But in the days that followed, the story died down, and Lucius and Ivy remained blessedly anonymous. They divided their time between learning about the outside world and enlightening their hosts about their own.

Lucius was introduced to the dubious delights of TV. The first program he settled down to watch with Will Samuels was a Philadelphia Phillies game. After he'd absorbed the shock of seeing so much red, he cut through Samuels' painstaking explanation of the rules of baseball to ask for more basic information. "You say these men are playing a game. We play games in our village, too. But why is that crowd so excited about it? And why are people in their homes expected to be interested?"

"Uh..." Samuels seemed stumped for a moment, but quickly rallied. "Because baseball's a simple enough game, in its basics, to be understood and played by kids, but talented adults can take it to a higher level. These athletes earn huge sums of money because the public is willing to pay for it as entertainment."

"The people in that crowd? They pay to see the game?"

"They sure do. And the people who control the TV channel we're watching paid a lot for the right to show it."

Lucius frowned. "Why? How do they benefit?"

"Wait a sec," Samuels told him. "Okay...now. Watch and listen to the things they'll air during this break."

Lucius watched dutifully as a half-dozen short scenes were acted out. Their intent, it seemed, was to induce the viewer to buy beer, fried chicken, automobile tires, allergy medication, jeans, and something whose purpose eluded him. "What was that last one?"

Samuels was chuckling. "It's a drug men can take to, ah, help them perform sexually. If they're having problems."

"Oh!" Lucius knew he was blushing.

He couldn't imagine himself having "problems" of that sort after he married Ivy. At present, he waged a constant struggle to avoid becoming aroused.

"The makers of all these products pay for the right to promote them during broadcasts," Samuels explained good-naturedly. "TV execs--that is, the people in charge--are willing to pay to air the game because they hope to make a profit by selling these commercial slots. And the guys with products to sell are willing to pay for air time because they hope to make a profit when viewers buy their products."

"Oh." Lucius thought that over for a few seconds, then asked, "Would the viewers never hear of these products if they weren't mentioned during this game?"

Samuels almost choked. "It's not like that," he said when he recovered. "They're advertised everywhere. It's hard to get through a day without hearing of them."

"So no one really knows whether these specific--what was it you called them, 'commercial slots'?--are selling products or not?"

Samuels gave a bemused shake of his head. "When you put it that way, I guess they don't." Then a cheer from the crowd alerted him that the game had resumed, and he leapt to his feet to applaud a Phillies home run.
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Lucius and Ivy, dressed in casual modern clothes, were taken on a tour of Philadelphia by McGill and the social workers. But they knew virtually nothing of the U.S. history that enthralled their guides. Lucius found himself politely admiring the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and sites associated with someone named Benjamin Franklin, when he was in fact more interested in the new, tall buildings, the maze of heavily trafficked roads, and--above all--the incredibly varied people.

He was taken aback, however, by Fairmount and Pennypack Parks. "These 'parks' are inside the city?" he asked McGill. "Parts of them look like what I always thought a forest would be. More so than Covington Wood!"

"I know," the FBI agent said grimly. "Pennypack is also more like a real wildlife preserve."
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Back in the safehouse, they discussed their village with the social workers for hours on end. They discovered its young people had been taught some concepts--such as evolution--that were unknown or not widely accepted in the era they'd thought they lived in. They just hadn't been told the origin and historical background of those ideas.

"You've said the village has books," Aileen Roche mused aloud. "Tell me, are there pages missing?"

Lucius nodded. "Yes. In some cases it looks as if whole sections have been torn out. The elders told us these were the only books they could bring with them when they left the towns. They never explained their condition."

Samuels asked, "Do some have single pages torn out in the very front?"

"Yes! Does that mean something?"

Both social workers were nodding now. "Publication dates," Samuels explained. "The books--some, maybe most of them--were printed after 1874. Your elders tore out the pages with the publication dates, and anything else that didn't jibe with the world-view they wanted you to have."

While Lucius was pondering that, Roche said thoughtfully, "We've been wondering about some of the other things you have in the village. For example, the shoes Ivy was wearing when we first saw her--high-button shoes that looked to be straight out of the 19th century.

"They looked authentic. But in the real 19th century, people in rural areas owned things like that because they weren't isolated. There was plenty of travel and trade. I can't believe an isolated community with a population of 100 could have manufactured those shoes! It wouldn't have the raw materials, even if someone possessed the skill."

