by Stacey Jay
Right next to the Rachel’s disturbingly still body.
Girls screamed and I was dimly aware of Sarah announcing that she was calling 911 as I scrambled through the narrow door of the light booth and ran for the stage. My mouth filled with the sour taste of fear and my hands shook as I ripped off my headset and threw it to the ground, freeing my mouth in case I needed to give CPR. I’d taken the babysitter’s workshop down at the memorial hospital when I was fourteen and I was pretty sure I remembered how to do it.
I had to remember. Rachel’s life might depend on it . . . if she wasn’t dead already. I climbed up onto the stage, but froze a few inches away from the body.
God, there was a lot of blood. The light had hit her temple, leaving a deep gash that bled freely onto the black planks of the stage, shining like a rain puddle on asphalt in the theater lights. Her eyes were closed and her face so pale and still. She looked dead. She could be dead.
“Oh, no. Oh, no.” Natalie stood staring down at Rachel, her hands fluttering in front of her face, looking like she was about to pass out.
“Sit down, Natalie,” I ordered as I moved around her. She obeyed, her knees buckling and her butt hitting the stage with a thunk. She might have a bruised tailbone, but at least she wouldn’t get a concussion if she fainted and fell off the stage.
I knelt beside Rachel, reaching out to feel the cool skin just beneath her jawbone. For a horrible second, I couldn’t feel a thing. Nothing. Then faintly, just the barest pulse throbbed beneath my fingertips. She was alive, but maybe not for much longer.
Her wound was so bad I could see cracked bone peeking from the bloodied hair and skin. Even if the paramedics made it here in time, she could have brain damage for the rest of her life. Or worse. Though I couldn’t imagine much worse than perfect Rachel damaged beyond repair, the razor sharpness that was the queen of BHH blunted and dulled forever.
No matter how cruel she could be, she didn’t deserve this. She hadn’t done anything wrong, just been in the wrong place at the wrong time when—
When the light you hung yesterday fell on her.
My eyes flew to where the light lay on the floor. Even shattered and broken, I could tell it was the spot. The same spot I’d hung the day before, the one I thought I’d made sure had the safety cable firmly attached.
But I must have screwed up. I’d been so distracted by my fear of heights and worrying about Isaac and Mitch that I hadn’t done the job right. And this time, I’d made a mistake that might cost a girl her life. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid, so care—
The locket suddenly went from zero to flesh melting, heating up so quickly it took my nerve endings a few seconds to catch up. When they did, the pain was blinding. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, all I could do was feel and pray to stop feeling as the locket ate away at me. It was so horrible, even worse than the first time, so bad I didn’t remember squeezing my eyes closed or falling to my knees until the agony vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
Only then did I realize my hands were braced against the floor. The carpeted floor, not the slick boards of the stage. My fingers dug into thick blue fibers as my head jerked up, eyes taking in my new surroundings. I was back in the light booth. Outside, I heard the pulse of the fashion-show music and then Sarah’s voice sounded in my ear.
“Oh my God, give me a break,” Sarah mumbled, repeating the words she’d said only seconds before the light had fallen. Fear caught at my throat and squeezed. I hadn’t gone back a week or even a day, I’d gone back a few minutes, to the moment right before the light set a collision course for Rachel’s head.
“Giving instruction,” Sarah said as I bolted to my feet—ignoring the flash of pain in my right knee—and scrambled for the light-booth door. My fingers fumbled with the slick handle for a few precious seconds, drawing a strangled sound from my lips. I had to hurry.
“I can’t handle much more of this.”
Finally the handle gave and I flung myself out into the aisle.
“She really—”
“Get off the stage!!” I screamed as I raced toward Rachel, arms pumping, legs churning, every second it took to close the distance between us making me feel like my heart was about to explode.
Natalie and Rachel turned; Rachel’s face twisted in disapproval. “Aren’t you supposed to—”
The screech of metal cut her words in half. In my peripheral vision, I saw the light begin to fall. I jumped, hurling myself the last few feet, tackling Rachel to the ground. We slammed into Natalie on the way, taking her to the stage boards with us, landing in a pile of tangled limbs and sharp, bony elbows. Seconds later, the light smashed into the floor where Rachel had been standing, shattering in a dozen pieces, sending shards of glass flying through the air.
Instinctively, I hunched over, tensing for the impact of the debris. A moment passed, then another, until I finally felt safe enough to lift my head and look around.
None of the glass had connected with skin. Natalie and Rachel’s flawless skin sported not so much as a speck of blood from the tiniest cut. A breathless look around the theater revealed Sarah standing wide-eyed in the wings—surrounded by the other fashion-show girls—and the two sponsors gasping in the third row of seats. None of them were hurt. We were all okay.
It had worked. The locket had worked its magic and saved the day again . . . but just barely.
The closeness of the moment made me shake. What if the locket hadn’t taken me back? What if I hadn’t moved quickly enough? What if the light had fallen in a different place the second time around? What if, what if, what if—round and round in my head until my teeth began to chatter.
