by Holly Hook
“Here. I'll help you over the fence.” He bends down and cups his hands.
I put my foot into Simon's hands and hoist myself over the fence. I'm on autopilot now. The only thing that's making me go any closer to that rift is the thought of Time punishing us and making us stay on that memory Titanic for who knows how long.
I can see more and more why Simon hates it.
We're over the fence now. I keep staring at the rift. Simon brushes his hair from his face. He's seen this tons of times. He's probably been to hundreds of places. Hundreds of times. Without me.
Without me for over a hundred years. And yet, he never moved on. He never left me behind.
I can do this. Have to do this.
Simon pulls me close to him, so that I’m leaning on his shoulder. “If you’re nervous, just close your eyes. That’s what I had to do the first few times.”
“That makes me feel better.” And it’s the truth. Simon had a couple of people with him, too, on his first assignment. I don't feel like such a wimp.
“It’s better to go through fast.” Simon gently pushes me forward and we move together. A car pulls into the school lot, passing the chain link fence. They don’t pause or show any signs of seeing the golden ripple feet away from them.
We’re the only ones it reveals itself to.
The swishing sound comes from everywhere now. Gold wavers around me, transparent and casting a yellow tint over the football field. I feel like I’ve walked into a sunbeam turned electric silk. The rift makes the hair stand up on my arms, on the back of my neck. It’s hard to breathe. Simon slides his hand down to mine and squeezes. “Get ready.”
The ground falls out from under us and we plunge.
Chapter Four
We plunge through a golden abyss.
Glitter swirls around me and sails away. The whooshing sound crushes my ears. Wind screams against my skin and it’s almost like I’m falling off the Titanic again. I hold onto Simon’s hand so hard I might break it. Bite in a scream.
“Close your eyes!” Simon shouts. “It’ll be over soon.”
I don’t respond. Even though I've done this before, my stomach churns as I watch the glitter zoom past us, flying up into some invisible maw. I’m going to throw up right on myself or worse, Simon. It’ll be the most embarrassing way to start my first assignment.
And then, it stops and the world snaps back into place.
We’re standing back in the Main Chamber, alone. I catch my breath and stomp my feet to make sure they’re on solid ground.
Simon lets go of my hand and grins. “How was that?”
“Wonderful.”
“You don’t seem to think so.” The grin's gone. Pain takes its place and Simon squints. He turns away to hide it, but it's too late.
The fall through the rifts brings back the memory of the Titanic for him, too.
Even though it can't really darken, the Main Chamber seems to dim like it's responding to the mood we're sharing. Simon's putting up a mask for me.
"Simon, you don't have to pretend that these things don't bother you. Not to me. You don't have to hide."
He faces me, eyebrows rising. He holds up his hands. “Like I said before, I'm a man."
"That's not it. I don't think you're any weaker for not showing your feelings. Besides, you don't have a problem showing how much you hate Time."
"That's different." He glances upward at the top of the Main Chamber like he's waiting for someone to come down and chastise him. I don't see why. Time isn't a person or anything. It's just a force. I've never seen it so much as sneeze at any of us, other than that gold stuff that appeared in our computer screens. How can it? The Hub is its body. We're inside of it.
"So, when do we get this assignment?"
Simon studies the Chamber above us again. It reminds me of the planetarium that my Astronomy class visited last semester, only bigger--much bigger. "Time should be showing us the person we need to track and find any second now. It almost seems like it's waiting for something." He cups his hands around his mouth. "Hello? We're here! Show us who we need to find so we can leave."
"Simon!" I laugh.
He gives a dismissive wave. "Trust me. Time only seems to notice when someone tries to mess with the course of history or if one of us fails to respond to its calls. I've tested that theory by shouting some very vulgar things in here at it."
I can believe it. If Time were a man, I'd kill him. Simon's words ring in my head again.
