In the end, no one went to 1865 immediately. After the initial rush of adrenaline that made Katherine so bent on diving into the past, Kevin watched as she came to her senses and realized that at least some planning was necessary.

"But wait," said Jonah, "wasn't it our impulsivity that ended up beating the odds when we first went back in time?"

Katherine planted her hands on her hips and stuck her chin out defiantly. "Speak for yourself. I may have had to make some spur-of-the-moment decisions, but I wasn't running into walls and chucking the elucidator on the floor anytime it made me mad."

Jonah smirked. "I believe that was your fiancé, Katherine. I just gave Mileva an elucidator, and I stand by it."

"And I support it," she said. "Though I don't consider that one reckless. And right now, since we actually have the luxury of time—or whatever you call it in a time hollow—why don't we use it to get the best possible outcome?"

"I don't think we should make any plans until we talk to the Correros," Jordan said. "If everything we watched is true, then Angela and Haldey already know some of it. At least whatever Virginia told them."

Kevin's stomach did a backflip. He hadn't thought about it until now, but Jordan was right. Hadley and Angela almost certainly knew more than anyone else in the twenty-first century, and they'd successfully hidden it for years. Could this mean they were fully expecting the elucidator to whisk them away at the Christmas party and had simply played it cool the whole afternoon? It wouldn't be the first time Angela had anticipated a major event and kept it to herself. And what about Virginia? Was she alive and well, living in twenty-first century Liston just as JB and Sam intended? He shared these thoughts with his siblings and added, "I bet Leo and Maria know too."

"What about Greg and Henry?" Jordan asked.

Kevin snorted. "I can almost guarantee Greg and Henry know nothing."

The other three nodded, though he could tell they were ashamed to admit they agreed. Greg and Henry were a couple of the nicest boys he knew, but they also weren't great at keeping secrets. Kevin already knew that his parents had bought him a telescope for Christmas because they'd told the Correros about it…and Greg and Henry had let that slip last weekend.

"Okay, let me come up with some semblance of a timeline for all this," said Katherine, pacing back and forth from one white wall to another. "Last time we saw young JB in person was thirteen years ago after we defeated—or at least thought we defeated …Interchronological Rescue. JB brought us baby Kevin, said goodbye, and gave us an elucidator for emergencies. And as far as we knew at that point, that was the end of time travel. Are we on the same page so far?" Kevin and the others nodded. "Right, so moving on. At this point, the time agency was in full panic mode, trying to figure out what had just happened, cleaning up the chaos left behind by Rathbone, making new time travel laws, et cetera…somewhere in this mess, the old time agency director said, 'forget it, I quit,' and took off for a long retirement in Hawaii."

"I don't remember that part," said Jonah, but Katherine quickly waved away his interruption.

"It's called creative embellishment, Jonah," she said. "Anyway, Cira gets promoted to the position because she's a strong, determined woman who, frankly, has been working her butt off for years…"

Jonah cut in again, seeming more than a little irritated. "Jeez, Katherine, who's side are you on? Cira's been awful."

"I'm not condoning her actions, I'm just giving credit where credit is due."

Kevin was getting impatient. "Yes, okay, so Cira got the promotion and…"

"…and," Katherine continued, "from all her undercover work, she realized that Interchronological Rescue had experimented on Sam and sent JB to find her and take her back to her original time. Of course, Cira didn't take into consideration the fact that Sam is as big a history nerd as JB and totally his type. I mean, come on Cira, did you seriously not see this coming?"

"So because of this," Kevin said to move the story along, "JB destroyed his elucidator to save Sam, then they both sent Virginia to the twenty-first century with the task of updating Haldey and Angela. And we know that this happened thirteen years ago because when Cira called Angela to ask for help finding JB, Angela said Hadley was with the 'babies,' meaning Greg and Henry."

"Good catch, Kev!" Jordan beamed and ruffled Kevin's hair.

Kevin swatted his brother away. He knew Jordan was just trying to make him feel included, but it seemed infantilizing. He felt a twinge of guilt, though, when Jordan shrank a little and frowned at the floor. I'll apologize later, Kevin thought. Right now we need to get going. To his siblings he said, "So are we ready to go back?"

"I am," said Katherine, and the twins nodded in agreement.

