I’d heard Momma talking on the phone to Fish and Mibs, and to Aunt Dinah and Uncle Autry too, trying to figure out what happened to our savvies. But nobody else’s abilities had turned upside down. No one knew what we should do to fix ours, either. I gave Grandma Pat the side-eye, still half convinced the switch was her fault . . . even though I was beginning to see that Grandma’s life was getting switched up too—and not in a way that could be fixed or scumbled.
As predicted, a bitter wind began to rattle the windows by mid-afternoon, and the temperature outside dropped like God had just opened the door of His refrigerator. I was glad I was wearing my favorite cozy sweatshirt—the oversized sea-green one that hung nearly to the knees of my soft gray leggings.
I’d spent most of the afternoon sorting through boxes of old photos and mementos. Shuffling through a stack of faded images of Grandma as a smiling, curly-haired girl, I pretended not to notice that young Patrice and I could’ve practically been twins. There were plenty of photographs of Poppa as a boy as well, making me wonder for the thousandth time how Poppa had turned out so sweet and so loving with such a hard-hearted mother. But Poppa always said that Grandma hadn’t been a terrible parent—just a strict one, one who’d had to work very hard to raise him on her own, after his dad died.
I was studying Grandpa Walter’s funeral program when something caught my eye. Something that made my heart stop and my breath catch in my throat.
Hands shaking, I pulled a stiff rectangle of ice-blue paper from the box. It was an invitation: an invitation to the Larimer High School Winter Formal, in Denver, Colorado, dated nineteen hundred and forever ago. I wondered if it was the same dance Grandma Pat had asked me about on Wednesday, when she thought I was Nettie Arbuckle.
But it wasn’t the invitation itself that spooked me, it was the image of the building engraved in silver at the top of it—a high school building with a frighteningly familiar-looking clock tower. I knew that tower. Its architecture was burned into my mind’s eye.
Grandma snatched the invitation from my hands, startling me.
“How I wish Daddy would let me go to the dance, Nettie!” she said. Just like that, I was Nettie Arbuckle again. “Did I tell you Cleavon Dorsey asked me to be his date? I have to find a way to go. I just have to! I hate Daddy for saying no.” Hugging the invitation to her chest, Grandma began to spin and shuffle. Dreaming about Cleavon, she twirled around the room the way I’d always loved to twirl, before I’d been made to feel dumb for twirling inside Flint’s Market.
Rising to my feet, I watched Grandma teeter, pirouette, and totter. I hovered closely, arms at the ready, following her the way a parent follows a tiny child just learning how to walk. Sometimes it felt like Grandma was getting younger and younger, while I had to work harder and harder to grow up.
AN HOUR LATER, THE odds of keeping my clock tower vision from coming to pass went from bad to worse. In the short time it took me to go to the bathroom and wash my hands, Grandma Pat changed her clothes.
“She says she’s going to some dance,” Samson muttered, thrusting his chin in Grandma’s direction as I stepped out of the bathroom. My brother leaned against the living room wall, arms crossed, watching Grandma struggle to get her feet into a huge pair of Sorrell snow boots. The lace and netting of her voluminous silvery party dress kept getting in the way, and her tarnished tiara slipped sideways in her downy curls every time she bent down to tie her bootlaces. Tucker sat on the sofa, stroking a white rabbit fur coat with two dangling pom-poms.
A snowstorm was on its way, and now Grandma Pat’s clock tower costume was nearly complete—her lips were even painted coral pink. But if Father Time thought he had Grandma Pat’s destiny firmly in his grip, he had another think coming. I had no intention of letting anything bad happen to my grandmother. Not that night, or any other. I would get Grandma to change out of her party clothes. Then I’d make Samson torch them.
But no matter how I begged and pleaded, Grandma Pat refused to take off the awful dress. Pushing me away, she grabbed her coat from Tucker. Then she stomped down the hallway and locked herself in her bedroom.
Momma peeked into the living room. “Everything okay in here?”
I nodded, grimacing. Then I shook my head. I opened my mouth to share my dreadful vision. “Momma, I—”
“We’re out of cake—I mean, tape. We’re out of packing tape,” Momma interrupted me, yanking on her coat and grabbing the car keys.