"You're right," Ivy told her. "We have storage sheds full of non-perishable supplies the elders brought with them. Including hundreds of pairs of shoes, in all sizes." She gave a wry smile. "And leather and patterns for making more...but our cobbler isn't very good."

"There are all sorts of supplies," Lucius chimed in. "Everything from bolts of cloth to manufactured items like oil lamps. But we know those stores can't be replenished, so we repair and reuse everything we can. Clothes are patched till they're threadbare. And then, the parts of adults' clothes that are salvageable are used to make children's clothes."

"Of course." Samuels' eyes had lit up. "Your having all those supplies makes sense, because money was no problem for the elders--Edward Walker had inherited a fortune. He probably bought the period shoes and so forth from movie costume makers. If they cost more than the 1981 versions would have, what did he care? He had money to burn."

"But as Ivy said," Roche reminded him, "he could only stockpile non-perishable goods. That's why lack of medicines was sure to become a problem."

The biggest gaps in the young villagers' education, it turned out, were in the areas of geography and history. Ivy remembered--vaguely--having been taught that Covington Wood was located in a region called Pennsylvania. (Lucius observed that he "must have missed class that day.") They had both heard of the United States of America; but what Edward Walker told students about it was downbeat. "All he said was that the United States was almost torn apart by civil war a few years before our village was settled," Lucius recalled. "The war left the country in such a state that we couldn't be sure it still existed."

Samuels rolled his eyes. " 'A few years'?" He sighed. "It was 'a few years' before the time Walker wanted you to believe the village was settled, 1874. But he knew the Civil War was almost a century and a half ago!"

"There's something else I don't understand--well, one of many things," Lucius admitted, with a rueful smile. "The elders founded the village in 1981. Why did they start their new calendar with 1874? If they wanted to change the year, why didn't they turn the clock back exactly a century? What was special about 1874?"

"I think I can guess." Samuels brought the nearest computer to life and batted in a succession of commands. "Yep, got it. There's a system called the Universal Calendar, that can tell us what dates fell, or will fall, on what days of the week in any given year. There's a complicated cycle. 1874 is a year that was in sync with 1981. So if the elders found authentic 1874 calendars, they could hang them on their walls and go on without missing a beat."
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McGill was more diffident in a request she made for information. "Lucius, Ivy--would you be willing to give me the names of all the elders?"

Fiddling uncomfortably with a button on her blazer, she explained. "The FBI would like to research the elders' backgrounds--find out whether any of them are, um, fugitives from the law. If you feel your telling me would be a betrayal of friends, I won't press you." But when they hesitated, she added, "I think that if anyone was a fugitive, he would have fled, to protect himself, as soon as he realized you'd left. There's been plenty of time for people to get away."

The young couple made it clear that they'd merely needed time to confer. In fact, neither of them had any objection to giving her the names.

"My mother joined the village founders because my father had been murdered," Lucius told her. "I can't believe she'd lie about that. And Ivy's parents conceived the idea because Ivy's grandfather had been murdered. None of them would have associated with criminals!"

McGill nodded. "My gut feeling is that you're right. I know it's true about Ivy's grandfather. James Walker was a famous man, and everyone in Pennsylvania knows how he died."

They gave her the list of names, and she promised to tell them what she learned.
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Two days later she was back, with a smile on her face and a computer Zip disk in her hand.

"Like we expected, guys--no fugitives! All the elders were victims of crime, not criminals. They dropped out of sight in 1981. Some faked having left the country, others just disappeared. But no one deserted a family." She waved the computer disk. "And, Lucius--I've copied some information that I think you'll be glad to have."

They settled themselves at the computer--Lucius with his arm around Ivy, making sure to include her, even though she couldn't see.

As McGill slipped the disk into the Zip drive, she asked Lucius, "Do you know your mother's maiden name?"

"Yes, Marshall. Her name was Alice Marshall."

"Good. Then you won't have any doubt about the accuracy of these records."

As he watched the screen, she brought up, one after the other, a series of images. The marriage license issued to Alice Marshall and Michael Hunt in New York City, in 1978. A newspaper account of their wedding, complete with photo of a young and beautiful Alice in her bridal gown. The 1980 birth certificate of their son, Lucius.

By then tears were streaming down Lucius's cheeks...and Ivy's, based on his mumbled description of what he was seeing.

"Do you want me to stop here?" McGill asked softly. "There's something else, that will be painful. Maybe we should leave it for another time."

Lucius guessed what she meant. "No, go ahead," he told her. "I want to look at it now."

So she showed him the newspaper report of his father's murder.

