A World Without You

  My eyes fall to the blinking light of the camera on the Doctor’s desk. Before I can ask why he’s recording us, the door to the Doctor’s office opens. Ryan steps inside without looking at us. “Oh,” he says casually when he deigns to notice us. “Want me to wait outside?” He doesn’t move toward the door.

  Dr. Franklin steps back from me. “No, it’s fine. It’s almost time to start.”

  As Dr. Franklin moves to the other side of his desk, Gwen enters, followed by Harold. We all take our usual seats in a semicircle around the Doc’s desk. Ryan tries to get my attention, but my eyes are glued to the camera. Why is it on? What is the Doctor hoping to capture on film?

  The Doctor starts speaking, but I can’t focus on him. It’s clear that today we’re going to be talking about our feelings—about Sofía—rather than about our powers.

  A knock at the door interrupts the Doctor before he can get really started. Ms. Temple, the history tutor, peeks her head inside the door. “Your guests have arrived,” she tells the Doctor and then steps back out into the hallway. Dr. Franklin moves immediately to the door, speaking softly to whoever else is out there. Beside me, Gwen grows warm, sparks crackling on her clothing. She’s on edge.

  “Told you,” Ryan says under his breath. Harold squeaks nervously.

  “Told you what?” I ask Ryan, turning in my seat to face him.

  “At breakfast,” Gwen says, her voice low, “he said—”

  The office door opens fully, and Dr. Franklin leads two people inside: a white woman with dyed auburn hair frizzy at the ends and a heavyset Asian man. The man has a large, worn briefcase in tan leather that doesn’t match his black suit, and the woman carries a satchel that seems to be weighted heavily with papers.

  “This is everyone?” the man asks Dr. Franklin. He nods.

  The woman turns to us, holding her arm out, indicating that the Doctor can sit down with his students. It’s strange to see him treated like one of us.

  “Hello, all,” the woman says warmly, a bright smile on her face. I give Gwen and Ryan a side-eyed glance. Gwen keeps rubbing her hands together, probably trying to hide the fire crackling under her skin. The Doctor reaches over, patting her back as if to assure her that all is well. Ryan’s jaw is hard, and I think he’s grinding his teeth.

  “We hope to get to know each of you over the next few weeks,” the woman continues. Her voice is sticky sweet. I dislike her immediately.

  “Why are you here?” Ryan asks aggressively. The Doctor shoots him a look.

  “Right now, we’re just going to get to know you,” the woman says, a false smile plastered across her face.

  “That’s not an answer,” Gwen says.

  “Gwen.” Dr. Franklin’s voice holds a stern, disapproving note.

  “We’re investigating what happened to Ms. Sofía Muniz,” the man says. He doesn’t move from his spot leaning against Dr. Franklin’s desk, and he barely glances at the group. “And we’re examining Berkshire Academy as a whole while we’re at it.” At this, he stares directly at the Doctor.

  Rather than be intimidated, Dr. Franklin stands, reaches into his pocket, and hands the man a USB drive. “The files you requested. For some reason, the master files were all corrupt, and I wasn’t able to salvage them, but I had a separate backup here.”

  “Thanks,” the man says, slipping the drive into his pocket. “I’ll review them later. They include both video and audio?”

  The Doctor nods and takes his seat beside Gwen again.

  My eyes dart to the camera on the Doc’s desk, and suddenly everything makes sense. The Berk is under investigation. The state doesn’t know what we really do here. To outsiders, it must seem as if Sofía really is dead and gone. And dead students mean government investigations. The Doctor couldn’t warn me, not really, but he tried. That’s why he called me into his office earlier today. He was warning me to pretend. We have to hide our powers and make these officials believe that Sofía is really gone.

  I knew—of course I knew—that Sofía couldn’t be gone for long before people outside Berkshire took notice, and there’s only so much Dr. Franklin can do. He can’t pretend forever that Sofía’s okay when she’s clearly missing, and he probably couldn’t explain what actually happened to her. Still, does the government really need to come spy on us?

