Whereas, last Duncan knew, Rachel was still sixteen and should be back in her own world any time now with a story only he would believe.
* * *
Duncan rang the doorbell, hoping Rachel would answer the door. He had tried texting and phoning again, but there was no response. Could she somehow be trapped in time? The thought made his stomach churn.
The door opened and Rachel’s stepmother stood there.
Duncan tried to smile. “Hi. Is Rachel home?”
Virginia gave him the once over before their eyes met. “She’s asleep.”
He recalled Rachel telling him that she planned to take a nap to travel in time to keep from hitting her head again. So her stepmom was clueless. He had to see if Rachel was okay.
“I let Rachel borrow my iPad,” he lied. “Can I just run up and get it? I promise not to wake her.”
Rachel’s stepmom furrowed her brow. “I don’t think so,” she said curtly. “When Rachel gets up, I’ll have her call you. Now I have work to do. Bye.”
Before Duncan could utter a word of protest, the door closed in his face. He wondered if it was just him or did she treat everyone so rudely?
He refused to let it bother him. Rachel liked him a lot. Even her dad was cool about them seeing each other. So what if her stepmom was a bitch.
That didn’t change the fact Duncan still wanted—needed—to get in the house to see what was going on with Rachel. He looked up at Rachel’s window. Maybe he should climb up there and see what was going on for himself.
Duncan nixed that plan. He had no idea what would happen if he somehow woke her prematurely. The last thing he wanted was his girlfriend’s spirit or whatever to somehow lose her way back to 2011 because of him. Besides, he had a feeling her stepmom was watching him like a hawk.
He would text Rachel in a few minutes. If that failed, maybe he’d come back and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
As he walked away from the house, Duncan glanced up at the attic window and could have sworn he’d seen a flash of light. Must have been his imagination or something. It wouldn’t surprise him, considering the overload his brain had to deal with lately.
* * *
Through a crack in the blinds, Virginia watched the young man get into his car and drive off. She felt Rachel could do better, though she doubted the girl would listen to her. It seemed like she had her mind set on him—at least for the time being.
Virginia went into the kitchen and checked the dinner. It would be done and still hot when Edwin got home. In the meantime, she decided Rachel had slept long enough.
She went up to her room and knocked on the door before opening it. Rachel wasn’t in bed, though from the look of things, apparently she had been. Virginia’s first thought was that she was in the bathroom.
She heard a noise in the attic.
“That girl and her fascination with the attic,” Virginia muttered out loud.
She lowered the steps to the attic and began to climb up. She continued to hear sounds—voices—like two people talking. Apparently Rachel had company.
Virginia wondered if somehow Duncan had managed to slip in. Her brows furrowed with annoyance as she looked up in the attic.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Brooke felt herself swaying ever so slightly, as if the floor were vibrating. Then all was calm again. She hadn’t realized when she stopped holding Rachel’s hand or vice versa. Or how they wound up a good six feet apart. Brooke did not see her mom, who had been standing there a moment earlier transfixed at their attempt to be transported to the safety of the future.
Other than that, Brooke saw no indication anything as remarkable as time travel had taken place. Maybe she and Rachel were both now stuck in the past with its dangers.
It was only upon closer inspection Brooke realized there were some subtle differences in the attic. A few more boxes were present and the eyelid windows had mini blinds on them.
A sure sign that she was no longer where she began this journey. We must have succeeded and made it to 2011!
Rachel also noted the changes as she started to regain her equilibrium. Only, from her perspective, there were fewer boxes in storage than when she left 2011, making her wonder if they had somehow gone backward and not forward in time. The boxes that had held most of Brooke’s belongings seemed to be missing.
Should I be concerned? Or was it a sign that Brooke’s death had been erased when she came to the present?
“Rachel—” Brooke closed the gap between them, nervous as she tried to acclimate to her surroundings. “I guess the clockwatch did make room for two on the trip.”
Rachel gulped. “Yeah, it looks that way.” It was then she remembered to look at the watch, still attached to the chain around her neck. The time was 4:35 p.m. The date was July 3, 2011.
She nearly jumped for joy, hugging Brooke. “We’re here in my time...our time now!”
Brooke eyed the date on the watch and her heart lurched as she assumed it was confirmation that she’d left behind her old life forever.
“I’m glad,” she said. “Feels weird, though. Ten years ahead of my time, but still only sixteen. It’ll take a while to get used to us being the same age instead of you being my little sister.”
“For me, too,” Rachel admitted. “At least you’re alive beyond 2001!”
“Yeah.” Brooke smiled. “That was the plan.”
Nevertheless, Brooke was already starting to miss her mom and little sister Rachel. And even Natalie and Gabrielle. But she was looking forward to seeing her dad, now ten years older, and letting him know she’d cheated death so he had two daughters again. And, of course, she still had her sister and new best friend Rachel to hang out with.
“So what now?” Brooke looked at her anxiously.
Rachel truthfully had not thought much beyond getting back home. She would have to explain to their dad and Virginia how she’d managed to rescue Brooke from a killer and bring her back to 2011. It might be difficult to grasp—maybe impossible—but Rachel was certain they would be delighted at the end result of now having three-quarters of their family back intact.
