"Jess, I think you need to listen to Mrs. Jessup. Everything will be much clearer after a good night's sleep. You were probably half asleep when I came in, and this is just the tail-end of a dream you were having."
He gives me a long, hard stare. "Could be. I guess that could be. But you be sure and stop by the store tomorrow. I need a hand with that shipment of Black Cavendish that came in today."
I nod and squeeze his shoulder. "I'll be there, Jess. I promise. Get some sleep and I'll stop by to help you in the morning."
Amelia walks me to the front door, her fingers worrying at the tip of the braid hanging over her shoulder. "I'm sorry about your head, Kiernan, but I'm awfully glad you were here tonight. You seem to have calmed him down." She raises one thin hand and rests it against my cheek for just a moment. "Thank you."
As she closes the door, I catch one more look at her braids and realize that the bows at the end are now red, not blue. I just stand there for a moment, stunned, wondering what element of the time shift trickled down to change the color of the ribbons that Amelia Jessup chose tonight.
∞4∞
I'm still dizzy, either from the blow to the head or the time shift or both, and I keep a firm grip on the iron railing. I make it to the bottom step, then turn my back to the sidewalk and reach down the front of the borrowed pants, yanking the CHRONOS key free of the bandage on my thigh. Even though the streets are mostly empty this late, I'm glad Jess has an extra few inches at the waist so that I can grab the medallion without having to drop trousers.
I pull up my room on the display, setting the time for a few minutes before eight, about when Jess said Kate left the store. The lamp isn't lit, which means she's probably not there, but Jess might have had the time a bit off. And if I beat her back to the apartment, she'll have less time to worry. She's going to have a few dueling memories of the past hour or so, but at least this will minimize the confusion.
I blink once to initiate the jump, and nothing happens. Taking a deep breath, I try again, hoping that the multiple jumps at my audition haven't drained me to the point where I'll have no choice but to walk home.
This time when I open my eyes, I'm in the apartment, a few feet away from the bed, which Kate straightened at some point during the day. In the dim light of the medallion, I see the quilt is pulled up and the pillows are fluffed. Her phone and a copy of Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles sit on the nightstand, next to the open tin of mints.
I change out of the borrowed clothes and toss them into the corner of the room that Kate cordoned off as a makeshift closet. Then I stretch out on my side of the bed, closing my eyes. Something feels off and I open them again a second later. There's a faint buzzing sound, almost like a fly in the room. I sit up and light the lamp to get a better look, but I don't see anything. And although that could be the result of having my head whacked about earlier, I keep my eyes open just the same.
A few minutes later, I'm starting to worry, both about Kate's absence and the possibility that the damage to my head is greater than I'd thought. While Kate might have jumped straight to Katherine's house when she left the store, I can't remember her ever leaving her phone here, let alone leaving it out in the open like this. That bloody thing is a permanent appendage; even here in my time when there's no signal she seems to feel lost without it.
As for my head, the buzzing noise is constant. It increases every now and then, eventually fading a bit but never letting up entirely. And the nausea I felt during the time shift is still lurking in the pit of my stomach, bad enough at one point that I drag the basin from under the bed, just in case the sandwich and cookie that Amelia fed me decide to make a hasty exit.
I curse myself for not dialing back to seven o'clock rather than eight, because it doesn't seem likely that I can make another jump tonight. Even though I'll have to wait for Kate to come to me, at least I can use the medallion to figure out when she left. I scan the CHRONOS display for this room at seven, when Kate should have been waiting here. The room is dim, with only a tiny bit of sun coming in, but the apartment seems empty. Then the picture blurs and I can see her momentarily, sitting on the edge of the bed, before it blurs again and the room is empty. I shake the medallion, even though I know it's more likely a problem with my head than with the CHRONOS key. I look back about half an hour, and again see the bed, the room a bit brighter in the daylight. The Conan Doyle book is fully open, and the display on the phone next to it is lit up like it is when Kate checks the time or plays a game. I watch for a few minutes and the picture flutters several times, and I see a blurry afterimage stretched out on the bed. Later, a stray breeze flips a page in the book.