  “My name is Amelia Rivers,” the woman continues brightly. “And this is Carl Minh. We’ll be talking to you individually later, but we just wanted to introduce ourselves since we’ll be around. And if you have anything to tell us, please feel free to flag us down.”

  “Dr. Rivers and Mr. Minh will be staying here at Berkshire, on the sixth floor with the other staff members,” Dr. Franklin says, standing up. “And they’ll be sitting in on some of our sessions together. Please pretend like they’re not here; they’re just observing our methods and our classes. And when they ask you questions about what happened to Sofía, I want you to be honest. We have nothing to hide; no one’s to blame here.”

  The camera light blinks on and off, on and off.

  “We’ll be deciding that,” Mr. Minh says, dropping a small notepad into his briefcase and snapping it shut. “Just be honest, kids. As honest as you can be, anyway.” He casts a suspicious look among the group, then walks past the semicircle of chairs and toward the door. “Amelia?” he calls back over his shoulder, and his colleague hurries to follow him.

  “This is bullshit,” Ryan says as soon as the door closes behind Mr. Minh.

  “Ryan,” Dr. Franklin says in a cautioning voice.

  “They’re from the government,” Gwen says. “That can’t be good.”

  “Everyone knows Sofía’s”—Ryan stops suddenly, looking right at me—“death, it was no one’s fault.” But there’s doubt in his voice.

  The Doctor stands. “Like the officials said, just be honest.” He moves to his desk, behind the camera.

  I stare at the lens. That USB drive that the Doctor gave to Mr. Minh . . . he had said something about audio and video. The feed from all the cameras and tape recorders the Doctor uses must be on that USB.

  My stomach drops. They’ll see our powers. None of us has ever made an effort to hide our powers at the Berk—the point of the academy was to train us how to use our powers, to understand and master them. At least one of us has used powers in practically every session with the Doctor. Even the regular education teachers are powered themselves, or are related to people with powers, and they were all vetted by the academy as safe. None of them blinked an eye when Gwen lost her temper and spontaneously combusted, or when Ryan turned his homework in by floating it across the room, or when I slipped in and out of history during history lessons. We only had to hide from the waitstaff, and if that didn’t work, I think Dr. Franklin or some of the other unit leaders had some failsafe methods to protect us, ways to make the staff forget anything they saw.

  But these government people . . .

  What the hell was Dr. Franklin thinking? He just handed them video evidence of our powers.

  Maybe the videos have been edited. Or maybe the Doctor was going to use Ryan or one of the other telepaths to alter the officials’ memories after the investigation.

  Or maybe the Doctor is working with them.

  I shake my head to dispel the nasty thought rising within me. The Doc had given me as much warning as he could, and he had made sure to establish the lie that Sofía’s dead, not trapped in the past.

  Berkshire is about learning to control our powers so we can be safe in the outside world. Powers like ours could be easily exploited, used by the highest bidder as weapons or tools. But that isn’t the point of Berkshire. The academy is about education, not training. It’s independent. Not a part of any government or group.

  At least, that’s what I thought.

  “There’s no point,” Harold says. It’s so rare for Harold to say something to the living
that all of us just pause, waiting for him to continue.

  “What do you mean?” the Doctor asks.

  “There’s no point in them investigating Sofía’s disappearance,” Harold says. “They’ll find nothing. Nothing at all.”

  “They might,” Dr. Franklin says. “They’re not here to do anything but help.”

  “They can’t find her. No point.”

  “Well, obviously there’s no point,” Ryan says, rolling his eyes.

  “The witches took Sofía,” Harold continues, ignoring him. “They took her and hid her, and there’s no escape. No escape. The witches have her.”

  CHAPTER 14

  SHIT.

  Why didn’t I think of this before?

  What have I done? I’m so sorry, Sofía.

  Witches. The answer was staring me in the face this whole time. And I love history. I love it, and I didn’t even notice.

