"What?" I gasped, as Gavin yelled from the other end of the phone line, "Molly? Was that you? Are you guys okay over there? What's going on?"
Wordlessly, Molly pointed behind me, her eyes round with terror. I turned around, preparing myself for the worst—a firing squad? Men with bayonets? Gary and Hodge, fully adult and ready to steal me once more?
Instead, I saw JB.
"JB!" I exclaimed, running over and giving him a hug. Which was maybe a little odd, because JB and I hadn't really had that kind of relationship before. Jonah and Katherine treated him like a friend, because he was a good friend of theirs. But to the rest of us, he was more of an acquaintance.
I didn't care. I was so glad to see someone who could explain and fix everything.
"Who's that?" Molly asked me, looking like she was about to cry. "Is that some other new family member I never had before?"
"No," I replied, almost laughing with relief. "This is someone who knows a lot about time travel. He's going to fix time!"
Molly didn't look reassured, and for the first time I realized that fixing time wouldn't be as great for her as it would be for me. Because I was the one who belonged in my family—right? If time went back to how it used to be, then I would get my parents back, as mine, and Molly would—what? Fade out of existence? I didn't want her as my sister, but I definitely didn't want that to happen to her. Maybe she would go back and just live with her other family, the Rousseaus. Yeah, that would work. Because if the Rousseaus were Gavin's aunt and uncle, and he remembered Molly always being his cousin, then that's what it would be like when JB fixed time.
Oh—Gavin! I ran over to where Molly had dropped the phone. "Gavin!" I exclaimed. "You won't believe who's here. JB just showed up! He's going to—wait, JB, do you need me to do something to help you fix time? Do I need to go back in time again?" I wasn't thrilled about the prospect, but it would be worth it if it meant things would go back to normal.
JB was frowning. "Time… is fixed," he said, then hesitated, as if unsure of whether to say more. "Daniella, I know this is all very confusing for you. It's confusing for everybody. Even the time agency is perplexed by it. But we're reasonably certain that everything is going to work out." He paused. "Do you give me permission to take you and Molly to a time hollow to talk things over?"
"Why do we need to talk in a time hollow?" I asked.
"Because we're going to meet with some other people as well. Angela and our friend Hadley are going to bring Gavin and his family, and I was thinking we'd make a couple stops along the way to pick up your parents. That way we can all talk together, in a group."
"Okay," I said hesitantly. "But my parents don't know about time travel. And I'm pretty sure Gavin's parents don't either. And—"
JB grabbed my arm. "Hold onto Molly," he instructed me.
I did.
And then the floor dropped out from beneath us all.
We didn't spin away through the blackness of Outer Time, the way I'd expected us to. Instead, we almost instantaneously appeared in the deserted hallway of some office building.
Molly whipped her head back and forth. "But—But—that's impossible!" she stammered. "How did we just do that? What happened?"
"Why didn't it feel like we traveled through time this time?" I asked.
"Because we only went a couple seconds into the future. This was mainly just a matter of transportation," JB answered my question, then looked kindly at Molly. "Molly, I know this is all very strange for you, but we did just travel through time and space. And we're going to do it again, after we get your mom."
"And how are we going to do that?" I asked.
"Well, we need to get her away from people, because obviously, we can't have people seeing her disappear. I was thinking you and Molly could go find her, and bring her here. Then we could all go get your dad together."
"How—" I was about to ask How are we supposed to find my mom? when JB pulled out what looked like an iPad and showed it to me. "Here's a map of the building," he explained. "We're right here, and your mom is right there." He pointed to our respective locations.
I started walking to the end of the hallway. Molly followed me. Together, we left the hallway and continued down another hallway, toward the office cubicles.
"If we get my mom and dad and bring them to the place that guy wants them, will that make everything go back to normal?" Molly asked plaintively.
I frowned, remembering how JB had answered when I'd asked if we were going to fix time: "Time…is fixed." He couldn't possibly mean that, right? He must've meant that everything about 1918 was fixed, or maybe that all the missing kids had already had their turn going back in time and fixing their section of history. Surely that was what he meant.
"I think so," I told Molly. But I wasn't sure.
We finally arrived at Mom's cubicle. She was deeply engrossed in her computer, and only looked up when I said, "Mom?"
"Daniella! Molly! What are you girls doing here? You're supposed to be at school!"
Molly and I glanced at each other, and for a moment it felt like we really were sisters, trying to come up with a good story to avoid getting in trouble.
"Mom…" I said. "You need to come quick. Follow us."
"It's an emergency," added Molly, and I nodded, impressed.
"An emergency? What—"
"Just come on!" Molly grabbed Mom's hand, and together we led her through the maze of cubicles, down the other hallway and into the one JB was in.
"Girls, can you please just tell me what—"
"I'm going to send her straight to the time hollow," JB interrupted Mom, talking to me. "With Molly. Daniella, you and I will go get your dad."
Everything disappeared. This time I felt it slightly, like I was somehow moving very fast even though I was just standing still. And then I appeared in a different office building hallway.
"You sent them to a time hollow by themselves?" I exclaimed indignantly. "They'll be totally freaked out! Mom has no clue what's going on, and Molly hardly knows more than Mom…"
"For them it will feel like a matter of seconds before we meet up with them," said JB. "Here's the map showing where your dad is." Once again, he pulled out the "iPad"—which I now knew to be an Elucidator—and showed me a map.
"And you're really going to explain everything once we all get to the time hollow?" I asked. It wasn't that I didn't trust JB, because I did. It was just that it seemed like we had to go through an awful lot of steps before we could get there.
"I promise," said JB.
I walked down the hallway, opened a door, and found myself in a large room full of computers.
I scanned the room for Dad. Finally, I spotted his mousy brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. I walked over to him, ignoring the people who were giving me looks of surprise.
"Dad," I said. He turned around.
"Daniella? What are you doing here?"
"You need to come with me quickly. It's an emergency." I tried to look panicked. It wasn't too hard.
"What kind of emergency? Is Mom all right? Is Molly all right?"
Some tiny little bubble inside me burst when he said Molly's name. Somehow I'd been holding onto the hope that even though Mom was in Michigan and remembered having Molly as a daughter, Dad would just be going on with life as normal—working in Ohio, thinking about coming home to Mom and me. He wouldn't have ever heard of Molly.
But apparently he had.
"Just come with me!" I grabbed him by the hand, like Molly had done with Mom, and brought him to the hallway where JB was waiting.
"We'll all go together," said JB, coming over and resting his hand on my shoulder. Then everything around us disappeared, and we were floating through Outer Time.
"What the—?" Dad yelped. I had never heard Dad yelp before. "What's going on? Who are you?" he said accusingly to JB.
"I'm sorry for having to introduce myself this way," said JB. "My name is JB. I'm from the future—well, the future to you, anyway. I'm a time agent—I make sure people are following the rules of time travel. And I try to fix the problems that occur when people don't. I know it's hard to believe, but we are right now traveling through time."
"This is the weirdest dream I've ever had," Dad muttered disbelievingly.
Neither JB nor I bothered to correct him. A moment later, we came into the rough part of time travel, and then we landed in the time hollow.