The day was here. The feeling Angela had about this day reminded her of how she'd felt way back in the twenty-first century, when November 21 had finally rolled around. She was excited, but also anxious. Worried that one small mistake on her part could be enough to completely ruin all of time.
"Well, we made it this far without ruining time, right, Tete?" Angela said out loud. She still made it a point to talk to him, even though he hadn't responded in almost a month—well over the amount of time the Elucidator had said catatonia normally lasted.
As she expected, Tete remained propped up against the pillows she'd ordered for him, staring vacantly ahead and drooling.
"We're going to meet Jonah today," she told him. "And then we're going to go back to 2012—or maybe to the future, I don't really know yet—and we're going to get you cured. You'll be able to talk and feed yourself and live life again, Tete." As soon as she said his name, she remembered that Tete hadn't always been Tete. Before coming to 1932, he'd been JB. Angela had sort of stopped thinking of them as the same person after spending all this time with Tete.
So when he gets cured, will he be Tete or JB? she wondered. She desperately wanted JB back, of course. But she had to admit, she also missed the boy she'd come to know during her first couple months in 1932.
Angela didn't even let herself think of the third possibility—that JB/Tete's brain damage was so severe by this point, he wouldn't be able to be cured at all.
"Okay." Angela needed to distract herself from her thoughts. "Jonah's coming at some point in the afternoon, which means that by about eleven-thirty, we should be hidden in some place where we can see the airfield office." She let the words of the letter run through her mind again: meet me at the airfield where Charles Lindbergh flies on the afternoon of August 15. Hide out of sight until you see me run out of the office. And then, as soon as you can get me away from Gary and Hodge, we can go rescue JB.
Angela wasn't exactly sure what Jonah meant by "rescue JB", unless he had somehow found out about JB/Tete's regression into his current state. But she would worry about that later.
"We also have to stay away from Gary and Hodge," she added. Reciting out loud the steps and precautions she needed to take helped calm her nerves. "Since Gary and Hodge are time travelers, being invisible won't do us any good. So we're just going to try to blend in with whatever fans and reporters are there to see Lindbergh." This "blending in" would undoubtedly be one of the most difficult parts of the operation. Angela was bound to stand out no matter what she did, simply because of the color of her skin. And Tete—well, by now Tete would stand out too.
The first step, before Angela could do anything else, was getting Tete up and moving. Ever since he'd fallen into his catatonia, he'd had "good days" and "bad days". On "good days," if Angela pulled him to his feet, he'd stand up and walk around a little, sometimes humming quietly. On bad days, it was as if all the muscles in his body had turned to Jell-O. Please let this be one of his good days, Angela prayed.
Angela took hold of both of Tete's wrists. "I'm going to help you up, okay?" she said, pulling him into a standing position. To her relief, Tete remained standing, and took mincing steps forward as she guided him in the direction of the airfield.
They were in luck. When they arrived at the airfield, a crowd of excited people was gathered at the gate. Most of them looked like reporters, with huge cameras and writing pads. "What's going on?" Angela asked as she and Tete approached the group.
Several of the reporters gave her affronted looks and moved over without answering her question. But one said excitedly, "Charles Lindbergh! He just took off from here not fifteen minutes ago! Rumor has it this is his first flight since they found his son's body."
At least that confirmed that Angela was in the right place. But the note hadn't specified whether Charles Lindbergh would be there when Angela was supposed to meet Jonah, so she still had no idea when Jonah was going to show up.
After several minutes, the reporters began growing restless. A few of them left, while most of the others sat down by the gate, talking amongst themselves. Tete was starting to seem unsteady on his feet, so Angela led him over so he could sit leaning up against the gate.
The nearest reporter glared at them. "What are you kids still doing here?" he asked. "You think Lindy's gonna be giving out autographs or something? To the likes of you?"
"I'm going to be a pilot one day," Angela told him, trying to sound like a confident but innocent kid. "And Charles Lindbergh is one of the greatest pilots there is, so—"
Several of the reporters started laughing. "You?" one of them said incredulously. "A pilot? Who's gonna teach a negro girl how to fly?"
Angela held back from saying what she really wanted to say, which was, You just wait and see what the world looks like eighty years from now. Instead she said, "Ever heard of Bessie Coleman? She learned how to fly. If she can do it, so can I."
