by Holly Hook
This has to happen before Simon and Frank catch up. I give Arnelia a little nod.
“I need to use the lavatory,” she says, heading into the restroom.
It's something I'd say. Monica would correct me with bathroom.
I follow. “One minute,” I say to Monica and Isabel. “Okay,” I whisper once the bathroom door swings shut behind me. It's silent in here. There's no noise to mask our conversation. I step around the corner. “You must really need to talk to me if--”
Cream flashes in front of me.
A quiet pop sounds through the bathroom. I go limp and crash to the floor. It's as if someone has turned off my nerves. I'm a rag doll lying slumped against the corner. The thud of my landing rings in my ears. I can’t feel my limbs, my face. My cheek rests against brick-colored tile. The bottom of Arnelia’s tunic swings closer. Her foot stops inches from my nose.
I can’t move my lips or so much as grunt through my closed mouth. Every part of me is frozen, gone, like I've gone completely numb in that icy water. I try to move my eyes to look up at Arnelia, but they refuse to work. I can only stare forward. I'm still breathing, but that's it.
Arnelia kneels down. Her mocha eyes are wide and sympathetic. She’s holding something that looks like a glass prism in her hand. It shines with every color of the rainbow, but the colors fade like the thing has lost its energy.
It’s a weapon. There’s no other explanation. She used it to paralyze me. I can't help but feel betrayed. I was starting to like her.
“Julia, I am sorry I had to stun you.” She speaks low. “It is harmless. It will wear off in a few minutes. But I do not know if you plan to send me back to my year before I have a chance to speak to you.”
I make another attempt at a grunt. She didn't have to stun me. I would have listened. This Arnelia girl has total control. She must have planned this for a while.
Then again, if I knew I'd be facing someone who could send me through time with just some concentration, I might take precautions, too. Maybe I shouldn't be so angry with her. But it won't be long before the others check on me. I hope Arnelia talks fast.
“I know what you are,” she continues, so quiet that I can barely hear her. "I know what your mission is. I came here to make sure that you—“
The bathroom door bursts open and feet charge in.
Arnelia stands with the swishing of her tunic. I spot fear coming over her face right before her face leaves my vision. The prism thing she holds has turned clear. It looks like any glass pyramid you’d buy at some tourist trap store. Judging from the way she lets her arm fall to her side, the weapon is out of power. She's used it all on me.
At the top of my vision, Isabel seizes her arm. Arnelia faces her. "What is your issue? This girl is sick. Why are you not helping her up?"
She's keeping the fact that she knows me a secret. Smart girl.
"She's fine," Isabel counters. "My question is, what have you done to her? We've heard of that thing you're carrying."
Arnelia holds up the prism. "This is only a trinket. Does it appear dangerous?"
“Julia!” Simon’s leaning down at me. For once, I wish he wasn't here. That no one else was here. He shakes my shoulder. "Great. I can't believe you got hit by that. Can you blink yet?"
I need to know what Arnelia had to say to me.
Is she here to stop me or help me save my family? And why?
Arnelia and Isabel wrestle for the prism behind Simon. Isabel pushes her against the sink. Arnelia flinches like it's covered in slime. She's not used to our barbaric facilities in this time. They must have better bathrooms in the year 5052.
I blink. I can move something now. Whatever she zapped me with is wearing off. “Uhhhh….”
“Sit up.” Simon's thick eyebrows rise. “I've never been at the receiving end of one of those, but I hear it's quite scary."
“Ummmmm…” I sit up against the wall and my head tilts.
He's in the girls' bathroom so he knew that something was up.
“Simon? Why did you run in here? It's forbidden territory for you.” Monica's standing in the doorway, staring down at me. Her eyes widen. “Oh. Julia. Did you pass out?" She leans down to study me. I keep my gaze to the floor in case—just in case—she spots something strange in my eyes.
I have a lot of explaining to do.
“She's not feeling well,” Simon supplies. “Sorry. I know I shouldn't have come in here. Julia's dizzy.”
