by Karen Akins
I gripped the seat in front of me and leaned as far from the window as possible.
Finn scooted away and finally tapped my shoulder. “Welcome to my lap,” he said.
“Sorry. I don’t like the water.” I inched back toward the window.
“And you moved to an island? Sucks to be you.”
Dirt, asphalt, concrete … heck, I could land in a vat of Jell-O for all I cared. Just not water. Anything but water. Asphalt carried the risk of being seen. Water carried the risk of never being seen again.
After the bridge’s last bump, my muscles unclenched. A sea-and-sun-cracked sign welcomed us to Chincoteague Island. The shuttered motels and deserted crab houses screamed “off-season.” It reminded me of Spring Break two years before, when Mom and I had thrown a suitcase each in the back of the old beat-up Pod Grandpa left her after he died. Right before it died. We took off up the coast and stopped in every brine-caked tourist trap we could find, ate so much chowder we thought we’d explode. I liked this town already, not that I intended to stay long. The faster I finished the midterm, the faster I moved on to the other delivery, the faster I could put this whole business behind me.
At the school parking lot, a stream of parents circled the block to pick up their children. Older students chattered a play-by-play of the trip on the way to their cars. Finn hung back and eyed me as I twisted my finger around a lock of hair. A cab ride was out. Public buses were unlikely. We really were in the middle of nowhere. Ugh. I was down to an hour and a half, and I had no idea how far away the cemetery was or how big it might be. I’d already made up my mind that I would finish the assignment before I dealt with the contraband item hidden in my shoe. Any red flags and school officials would swarm this place and investigate. I couldn’t afford any chance of getting caught.
“Would you like a ride?” Finn dug his hands into his pockets and scraped a rock across the ground with his foot.
“That’s okay.” The last thing I needed was to be trapped in the back of some crusty station wagon while his mom pried me for information. I’d rather hitchhike. “I wouldn’t want to put your parents out.”
“I drove myself. My car’s right over there.”
I followed his finger to a black Porsche SUV. “You drive?”
He nodded.
“In that?”
Another nod.
“You can’t be more than fourteen years old.”
“I’m fifteen.” He straightened up to his full height, still barely reaching the top of my head. “And I have my hardship license.”
“Hardship?” I looked at the Porsche emblem again and scoffed.
“Both my parents work, and the bus leaves before I get out of soccer. I can drive myself to school and back.” He pulled the keys out. “Look, do you want a ride or not?”
Given the long walk back to the highway, I didn’t have any other options.
“Do you mind if I sit in the back? I need to stretch out. Umm, leg cramp.”
He gave me a look that let me know my excuse was as pathetic as it sounded, but what did I care? It wasn’t like I would see him after I got to my mission site. I settled in and twiddled with my QuantCom until the geolocator came up.
“Is that a pocket watch?” he asked.
“Family heirloom.” Again, not a total lie. It did connect me with the past. It just had more in common with his car’s GPS than his wristwatch.
“Let me know where to turn,” he said.
“No problem. Take a right at the main road.”
Finn tapped his foot timidly on the gas, and we snailed forward through the parking lot.
My mission timer beeped. “Umm, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
Finn shot me a really? look in the rearview mirror but sped up. We turned onto the main road. Right. Left. Right. Right. No, I meant left.
A few times, Finn double-checked my directions. “This street? How much farther?”
After fourteen excruciating minutes, we pulled into a long, brick driveway. I had expected a graveyard or a church. It was a mansion. Or at least the biggest house I’d ever seen. After all the quaint shake-shingled cottages, it seemed especially daunting. But whatever. As long as there was a dead Muffy under the sand or dirt somewhere, I didn’t care. I was within spitting distance of finishing this midterm; then I could get to the real business at hand. I snapped the Com shut and opened the door.
“Thanks for the ride.”
Finn flipped around to face me. “Do you realize where we are?”
“Yeah, Thirty-four Seventy-one Woodman Estates.”
“I know. We’re at my house.”
chapter 2
CRAP. CRAP. CRIPPITY CRAPPITY. CRAP.
