A World Without You

  “You just said that.” My hands are clammy.

  “The key to a fugue is not in the way things are the same,” she says, “but in how they become different.”

  “Sofía?”

  She continues to play, her whole body bent over the cello, her eyes closed. “This is a fugue. A repetition of a short melody. In a good fugue, there are layers. You play one melody, and that melody is not only repeated, but developed. It evolves. It changes. It’s the same, Bo, but different.”

  I back away slowly, my hand reaching for her door.

  “The key to a fugue is not in the way things are the same,” she says, “but in how they become different.”

  “Sofía, please, please, say something else.” My voice betrays my fear. “Anything.”

  The music stops.

  Sofía looks up at me, her neck twisting uncannily.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she says in a growl. She stands abruptly, and the cello drops to the floor. The strings make weak, broken sounds, muffled by the pink rug.

  “Sofía?”

  She grips the bow like it’s a sword. “This is a fugue,” she says in a horrible monotone. Her eyes are dead and empty as she advances toward me. My back’s pressed against the wall.

  She pulls her arm out, her soulless eyes locked on mine, and drives the cello bow into my chest.

  Everything goes black.

  I don’t mean I passed out. I mean, one moment I’m there, with a cello bow sticking out of my chest, the wood splintering but still powerful enough to pierce my skin, and the next moment I am floating in nothing. There’s no more cello bow.

  There’s no more Sofía either.

  There’s no more world.

  There’s only . . . nothing.

  “Hello?” I say into the void.

  Silence.

  For a long time, I exist in the nothing. And then light starts to glow around the edges. I start to feel pressure on my back; I’m lying down. My room comes into focus, and I sit up in bed.

  On the nightstand beside me, my clock ticks.

  CHAPTER 53

  When Dr. Franklin comes to my room the next day, I keep my guard up. I pretend everything is fine. Dr. Franklin talks about banal things, like paranoia and trust, and I nod along. Soon enough, I’m allowed out of my room and back with my unit.

  “Where have you been, spaz?” Ryan asks me quietly as I make my way to the library. I’ve been given permission to skip all my classes and do silent study, as long as I have private sessions with the Doc.

  I don’t answer, so Ryan follows me down the hallway.

  “You’re going to get in trouble for skipping class,” I say.

  He shrugs. “I bet they won’t care. This place is all going to shit anyway.”

  “The Doctor will care.”

  “If he’s even the Doctor for much longer.”

  I stop short in front of the library, my hand on the door. “What do you mean?”

  “I overheard the officials talking to the Doc the day before spring break. They completed their investigation. They’re contesting the, uh . . . the accreditation of the school. I didn’t know what that meant, but I looked it up, and it’s bad.”

  “So what does it mean?” I ask in a low voice.

  “My dad said the school would lose funding, and there’s no way it’ll stay open if that happens.” Ryan looks back at Dr. Franklin’s closed office door. “Dude, it was brutal. Those officials tore Dr. Franklin a new one. They said the school wasn’t safe and Sofía was proof of that—and so were you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, they brought you up. I told you not to be such a freak in front of them. They said Dr. Franklin let you get away with too much and that he wasn’t ‘providing you with all the resources you need.’ They mentioned Harold too. That he should be put in a home or something.”

  Poor Harold. He’ll be locked away in a padded cell if Berkshire shuts down.

  The sound of hammering fills my ears, and rattling shakes my bones. I look down, and the floor is gone. I am balancing on wooden beams, high above the unfinished construction of the academy, as carpenters and electricians and plumbers work to create the building.

  I blink, and the floor is back, the hardwood nicked with age and dust gathering along the baseboards.

  “I’m going to be pissed if the school closes,” Ryan continues, oblivious to time cracking up around him. “I think I know what I need to do, but . . .”

  What will my parents do with me?

  I think about how much I frightened Phoebe, on both the night before I left for Berkshire and the other night when we sat outside, before time snapped me back here.

  Maybe I should be locked up.

  “I wish Sofía were here,” I say softly.

  “Me too, man,” Ryan says, his voice bitter. “If she were, those officials never would have come.” His fingers are curled into a fist, and he punches the wall beside the library door. Hard. “Damn it!” he says, seething. “I will not let those damn officials mess this place up! They’re ruining all my plans!”

  There’s something about that last sentence, something about Ryan’s plans that rings in the air like a struck bell. But I’m too distracted to really focus on it. All I can see is the way the wall ripples and moves like water where Ryan struck it.

  I blink, and the wall is normal again.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say, pushing the library door open.

  Ryan follows me inside. I wish I knew how to get rid of him.

  I go to the ancient computers in the back of the room. Ryan talks at me while the hard drive boots up. He’s bragging about all the stuff he has in his home in LA, how he spent all break swimming and surfing and doing all kinds of cool things he doesn’t get to do here. I want to call him on his bull—Ryan doesn’t look like the kind of guy to go swimming without a T-shirt on, let alone be a surf expert—but I just don’t care enough to push it. He exhausts me, honestly. And I don’t think he even likes me. He just wants an audience.

