Chapter 24

Finn tried to imagine how to approach the happy scene. He could walk right up and talk to Dad. Would Dad even recognize him? He hoped Mom had explained at least some of what would happen.

Taking a deep breath, Finn left the path and cut through the trees. It was a noisy descent, but he figured it was better than sneaking up on them.

Dad saw him right away. His hand went to his side—a reflex, the kind of thing people did when they were armed. Finn froze and put his hands out where his father could see them. He had never known his dad to carry a weapon of any kind, ever.

Their eyes met and Dad’s hand relaxed. They stood ten feet apart now, staring at each other. Seconds that felt like an eternity. It wasn’t that Dad actually looked that much younger—he looked very much the same, only less beaten down.

“You don’t look anything like I expected,” Dad said. He stepped closer and Finn fought the urge to step backwards. His father’s scrutinizing stare was too focused, too intense. “You look like your mother’s family. You’re tall.”

Finn could only nod. He had no idea what to say.

The children noticed him now and came toward him with curious looks on their faces. It hurt to look his younger self in the eye. A physical pain shot through his head, like he was chewing on tin foil. He focused on Dad instead.

“So it worked then,” Dad said. “You were able to get to her?”

“Yes. It wasn’t easy.” Finn wished he could explain that first trip, but the words failed him. Dad looked away from him back toward the children. Faith and young Finn were doing that thing that children do when a stranger appears. They were cautiously standing behind their father, peering at big Finn like he was some kind of exhibit at the museum.

“I’m supposed to—”

Dad cut him off. “I know the plan, and I’m afraid I’m not on board. I’ve always trusted your mother about these things, but this seems too extreme, even for her.”

Finn figured his dad had the same misgivings he did, but he couldn’t let on that he felt them too. This wasn’t the time to have a philosophical discussion.

“She told me I had to hurry. I’m sorry, but I think she’s right. I think I’m here for exactly this reason. I realize now, for as long as I can remember I’ve felt angry and guilty about—what happens today.” He nodded his head ever so slightly in Faith’s direction. He couldn’t say anything more specific in front of them, even if the children wouldn’t yet understand. “I was wrong, Dad. I think it has to happen, and it was supposed to be me all along.”

Dad’s eyebrows rose in shock. It occurred to Finn that this was the first time anyone had called him Dad. The Finn behind his pant leg right now would still be calling him Daddy. Maybe that was what shook him.

“She told me to show you this.” He held the ring out in his upturned palm. Faith went up on her tiptoes to get a better view of what he was holding. Young Finn stayed hidden behind his father.

Dad reached out for the ring and took it from Finn’s hand before he had a chance to protest. He turned it back and forth between his fingers studying it.

“She gave you this?” It was a question tinged with incredulity. It annoyed Finn. Why wouldn’t she give him something as important as the key to the portal?

“Yes, and I need it if we’re going to get back.”

Young Finn stepped forward now, his eyes boring into big Finn’s brain. Finn focused on the boy’s small protruding belly instead. His belly, round and childlike. New memories flooded his field of vision and he did his best to push them aside.

“Hello, Finn. Hello, Faith. I’m a friend of your mother.”

He instantly wished he hadn’t addressed his younger self. The memory was almost too much to experience alongside the present reality. It was easier not to talk to him. Whatever he said echoed back in his own mind, a long-ago fuzzy impression. It was beyond disorienting.

Finn could sense Dad tensing up next to him. Still, he crouched down and looked Faith in the eyes. He wasn’t very good at talking to little kids. Gabi was the one who was good at that, the way she got the younger kids at the theater camp to follow her around like the pied piper while her mother manned the phone. Finn tried his best to channel Gabi and looked Faith right in the eyes. At least her memories wouldn’t instantly be implanted in his brain.

“Do you think we can be friends?”

The child shook her head slightly and hid further behind her father’s legs. She couldn’t possibly know what he was there for or what it would mean for her life, but she was afraid of him anyway. Smart girl. Finn wondered what kind of enemy she could grow to be.

“Listen . . . Finn.” His father stumbled over the name. Finn’s younger self looked up at Dad questioningly. “I think she’s missing something, some vital piece of the puzzle. There has to be another way. I won’t let her go.”

At that, Faith looked at her father and stepped back. A frightening understanding was growing on her face. She was only a toddler, but she knew the word “go” and she didn’t know this big tall boy in front of her. She began to cry. A quiver of the lip first, and then she grabbed fistfuls of her father’s pants and sobbed.

“Faith, calm down.” Dad knelt beside her. “It’s okay. Daddy’s not going anywhere.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, Finn thought. Daddy wasn’t.

Dad looked back at Finn. “You can see it, can’t you? It’ll be far too traumatic. It’s an unnecessary plan for a disaster that may not even happen.”

“It happens. Today.” Finn looked away toward the water. Unbidden images of a child floating in green water came to his mind, but that wasn’t right anymore. What happens is someone takes her. They’ll tell young Finn it was a drowning.

Why didn’t Dad know all this? “Didn’t she tell you?”

It was Dad’s turn to look away. “Sometimes she doesn’t tell me things. We both agreed it’s better that way.” His eyes widened. “This must be why she stayed home today. She couldn’t stomach this.”