“What’s going on?” asked Finn. His eyes darted back and forth between the rearview and side mirrors even though we were just sitting there in his driveway.
Dang if I knew. And I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I fidgeted with a tube of lip gloss in my jacket pocket. The mission address must have been wrong. Yes. Yes, a logical explanation. If this Finn guy could point me to the town cemetery, I’d drop the package off at Muffy’s grave and go on my merry way. I could squeeze in the drop-off afterward if I hurried. As I leaned forward to ask him where the nearest graveyard was, my gloss accidentally pressed into his rib cage.
“What do you want from me?” he said, his voice rising with each word. “Wait, is that a … Do you have a gun?”
“A gu—?” The laugh was on my lips, but then he fumbled forward, reaching for his phone. I panicked and jabbed the gloss hard into his side. “I mean, yeah. It’s a gun. Don’t make me use it. My gun, I mean. The one in my hand.”
“Where did you get a—?”
“I’ll ask the questions.” I tried to make my voice as menacing as possible. “Don’t move.”
The color drained down Finn’s neck in streaks. He looked like a chameleon that couldn’t decide on a shade. “Look, you can have my wallet, the car, whatever you want,” he said. “Just let me go, okay?”
Breathe, Bree. Breathe.
Before last spring, the lowest grade I’d ever gotten was a B-, in my third year. And that was after a little snafu when I accidentally asked someone to switch on the lights in a pre-Edison home. Not taking a kid hostage. While making a black market delivery.
Breathe.
Leto Malone had timed his proposal perfectly when he showed up in Mom’s room last Tuesday. The doctor had finished his weekly don’t-lose-hope speech. The accountant had delivered his monthly abandon-all-hope report.
Leto had slithered in wearing a slick suit and an oily smile. He held out a piece of junk so technologically obsolete it took a minute for me to figure out what it was—an old, paper-thin flexiphone. Then he asked if I wanted to earn an astronomical amount of money.
Umm, yes.
He placed it in my hand. Just a simple delivery to the past.
When I realized who he was—what he was—I practically threw the gadget back at him.
“Hear me out, kid,” he said. “You know as well as I do this widget always popped up back then. Why shouldn’t I give some garage hack with a few hundred quiddie the glory of becoming its inventor?”
“You want me to break the law for a few hundred dollars?” I fought back a snort.
“Are you tiffing me, kid?” He looked around like he was suddenly worried we’d been watched. “You leave this in a secure spot, call the buyer, he deposits the funds in a Swiss bank and gives you the account number. The guy thinks he’s dealing with a disgruntled corporate snitch. You disappear. I collect the payment in our time. Plus interest.”
Two hundred years of interest. Leto smiled as the potential amount dawned on me.
“But if I got caught—”
“You gonna get caught?” Leto scowled.
“No.” What he asked of me could land me in prison. “No, I mean, I won’t do it.”
“These, heh, transactions happen all the time. No different from your school assignments.”
It was completely different from our school assignments. Different from legitimate chronocourying. Anything delivered to the past had to pass strenuous scrutiny for era appropriateness—a fancy way of saying it had to belong in that time. Had to already exist. And it couldn’t result in any personal gain on the sender’s or receiver’s part.
Leto was right on one account, though. The black market for illegal deliveries to the past was alive and well. Technology, medicine, and probably unsavory things that never made the news. But that didn’t mean I wanted anything to do with it. I looked away.
“Suit yourself.” Leto patted my mom’s foot on his way out. “I thought you might be … motivated. But maybe you like your free options.”
I shot Leto a dirty look behind his back. We both knew there was only one free option, even though I didn’t see it as an option at all. I squeezed Mom’s hand and willed her to squeeze back. But of course she didn’t.
“Wait,” I said before he reached the door. “Just this one time?”
He nodded.
“And you’d pay all my mom’s bills?”
Leto nodded again, this time more slowly.
“I’ll do it,” I said. “But how am I supposed to—”
“Shh.” He gave my cheek a not-so-gentle thwap. “You’re a resourceful gal. Figure it out.”
