by Lisa Mangum
“Uh, I guess not,” I stammered, trying to catch hold of my fluttering thoughts. “It’s hard to believe it’s already graduation, huh? Who would have thought we’d make it?” I grimaced; my words sounded lame even to me.
But Jason still didn’t notice. “I always knew you’d be top of the class. Abby Edmunds, valedictorian. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” Jason traced his fingertips across the back of my hand, resting lightly on my wrist. He was sitting so close—almost too close.
The panic rose from a whine to a howl. I tried to shift away just a little, but the pillows were in the way.
“What are you talking about? I’m not valedictorian.”
Jason’s smile was indulgent and teasing. “It’s okay if you want to brag about it. Top marks. Every college fighting over you. Speaking of which, have you picked one yet?”
“Emery,” I said automatically. It was hard to concentrate; the edges of my vision kept blurring into a blue-white haze. “I’m going to Emery College.”
“Really?” Jason frowned. “When did that happen? Last night you were looking at USC.”
“USC didn’t want me.” The sting of rejection was all but gone, but in its place was something worse: doubt and confusion. I remembered getting the rejection letter; I still had the letter. Didn’t I? And what did Jason mean about “last night”? I hadn’t seen Jason since yesterday afternoon. Had I? My thoughts seemed to be fracturing along major logic lines, my memories sliding and colliding into new configurations.
“Since when?” Jason laughed. “Your acceptance letter came weeks ago. Nat and I are just trying to tag along as best we can.”
The blue-white haze hardened into a ring of ice, chilling my blood. The longer this conversation went on, the more things were wrong with it.
“At least you and Natalie are still together,” I said, unsettled by the sense of wrongness that filled the room.
Jason looked at me so strangely, I actually glanced over my shoulder to see if he was looking at someone else.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m not dating Natalie. We’re dating. In fact, we’re going out tonight to celebrate. Seven o’clock at that new barbecue place you wanted to try—the Devil’s Pit—remember?”
The edges of my vision rippled as the world did its horrible inside-out trick and another wave of white-hot pain contracted through me. I clenched my teeth around a gasp to prevent it from escaping.
“I don’t feel so good,” I managed to say. I actually felt worse than that, but there was no point in trying to articulate the details. When your whole body felt on fire, what was one more flame?
“You don’t have to be sorry for being sick. Are you okay? Do you think you’ll make it to graduation?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I didn’t dare nod; my headache had sprouted spikes.
“Listen, we don’t have to go out tonight. Why don’t we just do pizza and a movie instead?”
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. Jason and I hadn’t had a pizza-and-movie date since before we had broken up on Valentine’s Day. Jason should be dating Natalie—not me. Jason was not my boyfriend; didn’t he know that?
I had that sudden sense of false déjà vu again. I felt like I was standing still and the whole world had picked up, turned 180 degrees, and dropped down again. Everything was still there—just wrong. Everything had just . . . changed.
The panic in my chest exploded into full-blown terror. Pain twisted through me and a drizzle of cold seeped into my fingers and toes.
I faced Jason and set my jaw. “Kiss me,” I said, though I feared it sounded like a dare.
He blinked once in surprise, but clearly I didn’t need to ask him twice. Jason slipped his hand around the back of my neck and leaned close. His lips met mine and I felt a slightly electric ripple pass through me. But not a good kind of electricity, not like when Dante kissed me. This was more of the knife-in-the-toaster kind of shock. A buzzing burr that made me want to flinch.
Jason finally noticed. He broke off the kiss and backed away from me. A shadow of confusion turned his hazel eyes the color of desert sand, and his voice, when he spoke, was as dry and dusty. “Okay, that was weird.”
“You’re telling me,” I said. I lifted the back of my hand to my mouth, barely resisting the urge to wipe it against my lips. Instead I let my fingers rest on the locket around my throat, drawing strength from the familiar shape and weight of Dante’s silver heart. At least that hadn’t changed.
“What was that all about?” Jason said. “You kissed me like I was your brother.”
His words summoned two quick memories—our first kiss last January, then the February breakup—flashing back-to-
back so fast they felt like a double punch to my gut. He wouldn’t have said that on purpose; it wasn’t like him to be deliberately mean. And I doubted that he was simply pretending those two pivotal events in our relationship had never happened.
No, this was something else. Something worse.
Zo had made it through the door where Dante hadn’t. And that meant that Zo was running unchecked, imposing his will on the river, on the past.
Jason didn’t remember those events happening because they had never happened. Jason remembered something different, a different past. One in which our first kiss had been fireworks for both of us, one where he and I were still dating, one where he still loved me—and not Natalie.
Things had changed—the evidence was sitting right next to me on the couch. Dante had said changes would be like rocks in the river, polluting the flow of time, creating dangerous ripples, undertows, riptides. I had known the changes were coming. I just hadn’t thought they would start so soon. Or hit so close to home. This was the first ripple in the river, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.
If only I’d had some way to prepare, a hint of what was coming . . . I grimaced. Was that what the white flash had been about this morning? A signal that time was reversing and changing direction? If so, then maybe I had my own painful warning system in place, though I wasn’t looking forward to feeling like I’d been turned inside out every time a ripple of change reached me.
