by Holly Hook
Simon grabs my hand. "It only takes two of us to do it. Just imagine that there's a hole opening in the air. We both have to focus at the same time. It doesn't matter where we land at this point."
I hear the chimes of the door open. I'm hoping it's just another tired family walking in, but then I hear two men talking. One of them says Isabel.
"Hurry!" she hisses.
I stare at the wall and at the sink. There's an ugly flower vase there. I imagine there's a hole ripping open right in the air, gold and shimmering. My hair stands on end like the air's charged. Something's starting to happen, but the space between us and the mirror stays clear.
"I mean it," Isabel says. "He must know we're in here."
I tune her out. Focus. The air's ripping apart. There's a hole opening right in front of us. I have to believe that. I must.
The space ripples gold. The vase disappears behind it. Simon gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. We're doing it. We're actually doing it. I'm helping to open a rift and we're going to escape.
Footsteps approach and stop outside the door. It's Isabel's father, waiting outside for her to come out. At least he has the decency to not barge in.
Sparkling curtains swish in front of us. The rift's alive. I nod at Isabel, afraid it's going to vanish any second. "Come on."
"Where is it?" Isabel searches the bathroom, gaze darting back and forth.
She's human and can't see most rifts anymore. I forgot. "Here!" I point towards the mirror.
She leaps away from the door like she's afraid it's going to burst open and crush her. I slap my hand on her back and shove her into the gold curtain. She stands there for a moment, swathed in glitter, and vanishes.
There's a loud knock on the door. "Isabel!" The waiter must have told Isabel's father that his daughter ran in here with two strangers, one of them a guy. That door's not going to stay shut for very long.
"Now," I say, pulling Simon towards the rift.
He doesn't need convincing. We both jump at the same time. The air crackles. Gold sweeps around us, gentle and caressing. The door to the bathroom flies open and--
We're falling. The gold roars around us. I scream, but this time with victory. We did it. The first part of our plan is completed.
And then we land.
The cold air of the Hub wraps around me. I fall with a grunt. My hands meet the crystal floor and pain sears across my palms. Simon does the same next to me.
I seethe until the pain goes away. Simon gets on his knees and pats me on the back. "Are you okay, Julia?"
"I think so. That wasn't a graceful landing."
He's silent next to me. I don't like that. Somewhere close, Isabel breathes heavily.
"You've got to get up." Simon's serious now. Very serious.
The tone of his voice sends sickness through my insides.
I stand.
The Hub's not the same as we left it.
There's angry red light glowing behind all the crystal. Simon stands there, the crimson glow on his face casting weird shadows under his eyes. It's almost like there's a skull in front of me, not my soul mate. Isabel waits behind him, her hair reflecting fire. The doorway that we just came out of--one now labeled Northern Germany, 1945--spits gold sparks down onto the crystal floor like it's enraged. I jump away. The rift inside still swishes, but it's faster now like it's suffering from some kind of spasm.
"Simon, what's going on?"
The entire hallway's this way. The gold curtains still wave inside all the doorways, but they look bloody in the glow now, evil almost. A few of them shoot sparks. Others still look normal.
"Whatever it is, I hope we hurt Time," Simon says. "It deserves to suffer."
"We changed history," Isabel says. "Time must not be happy with us. I've never seen the Hub do this before. Well, I suppose that technically this is the first time I've seen the Hub." She shakes her head and rubs her hand over the butterfly that's still clipped to her hair. "I have memories of things that never even happened now. I remember meeting Frank here. Learning English from him. Having to track you, Julia. You outsmarting Time. I even remember going to see Arnelia and working this plan out." Her voice shakes. There's no going back now and we all know it.
Then she lunges forward.
Hugs me.
"Thank you." She hugs me so tight I can barely breathe. "You saved my mother and my sister. You have no idea how long I have--or would have--waited for this moment." I can feel her holding down sobs.