Rachel and Natalie hurried to their feet, backing away from the destroyed light, but I couldn’t seem to move. I was too afraid, as terrified of the locket as I was grateful.
“Come on, come with me.” Sarah was suddenly next to me, helping me to my feet, looping my arm around her narrow shoulders. “I called 911. They’re going to be here soon.”
“But no one’s hurt this time,” I said numbly, stumbling a bit as she led me backstage.
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s hurt, but better to be safe.” She snapped her fingers in Shawn’s direction. “Go call Mr. Geery. Tell him we had an emergency at the theater and we need him here. Now.”
“I have to tell him I messed up.” I sucked in a breath that came out as a sob. “I didn’t hang the light right. I almost killed people and—”
“Shh. Just chill for minute. We don’t know what happened and you could be going into shock with all this shaking.” She settled me into a chair near the girls’ dressing room—which was now back on the same side of the theater as it was before, right next to the boys’ dressing room.
The realization made me shake even harder.
“Relax, Katie.” Sarah rubbed my back, then turned to yell over her shoulder. “Somebody get Katie a drink!”
“I’ll get her a Coke.” Natalie had followed us backstage and stood a few feet away. “You’re, like . . . a hero, Katie. That was amazing.” She smiled before running into the girls’ dressing room.
“Yeah, how did you know that light was going to fall?” Sarah asked.
“I . . . heard it. I heard a screeching sound.”
“I did too,” she said, narrowing her eyes, hazel eyes that looked greener than usual.
Was that because of the green sweater she was wearing or another change in this second do-over world? What else was going to be different now? Was my grandfather my grandfather again? Were Isaac and I still together? Was the tree house in my backyard, waiting for Mitch to notice its presence?
“But I didn’t hear it until a few seconds before,” Sarah continued, shaking her head. “You must have amazing hearing.”
“Or she has an amazing, and sick, need for attention.” Rachel’s voice was soft, but I heard every word. Every. Single. Word.
Chapter Ten
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 11:02 A.M.
“What?” She couldn’t really think that. “No way. No, I’d never do that.” I shook my head back and forth, willing Rachel to believe me.
“Oh come on, Katie.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re Little Miss Do-gooder. You’re always helping people. Maybe this time you decided to arrange for—”
“No. It was an accident. I was sure I put the safety on. I swear, I—”
“You could have killed someone,” Rachel said, angrier than I’d ever seen her. She was usually the master of calm, cool, and collected. “You could have killed me!”
Natalie appeared behind Rachel with the Coke but froze when she heard Rachel’s shout. Blue eyes darted between the two of us, and I could see that she wasn’t going to take another step toward me. Pretty, popular senior cheerleader or not—even Natalie had a healthy fear of Rachel.
“Now, hold on,” Sarah said. “Let’s just wait. We don’t know what happened.”
I knew what had happened—I’d screwed up. It was only a matter of time before everyone else found out the truth. The locket hadn’t saved my ass this time. This time, I was going to have to pay the price for my mistake. But that was okay. I’d take whatever punishment I had to take. Rachel was alive. I wasn’t a murderer. I hadn’t killed someone with my scatterbrained stupidity.
“We don’t know if Katie forgot the safety cable or not,” Sarah continued, “but if she did, I know she didn’t do it on purpose. We just need to—”
“She didn’t forget the cord.” Shawn appeared stage right, making all our heads spin in his direction. He blushed and squirmed at being the focus of so much girl-tention, but finally managed to speak up. “I was just looking at the light. The safety cord is still locked and there are pieces of the grid on the stage. The grid broke. That’s what made the light fall. It wasn’t Katie’s fault.”
What? But . . . how could that be possible?
“Wow.” Sarah let out a shaky breath and squeezed my hands. “If the grid was weak enough for a light to break it . . . you could have fallen through yesterday when you were up there. You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to smile as Natalie hurried to my side, squatting down beside Sarah, evidently deciding it was safe to be nice to me now that I wasn’t guilty of almost killing Rachel Pruitt. “That’s really going to help with my fear of heights.”
I clasped the Coke Natalie pressed into my hand and took a tiny sip, but couldn’t taste anything but cold. My taste buds had ceased to function in the wake of this latest reveal.
It wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t made a mistake—one that was meant to last or otherwise.
Then . . . why had the locket worked? Why had I traveled back in time? I’d been sure the locket had worked the first time because fate, or a higher power, or something out there in the universe that was bigger than me had decided my slipup with Mitch wasn’t “meant to last” and given me a second chance. A second chance I’d put at risk yesterday with my inappropriate thoughts about Mitch.
But what if the locket didn’t work that way at all? What if the inscription didn’t mean what I thought it meant? What if—
“I want to go home.” I needed to talk to Gran. Maybe now that I’d used the locket again, she would remember owning the piece of jewelry and be able to help me understand.
“I’d rather you stay until Mr. Geery takes a look at the light,” Rachel said, her tone inferring she wasn’t buying my innocence, at least not completely. “Just to make sure it’s not your fault.”