  “Look, I’ve got work to do,” I say. “You may not give a shit about your classes, but I do.”

  Ryan flips me off, but at least he leaves me alone for a bit, wandering up and down the book aisles.

  I turn back to the computer and quickly type in Sofía Muniz. Several links pop up—mostly social media profiles for other girls named Sofía Muniz—but when I add Berkshire Academy and Pear Island to the search, the top hits are all newspaper articles, as well as an official statement from the academy’s board.

  I click on the news first.

  STUDENT DISAPPEARS AT LOCAL ACADEMY FOR ELITE TEENS. My breath catches at the picture of Sofía taking up a column of the article. It’s an old picture, probably from her high school before she came here, but it’s her. I reach out and touch the image on the screen with two fingers. The article is straight facts: Sofía went missing on this date, Berkshire Academy has issued no comment, state and federal officials are investigating. It ends with a list of numbers for people to call if they have any more information about her disappearance.

  “What are you doing?” Ryan asks, looking over at me. He starts heading my way. The closer he gets, the blurrier the screen becomes. Before my eyes, the headline shifts.

  STUDENT DIES AT LOCAL ACADEMY FOR TROUBLED TEENS

  Sofía Muniz, 17, was found dead last night on the grounds of the Berkshire Academy for Children with Exceptional Needs, located on Pear Island. Her death has been ruled a suicide by local authorities. The academy, which serves a small group of students aged 15 to 21, specializes in treating severe cases of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed children who need greater guidance than a traditional school setting can offer.

  Muniz was discovered by her psychiatrist, Dr. Demitrious Franklin, and another student. Preliminary reports indicate that Muniz overdosed on prescripti
on medication, and an investigation is ongoing. “Her access to the medication poses a serious breach in policy,” Dr. Alexander Hartford, chairman of the board of the academy, said in a press release. “We are working with local and state authorities to determine how best to redesign our practices.” Hartford added that the school is willingly hosting officials from the state board of education to help determine the future of Berkshire Academy.

  “Sofía was beloved to all who knew her,” Dr. Franklin said prior to the private memorial service held on the grounds of the school. “She will be sorely missed.” One of her fellow students, Gwendoline Benson, added, “She was my best friend. I never thought she’d just be gone one day.”

  Muniz is predeceased by her mother and two sisters, victims of a car accident in her hometown of Austin, TX. Her father was unavailable for comment.

  The article concludes with numbers for suicide-prevention hotlines.

  “Finally decided to enter reality, huh?” Ryan asks, bending over the computer and looking at the screen.

  The closer he gets, the clearer the image becomes, until there’s no hint of the real article I saw before Ryan came over. The picture of Sofía sharpens too, but in a twisted way, obscuring her features just enough so that she no longer looks the way she did before, when I knew her. She looks like a stranger.

  “Go away, you dick,” I growl, staring at the picture.

  Ryan rolls his eyes. “Whatever. But listen, tonight I want your help.”

  “With what?” I don’t bother hiding my anger; my eyes are on the twisted picture of the girl I love and the lies surrounding her face.

  “I want to look at what Dr. Franklin has in his office,” Ryan says. “The video feeds of our sessions are gone, and that’s good, but there are paper records too, records that might lead to me getting the shaft.”

  “Go away,” I say. I don’t care what Ryan wants.

  “Fine. But Sofía’s records are in there too.”

  My eyes flash to his. He’s always trying to manipulate me. “I said, go away.”

  “Yours too. Don’t you want to know what the Doctor is saying about you? What’s going on your permanent record? What if he recommends that you go to the loony bin like Harold?”

  “If I agree to help you, will you leave me alone?”

  “Tonight, an hour after lights-out.”

  “Fine.”

  Ryan pushes himself off the desk he was leaning against and saunters away.

  The farther he goes, the more the screen flickers and fades, the damning headline replaced by the original. I watch as the words Sofía Muniz, 17, was found dead last night change into Sofía Muniz, 17, has been reported missing.

  I turn around in my seat, glaring at Ryan as he disappears into the shelves.

  He did this.

  CHAPTER 54

  When Ryan punched the wall, it rippled. When he got close to the screen, it changed, and when he left, it changed back.

  This whole time I thought it was the officials who were manipulating our reality. But that doesn’t really make sense, does it? If they wanted to use us for our powers, they wouldn’t have made us forget them.

  But Ryan . . . he never forgot. Not because he could protect himself from the officials, but because he was the one creating the false reality.

  Ryan is a telepath. He could change the videos. He’s been pushing the boundaries of his powers since he got here. He knows exactly how to mess with someone’s mind. He’s messed with our heads before, and his powers have only been growing—far beyond anything we ever thought possible. Beyond anything the Doctor or anyone else could control.

