Sent

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  What if that’s our fate? Chip had asked just a few moments earlier. The words still seemed to be echoing in Jonah’s mind.

  “No,” Jonah muttered to himself. “We have choices. …”

  He started to step out of the shadows.

  At that exact moment the tracer/Chip gave a particularly hard kick, knocking against his bedside table, toppling the candle off the edge.

  The flame vanished, snuffed by the fall to the floor.

  Instantly the room was plunged into darkness, except for the dim glow of the night sky outside the window, and the occasional bursts of tracer lights when Chip and Alex briefly separated from their fifteenth-century selves. The candle must have been extinguished in the original version of history too, because no tracers of the men appeared.

  “Shall I—,” one of the men began.

  “Leave it,” the other growled back. “It matters not. What we have to do, we can do in darkness.”

  “So can we!” Jonah whispered delightedly to Katherine. “This is our chance!”

  She only stared at him stupidly.

  “The men can’t see the tracer lights!” Jonah hissed.

  In the next burst of light—from a particularly strong squirm by Alex—Jonah saw comprehension flow over Katherine’s face.

  The men were walking fast now, directly toward Jonah and Katherine, and toward the dim, practically nonexistent light coming in the window. Jonah reached out cautiously, feeling for Chip’s arm. This time he touched sweatshirt material—surely they didn’t have sweatshirts in the fifteenth century, did they? He squeezed tightly, his fingers circling Chip’s arm. He tugged, trying to pull Chip away from the tracer, away from the man.

  In one quick movement the man lifted the tracer/Chip up. He lifted him up and heaved him toward the window.

  SEVEN

  Jonah saw the glowing tracers fly out the window and plummet toward the ground, one boy after the other. He couldn’t make sense of the sight. Was his mind still slowed by the timesickness? Was he just too flat-out stunned to understand?

  They’re glowing head to toe, every inch of them, he thought. Why? They weren’t doing that a minute ago. The only things that glowed were the parts that separated from Chip and Alex—hands, feet, maybe an occasional elbow. …

  Jonah was working on a grisly calculation, figuring that maybe Chip and Alex, being heavier than their tracers, had separated while falling toward the ground. No, wait—we studied this at school. Galileo dropping cannonballs—it doesn’t matter how heavy two things are, they fall at the same rate. So … so …

  So Chip and Alex must not have gone out the window with their tracers.

  So that was why Jonah still had his hand around Chip’s arm.

  Relief and understanding washed over Jonah.

  He must have pulled Chip away from his tracer at the very last minute, just as the man was trying to fling the boy out the window. Trying to assassinate the king.

  Murderer, Jonah thought, his heart pounding faster. Not a rescuer at all.

  But Jonah had stopped the assassination attempt. Only empty, glowing tracers had plunged toward the ground, not the real, live human boys, not King Edward V, alias Chip Winston, or Prince Richard, alias Alex Polchak. Chip was right there, Jonah clutching him by both arms now—Jonah’s hands had somehow known to work together, even though his brain hadn’t caught up. And Jonah couldn’t see Alex or Katherine over in the thick darkness on the other side of the men, but Katherine must have succeeded too, since Alex’s tracer had glowed just as much as Chip’s.

  Jonah wanted to scream and cheer and beat the air with his fists, as if he’d just scored the winning goal in the last seconds of a soccer game. Childishly, he even wanted to stick out his tongue and taunt the would-be assassins, Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. You lose! We win!

  But more than that, he wanted to make sure that the murderers didn’t know that he and Chip and Katherine and Alex were there. He didn’t want to have saved Chip and Alex, only to ruin everything with a boast. Or a sneeze, cough, or too-loud breath.

  He pulled Chip farther back from the window. If he’d dared, Jonah would have slid behind the heavy cloth wall hanging. But his mind was kicking back into gear, projecting what-if scenarios. What if the wall hanging’s attached to the stones by something metal at the top, and that rattles when we’re trying to hide? What if, in the darkness, the men walk right into us, and we can’t see them coming because we’re hiding behind the wall hanging? Jonah froze, paralyzed by all the disasters he could picture in his mind.

