close to the Elucidator in his coat pocket and murmured, “Now. Take me back to August 15, 1932.”

And then everything around him vanished.

Jonah was already floating through time when he thought to add a slight modification. He took the Elucidator out of his pocket and told it, “Make me arrive right after Lindbergh and Gary and Hodge left.”

Finally I'm learning how to talk to Elucidators so they don't constantly put me into even more danger
, he thought.

But as he floated through darkness, the Elucidator flashed up at him, LINDBERGH AND GARY AND HODGE DIDN'T LEAVE TOGETHER.

“Then get me there a minute after the last of them left,” Jonah said. “Sheesh, do I have to spell out everything?”

YES, the Elucidator flashed back.

Jonah wished he had someone else traveling through time with him, so they could make fun of the Elucidator together. It would have even been comforting to have baby Katherine back, to hold on to.

Soon
, Jonah told himself.
After I meet up with Angela and JB, after we track down Lindbergh's plane in the future, after time agents arrest Gary and Hodge—then we'll get Katherine back.

Though he'd want Katherine turned back into an eleven-year-old again as quickly as possible. And he wanted all his friends back from the future; he wanted time fixed so all of them could just go home.

An uncomfortable thought flitted through his mind about how Gary and Hodge had said his life in the twenty-first century had always been doomed. According to them, that was true for all the other missing children from history too.

Gary and Hodge could have been lying
, Jonah thought.
They're liars and kidnappers, and they cheat, and even they admit that they don't keep their promises. . . .

But some of the other information they'd told Jonah seemed to be true. They were right about him never seeing tracers in the twenty-first century. And as Jonah had thought before, why would they bother lying when they already thought they'd defeated Jonah?

Habit
, Jonah told himself.
Just like they said I wasn't any good at thinking like a criminal, they're not any good at not thinking like criminals and liars and cheats. . . .

But Jonah didn't feel like pumping his fist in the air and screaming anymore.

What if Angela's not there when I get to 1932?
he wondered.
What if she didn't ever read the note I gave her at the airport?

A new, dreadful thought hit Jonah: Why would Angela have read and obeyed the note? How could she have? Sure, time had split, but in both new versions of time Gary and Hodge had changed everything, and in each new version the planeload of babies had vanished from the airport almost immediately after it arrived. In the version that was going to collapse and die, Jonah's parents were left with him as a baby, but none of the other missing children's adoptive parents even knew that their children existed. In the version that led to Gary and Hodge's glorious wealthy future, none of the endangered children from history would have any connection to the twenty-first century. In both cases, the FBI would never get involved; even if Angela got a glimpse of the time-crashed plane, she wouldn't have thought anything of it. She would have blinked, and it would have been gone.

Speeding through time, Jonah clutched his Elucidator more tightly, as if to reassure himself it was there. His mind reeled, sorting through what was possible—and what wasn't.

Is everything I thought wrong?
he wondered.

Without fully experiencing the weirdness and mystery of the time-crashed plane, Angela would have had no reason to hang on to a confusing scribbled note an oddly
dressed kid had handed her on her first day at a new job.

And anyhow, if Angela never got more than a quick, easily forgotten glance at the time-crashed plane, she also never would have met any time agents thirteen years later; she never would have helped Jonah and Katherine and their friends in the time cave; she never would have known anything about Elucidators or time travel. She certainly never would have traveled through time herself.

Based on what Jonah knew, was there any way that Angela would be waiting on the airfield in 1932?

No
, he thought miserably.
None.

He spun through the emptiness of Outer Time, too stunned to keep himself from flipping over and over. He let the outside forces take control of his body.

But I have an Elucidator!
he reminded himself.
I can find Angela myself. And JB, too. I can go anywhere in time! I can ask the Elucidator anything I want to know! I have control now!

But could he trust the Elucidator in his hand?

