Redeemed (5 page)

Jordan expected Katherine to yell and grab the pen back, but she didn't. She just tilted her head to the side and said, “I did? Shouldn't I remember that, too?”

Is that what I saw in that one moment when my room looked like Mom's personal home office?
Jordan wondered uncomfortably.
Some dimension where Katherine was the only Skidmore kid?

“It's easier for time to overwrite an absence than a presence,” JB said distractedly. He was looking at his phone/Elucidator, not Katherine's drawing. “So it makes sense that you've already forgotten that dimension. It's harder to forget either Jordan or Jonah when they're standing right in front of you.”

“Too bad for you, Katherine,” Jordan blurted, because this whole topic was making him feel weirder than ever. Teasing Katherine, at least, was normal. “I bet you
loved
being an only child. Having all the attention to yourself . . .”

Katherine kept her headed tilted thoughtfully.

“No,” she said. “I think I do kind of remember. I was . . . lonely.”

“I still don't understand, and that diagram doesn't help at all,” Dad complained. “It looks like all the dimensions are the same.”

“That's because I'm not finished,” Katherine said. “Watch.”

She took the pen back and wrote
Nobody extra from the past
in the open space of the circle Jonah had drawn.

Then she pointed to one of the other circles.

“In this dimension,” she said, “Jonah, Chip, and the other thirty-four kids who came off the plane from the past remember only their own dimension.”

She wrote,
Jonah, Chip, other kids from plane,
in the part of the first circle that didn't overlap with anything else.

Jordan still wasn't ready to believe the story about any kids coming from the past—or, for that matter, about extra dimensions of time—but he saw Chip, Jonah, and Angela nod.

“And this is Jordan's dimension,” Katherine said, pointing at the third circle and writing
Jordan
in the only open space left that didn't overlap with any other circle.

Then she put the pen down.

“Wait—you're saying I'm the only person in that category?” Jordan asked.

“That's right,” Jonah agreed.

“But why? Weren't there other kids on the plane in my dimension too?” Jordan asked. And it was ridiculous how hard he had to work to keep the panic out of his voice.

“In your dimension, you were the only baby taken off the plane thirteen years ago,” Jonah said. “All the other babies in your dimension stayed on the plane and—well, then it gets complicated. All you need to know is that you're the only person who remembers only your dimension and nothing else.”

As he spoke, Jonah stayed on the other side of Katherine, his hands flat on the island counter. But Jordan felt as though Jonah had punched him. Jordan had as much trouble pulling air into his lungs as if he'd gotten a solid jab in the gut.

“Then . . . I'm all alone?” Jordan asked, and this time he couldn't disguise how forlorn he felt.

“Of course not, honey,” Mom said, circling the island to pat his back. She pointed at Katherine's drawing. “Remember that ‘just about everybody' is in your dimension, too. You're not alone at all.”

Somehow it wasn't very comforting to have Mom pat his back when she looked like she was the same age as him. It was just weird.

“And anyhow, those circles just show what happened in the past, what we lived through before the three dimensions merged,” Chip said. He seemed to be trying for a soothing, conciliatory tone. But he ruined it by adding admiringly, “Right, Jonah? We're all in the same circle now. That's how you saved time, isn't it?”

Chip touched Katherine's drawing and then squeezed his fingers together, as if to show the three circles coming together into one.

Jordan also squeezed his fingers together. Into fists.

But before he could say or do anything else, JB started shaking his phone/Elucidator.

“How could the Elucidator malfunction at a time like this?” he said disgustedly. “Hadley, listen, I'm not getting your transmission. I'm going to have to put this on voice commands and reset. Hold on.”

Voice commands!
Jordan thought. Wasn't that what Katherine had said JB had set his Elucidator on when he'd wanted her to grab it and go to the past? Even though he'd said it wasn't allowed, was he setting up a way for Katherine or Jonah or Chip to go to the future and snatch the Lindbergh Elucidator and fix everything?

Jordan glanced around at Katherine, Jonah, and Chip. All of them were watching JB run his fingers across the phone/Elucidator's screen.

“Okay, now try to retransmit,” JB said, holding the phone/Elucidator in front of his mouth.

Katherine rose up on her tiptoes. If she stretched out her arm, would she be able to grab the phone/Elucidator out of JB's hands?

Jonah leaned in. He was farther away, but his arms were longer.

Chip was on the other side of the island from JB. He'd have to dive across the countertop to get his hands on the phone/Elucidator.

Whoever grabs JB's Elucidator and goes to the future and fixes things for Mom and Dad will be the biggest hero of all,
Jordan thought.
He or she will be alone in a good way.

And
I'm
the one who's standing closest.

Jordan reached out and snatched the phone/Elucidator from JB's hands.