"It was...no problem," I lie. "I'm glad they're safe." Then a horrible thought hits me. "Wait--when Simon and I stay human in our old time, we'll never go Timeless and stop the Gustloff from sinking. Isabel, you'll end up in the same place all over again!"
"She's right." Simon steps closer and slaps his hand to his forehead. "We didn't think this out well enough. Julia and I will be fine, but what about you? This isn't fair."
Isabel takes off the butterfly. There's a grave expression on her face. The shadows grow deeper under her eyes. "I've thought of this. That's why you need to put your memories on Arnelia's device and I need to give them back to you on the Titanic." She hands me the butterfly. "Then the two of you need to stay alive in 1912. If you do that, you should both still be alive in 1945." She glances at both of us in turn. "Who said that you need to be Timeless to stop my family from boarding the Gustloff in the first place?"
"Oh." I get it. "You need me to take all these memories so I'll know that once 1945 rolls around, we should find you and stop you from going to your death." I exchange a glance with Simon. I'm glad we're talking about something other than the altered Hub. "We'll be like, fifty at that point."
"That's okay," Simon says. "We can do it. We'll have over thirty years to plan. We might even be able to find you before the war starts. Don't worry, Isabel."
"We'll find you," I say. "We're not going to let you down. Especially after this."
She smiles but I can tell she's worried. It's there in her eyes, which look dark gray in the bloody light. Next to her, the Germany rift ejects a fresh round of sparks. They land by her feet and she flinches. I wait for her to jump back, but remember that she can no longer see most rifts. "You might want to move. Some of the rifts are doing strange things," I tell her.
I go to put the butterfly on, but Isabel holds up her hand. "Don't erase my memories. If I go find you on the Titanic, I will need the butterfly again. Traveling to 1912 will block my memories. I'll need a way to get them back." There's pain in her voice. She knows I'm about to see things she's not proud of.
I put on the hair clip. Tap the butterfly's head once.
My scalp tingles. There's an instant headache that starts on top of my head and gets more intense until it makes me wince. But after a few seconds the pain fades and I'm left with a buzzing sensation that covers my whole hairline.
"Ladies," Simon says. He sounds like he's a million miles away. I stand there, waiting for the buzzing to die down as this thing copies my life into its memory.
I catch flashes. Isabel, five years old, sitting on a picnic blanket with her mother and father. Her father's in a regular suit, not an SS uniform. Isabel, sitting next to a tutor and learning piano. She and her parents listening to the radio in the living room. There's a Nazi flag hanging above their fireplace. A photo of her father on the mantel in his uniform. I can feel the past Isabel's pride. Her present revulsion.
The tingling stops. Arnelia's device has stored my memories. I take it off.
Isabel's eyes are red. She's close to tears, but they're tears of relief. I understand how she feels. When my brother and my father escape the Titanic--and I'm going to believe that they are--I'll probably do the same thing.
"Ladies," Simon repeats. He's louder. Desperate.
I turn. He's staring down the hall, to where it curves into fog the color of blood.
There's silence. Then, a loud dragging noise sounds from down the hall as if someone's pulling a cinder block across the floor. Deep in the red mist there's an ind
istinct movement like someone moving behind drapes. It's large enough to take up the entire corridor.
My heart leaps into my throat and I'm frozen there. The thing moves again and there's another, louder dragging noise. It's getting closer.
Simon clamps his hand down on my shoulder. "We had better go."
"I think you're right." I pull my foot from the floor. "What have we done?"
Chapter Eighteen
The three of us run.
The rest of the Hub is no better.
It's red, red, red everywhere like Time itself is inflamed. Some of the rifts spark with anger. Others remain calm. There's no one else in the corridor, like whatever's coming up behind us has scared them off. Simon and I have upset something and badly.
Is this what Frank was so afraid of? Has he seen this before?
The hallway curves up ahead to the Main Chamber. The fog's thicker up here. Something scrapes again behind us. It's closer. That thing's catching up. I don't want to know what it is.
"We should duck into a rift," I say. "One that's in another hallway."