  It must have scared him when the officials arrived. He had to have known from the start that the academy was in danger of closing. Maybe this all started out as a way to save the school and make the officials go away, but if Ryan had good intentions at the beginning, his desperation has twisted them. The officials are gone, and he’s still maintaining an illusion that no one has powers. He can’t stop the school from closing—that’s out of his grasp—but he can stop everyone else from remembering who they really are. He can stop the officials from sending him to another academy.

  • • •

  As soon as Ryan is out of the library, I waste no time in calling up the timestream. For a moment, I’m worried it won’t work.

  But it’s there. All of time, laid out before me, strings floating atop a river, tangling and weaving together into beautiful chaos. I work hurriedly, finding a date when I can see Sofía in the past. The red string connecting me to Sofía is as slender as a hair, but it cuts my finger like a razor when I touch it. I snatch my hand back, sucking on the blood springing up.

  I grab the string again, with my whole hand, not just wrapping my finger around it. It slices into me, and I grit my teeth against the pain.

  I have to do this.

  I feel my bones crunch, squeezed together by the red string as I wind it around my palm. Blood makes my hand slick and warm. I can’t let go.

  I can’t let go.

  The pain disappears. I look down and the string is gone, along with the blood.

  Sofía stands in front of me.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She smiles, but the happiness doesn’t reach her eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asks.

  “I had to see you.”

  “You have to go.”

  I shake my head, crossing the short distance between her and me. “No,” I say.

  “You have to.”

  I want to tell her everything, but time won’t let me. So I just say, “Things are bad right now.”

  “You’ve been coming to me in the past,” Sofía says. “I figure something is wrong with the future—I mean, the present. Your present. Am I right?”

  I nod.

  “And I’m not there to help you.”

  I nod again. I expect time to snap me back at any minute, but it doesn’t. We’re both still here. “I was afraid,” I say tentatively, still testing the boundaries of time.

  “Of what?”

  “That my powers weren’t real.”

  For a brief second, everything wavers. Colors shift and swirl in and out of one another. Everything stutters . . . except for Sofía. She is still in front of me, real and vivid and true.

  She reaches up and puts the flats of her hands against the sides of my face. Her skin is cool and calming. “But Bo,” she says, “what if I’m not real? What if none of this is real?”

  “You’re the only thing I’m certain of,” I whisper.

  She opens her mouth, but instead of words, water pours out. It dribbles down her chin, a waterfall over her neck, rivulets across her chest. I reach out and grab her, but my fingers puncture her arm as if her skin were a water balloon, bright blue liquid that stinks of chlorine erupting from her body. “Sofía!” I cry, reaching for her again. My hand brushes against her hair, and every dark brown strand turns invisible, then reflective, like the surface of a pool. Her body grows translucent, liquid, melting away until there’s nothing left of her but a puddle at my feet.

  • • •

  Ryan comes to get me in my bedroom an hour after lights-out. I don’t know how he gets around the door locks, but he does. Further proof that the locks—like the iron bars—are just part of his illusion.

  “Ready?” Ryan asks in a low voice.

  I stare at the water stain on my floor, its edges creating an odd, circular shape in the hardwood.

  I nod my head.

  The door to Dr. Franklin’s office is locked, but Ryan somehow got his hands on a key. We creep into the darkened room.

  It looks strange here without the Doctor, without people at all. The chairs are shadowed tombstones, all circled up around an empty space, signifying nothing.

  Ryan turns on the lights.

  “We’re looking for perma
nent records. The Doctor’s notes. Anything that could incriminate me or land me in a worse school when this one closes.”

  “Which notes?” I move over to Dr. Franklin’s desk, where a pile of papers sits in disarray. I’m not really paying attention to Ryan. I’m here for my own reasons. I need proof. After seeing Sofía melt away, I have to know what reality is—outside of the illusion Ryan has created. I don’t want to live a lie . . . but I also don’t want to live in a world without her.

  I just want the truth. Maybe I can find that here.

  Ryan shrugs. “I’ll know what I’m looking for when I see it. All schools keep records. What I need is a clean start.” He grins maliciously. “So if you see something with my name on it, tell me. I can’t have a bad record if I don’t have a record at all.”

  When I look out the window, sunlight glitters for a second. I blink, and the moon replaces it. All around me, the timestream is still cracking. I need help. I just don’t know who can help me.

  I sit down at the Doc’s desk, riffling through the papers there. They’re all notes written in his nearly illegible handwriting. Words I don’t know are circled or crossed through.

  Water drips onto the paper.

  I look up. Ryan has moved on to the second drawer of the Doc’s filing cabinet, scanning its contents quickly. But Carlos Estrada stands across from me, pointing down at one of Dr. Franklin’s desk drawers.

  I bend down, yanking on the heavy drawer. It’s full of more files, and I almost slam it shut again. But then I see my name. And Ryan’s name. And Gwen’s and Harold’s. My hand shakes, and I notice that only one file is red, a bright swath of color hidden among the manila folders.

  Sofía Muniz.

  I pull out all of our files in one armful, spreading them across the desk.

  I reach for Sofía’s file first, but a wet hand slams across the folder. I look up. Carlos Estrada shakes his head silently.