Every Never After

  “There is no blood here, Milo!” Clare flailed a bit, growing increasingly agitated.

  “I know. But I think—”

  “I just don’t get it,” Clare went on in a low, staccato hiss, glancing warily in the direction of the tent. “There’s nothing to connect that stupid skull to Al. Nothing!” She waved a hand sharply at Milo’s knapsack, as if the skull inside it could hear her and maybe apologize for its presumption. “Unless, of course,” she continued with angry sarcasm, “that skull just so happens to belong to Al, in which case …”

  She had meant it to be a joke.

  “Oh … god …”

  What if it wasn’t? What if the head in the bag really had once belonged to Allie McAllister? What if—

  “Clare!”

  She turned to Milo as if in slow motion. He lunged for her, an expression of alarm on his face, and Clare realized that she’d actually started to fall forward in a semi-faint. The edges of her vision had grown dark with panic at the thought of Headless Allie McAllister.

  Milo pried the tablet from her fingers. “Stop.”

  His voice was like cool water on the flash burn of her freak-out. He brushed back the hair that had escaped her ponytail and tilted her head up. Now she was looking straight into those clear blue eyes that stared back at her, calm and mesmerizing, from behind the angular black frames of his glasses.

  “Just stop … and listen to me, Clare.” His long fingers cupped the sides of her face. “I’ve been through this situation before. I’ve seen it happen from this side of things, okay? With you. Every single time with you … when you shimmered? When you disappeared? I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. And it just about killed me every single time, but you have to remember how it all turned out.”

  She looked up at him, her lip starting to tremble at the remembered anguish in his eyes. She hadn’t really ever thought about how it had affected Milo—or Al, or Maggie. Wow, she could be so selfish sometimes …

  “How did it all turn out, Clare?” Milo asked gently.

  “Um.” She swallowed noisily, willing back the tears that were threatening to spill. “It … it all turned out okay?”

  “Yeah. It did.” He smiled down at her and pulled her into another embrace. “It will this time, too. Allie’s smart. She’s strong. And she’s got us on her side. We’ll figure out a way to get her back. Together.”

  ALLIE HAD NO IDEA how long she’d been asleep. She didn’t know what time it had been when she’d first arrived outside of the camp, in the middle of that battle. Skirmish. Whatever you called it. Madness. Chaos.

  But she’d had a strange dream where she kept hearing a familiar voice. Muttering over and over, like a mantra, the words “I’ll kill her …”

  Allie blinked until her eyes adjusted to the dim morning light streaming in through a gap in the canvas at the top of the tent. She was definitely awake now. But if that was the case, why did she keep hearing that same phrase? And whose voice was it anyway?

  “I’ll kill her …”

  And why was it speaking in English …?

  Oh god. No.

  Allie watched silently, frozen in horror, from her corner of the tent as Stuart Morholt scribbled away in what looked like a fancy notebook with what looked like a fancy ballpoint pen and continued his chant.

  “I’ll kill her,” he murmured with grim determination. “I’ll kill them both. I’ll kill Clarinet Reid and her fender-bending minion and her little dog Milo, too. I’ll kill Maggie, and I’ll kill Ceciley just for the fun of it and I’ll—OW!”

  That last syllable seemed to be a new addition to the mantra, prompted mostly by the fact that the large bearded man sitting to Morholt’s left had turned and casually punched him in the shoulder. Morholt was still wearing his ridiculous multi-pocketed, many-zippered super-spy jumpsuit, but it was coated in several layers of different subsets of filth and hardly recognizable as anything more than a distressed, shapeless collection of rags. His boots were similarly muck-caked and therefore not particularly discernible from the foot coverings worn by the other captives. The other captives who didn’t seem to particularly enjoy his company.

  Maybe because he’s the most annoying human being on the planet in this or any other era? Allie thought.

  Annoying or not, he was definitely getting the short end of the stick in this situation. His hair was a matted, twig-festooned mess and several weeks’ worth of tangled beard crept up his cheeks.

