8

Leila’s mom swallowed a mouthful of sausage and pepperoni pizza before commenting on Leila’s photo. “Yes, it does look a lot like Corey. But Corey’s got that kind of face.”

Leila looked up from the photo, which she had placed on the kitchen table. “What does that mean? What kind of face?”

“He has an old-fashioned look,” her mom replied. “A lot of kids in these vintage photos have a Corey-like look. Also the way he talks, kind of formal and old-school. He’s like a throwback to another time.”

“That’s not the point, Mom,” Leila insisted. “There was no kid in this photo before. Then Corey took it from me, went into the bathroom, disappeared, and the next thing I know, I find this!”

Her mom laughed. “So my logical daughter is thinking he disappeared and—poof!—transported himself magically into the photo?”

“Well, what do you think?”

“Leila, you know I’ve run into a lot of professional pranksters in my journalistic career. I’m thinking there’s probably a series of photos like this in Auntie Flora’s collection, all taken from the same spot. Nineteenth-century photography involved complicated cameras on tripods. Lots of effort involved. So maybe, if you’re a photographer, you don’t just take one photo, but a bunch over time. Knowing Corey, he saw the photo on your window and then he saw this one in the box. It’s pretty much identical, but obviously taken a few minutes after the window photo. He probably thought it was pretty funny to see this kid who looked like him. So he pocketed the window photo, then snuck this one into the bathroom and left it for you to find. He figured he’d freak you out.”

“That’s pretty elaborate,” Leila remarked.

Her mom laughed. “You don’t think Corey Fletcher is capable of elaborate pranks?”

“Good point,” Leila said, ripping off a slice of pizza. “Well, it worked. And when I see him at the party, he is toast.”

“Go for it, Catwoman,” Mom said. “Meow, hiss.”

Leila wolfed down a slice, swigged some seltzer, and ran back to her room. Placing her Catwoman mask over her face, she looked in the mirror. Perfect, except for the stringy hair, which looked more like it belonged to Catfish-woman.

That wouldn’t be too hard to fix.

One of Auntie Flora’s cartons was full of weird barrettes and costume jewelry. Quickly Leila rooted around to find something appropriate. At the bottom of the carton was an old-fashioned Russian lacquer box, which she hadn’t seen before. She lifted it out to set aside, but it was oddly warm to the touch. And exquisitely beautiful.

She held it to the light. On the lid was a bright-colored painting of a skating scene in a park. In the center was a luminous young skater with flaming red hair in midleap. She was surrounded by adoring men and looked a lot like Auntie Flora herself—which were probably the two reasons her aunt had bought the box. Auntie Flora loved collecting things where she could see “herself.” Leila’s shrink would call that narcissism.

The box was locked tight. It would have to wait for later. Leila set it back down, then grabbed from the carton an angular black barrette that looked vaguely catlike. Quickly she gathered her hair, clipped it back, and gave one last appraising glance.

It would do.

Racing out of the house, she took the stairs two at a time to the first floor. Waiting there were her two best friends, Rachel Eisen and Claudia Ramos. Rachel was dressed as Wonder Woman and Claudia wore a bulky costume with enormous black wings.

“Whoa . . . awesome outfit,” Leila said. “Who are you?”

“Claudia,” Claudia said.

“That’s not funny,” Rachel replied.

“The Angel of Death is not known for her sense of humor,” Claudia said.

Leila pushed open the front door. Just outside the building, an enormous white-haired lump raised up onto four legs. It was definitely a cat of some kind, but it looked like one of its ancestors had mated with a terribly ugly badger. It stared at Leila and let out a low, rumbly noise halfway between a meow and a purr.

“Hey, Catsquatch is here!” Rachel cried out.

“Jabba the Cat!” Claudia added.

Everyone in the neighborhood had a name for this lurking creature. Its eyes were bugged out, its snout rough and protruding, almost like a dog’s. No one seemed to know who it belonged to. It never really bothered anyone, but it gave Leila the creeps.

