“Oh, yeah!” I said, turning back to my plate of food. “My phone is out there, too.” But when I looked at the golden, crispy fries, my reach for them hesitated. Slowly my smile evaporated, replaced by a feeling of despair.
“I’m not hungry anymore!” I wailed, and Nakita blinked at me. “Don’t you get it?” I cried, looking down at my amulet. “I was eating because my amulet wasn’t working right. Ron fixed it, and now I’m not hungry anymore!”
“Thank God for small favors,” Barnabas muttered as he pulled himself upright. “It was really gross, Madison.”
Depressed, I sank back down. “But I like eating,” I said mournfully. Darn it, it wasn’t fair! Unhappy, I fingered a French fry. Grace dropped down, warming my hand as she offered condolences the only way she could—until she thought up a poem, that was.
“There once was a girl who liked fries,” Grace started, and Barnabas made an exasperated sound.
“Your wallet, Madison?” Nakita offered.
“Yeah, right.” I muttered, and I stood.
“Sorry, Madison,” Shoe said, clearly not understanding why fries were so important to me, but knowing I was upset.
“It’s okay.” Head down, I angled toward the door, slowing as my amulet seemed to grow heavy, warm almost, but a sudden thought pulled me to a stop. How had Nakita known my wallet was in the truck?
Suspicious, I spun back to the table, my guess borne out when I saw Barnabas’s eyes had silvered.
“What…wait!” I exclaimed, lurching back to the table. “Shoe! Don’t look at him!”
Barnabas’s head swiveled to me. A drop of fear slid through me at his alien eyes, silver and glowing with a holy light. Across the table from him, Shoe gasped, breaking the grip Barnabas had on him and dropping his head. Ace was already staring vacantly, his lips parted, clearly still under Barnabas’s influence.
“Madison!” Barnabas barked, eyes still glowing as Shoe rubbed his face and blinked.
I tugged Shoe up and out of the booth. “Not Shoe,” I said. “I promised him he could remember.”
Barnabas’s jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. “Madison…” he grumbled, his eyes again a steady brown.
“Yeah, that’s my name,” I said hotly. “Mad Madison. I say Shoe can remember, and I’m your boss.”
Grace made a long oooooh sound, and the second guardian angel on the light fixture went quiet, her wings stilling to make her vanish. Barnabas’s eyes narrowed as he turned in the seat and looked me up and down. “No, you’re not,” he said, and Nakita scuffed her feet behind me. “I’m grim. Anytime I want, I’m out of here.”
He wouldn’t, I thought, panicking. “Oh, yeah?” I said, almost daring him.
“Yeah,” Barnabas said, clearly not happy.
Beside me, Shoe looked frightened. I took a slow breath, trying to find some way to keep from alienating Barnabas. He’d been there when I had died, tried to save me, believed in me. I trusted him, and he was probably the only person who might really understand me.
“Yeah,” I said more softly. “Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not your boss.” I turned to Nakita, seeing her eyes wide and frightened. “Nakita, I’m not yours, either, but this is my scythe, and I want Shoe to remember.”
“Yes, you are,” Nakita said immediately, the surety of her voice making Shoe frown. “I’m sworn to your will and your bidding.”
I was sooooo glad that Ace was out of it. It was embarrassing enough having Shoe hear this. “My being your boss is not the world I want to live in,” I said, trying to make her understand. Pleading now, I looked back to the table. “Barnabas, I told Shoe I’d let him remember tonight. Please.”
“I didn’t promise him,” he said tightly, but the anger directed toward me was gone.
“Please,” I tried again.
Barnabas seemed to grow smaller as he exhaled, hands gesturing loosely. “I can’t let him run around knowing what happened! It just isn’t done!”
“Why not?” I asked bluntly. “How are people supposed to make a change in their lives if they don’t remember? Dreams? That’s poppycock.”
“Poppycock?” Nakita echoed, clearly confused.
“I want Shoe and Ace both to remember,” I decided suddenly. “No fake memories for either of them.”
Barnabas looked at Ace, who was still blinking stupidly at nothing. “No!” he exclaimed, pointing a finger at me, which made the guardian angels above whisper among themselves, making bets as to how this was going to end. “Not going to happen,” he added loudly, glowering up at them as they giggled. “It’s the rules, Madison.”
I stared at him, the fingers of one hand making a slow roll of sound against the tabletop.
“Stare all you want,” Barnabas said, not looking at me. “I’m clearing their memories.”
Taking Shoe’s elbow, I moved him to stand behind me.
“Uh, Barnabas?” Nakita finally said. “I don’t think saying no to the dark timekeeper is a good idea, even if she’s wrong. She’s going to be able to stop time eventually.”
Behind me, Shoe said softly, “I want to remember.”
“Memory is all we have,” I said, trying to make Barnabas understand. “It’s why we make the choices we do. How do you expect anyone to change if you smother the past in a lie?”
Slowly Barnabas’s jaw unclenched, and I felt a stirring of victory. “It’s going to cause problems,” he warned, and I straightened, smiling.
“So what?” I said flippantly. “Shoe won’t say anything.” I spun to him. “Will you?”
Shoe was shaking his head, still worried. “No one would believe me. Grim reapers? Guardian angels? Timekeepers? They’d lock me up.”
From my other side, Nakita coaxed, “Timekeepers change for a reason, Barnabas. That’s all Madison seems to do. Change, change, change.”
Barnabas frowned again. “Get him out of here,” he muttered, and, elated, I grabbed Shoe’s arm, wondering if Barnabas was only pacifying me, planning on coming back later, when I wouldn’t know about it.
“What about Ace?” I asked, feeling ten feet tall.
“Out,” Barnabas said tightly. “You got Shoe. Ace is not an option.”
I took a breath to argue, then hesitated when Ace’s guardian angel circled Grace twice and flew to me, whispering, “Grace says, ‘There once was a boy in a diner, who thought no one else could be finer. He wasn’t that kind, almost lost his mind, till an angel became his reminder.’”
Oh, really?
Barnabas raised his eyebrows suspiciously, and, refusing to answer his unspoken question, I began backing up, stumbling when our locked gazes were broken. “Come on,” I breathed to Shoe. “I have to get my wallet.” Grabbing his hand, I tugged him to the door.
“What about Ace?” he asked, looking behind him until I turned his head away.
“Don’t look. I think Ace will be okay,” I said as the door jingled open and Nakita sighed loudly. “His guardian angel is going to block Barnabas.”
Shoe twisted to look through the plate-glass windows. “Are you sure?”
It was cooler out here, and I was glad for the lab coat as I held my arms around myself and waited. I wasn’t cold—but if I had been alive, I would have been.
“I’ve been told cherubs sit next to God,” I said, looking up at the stars and smiling. “I think a guardian angel can beat Barnabas’s skills with a stick.”
Shoe’s cough brought my attention down, and in the buzz of the security light, I met his startled gaze. “Really?” he stammered, glancing into the diner and then back to me. “Cherubs, eh?”
I shrugged. “Grace is. Just promise me you won’t say anything about tonight.”
Head down, he smiled as he scuffed his toe into the broken sidewalk. “You want me to lie?”