A couple of the reporters reacted with recognition at Bessie's name, but the nearest one was no longer paying attention. "What's wrong with your friend there?" he asked, jerking his chin in Tete's direction.
"Nothing," Angela said quickly. "He's just… he zones out a lot." She inwardly cringed at her choice of words, wondering if they sounded too twenty-first century. But the reporters were now all looking over at Tete, and one of them had even stepped closer to him.
"He looks like he belongs in an institution," one of them commented. "Look at him—he's drooling!"
"We actually have to be heading back now," Angela said abruptly. She and Tete were attracting far more attention than she was comfortable with. While the reporters' tracers were spread out along the fence, chatting idly with one another, the real versions were all starting to step closer, some of them picking up their notepads and cameras. Five and a half months of carefully staying out of the spotlight to keep time on track, and it'll all be for nothing if we make it into tomorrow's paper.
Angela once again reached down to pull Tete up, and he stood, but he seemed even less steady this time. She half-supported, half-carried him as far away as she could get while still being able to see the airfield office, hoping no nosy reporters would decide to follow them.
Fortunately, the reporters had evidently decided that Angela and Tete weren't much of a story, and had rejoined their tracers in the grass by the gate. Angela sat down next to Tete and waited.
Angela spent the next couple hours with her eyes glued to the tiny office, looking away only to quickly check her surroundings and make sure Gary and Hodge weren't nearby. "Is Jonah already here?" she hissed to the Elucidator after what felt like eons. "In this time period, I mean?"
NO.
"When's he going to get here?"
THAT'S NOT FOR ME TO SAY.
Angela sighed and went back to staring at the office.
Finally, the monotony was interrupted by the sound of a propeller in the sky. Angela looked up to see a small plane emerging from the clouds. It descended gracefully for several hundred feet before touching down and eventually coming to a halt not too far away from the office.
Charles Lindbergh stepped out of the plane and began walking toward the office, ignoring the shouted questions from the pack of reporters that still stood by the entry to the airfield, now with a guard blocking them from entering the enclosure.
"Is Jonah here now?" Angela asked as Lindbergh stepped into the office and closed the door behind him.
NO.
She edged along the gate, trying to get a better view of the office while keeping Tete in sight and not getting too close to the reporters. She squinted at the windows, realizing that she could see what looked like human silhouettes inside. Were there three? Four? She was too far away to be able to tell for sure.
Angela debated with herself on whether to move closer. Getting closer would probably make it easier to rescue Jonah when the time came, but it would also make it easier to be prematurely caught by Gary or Hodge. And besides, what would she do about Tete?
Angela stayed put, still on edge, her heart pounding in anticipation for the moment that could be seconds or still hours away. And suddenly, the door to the office burst open and Jonah came bolting out, his arms full, although Angela was too far away to make out exactly what he was carrying.
This is it! Angela thought. I just have to get him away from Gary and Hodge.
She cast a quick glance over at the reporters, trying to determine whether any of them could see Jonah from where they stood. The easiest thing to do would be to tell the Elucidator to take herself, Jonah, and Tete all back to the time hollow, but she didn't want the reporters to see Jonah disappear into thin air.
She glanced back at Jonah just in time to see him turn around the corner of the building he'd just escaped from, into the space between it and the large hangar next to it. Now? Angela thought. She couldn't see Jonah anymore, but the reporters would have a slightly different angle…
Two men tore out of the office: Gary and Hodge. Gary started running straight ahead, while Hodge turned around the corner, following Jonah.
It no longer mattered if the reporters saw Jonah disappear. "Send Jonah to the time cave!" Angela blurted to the Elucidator.
It glowed. She looked down to read words. I CAN'T. IN ORDER TO REMOTELY TRANSPORT AN INDIVIDUAL, I NEED TO BE IN THE SAME TIME PERIOD AND GENERAL VICINITY AS HIM OR HER.
"So you're saying we're not close enough?" Angela wailed, even as she prepared to climb over the gate. She'd have to cause a diversion—maybe run toward Gary and Hodge screaming at the top of her lungs, just to make them look over at her and forget about Jonah for a moment…
The Elucidator started flashing, as if to get her attention. Angela looked down at it as she hoisted herself up to the top of the gate, and instantly her breath caught in her throat.
NO. I'M SAYING THAT JONAH IS NO LONGER IN THIS TIME PERIOD.