The next morning I wake early, gasping for air. Whatever dream I was having is lost, but the anxiety it induced still surges under my skin.
I check the time. I plan to return to the library that morning. If Iffy can find me at a random coffee shop miles away, what’s the use in hiding? But according to the clock, it’s just shy of 5:30 a.m. The library won’t be open for another four and a half hours.
As I roll on my side, I notice something’s been shoved under the door to my room. Assuming it’s a note from the proprietor, I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep. It’s a futile effort. There’s still too much adrenaline coursing through me for sleep to return anytime soon, so I shower and dress in another set of the cheap clothes I’ve purchased, and then decide I might as well head out.
The note is still waiting for me when I reach the door. I pick it up and unfold it. The message starts with an address, and below it:
That room’s still available.
Iffy
PS. I wasn’t following you.
PPS. I know you’re going back to the library today, but don’t worry. I’ll leave you alone.
I ball up the paper and toss it at the bin by the bathroom door. It hits the edge but falls onto the floor. I’m tempted to leave it there, but my mother taught me to clean up after myself and I can feel her staring at me, waiting. I pick up the note and start to drop it in the can, but stop.
The eyes I see now are not my mother’s but Iffy’s, and I know I can’t throw the note away. I press out the wrinkles, slip it into my pocket, and leave.
I start the day reading about television — what my world calls a broadset — but a line in a paragraph about a “medical documentary” sends my mind reeling.
No, you’re just dreaming. It’s not worth even thinking about it. It’s not like you could do anything with the knowledge.
But I can’t let it go, and soon find myself in the biology section of the library, where I spend the rest of the day.
As I walk out into the night after closing, the idea sparked by the documentary’s description has turned into a blazing fire. I know what I’m thinking is only a fantasy, but I could make it happen. A part of me even thinks I should make it happen. Screw everything else, it tells me. What’s really most important?
Rising above the noise of a passing bus, a voice calls, “Denny!”
I stop, my eyes closing as my chin drops to my chest. Iffy again. I don’t have the energy to run or argue.
“What do you want?” I say as I turn around.
But the girl standing there isn’t Iffy.
It’s Lidia.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I stare at her, unable to move.
Lidia.
From my timeline.
The world that is no more.
It takes everything I have to squeeze out the words, “Are you real?”
Without warning, she flies forward and throws her arms around me. This breaks my trance, though it takes me another few seconds before I hug her back. This is Lidia, after all, the girl who’s only shown me scorn until now.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
She lets go and takes a step back.
“Bernard,” she says, naming her supervisor. “He showed me how to tune my Chaser to locate other devices. It’s not perfect and I never know who I’m going to find, but…” She looks me up and down. “It led me to you.”
“Bernard, is he…?”
“He’s okay. We split up to see if we could find others.”
“Have you?”
She nods. “Last we checked with each other, Bernard had found four. I’ve found two. Well, three with you.” She pauses. “You were a little tougher to locate, actually. For a while, there were conflicting signals for your device. They seemed to be coming from both coasts and were strong enough to mask each other. I thought it was some kind of error, so I spent my time looking for others. When I checked your signal again, there was just the one.”
It was no error. It was my other self, the one lying unconscious in a New York hospital for four days — the same days I relived out here after I escaped.
She looks around. Though only a handful of people are on the sidewalk, it’s apparently too crowded for her. “Do you have someplace we can talk? Private?”
“I have a room.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
Upon entering my room, Lidia looks around with disdain. “This is the best you can do?”
This is the version of her I know.
“They didn’t ask for an ID or credit card,” I say in my defense.
“So what? I have a whole pocketful of credit cards now. I stay anywhere I want. You want me to get you a better room?”
I turn my back so she doesn’t see my annoyance. “This works for me.”
The bed squeaks as she lowers herself onto it. “Suit yourself, I guess. More your caste level anyway.”
There’s no disdain in her tone. She’s only stating the facts as she knows them, which makes me seethe even more than I would if she were trying to goad me. But I bottle it up as I pull over the rickety wooden chair that normally sits near the window.
“What have you been doing this whole time?” Lidia asks.
If her supervisor had come to find me, I’d confess that this whole new world is my fault, but I can’t say it to Lidia. The person I really wish for is Marie. If my old instructor were sitting here with me, we could figure this out together. We could—
“Marie. Did you find her?”
Lidia looks confused. “Your old trainer?”
“Yes.”
“Not that I know of. Was she on a mission?”
“I…I don’t know.”
“Well, if she was, she’d have to have been pretty far back to still be around.”
“What do you mean?”
“So far, everyone we’ve found was at least as far back as the eighteenth century when things went wrong. I think the most recent Rewinder was in 1769. Bernard and I were in 1648. When were you?”
I lie without hesitation. “Seventeen fifty-one.”
“See what I mean?” She begins to pace, which, in my room, means a four-step loop between the front door and the bathroom. “Unless we find someone who was on assignment more recently than 1769, then whatever happened must have occurred within a few years either side of that point. Bernard says that since society moved slower back then, it’s possible the change event happened before 1769.” She snaps around and looks at me. “Nothing weird going on where you were, was there?”
I dive even deeper into my lie. “I wasn’t there more than an hour. Just checking grave markers. Didn’t even talk to anyone.” This is a standard step when rewinding a family history.
“Where were you?”
The last cemetery I checked pops immediately to mind. “England. Outside Southhampton.”
“With your supervisor?”
“No. I do solo missions now.”
Her eyes narrow. “Oh, really. How nice for you.”
After a few seconds, she resumes carving a path across my floor.
I let her make a couple of passes before I ask, “Do you really think a Rewinder did this?”
She looks at me as if I’m the stupidest person on the planet. “Look around you. Everything’s changed! History shifted! Who the hell else could have done it?” She takes a deep breath. Her tone’s more controlled when she speaks again, but it’s still infused with anger. “Bernard and I are going to find whoever it is, and once that person has fixed this mess, they’re going to pay for what they’ve done.”
“What if you can’t find them?”
“Oh, we’ll find them.” She looks at me. “And you’re going to help us.”
“Me? How?”
“By finding out exactly when the break occurred.”
“That might be impossible.”