  The men were both leaning over the edge of the window, their figures nothing but dark silhouettes against the sky outside. Jonah stared at them, watching for the first glow of tracer light, the first hint that they were reacting differently than they had in the original version of history. There wasn’t the slightest gleam about them; they must not have felt the effects of Chip and Alex being pulled away. Probably that was because they had been jerking back too, reacting to the opposite force from hurling the boys out the window.

  “Come along,” one of the men growled to the other, both still bathed in darkness. “Hurry. Lest we be seen.”

  They pushed away from the window and the faint light of the night sky. Jonah could hear their footsteps—cautious, sneaking back through the room—and his eyes burned trying to make out the slightest glimpse of them. But they were dark figures in darkness, as good as invisible. Then the door at the opposite end of the room swung open, turning the men into silhouettes again. There must have been a torch somewhere far down the hallway, providing just enough light to show the men leaving the room, quietly pulling the door shut behind them.

  Jonah waited a few excruciating moments to make sure the men weren’t coming back. He stared at the darkness that had swallowed the door, willing it to stay darkness.

  He felt a hand on his arm and had to stifle a scream.

  “We did it!” Katherine whispered in his ear. “We saved them!”

  “Katherine, you idiot, you just about scared me to death!” he hissed back. “What if I’d yelped or something?”

  “You didn’t,” she whispered, her old annoying confidence back. “Listen, do you still have the Elucidator?”

  Jonah had forgotten all about the Elucidator. He’d dropped it on the floor eons ago, it seemed, back when the tracers were still curled up safely on the bed. When it had seemed a bit like a game, Alex and Chip melding and separating from their tracers for fun.

  “JB?” he whispered into the darkness.

  “Shh,” JB replied.

  Jonah figured that if it was safe for JB to whisper “Shh,” it was safe for Jonah to crawl across the floor searching for the Elucidator. He let go of Chip’s arms, and Chip sagged helplessly against the wall. Was he in shock or something? Was that why he hadn’t even said thank you yet?

  “Don’t worry,” Katherine told Chip soothingly. “Jonah’s going to get us out of here. We can go home now.”

  I am? Jonah thought. We can?

  But now that Katherine had planted the idea in his head, it seemed brilliant. (Not that he would ever admit that to Katherine.) Getting away from the murderers, getting away from this alien time when Columbus hadn’t even discovered America yet, getting away from this place where blowing out a candle could ruin history forever—Jonah couldn’t wait.

  He dropped to his knees and began advancing toward the center of the room, sweeping his hands out in front of him. The floor was made of stone—maybe the same kind of stones as the walls—so it wasn’t easy feeling around for something that was essentially impersonating a large pebble. But luck was with him. He’d barely left Katherine and Chip behind when his hand landed on something flat and round. He lifted it toward his mouth so he didn’t have to speak so loudly.

  “JB!” he whispered into the rock. “You can bring us all back now! Back home! We saved Chip and Alex, and nobody noticed! We saved them and time, just like we said we would!”

  “Are you sure?” JB hissed back.<
br />
  “Oh, yeah,” Jonah said. He didn’t even have to think about his answer. “Chip and Alex are fine.”

  “But their originals, the tracers …”

  “Um, well, I don’t think they’re going to be having any more impact on history,” Jonah said. He found he couldn’t quite bring himself to tell JB exactly what had happened. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t know exactly how far off the ground they were, but it had looked a long way down. Far enough to kill. Far enough that no one could survive a fall like that.

  “Why not?” JB asked sharply.

  Jonah swallowed hard.

  “Look,” he said. “They’re dead. The murderers are still close by. So get us out of here!”

  “Can you still see the tracers?” JB persisted.

  Jonah stood up, still holding on to the Elucidator. He tiptoed over to the window and looked straight down, into darkness. Then he crouched low again, out of sight.

  “No,” he told JB. “Is that what happens when someone’s tracer dies? The tracer just disappears?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then, there’s your proof!” Jonah said. All this talk of death was making him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to think about how close Chip and Alex had come to dying, about what the murderers might have done if they’d seen Jonah and Katherine. “Please! It’s time! Get us away from here!”