There's a flash of golden light next to us, flaring out of the middle of the Main Chamber. Gold curtains swish, glitter, and reach for us. I jump back and this time, I can't hold in a little scream. A fiery glow shines on the crystal floor and the air's charged. Is this what Time does to communicate with us?
“What?” I explode before I realize it's another rift.
“It’s okay. Someone else is just coming in. We came in the same way.” Simon hugs me close. Protectively, almost. "There must be people working with us. That's what Time was waiting for."
The rift winks away. I blink and a brilliant pink afterimage fades from my eyes. Two people stand there in its place.
My heart sinks and I tense.
It's a girl with a pointed face and a thick, long blond mane. And a guy with long, dark hair that hangs in his face like a ragged curtain. He's wearing baggy pants and a punk band T-shirt that I've seen before.
It's Isabel and Frank.
The two who tracked me when I was still mortal.
Frank stands there, blinking away the light. Isabel starts to say something to him, but then her gaze lands on us and her mouth hangs open.
Time put the four of us together for this assignment.
I take a deep breath. My blood roars in my ears. How could it?
We stand there, staring each other down. I can focus on nothing but Frank. His dark, deceptive locks and those green eyes that fooled me on the night of the dance. The hand that held the knife he tried to stab me with on the Titanic. This is the piece of crap that pushed Eric into the pond at Happy Rabbit’s Daycare just to get to me. The monster that made sure my younger brother and my father drowned. He stands there, giving me a blank stare like nothing's ever happened.
“Frank!” I’m lunging at him. Swinging my fists. Shouting insults that would make Nancy ashamed.
Everybody’s moving. Frank backs away and I hit him in the chest. My fist stings. Isabel shouts something. It’s still rock solid, like the night he tried to send me back to my real past. The first time I almost died. But I swing again. He backs away and I get him on the arm. Frank flinches and grabs it, saying nothing. He has no defense and he knows it.
“Julia!” Simon wraps his arms around me from behind and I thrash against him. Isabel moves in front of Frank, arms spread wide.
“Let me go!” I’m screaming so loud my throat burns. My eyes blur with tears. “I can’t believe you, Simon! You know what he did!”
Frank seethes. He eyes me with disgust. “I told you all she’s unstable! Do you believe me now?”
"Oh, now you talk!" I stop in Simon’s grip. Sniff. Melvin screams my name from within my memories, growing louder and louder. “What do you expect me to do after you make sure my whole family’s dead? Shake your hand?"
Frank doesn’t have an answer for that one. Isabel looks around like she’s not sure what to do.
I let out a breath and sag in Simon’s grip. “I’m okay now.” It's the only way to get Simon to let me go. As soon as that happens, Frank’s going to—
"Wait here, Julia,” he says, releasing me.
I have no time to charge again. Simon’s doing that for me. He launches himself on Frank and they both go down.
Grunting. Cursing. Punching and thrashing.
I stand there. So does Isabel. I almost can’t believe the scene playing out in front of me, the violence, the swearing. I’ve seen Simon and Frank struggle before, but back in 1912, Simon was just trying to protect me and my brother. This is different. Simon’
s face surfaces from the fray, and it’s twisted in anger. Revenge. Hatred. It’s a Simon I’ve never seen before. I hate Frank as much as he does, but it turns my stomach to see that look on his face. Frank might as well be Time itself. He's the closest Simon can come to murdering Time.
He plows his fist into Frank’s nose. A golden flow gushes out, one that makes me turn my head and look away to the other side of the Main Chamber. My stomach goes from turning to heaving. That same stuff is flowing through me now. Through Simon, too. Through all of four of us.
“Stop!”
It’s Isabel’s shout that makes me jump and whirl around to face her. She stands above the two of them, hands straight at her sides. Simon and Frank untangle themselves.
"Get off the floor," Isabel says. "If we miss what our assignment is, things could go very wrong. The Rogue we're tracking will get away. If whoever it is manages to change the flow of history, we could get into trouble for not stopping them."