I scroll to locate the stable point for Kate's room, the only room at Katherine's house that I have set on my key. The display doesn't waver at all, even though the stable point seems to fade in and out. It's weird. I've never seen the key act this way and I wonder if it was damaged when I was mugged. The image stabilizes for a moment, and I catch a brief glimpse of Kate's room. The curtains are pulled and there's no light. If she's at Katherine's, she's somewhere else in the house.
Slowly, being careful of my aching head, I slide to the floor and reach under the bed, prying up the loose floorboard. Maybe she left a note in the diary? I'm grasping at straws now; she's never left a note there before and sure enough, there's nothing new. The buzzing noise peaks again and I feel this odd tingle, almost like an electrical charge running through my body. And then, as quick as it came, the sensation is gone and the buzzing levels off.
I toss the diary onto the bed next to the Conan Doyle book. Then, I reach back under the floorboards. I move the little box that holds the rest of my cash from the Marvin Hart bet and grab another bandage and a small plastic bag, pushing the dozen or so pills inside the bag around with my finger until I locate two of the round red tablets Kate takes when she has a headache. I dry swallow them, wishing I had some water to wash away the slightly sweet aftertaste, but there's none in the room and I'm not up for a trek down the hall. I reach for the open tin of mints, not even looking, and my fingers hit the top of the container. I stare at the box for long time. It was open when I arrived. Wasn't it?
The odd tingle hits me again, disconcerting, almost painful, but fleeting. My peripheral vision catches a movement to the right of me. When I turn everything is in the same place. Even though there's no one in the room, I still can't shake the feeling I'm not alone.
Is paranoia a side effect of concussion?
The medallion is still in the palm of my hand and I pull up today at 12:20, ten minutes before the alarm on the cell phone went off. It's no longer a matter of idly wondering what time Kate left. I need to see her, even if I can't reach her.
The room is so dark that I can barely make out our shapes in the bed. Kate's head is near my shoulder, her left hand on my chest. I pull in a shaky breath, relieved, and then the image distorts, and I can't see her. I'm there, but she's not.
I scan a few minutes back and stare at the display, unwilling to look away until she appears. Finally, I see her body next to mine in the bed, a few strands of her hair crisscrossing my arm. I snap my eyes shut instantly, silently praying that I can make the jump. But it's wasted effort. I'm rooted to this time and whatever is going on, I can't change it. I can't warn her.
For the next twenty minutes, I can barely move, barely breathe. Although I hear the buzz occasionally and look toward the sound, I don't see anything unusual. Then I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. It's Kate, standing by the window. At least I think it's her, until I turn my head and nothing is there.
All I can do is wait for the time shift. And hope against hope that I'm wrong, that wherever and whenever Kate may be at nine-twenty seven tonight, she's under the protection of a CHRONOS medallion.
That reminds me that we're down one key now, thanks to the muggers in the alley. Except…they weren't muggers. That fact hits me all at once, with total certainty. The timing is much too close to be coincidence. Someone wan
ted me to have no memory of the previous timeline.
But why?
The buzzing picks up again, the sound moving first toward the door, then back toward the bed. For a moment, it looks like the door jumps out at me. And it's not a single buzz now. I hear three or four separate noises, each a slightly different pitch.
There's a momentary ripple of shadow and color at the room's center and for the tiniest second, I think I see a hand. Kate's hand, reaching toward me. But before that thought even registers, I see that nothing's there.
The noise soars until it's nearly a roar. I pull my arms up to my ears to shield myself from the deafening whine. I crouch, eyes closed, head down, until the sound tapers off and the room is totally, eerily silent.
I look up, and as I do, I realize something isn't right with the door. It's pulled shut, but the frame is cracked near the deadbolt and it's off the top hinge. The wood was old, so I never had any illusions that the deadbolt would stop a determined intruder. Its only purpose was to give us a few minutes' warning. I push myself up to standing so I can get a closer look. Although it's just four steps from the bed to the door, before I'm halfway there, I see the odd rippling effect and the door is whole again. There's no cracked frame and it's firmly on both hinges.