“We go downstairs and spring this miracle on dad and your new stepmom,” she declared.
Brooke wrinkled her nose, imagining it would take some getting used to having a stepmom all of a sudden when her real mother had been alive just minutes ago—albeit it across time. But she would try her best to make this work.
Before they could make a move, Virginia stepped into the attic. She peered directly at Rachel.
“I came to wake you to prepare for dinner,” her stepmother said. “Obviously, you’re already up.”
Rachel remembered she’d been in her bed before traveling though time. The fact she was now in the attic where she had left the past suggested her body could be transported to wherever she happened to depart from.
“You won’t believe where I’ve been—” she began, wondering how to tell her incredible tale.
Virginia studied the girl standing beside Rachel. There was a look of familiarity to her, almost like she was a member of the family.
“Who’s your friend?” Virginia gazed at Rachel. “And what are you two doing up here?”
Rachel took Brooke’s hand, feeling her sweaty palm. “Don’t you recognize her?” she asked tentatively. “You’ve seen enough pictures. It’s Brooke.”
Her stepmother raised a brow. “I don’t know a Brooke.”
I don’t know you either. Brooke blinked twice with rancor. She suddenly realized that seeing someone in person was a lot different than in pictures.
“Brooke’s my sister!” Rachel blurted out. “You know, the one who in 2001—” Even now it was still hard to say that Brooke had died, not once, but twice that year. “Brooke, this is our stepmom, Virginia.”
Still caught up in the emotion of her real mom being left behind, Brooke could only wave awkwardly. She wasn’t quite up to embracing the woman who had taken her mother’s place in her father’s life.
Virginia wondered what on earth Rachel was trying to pull this time. She loved being dramatic, particularly when she was trying to worm her way out of a hole she’d dug.
She narrowed her gaze at the girls. “I really don’t have time for games right now,” Virginia said. “Who is she?”
Rachel wondered why her stepmother was acting so strange, as though she didn’t even have a clue as to who Brooke might be. Granted they were meeting for the first time under most peculiar circumstances, but the uncanny resemblance had to count for something. Now she had to convince Virginia that Brooke was her once dead sister in the flesh.
“This really is Brooke—my sister,” Rachel said with a straight face. “She’s alive!”
Virginia rolled her eyes. Rachel had an overactive imagination. And that included wishing she had sister around her own age. But did she honestly think inventing one would make it so?
“You don’t have a sister!” Virginia snapped. “Now cut out this foolishness. You know perfectly well that you’re an only child.”
“What?” Rachel’s mouth dropped in disbelief. “But that’s not possible—”
It certainly wasn’t the case when she left to go back in time. Had saving Brooke from being killed and bringing her to the future come at a cost neither of them could have anticipated? She turned to Brooke, who met her eyes blankly.
“I want to see my dad!” Brooke bristled at the talk of Rachel being an only child, which obviously wasn’t the case. She decided this woman was in a state of denial about her existence for some unknown reason.
“We’d both like to see our dad.” Rachel backed up her sister, sure he would get to the bottom of this and make things right.
Or so she hoped.
If her timing was right, their father should be walking in the door any moment now.
* * *
Brooke looked with awe at the changed colors and renovations of the house. More proof that she was really here in 2011. Yet it seemed that her identity had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of time, if her new stepmother were to be believed.
Whatever it takes, I have to fight to reclaim my place as a member of this family.
Rachel was on the same wavelength as they heard the car pull into the driveway. Peeking through the blinds, she saw her dad’s BMW come to a stop. Moments later he emerged with briefcase in hand.
Rachel grabbed Brooke’s hand and ambled toward the door. “Let’s go talk to dad.”
Brooke hesitated. “What if he doesn’t remember I exist?” she asked with dread.
The thought had crossed Rachel’s mind. How could it not, with the way Virginia was acting? “If that’s the case, we’ll deal with,” she told her sister. Rachel kept her fingers crossed that he would recognize Brooke.
They stepped onto the porch just as Edwin reached the first stair. He smiled when he saw Rachel.
“How’s my girl?”
“Great, Dad.” Rachel resisted running into his arms, as though it had been years since she had last seen him. Then Rachel realized that in a weird way, years had passed from the time she’d just come from.
Rachel was tense as she looked at Brooke and back to their dad. “There’s someone here who’s been waiting to see you...kind of for a long time—”
Edwin eyed Brooke. “Hi.”
Brooke gazed at him, as if seeing her father for the first time. He was bald now. What had happened to his curly black hair? Then there was the fact he had gotten noticeably older looking from the dad she’d said goodbye to just hours ago. But the soot colored eyes were the same, as was the broad smile.
“Dad...?” Brooke’s voice hung in the air as she tried to adjust to this new reality and what it meant in father-daughter relations.
Edwin cocked a brow. “What did you say—?”
“It’s me, Brooke.”
Edwin looked at Rachel with befuddlement. “Help me out here.”