I realized I’d been sitting in silence for so long that the awkwardness in the room had turned palpable.
“Sorry,” I said, trying for a smile to break the tension. It didn’t work. I felt my heart constrict a little, and I dug my
fingernails into my palms. “Could I have that glass of water now?”
Jason stood up from the couch without a glance at me or a single word. He returned from the kitchen and handed me a glass, careful not to let our fingers touch.
I noticed he didn’t sit back down next to me, but instead stood a pace or two away, his fingers tapping his leg, his body already tense and turned toward the front door.
I drained the glass dry in three long swallows, the water tasting like sand in my throat. Jason didn’t deserve to be caught up in this mess. Breaking his heart once had been bad enough. I really didn’t want to do it again.
Maybe I could change things on my end, set things right again. Maybe I could toss this particular rock out of the river.
“Thanks for your help, Jason. I’m feeling a lot better.” A small truth. “Let’s still go out tonight, but . . . maybe I should meet you at the restaurant, okay?”
“All right,” Jason said after a moment’s hesitation. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I wrapped my hands around the empty glass and nodded; I didn’t dare meet his eyes in case he saw right through me.
“Okay.” He took a step toward me, and paused. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said again. “Well. I’ll see you later, then.”
“See you.”
I waited until he’d closed the door behind him before I set the glass on the coffee table and went back upstairs to grab my cell phone off my desk.
“Natalie? Hey, can you do me a favor tonight?”
***<
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It had been surprisingly hard to convince Natalie to come to the Devil’s Pit. She kept saying she didn’t want to be a third wheel on my date with Jason. I kept trying to convince her that it would be fine. I finally had to promise to buy her dessert in order to get her to say yes. I hung up the phone and sighed. Here was more proof that things were out of whack. Normally Natalie would not have thought twice about coming along; we’d done enough as a group that no one ever felt like a third wheel. And since when had Natalie obsessed about dessert that much? She enjoyed a slice of New York cheesecake as much as the next person, but to hold out for it? No, that wasn’t like Natalie at all.
I went back downstairs and fell face first onto the couch, closing my eyes against the cushions. Playing matchmaker and fixing things might prove harder than I’d anticipated.
I heard the garage door rise with a growling hum. Great. Either Dad was done with the lawn, or Mom and Hannah were home. Or both. I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with either possibility.
“I’m all done with the lawn,” I heard Dad say, followed by the sound of a kiss.
“Thank you, dear,” Mom said. “What are all those orange flags for?”
“I don’t know. They were in the lawn. Whoops—were you marking out some new flower beds or something?”
“No, I didn’t put them out there. Maybe Abby knows what they’re for.”
I heard the clatter of thin metal sticks falling on the counter and I looked up in shock. Those were the flags designating the dimensions of the door. If Dad had gathered them up, then that meant he didn’t remember they were mine. That wasn’t good. What else didn’t he remember? What else was different? The ripples of change were sweeping over my family too. What if everyone had changed but me? The thought made me dizzy.
“Is she home?” Dad asked.
“She better be.” Mom raised her voice. “Abby? Where are you?”
I sat up and turned in time to see Hannah run through the kitchen door, pause on the first step to glare at me, and then head up the stairs. I sighed a little in relief. I didn’t know why she was mad at me, but I didn’t care. It was typical Hannah behavior and that was good enough for me.
“I’m in here,” I called back.
“What’s going on?” Mom said, stepping into the front room. “Why aren’t you dressed yet? We have to leave by noon.”
“Graduation isn’t until three; we have plenty of time.”
Mom shook her head. “I can’t believe you forgot already. The principal specifically asked everyone who was on the program to be there at one. How would it look if the valedictorian showed up late to her own graduation?”
I bit down hard on my lip. There it was again—valedictorian. The changes in the river were starting to feel more widespread. More out of control. I just hoped they weren’t permanent.
“Oh, right,” I said, trying to cover my distress. “Sorry. It’ll just take me a minute.”
“Hurry, please. Hannah’s not happy at having to spend extra time at the school.” Mom walked back into the kitchen, and I heard her open the fridge and ask Dad if he wanted a quick bite before we had to leave.
“Sorry my graduation is an inconvenience for her,” I
muttered, pushing myself off the couch and heading upstairs.
I indulged myself for a moment, imagining how it would feel to have really been named valedictorian of the school. Yes, my grades were good, but they weren’t perfect. And although I had done a lot of extracurricular activities over the years, they certainly didn’t add up enough to warrant valedictorian status. I had been too scattered, interested in too many things, to
really have excelled in any one particular arena at school.
But could it have been different? Could I have been different? The kind of girl who set a goal to be valedictorian and then followed through on it, no matter what distractions came my way? Maybe. It certainly felt good to think about myself that way.