It actually wasn’t that hard, once I realized no one would check my shoes. And if I didn’t deliver this package, Leto would find someone else who would. The buyer would get his gadget one way or another. History books told us that. Leto would get his money. Whoever really invented it would go forever nameless and faceless. You can’t change the past. One of those weird temporal loops that couldn’t be explained. Also one of the reasons I sometimes didn’t blame nonShifters for not trusting us past where they could track us.
A car drove by Finn’s house—the driver craned his neck and waved as he passed. I ducked my face down. I had to get Finn and me inside the house, out of view. Then I could explain to him it was a silly misunderstanding. We’d have a chuckle, and I’d slip out the back door.
As the plan, sketchy as it was, solidified in my brain, my pit-a-patting pulse slowed its erratic pace. My training took over. I could salvage this.
“Open your door,” I said. Finn obeyed, and I shimmied over the car’s center console after him, careful to keep my gloss in contact with his back. “Now get out of the car … no, slow down … walk to the front door.”
Again, he did as he was told. His whole body trembled, and I was thankful for it. He wouldn’t detect the tremor in my own hand. Standing there, I wondered how ridiculous we’d look to a passerby. Me, a barely five-foot wisp of a thing, hijacking the silver medalist of the Nerd Olympics. Part of me wanted to reassure the poor guy that, worst-case scenario, I’d stain his expensive shirt. But that wouldn’t get me in the house. The key scratched feebly against the lock, Finn was shaking so hard at that point. His fear pushed the last bit of mine away. I grabbed his hand, shoved the key in, and pressed him inside.
There were two light switches on the electrical panel next to the door. I gouged the gloss deeper into his back and reached for the closest one, flicking it to the “on” position.
A massive blown-glass chandelier exploded to life above us and bathed the foyer in golden light. I couldn’t help but gawk at my surroundings. Vases, paintings, and tapestries lined the two-story entryway, floor to ceiling. The antiquities in that one room alone were worth several million dollars. A small Renoir hung next to one of the creepy Dutch Baroques, the kind that follows people around with its eyes. I wasn’t sure which painter it was. Vermeer, maybe? Mom would have known in an instant and would have scolded me for not remembering. One of those infuriating Mom things that I sometimes missed more than the stuff I was supposed to.
I snapped back to attention and, curious to what other treasures the house held, reached for the remaining switch. At first, I thought it was a dead button when nothing turned on. Then, I noticed that the top of Finn’s head had taken on an odd grass-colored tint. An eerie green light slowly filled the entire room. I looked for the source and spotted it above the doorway—three electric candles glowing like emeralds.
Holy crapoli.
“Is that a Haven Beacon?” I asked when my tongue began working again. All other thoughts slipped from my brain. The forgotten lip gloss hit the floor with a clink.
I’d read about Beacons, of course. I’d always found them kind of fascinating. It was an ancient tradition. Those who knew of time travelers’ existence, who passed the knowledge generation to generation, placed three green-flamed candles in their window. A glowing welcome mat—come in, warm yourself. Your secret is safe with me. But Havens had disappeared long before Finn’s time and centuries before mine.
I couldn’t peel my gaze from the viridian flickering. Making contact with the Haven was forbidden. Totes verbote. Our teachers claimed it would give us an unfair edge on assignments, but that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was the threat of who we might run into at a Haven—Shifters from the past. And, more important, what information we might let slip. Most Beacons had been tracked down ages ago so our transporters could steer us away from them. How had this one managed to slip through the cracks?
Finn’s eyes grew wide. I didn’t see any answers in them, but I repeated my question.
“Is that a Hav—?”
“Are you insane?” Finn roared. He pointed at the tube of lip gloss at my feet. I felt a fleeting sense of shame as he touched the place on his side where he, moments ago, believed I’d held a firearm. “Get out of my house!”
I ignored him and looked around the room again, searching for a clue as to how a Beacon could have ended up in the possession of a kid who clearly had no idea what a Shifter was.
