Stefan sighed. "I know he's not here, Elena. His aunt and uncle haven't been here either, not for several days, at least."
"They're out of town," Elena said automatical y. "Aunt Judith talked to them yesterday."
"That's good," Stefan said grimly. "Then they're safe." He cast a worried glance up and down the street. "You're sure Caleb won't be out of the hospital today?"
"Yes," said Elena acidly. "He was too injured. They're keeping him for observation."
Elena got out of the car, slammed the door, and marched toward the Smal woods' house, not looking back to see whether Stefan was fol owing.
He caught up to her instantly. She cursed his vampiric speed in her head and walked faster.
"Elena," he said, circling in front of her and forcing her to a stop. "Are you angry that I want to keep you safe?"
"No," she said scathingly. "I'm angry that you almost kil ed Caleb Smal wood."
Stefan's face sagged with exhaustion and sorrow, and Elena instantly felt guilty. Whatever was going on with Stefan, he stil needed her. But she didn't know how to deal with his violence. She'd fal en in love with Stefan for his poetic soul, for his gentleness. Damon was the dangerous one. Dangerous looks much better on Damon than it does on Stefan, a dry observing voice at the back of her mind said, and Elena couldn't deny the truth of it.
"Just show me what you wanted me to see," she final y said.
Stefan sighed, then turned and led her up the drive of the Smal woods' house. She had expected him to go to the Smal woods' front door, but he cut around the side of the house and toward a smal shed in the backyard.
"The toolshed?" asked Elena quizzical y. "Do we have a lawn mowing emergency we need to address before breakfast?"
Stefan ignored her joke and went to the shed door. Elena noticed that a padlock that had held the double door shut had been wrenched apart, pul ed to pieces. A half loop of metal hung uselessly from the shackle. Stefan had clearly broken in earlier.
Elena fol owed him in. At first, after the dew-bright morning outside, she couldn't see anything in the dimness of the shed. Gradual y, she realized that the wal s of the shed were lined with loose papers. Stefan reached out and shoved the doors wider, letting the sunshine stream into the space.
Elena peered at the papers on the wal s and then stepped back with a sharp gasp: The first thing she had been able to make out was a picture of her own face. She yanked the paper off the wal and looked at it more closely. It was a clipping from the local paper, showing her dressed in a silver gown, dancing in Stefan's arms. The caption under the picture read: "Robert E. Lee High School prom queen Elena Gilbert and prom king Stefan Salvatore."
Prom queen? Despite the seriousness of the situation, her lips curled up in a smile. She real y had finished high school in a blaze of glory, hadn't she?
She pul ed another clipping from the wal and her face fel . This one showed a coffin carried through the rain by pal bearers, grim-faced mourners standing by. In the crowd, Elena recognized Aunt Judith, Robert, Margaret, Meredith, and Bonnie, lips set, cheeks streaked with tears. The caption here read: "Town mourns local high school student Elena Gilbert."
Elena's fingers tightened unconsciously, crumpling the clipping. She turned to look at Stefan. "This shouldn't be here," she said, a note of hysteria creeping into her voice.
"The Guardians changed the past. There shouldn't be any newspaper articles or anything left."
Stefan stared back at her. "I know," he said. "I've been thinking, and the best guess I can make is that maybe the Guardians just changed people's minds. They wouldn't see any evidence of what we asked the Guardians to erase. They'd just see what supported their new memories, the memories of a normal smal town and of a bunch of ordinary teenagers. Just another school year."
Elena brandished the paper. "But then why is this here?"
Stefan dropped his voice. "Maybe it doesn't work on everybody. Caleb's got some notes scribbled in a notebook I found, and it seems from them as though he's remembering two different sets of events. Listen to this."
Stefan scrabbled through the papers littering the floor and pul ed out a notebook. "He writes: 'There are girls in town now that I know were dead. There were monsters here. The town was destroyed, and we left before they could get us too. But now I'm back and we never left, even though no one but me remembers. Everything's normal: no monsters, no death.'"
"Hmm." Elena took the notebook from him and scanned through the pages. Caleb had lists there. Vickie Bennett, Caroline, her. Al of them. Everyone who was different in this world than in the other one. There were notes about how he remembered them - how he thought Elena was dead and what was going on now. She turned a few pages, and her eyes widened. "Stefan, listen. Tyler told him about us: 'Tyler was afraid of Stefan Salvatore. He thought he kil ed Mr. Tanner and that there was something else strange about him, something unnatural. And he thought Elena Gilbert and her friends were tangled up in whatever was going on.' And there's an asterisk referring back to Mr. Tanner being dead in one set of memories and alive in the other." Elena quickly scanned a few pages. "It looks like he focused in on us as the cause of the changes. He figured out we were at the center of everything. Because we're the people the most changed - other than the vampire and kitsune victims - and because he knew Tyler was suspicious of us, he's blaming us for Tyler's disappearance."
"Two sets of memories," Stefan repeated, frowning.
"What if Caleb's not the only one remembering both realities? What if supernatural beings, or people aware of the supernatural, weren't affected by the spel ?"