I remember Simon's words about our punishment and a chill runs through me.
Simon looks up at her and wipes off his brow. Frank peels away from the floor, wiping away the liquid glitter from his nose. He sucks it in and turns away, not speaking a word. Frank’s like a dog walking away with its tail between its knees. I'm glad to see it, although another part, a growing part of me, is worried.
I’ve never seen Simon like this before.
Wild. Vengeful. More like an animal than the gentleman he is.
How much hatred is he keeping inside?
I catch my breath and I realize that Isabel’s speaking.
“Okay, everyone. I know this is pretty unfortunate that Time put all four of us on the same assignment,” she says. Her voice dips and rises, complete with her w's that sound like v's. Isabel’s trying to play the part of peacekeeper. “The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can go our separate ways.”
“I agree,” I say. I won't go back to where those zombies wait, even if they're not real. “The faster we do this, the faster I don't have to see your face.” I glare at Frank with that last sentence as Simon joins me. Simon's breathing heavy with rage.
Frank faces Isabel, narrowing his eyes like he’s trying to make her wither away. Their relationship has already done that. Isabel's been angry at him ever since I revealed that Frank shoved a five-year-old into the pond to get at me. I can tell from the stiff way he stands, waiting. From the way Isabel crosses her arms like she’s trying to shield her heart from Frank. I’ve driven a space between them that’s only grown bigger and bigger since I turned.
I’m not sure I like that. I don’t exactly hate Isabel, even if I don't like her, either.
Simon points at the distant ceiling like he’s trying to ignore what he’s done. “We haven’t gotten our assignment yet.”
“What if Time showed it to us while you were fighting?” I ask. Panic rises inside of me.
“It didn't,” Isabel says. “I was watching.”
A low whoosh fills the room, getting louder and louder.
I jump, cursing myself. I’ve had so many surprises and trips today that I should be ready for anything at this point.
The whooshing grows louder like a million people are waving fans on a hot day. But the air remains clear and I realize that everyone else, Frank included, is watching the ceiling with intent. I join them. Is this how the Timeless get their assignments?
“Come on,” Frank says, inpatient. I can hear the nerves in his voice. He doesn’t want Simon to jump on him again. Or me.
I keep staring, trying to forget that he’s there. If Frank’s right and I am just some mistake, I don’t want to screw this up. I don’t know yet if Time can send me back to my death if it's not happy with my performance.
The air’s golden above us. It grows thicker like honey and finally clears.
We’re looking at a giant film in the air. I blink a bunch of times just to make sure I’m seeing it right. It’s a girl, standing in a carpeted room and facing a wall that’s made of a gray, matte material. Her back's to us. She’s dressed in a cream colored tunic with her rich, dark hair pinned up with a matching butterfly pin that sparkles under the light. The butterfly's beautiful: it must be made of stained church glass and rimmed with silver. It shines every color in the rainbow, amplifying the colors. The wings have sharp tips, too. If this girl wanted, she could take off her hair clip and use it as a weapon.
She must be the Rogue we need to find and send back to her original time. But where are we seeing, exactly? I can't make out anything above us other than the plain, gray wall. Nerves flutter inside of me. If we don't know where she's from, we can't--
5052.
The year pops into my head out of nowhere. I just know. Is it some Timeless power? I'll have to ask Simon as soon as we're done with this.
Above us, the girl peeks over her shoulder, eyes narrow and nervous. She has perfect olive skin and oddly enough, freckles. She can't be any older than I am. Clearly, she’s not supposed to be wherever she is. Her shoulders drop and her tunic ruffles. She turns away and walks up to the gray wall. She raises her arm and touches the space above her right shoulder.
“Great. One of the Travelers again,” Isabel says. She doesn’t sound happy. “This is the fifth one Time has sent us after. I haven't seen this one before, though.”
“Trav—“ I start.
