“World War Two by any chance?”Mel asked.Her glance met Jack’s for a brief instant, before they both returned their attention to his dad.
He looked thoughtful.“Now that I think about it, I’ll bet it was.They had metal helmets and the guns looked primitive.”
“Did they have this on their uniforms or helmets?”Jack drew a swastika and showed him to him.
His dad nodded.“Yes, I’m pretty sure I remember that.”
“You never tried to find out?”Jack wondered what was more descriptive than incredulous.He needed a thesaurus.
“I was seventeen, Jack,” his father said patiently.“And it was chaotic.They started shouting at us —of course we couldn’t understand what they were saying, but then they began waving their weapons.I was still holding onto Ness and she was clinging to me.She might have been screaming.One of the soldiers lifted his gun and aimed it at us, so I flicked the controls.I couldn’t see exactly what I did.”
“Of course not.”Mel looked more reflective than resigned.She had traveled through time more than he had, Jack thought.
“The vortex came again, I could see them through the colors and then we were in it again, but was more violent.I could feel Ness slipping away.I tried to hold on, but she was just gone.”
He rubbed his eyes with his hands.
“She’s…” Mel stopped.
“Lost like me, as far as I know.”He stared at his feet, his expression bleak.“I ended up in a world of horses and carriages and no tech.I still tried.I spent the first few years trying to figure out how to get home, how to find her, but the technology just wasn’t there for me.I knew a lot, but not enough.Not enough.”
He was just seventeen, Jack reminded himself.A kid.
His dad sighed and stared at them as if entreating them to understood.
The crazy part?Jack did understand.Look what he’d done to Mel.
“Why did you eventually stop?”Mel asked softly.
His dad looked up, a smile forming on his face.
“Another girl,” he admitted.He looked at Jack now.“Your mother.”He held Jack’s gaze for what felt like a long time.“I wouldn’t go back now if I could.”
“No,” Jack agreed.The one certainty of his life was that his parents loved each other.“Does she know?”
His dad shook his head.“It’s a little hard to explain.”
Well, that was certainly true.
“Why did you take all this away?”His gaze fixed on the vortex.He’d always known, but he’d thought it was his knowing, not something he’d seen here.
“You saw it.You were gifted, too.I was afraid of losing you, but I guess I didn’t stop you,” he added a bit ruefully.
“No,” Jack said.
“So you traveled back in time from the future,” Mel said.“I don’t suppose you had infrared goggles with you?”
His dad looked sharply at her as he considered her question.“Actually, my dad had a pair in his collection.I remember Ness asking me about them.She might have had them.She did pick them up…”
She and Jack looked at each other.Their big mystery solved.
“A science project,” Mel said, shaking her head.“A high school science project.”
“A gifted high school science project,” Jack said, with a grin that kind of surprised him.Apparently even shock couldn’t last forever.
“If I had been your teacher,” Mel said with mock severity, “I’d have taken back your gifted label.”
“And you’d have been correct to do it,” Jack’s dad said, with a soft laugh.“Does any of this help with your problem?”
