I sit cross-legged on the cool sandy soil in front of the ruined remains of the chimney at the edge of the marsh. I’m so still that an observer might think I’m meditating.
But I’m not. I’m waiting.
I stare at the timestream, concentrating on the areas that are leaking around me. Not all of the times and places breaking through are connected to the island, but most are. The Native American tribes I catch glimpses of look like the ones that lived here before the first European settlers, and the Pilgrims I see could be from any of the colonies, but it seems likely that they live nearby. The kids from the sick camp are obviously from around here.
It takes me a while to realize that the people who are showing up from different places—people like Carlos Estrada, or a Mexican family speaking Spanish rapidly, or a group of giggling girls around fifteen years old dressed in fluffy dresses—they’re all coming from different places, but they all link back to her.
All the leaks in time are centered on either the island or Sofía. Somehow, they’re connected. And if I can figure out that connection, maybe I can figure out how to stop the leaks, control the timestream, and save Sofía.
So I’m waiting, watching, trying to piece together all the different bits of time swirling in and around this place.
Trying to forget the way Sofía’s eyes turned invisible as she screamed at me.
I am perfectly still as the timestream creaks and groans like the deck of a wooden ship. I turn my head slightly to see a group of kids rushing by, running and laughing, one of them waving a long, colorfully decorated stick. Something from Sofía’s past—some childhood birthday party or similar. I consider jumping up and chasing them back into their time, where I could see Sofía when she was eight or nine years old. Maybe I could warn her to stay away from the boy who can control time.
But she’d be too young. And I’d be too out of place.
A fire crackles in the ruins’ hearth. The fire spreads, both creating and destroying the house as it burns. I can feel the heat of it on my skin, and its smoke blinds me. I start coughing and stumble back, moving away from the flames. This is how the house was destroyed in the 1700s. It wasn’t people who slipped through the timestream this time, it was the whole damn house.
And then I hear a scream.
“Sofía?” I gasp, choking on the smoke.
No. That’s impossible. Sofía was sent back a hundred years before the fire started. There’s no way—
And then I see her. In the second story of the burning building. She’s screaming, beating her arms on the glass panes. She’s trapped. She’s burning alive.
“SOFÍA!” I roar, rushing toward the flaming house.
It disappears.
The sound and the smoke disappear too, leaving me gasping, my head spinning.
She was there.
But . . . how?
Maybe . . . maybe the cracks in time are all linked to Sofía and this island not because she’s trapped in the 1600s, during the Salem Witch Trials, but because Sofía’s trapped in the cracks, falling through time, and the only thing linking her to reality is this island.
As I stand there, trying to figure out what’s going on, the house reappears. It doesn’t smell of acrid burning; it smells of freshly sawn wood and new paint. The stone steps leading to the front door grow up under my feet, and I turn, slowly, my back to the house.
I see Sofía again.
This time, she’s crying. Silently but violently, her shoulders shake and her teeth chatter in fear.
There’s a rope around her neck.
Four men—two of whom I had seen before on horseback in the marsh—stand over Sofía’s body. She’s gotten her hands on some time-appropriate clothes; she looks like a Pilgrim. Except for her too-dark skin.
Another woman is there, a teenaged girl with blonde hair and dark eyes. She points at Sofía and yells, “Witch!”
The girl starts moving as if she’s having a seizure, but her motions are too planned, too repetitive. The men standing over Sofía take action. One leaves the group to comfort the girl. The others throw the end of the rope over a heavy branch of a nearby oak tree, and they use a horse to drag Sofía’s protesting body up and up and up. She claws at the noose around her neck, her eyes wide and popping.
“Stop!” I shout, striding forward.
But before I can do anything, they all disappear.
I spin around wildly, looking for whatever break in the timestream is going to happen next. The chimney is a ruin; the tree they were stringing Sofía up on is nothing but a stump. I sink to my knees. Is this Sofía’s hell? To be found and killed throughout time?
I hear laughing.
I stand back up, my legs weak, but I force myself to walk toward the sound, toward the abandoned camp for sick kids.