  “Shut up,” the man said. “Be polite. We seem to have received a new guest in the night.” He nodded, not unkindly, at where Allie huddled in the corner of the tent, shocked immobile by any number of things, not least of which was her total comprehension of what the bulky-muscled man had said. Even though he’d clearly spoken in a language she was deeply unfamiliar with. She didn’t have time, though, to question that fact. Not in that moment.

  Morholt’s head snapped up. “What?” he barked. “Who is it? Who’s there?”

  In the dim light, his ink-black gaze fastened on her face.

  Allie held her breath.

  Then Morholt threw his arms in the air and shouted, “YES! It worked!”

  The handful of other prisoners in the tent gaped at him as he leaped to his feet and did as much of a victory jig as the chains around his ankles would allow. He hobbled toward Allie, a mad grin on his face, and cackled at her when she drew back in revulsion. He really needed a bath. Morholt clutched his little book to his chest and did a little spin.

  “I win!” he crowed gleefully, giggling like the obvious maniac he’d become. “D’you hear that?” he shouted, pointing at the tent roof as Allie and the others stared at him, agog. “Suck it, cruel Fate!”

  9

  “Seriously. How long does it take to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over a couple of stupid coins?” Clare snapped. She was rapidly approaching the point where she’d storm into the tent and lob the skull at Ashbourne in front of his whole posse of grad students.

  She’d been sitting there for the better part of an hour, with nothing to do but fret and scroll aimlessly through the web page where Al had live-streamed her explosive find. The comments trail had erupted into fast and furious banter among the regulars as to just what kind of practical jokes @Al-Mac and @ClareTheLoon were trying to pull and whether it was suitable for what was, ostensibly, a serious archaeological dig. That was sprinkled among the regular booby talk. After a while Clare stopped actively reading the comments and just ran her finger up and down the screen, scrolling back and forth through quips and admonishments.

  @GeoffreyMonBouche: Fake!

  @DirtNap: The hell??

  @HistoryInTheBuff: I’m not sure what kind of prank this is, but not convinced it’s appropriate for an academic outing. Disappointed.

  @DigFan: What just happened? Did anyone else see that purple flash at 2:50?

  @BonerWahoo: BOOBS!!!

  “Okaaay …” Clare sighed. “Flagging this Wahoo guy’s comment as inappropriate … yet again.”

  The trail of comments continued, gibberish mostly, unabated. Clare scanned away without paying any of it an ounce of attention:

  @SirCharlesQuackalot: How did u do that?! Was that a skull?

  @ArthurDentsTrowel: wth? completely agree with historyinthebuff. disappointed. was really looking forward to seeing what you found. dramatics and silly special fx unnecessary. @Al-Mac, please take this seriously. history is not something to be tom-fooleried about with. yes I know that’s not a word. also? what are you doing wednesday eve?

  @TardyTardis404: Must say—interest is piqued. This could be a significant find but would like to know more. What happened after @Al-Mac shimmers off camera? Details please.

  “Wait.” Clare went cold.

  She turned to show Milo, but just then the tent flap at Command Central flew wide and the grad students, beaming smugly at each other, poured out, heading in the direction of the town and—no doubt—the nearest pub to celebrate their find.

  “You guys exhumed sp
are change,” Milo muttered, prickly with worry over his cousin’s disappearance. “Get over yourselves.”

  “Hullo! Are you waiting for me?”

  Clare and Milo got up and turned to see Dr. Ashbourne, chief archaeologist, beaming genially at them from the door of the tent.

  “Marvellous! Marvellous. More eager young people champing at the bit to unearth the past.” Despite the cheerful words, there was a world-weariness to Ashbourne’s tone. “Come in …”

  Clare froze in place, but Ashbourne huffed impatiently and shooed her in through the flap. Milo followed, and together they stood fidgeting at the large trestle table where the day’s precious finds were laid out on a clean white cloth—six small, tarnished metal discs, more or less round, with ragged edges and pitted faces. Clare could barely keep from rolling her eyes at the rinkydinkedness of it all.

