I am? Jonah thought. We can?
But now that Katherine had planted the idea in his head, it seemed brilliant. (Not that he would ever admit that to Katherine.) Getting away from the murderers, getting away from this alien time when Columbus hadn’t even discovered America yet, getting away from this place where blowing out a candle could ruin history forever—Jonah couldn’t wait.
He dropped to his knees and began advancing toward the center of the room, sweeping his hands out in front of him. The floor was made of stone—maybe the same kind of stones as the walls—so it wasn’t easy feeling around for something that was essentially impersonating a large pebble. But luck was with him. He’d barely left Katherine and Chip behind when his hand landed on something flat and round. He lifted it toward his mouth so he didn’t have to speak so loudly.
“JB!” he whispered into the rock. “You can bring us all back now! Back home! We saved Chip and Alex, and nobody noticed! We saved them and time, just like we said we would!”
“Are you sure?” JB hissed back.
“Oh, yeah,” Jonah said. He didn’t even have to think about his answer. “Chip and Alex are fine.”
“But their originals, the tracers …”
“Um, well, I don’t think they’re going to be having any more impact on history,” Jonah said. He found he couldn’t quite bring himself to tell JB exactly what had happened. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t know exactly how far off the ground they were, but it had looked a long way down. Far enough to kill. Far enough that no one could survive a fall like that.
“Why not?” JB asked sharply.
Jonah swallowed hard.
“Look,” he said. “They’re dead. The murderers are still close by. So get us out of here!”
“Can you still see the tracers?” JB persisted.
Jonah stood up, still holding on to the Elucidator. He tiptoed over to the window and looked straight down, into darkness. Then he crouched low again, out of sight.
“No,” he told JB. “Is that what happens when someone’s tracer dies? The tracer just disappears?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then, there’s your proof!” Jonah said. All this talk of death was making him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to think about how close Chip and Alex had come to dying, about what the murderers might have done if they’d seen Jonah and Katherine. “Please! It’s time! Get us away from here!”
“You really think Chip and Alex can leave without changing history?” JB asked.
“Of course!” Jonah said, raising his voice a bit. Why wouldn’t JB listen? Didn’t he trust them?
Outside he heard someone shouting.
“What’d he say?” he asked Katherine, who was standing closer to the window. Katherine shrugged, the motion barely detectable in the darkness.
Another voice joined the first. This was the kind of hubbub Jonah would have expected from people discovering dead bodies on the ground. Maybe JB was wrong; maybe tracer corpses were visible.
The shouts grew louder, and finally Jonah could make out the words.
“Where are the bodies?” the voices were shouting. “Where did they go?”
EIGHT
Oh, Jonah thought, suddenly feeling so faint he had to brace himself against the stone floor for support. We already did change history. …
In the original version of history, Jonah realized, anyone looking for the prince and the king would have found them crushed on the ground. Their bodies would have been seen. There would have been proof that they’d died. There would have been bodies to bury; probably hundreds of people had seen the dead boys at their funeral.
Because of us, none of that will happen, Jonah thought dizzily. Because of us, there’s no proof of anything. The boys just vanished. So …
Before Jonah could follow that thought to its logical conclusion, he felt Chip grabbing the Elucidator out of his hand.
“Get us out of here! Now!” Chip demanded. He sounded like a king giving orders, a king who expected to be obeyed.
“No,” JB said.
Chip hurled the Elucidator toward the floor.
“You wanted us to die from the beginning,” he snarled. “That’s the only outcome you’ll accept! You won’t be happy until we’re dead on the ground out there!”
Jonah’s stomach gave a sickening lurch at the word “dead.” He’s right, Jonah thought, horrified. No matter what we do, as long as there are no bodies out there, we can’t fix time. And JB knew that.
“JB!” Jonah moaned. “You’re as bad as the murderers!”
“No,” JB said. “Listen! History—”
“I don’t want to listen! I don’t care about history!” Chip screamed.
He kicked at the Elucidator—Jonah could feel the breeze from the force of Chip’s leg, kicking hard—and the Elucidator skittered across the floor. Then Jonah heard it hit the wall across the room.
Instantly a soft glow appeared in that area.
“JB?” Jonah whispered.
No answer.
Jonah rushed across the room and scooped up the glowing Elucidator. It had a screen now; it wasn’t just a rock. The words EMERGENCY REPAIR NEEDED glowed in soft green letters.
EMERGENCY REPAIR NEEDED faded into different words: PRESS RESTORE.
“But where’s …”
A bluish button labeled RESTORE suddenly appeared on the Elucidator. Jonah pushed against it. The Elucidator seemed to change shapes in Jonah’s hand. It looked like a cell phone again—no, it looked like a pocket watch. A club. A pair of dice. A spoon. A book. Jonah blinked, and might have missed a couple of changes, because the Elucidator was zipping in and out of shapes so quickly it blurred.
Then it was a rock again.
The screen still glowed faintly in the center of the rock, holding the words CONSERVATION OF ENERGY NEEDED DURING RESTORATION—CHOOSE OPTIONS and then CONTINUE TRANSLATIONS? Y/N.
“Not that it does much good,” Jonah muttered, but he hit the Y.
Those words faded, and now the Elucidator offered him a new choice: MUTE? Y/N.