“Take me to the future!” he screamed. “Take me where I can get that Elucidator we need to help Mom and Dad!”

Everything happened fast.

Mom still had her hand on Jordan's back, and she grabbed hold of his T-shirt even as she screamed, “Jordan, no!”

Katherine clamped her hands around Jordan's arm and screamed, “You're crazy! Give that to me!”

Jonah screamed, “Katherine? Mom?”

And, distantly, Jordan heard Dad yelling, “Wait for me . . .”

And then the kitchen disappeared, and everything went dark.

Apparently there was such a thing as time travel, after all.

Jordan seemed to be zooming through a great void. In the darkness it took him a moment to realize that Katherine still had a death grip on his left arm—she was probably cutting off his circulation. And Jordan's T-shirt
was oddly tight, with something pulling it backward.

Mom's hand,
Jordan thought, with a sense of relief he'd never want to admit to anyone.
Mom's still with me too.

So however this time-travel stuff worked, Mom and Katherine grabbing him evidently meant they got to speed off toward the future with him.

That's all right,
Jordan thought.
They can be heroes with me.

And, though he'd never tell
her
, it might actually be helpful to have Katherine along, if she really did have time-travel experience.

Now was the time for Jordan to make some joke to show how calm and confident he was, like action heroes did in movies. But before he had a chance to speak, he heard another voice, low and angry.

“You're risking all of our lives, and the fate of the entire space-time continuum.” It was Jonah. And Jonah was . . . Jordan squinted. Jonah was on the other side of Katherine, clinging just as tightly to her arm as Katherine clung to Jordan's.

“Be careful. Hand the Elucidator to Katherine or me, and we'll send Mom and Dad and you back to safety,” Jonah continued. He sounded like someone talking to a dangerous wild animal he didn't want to spook.

Jordan ignored Jonah's request and asked, “Dad's here with us, too?”

From the other side of Jonah, Dad moaned, “Ooohh.
Is it possible to get seasick from traveling through time?”

“It's called timesickness, Dad,” Katherine said sympathetically. “I get it too. You'll feel okay after you land. Well, eventually.”

Jordan's eyes adjusted enough that he could see Katherine turning back to face him.

“Really, Jordan,” she said, in the same kind of measured, cautious tone Jonah had used. “This is dangerous. At least send Mom and Dad back home so they'll be safe.”

What?
Jordan thought.
And lose having them here to protect me if I need it?

Jordan couldn't say that out loud without sounding like a total baby. And he couldn't think of any excuse that would sound better. Reluctantly he lifted the phone/Elucidator toward his mouth and muttered, “Send Mom and Dad back home where they'll be safe.”

Nothing happened. He could still feel Mom's hand clutching the back of his shirt. He could still hear Dad off to the side moaning, “Ooohhh. What happens if you throw up out here?”

“Why didn't that work?” Katherine asked, whipping her head toward Jonah.

“I don't know,” Jonah admitted. “Jordan,
please
. We're running out of time.”

Katherine snatched the phone/Elucidator from Jordan's hand.

“Here, Jonah,” she said, passing it on as if they were playing a simple game of keep-away. Keep-away from Jordan.

“Hey!” Jordan protested, swiping his arm toward Jonah and missing by a mile. “Give that back!”

He waited for Mom or Dad to tell Katherine and Jonah it wasn't polite to grab things—which was ridiculous when they were all floating through this dark nothingness because of Jordan grabbing the phone/Elucidator to begin with.

Mom and Dad didn't scold anyone. Jonah did.

“Katherine, that was
so
dangerous,” he complained, even as he hunched his back and turned away so there was no way Jordan could grab the phone/Elucidator back. “What if the two of you had dropped the Elucidator, like what we thought happened that time with Andrea? Then we really would have been in a mess!”

“Well, I didn't drop it, did I?” Katherine asked, a bit of her usual sassiness back in her voice. “And I knew Jordan would never
give
it to me. Or you. So I had to grab it. Just . . . do what you have to do! The lights are getting close!”

Lights on the horizon zoomed toward them, faster and faster and faster. What did that mean?

Jonah bent his head toward the phone/Elucidator and spoke firmly: “Elucidator, send Jordan, Mom, and Dad home to safety.”

Jordan braced himself to be sucked backward. But once again, nothing happened.

“Jonah?” Katherine cried, her voice edgy with fear. “What's going on?”

Jonah didn't answer her. He was muttering into the phone/Elucidator, “I said, send them home! Home! Mom, Dad, and Jordan! Send! Them! Home!”

“Jonah!” Katherine cried. Even in the near-complete darkness, Jordan could see that the color had drained from her face. “We're almost
to
the lights! We don't even know where we're going in the future!
Do
something!”

Jonah looked up from the phone/Elucidator.