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appeared the day after he left the 1990s.”
    “We did some research through the family to find out what we could about Rebecca and Irving,” Walter continued. “It wasn’t easy, as nearly everyone who knew them had died, but we did speak to her niece, Frances Windsor.”
    Michele felt a jolt of recognition at the name. She had seenlittle Frances, known as Frankie back in 1910, when she’d met Clara Windsor. Frankie was Clara’s little sister.
    “Frances was in her nineties when we visited her in ’93, but she still had a sharp memory. Rebecca was her father George’s sister, and she remembered her aunt being the strange, unfriendly black sheep of the family. Rebecca never married, nor did she make anything of her life. Frances remembered her always disappearing on mysterious travels, sometimes for years at a time. George inherited this house after their parents died, and Rebecca moved into a townhouse on Washington Square—though she was rarely in the city. According to Frances, her aunt never seemed to want much to do with the family. They only saw her when she made an occasional appearance at Windsor balls. On the other end of the spectrum, as Rebecca drifted away, Irving grew closer to them. Frances said that whenever he came to the house to discuss legal or business matters with her father, he would arrive early and linger after the meeting, as if he was waiting for someone.” Walter took a deep breath. “I always wondered if it was Marion he was waiting for—if she was the reason he kept so close.”
    Michele swallowed the lump in her throat. “Did my … my dad ever see Rebecca again?”
    “Not that anyone knows of. Rebecca was rarely around, and on the occasions that she did return to Windsor Mansion, Irving must have stayed away. Frances said that although he was invited for holidays and parties at the house, he never once attended.”
    “I have to find him,” Michele declared. “I have this feeling that—that he’ll know what to do.”
    Dorothy gasped, appalled at the idea. “But if you find him, then you could be walking straight into her trap. She lives in his time!”
    “Don’t worry. I won’t do anything until I’ve figured out more and made a … a plan.”
    Walter squeezed her hand. “We’ll help you. We’re in this together.”
    Michele took a deep breath. Seeing the worry written across her grandparents’ faces, she wondered if she was deluded in thinking she could take on this cross-century war with an adversary she hadn’t even known existed until today. But then … she had no choice.

T he Key of the Nile is the device that enables us to travel through time. These keys come from the very birthplace of time travel, ancient Egypt. More than two hundred keys are known to exist: one for each family in the Time Society. Though they all form the shape of the ankh, each key has its own unique feature, size, and design .
The Key of the Nile is always given by a Timekeeper within the family before he or she departs this earth. Therefore, time travel is an inherited gift. The power runs in each family’s blood, through the Time Travel Gene. The gene is activated when you receive your key .
The vast majority of our kind cannot travel without their Key. Only a select few extraordinary Timekeepers are able. I am one of them .
—THE HANDBOOK OF THE TIME SOCIETY

3
    When it was time for bed, Michele left her bright desk lamp shining and locked her door, dragging an armchair against it for good measure. She knew logically that none of these precautions could stop a time traveler from entering her room, but it still made her feel a bit safer. Retrieving the newspaper photo of Philip from the 1910 Halloween Ball, she climbed into bed, gazing at it until she finally fell asleep.
*  *  *
“My grandfather’s clock
Was too large for the shelf ,
So it stood ninety years on the floor.…”
    Michele stepped forward, toward the sound of a young girl’s hushed singing. The tune sounded