“You’re going out?” Samson uncrossed his arms and started toward her, his eyes glowing with concern. “Momma! You’re not going to drive, are you? Let me take you.”
“I’m only going to the store, Samson. I’ll be fine. I’ll even bring back dinner. I promise I’ll be careful.” Momma stood straighter, putting her fists on her hips like Wonder Woman. “I won’t let my new talent for blunders keep me from living my life. I laugh in the face of flubs and goof-ups. Ha-ha-ha!”
“Wait, Momma!” I tried again as Momma headed for the door, chuckling at her own bravado. “I really need to tell you someth—”
“Bring back jelly beans, Momma!” Tucker shouted over me. “Jelly beans! Jelly beans!”
Momma was gone before I could get her to listen. When I turned to tell Samson about Grandma’s dress and Grandma’s fall, he’d already disappeared into the attic.
For the next hour, I sat with my back against Grandma’s bedroom door. Tucker watched cartoons in the living room. Samson hid upstairs, probably reading a book by the light of his own thumb. Grandma’s ill temper seemed to gust through the cracks in the door frame, swirling around me like a cold wind. But after a few noisy thumps and bumps, no sounds came from her room.
Maybe she went to bed early, I thought, sighing with relief as I imagined Grandma snug and warm beneath her blankets. The sun set and the house grew dim. I refused to leave my post, even if it meant sitting in the dark. If Grandma tried to leave her bedroom wearing her party getup, I’d be there to stop her.
After a while, Tucker turned off the television and wandered down the hallway, hugging his stuffed cat and dragging a blanket behind him.
“What are you doing, Gypsy?”
“Making sure Grandma Pat stays safe.”
“Because she’s got the Old-timer’s?” My brother settled down next to me, leaning his back against the locked door too.
“Yes, Tuck. Because of that. And because of . . . other things.” I didn’t want to tell Tucker about my vision. He was too little to help, and I didn’t want to frighten him. Besides, with both of us sitting in front of her bedroom door, Grandma wasn’t going anywhere.
I rubbed my eyes behind my glasses, replaying my clock tower vision over and over in my head, until a barrage of urgent knocking at the front door made me look up.
I leaped to my feet, thinking Momma had returned at last and needed help carrying the groceries. Tucker followed me to the door.
Knock-knock-knock!
Bang-bang-bang!
Jing-a-jing-jingle!
My makeshift jingle-bell alarm made it sound like Santa Claus was frantically clamoring to be let in. But it wasn’t Santa banging on the door. It wasn’t Momma, either. It was Nola Kim.
“Where is Mrs. B., you guys?” she demanded, barging past us in green skinny jeans and purple combat boots. Nola dropped a hard-sided silver cosmetics case and half a dozen Mall of Denver shopping bags onto the floor. Finding Grandma’s recliner empty, she grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Tell me she’s still here! Tell me your grandmother didn’t do what I think she did.”
“Grandma hasn’t left her room for the last hour,” I said, bewildered. But a sickening feeling was already squiggling through my stomach.
“What’s happening?” Tucker looked from me to Nola.
Nola didn’t answer. Instead, she raced down the hallway, dodging stacks of boxes and shimmying around the ladder to the attic. Tucke
r and I were right behind her.
Nola jiggled Grandma’s doorknob. It was still locked.
“She’s sleeping,” I said, hoping I was right. Already knowing I was wrong.
“I’m pretty sure she isn’t sleeping.” Nola pulled a bobby pin out from under her sequined hat, then dropped to one knee. Straightening the pin, she jammed one end of it into the hole in the middle of the doorknob, trying to open the lock.
My heart thump-bumped in my chest. I hadn’t been able to stop Tucker from swallowing a marble. I hadn’t kept Mrs. Foster from slipping on a bar of soap. Why had I thought I could stop any future vision from happening?
“What’s going on?” Samson’s voice made me jump as he appeared beside me. His black T-shirt was smeared with dust, and he had a thin paperback book tucked into the pocket of his torn blue jeans. The edges of the pages were all singed black. Samson had been reading in the attic, just as I’d suspected.