I reverse quickly until the back of my legs bumps the edge of the bed and half sit, half fall onto the mattress. I stay there for a moment, and then run my fingers across the CHRONOS key—it's nine twenty-four. I've never jumped back after a timeline shift to the point just before the change, so I'm not sure what to expect. I brace myself and count down the seconds to nine twenty-seven, never quite taking my eyes off that door.
Nine twenty-seven comes and goes, without the gut-punch that usually follows a time shift. I slowly release the breath I've been holding.
And that's when I see it. Or rather, I don't see it. Kate's phone is gone. Her pillow, the squishy one she brought from her time, is also gone, along with the tin of mints. The diary is still there, on top of the Conan Doyle book where I tossed it earlier. So is her dress, still hanging from its hook. I frantically search the space under the floorboard, but it's empty, aside from a few odds and ends of my own. I glance around, and aside from the diary and the dress, every trace of Kate's existence has vanished from the room.
I don't know how long I sit there, my mouth moving, but no sound coming out. After a moment, I lean my head back and look up at the ceiling, the same dull, stained gray as the walls, and that's what totally breaks me.
Not a single one of Kate's stars remains in our sky.
∞
Green light coming from the corner of the dark room wakes me. I'm in bed, although I can't recall getting here. My eyes are swollen and my vision still blurry from sleep, but I see a shape with long dark curls emerge from behind the curtain in the corner.
I suck in a breath. "Bloody hell, where have you—"
My eyes have adjusted a bit and I see it's not Kate. It's Prudence. And, unfortunately, it's not a young Pru. The younger versions are a lot easier to handle. I can't tell for certain in the glow from her CHRONOS key, but I'd say this Pru is as old as I've ever seen her. Thirty-five, maybe. If past experience holds true, I'll need to watch my step to avoid setting her off.
Why didn't she send a younger version of herself like she usually does? Maybe she's finally wised up and realized that reconciling so many conflicting memories is turning her brain to mush. Or maybe she's so far gone by this point that she doesn't care.
Pru tilts her head to the side and eyes me with suspicion. "Were you expecting someone else, Kiernan?"
"I was dreaming, Pru. Thought you were me mum at first."
Starting out with a crack about her age might not have been best move. For a few seconds, her expression reminds me of this character in one of the Harry Potter movies I watched with Kate. I can't remember the name, but she was one of the bad witches, dancing through a field of flames, screaming that she'd killed Harry's uncle or something. The fact that Pru is in a black dress and her hair looks like it hasn't seen a comb in several days makes the likeness downright creepy.
Her eyes flash daggers at me as she reaches behind her back and gets a handful of red fabric. She yanks the curtain downward, ripping out both of the nails and a bit of plaster from the wall, before dropping it to the floor.
"I should be the one asking where in bloody hell you've been." She sits down on the edge of my bed, resting her hand on my foot. "You knew we had an adjustment scheduled. You were supposed to report to Estero."
I sit up as an excuse to pull my foot away. Her thumbnail scrapes across my ankle as I do. I've no clue what's been changed in this time "adjustment," as she likes to call them, aside from the possible removal of Kate. My jaw tightens at that thought. There's no way I'm accepting that Kate no longer exists. Maybe the time shift just keeps us from meeting?
"Kind of hard to get to Estero when my key's been stolen, Pru. The last thing I remember is getting my head bashed in the alley by a bunch of thugs. They took my stuff, including my medallion. I'm not even sure how I got here."
She lets out a dramatic sigh. "I had no idea! I told Simon to peek in on you a few hours ago when you didn't arrive. All he could see was shadows through something red, so he called me." She points to the curtain, now strewn across the floor. "Why was that thing blocking the view?"