“Just my luck, I think it likes my costume,” Leila said, shooing the cat away. “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you going to wait for your boyfriend?” Rachel asked.

“Corey, Corey, tell me a story,” Claudia chimed.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Leila said. “And I don’t know where he is.”

“I do,” Claudia volunteered. “I just saw him, on my way here. When I was walking through the park? He was sitting on a bench near the willow pond. With somebody dressed as a homeless guy.”

Leila turned in the doorway. “What? He said he was going with me—us.”

Claudia shrugged. “He didn’t have his costume on yet.”

Leila took a deep breath. Pranking her was bad enough. But pranking to avoid going to the party with her? That was really, really lame.

“You could go with Catsquatch,” Rachel said.

“Hrrrrr . . .” Catsquatch growled.

“I’ll meet you guys there,” Leila said, barging through the front door. “I need to settle some business first.”

Leaving Rachel and Claudia agape, she ran outside and headed for the park.

The blaring of taxi horns was like music to Corey.

He sat on a park bench, staring at the small commemorative steel plaque on the green wooden slat behind him: “Uncle Melvin’s Special Central Park Spot. RIP 1934–2018.” He didn’t know who Uncle Melvin was but was grateful for his life. Because those dates meant Corey was now back to sometime after 2018.

Papou was explaining time travel. He must have been pretty good at it, because he’d followed Corey into the present. He was also talking a mile a minute, and Corey wasn’t understanding a word.

After what had just happened, Corey’s brain was mush. He felt like he’d just taken an overnight flight to New York from Mongolia. Or maybe from Neptune. “Can you start again,” Corey said, “but slowly, like I’m a toddler? Whose first language is Swedish?”

The old man put his arm around Corey and sat back. Pointing to the sky, he said, “In a few hours, what will we see up there, palikari mou?”

The mist was beginning to lift. The sun had nearly set, giving the sky a muddy orange-gray hue. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, it’s foggy and it’s New York City.”

“Ah. But if we were in, say, the country?”

“Stars and planets.”

Papou nodded. “Yes. Now, what if we were staring at a star, and at that moment a giant intergalactic force decided to blow it up. Then what would we see?”

“A big mess.”

Papou shook his head. “We’d see nothing different. Because the light from that star takes a few thousand years to get here. What we’re seeing now—that’s the star as it used to be. We’re looking directly into the past, Corey.”

“That’s a little mind-blowing.” Corey squinted into the sky, even though there was nothing to see. “Okay, wait. So that star we’re pretending to see—let’s say it has a solar system, and that solar system has a planet like Earth. And I use this awesome super telescope to look at that planet. And I see this kid. He’s got a telescope, too, and he’s looking back. I wave. Does he wave back?”

“No,” Papou said. “Because through his telescope, he’s not seeing you. He’s seeing what was here thousands of years ago. A forest with deer and bears. Maybe a native Lenni-Lenape family going to sleep. So there’s the paradox. The moment we see him, he’s actually long gone into dust, dead. At the same moment, from his perspective, none of us has been born yet! Einstein spent his life trying to figure this stuff out. He showed that time and space were elastic—that they could bend and fold in on themselves.”

“I think I get that,” Corey said. “Unless I think too hard. Then my head falls off.”

“What we call the present is not just one moment,” Papou went on. “It contains all the moments that came before. So it stands to reason we should be able to access some of them.”

“And that’s what we just did?” Corey murmured. “Down by the ravine?”

“Exactly,” Papou said. “And we’re not the only ones. Many other people do it, too. Some of them realize it, some don’t. They assume they’re dreaming, or they give it a convenient name. You know the phrase déjà vu?”

“Uh, duh, yeah,” Corey replied. “As in, ‘How weird is this, I feel like I’ve been here before’? That déjà vu? So, people who have that are time travelers?”

