“It was both of us, really,” Antonio said. “Together. Before Gary and Hodge kidnapped me and made it so there was a separate tracer. When I was just a Spanish kid about to be adopted by Indians.”
“Okay, okay,” Andrea said impatiently. “What matters is that Antonio remembers what year he sailed from Spain, and how long he’s been in North America. Antonio?”
Antonio flashed her a puzzled look.
“I still don’t get why this is such a big deal. But . . . it was 1597,” he said. “Three years ago.”
“So don’t you see? That means it’s 1600 now!” Andrea exclaimed. “A new century! A completely different trip! And I’m thirteen years old!”
Andrea might as well have said, Ta-da! She seemed that thrilled with her revelation.
Everyone else just looked at her. Even Dare tilted his head quizzically.
“So?” Jonah finally said. “What’s the big deal about being thirteen?”
“Are you Jewish?” Katherine asked. “That whole bar mitzvah—er, bat mitzvah thing—”
“No! That’s not it!” Now Andrea sounded exasperated that the others didn’t understand. “I mean, I’m the right age for the year! I’m the age my grandfather would expect for his granddaughter! So—it wouldn’t be weird for him to see me and know who I am!”
She beamed at them, expecting everyone else to catch on. Jonah’s brain was slowly cranking out, Oh. Then that means . . . Katherine had her mouth open, but didn’t seem to have decided yet what she wanted to say. Antonio and Brendan were watching Katherine as if they expected her to tell them what to think.
Only Dare responded quickly. He began barking happily and jumping up against Andrea’s legs, practically dancing around her.
“Don’t you see?” Andrea said, reaching down to hug Dare, before letting him go to dance some more. “Don’t you think this means that . . . that everything was meant to be? My grandfather is supposed to find me, I don’t have to go back to being a toddler—everything’s going to work out!”
The other kids were still squinting and stunned and trying to understand.
“Then . . . you think history’s completely wrong?” Brendan said slowly. “What you and Katherine were telling us in the canoe—you said John White never found his family or anyone else from Roanoke.”
“The last time. In 1590,” Andrea said. “He never found anyone in 1590. But it’s 1600 now, and John White came back. And this time—he doesn’t have to fail.” She snorted. “The history we told you wasn’t wrong. Just . . . incomplete.”
“You mean, nobody in history kept track of what happened to John White in 1600,” Jonah said numbly. “Nobody wrote anything down so nobody knows. . . .”
Something about this—history having secrets, history hiding its holes—really bothered him. But he didn’t have time to think about it because Andrea was already flitting on to another point.
“Don’t you think it’s because he found his family and was happy and didn’t bother to write home?” Andrea asked. She giggled. “It’s not like there was postal service back to England!”
She pointed out toward the water glowing with the last rays of the sinking sun. The water seemed boundless; it was hard to imagine other lands off in the distance.
“This would explain why things didn’t match up on Roanoke Island,” Katherine said thoughtfully. “Why John White was alone instead of with other sailors, and why he didn’t see the word Croatoan and get driven away in a storm.”
“So maybe Second didn’t sabotage time that badly,” Andrea said. “Really, the only important thing that got messed up with my grandfather on Roanoke Island was that the wrong kids saved him from drowning.”
“And he got a head injury,” Antonio said. Jonah was glad it was Antonio who pointed that out, because Andrea glared at him.
“Yeah, but . . . ,” Andrea seemed to be trying very hard to hold on to her excitement. She glanced down, and her whole expression changed. “I bet his head injury really isn’t that bad! Now that Antonio and Brendan are here for real—and he can see them, just like his tracer can—I bet the reason he’s unconscious is just because of us! Because his mind can’t deal with us wandering around in twenty-first-century clothes!”
She jumped up and began rummaging through her grandfather’s treasure chest. Jonah knew exactly what she was looking for: the dresses. She yanked out one that was pale yellow with a pattern of tiny roses.
“Andrea, no,” Katherine said sharply. “That can’t be the answer. People saw Jonah and me in modern clothing back in the fifteenth century, and that didn’t make anyone half-unconscious!”
“Just let me try!” Andrea said stubbornly.
She jerked the dress down over her shoulders, completely covering her T-shirt and shorts. The hem dragged down in the sand as she rushed to her grandfather’s side. He was lying practically flat on his back, his tracer eyes staring toward the darkening sky. His real eyes were still closed.
Andrea knelt beside him. Something about the dress made her move differently, or she was making a conscious effort to act like a girl from 1600.
“Grandfather?” she murmured. “I have just learned of your arrival and your rescue by these fine, uh, natives. They sent word to me to come right away, and they gave me the dress you brought. So, please, please wake up. . . .”
In her own way, Andrea sounded as ridiculous as Jonah had when he was doing his Pirates of the Caribbean imitation back on Roanoke Island. But she was looking so hopefully at her grandfather.
He stirred, swaying side to side. Andrea clutched his hand.
“Grandfather?” she said.
John White opened his mouth.
“Treachery!” he cried out. “Betrayal! Deceit!”
Andrea collapsed in despair at his side, hiding her face in the skirt.
“Andrea!” Jonah called out. “He’s not talking about you! His eyes are still closed! It’s just him and his tracer thinking the same thing—it was random.”
“The savages betrayed us, and we betrayed them,” John White continued. “And I’ve never met a sea captain I could trust. . . .”