"Good idea." Simon runs beside me and Isabel puffs behind us.
We emerge from the corridor. The Main Chamber opens up. Red swirls around us and the expanse of the floor vanishes into it. If I didn't know better I'd say we were standing at the edge of an infinite ballroom of mist. It's like the universe has ended.
"What is going on here?" Simon asks.
"You're asking me?" I face him. "None of us knows what's going on. Well, except for--"
"Me."
It's Frank's voice, echoing somewhere in the red void.
“Okay,” I yell. I'm too scared to be furious with him. I can't tell how close he is. “Show yourself. This needs an explanation.”
Footsteps. Frank's approaching. Somewhere behind us the dragging noise sounds again. I have an urge to grab Simon and Isabel and run, to go anywhere away from whatever's coming up the corridor behind us. But I have to hear what Frank has to say. He's the only one with the answers.
Frank appears, a dark silhouette at first. He stops ten feet away. He's haggard, his face long and almost skeletal in the light. His hair's a mess, his eyes bloodshot.
“I told you not to keep going with your plan,” he says, flat and lifeless. “Now you've released them.”
“I figured,” I say. He doesn't look like he's here to stop us. He just seems...resigned. “Frank—we need to get out of here. Just let us go and we won't cause any more problems.” I'm not sure why I'm saying that. There's no way he can keep all three of us here.
“It's not that simple,” he says.
“Nothing's simple with you.” Isabel balls her fists and stares daggers into him. “You weren't the one who offered to help save my family. You never offered to help. All you've ever cared about is your job no matter how much it hurts everybody else. I loved you, Frank, and you never once tried to make this easier for me!”
Frank takes a step back, hurt. “But I did. I tried to send Julia back without having to get you involved, and--”
“By hurting people,” she continues. “By trying to kill people."
There's another loud scrape behind us. How far is that thing behind us?
“Death is better than some things!” Frank shouts. Isabel's hit a nerve. Frank's turning just as red as the mist around us. “Fine. Do you want to know why I'm the way I am? I was like the three of you once. When I first became Timeless, I made a plan to save my twin brother from death in the Battle of Gettysburg."
Since falls. I stare at Frank. There's no trace of a lie on his face.
"You had a twin brother?" Isabel asks. She softens and unclenches her hands. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I couldn't speak about him until now." Frank's voice cracks. He's breaking apart. "Time would not allow me to."
"But I was also Timeless when you could have told me. You're allowed to talk about your past with other Timeless, you know." She looks at both of us and back to Frank. "How come you can talk about your past now? I'm human. You shouldn't be able to."
"She's right," Simon says. I don't miss the nerves in his voice. He's just as scared of the thing behind us as I am. He takes my arm. Pulls me away from the corridor and closer to Frank. I'm glad for it.
Another sound like someone dragging a huge bag of water follows. Whatever's coming must move slow, but it'll get here soon. We don't have much time. I know I should run, do anything to get away, but we have to get to the bottom of this. There might not be another chance.
"This is a special case," Frank says. He looks over his shoulder, then back at us. "Time is sick. Very sick. It gets this way whenever someone makes a huge change to history. It's in no shape to stop me from talking about what I want now."
An awful feeling bubbles up inside me. We've screwed something up. How badly? "Time...is sick?"
"This is its body, after all," Frank says. He's talking faster. "The three of you must have changed history somewhere, and I think I know where. Isabel, I told you it wasn't worth stopping the Gustloff from sinking."
She lunges at him. Swings a fist, which lands on his stony chest with no effect. "You should understand if you lost your twin brother!"
"I do!" He pushes her away and holds up his hands. "I really do. But there's something that happens when you change history that's so much worse. Trust me."
"What is it?" I stand beside Isabel. "Stop skirting around the subject and just tell us."
Frank lets out a breath. The air feels electric like there's a big ball of energy approaching us. My hair stands on end.
