“Not really,” JB said. “Only because Gary and Hodge were supremely lazy and sloppy in the way they pulled the three of you out of time in the first place.” He sighed heavily. “This was all so unnecessary.”
“How can you say that?” Andrea asked wildly. Her voice was thick with emotion. “My grandfather—”
“Was a remarkable man,” JB said. “History has never given him the respect he deserved. But neither did time.” He sighed again. “His best efforts were doomed to fail. His connection to you—except as a fairy tale, a pleasant story your mother told you—all of that was supposed to end when you were a baby. You truly were never supposed to see him again.”
“That’s so wrong!” Andrea complained, and this time she made no effort to hide the tears brimming in her eyes.
“You of all people know that things go wrong all the time,” JB said gently. “And I know it’s no comfort, but as a time traveler, I’ve seen so many ways that wrong things can turn out to be right after all, that bad can lead to good, that no one can get the good without the bad coming first. . . .”
“You’re right,” Andrea said, snipping off the ends of her words. “It’s no comfort.”
JB shrugged helplessly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What was supposed to happen to Andrea and Brendan and Antonio?” Katherine asked. “What were they supposed to do when they came back in time?”
JB nodded, as if he thought this would be easier to talk about.
“Gary and Hodge kidnapped Andrea from Croatoan Island while she was in the midst of burying all the skeletons and corpses,” he said. “She actually would have been a good candidate for them to take to the future, if they’d just waited a few extra days, until she’d finished.”
“Only the animal bones were left,” Andrea murmured.
It took Jonah a minute to grasp this.
“Hold on,” Jonah interrupted. “That’s all you wanted me and Katherine to do when we came back with Andrea? Help her bury some bones?”
“Not even that,” JB said, shaking his head. “You just needed to be there. My brilliant projectionist said you and the dog would provide the ‘emotional support’ she’d need during her task, which would be too ‘traumatic’ otherwise,” JB’s tone cast doubt on every word. He snorted scornfully. “And I fell for it!” He nudged Second’s shoulder with his foot. “You must have thought I was a complete fool! Trusting you!”
“Wasn’t complete lie,” Second muttered. “Jonah . . . gaga . . . over Andrea . . . Romance always . . . distracting . . .”
Now Jonah felt like kicking Second too. He didn’t quite dare to look at Andrea—or anyone else—to see how they took this news. He was grateful when JB ignored Second and kept explaining.
“You wouldn’t think a scattering of animal skeletons would matter so much in the grand sweep of history,” JB continued. “But if Virginia Dare hadn’t moved them, Croatoan Island would have kept its reputation as an evil island. The memory of the plague spread by the Roanoke colonists would have lingered, setting off massacres when the next wave of English colonists arrived. . . .”
“So Virginia Dare did do something crucial to history,” Katherine said. “It wasn’t just that she was famous for being born.”
Andrea ducked her head. Jonah couldn’t tell if she was being modest or if she was still annoyed with JB.
“Which was the reason I was kidnapped?” Andrea asked. “Because I did something important or just because I was born?”
There was bitterness in her voice—Jonah decided she was still upset.
“It’s hard to know for sure,” JB said gently. “For generations you were known only as the first English child born in the Americas. Before time travel, that’s all there was to know about you. That was enough for Gary and Hodge to want you for their baby-smuggling operation. But one of their customers also specified that they wanted a famous child who was capable of being brave and loyal, who was willing to take risks in desperate times. So we know Gary and Hodge planned to charge more for you, because they knew more of your story.” He swept his hands out helplessly. “Who can say how much that affects time and history?”
“That’s why you thought it had to be Andrea who came back to bury the bones,” Jonah said, catching on. “That’s why it had to be her and not me or Katherine or just some random time traveler. . . .”
JB nodded.
“Authenticity matters,” he said. “We can never know all the consequences of any action, so we were trying to err on the side of caution and restore everything we could.”
Jonah looked down at Second, who had not erred on the side of caution, who’d been gleeful about changing time, rather than restoring it. Everyone was quiet for a minute.
“What about Brendan and me?” Antonio asked. “The ex-slave and the Spanish orphan turned tribesmen? What made us famous and worth being kidnapped?”
“Your artwork,” JB said.
“Yeah, right,” Brendan said, laughing. “Very funny. Tell us the truth—were we in some famous battle? How brave were we? Don’t worry—I won’t brag too much about it when I find out.”
Antonio just stood there.
“Dude,” he said. “I think he’s serious.”
“Huh?” Brendan said.
“My tracer—he’s been thinking a lot about the drawings John White showed them,” Antonio said. “He’s been wondering if the old man could show him how to draw like that. . . .”
JB nodded.
“It’s true,” he said. “After you two rescued John White, he got well enough, temporarily, to give you a few art lessons. And then—art’s not my specialty—but I think the proper term is that you fused the various traditions, English art and Native American art and African art and Spanish art, and the two of you came up with something completely new, far ahead of your time. You were like twin Leonardo da Vincis—except that Leonardo’s work survived, and yours was all destroyed in a fire that blew through your village . . . also killing you.”
“That’s seriously twisted!” Brendan said.