“Not all, but some,” Papou said. “The whole thing confused me at first. I tried to convince people I was having these . . . experiences. People said I had a crazy imagination. Ha. Sound familiar? Anyway, I didn’t realize I could actually do it—really, really travel in time—until late in life, ten years ago. Now I’m pretty good at it. I’ve also had some support.” Papou reached into his pocket and pulled out a card:

THE KNICKERBOCKER PROJECT

KONSTANTINO VLECHOS

AKA GUS FLETCHER

38V04C

“Knickerbocker . . . ,” Corey said. “Wait. That was also the name of your book club, right?”

Papou took a deep breath, his lips tightening. “We said we were a book club, paithaki. We met every month. I was lucky to live in New York, where the group was based. Other members came from all over the world. They lied to their families about why they moved here. We didn’t talk about books, Corey. We talked about our time hops, and we recorded notes in a log.”

“Hops? Wait . . .” Corey pressed the tips of his fingers to each side of his head, as if to keep everything from blowing outward. “How does it happen? When I . . . hopped, and I saw you out Leila’s bathroom window—how did you know I’d be there?”

“I left you the Civil War belt buckle for a reason,” Papou replied. “Time-hopping can be unpredictable and random—equal parts genetics, art, and science.”

“Genetics?” Corey said. “So . . . some people inherit diabetes, some inherit curly hair, and I inherited time travel?”

Papou laughed. “That is an incredibly simplified way of looking at it, but more or less . . . yes. But there are other necessary ingredients for it to occur. Most important is skin contact with a metal from the time period. Believe it or not, often a photograph alone will do, because of the silver content. The atomic structure of metals is different from other elements—rigid, solid, matrix-like. This is why they conduct electricity, and perhaps we will see someday how they help conduct time. You know I have another identical buckle. I was lucky to find a pair. The buckles’ stamps reveal that they were was forged on October thirty-first, 1862. All I needed was one time hop to that date. And I waited.”

Corey laughed with disbelief. “Wait, that’s it? To travel in time you just squeeze metal?”

“Well, no. When you travel by bicycle, you don’t just sit on it and expect it to go where you need it to. There are other elements—awareness of your goal, desire to reach it.”

“You have to want it.”

“Exactly. There are triggers that can accelerate the action—physical or psychological danger, a strong dream or daydream. Adrenaline is a help. Time travel is as much physical as metaphysical.”

“This is so incredible, Papou.” Corey began pacing back and forth. “The possibilities are awesome. You could change so many things . . . like, go back and stop wars from happening. You could bomb Hitler, prevent assassinations—”

“No, no, not so fast.” Papou smiled sadly. “Physical laws apply. Time is linear—meaning in a line. What happens happens. You can’t change what occurred in the past, no matter what. Sure, there are alternate theories. Some believe multiple timelines exist, with differing events. Some think there have been very special humans capable of going from one to the other, allowing the timelines to leak. In effect, this would allow the events of one timeline to wipe out another. All very blah blah blah and hocus-pocus, if you ask me.”

“How do you know?” Corey insisted.

“We certainly have tested it! Assassination, you say? I went to Ford’s Theatre to save Abraham Lincoln. I knew what the assassin looked like, I had the date and time, but they threw me out because I didn’t have a ticket. One thing about history—it happened. So whatever you try, you’re destined to fail. Still, you always think you’ll be the one. You think ‘maybe next time.’ So you go back. It can be addictive. I—I went many times to 2001 . . . to the day we lost your yiayia. . . .”

His voice drifted off.

The death of Corey’s grandmother on 9/11 was something the family never really talked about. Corey slid closer to his grandfather and put an arm around his shoulder. “You tried to save her, Papou?” he said.

“I don’t like to think about it,” the old man said, turning away.

“You did, didn’t you?”

The old man was motionless for a good minute, then nodded. “I failed again and again. I went to September eleventh. I also went to September eighth and September tenth. Every time, something different went wrong. On one of my time hops, I saw her in the crowd heading to work in the tower.” Papou took a deep, sad breath. “One time I waited in the building. I pleaded with her, but I got too frantic. She misunderstood me. We’d been arguing that morning, and she blew past me. I was trying so hard, I just spooked her, I think. It took a long time for me to accept the truth—that I was helpless. It was as if she died four times. . . .”

