She gestured for him to go. “Hurry up ahead. I’ll wait here. If there’s no clearing we have to go back to the fork and go my way.”
That was all the permission he needed. Finn bolted up the trail, the leaves crackling beneath his feet and his thigh muscles burning as the trail became steeper and steeper. As he turned the corner, he saw it. Dark leaves parted to show a flash of bright green ferns.
It was there.
A clearing.
He rushed ahead and let the morning sun hit his face full force. The field was full of new growth. It was like he had found a patch of newborn spring hiding away from autumn.
Below him, he could hear Gabi’s phone alarm ring out faintly. He smiled and turned back to the trail.
“Finn? Are you there?” There was fear in her voice. “Please say you’re there.” She was trudging back up the trail looking for him.
He ran back around the corner and beamed a smile at her.
“Really?” she asked.
“Really. It’s the right trail.”
°°°
“I will never again doubt the Mighty Finn!” Gabi twirled in the sun, arms out and laughing.
“Yeah, don’t make promises you can’t keep!” Finn laughed. They weren’t lost. This moment of victory felt good, and he was grateful to her for acknowledging it. It also meant he could trust his instincts. It meant the cards weren’t all stacked against them.
“It’s too pretty not to stop.” She waded into the ferns and proceeded to sit cross-legged in the middle of the clearing. Her head barely cleared the green fronds. She motioned for him to come sit next to him. “The ground here is dry.”
As welcoming as the image was, he did not want to stop again.
“Just for a minute. Consider it a vitamin D break.” She tilted her face up to the sun.
“Now I know you’re spending too much time in Mr. Schuman’s outdoors club.”
He followed the path of bent ferns she had made and sat down. The sun did feel good on his face.
“So what would you change?” he asked.
“Change?”
“In time. History. What if we could change anything—everything!—once we find the tree?”
“I’d pack water,” Gabi deadpanned.
“Okay, obviously that. But seriously, what big things?” Finn asked.
“Oh. I don’t know.” She sounded like she did know.
“You could stop your brother from going overseas,” he suggested.
Gabi grabbed a handful of ferns in her right hand and began to grind them into a pile of light green mulch. “Maybe. I mean—I miss Xavi like crazy. Of course I do. I would want him back in a heartbeat. It’s just, well, it doesn’t seem like it’s all that simple, that’s all.”
“Of course it is. It would just take some planning. Figuring out what the key moments were. We could do it!”
“You’re not getting it.”
If there was anything Finn hated being accused of, it was being dense. “But—”
“Think, Finn! We wouldn’t be who we are now! I might never leave New York. I’d never move here. Bringing him back would change everything.”
Finn didn’t have a rebuttal for that. She was right. They might end up not knowing each other.
He didn’t like to imagine a world where he didn’t know Gabi. His whole life would be different. He would be different.
Every single action has consequences. He could imagine some of them, but there were probably a million others he couldn’t even guess at. Finn felt like he needed some complex software to figure it all out. It made his head hurt.
“I don’t know how they live like this. Mom, Gran, my aunts . . . having to think about every possible outcome before they do anything. It could make you lose your mind.”
“But that’s what they were stopping. Aunt Ev said ISTA is all about keeping the timeline safe from changes, right?”
“Still, it’s a nearly impossible task. Anything you do, back in time, could change something.” He stretched out his legs, realizing how sore they were from all the walking. “Do you remember when I tried to teach you chess?”
Gabi laughed. “Yes! Don’t say try like I didn’t get it. I got it. I just hated it.” She went back to massaging the blood flow back into her legs.
“Do you remember why you hated it? What you said to me?” Finn knelt down on the ground in front of her.
“Yeah. It all got too annoying when you told me entire games are predestined by opening moves.” She put on her special Finn-mocking voice. Somehow she always made him sound British. “I forgot what you called them.”
“Gambits. People make a specific first move, and then the rest of the game plays out in a certain way. The same games have been replayed over centuries.”
“There is no point in playing a game where I can’t be original.” She smiled at the memory and then the smile disappeared. She seemed to forget about her sore legs. “Oh—you think this is like a chess game, being played over and over?”
“If we go with my theory, then yes. Each time Gran or Mom, or whoever, tries to change the timeline, they open with a different gambit and watch how the chain of events plays out. Except the chessboard has limits. It’s a finite square. The other player can only do a few different things with their pieces. In real life, people can do way too many unpredictable things. Every decision we make will change the course of the timeline.” He placed the heel of his palms over both eyes as if to give his senses a break. “There are too many permutations to even consider. There’s no point.”
“I don’t know. Some people are very predictable.” She lay down in the ferns, cradling her head in her arms. “Maybe with those people, you could bank on them doing the same thing each time, staying inside the square.”
Finn lay down on his back next to her. “I can’t think of anybody who would do the same wrong thing, not if they knew the consequences.”
“I think some people would. Even if they had the chance to do better they still wouldn’t take it. I can also think of a few people who would always do the right thing.”
She didn’t say who. She was staring at a hawk lazily circling high overhead, riding those invisible air spirals they somehow know how to find.
