Deep breath in and then long breath out. I catch a whiff of lilac and can hear the soft clink of wind chimes.
There’s a stone wall around the monastery, but it’s low enough that I can still see what’s going on. Last week I really lucked out—I had a rare glimpse of one of the monks doing his laundry. Today, though, everything is quiet.
“Hi, Cale,” says a voice behind me.
I jump.
“Sorry to startle you,” Abbie says.
No kidding. How did she know I was here? “It’s okay,” I say.
“Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Sure, go ahead.” I slide over a bit. Abbie is acting all serious, which isn’t like her. Something must be up.
“How’s your foot?” she asks.
“You heard about it?”
“Yeah. Nassim told me … after,” she says quietly.
“It’s not too bad,” I say. “It would have been a lot worse if the Chinese had picked three as their favorite number instead of nine.”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Never mind,” I say. “It’s a joke. A not very funny one.”
“What’s in the box?” she asks, pointing.
“I got it on the subway from some Girl Scouts.”
“Shame on you, stealing from Girl Scouts.”
“I didn’t. If anyone stole, it’s them. I gave them my last 1871 half-dollar for this box.”
“Well, can I have one?”
“Sure.”
I hold the box open in front of her. Her fingers dance in the air for a moment and then pluck up one of the fortune cookies.
Abbie breaks the cookie open and pulls out a small piece of paper. A smile spreads across her face. “Listen to this.” She moves closer to me on the bench so that our legs are touching. “The best ship to have in a storm is friendship. It’s true, isn’t it, Cale? Like you and me. Now open yours.”
I pick a cookie and break it open. Reading the message silently, a shiver goes through me, and I quickly close my fist over the slim piece of paper.
“Well, what does it say?” she asks.
“Nothing. It’s dumb,” I answer.
“C’mon, I read you mine.” She takes a bite of her cookie.
“All right. But like I said, I don’t believe in this stuff. It says, Dangerous times are ahead for you.”
Abbie stares at me, mouth open.
“C’mon, Abbie. It’s just a cookie.”
The back door of the monastery opens. Two monks come out and head for the garden.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m worried about you. You haven’t been yourself lately.”
She’s the second one to say that. First Nassim and now Abbie. The pain in my foot is starting up again, so I pull out the pill bottle, snag one and dry swallow it.
“It’s like there’s something on your mind,” she continues, “weighing you down. It’s about that boy, isn’t it? The one you saved at Expo 67. That’s why you’ve been acting strange lately.”
I turn to look at her. There’s real concern in her eyes.
“I have to make sure he’s safe,” I say. “I can’t let anything happen to him.”
“But why is that your problem?” she says. “I mean, I know you saved his life and all that, but—”
“It’s more than just that,” I answer. “It’s like he and I are connected in some special way. It may sound crazy, but when I look at him, it feels as if I’m looking at myself—well, maybe not exactly myself—more like someone I might have been … if things had been different.”
Abbie looks at me for a long moment and doesn’t say anything. A gentle breeze starts the wind chimes going. The monks are walking back to the monastery door. Their steps look sure and unhurried.
“Frank asked me to be his special assistant,” she says.
My jaw drops open and just kind of hangs there. “And you said no, of course.”
She glances away. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly? What does that mean?”
Abbie hesitates for a moment searching for the right words. “I said … maybe.”
A knot is forming in my stomach. “Maybe? This isn’t a maybe situation, Abbie! Did you hear what Uncle’s got him doing? Snatching innocent children! You want to help with that?”
She continues to look away from me. “Why is that shocking to you?” she says. “We were snatched or adopted or whatever you want to call it too, remember? And some of us turned out okay.”
“It’s not the same,” I say. “We were orphans. We didn’t have anybody who’d miss us anyway. But these children have families! And not only that. What happened to us happened in real time, not a hundred years ago!”
“So, why should that matter?” asks Abbie.
“Why?” I say. “Because these kids have had their own children and their children have had children. And so on and so on. By going back and snatching them, Uncle’s murdering entire generations!”
Abbie’s quiet for a moment. Then she says, “I can’t just say no to Frank. We talked about that.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. She doesn’t get it, but by saying yes to Frank, she’s saying no to me.
I feel my face go hot. But instead of answering, I begin keying in a sequence on my wrist.
She stares at me, eyes wide. “Where are you going?”
“Away,” I answer.
“Cale, you shouldn’t be using your patch unless it’s for a mission,” she says.
“This is for a mission,” I say. “A personal mission.”
“Don’t do it,” Abbie says. “You’re on Uncle’s radar. I don’t want to think what will happen to you if he finds out.”
“So? Why should you care what happens to me?” I blurt out. “You have your precious Frank.”
There. I’ve said it.
“See you later, Caleb,” she says quietly. She gets up without looking at me. I watch her walk away.
Did I hear a slight hitch in her voice? For a moment, I’m tempted to stay and analyze it, the big question being: does she really like me? As in boyfriend/girlfriend kind of liking? There are a bunch of other unanswered questions floating around in my brain. Like how am I going to convince Abbie not to be Frank’s assistant, how can I get myself off Uncle’s radar, and how am I going to keep Zach safe? Yes, if I wanted to, I could easily pass the next several hours, or even days, sitting on this bench, analyzing.
