Jodi returns my embrace tentatively. “Yes, I am. Was I not supposed to be?”
I hold her at arm’s length, studying her face. “You... were...” She doesn’t look at all like she did when I saw her earlier today. The color is back in her cheeks and she looks healthy, like she usually does. Is it possible she doesn’t remember being sick? Did going back to get the crystal keep the curse from happening?
I grab her hand and inspect her palm. There’s no sign of the mark.
Jodi presses her hand to my cheek. “You okay? Taking an interested in palmistry?” She smiles, but I can tell there’s concern behind it. She’s worried about me. The irony!
“I’m good. I’m great, actually.” I laugh, giving her another quick hug. “Have you had dinner yet? I’ll make dinner.”
Not waiting for a response, I hurry to the kitchen. My stomach is growling. I open the refrigerator and inspect the contents.
Jodi stands at the mouth of the kitchen, watching me. “Are you sure you’re okay? Everything’s fine with you?” Her eyebrows cinch together. “You’re not hopped up on some kind of energy spell, are you? I remember Millie did one before midterms one year… Not pretty.”
I close the refrigerator door. Why is she talking about me casting spells like it’s no big deal? Jodi doesn’t want me using magic.
A sinking feeling settles over me. Crystal’s pendant, Jodi not being sick, Jodi condoning my use of magic? What else is different now? “No,” I say, forcing a smile. “I just feel like cooking. You take such good care of me, I just want to show you how much I appreciate you.”
Jodi’s eyes cloud for a moment, but then she smiles. “And they say teenagers are moody and taciturn. I already ate, though. It’s pretty late. I’m gonna head back out to the greenhouse. Let me know if you need anything.”
“I will.”
A knock sounds at the front door and Jodi heads for it. I hear the familiar creak of the hinges and smile. Maybe things aren’t so different after all.
“It’s for you,” Jodi calls. I take in a breath and head for the hallway. When Jodi passes me, making her way toward the greenhouse, she murmurs, “It’s your boyfriend.”
My heart swells at the words. It’s funny what can change in just a few days. Last time Jodi referred to Owen that way, I was embarrassed—mortified, even. Now the words are a comforting balm. After what I’ve experienced today, I want to fold myself up in his arms and breathe in the scent of his body.
I turn into the living room and stop in my tracks. The figure sitting on the couch in the semidarkness doesn’t belong to Owen. It belongs to Fox.
“What are you doing here?”
The corners of his mouth twitch as he stands. “You ran off so fast. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Crystal didn’t really know what happened. Her recollection of things is a little fuzzy.”
I don’t move further into the room. “I’m fine. I just had to come check on Jodi, but she’s okay. So I’m good.” Fox takes a step closer to me and I back up. “Thanks for checking in on me. Jodi and I were just about to have some dinner, so...” I nod toward the door.
He doesn’t take the hint. Instead, he moves closer to me. “Something’s up. Tell me.”
I shake my head. “Really, I’m fine. Just... tired, you know? I guess that spell just took a bit too much out of me.” I try to laugh but it comes out more like a dry cough.
Fox studies me, his mouth twitching. “Look, I’ll go if you want me to. But I want to talk tomorrow, okay? Get a good night’s rest.”
He brushes his fingertips under my chin and I look up. Before I can react, he leans down and presses a tender kiss against my lips. My body tenses, freezes. I’m too shocked to even push him away. But maybe the most disturbing thing is that this doesn’t feel like a first kiss. The way Fox’s mouth fits against mine, the duration of the contact, the motion of his lips, it all feels familiar. When he pulls away, he smiles and I see a look on his face I’ve never seen before. He looks more open, more innocent. He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and walks to the door.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” He puts his hand on the doorknob and pauses like he wants to say something else. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly before smiling again and pulling open the door. “Oh, hey! Here, let me hold this open for you.”
I move toward the door. Who he could be talking to? Is it Crystal? Or maybe Lexie has stopped by to visit?
“Thank you, Fox,” says a female voice.
My heart skips a beat and my throat goes dry. I know that voice. But it can’t be. It can’t be.
My mother walks through the door carrying several plastic grocery bags. Her eyes light up when she sees me. “Good, you’re home. Could you help me unload the car?”
For the third time tonight, darkness presses in on me. I feel dizzy and my vision goes dark before I hit the floor.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I wake up in my bedroom on the third floor of Jodi’s house. What an insane dream. Going back in time, kissing Fox, my mom being alive. Maybe whatever Jodi has is catching and making me hallucinate.
Jodi.
I sit up too quickly and the blood rushes to my head, making my vision blacken around the edges.
“Whoa, be careful. Don’t want to pass out again.”
I lean back on my arms, waiting for the vertigo to pass. When my vision returns, I see Crystal Jamison sitting in a chair beside my bed. “What’s going on? What...”
She scoots her chair closer to me, leaning in. “You might want to lie down again before I tell you anything.”
Instead of heeding her advice, I sit up, swinging my legs off the mattress and facing her. “I remember... my mom...” I shake my head. “But it can’t be—”
Crystal’s mouth twitches. “It looks like we may have changed a few things.”
I gape at her. “My mom’s alive?” The idea of having my mom back fills my heart until I think it might burst. But it can’t be true, can it? We went back to a single day in Clearwater almost twenty years ago; my mom died just over a month ago, miles away from here. How can one thing have affected the other? “I’m still dreaming. I have to be.”
She reaches forward, covering my hand with hers. “It’s not a dream. She’s alive and she’s here. She actually let me in this morning.”