“Maybe this isn’t really all that weird,” she said. “I mean on some level, everyone is a product of choices that were made before they could remember, before they were even born. We are who we are because we live here, but we didn’t choose that. Our parents did, and in your case your parents’ parents and so on. Our lives are built on the decisions of others.”
He couldn’t argue with that, though it seemed unfair that so much of his own identity was outside his control. “Maybe if your brother didn’t die, then—”
“Finn, not now. Okay? I’ve played that game lots of times. I know you have, too. It’s not like we don’t have lots of practice at this.”
“Practice?”
“Well, in a way, we’ve both been time travelers for a long time already. Haven’t we? I mean, that’s all you do after you lose someone. You keep going back, over and over again.”
Finn nodded slowly. “Or you bring the ghost of them forward—Travel them to now. So you can just talk to them, show them things.”
“Yes.” She looked at him in surprise, like she couldn’t believe someone else understood. They were connected again, by something deep and ancient. It felt like the beginning of a universe. She turned away first and it was almost a relief.
“It certainly is a safer way to time travel,” he offered.
“I don’t know about that. You can’t build a future, or even a present, by talking to the past all the time,” she said. “Let’s take thirty more seconds to watch the sky and feel the sun. We won’t see it again for a while.”
As they lay there, backbones against the hard earth, the sunlight glowing amber behind their closed eyelids, he was filled with gratitude that Gabi was there. She made him feel solid. When he was with her he wasn’t floating arou
nd without edges. He was grounded.
Chapter 17
The next landmark in the trail guide was supposed to be the hunter’s cabin. It was common for mountains to have one or two cabins shared by hunters who prefer something more than a tent. Finn had never gone far enough up Dorset Peak to see one, though.
The structure in front of them was not the quaint, cozy cabin he expected. Black, tar-papered and sinister looking, it rose out of the mountain like a thorn. Modern sashed windows jutted out of the dirty tarpaper like cataract-covered eyes, trying to see who might be thinking about trespassing.
Finn and Gabi froze. The building made Finn wonder what kind of hunting the occupants did.
“That place is freaky looking.” Gabi’s feet stayed rooted to the trail. The cabin lay a good thirty feet in front of them. “Do you think anyone is in it?”
She looked up at the roof and Finn followed her gaze. A narrow stovepipe chimney jutted out the top at an odd angle. There wasn’t any smoke drifting out the top.
“If they are they don’t have a fire on.”
She pursed her lips. “Let’s keep going. This place gives me the creeps. It looks like the home of a serial killer.”
“Come on, Gabi. This is taking much longer than we thought and we might be up here overnight. We don’t have the proper provisions. You said so yourself. There could be food or water in there.”
“Yeah, or victims hanging from the rafters! I’d rather take my chances. Please, let’s go.”
“You can stay out here if you like. I’ll only be a minute. I’ll go around the other side and see if there’s an open door.”
Without waiting for an answer, Finn slowly began to make his way closer to the cabin. He watched the windows but didn’t see any movement. As he got closer he realized that didn’t mean anything. The windows were so dirty he wouldn’t be able to see through one even if his nose was pressed against it.
He edged around the cabin to get a view of the only door. It was at an unnatural height and there were no stairs leading up to it. It would take a big step to get up there, and that wasn’t even the most unsettling thing about it.
Right over the bleak-looking mismatched door, nailed unceremoniously between the roof’s apex and the entryway, was a rotting animal skull. It still had some meat on it and flies were buzzing around it in a frenzy. Finn stopped in his tracks and tried to make out what that creature might have been. Its two hollowed-out eye cavities stared ahead in perpetual shock.
A hand grabbed Finn’s upper arm hard. He nearly swung a fist before realizing it was Gabi.
“Whoa! It’s just me—What the . . .” She had noticed it. Finn figured it was probably a fox skull, or maybe a deer, based on the size.
“That is disgusting!” Gabi said. “Let’s leave, please. There won’t be anything we want in here. This is the scariest place I’ve ever seen.”
Finn could not tear himself away. It was as if he’d been plucked from reality and placed in a dreamscape. As if he’d dreamed of this building before and now he was being given the opportunity to explore it in real-life detail. Only when he searched his memory for it, there was nothing there.
He moved closer to the makeshift door and did his best to listen. Sometimes when someone is being quiet so as not to be heard, you can hear their efforts.
Finn listened for small furtive movements. Nothing.
Still, he couldn’t just go barging in. He raised his hand and knocked hard on a small patch of smooth wood that didn’t have nails bent this way and that. A cluster of birds flew up from the nearby underbrush in alarm.
Gabi put her hands over her ears, as if muffling the sound of his knock would somehow make them safer. She glanced quickly to the left and right and then back at him.
Finn knocked harder this time and the door gave way. It wasn’t clear if he’d dislodged or if someone had unlatched it from inside.
Gabi stepped back. “I don’t like this.”