  “You really think Chip and Alex can leave without changing history?” JB asked.

  “Of course!” Jonah said, raising his voice a bit. Why wouldn’t JB listen? Didn’t he trust them?

  Outside he heard someone shouting.

  “What’d he say?” he asked Katherine, who was standing closer to the window. Katherine shrugged, the motion barely detectable in the darkness.

  Another voice joined the first. This was the kind of hubbub Jonah would have expected from people discovering dead bodies on the ground. Maybe JB was wrong; maybe tracer corpses were visible.

  The shouts grew louder, and finally Jonah could make out the words.

  “Where are the bodies?” the voices were shouting. “Where did they go?”

  EIGHT

  Oh, Jonah thought, suddenly feeling so faint he had to brace himself against the stone floor for support. We already did change history. …

  In the original version of history, Jonah realized, anyone looking for the prince and the king would have found them crushed on the ground. Their bodies would have been seen. There would have been proof that they’d died. There would have been bodies to bury; probably hundreds of people had seen the dead boys at their funeral.

  Because of us, none of that will happen, Jonah thought dizzily. Because of us, there’s no proof of anything. The boys just vanished. So …

  Before Jonah could follow that thought to its logical conclusion, he felt Chip grabbing the Elucidator out of his hand.

  “Get us out of here! Now!” Chip demanded. He sounded like a king giving orders, a king who expected to be obeyed.

  “No,” JB said.

  Chip hurled the Elucidator toward the floor.

  “You wanted us to die from the beginning,” he snarled. “That’s the only outcome you’ll accept! You won’t be happy until we’re dead on the ground out there!”

  Jonah’s stomach gave a sickening lurch at the word “dead.” He’s right, Jonah thought, horrified. No matter what we do, as long as there are no bodies out there, we can’t fix time. And JB knew that.

  “JB!” Jonah moaned. “You’re as bad as the murderers!”

  “No,” JB said. “Listen! History—”

  “I don’t want to listen! I don’t care about history!” Chip screamed.

  He kicked at the Elucidator—Jonah could feel the breeze from the force of Chip’s leg, kicking hard—and the Elucidator skittered across the floor. Then Jonah heard it hit the wall across the room.

  Instantly a soft glow appeared in that area.

  “JB?” Jonah whispered.

  No answer.

  Jonah rushed across the room and scooped up the glowing Elucidator. It had a screen now; it wasn’t just a rock. The words EMERGENCY REPAIR NEEDED glowed in soft green letters.

  EMERGENCY REPAIR NEEDED faded into different words: PRESS RESTORE.

  “But where’s …”

  A bluish button labeled RESTORE suddenly appeared on the Elucidator. Jonah pushed against it. The Elucidator seemed to change shapes in Jonah’s hand. It looked like a cell phone again—no, it looked like a pocket watch. A club. A pair of dice. A spoon. A book. Jonah blinked, and might have missed a couple of changes, because the Elucidator was zipping in and out of shapes so quickly it blurred.

  Then it was a rock again.

  The screen still glowed faintly in the center of the rock, holding the words CONSERVATION OF ENERGY NEEDED DURING RESTORATION—CHOOSE OPTIONS and then CONTINUE TRANSLATIONS? Y/N.

  “Not that it does much good,” Jonah muttered, but he hit the Y.

  Those words faded, and now the Elucidator offered him a new choice: MUTE? Y/N.

  “You bet we want to mute it,” Chip said, peering suddenly over Jonah’s shoulder.

  “But then we won’t be able to talk to JB,” Jonah said.

  “Exactly,” Chip said.

  “No! Wait …,” JB’s voice came from the Elucidator.

  Jonah thought about the glowing tracers plunging toward the ground. He thought about how JB had wanted that to be Chip and Alex. He stabbed his finger at the Y.

  The Elucidator was just a silent rock in Jonah’s hand.

  “So there,” Chip said.