I shake my head. “This doesn’t make any sense. If she’s still alive, what are we doing here?”
The expression on Crystal’s face tells me she’s been waiting for me to ask. “It didn’t take long after we got back for me to realize things weren’t exactly the way we left them, and I spent a good portion of last night doing some research. Don’t worry—mostly the world’s just the way we left it. It seems like the changes are kind of localized—just us, our families.”
“Wait—you’re telling me that we changed history?”
“Just a little.”
I lean forward, placing my head in my hands. “What do we do? How do we fix this?”
“Fix it? I thought you’d be happy. Krissa, did you hear me? Your mom’s alive! The two of you live here with Jodi. Apparently you’ve been living here for years. I was looking through my old yearbooks...”
“But I haven’t.”
“But you have. I know it doesn’t make sense. I mean, we didn’t do anything, right? But somehow, just by going back, I guess we affected the future.” She shakes her head. “Don’t you see? We can’t do anything to fix it now. What’s done is done. Can’t you just... take the win? We found the crystal. And you never lost your mom.”
“And I’m dating Fox?”
She bites her lower lip. “I know, right? Weird.”
“Crystal, how can you be so calm about this? We’ve messed with reality.”
She shakes her head. “What’s wrong with you? Your mom’s still alive. Krissa… This isn’t a bad thing.”
I understand the point she’s trying to make. Jodi isn’t cursed. That’s the reason I agreed to help find the crystal in the first place.
If that’s the meter by which I gauge our success, then I accomplished what I set out to do. But I didn’t expect other things to change. My mom is alive. I can’t even wrap my mind around how it’s even possible, and it’s even more amazing than saving Jodi’s life. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s wrong—that I’ve cheated somehow. And if something as big as my mom and me living here with Jodi is so contrary to the way it really happened, what other things have changed?
“What else is different?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It hasn’t even been a whole day. I think those are the main things.”
“What about Owen?” A pain shoots through my heart when I say his name.
“What about him?” She studies my face and her lips part in surprise. “Did you two have a thing? I mean, I knew you were hanging out with Lexie and him, but I didn’t realize…”
Heat rises in my cheeks. I never got the chance to gush about my kiss with Owen, and now it’s entirely possible it never even happened. A hollowness forms in the pit of my stomach. Less than a day ago, the two of us were standing on the threshold of a relationship. Now, nothing.
Crystal shifts in her chair, pushing it backward just slightly. “There’s one more thing.”
I take in a deep breath to prepare for the news. “What is it?”
She chews on her lower lip. “I don’t know how, exactly, or why, but... your mom’s not the only one who...”
I urge her to go on with my eyes. “What? What are you talking about?”
A smile creeps across her mouth, but it blinks out of existence almost immediately. “It’s my aunt. Crystal Taylor is alive.”
“What? How could that happen?”
Her eyes flicker to the floor. “I don’t know. Clearly something we did made it so she could get out. Maybe it was just because we took the crystal. I don’t think we’ll ever know. But... isn’t it great?”
I shake my head. Far from being great, I think this is a bigger problem than my mom being back from the dead. “That’s almost twenty years of history she wasn’t supposed to be around for. Who knows what she’s changed because she’s been here?” I stand, starting for the stairs.
Crystal is up in a flash, positioning herself between me and the exit. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to go tell Jodi what we did. Maybe she’ll be able to fix it.”
“No!” Crystal pushes me squarely in the chest and I stumble backwards. “We can’t tell her. We can’t tell anyone.”
Regaining my balance, I shove her back. “Get out of my way.”
She grabs my wrist when I try to push past her. “Krissa, stop. We can’t fix this. Think about it, and you’ll see I’m right. Even if we could go back, we’d run into ourselves. And who’s to say that wouldn’t make a bigger mess?”
I struggle against her grasp, but her words cut through me. She has a point. Still, there has to be a way to reverse what we’ve done. Jodi told me magic comes with consequences; I’m learning that firsthand in a major way.
When I stop fighting against her, Crystal releases my wrist, but her posture remains coiled, like she’s prepared to spring should I make a sudden movement.
The stairs leading up to my room creak under someone’s weight. “Kristyl?” calls my mom’s voice tentatively. She ascends to the top of the stairs and smiles when she sees me. “Oh, good, you’re up. Fox has already called twice.” Her eyes go heavenward and she shakes her head. “That boy. If you’re feeling up for it, I made pancakes.” She glances at Crystal. “There’s enough for you, too, if you like.”
Crystal smiles warmly. “Thanks. I’d like that.” She casts a loaded look in my direction, like she expects me to blurt out something about traveling to the past and altering the course of events and is warning me not to.
I tamp down the annoyance flaring in me. “We’ll be right down, Mom.”
My mother squints at us before turning and heading back down the stairs.
Crystal moves to follow her. “We don’t want to keep her waiting.”
After a beat, I move toward the stairs. At least for the moment, I have to pretend like there’s nothing wrong. But how can I do that when my reality has been suddenly rearranged? I don’t like it, but we can’t tell anyone about what we did, at least for now. I like it even less that we’re going to have to find a way to reverse it.
###
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Madeline Freeman lives in the metro-Detroit area with her husband, her daughter, and her cats. In the time she should spend doing housework, she rewatches Fringe. She also loves anything to do with astronomy, outer space, plate tectonics, and dinosaurs, and secretly hopes her daughter will become an astronomer or a paleontologist.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twent
y-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Also by Madeline Freeman
About the Author
Crystal Magic (Clearwater Witches Book 1) Page 24