  Still, she was surprised when Ashbourne plucked up one of the coins and absently began flipping it in the air, catching it, and flipping it again. His normally goofy-grin expression had crumpled behind his moustache and he looked almost solemn. Lost in thought and weary. But then he seemed to remember that Clare and Milo were standing there, staring at him. He cleared his throat and, with another flick of his thumb, sent the coin spinning through the air at Clare.

  She caught it reflexively, and saw Milo’s eyes go panic-wide for an instant. But there was nothing. No shimmering … not even static electricity. Clare stared down at the coin in her palm. It was just a coin, old and crusted with dirt.

  “So? Yes? What is it, then?” Ashbourne suddenly barked like a terrier, startling Clare and Milo both. “Have you come to offer up resignations? Are you one of the many who can’t take the conditions? Too hot, too cold, too boring out in the field?”

  The archaeologist straightened up, threw back his shoulders, and glared back and forth at them. Clare balled up her fists and shoved them in her jacket pockets, taking a step backward away from the table.

  “Actually, Dr. Ashbourne,” Milo began, “we really—”

  “We really wanted to congratulate you!” Clare interrupted. “And the money.”

  “You wanted to congratulate the money?” The archaeologist frowned.

  “Well, no. The coins. More like the … er … finding thereof.” She pasted a big smile on her face and reached forward to give the professor a convivial punch to the shoulder. “Well done! On the money finding. Right, Milo? That’s it! That’s all we wanted.”

  “Um …” Milo reined in his confusion admirably. “Right. That’s all …”

  “Just, y’know, huzzah!” Clare cheered.

  “And … on that note, I should get Clare back to her trench now,” Milo said, retreating. “So she can find a coin or two of her own.”

  Ashbourne shrugged and twisted a moustache end. “Well now, very well. That is the kind of spirited pursuit I like to see in my trowel monkeys. Marvellous. Carry on. Good hunting to you.”

  “Can hardly wait!” Clare enthused as she let Milo grab her by the elbow and tug her toward the tent flap.

  Milo picked up the skull-toting knapsack in his other hand and together they left the mildly bemused archaeologist alone in his tent. Clare led the way through the site excavations, past the few straggling diggers who hadn’t yet packed it in to go celebrate the coinage, and back toward her own little secluded hole in the ground the next field over. When they reached the trenches where she and Al had been working, Milo finally pulled Clare to a stop and turned her around.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’re all alone. Now are you going to fill me in on the sudden about-face?”

  Clare nodded and wordlessly handed over the tablet, pointing to the comment from @TardyTardis404. “Read that one.”

  Milo peered at the entry and murmured, “Shimmers …” His eyes flicked up and he stared over the top of his glasses at Clare.

  “Coincidence?” she asked dryly.

  Milo didn’t blink. “Yes?”

  Clare gave him her best flat glare. Milo continued to gaze at her in the calm, steady, normally Very Sexy (but in that moment Extremely Vexing) way he had.

  “Not so long ago,” she said evenly, “you said you were starting to think there was no such thing as coincidence.”

  The staring contest continued until Milo frowned faintly and looked back down at the screen. He read the entry again. His frown deepened. Then he sat down on the edge of Al’s trench with his long legs dangling over the side, called up Al’s video blog entry, and watched it closely. Three times. Finally he put the tablet down on the grass beside him and pushed his glasses up on his forehead, hooking a finger across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were still fixed on the screen, which had gone dark, but Clare could see the gears whirring in the mind behind the placid blue stare.

  “There’s something … odd about this,” he said.

  Ah ha! I’m not imagining things, Clare thought as she sank down beside him. This time it was different.

  “Allie falls out of frame …” Milo muttered as he reached over and touched the screen, playing the video through. “And the quality of the light changes. Like suddenly it’s a different time of day …”

  Clare leaned over his shoulder, eyes narrowed.

  “But there’s no shimmer.” Milo ran the clip once more. “No coruscation.”

  “No what?”

  “Sparkling. When you time-travel,” he explained, “you sort of … light up your surroundings for an instant. Like a birthday cake sparkler. With this,” he tapped the screen with his knuckle, “it’s sort of the reverse. It looks more like it’s the surroundings that change. It’s not coming from Allie. At least, it doesn’t seem like it …”

  “Right.” Clare watched the video looping.

