A World Without You

  And then I hear a scream.

  “Sofía?” I gasp, choking on the smoke.

  No. That’s impossible. Sofía was sent back a hundred years before the fire started. There’s no way—

  And then I see her. In the second story of the burning building. She’s screaming, beating her arms on the glass panes. She’s trapped. She’s burning alive.

  “SOFÍA!” I roar, rushing toward the flaming house.

  It disappears.

  The sound and the smoke disappear too, leaving me gasping, my head spinning.

  She was there.

  But . . . how?

  Maybe . . . maybe the cracks in time are all linked to Sofía and this island not because she’s trapped in the 1600s, during the Salem Witch Trials, but because Sofía’s trapped in the cracks, falling through time, and the only thing linking her to reality is this island.

  As I stand there, trying to figure out what’s going on, the house reappears. It doesn’t smell of acrid burning; it smells of freshly sawn wood and new paint. The stone steps leading to the front door grow up under my feet, and I turn, slowly, my back to the house.

  I see Sofía again.

  This time, she’s crying. Silently but violently, her shoulders shake and her teeth chatter in fear.

  There’s a rope around her neck.

  Four men—two of whom I had seen before on horseback in the marsh—stand over Sofía’s body. She’s gotten her hands on some time-appropriate clothes; she looks like a Pilgrim. Except for her too-dark skin.

  Another woman is there, a teenaged girl with blonde hair and dark eyes. She points at Sofía and yells, “Witch!”

  The girl starts moving as if she’s having a seizure, but her motions are too planned, too repetitive. The men standing over Sofía take action. One leaves the group to comfort the girl. The others throw the end of the rope over a heavy branch of a nearby oak tree, and they use a horse to drag Sofía’s protesting body up and up and up. She claws at the noose around her neck, her eyes wide and popping.

  “Stop!” I shout, striding forward.

  But before I can do anything, they all disappear.

  I spin around wildly, looking for whatever break in the timestream is going to happen next. The chimney is a ruin; the tree they were stringing Sofía up on is nothing but a stump. I sink to my knees. Is this Sofía’s hell? To be found and killed throughout time?

  I hear laughing.

  I stand back up, my legs weak, but I force myself to walk toward the sound, toward the abandoned camp for sick kids.

  When I get there, it’s . . . strange. The buildings are old and empty, abandoned as always. But there are more than a dozen kids in shirts that look like they come from the ’70s. Some of the kids are obviously sick, in wheelchairs or braces or helmets, but some are not. Two are in the pool, splashing around. Or . . . I stare, my mouth dropping open. The pool is dry and dirty with weeds growing in the bottom. But the two kids are standing in the shallow end, laughing and flailing their arms around as if the pool is full of water. One of the kids dives backward, and I almost cry out, expecting him to smash his head into the cracked cement, but he floats in water he can feel but I cannot see.

  Two other kids nearby are throwing a ball. I can see the ball when it touches one of the kids’ hands, but as soon as it flies in the air toward the other kid, it’s invisible again.

  “Where’s Sofía?” I mutter, looking around. In my past two visions, she was there. She needed me. She must need me now. She must be at this camp.

  I run up to the buildings, throwing open the doors and peering inside. They are empty, abandoned, decrepit. Sunlight leaks through the spaces between the warped boards of the walls, exposing rat droppings and a dead cockroach in the corner. But outside I can still hear the sounds of people laughing and talking, moving and shuffling through the buildings, including the ones I just left.

  It’s creepy.

  But no Sofía.

  I return to the center of the camp. The only people I see are the kids playing. No adults, no counselors, or whoever else is supposed to be here. I grab the nearest kid, a little girl with Down syndrome. “Do you know Sofía?” I shout at her.

  She starts crying. All around me, the camp becomes more and more present. Water fills the pool, the grass is greener, the buildings are brighter. More people appear in the background, including some adults who are starting my way. By touching the little girl, I’ve pulled myself into her time.

  I shake her shoulders urgently. “Can you see me? Do you know Sofía?”

  Her sobs turn louder.

  “Bo?”

  I turn just in time for my eyes to connect with Sofía’s. But before I can say anything, she points at something behind me and screams, “Run!”

  I turn—

  And then I’m ripped away. Not by a person, but by a force. By time.

  I’m thrown back into a place I don’t recognize. There is no sick kids’ camp. There is no Berkshire. There’s not a chimney from the 1600s . . . or even a house. There’s only the island, bare, swampy, and loud with the sounds of waves crashing on the shore. A greenhead fly buzzes past me.

  There’s a rustling in the tall grass. I stand completely still as a young deer creeps forward, her nose in the air, sniffing for danger. She turns and sees me. We stare at each other for a moment, then she darts around, her tail high and white, bounding away from me.

  I feel the pull of time in my navel first, and before I even have a chance to call for Sofía, I’m dragged back and back again.

  I’m at the camp again, but back when it first opened, when it was just for kids with polio. Then I’m at the Berk just as it was being built, before I’m thrown again to a time that may be the far future, the academy nothing but a crumbling foundation of brick, and the camp completely hidden by weeds and trees. I’m whipped around, backward and forward through time, spun across the island, a witness to its every incarnation.