“Come on, Rach,” Natalie said in a sweet voice. “Give her a break. Katie saved our lives. We should be thanking her, not giving her a hard time.”
“Yeah,” Ally said, piping up from the clutch of fashion-show girls hovering near the dressing room door. “We should totally give her a makeover.”
“Because nothing says ‘thank you’ like implying you’re ugly the way you are,” Sarah whispered under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
I tried to smile at her joke, but my lips were having none of it. Nothing was funny, not yet, maybe not for a long, long time. I had to figure out what was going on with the locket. Now.
“Yes!” Yin, another senior girl with striking white stripes in her shiny black hair, clapped. “That would be awesome. We could take her to my mom’s salon after practice on Wednesday.”
“And I’ve got a bunch of True Religion jeans I can’t wear since I started doing the Shred and lost those last ten pounds,” Melissa said with a smile in my direction. “You could have them, Katie. They’re, like, two hundred dollars a pair.”
“Better yet, let’s take her to Ziggies before the salon on Wednesday,” Rachel said, her attitude doing a three-sixty now that it was clear her underlings were threatening mutiny. “You can pick out a couple of brand-new outfits. On me.” She smiled, but all I saw was bright, white teeth. There was nothing friendly in that grin.
“No, I couldn’t.” I stood even though my knees still felt shaky. “I mean, I really appreciate the offers, but—”
“You should do it,” Sarah said, surprising me. “I mean, it’s your birthday next Saturday, anyway, and—”
“Perfect, then it’s decided. We’ll have makeover girls’ night after rehearsal on Wednesday.” Rachel wrinkled her nose and cast a nasty look at the ceiling. “I’ll get my dad to call some people to make sure this death trap is repaired before then.”
“Come on, Katie, I’ll walk you out to your car,” Natalie said, looping her arm through mine.
I cast Sarah a confused look, but she just shrugged and grabbed my backpack from the wall. “Drive safe. We’ll do that coffee another day?”
“Yeah, for sure.” I waved at the other girls, and they waved back, offering well-wishes and further promises that Wednesday would be a day of “pure awesome.”
“Just wait until Wednesday. Yin’s mom is a genius, she’s going to make you look amazing,” Natalie said, smiling as we pushed out the back door and crossed the lot to my car. “A few highlights will really bring out the depth in your hair.”
My hair had depth? I had no idea. “Sounds great.” Gray clouds hung low and threatening, making the red leaves on the pin oaks surrounding the parking lot look even redder, like the trees were bleeding into the sky. I shivered, suddenly cold. It had been a bright sunny day without a chance of rain before my second do over. Now it looked like a storm would hit any minute. “It’s really nice of y’all to do this for me.”
“You totally deserve it! I mean, if Isaac can’t see how gorgeous you are, we’ll just have to remind him, right?”
“Um . . . right.” My mouth went dry and I forced myself to take another sip of the Coke in my hand.
What did she mean? Had Isaac said something about me to the senior girls? Something about thinking I wasn’t attractive anymore? Despite my own doubts about my appearance, I had a hard time believing Isaac would ever say something mean about the way I looked. He’d always told me I was pretty—beautiful, even. And there was no mistaking the look in his eyes when I came down the stairs for a date wearing my tight jeans.
Or there’d been no mistaking the look in his eyes before this latest do over. Maybe, in this new world, Isaac didn’t think I was the one who did the sparkling in our relationship.
The thought made my hand start shaking again as I dug through my backpack for my keys. I had to find out what Natalie was talking about, even if it made me seem like a freak.
“So . . . did he say something?” I asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably. I sounded as anxious and pathetic as I felt. “About wishing I’d wear makeup more often or something?”
She shook her head, genuinely confused. “Oh, no. He never said anything, I just . . .” Natalie bit her lip and I watched her decision to lie play out behind her bri
ght blue eyes. “You know, it’s nothing. I was confusing Isaac with someone else.”
Someone else. Someone who had done something to make her doubt that he was happy with his present dating situation. Something like . . . what? I didn’t really want to know, but my lips were forming questions before I could stop them.
“Really? Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah, totally sure. Boy mix-up.” Natalie twirled her hair between her fingers, giving her hand something to do while she lied to me. Again. Isaac had done something to make her believe he wasn’t happy. There was no doubt about it. Natalie wasn’t mean. She wasn’t the kind of girl who tried to break couples up for no reason. She must have seen something. Or at least heard something. “I had to get up way too early this morning, my brain is fried.”
But she wasn’t going to tell me the truth. She didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. She’d only said something because she thought I already knew what she was talking about. Maybe in this life, I should know. But I didn’t, because I’d traveled through time. Twice.
“Me too,” I said, the sick feeling in my stomach spreading out across my body until even my fingers and toes felt wretched. “I think I’ll go home and snag a nap.”
“Good idea. See you Monday!”
“Monday.” I waved goodbye and jumped into my car, a nap the furthest thing from my mind.
I had to go see Isaac. I had to see for myself if he still loved me or if I’d ruined my life when the locket decided I should save Rachel’s, by fixing a “mistake” that wasn’t even mine to begin with.