“I'm okay now.” I can talk now. I stand, just to prove that I'm all right. There's no way that Simon could have known that I was dizzy when he was standing in the hall. He must know about that weapon Arnelia has.
But I can't worry about that now. Arnelia's still standing here, silent and waiting. I know what for: to go back. She dares to glance at me out of the corner of her eye. I know what it means. We need to talk. Again.
But how? She's going to go back soon to her own time and I don't even know what it is.
“Take Julia out of here,” Isabel says. She tightens her grip on Arnelia's arm. “Get Frank.” She
I know what it means. Monica won't leave the bathroom unless I go and Arnelia can't go back unless Monica leaves. There can't be a witness. She's already going to have questions that I can't answer.
I stand on wobbly legs. I'm like a newborn calf, helpless and staggering as I make my way to the door. Simon keeps his arm under mine for support.
Monica follows us. She's not going to leave me alone when I'm like this.
“Okay,” she says. “What really happened in there?” She's staring right into my eyes and I flinch, afraid she might spot a flash of gold. But my actions are only making her more suspicious. I can see that in the way she steps closer. “What did that girl do to you? She wasn't exactly helping you off the floor.”
Rats. I feel awful lying to her. “I just felt dizzy and called for Simon. I totally forgot that I was, you know, in the girls' bathroom,” I say. Then I think of Arnelia still in there with Isabel and I add, “I don't know what's going on between that one girl and Isabel. Your guess is as good as mine. I haven't been at my old school in a long time.”
“I still don't believe that she didn't do anything.” Monica furrows her brows at me. She's not buying it. “I'm sorry, but I don't trust people. I know how it is.” She's saying way more than that. I know that people don't talk about these things when they happen.
Simon glances at me. He's nervous. The heart-shaped mole on his nose has turned into a tense diamond. I'm caught. I'm so caught. But I can't break down and tell Monica about time travel and about the fact that this girl is from some distant future where prisms have replaced stun guns and walls and turn into rifts. “Okay. Me and her had...a disagreement once,” I lie. “I don't want to go into it now. I didn't think she was still mad. Can you call Nancy and have her pick us up? I don't think I can walk home. I'm a little upset. I'm not hurt, though. I just got pushed into the wall.”
“Simon was helping you up.” Monica takes in both of us. She's thinking. Thinking hard.
“Monica,” Simon says.
She faces him. He stares at her and her expression goes blank.
He's doing a mind trick on her. Now.
“Simon!” I can't help but feel angry. Monica isn't here to be manipulated by us all the time. It's bad enough that we had to do mind tricks on her to make her remember me. Monica's not some nuisance that we have to work around. She's family. And if I have to face this myself, I will.
Monica blinks, snapping out of it. “Oh, what was I saying?” she asks.
“I think we should go.” I point down the hall. “From what Isabel said, someone from my old school who I don't really want to see is coming.” That part's true. At least I'm not lying this time.
Monica gives me another suspicious look, turns away, and pulls out her phone. Footfalls approach. It's Frank, running towards us down the empty hall as fast as he can. He's late to the party.
Simon nods at him and points to the girls' bathroom. F
rank balks for a second, then quietly slips in. Monica's raising the phone to her ear and facing the lockers. She's missed him. That's good, because we really have no way to explain why Frank and Isabel are in the girls' bathroom together.
But I know what's going on. Frank and Isabel are sending Arnelia back, the way that they sent me. I'm disappointed that I'm not going to see how they're doing it since when they come out, Arnelia will be gone. I hope they wait until we get Monica out of here.
“Nancy,” Monica says into the phone. “Julia's not feeling well. She passed out in the bathroom. Can you come get us?”
“Let's go to the front entrance. I need air,” I say. Monica needs to follow us there and I think I can walk on my own now. My knees quake, but whatever Arnelia zapped me with seems to be almost worn off now.
