Jonah frowned, trying to think through everything.
“I guess you’re right,” he finally said. “Nobody was at the Roanoke village, and we saw the word Croatoan with our own eyes, so we know that part of the story’s true. And if all the tracers are going to Croatoan Island and that’s where Andrea’s tracer probably is . . . what good would it do to stay here?”
“Exactly!” Andrea said, grinning.
Jonah tried to keep himself from noticing once again how pretty Andrea looked when she was happy. He wanted to be able to think clearly. He wanted to be able to analyze this new development for ulterior motives or secret behind-the-scenes plans by Second. Could things really fall into place this way? Or . . . was there more reason than ever to be suspicious?
“If we’re going to keep up with the tracers, we’d better get moving,” Katherine said.
While one tracer boy crouched beside John White, the other was pouring water on the site of their fire from the night before. Then he went toward a hut at the far end of the village, at a distance from all the others.
“I’ll go see what he’s up to,” Jonah volunteered.
He reached the hut just as the tracer boy began putting strips of dried meat into a deerskin bag.
Venison jerky from that deer they killed? Jonah wondered. But where did they dry it?
The tracer boy poured water on the floor of this hut too. For the first time, Jonah noticed that there had been a tracer fire going here as well.
Oh, this is a smokehouse. . . . They must have come straight here and started the fire right after they shot the deer, before they went to the beach and rescued John White, Jonah realized. They could have been getting up every few hours through the night, to turn the meat.
It bothered him that he hadn’t noticed any of that—he hadn’t even thought to wonder about where they’d cooked their meat.
What else am I missing? Jonah wondered. What else am I just not paying attention to?
He realized he hadn’t looked into all the huts in the village the day before—or since, even after he discovered the melon with the message from Second.
“I really don’t want any more messages from that guy,” he muttered.
But as he walked back toward Katherine and Andrea and John White, he poked his head into every hut along the way. All of them were empty and dark, their dirt floors bare except for the occasional unhealthy-looking plant. The melon plant in the broken-roofed hut looked like it was thriving, by comparison. Jonah glanced into that hut quickly . . . and then stopped.
There on the floor, nestled among the melon leaves, were two jars. Jonah bent over and picked them up.
They left no tracers.
And they each had the same words engraved on their stoppers:
With my compliments.
—Second
“What’s this? Ketchup and mustard for the little food pellets?” Jonah muttered.
He pulled the cork out of one of the jars and got a whiff of the thick purplish liquid—it was paint.
In fact, the jars were identical to the ones in John White’s trunk.
“You have a really sick sense of humor, Mr. Second,” Jonah murmured. “Given everything we don’t have—all the answers we don’t have—and you just send us more paint?”
“Jonah! What are you doing? Come on!” Katherine called from outside the hut. “The tracer boys are leaving!”
Jonah came out of the hut waving the jars of paint.
“Look what else Second left for us,” he said. “‘With my compliments,’ he says. I say we take a stand: Second, we don’t want your stupid presents!”
He tossed the jars back into the melon plant. They broke off several of the leaves, creating a line of tracer leaves.
Katherine frowned at him.
“No, wait,” she said. “We should take those along. Not leave behind any more time mess-ups than we have to, you know?”
“All right, all right,” Jonah mumbled. He fished the jars back out of the melon leaves. He went over to the trunk and dropped them in with John White’s other art supplies.
“I’m glad we’re getting away from this creepy island and that creepy hut and that creepy guy Second’s gifts,” Jonah said. Somehow, he was sure Croatoan Island would be different.
“Some help?” Katherine muttered.
Jonah realized that Katherine and Andrea were attempting to pull John White across the clearing, following the tracer boy carrying the old man’s tracer.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” Jonah said.
He rushed over to the girls. They had been trying to tug the old man by his armpits, but with all three of them working together, they were able to lift him up, almost into a standing position. John White’s head sagged forward; his legs dragged uselessly.
“We’ve—got to—get him back with his tracer!” Andrea grunted.
Ahead of them, the tracer boy placed John White’s tracer in the crook of the branch they’d carried him on the night before. Much less gracefully, Jonah, Katherine, and Andrea settled the real man into the same spot.
“Now he looks so much better,” Andrea said.
It was true. John White’s color instantly improved. The sweat beads disappeared from his face. And even though his eyes remained closed, his whole countenance looked more peaceful now.
Does it really help John White that much to be with his tracer, like Andrea thinks? Jonah wondered. Or is it just that the tracer’s healthier, and that’s what we see?
Dare began barking. The second tracer boy was carrying the tracer chest over to put on the branch beside John White.
“Right. Don’t worry—I’m getting it, boy,” Jonah muttered.
He was glad that Andrea and Katherine were looking down at John White and didn’t notice that Jonah just dragged the chest. No, now the girls were peering through the trees ahead of the branch. As Jonah heaved the chest onto the branch—almost splintering it—he realized that they were looking at a small sliver of water visible through the woods.