Finn peered inside, and it took a second for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Motes of dust cascaded down sunbeams filtering in through the filthy windows. Something small, maybe a mouse, scuttled across the room at the far corner. A rusty heating stove anchored the other end of that tilted metal chimney they’d seen from outside. Squatting in the middle of the room, a wooden sawhorse table filled the majority of the space. It was covered in the unmistakable stains of dried blood.
Finn reassured himself that this discovery was normal. It was, after all, a hunter’s cabin.
He took one step in and realized there was a platform over his head. A space that he couldn’t see into from the floor level.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” he called.
No one answered. Even the mouse had stopped moving.
Gabi had not followed him inside. She was outside the door. “Is there water?”
“Still looking. I don’t think anyone has been here recently. It’s hard to tell.”
He spotted a ladder that led to the platform. As he examined it, Gabi entered and followed his footsteps across the mismatched floorboards.
“I don’t think we’ll find a stocked fridge in here,” she said.
“There’s fresh footprints on the floor.” Finn gestured at the ladder. “But there’s a full layer of dust on the ladder rungs.”
“So whoever uses this place doesn’t sleep here. Good for them. I wouldn’t either. Let’s go.”
“In a minute.” Taking a deep breath, he tested the first rung of the ladder with his weight, then climbed up to the second.
The loft was empty. He let out his breath in relief. He assumed it was for sleeping, since no grown human being could stand up straight in that small a space. There were some old dingy blankets up there, a broken hurricane lamp—and a retro-looking red and white travel cooler. Could they be that lucky? He grabbed the handle and tilted it back, and inside he found three bottled waters. Unopened.
“Gabi! I found water!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they’re warm. Beggars can’t be choosers right?” He tossed one to her. “Ration it, there’s only three.”
She took a gulp, capped the bottle, and put it in the front double pocket of her hoodie. “I don’t even care that it’s not cold.”
Finn began to descend from the loft. As he held onto the ladder he realized that it wasn’t dust on the rungs, but soot. Whoever used this cabin let their lamps and candles burn all night long. Finn couldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t be caught dead in this cabin after dark. A shiver shook him as he realized how creepy that saying was.
“Let’s hurry,” Gabi said. “I don’t want to run into whoever hung the fresh skull, okay?”
“Excellent point. Go be lookout.”
Gabi seemed all too happy to leave and disappeared out the front door by jumping down its large front step. From his vantage point it looked like she disappeared entirely.
Finn hopped off the ladder and walked around carefully, looking at the cobwebs and searching for any other signs that someone had been here. A small shelf over the stove held two blue speckled metal bowls that looked older than him by thirty years at least. A daddy long-legs was sprawled out on the wall above them. Next to that were the remnants of a dead plant in a dingy terracotta pot. All that was left of the plant were some leggy white roots that jutted out from the soil.
Gabi peered in from the front door, only her head and shoulders visible. “Hurry up!” she hissed.
Gabi opened the door wider, and as the sun swept across the floorboards Finn could see the varying footprints in the dust. Theirs were the freshest. The other set looked similar to theirs but without the ridges in the rubber sneaker soles. Those prints appeared normal in some areas, yet in others they looked elongated, as if the foot was being dragged. In the corner they disappeared altogether and reappeared a few feet away. Like stutter-steps. Like a Traveler’s.
Was the skull nailer someone from ISTA? Fear slinked up Finn’s spine at the thought of Doc and Aunt Billie being three step
s ahead of him.
No, he was leaping to wild conclusions.
“Finn! Come on!”
He took one last look around. He woudn’t tell her about the strange footprints. There was no reason to scare her now.
It’s not like I begrudged them the water—goodness knows they need it far more than I do—but you go through all the trouble of packing certain things. It’s the devil to lose them.
Okay, fine. You caught me. I would have brought them more, but I can only take so much with me. It’s not easy Traveling such distances.
This isn’t the most comfortable lodging, but it will do for now. Eons know I’ve stayed in much worse. It’s not like I’ll be sleeping anyway. I have to keep watch and be ready. Play my part.
The skull wasn’t meant for them. It was meant to scare me off. It didn’t do its job. There is no way to get rid of me. That is something my adversary will not understand for a long, long time.
So busy trying to control the world, shaping the timeline, that you can’t even see the truth in front of your face!
Well, I’m not scared.
I can’t be scared off when I’ve already seen the worst that could happen.
Chapter 18
“Why would anyone nail a skull to the door like that?” Gabi was still unnerved as they set off again.
“Probably to scare nosey hikers and leaf peepers away. They’re hunters, after all.”
“It’s disgusting and cruel! I wish we could take another route down.” Gabi was walking faster than she had at any point so far. Finn couldn’t blame her. He wanted to put distance between them and the cabin, too.
The trail did nothing but climb at an impossible angle from the cabin on up. The trees wrapped over themselves and created an impenetrable ceiling of leaves that filtered out the sun. Finn couldn’t say he minded the shade. The path was now so steep that each step was beginning to take a toll on his legs and the exertion made him warm. He made a walking stick from a downed branch and found himself relying on it more and more. The idea of telescoping poles sounded really good to him right about now. And he wasn’t the only one struggling; he could hear Gabi’s ragged breathing behind him.
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