  And hidden in every moment of time . . . Sofía.

  I see glimpses of dark hair, whispers of her pleading voice, or screams ripped from her mouth. Sometimes she’s invisible. Sometimes I can see her in the distance: running from something unknown, being held down by men from other times, walking silently into the ocean on her own, weighed down with stones. At one point I see nothing but a freshly dug, unmarked grave, but I know it’s hers. Every time I see, every time, she’s just out of my reach, just far enough away that I cannot save her.

  I try to call up the timestream. I try to find the strings that will pull me to my own time or just anchor me to any time. I whirl faster and faster, coming apart at the seams. The island and its contents meld together, trees and grass and dirt and buildings nothing more than a green-and-brown blur. But the occasional faces I see in each time are sharp and unique, standing out against the whirl, but each one is unrecognizable. No Sofía. No Dr. Franklin or Ryan or Gwen or Harold. Not even one of the officials.

  And then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a ponytail that’s familiar. I reach for it blindly, my fingers barely able to entwine into the girl’s hair.

  Into my sister Phoebe’s hair.

  When I open my eyes next, I’m in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. It looks exactly the same as when I was last at home, a sheet over the door, my notebook and the USB drive on my desk, but I search for some indication of how much time has passed . . . or has yet to pass.

  The curtain blocking my door is swept to the side. Phoebe stands in the doorway, illuminated by the hallway light.

  “About time you’re awake,” she says.

  CHAPTER 42

  How did I get here?

  My parents and sister are acting like it’s perfectly normal for me to be here, now. My mom cooks dinner every night, beaming at me as she puts down a plate of pork tenderloin or beef kebobs or whatever other recipe she found online. My dad reads t
he newspaper. Phoebe watches TV, bringing me a bowl of popcorn like there’s nothing weird about the fact that I’m here.

  But sometimes . . . sometimes they forget I’m here. When they look directly at me, they see and accept my presence. But if I stick to the walls and shadows, if I avoid their gaze, it’s like I’m as invisible as Sofía can be.

  I don’t think I’m really here. I’m only half here, only made real when they remember I exist.

  Or maybe I am here, and they can tell that something is wrong. My family is extraordinarily good at ignoring problems, especially when I’m the problem.

  Or maybe I’ve fallen into a reality where this—me, forgotten and powerless—is normal.

  Dad came into my room one day—remarkably easy to do when you only have to sweep aside a curtain—and took my laptop. He just took it. I was in the middle of using it, and he just lifted it out of my grasp and walked away. I’m not sure if that was during one of the moments when he could see me or not.

  But before he took my laptop, I did as much reading on time travel as I could. I latched onto the idea of string theory, maybe because the timestream looks like strings to me. Each string of time leads me to a different place, a different time. But in string theory, the idea is that each string leads you to a different reality.

  I’ve tried to call up the timestream.

  I can’t.

  Maybe that’s where I am now, in a reality where my powers don’t work. Or maybe my last experience, when I cycled through different times so fast I could barely breathe, has put my powers on a temporary hold.

  Time, as always, will tell.

  I don’t really know what to do here. This house—this family—doesn’t fit me anymore. It’s not even like a pair of jeans that are a few inches too short; it’s like someone gave me a baby’s onesie and told me to try to wear it.

  My parents keep finding excuses to look in my room. Dad lingers in the hallway behind my curtained door, his feet pointed toward me, sometimes shuffling forward as if he wants to come in. Mom comes up with reasons to enter, laundry, a snack, something. At least she knocks on the wall before pushing aside my curtain, but if they’re not going to trust me with a doorknob, I don’t see how knocking makes much of a difference.

  I keep trying to go back to the island and Berkshire. Or just back in time. I’m trying to go anywhere, really. I can feel the timestream like an itch underneath my skin, but I can’t reach it, no matter how often I try to call it.

  What if I’ve lost my power for good?

  No. I refuse to believe that. Losing my power means losing Sofía.

  Forever.

  And I cannot live in a world without her.

  I’ll find a way back to the timestream.

  To her.

  • • •

  Phoebe’s been acting weird. She pretty much goes out with friends or stays locked up in her room all the time, but there’s something off about her.

  I don’t know why my parents can’t see it, but when I look at Pheebs, it’s obvious that something’s not right. There’s some worry eating her away, something that she won’t put into words, and maybe she can’t. She hides it, she’s always hiding it behind a bright pink lip-glossed smile, but there’s something . . .

  It reminds me of the way there was something wrong with Sofía. I didn’t notice with her, but I do with Phoebe.

  I tried to talk to Phoebe, but the words all came out wrong, and she laughed at me and went back to her room. That’s all this damn house is, a bunch of shut doors. Except mine.

  Maybe that’s why time threw me back here. Maybe in addition to everything else that’s wrong in my life, my home is crumbling, but all my family does is smile and shut their eyes.

  CHAPTER 43

  Phoebe

  Bo moves like a wild animal, scratching at the walls of the house.