“I don’t blame you for trying,” Corey said softly. “You had to. Maybe you should try again. I can come with you! It would be so cool to meet her. To save her!”

Papou’s expression hardened. He took Corey’s hands and leaned in, looking him straight in the eye. “Listen to me, Corey, and let this sink in. Now that you have experienced this, you will want to do it again. And again. You will become obsessed. You’ll convince yourself that you are the chosen one, the only human who can change time. Take my word. Resist this. It has consequences. It will destroy you mentally. And physically.”

Papou raised his hands upward. His fingers were gnarled and thick, covered with coarse hair like some prehistoric creature.

Corey flinched. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Our sister organization in Vancouver is working on a cure. That’s why I left for Canada, Corey.” Papou lowered his hands. “You know the expression ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’? Well, Nature abhors time travel, too. It violates all kinds of physical laws. If you hop back to a point within your lifetime, you’ll exist twice—different ages at the same time. Like two identical poles on a magnet trying to occupy the same space. To compensate, your genes . . . shift. It is a natural protective mechanism. The body changes. Some people can make hundreds of time hops just fine, some only once or twice—”

Before Papou could finish, a familiar voice cut through the night air. “Corey, that was a really dumb prank!”

Leila came bounding toward him, her Catwoman cape flowing in the breeze. Corey gave his papou a look. “I think I’m in trouble.”

“This kind of trouble,” Papou murmured, “you can handle.”

“Oh, hey, Leila,” Corey said, bolting to his feet. “Um, sorry, I got sidetracked.”

“I have been looking all over for you! Do you know what I just saw, coming over here? The biggest rat in the history of New York City. With teeth the size of machetes. I could have rabies by now!” As Leila turned to the old man, her angry expression melted. “P-P-Papou? Is that you?”

“Hello, koukla mou—my dear girl,” he said, opening his arms. “How are you and your mother?”

She practically leaped at Corey’s grandfather, throwing her arms around him. Her bad mood was completely forgotten. “I am soooo happy to see you!”

“It is not every day an old man is hugged by Catwoman,” Papou said. “I forgot it is Halloween! Do you two have a party over at GWC?”

“GWC?” Leila said.

“Your school, silly one,” Papou replied. “George Washington Carver Middle School!”

Leila laughed. “No, silly. That’s where you went, maybe. We go to FPR.”

She pointed to a glass-and-steel tower that rose just peeking over the trees north of One Hundredth Street on Central Park West.

“What the—when was that built?” Corey asked. “How did I miss that?”

“Very funny,” Leila said.

Corey exchanged a baffled glance with his grandfather.

“Pardon me, dear?” Papou said. “But . . . FPR?”

Leila smiled. “Frederick P. Ruggles Middle School,” she said.

“R-R-Ruggles . . . ?” Papou said.

Leila raised an eyebrow and sang to some vaguely familiar tune, “‘All hail to fair Ruggles / Where despite all our struggles / We let inner strength be our guide! / Like our founder whose bravery / Fought a war against slavery / We’re the pride of the Upper West Side.’”

The words hung in the misty air. Corey felt light-headed. He thought back to the gunshot. The black smoke.

“Corey, what exactly happened between you and that soldier?” Papou murmured.

“Wait—soldier?” Leila said.

“Ruggles,” Corey said. “That was his name—Ruggles! He was going to shoot himself. But I distracted him.”

He turned to meet Papou’s eyes, which were the size of baseballs. “He should have died . . . ,” the old man said, his voice tight and raspy. “But because of you, he lived. ‘Fought a war against slavery’ . . . he fought for the North. A hero.”

“Um, unlike you, I hate codes,” Leila said. “Would you mind translating?”

But neither Corey nor Papou had the words to express what was in their minds.

In the annals of New York history before Corey’s trip, Ruggles had become a corpse in Central Park that day.

Until he met Corey.

And then he wasn’t.