Michael Hunt had died at age 22. Killed for his grocery money, four months to the day after the birth of his son.

Strangely, Lucius's tears had stopped flowing. "Is he buried in this...New York City?" he asked quietly.

"Yes."

"I want to go there." He was grateful for Ivy's sudden squeeze of his hand.

"All right."

But before they discussed that, McGill had another question. "Ivy, do you know your mother's maiden name?"

Caught by surprise, Ivy needed a moment to collect her thoughts. Then she said, "Daly. My mother was Tabitha Daly."

"This is strange! Lucius, you've known the Walkers all your life. Do you think you'd recognize young photos of Ivy's parents?"

He nodded. "Yes. I could see at a glance that it was my mother in her wedding photo, so I'm sure I'd recognize Mr. and Mrs. Walker too."

"Okay. Take a look at this." McGill opened another file and brought up still another wedding photo, this one showing both bride and groom.

Lucius looked at it and said immediately, "Yes, those are Ivy's parents. Can I read the article aloud for her?"

McGill was shaking her head. "I'm puzzled. It says the bride's name was Carolyn Daly."

Two voices blurted out, "What?"

"I've only been able to find records of Edward Walker's marriage to a Carolyn Daly," McGill explained. "I thought the 'Tabitha' Ivy had mentioned was a second wife, till she said the family name was Daly. Could this possibly be a sister of the woman you know?"

Lucius studied the photo more closely. "I don't think so. It would have to be a very strong resemblance. Ivy and her sister Kitty are only a year apart in age, and they don't look this much alike."

"Did Carolyn change her name?" McGill wondered aloud. "Why? If she thought it was too modern, she could simply have changed it to Caroline. Not that it would really matter--"

"Hey, I couldn't help overhearing." They turned to see Will Samuels in the doorway. "There's something I think I remember. Mind if I get on the Web and check it out?"

Lucius and McGill readily gave up their seats in front of the computer, and watched Samuels' fingers fly over the keys. "If I'm right," he said as he typed, "this would tie in with the Walkers--at least Mrs. Walker--being the sort who'd want an old-style village to have an appropriate calendar, even though it wouldn't make a particle of difference to the next generation. Ah, yes!" He pointed to the information he'd brought up on the screen. "The significance of the name 'Tabitha': she was a woman said to have been restored to life by St. Peter. So the name can symbolize a new beginning."

McGill was nodding. "Makes perfect sense. The elders could have raised children in 19th-century surroundings without changing the calendar at all. Their offspring would have no way of knowing what the year 2005 was supposed to be like. But these people wanted to make a fresh start, to half-convince themselves it was real. Carolyn's new name was a perfect symbol."

Joe Decker had come into the room unnoticed. Now he said quietly, "And her being the only one to take a new name may tell us who was really in charge."
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It was McGill who took Lucius and Ivy to New York, though they knew that wasn't part of her job. If anything, she was neglecting her job for them.

They visited the hospital, and the actual maternity ward, where Lucius had been born. Their next stop was the apartment building where his family had lived when he was an infant. Then they went on to the church where his parents had been married, and from which Michael Hunt had been buried. Finally, all three knelt in prayer at Michael's grave.

Try as he might, Lucius found it hard to think of a man who'd died at 22 as his father, in the same sense in which he thought of Alice as his mother. Here he was most conscious of a life cut tragically short, unknown potential gone to waste. But there are other ways potential can be wasted...

When they got to their feet, McGill began quietly taking photographs, as she had of all the sites. So I'll have something to take back to the village with me, Lucius realized. But...why do I find it so hard, now, to face the prospect of going back there and having only pictures of the outside world?

They shared a restaurant meal after leaving the cemetery. When their mood had lightened, McGill asked if the young couple would like to spend a few more days in New York. "It's a magnificent city. There are any number of places you could visit--"

"No, I don't think so," Lucius said. "Not on--that is, no."

Ivy caught his verbal slip. "You almost said 'not on this trip,' didn't you?" To his relief, she smiled. "I don't want this to be our last one, either."

"That's good." McGill was smiling too. But then she sobered. "New York is your birthplace, Lucius. It has to hold special meaning for you. And I can't let you leave without making one more visit. It will require some explanation..."

After she'd given them that explanation--as best she, or anyone, could--she took them to the site of the former World Trade Center.

When they tore themselves away, hours later, an ashen-faced Lucius said, "I want to learn more about what's going on in the world."

Slipping her hand into his, Ivy said, "We need to learn more."