  That plaque. The one on the chimney: Originally built in Salem in the 1660s, like the Isaac Goodale House of Ipswich, and moved to Pear Island in 1692.

  Salem. 1692.

  The Salem Witch Trials.

  Berkshire is on Pear Island, just outside of Ipswich. But while they’re called the Salem Witch Trials, they took place all through this area of Massachusetts.

  I didn’t just send Sofía to the past. I sent her to the Salem Witch Trials. In modern-day clothes and with the power to turn invisible. Sure, none of that will make her look like a witch.

  Oh my God.

  Oh my God.

  I stuck Sofía in the worst possible past she could be stuck in.

  My fingers itch to pull up the timestream, but I can’t, not with the government officials here now. That black hole in the weave of time . . . the way Sofía’s string disappeared into it . . .

  Maybe it’s already too late. Time is fluid; while I’ve been trying to find a way to go back to her, she’s been living through the Salem Witch Trials. But maybe that’s what the black hole is. Maybe it’s proof that she’s not living it.

  Maybe I’ve already killed her.

  • • •

  If a tree falls in the forest, and no one’s around to see it, can a time traveler still go back and prevent the tree from falling in the first place?

  That’s the question that has haunted me since I first discovered my powers. Because, see, that’s the way time works. If something happens, it becomes an immutable fact. History is irreversible. It took me a long time to realize this. I can’t change what has already happened.

  I tried to do the obvious hero stuff when I first discovered my power. Stop terrorist attacks, warn people of natural disasters. I had all these elaborate plans. I just wanted to help. But time didn’t want help.

  Time won’t let me change it. I am, at best, an observer.

  I cannot rewrite history.

  But not all history is written. That’s my only comfort now. Sofía is trapped in a different time period, but that doesn’t mean I can’t save her. The unknown is my only comfort. As long as there’s no proof that Sofía is gone forever, that means I still have a chance.

  However . . . if I find her grave, if I see her name written in the prison records, if she’s one of the witches whose death was recorded . . .

  Then I will have failed. History is immutable. Once she enters history, I can’t change it.

  There would be no hope.

  CHAPTER 15

  It quickly becomes clear that all the tutors either believe Sofía’s dead or are playing along for the inspecting government officials. Classes were a laughable affair today, all free time and busywork, and when I ask Ms. Temple for permission to use my free time in the library, alone, she says yes immediately.

  I have my notebook in front of me, hoping that I’ll come up with some brilliant plan to save Sofía, but I’m paralyzed by what Harold said, so I just keep jotting down notes about Salem, always afraid that I’ll come across Sofía’s name in the list of accused witches.

  Witches.

  I never thought witches were real, but what if there were people like us back then? The Doctor says that no one knows for sure how many of us there have been throughout history. We keep our powers hidden for a reason. But maybe the witch trials happened in part because at least some of the “witches” were just powered people like me . . . like Sofía.

  If the witches have Sofía, maybe she’s safe. Maybe they’re hiding her. Maybe they realized what she was, and they’re protecting her.

  Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

  The first thing I bring up online is a list of the women who were put on trial in Salem and the surrounding areas. None of them are named Sofía Muniz, but there are at least five people who were taken prisoner whose names no one bothered to record. So either the witches are keeping Sofía safe (hopefully), or they’re real, evil, magical beings and Sofía has to hide from them (unlikely), or Sofía’s one of the unnamed prisoners (shit).

  Or she’s safe, using her power of invisibility to protect herself. Sofía’s smart. And it’s far better for her to be stuck in that world than, say, Harold, who’d probably be hanged on the spot, or Gwen, who’d probably welcome the burning-at-the-stake thing. I pull my notebook closer, making a rough sketch of the area of Massachusetts that was affected by the trials, marking down every name and method of death with little X’s on the map. There aren’t that many near Pear Island, but they could have taken her inland . . .

  But even if Sofía is safe for now, she won’t be okay forever. Still, Harold said Sofía’s not a ghost, so for now I’m hopeful.