Finn grappled with the door’s handle behind him, not taking his eyes off me for a moment. “Out!” he shouted as he wrenched the heavy front door open.
A short, plump woman with curly auburn hair stood on the front porch. Her arms sagged with grocery bags, but her face was taut with surprise. The house key hung from her hand limply at the lock as she took the scene in. The woman’s gaze lifted to the green lights above the door, then back down to me. I glanced up at the Beacon on reflex. She narrowed her eyes in an unspoken question: Are you what I think you are? I looked at the wall, at the door, anything to avoid her gaze, but I could tell I hadn’t fooled her. She bobbed her head in an almost imperceptible nod.
She knew. She knew who I was—what I was. And didn’t appear fazed in the slightest.
The woman turned to Finn. “That’s hardly what I’d call hospitality, pumpkin.”
Pumpkin didn’t seem to appreciate the flippant attitude at his predicament.
“Mom, I didn’t … She isn’t … This nut job could have killed me. She forced me in here at gunpoint.” He gestured to the tube, which had rolled over to a nearby chair. “Okay, maybe not gunpoint. More like—”
“Glosspoint?” A gangly girl with a dark purple streak running through her hair leaned around Finn’s mother on the porch and snickered. The girl looked a couple years younger than Finn but at the same time was a good half a head taller than him.
“Not helping, Georgie.” Finn’s mom handed the grocery bags to the girl. “Take these to the kitchen, then unload the rest from the car.”
Finn opened his mouth to protest, but his mother silenced him with one arch of her eyebrow. When she turned back to me, her expression softened. She walked into the foyer, holding both hands out.
“Welcome to our home, honey,” she said in a dripping southern drawl. “I’m Charlotte Masterson. Would you care to stay for dinner—I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
Finn looked back and forth between his mom and me with his jaw hanging open. Charlotte gave his chin a gentle tap as she passed. “Don’t let the flies in.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t stay.” I had to get out of there.
“Hush now,” she said. “Nothin’ fancy.�
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I gave the green lights a significant look and said, “I have a task to do.”
I’d lost enough time as it was. I had to find that grave. Not to mention get in touch with this black market buyer. I never should have agreed to do it on this mission. Well, I mean, I never should have agreed to do it, period. I just didn’t realize how blarked up this midterm would get.
Charlotte leaned around Finn and switched off the Beacon. “I’ll set a plate for when you change your mind.”
“Are you kidding me?” Finn said. “Hey, while we’re at it, let’s drop by the county jail and invite a few prisoners.”
His mother rolled her eyes and tossed him her key fob. “I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding. Go pull the car around to the garage and help Sissy unload it.” Finn didn’t budge, so she added, “Now, please.” More “now” than “please.”
When the door slammed behind him, Charlotte let out one of those sighs they must teach when you become a mother.
“What was your name again?” she said.
“Bree.” Might as well tell her, since her son already knew it.
“My, but you’re a slight thing.” She took a step back and gave me a look like she was sizing me up for a roaster pan. “Doesn’t your mama feed you?”
“Actually, I go to a boarding school.”
In the setting sun it might have been a trick of the light, but I could swear all the color drained from her face. “I see.” Charlotte changed the subject: “When John gets back from wherever he is, I’m sure he’d like to meet you. He loves to talk … timey stuff with other people like him.”
“John?”
“My husband.”
“Is a Shifter?”
“Yes.”
A Shifter’s house. I was at a blarking Shifter’s house. It was the rule that didn’t have a number. The Rule: If you should see a Shifter Past, run away and very fast. Yeah, it rhymed. They said it was to help the First Years remember it, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t know it by heart from the cradle.
This was the red flag to end all red flags. If anyone from the Institute found out I’d had direct contact with a Shifter from the past, they’d swarm this place like fly on poo. This settled it. Forget Leto’s delivery. I couldn’t risk it. He said if I changed my mind I could return the package to him, no questions asked. I still had to figure out a way to pay for Mom’s care, but I’d deal with that later.