Seeing Nola crouched in front of Grandma’s door, Samson gave a start. This time, he didn’t bolt. But he did quickly pull the armpits of his T-shirt to his nose to see if he smelled okay. I’d never seen Samson act so loopy around a girl before. It was weird. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I would have teased him.
“What’s going on?” Samson repeated.
“I was shopping with some friends in Denver—they just dropped me off . . .” Nola began to explain, not looking up as she continued to fiddle with the lock. After a few more unsuccessful tries, Nola threw her bobby pin on the floor in frustration and stood up. “I was waving to my friends as they drove away, when I saw . . . well . . .” She paused and shook her head. “You’re just going to have to see it for yourself. It’s bad. It’s really, really bad!”
Nola turned and slapped her palm against the unyielding doorknob. Tucker made a determined face and pushed his pint-sized shoulder against the door, trying to help. I pictured Grandma lying on the floor of her bedroom, unable to get up. I imagined her hurt, or dead. Samson must have been picturing something similar, because he raised the heel of his boot and kicked in Grandma’s door.
Grandma wasn’t in her bed or on the floor—she wasn’t in her room at all. Now we could see why Nola was freaked out. A thin blast of wintry air billowed Grandma’s curtains, giving the rest of us our first glimpse of the knotted bedsheets hanging out the window. It was only a three-foot drop from the windowsill to the ground; Grandma must have thought the window was higher up when she was making her escape plan. She’d done her best to close the window behind her, but the twisted linens kept the pane from lowering all the way.
It was clear to us all . . . Grandma Pat was gone.
“DID GRANDMA REALLY LEAVE this way?” Tucker leaned out over the sill, holding the window open above him, inspecting Grandma’s escape route with admiration. “Hey, Gypsy! Samson! Can I climb out the window too? Just once—just to try it?”
“No, Tuck,” Samson and I answered in unison.
“Aw! The ground isn’t even that far down.”
“We have to call 911,” Nola said, taking charge. She paced from the window to the bed, then back again, fumbling in her pockets for her phone.
“Maybe we should wait to call the police until we’ve looked for Grandma,” I said. “She could still be close by. She probably just wandered down the road a little way.” I crossed my fingers, hoping, hoping, hoping.
“Gypsy’s right.” Samson nodded his agreement. I knew my brother and I shared the same fears about calling in the cavalry. What if Tucker threw a gigantic fit just as the police arrived, picking up patrol cars and throwing them like toys? What if Samson belched a plume of flames, setting an officer’s hat on fire?
“I’m not waiting.” Nola dialed 911 and raised her phone to her ear, giving Samson and me a reproachful look. “Maybe you don’t realize yet how sick your grandmother is,” she said as she waited for an operator to pick up. “We can’t mess around, not when it’s dark outside and there’s a blizzard coming. I’ll talk to the sheriff’s office and have them issue an alert. You three go start knocking on doors. We’ll get the whole neighborhood to help us search. Where’s your mom?”
“She went to the store,” I said. A long time ago, I thought.
Grabbing Samson’s wrist, I wrenched his arm toward me, trying to check the time on his battered wristwatch. “It’s nearly six o’clock,” I said, shaking Samson’s arm. “Momma should’ve been back by now. She said she was going to bring back dinner.”
“I should never have let her drive,” Samson berated himself under his breath. Then, louder, he snapped, “Ow! Let go, Gypsy! You’re gonna break my arm.” I did let go. Fast. Samson’s skin was growing hotter. I was afraid he was about to lose control.
“Samson, you need to—” I began, but before I could say more, Samson’s eyes glowed and a pillar of flames shot straight up from the top of his head, scorching the ceiling.
Nola screamed and stumbled backward as a swirling storm of glowing embers popped and sizzled around Samson. Her phone flew out of her hand; I watched it sail straight toward the windowpane directly above Tucker. Tuck was still holding up the window and leaning out into the night, scanning the front yard for Grandma Pat. He turned just as Nola’s phone smashed through the glass above his head.
My heart thumped wildly. I couldn’t think. I threw my arms across my face and closed my eyes as tight as they would go, not wanting to see my little brother get cut to ribbons. Someone had started yelling—someone who sounded exactly like me. One long, drawn-out word was erupting from my mouth, reverberating through the house . . . circling the planet.
“STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!”
I’d done it again. Stopped time in its tracks. Once more, I was alone in an unmoving world. I could have paused to take a breath. I could have sat down on Grandma’s bed to pull my wits together. But I had too much adrenaline pumping through my veins. I didn’t know how long this time-stop would last.
Heart pounding, I moved quickly. I shot across the room and dragged Tucker out from under the shards of glass hanging in the air above him. Like a tiny UFO trying to fly back to the stars, Nola’s cell phone hovered just beyond the busted window.
Nola’s gaze was fixed on Samson: on his glowing eyes and flaming hair, and on the fantastical swirls of red-orange embers that circled him like fiery hula hoops. Distorted by shock, the girl’s features had frozen in an awkward, mouth-twisted, half-blinking expression. She looked like a screwball snapshot of herself. An unflattering picture any teenage girl would quickly tear to pieces if she could.
Not knowing how else to stop the neighbor girl from seeing more of Samson’s fire show, I grabbed Grandma’s sleep mask from her bedside table and secured it over Nola’s eyes. Then I raced to the kitchen and brought back a footstool and plastic pitcher of iced tea. Avoiding Samson’s flames and embers as best I could, I stepped onto the footstool and turned the pitcher upside down on top of my brother’s head. I left it there, like a hat with a water balloon in it, ready to pop. I hoped a gallon of iced tea would be enough to douse Samson’s blazes as soon as time resumed.
Stepping down from the footstool, I saw the faded invitation to the Larimer High winter formal taped to the mirror above Grandma’s dresser. Alongside it, Grandma had hung a note she’d scrawled on one of the paper napkins from her collection—one with a scalloped edge and a border of blue snowflakes. The message she’d left behind was obviously meant for her long-dead, disapproving father. My hands shook as I read the note.
I don’t care what you think.
I’m going to the dance at Larimer High tonight.
Don’t come after me!
I wasn’t surprised to see where Grandma was headed, but I did feel defeated. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t changing anything. I wasn’t keeping any terrifying futures from coming to pass. It was like the Suds o’ Heaven soap fiasco all over again. Only this time, the stakes were higher.
Six stories higher.
Grandma Pat didn’t know it, but her future depended on me and me alone.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told myself in the mirror. “Denver is miles away from Evergreen. There’s no way Grandma could get that far on foot. She doesn’t drive, or own a car. Now that time has stopped, she won’t get a step farther.” I leaned closer to the mirror, nearly touching noses with my reflection.
“You can stop your clock tower vision from happening,” I whispered. “You will stop it!”
I snatched the invitation and the note. Then I grabbed my coat, crammed my feet into my snow boots, and bolted out the front door after Grandma.
The TV had been issuing dire warnings about the approaching storm all day. Now the blizzard crouched in the distance, heavy and ominous, an enormous white wolf poised to swallow the moon and stars. I imagined Grandma’s illness gobbling up her memories the very same way, and I got a glimpse into how frightening that might be for her.
I was looking up and down the curving road, wondering which way to go, when a small flash of silver caught my eye. Moving to investigate, I discovered the glint came from a shiny dime lying on the asphalt. I picked up the coin and put it in my pocket. A few feet ahead, I spotted a penny. Then two nickels and another dime.
Passing house after house, pine tree after pine tree, I followed the white line on the edge of the winding road, pursuing Grandma’s trail of pocket change, hoping there’d be enough coins in her stocking to lead me straight to her. Every step I took down the hill made me feel more lonesome and forlorn.
When I couldn’t find another penny or nickel anywhere on the road ahead of me, I was about to turn back, sure I’d lost Grandma’s trail in the darkness.
That’s when I saw it. Not another coin, but a white ball of fur: one of the pompoms from Grandma’s coat. The pompom lay on the ground across the road, at the foot of the bus stop at the Hiwan Park-n-Ride. The Park-and-Ride was a large lot tucked between a woodsy park and a small church, where people could leave their cars and board buses into the city. I crossed the street and snatched up the fuzzy pom-pom. Grandma was nowhere to be seen.