Rachel gulped as her worst fears were being realized. She hoped that maybe somewhere in his memory Brooke was still there and just needed to be brought back to the surface.
“Don’t you recognize your other daughter?” Rachel asked bluntly, hoping to get through to him.
“What other daughter?” he asked, frowning.
“Brooke’s your first born, Dad.” Rachel peered at him. “Please, say you remember.”
Edwin studied Brooke again. For an instant, there seemed be some recognition before his expression turned vacant. “I only have one daughter, Rachel. You know that. Now will someone please clue me in as to what this is all about?”
Rachel saw the dismay in Brooke’s face that she must have seen in her when their mom initially rejected Rachel as her daughter during her time travel experience. Something had gone horribly wrong. Apparently Brooke’s history had been totally erased in the process of being whisked to the future—as if she never even existed in the past.
I have to try and fix this. Rachel hoped that telling her story, incredible as it was, might just jar their father’s memory. “Can we talk inside?” she asked him.
“Good idea.” Edwin glanced at the daughter he did not identify as such.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Though it was awkward, Rachel tried her best to explain her two experiences of traveling back in time. She told her father and stepmother about saving Brooke from being killed by a car. Then she told them about her trip to prevent her from becoming a murder victim in 2001 where they took their mother’s advice and escaped to the year 2011.
“That’s quite a tale you’ve told us,” Edwin said, sitting beside Virginia on the couch. They both regarded Rachel and Brooke skeptically as they sat across from them in the living room.
“It’s the truth.” Rachel realized she was going out on a limb sticking with her amazing story. But what choice did she have with Brooke’s life at stake?
“I am your daughter,” Brooke said, fighting back tears. She hated having to practically audition for the part of what came natural in her time. But then this whole thing was like something right out of some weird sci fi movie. Nothing in her life was the same anymore and probably never would be.
Virginia rolled her eyes. “If you ask me, Edwin, I’d say they’re either pulling your leg for a reaction or they’ve been using drugs and are on some kind of delusional trip.”
Rachel fumed. “We are not delusional or on drugs!”
At that moment, proof of Brooke’s prior existence popped into Rachel’s head and she wondered why it hadn’t occurred to her sooner. She got up and went to the mantel where there had always been framed pictures of the family before Brooke’s death.
All Rachel saw were pictures of a younger version of herself and her mom and dad, or more current photographs of Rachel, her dad, and Virginia. Brooke’s images were nowhere to be found. It was as though she had never been born.
Or history had rewritten itself, minus one Brooke Crane.
Rachel didn’t give up just yet. She opened the coffee table cabinet where they kept photo albums. Grabbing two she knew had contained Brooke’s photographs, Rachel desperately leafed through them like the pages were on fire. But all she found were pictures of herself, her parents, and her grandmother.
Rachel frowned. She had run out of ideas to prove what seemed to be impossible in this new world order. For all intents and purposes, Brooke was no longer an official part of this household.
“Everything is out of whack,” Rachel muttered, facing her father. “It’s crazy, but I swear to you that I haven’t just made up a story about Brooke being my sister and your daughter. Before I took my trip and changed history, your memory about that was the same as mine. You have to believe me—”
Brooke took it all in, frustrated beyond words. No matter how hard Rachel tried to make believers out of them, there was no record in this time that backed up anything she had to say. Brooke had been saved in the past only to arrive in the future as a stranger to everyone but Rachel.
She might as well be dead, as she had ceased to
be the first child of Edwin and Catherine Crane.
“I’m not sure what you want me to say—” Edwin cast his eyes on Rachel. “Brooke is a pretty girl who, I’ll admit, looks like you to some degree. But we can’t abduct someone else’s daughter and pretend she belongs to us, when she doesn’t. Now if you’re truly serious about believing you’ve traveled in time and brought back a nonexistent sister—”
“She isn’t!” Brooke decided that no matter how freaky this was, it would only get worse if they both ended up in a mental institution as seriously disturbed teenagers. Or were put in some drug rehab center as addicts when they were anything but that.
Rachel looked at her sister with surprise.
“Then tell me why we’re sitting here having such an odd conversation instead of eating the dinner I suspect has gotten cold by now?” Edwin demanded.
Virginia crossed her arms. “Yes, I’d like to hear this, too.”
Brooke had to think fast to come up with something convincing. She hadn’t exactly prepared herself for traveling through time and pretending to be someone other than herself. But she still had a brain and the ability to use it, even under extreme circumstances.
“It was just practice,” she blurted out.
“Practice for what?” Edwin looked from one to the other.
“Rachel and I plan to join the drama club when school starts in the fall,” Brooke offered. “We’re going to play sisters in a production on time travel. I suggested we try it out on you...see if we could convince you even a little that it might be possible—”
Edwin’s gaze shifted. “Is that right, Rachel?”
She colored, surprised Brooke had been so ingenious in coming up with an explanation in dealing with something neither of them had foreseen when they’d left 2001. Rachel wanted to make their dad understand all that had happened and the fact that he really did have two daughters. But until she could figure out a way to do so without being thought of as crazy or on drugs, she had to be smart about this.
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