The surface of the wall changes at the girl's touch. A keypad with numbers appears on the wall as if it's a picture on a computer screen. I realize. The wall itself is like a giant version of the iPad thing that Monica uses sometimes for her homework and that I can never figure out.
My mouth hangs open. That’s…cool.
The girl puts in a code, steps back, and waits. Then, the wall shimmers and ripples.
Turns to gold.
It’s a rift. They’ve harnessed them in the year 5052 and this girl’s about to go through. Didn't Simon say something about this once—that in the future they do succeed with time travel, but never realize they're successful since all of them get their memories erased when they go through?
Future Girl sucks in a breath and steps into the wall.
Disappears. It’s exactly like the time that Simon took me through the first rift at the skate park. I cringe when I think of us plowing towards the wall, right for what I feared would be a major collision.
"Okay," Simon says, raising his hand to his forehead. "Where did she go to? Hopefully she just came to the Hub. That's easy."
The scene above us blurs, realigns, and snaps back into focus.
“Um…” I start. I'm frozen. I never expected this.
Future Girl is standing right outside Trenton High School.
By the gym doors. On the sidewalk where Monica and I stand during lunch sometimes. She eyes the parking lot, scanning, hunting for something. The sun shines off her butterfly hair clip, blinding me for a second.
And then the image is gone. The air turns gold again, fills the top of the dome for a second, and clears.
“That’s it,” Isabel says. “That's why Time put the four of us together. We all know Trenton High School better than any others here. Julia and Simon. That girl went to the time that you two are staying in. Now we have to go and find her.”
* * * * *
“Why on earth would someone from the year 5000 come to Trenton High School?” I ask as we walk quickly down the crystal corridor. “This doesn't seem like a coincidence to me.”
“It doesn't to me, either.” Simon squeezes my hand in his. Rifts wave as we pass. We walk far ahead of Isabel and Frank. I keep my arm around Simon’s so he doesn’t turn back and plow into Frank again, as much as I’d like that. And I don’t want to look at Frank. Now isn’t the time to plot revenge.
But he killed me brother…he killed my father…
Keep walking.
Just keep going. Don’t look back.
“This girl we’re after will have no memory of her real time,” Simon tells me. We walk faster, close to a run. “That’s
what happens to mortals when they go through to another time. Her memories will come back as soon as she’s home, so she’ll be fine. She'll just think her trip was a failure, like all the other scientists who have tried to use rifts.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, because Frank and Isabel’s footsteps are coming up behind us, slow and businesslike. They’re not talking. I can feel the tension cloud they’re bringing and I want away from it. “Will the rift dump us in another part of town?”
“Not likely. Since Time's got us on a mission, it'll probably put us right where we need to be.” He points at the one visible plaque, hanging above the Trenton rift. The time on it reads about twenty minutes later than we left it. Maybe the time there's still going forward to us due to our assignment. It's another thing I'll ask Simon about.
The trip back to Trenton isn’t as bad this time, but maybe it's because we're in a hurry and I don't have the chance to get nervous about it. We fall through the golden scream, but before I have time to cry out, I’m standing in the parking lot of the high school. I catch my breath and face Simon. There’s no sign of the rift that was swishing and whooshing over by the football field bleachers. It’s already dissolved.
“Where is she?” I ask. The lot's empty now.
“She was standing right here in the parking lot,” Simon says. He scans the area, but there’s nothing going on except for the school buses rolling up to get ready for the end of the school day. The driver of the first one doesn’t even look at us as she passes and the bus hisses to a stop. The doors to the Gym wing come open, and one of the janitors props the door open with a trash can to prepare for the flow of students. He looks at us, shakes his head, and turns away. We're kids ducking out five minutes early. We blend right in. No wonder Time chose the four of us for this.
“Maybe she went into the school,” I say. “What do we do when we find her? Take her and go find another rift?”
I don't catch the electric feeling of another rift bubbling up behind me until it's too late.
“Don’t you remember what we did with you, Julia?”