  I hear him creeping down the hallway moments before Mom shouts at us that dinner’s ready. I pass him on the stairs—he’s pressed against the railing as if my touch would poison him, but he watches me as I descend, not moving again until I’m off the final step.

  Mom has poured every ounce of her homemaker instinct into setting the table. Fresh white and blue hydrangeas are clustered in the center of the table, flanked on each side by a pair of unlit candles. Just before Mom whips the flowers off the table to make room for the roast chicken, though, I realize they’re fake. Expensive, realistic fakes, but still. Fake.

  Doesn’t she understand that the only thing that gives the candles purpose is burning them? That what makes flowers beautiful is the fact that they eventually die?

  “Rosemary chicken!” Mom proclaims, as if this is a triumph.

  “Looks good.” Dad snaps the paper to make it lie flat.

  I slump in my chair, waiting to be served. Dad carves the chicken, dropping a piece on everyone’s plate. Mom passes around baked macaroni and cheese and a bowl of green beans flecked with something red.

  Bo stands behind his chair. Mom looks at him, her mouth open to speak, but then she pushes away from the table abruptly, muttering that it’d be better to use the slotted spoon for the green beans rather than the one she has sticking out of the dish. Bo leans over his chair, filling up his plate unceremoniously. He doesn’t pass bowls or the platter of chicken; he just reaches over the table. As soon as he has what he wants, he picks up his plate silently and returns to his room, not saying a word.

  Mom comes back from the kitchen and opens her mouth to call Bo back to the table.

  “Let the boy go, Martha,” Dad says, turning to the sports section. He sighs. “It’s more peaceful like this anyway.”

  Peaceful. This house is so peaceful that it’s practically dead.

  Mom sort of crumples into her seat and listlessly picks up her fork. She eats her food in a circle, starting with the green beans and moving to the mac and cheese before cutting the chicken into tiny pieces. Dad eats absentmindedly, reading the paper. I stab my food and swish it around the plate, but hardly anything winds up in my mouth.

  “George,” Mom says.

  Dad looks up.

  “It’s dinnertime.” She looks pointedly at the paper. He scoots it to the side of the table, where Bo would normally sit, but his eyes linger on the text.

  We all chew our food.

  I want nothing more than to pick the chicken carcass up off the table and slam it into the ground. The white porcelain platter would shatter beautifully, sending shards across the dark hardwood floors, splattering chicken grease everywhere.

  I reach for the bowl of mac and cheese even though I haven’t eaten what’s on my plate yet. I wonder what Dad would do if I turned the bowl upside down on his head. Just that. Just turned it upside down and let the yellow, slimy noodles drip down the side of his face, and then walked back to my room as if nothing happened.

  Like Bo did.

  What would it be like to be Bo? To be already broken, to have no expectations laid upon me? Because as much as I’d like to burn this whole dining room to the ground, I know I won’t. I won’t ever. My parents can handle one child who walks as if he’s in a trance, taking what he wants and leaving without a word.

  They can’t handle it from me too.

  The chicken tastes like dirt in my mouth. I’ve never seen Bo act this way before, as if he could pretend he was alone and make it so. I’ve never seen him this far gone, this wrapped up in his own little bubble.

  I’m so messed up. I’m so messed up, because right now, I’m sort of jealous.

  I don’t have the luxury of allowing myself to break. Bo is Bo. He can do what he wants, be who he wants. But not me. I have to be the good daughter. I have to come home every night. I have to get good grades and have a decent appearance and goals and ambitions that line up with my parents’.

  Because if I break, they’ll break too.

  It’s a re
sponsibility I’d never really felt before, or at least I never thought about enough to name. But Bo’s actions just cement my place in my family. He can walk away from the dinner table.

  I can’t.

  • • •

  After helping Mom wash the dishes before she puts them in the dishwasher, I head back to my room. Bo’s curtain is to the side, so I can see the way he sits in the center of the bed, almost as if he’s meditating, his legs crossed, his head bent. His arms reach out in front of him, as if he’s trying to grab something, but his fingers meet nothing but air.

  “Hey.”

  Bo opens his eyes, and he seems a little surprised that I’m there.

  I pick up his dirty plate from the edge of the bed. “Mom’s doing dishes,” I say as an excuse for interrupting him. He gives me a dismissive jerk of his head.

  I turn to go, but then he moves, and I pause, and it feels as if we’re both part of an awkward play, waiting for the other to give a cue.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks finally.

  I stare at him. Everything but you, I want to say, but we both know that’s not true. Not true at all.

  Instead, I try to smile. “I’m glad you’re back home,” I say, and I don’t let myself think about whether or not I’m telling the truth.

  Bo’s gaze slides away from mine. It’s obvious he doesn’t feel the same way.

  “So, listen,” I say, shifting the plate from one hand to the other. I want to say . . . something. Talking with that doctor a few days ago has made me think a lot about the past, like when I broke my arm. It’s made me wonder when things went wrong. And that’s made me think about when things were right.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “For what?” Bo looks confused.

  “For, um, teaching me how to drive.”

  Bo laughs a little. “What? I didn’t do that. It was Dad or . . .”