“But tracers show ‘original time,’ and then there’s the way time really goes, what we see when we come back in time . . . ,” Jonah interrupted. “So there’s two versions, right there.”
“You’re wrong,” Second said. “Tracers only live through time once, no more than anyone else. It was just that they always drew everyone and everything toward what seemed to be a preordained path. Toward their destinies, you might say. But tracers themselves could never change. Until now.” Jonah wouldn’t have said it was possible, but Second’s grin got even bigger. “You two just witnessed the first time shift in history. The first time destiny itself was derailed. The end of destiny. It’s like . . . you are Watson, and I am Alexander Graham Bell. You are the little boy who watched the first airplane flight, and I am Orville Wright. You are lizards in the New Mexico desert, and I am Robert Oppenheimer.”
Jonah didn’t have the slightest idea who Robert Oppenheimer was, but he thought it was a little insulting to be called a lizard.
“Hold on,” Katherine said, stamping her foot. “You want us to think this is like you just created the atomic bomb?”
Oh, Jonah thought. That must be what Robert Oppenheimer did.
“I’m not comparing the morality of it,” Second said. “I’m just saying—this is that monumental. Its repercussions will reverberate forever.”
Katherine glared at him.
“You’re crazy,” she said. “And conceited.”
“Now, now,” Second said. “Do you like the way time was supposed to go?”
Jonah opened his mouth. Then he shut it. He noticed that Katherine didn’t say anything either.
“In original time, Virginia Dare and her grandfather were never to be reunited,” Second said, a tinge of sadness entering his voice for the first time. “It was what we call a near miss. Time is rubbed so thin at the site of a near miss. . . . Virginia Dare was standing here and her grandfather was just a few yards away, and they would never know it. They were destined to go to their graves without ever knowing the fate of the other. And, believe me, their graves were coming for both of them, very soon. Wouldn’t you call that a mistake on time’s part? Didn’t it need to be corrected?”
The question hung in the air. Jonah saw doubt flutter over his sister’s face.
“You’re manipulating us again,” Jonah accused Second. “You’ve been manipulating us all along!”
Second raised an eyebrow.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Though perhaps not as much as you think.”
“You lied to Andrea to get her to change the Elucidator!” Katherine said.
“True,” Second said. “That was necessary, though I do regret the pain it caused her.”
“You wanted us to lose the Elucidator!” Jonah charged.
“Of course,” Second agreed.
“Didn’t you know we’d be scared?” Jonah asked.
“I had every reason to believe you’d be okay,” Second said.
“Then . . . somehow . . . you arranged it so Walks with Pride and One Who Survives Much weren’t there to save John White,” Katherine said.
Second shrugged.
“I just delayed Brendan and Antonio’s return to their proper time by a few days,” he said. “Just as I changed Andrea’s return to time only slightly—placing her on Roanoke Island instead of Croatoan.”
“You did that so we would rescue John White, right?” Jonah said. “And so Andrea would get attached to him?”
“Bingo!” Second said, his grin back.
“What if we hadn’t saved him?” Katherine challenged. “What if he’d drowned?”
“Well, I did have to bribe Dare with some dog treats, to get him to bark at the right time,” Second admitted. “That was a little dicey. But once you were there on the beach, watching, there was virtually no chance that you wouldn’t try to help.”
“Andrea could have drowned!” Jonah said. “I could have drowned!”
“Nope,” Second said, shaking his head. “Not even statistically possible. You were both too strong and determined for that.”
Jonah frowned. Something was still nagging at him.
“How’d you know we’d have Dare with us anyhow?” he asked. “That’s not even something JB planned for. He just sent Dare with us because his projectionist said . . .”
Jonah stopped, because Second was pulling some sort of timepiece out of his pocket.
“Hmm,” he said. “I really had projected that you would figure out this part by now. You’re eleven seconds off. Perhaps a small clue is in order. As you might have guessed, Second Chance isn’t the name my parents gave me at birth. I adopted that appellation only very recently, to go along with my quest to change history. You might actually have heard of me previously, by another name—Sam, perhaps? Sam Chase?”
Sam, Jonah thought. Sam Chase. Back home, Jonah knew two Sams and a Samuel at school, and a Sammy on his soccer team. But all that seemed so far away, so long ago—or long ahead. Even the most recent time he’d heard the name Sam seemed distant. It had been JB speaking, JB saying, Sam is the most brilliant projectionist I’ve ever worked with. . . .
Jonah’s jaw dropped. He felt his eyes bugging out.
“You’re JB’s projectionist?” he gasped.
Second clicked his thumb against the object in his hand—maybe it was a stopwatch.
“Wow,” he said. “Thirty-six seconds off. I’m really slipping. Or, the two of you are.”
“It’s true, then?” Katherine asked. “You work for JB?”
“JB signs my paychecks,” Second said, his cocky grin back.
“Then . . . then he knew what was happening to us along?” Jonah asked. He was having trouble believing this. “He knew from the beginning that Andrea was going to change the Elucidator, that we were going to lose all contact, that we were going to rescue John White, that . . . that this was what we were moving toward?” Without looking, he gestured toward the other kids and Andrea’s grandfather, still back at the canoe.