Simon and I make our way away from that bathroom and towards the front of the school. Monica follows us, silent with phone in hand. Guilt bubbles up deep in my gut. I lied to my best friend, my sister, and I'm keeping her out of my new life. Maybe Monica is right that I'm drifting away from her.
“Thanks,” I tell her, leaning against the doorway of the school once we get there. We've left Frank and Isabel well behind us, to where they're sending Arnelia back to her safe, secure future. A time unlike mine. A time where she didn't have to watch her little brother die.
Julia...help us...
I can't get those words out of my head or those zombies, begging for me to save them.
Arnelia said she was here to make sure of something. Of what, I don't know. Does she want to help me and Simon rescue my family? Or does she want to stop us?
Simon's thought of nothing yet in that department. I glance at him. He waits there for Nancy's car, staring off into the horizon like he's lost. Does he have any ideas yet about saving my family?
I see none in his eyes. And I can't ask him now, not with Monica standing here. Nancy will put me to bed as soon as I'm home so I won't be able to see Simon again until late tonight, when he crawls through my window.
When that happens, we'll have to find Arnelia again.
Chapter Five
I'm right that Nancy makes me go right to bed as soon as we're home, even though I feel fine once I make it through the door.
“Lie down,” she says, pointing to my bed from the hall. “I'll make you some tea. Are you are you don't still feel dizzy?”
“I'm sure.” I can't hold in my relief that she's not running me to Urgent Care. They would do an exam on me. Once, Monica had to go to the doctor because she’d passed out in school last year and they drew her blood. They would do the same to me. I remember the gold stuff oozing out of Frank's nose from the first time Simon punched him back in 1912 and my stomach turns over. If I see that…“Well, maybe I do feel a little sick still, but not dizzy. I'll be fine.”
I head to bed and flop down on it, trying to clear that thought away. I turn my thoughts to school instead.
Arnelia knew who I was. A nobody. Someone who shouldn't even be alive.
Someone who cheated death.
And I pretty much failed my first assignment. If Simon and Isabel hadn’t come in right after me, I might have been punished by Time and sent to live in those awful quarters.
And how did Arnelia keep her memories when she crossed through the rift? No mortal can. It's part of the safeguard that keeps time flowing the way it should. But if Arnelia's smart, then Frank and Isabel have no idea what happened.
I roll over. This isn’t making me feel any better.
Nancy returns with the tea. I take it and realize that she expects me to at least take a sip in front of her. I sit up in bed. My stomach’s better now, but she’s standing there, worry creasing her eyes and frown lines forming on her cheeks. If I don’t drink, it’s doctor time for certain.
I raise the mug to my mouth and let the hot tea pour in. “Thanks,” I say when I’m done. “That made my stomach settle down. I think I’ll be good if I just lie here since I missed a lot of sleep last night.”
“Are you having nightmares again?” Nancy asks.
I sit up taller. I’ve never told her about those. Monica must have—
“No. Just bad sleep,” I say.
Monica’s got to be really worried about me if she’s telling Nancy that I’m having nightmares. I'll have to talk to her more tomorrow about all of this. This will give me time to think of what to say.
“I suppose I should let you rest,” Nancy says, going for my door. “Let me know if you don’t feel better by morning.”
“Nancy, thanks.”
She smiles at me and closes the door.
I lie in bed for a long time, watching the shadows grow longer across my room and watching the light go from yellow to orange. Dark will come soon, and Simon will knock on my window at around eleven. It’s our agreed-on time. Nancy goes to bed at nine, and starts snoring by nine forty-five every night. It’s like clockwork.
I close my eyes. There’s nothing I can do until he gets here. He might know something about people from the future and their stun-prisms. Then I'm going to plan a way to talk to Arnelia again.
I also want to grill him for trying to do another mind trick on Monica.
I drift.
Grays and blacks swirl around me and I fall deeper into sleep.
I’m running.