Kevin could practically taste the nervous energy that permeated the emptiness of the time hollow as everyone grabbed hold of Katherine and held their breath. After a final nod, Katherine pressed a button on the elucidator and the room vanished.

The second trip was no easier than the first. As they landed, Kevin felt all the atoms in his body scatter and rejoin in one agonizing flash.

A voice—Mom's, he thought—cut through some of the fog. "…Kev? Can you hear me?"

Kevin opened his mouth and tried to speak.

"Why can't he talk?" Mom sounded more alarmed now. Suddenly something heavy, like a bag of flour, landed on his chest. He gasped and the thing started vibrating.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and found himself face to face with Whiskers, her amber irises gleaming curiously down at him. "Off!" he finally managed to say. "Get off, you fat cat!"

"I've got it," came another voice.

"Henry, don't—"

Kevin jolted upright as cold water sprayed on his face and Whiskers skittered away. The rest of his senses returned shortly after. He and his sibling were on the floor of the living room, surrounded by their parents and the Correros. Whiskers recoiled under the Christmas tree, ears bent back, glaring at Henry who sheepishly set a spray bottle down on the coffee table. "Sorry," said Henry. "I was aiming for the cat."

Mom, who had apparently been holding Kevin's hand the entire time, pulled him into a hug while Dad tended to Katherine and the twins. "What's going on?" she said.

Jonah answered first. "We got sent to a time hollow."

Hadley knelt down to their level. "Was it Cira?" Kevin almost didn't recognize him like this, so serious; no sign of the usual twinkle in his eyes.

Katherine nodded. "JB needs our help. Hadley, how much do you know already?"

"Um…" he closed his eyes and combed his fingers through his beard.

Mom glared at him. "You knew this would happen and you didn't say anything?"

Maria set her glass of champagne on the coffee table next to the spray bottle and came to her dad's defense. "We didn't know it would happen today. And we didn't think it would involve anyone but our family."

"It's true, Linda," said Angela. "If we knew your kids would get summoned, we would have told you thirteen years ago. We didn't even know they had an elucidator." She locked eyes with Katherine on the last sentence, as if to say, You have a lot of explaining to do.

Dad rose from his spot beside Katherine and the twins, palms out. "Slow down, please. Did you say thirteen years ago?"

At the same time, Greg and Henry exchanged confused glances. Leo froze and his eyes bounded from his brothers to Hadley and Maria, then back again.

Clearly sensing a difficult conversation, Angela said to Leo, "Why don't you and Maria take your brothers upstairs and tell them about…well, everything. Maybe you can fill up your dinner plates and bring them up with you, if that's okay, Linda? I think this may take a while."

Mom blinked for a minute, then seemed to revert back to default-Mom-mode. "Right. Yes, help yourselves. Michael, could you get the turkey out of the oven and make sure they have some juice if they want any?" Leave it to Linda Skidmore to Mom her way through any crisis.

Hadley smiled at her gratefully. "Good idea." To Greg and Henry, he said, "We'll answer any questions you have once the Skidmores tell us about this new development."

Greg and Henry looked more bewildered than angry as Leo herded them upstairs and disappeared down the hall toward Kevin's room. Maria helped Dad arrange the dinner plates onto a tray, which she then carried up with her. Before turning toward the hall, she paused on the landing and said to Angela, "Be sure to catch me up on everything so I can update Daniella and Gavin."

Angela nodded and as soon as Maria was out of sight, Mom collapsed onto the couch and massaged a knuckle into her forehead. "Okay," she sighed. "Please, tell us what's going on."

It was almost nine o'clock by the time Kevin, Jordan, Jonah, and Katherine finished recounting their experience in the time hollow and everything they'd witnessed. Though full of turkey and mashed potatoes, Kevin was not in the Christmas spirit, and from the look on everyone else's faces, neither were they.

After some silence, Mom dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve and said, "I remember Sam, actually. I chaperoned that fifth grade field trip Katherine went on and we all had such a great time. You could tell Sam loved leading those history camps. I think I asked her if she'd attended Kent State and she said something like, 'Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if ladies could attend university?' It took me a minute to realize she was just staying in character. To think she met such a terrible end…"

"She doesn't have to," said Katherine. "I've been formulating a plan and I think it will work if everyone plays their part. First of all, Angela and Hadley?"