Instead, I tap my wrist again. As I fade from view, I spot a squirrel poised to jump up onto the bench and claim his prize—an almost full box of Girl Scout mint fortune cookies.
February 7, 1968, 4:02 P.M.
Boston, Massachusetts
Even before I open my eyes, I realize I must have made a sequencing error. My entire body is trembling. I could have sworn that I’d programmed the timeleap for an August arrival. But this feels more like January. Maybe the business with Abbie threw my sequencing off.
Blinking away the falling snow, I realize that I’m standing in the middle of a street with a park on one side and smart-looking Victorian houses on the other. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I landed somewhere in the 1880s. The honk of a car horn brings me to my senses. Actually, it does more than that—it sends me sprinting away from a car speeding by without even slowing.
I almost wipe out on an icy patch on the sidewalk. My T-shirt and jeans are a joke in this kind of weather. I have half a mind to timeleap a few months back to summer, but then I see the sign saying Derne Street.
Trudging along the sidewalk with my head down against the howling wind, the only other sound is snow crunching beneath my shoes. Forty-nine, fifty-one, fifty-three. There it is. Number fifty-five.
I pause and study the house. A red brick row house. Not that different from any of the others on this street. So why is my heart beating so fast?
My feet lead me along the snow-covered walkway and then up to the porch.
Rolled-up newspapers lie half buried in the snow. Shards of glass occ
upy one corner, and the skeleton of an abandoned bird’s nest clings to the underside of the porch’s small overhang.
The house looks dark. No, it looks more than dark. Abandoned. This has to be a mistake. They can’t possibly live here.
But I’m positive this is the address they told me. Fifty-five Derne.
There’s a bell and a knocker. I knock.
Twenty seconds go by. Then a minute. I hop from foot to foot against the cold.
I try the bell. There’s a hollow ring inside the house. Another minute goes by. Nothing.
Just as I begin to turn away, I catch some movement from behind one of the windows. There and then gone.
“Hey! Is anyone home?” To my ears, my voice sounds strained, desperate.
I pound on the door.
A few seconds later, I hear the grinding of a latch being pulled back. Then a click and the door slowly begins to open. The smell of stale pizza wafts out.
“What do you want?”
It’s a woman’s voice. The words are flat and lifeless.
I study her face, half hidden by the door. It matches the voice. Pale and drawn. Bags under the eyes.
But still. It could be her. I try to speak, but the words die on the way to my mouth. “Di … Diane?” I manage finally.
She doesn’t answer immediately. I can feel her eyes on me.
“Yes?” she says. Cautious. Fragile. “How do you know me?”
“Diane, it’s me, Caleb,” I say.
A flicker of recognition. “Caleb? From Expo?” she says. There is something else there too: suspicion.
“Yes,” I say. “I’ve just come to say hello. And to see how … how you all are.”
She gives me a long look, long enough for me to remember how cold I am. I fold my arms across my chest and rub them with my hands.
“You don’t know, do you?” she says finally, wearily.
February 7, 1968, 4:14 P.M.
Boston, Massachusetts
Diane takes the chain off. “Come in.” She turns away from me even as she says it.
I stamp my feet on the mat and follow her into a dark living room. She clears some empty pizza boxes from a small green sofa and gestures for me to sit down. Then she lowers herself slowly into an armchair.
We sit facing each other. All the words that I thought I would say at this moment don’t seem right anymore. So I just wait, looking dumbly at a small chip in the wood frame of the sofa.
“Zach was … taken,” she says.
My head snaps up, and I stare at her in disbelief. It can’t be! She has to be wrong. Kids can wander off sometimes. Yes, that’s what Zach’s done. He’s just wandered off. Any second now, the doorbell will ring and he’ll be standing right there asking Diane when supper is.
“When?” I ask, the word sticking in my throat.
“The day we met you,” Diane says. Her eyes are filled with sorrow. But it also looks like she’s studying my reaction to what she just said.
My stomach clenches into a knot. That means Zach’s been missing for months!
“Diane, I …”
She gazes past me at the wall beyond the couch. “Jim thinks that maybe you know something about what hap—”
“I swear I had nothing to do with it,” I say a bit too loudly, and even as I utter the words, I’m thinking that they’re not exactly true.
“You should leave now, Caleb,” she says, standing up.
She reaches out but doesn’t quite touch my hand. I want to reassure her. Tell her that I’m going to make things right again. Promise her that I’ll find Zach and bring him back. But what if I can’t?
I leave by the front door and walk around to the side of the house, stepping over a garden hose half buried in the snow. My eyes flick from a rusted hockey net to a broken planter. An enormous sadness comes over me.
Tap, tap, tap on my wrist.
Nothing happens.
I try again. Still nothing.
Shivering now. I don’t understand. My patch has never failed before.
Wait. Something’s happening in my wrist. It feels like worms are crawling around inside me. Bits of my skin are contracting and expanding as if I have a nervous twitch. But this is no nervous twitch. The patch is programming itself! I can’t believe it—this has never happened before … I’m the only one who can control my patch. Or am I?
