“Then what did happen here?” she asked. “Where did everyone go?”
“Don’t know,” Jonah said. He was trying not to get too creeped out by the emptiness, the desolation. Maybe there was some perfectly ordinary—even happy—explanation. Maybe the people had just abandoned this village because they’d built a newer, nicer one someplace else. What had Mrs. Rorshas said in fifth-grade Social Studies? Hadn’t it been common for Indians to move around, going from village to village based on the growing seasons or animal habitats or whatever?
Jonah wasn’t sure enough about that to mention it to the girls. Mrs. Rorshas really hadn’t talked that much about the Indians. It’d mostly been the explorers, Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony, the American Revolution . . . all done and over with by Halloween.
Jonah didn’t remember anything in that history about Indians getting nicer, newer villages. Or happier lives.
“Look,” Andrea said in a hushed voice. “You can tell they had a cornfield over there.” She pointed at a rectangle of cleared land just beyond the last falling-down hut. “We’re going to need food. . . .”
She didn’t add, if we’re stuck here a long time. But Jonah could tell by the others’ faces that everyone was thinking that.
Jonah walked over and kicked at a downed dried-out stalk. Dare snuffled along beside him, nosing aside empty husks. This was more like the ghost of a cornfield—Jonah couldn’t imagine how long ago it had last been planted. Years? Decades? Whatever food had once grown here had undoubtedly been carried away long ago, by birds and mice, if not by people.
Jonah’s stomach twisted, but it was more from fear and worry than hunger. For now, anyway.
“When we catch up with the tracer boys, maybe they’ll have some food we can eat,” Jonah said, with more confidence than he felt. The tracer boys weren’t likely to have anything but tracer food.
He began peeking into some of the huts that were in the best shape, just in case. It was dim enough in the huts that the glowing tracer boys would really show up brightly, if they were there. But the enclosed spaces made Jonah nervous. He didn’t like looking into darkness, in the midst of all this desolation.
The first hut was empty. As was the second. And the third.
In the fourth hut, something leaped out at him.
“AHH!” Jonah jumped back, scrambling to get out of the way. He had a quick impression of hooves and glowing eyes. What is that—a demon? he thought. Where are we?
Barking furiously, Dare streaked off into the woods after the creature.
Jonah couldn’t figure out what it was until his heart stopped pounding so hard and he turned around, catching a glimpse of the tracer that remained in the hut: It was only another deer.
Or, no, it could be the very same one that the tracer boys had killed, because that one is really still alive . . . how many tracers of the same deer could there be? Jonah was picturing the one deer multiplying into dozens of tracer deer, every time it came into contact with some new disruption in time. Then Jonah realized his leftover panic was making him stupid. There can be only one tracer of any animal. Because there is only one version of original time, only one way time is supposed to go.
It was ridiculous, but Jonah felt much better knowing that this wasn’t the same deer the tracer boys had killed. He gazed almost fondly at the single tracer version of the deer he’d startled. The tracer deer didn’t even lift its head, but just kept peacefully munching on—what was that? Some sort of rotten melon?
Then Jonah noticed the commotion behind him.
“Dare, no! Come back, boy!” Andrea was calling out after the dog.
Katherine was practically falling on the ground, she was laughing so hard.
“Oh, my gosh! You should have seen your face! You’re white as a ghost. You almost look like a tracer!” she screeched.
“Ha, ha,” Jonah muttered. He leaned weakly against the side of the hut, which bowed dangerously inward. Jonah decided he could stand on his own two feet. He straightened up.
“Dare!” Andrea screamed, her voice echoing off the trees. “Dare!”
“Shh,” Jonah said. His ears were ringing, and he didn’t think he could blame leftover time sickness anymore. The screaming, the laughter, the dog and deer crashing through the woods—it was all too much noise, too much more change in this silent, deserted, tracer-haunted place. “Be quiet! Somebody will hear us! We really will ruin time!”
How much change was too much? At what point would there be too many tracers to ever fix?
Katherine’s laughter softened to snorts and little bursts of giggling. Andrea called out, “Dare!” once more, but then she turned back to Jonah.
“Really, Jonah,” she said soberly. “I don’t think there’s anyone except us and the tracers on the whole island. Can’t you feel it?”
Someone could be hiding, Jonah wanted to say. Like your mystery man, coming back to make us do whatever he wants us to do. But which was worse—bringing up the possibility that dangerous, unknown people could be lurking anywhere? Or acknowledging the emptiness, the desolation, the ruin? It feels like something bad happened here, Jonah thought. And, maybe . . . it’s not over?
Jonah was not going to say that.
Instead, he muttered grumpily, “How do you know we’re on an island?”
“That’s where the Roanoke Colony was,” Andrea said. “On Roanoke Island.”
Jonah threw up his hands.
“Am I the only one who didn’t pay attention in fifth-grade Social Studies?” he asked.
To Jonah’s surprise, Andrea laughed. But it was kind laughter. Not at all like Katherine’s.
“I don’t really remember hearing about the Roanoke Colony at school. I’m not sure my teacher ever mentioned it,” Andrea said. “But remember that day in the cave? When they told us the names of the missing kids stolen from history, even though they wouldn’t say which of us was which kid?”
Jonah nodded and shrugged.