"Yes?" they said together.

"What happened to Virginia?"

"She's living across town in Sam's empty apartment," said Angela. "Staying mostly under the radar, but we check in with her regularly. She's adapted pretty well to the present."

Katherine clapped her hands together. "Perfect! You should call her up and tell her what's going on. Chip should be here to propose to me any minute, so I'll catch him up too and then we'll get Andrea, Emily, and all the others up to date and see if they want to help. They have a right to be involved if they want."

"Sorry, did you say Chip was going to propose?" said Dad.

"Yes, I'll explain later," Katherine said and swiftly resumed while Mom and Dad held a silent conversation with their eyes. "So, Hadley, when's the earliest someone could go back to 1865 and tell JB that Cira's planning to trick him?"

Hadley frowned. "That's not possible. Time is really muddy up until Sam gets swallowed by the light. The only way to fix this would be to find JB while he's sitting outside the cottage and bring him here to the twenty-first century so he can help us plan our next moves."

"Didn't someone say the twenty-first century is the first place Cira would look for JB?" Angela interrupted. "What happens if she finds him here?"

"She won't," said Hadley. "At least not for a few days. Remember, the agency is having a hard time monitoring things on their end, so if we can convince her we haven't seen JB, she isn't going to risk coming here herself while things are so unstable."

"What would happen after that?" asked Jonah.

"I'll stay in touch with Cira to see if I can learn anything about Sam's native time. If we plan it right, we can find Sam before she's supposed to die and JB can take her somewhere the agency won't find her. Meanwhile, I can help figure out how to smooth out these massive time ripples in a way that doesn't involve sacrificing Sam."

Katherine jumped to her feet and pumped her fist in the air. "Yes! 1865, here we come!"

Mom's expression hardened. "Absolutely not. I may not know every single thing that went down when you time traveled last time, but I know there's a reason you refused to give me the details. It's way too dangerous."

"I'm twenty-four," said Katherine. "It's not up to you."

"It is when you live in our house," said Dad, crossing his arms.

Jonah stood up, jaw set. "Then I'll go. I don't live at home anymore."

"See, look what you've done?" said Katherine. "Now Jonah's going to die in 1865 because I can't be there to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

Dad glared at her. "Not funny, Katherine."

Suddenly Kevin had an idea. "No one's going to die." All eyes were on him now, so he cleared his throat and tried to sound confident. "Hadley can teach me how to run projections and I can find the safest way to do this. I'm supposed to have been a genius projectionist, right?"

"That was Second," said Jordan.

"And Second was me, doofus," Kevin pointed out. He'd hoped this would lighten the mood, but nobody seemed amused. Their concerned expressions made him fume. "Seriously? You're all still worried that I'll turn into a mad scientist or something if I learn to run projections? Is that the real reason none of you ever told me the truth?"

"Honey, no," said Mom. She stood up from the couch and pulled him into a tight embrace. "Not even close." She kissed him on the forehead and stroked his hair soothingly, a gesture that normally made him flinch, but right now he welcomed the familiarity. "We're so sorry we never told you anything," she said. "Keeping secrets isn't the way we normally do things in this family, and it was one of the hardest decisions we've had to make. But it wasn't for a lack of trust. It was because we didn't want to burden you with a past that was beyond your control. We wanted to wait till you were eighteen, to let you have a normal childhood. I see now that might have been a mistake."

"I just want…" Kevin swallowed the emotion that lodged itself in his throat. Don't cry. He couldn't lose it now, not when he so badly needed to prove he was strong enough to handle the truth. "I just want to be a part of this family for real. Not a fake trying-to-be-normal-for-Kevin's-sake family. Whatever crazy time travel, unaging weirdness comes with it, I want to be part of it all."

"You are," said Mom, sobbing now and squeezing him tight again. "I promise, you are part of this family, and—" she sniffed and wiped her eyes "—and if you think running projections will keep this family safe, then I'm in full support."

"Yes!" Katherine whispered to the twins.

"Especially if those projections involve keeping your siblings out of 1865," Mom added.

Kevin laughed and said to Hadley, "I guess I still need a teacher. Will you show me what to do?"

Hadley grinned and Kevin noticed the twinkle had returned to his eyes. "You bet."