  He also said, before, that some people die and don’t come back. That was one of the first things he said, the day he introduced himself, that of all the people he sees in the afterlife, he’s never seen his birth mother. But Sofía wouldn’t do that. She’d come back to me.

  She would.

  “Hey, loser.” Ryan’s voice snaps me out of my dark thoughts.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, moving to close my computer screen and hide my research.

  Ryan shrugs. “Temple let me skip too,” he says. He stares at my notebook, and it rises in the air, landing neatly in his outstretched hand. “What the hell is this?” he says, scanning my notes. “Cake of piss?”

  I try to act casual so Ryan won’t think my notes are important. “I’m researching. For extra credit. Did you know that they made cake out of pee as a method to try to figure out who was a witch and who wasn’t during the Salem Witch Trials?” I say as Ryan sits down across from me.

  “Dude. Gross.” He tosses back my notebook. “Listen,” he says. “You’re going to have to cool it with all the ‘powers’ talk. You know you can’t say that shit in front of the officials, right?”

  “I’m not stupid,” I snap back.

  “Debatable.” He watches me coolly, waiting for my reaction. When I don’t give him one, he says, “So if you’re Mr. Time Travel, why don’t you just go back to the Salem Witch Trials and do all your research in person?” he asks, leaning back in his chair as if he’s proven something groundbreaking with this statement. There’s a hint of mockery in his voice.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” I say, trying to remain calm. Ryan likes to find ways to pick at people, pick, pick, pick until they break. It’s part of his arsenal. The Doctor has said more than once that Ryan will develop stronger telepathy to go alongside his telekinesis. So not only can he move things with his mind, but he can read minds too. Or he’ll be able to soon. It’s hard to tell if that power has manifested itself yet, but what I do know is that Ryan is manipulative as hell.

  “So Sofía’s stuck in the past, huh?” Ryan says, throwing his head back and staring at the ceiling as if that were more enjoyable than talking to me.

  “Yes. You know that.”

  “Yeah . . .” he says slowly. “But you’re going to make sure you don’t
mention that in front of those government dudes.”

  “I won’t,” I say emphatically, hoping he’ll leave now that he’s gotten his answer.

  But he doesn’t take the hint; he stays right where he is. “I don’t like them. Government officials sniffing around are never a good thing for a place like this. And Dr. Franklin . . .” Ryan shakes his head, his tongue pushing against his cheek. “I can’t believe he actually gave them the tapes of our sessions. That’s what was on that USB drive, you know. Videos. Of us. And . . .” Ryan waggles his fingers, and the pen he’d been twirling flies free, spinning toward my face until Ryan catches it with his telepathy and lets it fall harmlessly toward the table.

  “The Doctor probably has a plan,” I say weakly, but I can’t help but share Ryan’s concern. The Doc was so casual about it all, as if the cameras and their contents were no big deal, when in reality they prove everything that Berkshire is trying to help us hide.

  Ryan laughs bitterly. “Well, if he doesn’t have our back, I do.”

  I stare at him, trying to figure out what he means. Then I remember the Doctor’s explanation that some files had been damaged, and he had to make the USB from a backup. Did Ryan corrupt the files? Did he alter them?

  “The Berk is your first school like this, right?” Ryan asks. “I’ve been bouncing around special schools since sixth grade. This one is my favorite, and I’ll protect it, even if Dr. Franklin won’t.”

  Berkshire is supposed to be our safe place. Sure, it’s in a crappy location, but it’s safe. If the Doctor is willing to work with the government, though . . . if he’s willing to share our secrets, then we’re in danger. Every student at the academy, most of the teachers—we’d all be put under a microscope. Tested. Used. Treated like freaks.

  Just like the witches in Salem. I glance back at my computer. I can’t afford this distraction. I have to focus on Sofía. But what kind of future am I bringing Sofía back to if she’s going to be just as persecuted here as she might be there?

  “You tell me,” Ryan says. “What will those officials see when they watch those videos?”