Frantically, I key in the sequence again, pressing down hard with every tap. But still, something blocks me, overriding my commands and replacing them with new ones. Who could be doing this: Uncle? Frank?
In a last-ditch effort, I clamp my hand over my wrist and squeeze as hard as I can. I can’t stop it!
Where am I being taken?
I cry out. But the cry is cut short as my vocal cords and the rest of me leave Boston in a hurry.
June 25, 2061, 4:40 P.M.
Timeless Treasures Headquarters
Tribeca, New Beijing (formerly New York City)
Total darkness. Then a single, icy light blinds me. I’m lying flat on my back on a cold, hard surface. I try to turn away from the light. But I can’t. My arms and legs won’t obey me. I’m completely paralyzed. Time freeze? No. This feels different. It’s cold here, wherever here is. My whole body is shaking, shivering.
The light moves to my right wrist. A rough hand clamps something over my face. There’s a strong medicine smell. Someone wearing green surgeon’s scrubs stands over me. The only part of his face not covered by a mask is his eyes.
“What am I doing here? Who are you?” I shout the words, but they only come out as a whisper.
I try to sit up, but I can’t. Someone’s tied me down.
The masked man leans down, closer to me. His cold blue eyes study me.
Uncle!
“You’ve been a bad boy, Caleb. A very bad boy,” he says.
“Please, Uncle,” I say.
“I thought you would have learned your lesson at our last meeting,” he says. “But that doesn’t appear to be the case.”
I’ve got to get out of here somehow. I struggle hard against the restraints, but nothing gives.
“It’s such a shame, really,” continues Uncle. “You could have been so much more. I remember taking you out on a mission when you were only six years old. You didn’t want to let go of my hand. But I finally managed to pry you loose and pointed you toward the mark. You were magnificent. You moved silently as a shadow and plucked the wallet from his back pocket without the slightest ripple. And how you smiled afterward, running into my arms, proudly displaying your first snatch.
“What happened to that smiling young boy?” he continues. “What happened to make him become so burdened and afraid? What happened, Caleb, to make you stop listening to your uncle?”
“You’re not my real uncle!” I scream.
“Tsk. Tsk. You mustn’t get overwrought,” says Uncle. “The anesthetic I administered is generally slow-acting. And I prefer it that way. It gives us time to talk about things. But if you become agitated, it speeds the effect of the drug. So please stay calm. It would be a shame to have to cut short such a stimulating conversation.”
“Let me go,” I plead. “I won’t be any more trouble. I promise.”
“Oh, I’m sure you won’t. And, in fact, I am planning to let you go in a little while, although my interpretation of letting you go might not be exactly what you have in mind,” he says, chuckling.
“Now, where was I?” he continues. “Ah, yes. Did you know, Caleb, that during China’s Ming dynasty one of the consequences of misbehavior was something called fapei?”
I shake my head.
“Well, then, let me explain,” he continues. “Fapei was one of the five punishments contained in the Tang Code and was inflicted by the Ming emperors upon those found to have broken the law. Loosely translated, it means ‘exile to the frontier.’”
As he speaks, Uncle’s hand strays to the small table beside him, where an assortment of gleaming scalpels, knives and other surgical equipment rest on a w
hite linen cloth. He picks up one of the scalpels and tests the blade with the fleshy part of his thumb.
“At various junctures during history,” says Uncle, “some of the world’s most important figures have voluntarily gone into exile, only to emerge stronger. One of the great Chinese emperors, Emperor Quianlong, associated exile with the idea of zixin or the ‘way to self-renewal.’”
I’m cold. So cold. But even so, I’m having trouble staying awake. My thoughts are becoming thick and confusing. Uncle is droning on and on. I hear his words, but they are sounds without any meaning.
“So, my advice to you, Caleb,” Uncle says, “is to view your forthcoming exile not so much as a punishment, even though that’s what it is, but more as an opportunity to improve yourself as a person.”
There’s movement behind Uncle. My vision is fuzzy, but I can see others in the shadows. Who are they? What are they doing here?
“I am banishing you to the Barrens,” he says. “You will stay there for one year before you may return. But before I send you, you’re going to have a little operation. You need to return something that is mine.”
What is he saying? So hard to concentrate. I want to sleep.
My mind is floating far away. Fuzzy warmth is enveloping me. Before I pass out completely, I hear Uncle say to one of the others, “Let us begin.”
And then the cool edge of the knife is on my skin, prodding, searching and finally, cutting.
The light is going away now. Fading. Or is it me who’s fading? No! I’ve got to fight it. But I can’t. I’ve failed. Failed myself. And failed Zach.
The Barrens, Day 1
I’m lying on my back. Beads of sweat trace their way along my jaw. Opening my eyes, I’m almost blinded by brightness. I close them and try to go back to sleep, but my brain isn’t playing ball. It wants me to wake up and scratch the itch on my arm. I try valiantly to ignore it. After all, waking up leads to getting up; getting up requires effort and effort is best avoided at all costs. But there’s that itch again. It looks like I’m going to have to deal with it soon. Not yet, though. I drift away and doze.
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