If Kevin squinted, he could see the echo of the man from the monitors that his siblings called JB. Though how his siblings recognized the old man on sight was astounding. The JB on the screen was healthy-looking with a handsome face and dark hair—this person that had materialized before them was none of those things.

Katherine bounded up from her spot on the floor and wrapped the old man in an embrace. He winced.

"Don't break him, Katherine!" Jonah cried. He and Jordan leapt to JB's aid. Katherine quickly loosened her grip.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm just really happy to see you."

JB rubbed his lower back, but smiled down at Katherine. "It's good to see you too. Though it's a shame Kevin has to be here."

"Hey!" Kevin glared at JB.

JB waved his hands apologetically. "No, that's not what I meant. I'm really happy to see you. I just didn't mean for you to get caught up in the chaos when you're supposed to be living a normal life for once."

"My life has never been normal," Kevin shot back. "I'm adopted. I'm thirteen years old and already in my last year of high school. Oh, and my family has been keeping secrets from me since I was a baby."

JB limped over to Kevin and said, "I can relate. My parents never told me I was adopted. They had already died when I found out I was actually—"

"Albert Einstein's son, I know," Kevin interrupted. "I already watched all that, remember?"

"Wait, you never knew you were adopted before that?" Jordan asked JB. "Your parents never told you?"

JB frowned. "Nope. I'm sure they had their reasons, but it still hurt, especially since they were no longer alive when I found out." He stared out—beyond Kevin, Katherine, and the twins—as though suddenly very interested in the blank walls of the time hollow. Kevin wondered if he'd been angry with his parents for never telling him about his adoption.

"Why did you bring us here, JB?" Katherine asked. "Why right now?"

JB's eyes refocused on Katherine. "I know it's not ideal, interrupting your Christmas party. On the day of your engagement, too."

Katherine cocked her head. "My what?"

"Your engagement. Congratulations, by the way. Why aren't you wearing your ring…Oh nooo." He slapped a veiny hand against his forehead. "Forget I said anything."

Katherine's face pinkened and her mouth stretched into a ridiculous grin. "Wait, so when Chip said he was going to stop by after dinner, it wasn't to go over ideas for his next DnD campaign?"

JB groaned. "I can't believe I didn't even check what time it was for you when I summoned you here…I guess my age is showing."

Katherine didn't seem to be paying attention. She was still smiling that goofy happy smile.

"Well, congrats in advance, Katherine," said Jonah with a laugh. "Just act surprised when we get back home."

Anxious to change the subject, Kevin locked eyes with JB and said, "You still haven't told us why we're here."

The other three grew serious once again, and JB cleared his throat. "As you might have guessed, it's complicated." He reached for the elucidator in Katherine's hand. "May I? The Agency confiscated mine after…well, you'll see."

Katherine hesitated. "The agency confiscated your elucidator? Why?"

JB sighed and his entire body sagged. The wrinkles on his face reminded Kevin of melting candle wax. "I tried to save someone I wasn't supposed to save. And I failed."

Katherine inhaled like she wanted to say something, but she must have decided against it because she just frowned and handed JB the elucidator.

Kevin watched his siblings exchange concerned expressions while JB squinted at the elucidator and jabbed at the buttons. The wall lit up and a grid of about a dozen different videos appeared. There was no sound, but Kevin could see the videos just as clearly as he had seen the recap of his own previous lives. Each focused on a girl—the same girl, he realized—at different ages and in what appeared to be different eras.

In one video, she looked about Kevin's age and she was arguing with another girl on a beach next to a tree swing. They both wore old timey clothes with white caps and aprons.

In another scene, she looked to be in her late teens and she wore a wide pink dress with lots of layers. Her brown hair was parted in the middle with braided loops on either side of her face, tucked into a bun in the back. Here, she lay in the shade of a big oak tree, reading. Occasionally she fanned herself with the book and wiped sweat off her forehead with a handkerchief.

He saw her again at around the same age, but now dressed in a slim, flowy dress with a large hat covered in flowers and feathers. She appeared to be on the deck of a ship at sunrise, staring out at pastel waves under cotton candy clouds.

In the video beside that one, she looked fifteen or sixteen. She wore a poofy-sleeved gown and hair that reminded him of Mary Poppins. She sat at a wooden desk, frantically scribbling words into a notebook by gaslight.

A video on the right side of the screen showed her on stage in a tutu, stumbling amidst a group of ballerinas in identical outfits—that might explain why she seemed to walk on her toes in every scene.

She looks lonely, thought Kevin, like she doesn't belong. He knew the feeling.

"Is that all the same person?" Jordan asked.

"Yes," JB and Kevin answered at the same time. JB smiled at him approvingly.

"Who is she?" asked Jonah. "Why is she in all these different time periods?"

"These," JB waved at the screen, "are all different lives led by one woman. Interchronological Rescue used her as their guinea pig to test their re-aging technology before they kidnapped you and your friends." He was speaking to Jonah now. "Her final identity was Samantha Cretney. She worked at the Hillside History Museum not too far from the high school."

Katherine gasped. "I knew I recognized her from somewhere! She was the leader of a history camp I went to in fifth grade. Jordan, Jonah, remember that time everyone in Mrs. Harrison's class got to go on a weeklong overnight field trip to the museum and you were both really annoyed that you didn't get to do that when you were in fifth grade?"

Jonah rolled his eyes. "I was annoyed that I had to be in school, not that I missed out on dressing up like George Washington and pounding butter all day."

"It was fun!" Katherine insisted. "It was like time travel, except it was safe and the adults actually knew what was going on—No offense, JB."

JB smirked. "None taken."

Jonah shook his head. "So Katherine's camp leader or whatever—she was a bunch of different people from history? Do you know her?"

JB's eyes went somber again. "I did, yes."

"Where is she now?" asked Katherine.

JB didn't answer. Instead, he punched a few more buttons on the elucidator and said, "There's something you need to see. It involves Sam and her previous identities. Right now I'm the only one who knows the whole truth, and I am very old. When I'm gone, I don't want it all to be forgotten." The videos vanished, replaced by a single image on the screen: it was Samantha, in a dark basement-like room wearing rubber gloves and prodding at a Victorian dress that was spread out on a desk. "This is an image of Sam just seconds before I barged in on her life. I'm going to show you everything that followed."