Stars wink overhead and I bolt across the open deck of the Titanic, arms pumping, skirts swishing around me. My heart races. I’m almost out of time. Water moves peacefully below, whispering in the night, but my breath comes ragged in the freezing air.
I have to warn them. To stop us from hitting the iceberg. To save my brother and my father.
“Hey!” I shout, looking up into the night sky, to where the crows’ nest towers above the deck, a black shape in the night. “There’s going to be an—“
Someone crashes into me and I go down onto the ice cold deck.
I gasp as my back hits. Spots dance in my vision, red and yellow and every shade in between. I blink and they clear enough for me to tell who’s leaning over me.
Frank.
And he’s got a knife pointing down at my chest, the very same one he tried to murder me with before.
“Sorry, Julia,” he says, solemn and sad. “But some things have to be sacrificed.”
He plunges the knife into my chest.
A pressure explodes in my heart and I lurch. He retracts the knife, and in the starlight I can see that it’s dripping with blood. Red blood.
I cough. It’s wet. Slimy. The world’s growing dark and I’m trembling. Mist explodes in front of my face as I breathe the life right out of me.
I'm not supposed to die. I'm supposed to be immortal.
But I'm still slipping away.
The warning bell tolls above me three times. There's shouting from the crows' nest. They've spotted the iceberg. I didn't warn them in time.
I cough. Frank stands back and looks away, like he can't stand to watch me die.
I've failed.
Failed to save my family.
I gag and my gaze rolls to the stars--
--and I blink the canopy away and my ceiling spreads out in front of me.
I'm back in my bedroom.
I sit up, clutching my chest. There's an ache there, like Frank's knife is still lodged inside, twisting around my heart.
I breathe in. There's no rattle. My gaze falls on my clock.
11:39 p.m.
My stomach lurches, joining the ache in my own inner storm.
It's the minute before the Titanic hit the iceberg.
And I died in my nightmare. I actually died when I shouldn't.
There's a knock at the window.
I turn. Simon. He's arrived late tonight.
I rush to the window. The ache in my chest fades away at the sight of him. He manages a smile on the other side of the screen. I'm not fooled. There's some stress lines in it.
The window opens with a creak. We face each other through the screen and I listen. Yep.
Nancy's snores are floating down the hall and I don't hear any noise coming from Monica's room. It's safe.
“Get in here,” I say.
Simon crawls in and lands on my bed, cross-legged. Even in the moonlight, I can see the concerned way he's looking at me.
“You just had a nightmare, didn't you?”
I let my face fall to my hand. “It's that obvious.”
“I'm sorry I wasn't here at eleven. I can't really chase those dreams away when I'm not here.”
“This was different this time.”
Simon's eyebrows rise. “Different?”
I swallow, trying to tell myself it was just some anxiety dream and nothing else. But I can't. Just the fact that I woke up from it at 11:39 makes it sound way too similar to the 2:20 nightmare all over again.
“Look at the time.”
Simon does. “Eleven forty-one,” he reads.
“Now subtract two minutes. What time did I wake up?”
“Oh,” he says. “Oh. Tell me what happened in it.”
I do. Simon sits there on the edge of the bed, feet fidgeting on the floor as I finish.
He sits there and looks at the wall for a long time.
“Well?” I ask. I'm shaking. “What do you think it means?”
He sighs. “I don't know. Julia, maybe you should stay away from the Hub for a while until we figure this out. I wouldn't be surprised if Frank's still bent on...you know.”
“Seeing me die?” I grab the edge of the bed with both hands. “What is his problem? What did I ever do to him?”
“Nothing, of course. I don't understand why he is the way he is. He never talks about his past to anyone, not even the other Timeless."
“Maybe he was a murderer where he came from.”
“I don't think it's that simple. Isabel never told me much about him when I asked. Frank doesn't open up even to her.”
“They're not even getting along now.”
“Well, lure a five-year-old into a pond and see how much your girlfriend likes you after that. Isabel wasn't exactly pulling me off Frank during our fight."