"How would I know? I don't remember putting it up, Pru. If I did, it's probably because I don't like Simon or anyone else watching me while I sleep."
The main reason I put it up was Kate's distrust that Pru would keep clear of us. I made Pru erase the stable point she'd set for this room from her CHRONOS medallion when she found out about Kate—my equivalent of asking her to return the key to my apartment, I guess. The curtain was just a bit of insurance. You can't hear what's going on when you preview a stable point before a jump—just see it—so a curtain actually afforded us a bit of privacy. Pru must have had Simon or someone break in and reset it. Probably when they busted down my door…something my mind still insists happened, even though I can see that the frame is unbroken.
"Listen, Pru, my head's killing me. I think I have a concussion or something. It's like my memory…parts of it are there. I mean, I remember you. I remember us, but…"
While I hope she'll think this is from my not being under a CHRONOS field when the shift happened, much of it's the honest truth. My head throbs every time I move it and even harder when I try to concentrate. And I do remember more than I'd like—definitely more than Kate would like—about Prudence. Although that relationship was at least a dozen years ago for this version of Pru, it was only two years ago for me. Back then, she was just a confused kid who felt betrayed by her family, and unsure of the role she was expected to play in building this grand new Cyrist future her father was planning. She was frequently angry in those days—that seems to be a fairly persistent personality trait for Pru—but there was also a certain vulnerability. Crazy wasn't added to the mix until later. Still, I'm amazed her mind is functional at all. Who knows how many different sets of memories she's juggling in her head at this age?
Pru slides closer to me, holding her medallion up to my head like a flashlight and pushing my hair out of way so that she can pull up the corner of the bandage. "God, Kiernan. That needs stitches or it's going to scar. There was no cause for him—for whoever did this—to hit you that hard."
"It'd be difficult to knock me unconscious with gentle tap on the head, Pru. And I wouldn't have let them take my stuff without a fight."
"Have you seen a doctor? Who patched you up?"
"I don't know." There's no way I'm mentioning Jess. I'm not sure whether Prudence knows I'm still in contact with him, and the last thing I need is her snooping around right now, when he has memories of a timeline that he shouldn't even know exists.
"I can't remember much of anything," I repeat. "I remember getting hit in an alley. I don't know how I got there. And everything about the past year or so is bits and pieces. I remember y
ou. Nuevo Reino. Simon. My mom…she died." I'm sure of it in the other timeline, but as I speak, I feel a tiny spark of hope as I realize that may have changed. "Right?"
Prudence nods. "About a year ago." Her eyes narrow a bit as she speaks, deepening the creases at the edges. I suspect she's thinking about our last, very unpleasant, conversation on the issue of my mother's death and trying to gauge how much of that I remember, so I keep my face as neutral as I can.
"And today is…?"
"July…" She runs her hand over the top of her key to check the date. "It's July 14th. You're saying the last year is a blank?"
I shake my head, wincing when the throbbing increases. "No. Like I said, I remember some things. It's like a jigsaw with a bunch of pieces missing. We had a fight. I don't know why, though."
There's a long pause, and then she moves closer.
"Just a silly lover's quarrel. You don't remember any of it?"
"No," I say, even though I remember every detail of that conversation.
She smiles slightly, then runs her hand along the side of my face. Her eyes are too wide, too bright, her expressions exaggerated like she's performing on stage. I flinch at her touch, then remind myself I need to put up with it. If Kate's somewhere out there, and I have to believe that she is, Prudence probably knows where. Sticking close to Pru is the best chance I've got of finding Kate.
Pru moves even closer, sliding her hand down to my chest. "We cleared that up months ago, babe. It was all my fault. I told you I wanted to see other people—that we should take a break. I was wrong. I figured that out pretty quick. You were right when you said we belong together."
The words are correct, but she's managed to flip the conversation entirely on its head. I can still see her standing in the corner—a much younger Pru, barely twenty years old—screaming You're mine, damn you. You can't leave me. We belong together, before her pride finally kicked in and she told me to go to hell.