"You want my story? Here." He stuffs his hands in his pockets and takes them out again. "Fred and I lied about our ages and enlisted in the Union Army. We served together for months. Relied on each other to get through the hard times. Then the day of the battle came. The two of us were supposed to die in a cannon blast. Time saved me. It left him to perish. I saw my brother blown apart right before the rift took me away." Frank's scarlet now. I can't help but watch and listen. "I tried to go back and get him, but of course we Timeless can't go back to times we lived in. So I had a Timeless friend named Sven go back to the Battle of Gettysburg and mark my brother with my blood," he says. "To make a long story short, we got Fred to the Hub. Time claimed him and he became like me. But we'd left a lot of friends back in the battle who died. Fred and I decided we'd send Sven to stop our troop from going into that battle in the first place."
"Why haven't I heard of this Sven guy?" Simon asks. His eyes are big. Scared, like he's putting the pieces to a horrible puzzle together.
Frank ignores him. He speaks quickly. "It changed the outcome of the battle. The Civil War dragged on for two more years. More people died. Time became sick, just like now."
Two watery scrapes. My skin tingles. "Simon--we need to--"
"The reason you haven't heard of Sven is that he no longer exists." Frank drops his face to his hands. "And neither does my twin brother. You used to know them both, Simon. You and Sven were good friends. You even worked together on your first assignment. The one with the knight."
I remember Simon's story about that, and the fact that he couldn't remember who he'd been paired with. Now I know why that bothered him so much.
"What?" he sputters. "But Timeless memories can't be messed with. I couldn't have forgotten."
Frank steps closer. He glares right into Simon's face. "There's one thing that can erase our memories. That's the Chronophages."
"The what?" I ask.
Frank turns to me. His eyes are bloodshot. Bloody gold streaks through the blue in them. He stares hard into me. "We aren't the only things Time uses to protect itself. Sometimes, even we try to mess things up. Time understands that. That's why it sends the Chronophages after us if we dare pull these stunts. They can't leave the Hub or attack mortals, but...but they eat us Timeless who meddle with history! And each time, they make the rest of us forget. The only reason I still exist and remember it all is that I made a deal with them. I'd stop othe
r Timeless from messing with history if they left me alone. Yes, I'm a coward, but you don't understand. Death is better than letting them get you. At least when you die there's a chance that a part of you goes on. When you get eaten by those things...it's all over. Your body and soul both get destroyed. You should have let me kill you when I could, Julia. It would have been easier for you."
"Why didn't you tell us this earlier?" I ask, trying to hide the explosion of terror inside. I move farther away from where I think the entrance to the corridor is. The Chronophage must be ready to come out any second.
"We've got to get close to the middle of the room," Isabel says. She's a blur in the fog but her voice is high with fear. "There's more than one of them, right?"
"You're perfectly safe now," Frank tells her. "All of us--to the middle. It'll buy us a little more time. There's at least one Chronophage in each corridor. They're slow, but they're chasing us all out here."
"Shouldn't we think of a way out before they find us?" I ask. My voice is rising. I can't help it. Any horror I felt on the Gustloff is an anthill compared to this. Black walls of fear close in. I hold back a scream.
"There is no way out," Frank says, running into the mist. "The rifts are closed to all Timeless in here. We're all trapped until those things find us. Didn't you see them sparking?"
I grab Simon's hand and run after him. "Well, can't we hide in our quarters?"
"That's closed too. I've tried before."
"Then what?" I exchange a glance with Simon. His wide, brown eyes match my terror. "I take it we can't open a rift, either?"
"No. We wait," Frank says.
I'm dizzy running further into the red mist. I can't tell if I'm about to smack into the wall on the other side or if we're going to run into one of those things. I keep my hand locked with Simon's. He's breathing heavy.
We pass a figure standing in the mist. It's the caveman Simon and I saw leading the other guy back to his time. He's turned away from us, staring into space. We bolt past a woman in a Victorian-era dress. A man bundled up for Siberia. We're running through a crowd of other Timeless, all trapped here while the Chronophages hunt us down. No one's talking. Everyone's just waiting, confused.