  She’d known there was something different. She just hadn’t managed to articulate what that something was. But Milo was right. Given her own experiences tearing around in the space– time continuum, Clare had just sort of assumed she knew what was going on with Allie when she disappeared. But now she saw that the ambient light in the video did shift dramatically—suddenly becoming tinged with red and purple, as though that part of the video had been shot during twilight against a particularly vibrant sunset …

  But there was no shimmering. None of the telltale fireworks sparkliness that had always seemed to accompany Clare’s supernatural jaunts. Light, but no light show. Al hadn’t shimmered. Not exactly.

  And yet … TardyTardis404 seemed to have assumed she had. Just as Clare and Milo did—initially. Which meant that TardyTardis404 knew what “shimmering” was.

  “Okay,” Milo said, coming to the same conclusion. “I’m not saying this comment isn’t still a long shot. But maybe it warrants at least a bit of investigating.”

  “Right.” Clare nodded, relieved. “That’s what I thought. Listen … can one of your compu-guru buddies help you track a user address from a comment thread like this?”

  “I don’t need help for that.” Milo’s mouth bent up at one corner in a devastatingly sexy mastermind kind of smirk. He cracked his knuckles, unslung his computer bag from his shoulder, and flipped open his laptop. “That’s kiddie play. Here … let me see the tablet and give me a few minutes.”

  Clare handed over the tablet and sat impatiently as Milo tapped away on his laptop, downloading dodgy software and trading chatter on dodgy sites. Seven minutes later he leaned back on one elbow in the grass, and with an only slightly smug grin, turned the screen toward Clare. She watched in fascination as a Google map zoomed in on the GPS coordinates of … someplace just down the road?

  Clare blinked and looked closer. “Can you do a street view?” Milo tapped at the keyboard and made a surprised noise when the street view popped up, showing the front of a building they both recognized instantly.

  “Well, whaddya know,” Clare said grimly. “Looks like we get to pay another visit to Goggles McFish’n’Chips and the Old Curiosity Shop.”

  THE BLINDS WERE ALL DRAWN and the CLOSED sign was hung up. But one stiff p
ush and the door opened wide. Goggles must have forgotten to lock it.

  “That was careless,” Clare said as they stepped into the dim, dusty confines of the cluttered shop. She glanced around at the shadowy rows of curio cases and shelves jammed with a funhouse assortment of oddities and unidentifiables, from tacky souvenirs to legitimate-seeming antiques and collectibles. Miniature glow-in-the-dark Stonehenges shared space with fully articulated bat skeletons hanging from the ceiling and a suit of armour that looked as though it might come to life and start wreaking havoc with the mace in its iron fist.

  The place was deserted. And super creepy.

  Clare barely noticed. She was on a mission. She had an overwhelming hunch to play out and she wasn’t about to let the heebiejeebies get in the way. In a half-dozen purposeful strides, she’d travelled the length of the long, narrow space toward the beaded curtain covering the door to the back room that Goggles had disappeared through in such a hurry the last time they’d paid the shop a visit. She was pretty certain now that funky seafood had had nothing to do with that hasty exit.

  She was right.

  As Clare was walking in, Goggles was walking out, wearing entirely different safety eyewear. The girl must have had a cabinet full of the things. These had magnifying lenses that gave her a clownishly startled air as—head down, hoodie up—she almost plowed right into Clare. But she stopped just short and the two girls faced off like a pair of wary gunslingers in the Old West.

  Then Goggles made a break for it.

  She got about three feet before Clare had her pinned up against a shelf, held there by the threat of a rhinestone-handled Charles and Diana commemorative letter opener she’d snagged off a nearby table. Behind her magnifying safety glasses, the girl’s eyes were pie-sized and darted back and forth between Clare, Milo, and the letter opener.

  “You,” Clare said in her most threatening voice.

  All things considered, it wasn’t half bad on a one-to-ten menace scale. She hadn’t exactly been taking notes the last time she’d been threatened with a sharp object (and, really, it had happened more times in recent weeks than she cared to think about), but she’d obviously picked up a few “pointers.”