I closed my bedroom door behind me. I had planned to wear my favorite red blouse and a denim skirt underneath
my graduation robes, something comfortable and not too
fancy, but if I had to stand in as valedictorian, then I figured I’d better wear something more formal. I stepped out of my clothes and into a summer dress with sling-back shoes. It was a quick change, but it would have to do. The clock by my bed warned that it was almost noon. We’d have to leave in a few minutes.
My gaze fell on my desk, where, locked in the drawer, lay the biggest secret I’d ever kept. Those blueprints represented a goal that would require my complete attention. Build it,
or don’t build it—there was no middle ground. No room
for error or excuses. Once I started, I’d have to see it through to the end. No matter what. Was I up to the task? I hoped
so.
Unlocking my desk drawer, I pulled out the binder where I kept Dante’s original blueprints. I had a backup copy of the plans, of course, but seeing his handwriting—the small hook he added to his lowercase “t”s—always made me feel connected to him. Like he was still close to me—close enough to communicate with me. I brushed my fingers over the cover of the binder. Close enough to touch.
I remembered the strange, ghostly touch of his hands on my hands, my arms. The touch of his lips against mine. It had been a dream—more than a dream—but that had been the best part of it for sure.
Taped to the top of the binder was the tiny slip of paper from my fortune cookie: “Remember June 4th. Great things are in store for you.”
I thought back to my date with Dante where I had cracked open that cookie. That had been the night I had first dreamed my way to the bank, the night Zo and Dante had discussed the fact that I could somehow summon the black hourglass door that led back to their home, more than five hundred years in the past.
I nibbled on the edge of my fingernail, an itch of worry just out of reach. That had also been the conversation where Zo had mentioned two people from Dante’s past: Orlando and Sofia. Orlando was Dante’s older brother, though I knew him as Leo. And as Leo, he had lived those five hundred years instead of skipping them like Dante had. But I had never found out who Sofia was.
Was she Dante’s sister? A girlfriend? Someone else altogether? I had asked Dante about her once, but he hadn’t
answered my question, more concerned with the events on the bank and the threat Zo posed to us both.
I returned the plans to my desk drawer. As I turned the small key in the lock, a bolt of pain skewered through my stomach, and I doubled over, gasping as unexpected heat flared in my brain. The world around me reversed to black and white, the shadows as thin and sharp as the light. The air around me felt as viscous as blood.
Oh, no, I thought. Not again. Not now.
The flash was there and gone in a heartbeat. My vision stabilized; relief filled me. Maybe whatever changed this time would be small, localized.
A small bell chimed from my computer, alerting me to an incoming e-mail message. I forced my hand to stop trembling and reached for the mouse. Clicking on the small yellow envelope in the corner of the screen left me exhausted. If these changes in the river were going to be a regular occurrence—and I fervently hoped they were not—then I was going to have to build up my stamina.
The e-mail opened and I read the words on the screen. But they didn’t make any sense.
Dear Ms. Edmunds,
We regret to inform you that your application to Emery College has been declined.
Sincerely,
Mr. Wilson Cooke
I read them again, baffled. I recognized all the individual words and I knew what they all meant, but somehow, when they were arranged in just that order, it was like trying to read hieroglyphics.
Emery didn’t want me? Impossible. I had an e-mail from one Mr. Wilson Cooke that said yes, they did. I had spent months planning my life at Emery, visiting the Web site every day, clicking on every link, reading every post, until I knew it top to bottom. And now this?
“Abby!” Mom knocked on my door. “C’mon, sweetie, it’s time to go.”
“Just a second,” I called back, my attention divided. I grabbed for my phone even as I read the e-mail a third time. I had programmed Dr. Cooke’s phone number into my phone the same day I’d received my acceptance e-mail, so it was only moments before the dial tone turned into a ring. I bit my fingernail.
“Don’t be long,” Mom said.
“Okay.” I bounced my knee, keeping time with my agitation. “Answer already,” I muttered into the ringing phone. Yes, it was graduation day, but it was also a Friday. Surely someone would still be on campus.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Cooke’s office. How may I help you?” A woman’s voice answered in the neutral tones of secretaries everywhere.
“Yes, hello,” I said. “I’d like to speak with Dr. Cooke, please.”
“He is unavailable at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Maybe. I think there might be a mistake on my admission and—”
“Oh, no worries.” The neutral tone warmed up and I heard the distant click of fingernails clattering over a keyboard. “I’d be happy to look up your file and see what’s going on. What was your name again?”
“It’s Abby. Abby Edmunds.”
Another knock sounded on my door—a hard bang that told me Mom had sent Dad to collect me. Sure enough, I heard his voice call out, “Let’s go, Abs! We don’t want to be late.”
And I didn’t want to be denied admission to Emery. I covered up the mouthpiece. “Just a sec!”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, Dad, I’ll be right there.”
The secretary made a confused “humph” sound on the phone, pulling my attention to a point.
“What? What is it? Did you find it?”
“How do you spell your last name, again?”
My anxiety rose with each letter I listed. This couldn’t be happening. I scrolled through my inbox, looking for my original acceptance e-mail. Where was it? May. April. It had to be here. I had kept it; I knew I had. March. February. When I hit the e-mails dated January, I stopped.