“But she’s relying on us.” Finn began to look around nervously. He had no idea who would be coming for Faith, but he wanted to be long gone before they arrived.

“Who? Who does it?” Dad’s question was insistent and angry.

Finn realized he was without the details necessary to sway his father. “I don’t know who specifically . . . but it’s Doc you can’t trust.”

Dad’s mouth twisted up at one corner. Finn didn’t know if he was absorbing this information or formulating a plan to get the children away from him. His next question came out of the blue.

“Did she look okay?”

“Mom?” The tenderness of the question made Finn swallow hard before answering. He remembered her thin wrists and hollowed out cheeks. He thought about lying, but it didn’t seem right. “No. She looks too thin.”

They studied each other for a moment and Finn wanted to tell him everything. How Mom had no intention of coming home. How this was good-bye to Faith and in a few years it was good-bye to Mom, too. Unless—unless she could somehow beat the odds. Because that was what altering time was, a gamble. Nothing was sure. He realized it now. It was all playing the odds, and in Mom’s case she was playing them over and over again.

Dad spoke before Finn could. He was resolute. “You can have the ring back, but that’s all you’re taking with you. I can protect my family.”

He pushed the ring into Finn’s palm and held on tighter to Faith’s hand. Her little fingers were completely wrapped in his fist.

“But Dad, it’s today!”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to know what’s next. I trust that I can protect my family. That’s what I’m asking of you. Man to man.”

His last three words were a shock to Finn. The Dad he knew in his time would never give him that label. He was dealing with Finn like an equal. It filled Finn with momentary pride.

They were interrupted by the sounds of leaves rustling on the trail behind them. Finn shot Dad a look of horror. This was it. They were here.

“Run,” Dad hissed. “Don’t let anyone see you!” He pushed Finn backward behind one of the giant marble slabs.

Finn, realizing he could still be seen from the trail, sprinted for the other path that led to the opposite side of the cliffs. He tried to be as soundless as possible.

His mind raced as he tried to decide what to do next. He could go back to Mom now. Tell her he’d failed. Insist she come home—home to the present—with him.

She’d never forgive him. He’d never forgive himself.

He circled the quarry and stopped above the highest cliff, the ones Sebastian and his friends had just been jumping from only yesterday. No, he corrected himself. They haven’t jumped here yet. He was years before them.

He was directly across from Dad and the twins now, only thirty yards of water separating them. He could hear their voices echo off the steep marble walls and across the water.

“James . . .”

Doc.

Finn leaned through the branches, desperately trying to see and hear what was happening.

Doc was not alone. There were three other men with him. That was both bad and good. The three men were large and imposing, but no women meant no one could take Faith directly from this node into another time; they’d need to bring her to someone who could Travel. Finn looked around, scanning the tree line, and his heart dropped when he found what he was looking for. Down in the parking lot, leaning against Doc’s ancient Jeep, was the unmistakable skeletal silhouette of Aunt Billie. She was waiting, with paper-thin arms folded, waiting to destroy Finn’s world.

Dad, holding Faith in his arms, stood facing the men. “Yes, Will. I know.” He was speaking loudly. He wanted Finn to hear. “It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. I’ve heard it all before.”

Finn could see Doc’s mouth moving, answering, but the words were lost across the water.

“We might be more inclined to trust ISTA if you stopped holding meetings behind our backs,” Dad said.

Doc’s angry voice echoed across the marble stones. “You’ve given us no choice. You’ve behaved irrationally. And James, we do understand. We can’t blame you. It’s an impossible decision.” He turned to one of the men behind him and nodded. “One we feel we must make for you.”

Two of the men were suddenly on top of Dad. He yelled “No!” and held Faith tightly. Finn could no longer hear, and he couldn’t see their faces from this far, but he could suddenly remember them. The horror of the moment was being built in his three-year-old brain to echo in his older self’s memory. He was witnessing it from two angles. The men held Dad back as he fought hard against them, and one of them wrenched Faith from Dad’s hands.

The third man picked her up with no effort. She was so small against his hulking form. He had one arm around her middle and the other around her neck. Young Finn was crying and shaking, frozen in fear.

The large man yelled out in pain. Faith bit him!

He dropped her, cradling his forearm. Faith bolted. She sped up the trail on her tiny legs, the same way Finn had just come.

Doc and the injured man chased after her. The large, hulking man was cradling his arm against his side and Finn could see blood trickling through his clenched fingers.

“Good girl,” Finn whispered. “You got him.”

She was running the same path Finn had just taken, the path that encircled the whole quarry. As long as she continued on the trail that skirted the quarry’s edge, she’d be heading straight for him. He would be ready. He’d grab her and put on the ring and get her to Mom. Dad would understand. There were no other options.

But Faith was moving fast and with the gracelessness of a child consumed by fear. Finn held his breath as she skirted the far end—and stumbled. Her small wet feet skidded across the rock, her tiny arms reached for the empty air around her as she slid sideways off the marble cliff, plunging awkwardly to the deep water below.

“No!” Finn screamed and swore. He heard his father do the same from the opposite shore. Finn had the worst view—watching helplessly from two perspectives, in his memories of his three-year-old self and in the moment now.

Poised on the edge of the highest cliff, he didn’t even have to think. The memory and the inclination came at once.

He dove headfirst into the quarry.