He'd been vaguely thinking that Angela and JB—and probably other time agents as well—had arranged for Eva the social worker to meet him in front of his parents' house, take the baby version of himself on in to his parents, and give him an Elucidator. He'd kind of thought he deserved some credit himself for Eva appearing—because the note he gave Angela had to be the tipoff that his teenage version
would be in that time period and needed an Elucidator.

It wasn't exactly a leap for anyone who knew him very well to think that, after giving the note to Angela at the airport, he'd also make a stop at his parents' house.

But how would JB and Angela know that I'd be carrying the baby version of myself?
Jonah wondered.
How would anybody know that but Gary and Hodge? And if my note to Angela went straight into the garbage . . . who did provide this Elucidator for me? If, in the new versions of time, Angela never gets to travel to any other time periods, how much else has changed about my past and what I thought I knew?

Jonah was tying his own brain into knots. Then he hit the point in his time-travel trip where everything sped up, and it felt like his entire body was being torn apart. He couldn't think at all.

He landed. The mind-blurring, sense-dulling numbness of timesickness hit him harder than usual.

Because I just traveled not just from the future, but from a branch of time that's about to collapse?
Jonah wondered.
Or just because I'm terrified of what I'm going to find out when I open my eyes?

He opened his eyes anyway. With great effort he got them to focus on a face bent down close to his. With even more effort he tried to make sense of the sound roaring around him.

It was screaming.

A moment passed before he could recognize the face, before he could pick out distinct words in the screaming.

The words were “Jonah! You made it back!”

And the face was Angela's.

Jonah sat up quickly and cried, “Angela! What are you doing here?”

Angela gave him a shove, knocking him back against the side of the airfield office building. She was still kid Angela, Jonah noticed, which meant that she shoved
hard
.

“I thought you'd be happy to see me!” she complained. “I did what your note told me to do! Where's the gratitude? Don't you know how awful it is to be a black female in the 1930s? Don't you know what all I've done for you? I was expecting excitement and hugs—not that it's really safe for a black girl to be seen in public being hugged by a white boy in 1932, but—”

She stopped.

“Jonah, you're as white as a ghost. What's wrong?” she asked.

Jonah moaned, and slumped back against the wall of the airfield office.

“I don't understand anything,” he said.

Quickly he told her what had happened to him since the time cave, and what he'd figured out on his trip back to 1932. By the time he was finished, Angela was squinting in confusion too.

“But . . . of course I've traveled through time,” she said. “Of course I saw all the babies on the plane and talked to the FBI agents. Of course time agents were the ones who arranged for you to get that Elucidator—”

“Then why aren't time agents here now, helping us out?” Jonah asked.

Angela didn't seem to have an answer to that.

Jonah saw Angela glance around the deserted airfield. She seemed to be looking for enemies who might materialize from anywhere, rather than friendly, helpful time agents.

“Are you afraid Gary and Hodge might come back?” Jonah asked.

Angela bit her lip.

“Right now I'm afraid of everything,” she said. “You're right. None of this makes sense, so I don't know what we're supposed to do. What if we make a bigger mess of things?”

“Let's find JB first,” Jonah suggested. “He can help us. And then—”

Angela started to say something, but a shout off in the
distance made her stop. She put a warning hand on Jonah's arm, and her other hand over his mouth. A moment later she pushed him down toward the ground and crouched beside him.

The shouting in the distance grew louder.

“I think they've seen us,” she whispered.

“Um, Gary and Hodge?” Jonah asked, his voice squeaking. He was still too weak with timesickness to be any good at running away. And where would they run to? Where could they be safe?

“No, it's the newspaper reporters who follow Charles Lindbergh around,” Angela whispered back. “There's some sort of security guard over at the gate keeping them out of the airfield, but they still shout questions at anyone they see.”

Now Jonah's timesick ears could make out words in the shouting: “Is it true Colonel Lindbergh just took his first flight since his child's body was discovered three months ago?” “Where did he go?” “Did he have a good flight?” “Could you get him to come over to the fence to make some comments for my newspaper? We've always been on his side—
my
paper hasn't printed any of those disgusting rumors . . .”