  “I thought you were all for fate,” Jonah said. “A few minutes ago you sounded like you were on JB’s side. Like you thought you were supposed to die.”

  “Yeah …,” Chip said. His voice trailed off. “I don’t know. It was weird how I felt. But now—”

  “Um, guys?” Katherine hissed nervously from across the room. She was still standing by the window, peering out at the men in the courtyard below. “I don’t think we have time to talk about fate and feelings right now.”

  Jonah raced over to the window beside her. He looked out cautiously, hunched down so that only his eyes showed over the bottom edge of the window. Down below, he could make out four torches now, flickering in the wind. The men, whoever they were, appeared to have organized search parties. Jonah squinted, trying to make out which of the figures in the courtyard were tracers and which were actual men. But the courtyard was too far away, the light too uncertain.

  The first time around, the courtyard probably would have been empty and dark, he thought. Someone would have secretly dragged the bodies away … or left them there to be discovered in the morning. …

  He shivered, not wanting to follow those thoughts any further. Two of the torches down below separated from the others. Jonah couldn’t see where they went.

  “They wouldn’t come back up here, would they?” Katherine whispered anxiously. Her teeth seemed to be chattering, but Jonah didn’t know if it was from timesickness or fear.

  Down below, the men were shouting again.

  “Search the chambers!”

  Chambers. Chambers were rooms. The chambers would undoubtedly be the rooms the prince and the king had been in. …

  Katherine grabbed Jonah’s arm, almost making him drop the Elucidator.

  “You’ve got to turn the sound back on,” she said frantically. “JB can tell us what to do. No matter what, he wouldn’t want them to find us.” She choked back a hysterical sob. “We don’t have to listen to him later, but … they’re coming up here now!”

  Indeed, Jonah could hear footsteps echoing outside the door, footsteps that sounded like a whole pack of men tromping up the stairs. They weren’t even trying to be quiet.

  He crouched down and began stabbing blindly at the Elucidator.

  “Where’s the unmute?” he hissed.

  Words glowed on the screen: CHANGING MUTE STATUS NOT ALLOWED DURING RESTORATION PROCESS.

  “Then, sto
p restoring!” Alex said over Jonah’s shoulder.

  Jonah was glad to have his help.

  “Uh … uh,” Jonah stammered, trying to feel for a button on the Elucidator—any button, but preferably one labeled ESCAPE.

  RESTORATION CANNOT BE INTERRUPTED appeared the screen.

  “Can’t we do anything?” Alex moaned.

  DESIRE TO SEE LIST OF ACCEPTABLE ACTIONS DURING RESTORATION PROCESS? Y/N appeared now.

  Four kids at once shoved fingers toward the Y. Katherine and Chip were now crouching beside Jonah and Alex, all four of them huddled around the Elucidator.

  Jonah could hear the footsteps coming closer. They couldn’t have more than a few seconds before the door would burst open and men with torches would swarm into the room.

  Words flooded across the Elucidator screen, moving so quickly that Jonah could barely read them. Or, if he read them, he barely understood. What in the world were “cogency rules”? Or “subtleties of vowel pronunciations”? Why would anyone need “theological arguments” in an emergency like this?

  “That one!” Alex said, shoving Jonah’s hand aside so he could press a single word glowing in the long list on the screen. Jonah didn’t even see the word Alex had chosen until Alex pulled his hand back, letting go.

  Jonah could hear the footsteps out in the hallway, so close now. He read the word on the Elucidator screen: INVISIBILITY.

  NINE

  The entire Elucidator instantly disappeared, even though Jonah could still feel its rocklike form in his palm.

  “Was that just invisibility for the Elucidator?” Jonah asked. “Or are we all …”

  He held his hand up in front of his face. He couldn’t see it, but it was so dark in the room that without the Elucidator’s glow he wouldn’t have been able to see his hand regardless. He thought about standing up, to check in the tiny amount of light coming in through the window. But that didn’t seem like a very intelligent plan with the men’s footfalls sounding just outside the door.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!” Alex groaned. “I just thought—we had to hide the evidence of advanced civilization, even if we can’t save ourselves. …”