When I get there, it’s . . . strange. The buildings are old and empty, abandoned as always. But there are more than a dozen kids in shirts that look like they come from the ’70s. Some of the kids are obviously sick, in wheelchairs or braces or helmets, but some are not. Two are in the pool, splashing around. Or . . . I stare, my mouth dropping open. The pool is dry and dirty with weeds growing in the bottom. But the two kids are standing in the shallow end, laughing and flailing their arms around as if the pool is full of water. One of the kids dives backward, and I almost cry out, expecting him to smash his head into the cracked cement, but he floats in water he can feel but I cannot see.
Two other kids nearby are throwing a ball. I can see the ball when it touches one of the kids’ hands, but as soon as it flies in the air toward the other kid, it’s invisible again.
“Where’s Sofía?” I mutter, looking around. In my past two visions, she was there. She needed me. She must need me now. She must be at this camp.
I run up to the buildings, throwing open the doors and peering inside. They are empty, abandoned, decrepit. Sunlight leaks through the spaces between the warped boards of the walls, exposing rat droppings and a dead cockroach in the corner. But outside I can still hear the sounds of people laughing and talking, moving and shuffling through the buildings, including the ones I just left.
It’s creepy.
But no Sofía.
I return to the center of the camp. The only people I see are the kids playing. No adults, no counselors, or whoever else is supposed to be here. I grab the nearest kid, a little girl with Down syndrome. “Do you know Sofía?” I shout at her.
She starts crying. All around me, the camp becomes more and more present. Water fills the pool, the grass is greener, the buildings are brighter. More people appear in the background, including some adults who are starting my way. By touching the little girl, I’ve pulled myself into her time.
I shake her shoulders urgently. “Can you see me? Do you know Sofía?”
Her sobs turn louder.
“Bo?”
I turn just in time for my eyes to connect with Sofía’s. But before I can say anything, she points at something behind me and screams, “Run!”
I turn—
And then I’m ripped away. Not by a person, but by a force. By time.
I’m thrown back into a place I don’t recognize. There is no sick kids’ camp. There is no Berkshire. There’s not a chimney from the 1600s . . . or even a house. There’s only the island, bare, swampy, and loud with the sounds of waves crashing on the shore. A greenhead fly buzzes past me.
There’s a rustling in the tall grass. I stand completely still as a young deer creeps forward, her nose in the air, sniffing for danger. She turns and sees me. We stare at each other for a moment, then she darts around, her tail high and white, bounding away from me.
I feel the pull of time in my navel first, and before I even have a chance to call for Sofía, I’m dragged back and back again.
I’m at the camp again, but back when it first opened, when it was just for kids with polio. Then I’m at the Berk just as it was being built, before I’m thrown again to a time that may be the far future, the academy nothing but a crumbling foundation of brick, and the camp completely hidden by weeds and trees. I’m whipped around, backward and forward through time, spun across the island, a witness to its every incarnation.
And hidden in every moment of time . . . Sofía.
I see glimpses of dark hair, whispers of her pleading voice, or screams ripped from her mouth. Sometimes she’s invisible. Sometimes I can see her in the distance: running from something unknown, being held down by men from other times, walking silently into the ocean on her own, weighed down with stones. At one point I see nothing but a freshly dug, unmarked grave, but I know it’s hers. Every time I see, every time, she’s just out of my reach, just far enough away that I cannot save her.
I try to call up the timestream. I try to find the strings that will pull me to my own time or just anchor me to any time. I whirl faster and faster, coming apart at the seams. The island and its contents meld together, trees and grass and dirt and buildings nothing more than a green-and-brown blur. But the occasional faces I see in each time are sharp and unique, standing out against the whirl, but each one is unrecognizable. No Sofía. No Dr. Franklin or Ryan or Gwen or Harold. Not even one of the officials.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a ponytail that’s familiar. I reach for it blindly, my fingers barely able to entwine into the girl’s hair.
Into my sister Phoebe’s hair.
When I open my eyes next, I’m in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. It looks exactly the same as when I was last at home, a sheet over the door, my notebook and the USB drive on my desk, but I search for some indication of how much time has passed . . . or has yet to pass.
The curtain blocking my door is swept to the side. Phoebe stands in the doorway, illuminated by the hallway light.
“About time you’re awake,” she says.