Citoyen, known as City, is a fourteen-year-old Black student attending Fannie Lou Hamer Magnet School. Confident in his vocabulary and wave-brushing skills, he enters a nationally televised sentence contest that ultimately forces him to confront systemic racism in America. Depending on the timeline he inhabits, he balances a desperate desire to prove his intelligence against his affection for his friends and his complex family dynamics.

LaVander is City's highly intelligent classmate and primary academic rival. He faces intense pressure from his father, driving him to perform as an exceptional student to distance himself from racial stereotypes. His competitive attitude masks a shared vulnerability regarding how he is perceived by white society.

Shalaya is an outspoken, intelligent girl living in a Melahatchie trailer park with her grandmother in 1985. She captivates City with her unpredictability and raw honesty. Frustrated by her current circumstances, she possesses a fierce desire to manipulate time to secure a better future for herself and her community.

Baize is a spirited orphan living with her grandmother in 2013 Melahatchie. Driven by the mystery of her parents' disappearance during Hurricane Katrina, she uses a subterranean portal in the woods to search different eras for answers. She is technologically savvy, carrying a laptop and phone that confuse visitors from the past.

Known as Grandma in 2013 and Mama Lara in 1985, she is City's formidable grandmother living in Melahatchie. She enforces strict discipline, including physical punishments and mandatory church attendance, while carrying the heavy burdens of intergenerational trauma. Beneath her strict exterior, she fiercely protects her family and harbors dangerous secrets in her backyard shed.

Evan is a sickly-looking Jewish teenager from 1964 whose family helps Black citizens register to vote at a Freedom School. Traumatized by violent attacks from the Ku Klux Klan, he seeks allies across time to alter history and protect his loved ones. He challenges his new friends to understand the intersection of anti-Black racism and antisemitism.

City's mother, who lives with him in Jackson in 2013 and Chicago in 1985. She works to provide for him but struggles with his public behavior, relying on her mother in Melahatchie to discipline him when things get out of hand.

City's uncle who splits his time with Grandma in Melahatchie. He is highly focused on modern media, constantly filming City with dreams of launching a lucrative reality television project.

The principal at Fannie Lou Hamer Magnet School. She assigns City a complex punishment involving a true-or-false test about abstract concepts and lends him a mysterious book titled *Long Division*.

LaVander's father, who places immense pressure on the boys to represent their race flawlessly at the sentence contest. He views the competition as a critical opportunity to perform excellence for a white audience.

A hostile white man who initially attacks and humiliates City in 2013 Melahatchie, stealing his wave brush. He later appears in a severely compromised state, trapped in Grandma's work shed, sparking City's curiosity and moral conflict over the nature of justice and revenge.

City's friend in the 2013 timeline. She plays games in the Magic Woods with him and shares his curiosity about local mysteries, echoing the personality of Shalaya from the 1985 timeline.

A white friend of City's in Melahatchie who attempts to protect him from aggressive locals by dragging him away from danger on Old Morton Road.

A local baseball coach who denies City's request to buy watermelon due to awkward, internalized racial anxieties about a Black boy eating watermelon in front of a white girl.

A friend of Grandma's in 2013 who watches movies with the family and shares a private, romantic moment with her on the porch.

The minister at Grandma's church who insists on publicly baptizing City. He enforces traditional church authority and is the subject of local rumors regarding inappropriate photographs in his car.