She glanced over after a few minutes. “Oh, Kate. I’m glad to see you’re awake, dear. I was beginning to worry.”
“The little blue pills,” I said, my head still quite fuzzy. “In my bag. They’re… nice.”
“I see,” Katherine replied, a hint of a smile touching the edges of her mouth as she sat on the side of my bed. “And where did you get the nice little blue pills? Connor filled me in on the day before you left. I’ve told him what I now remember from our adventure at the Expo. But neither of us know what happened to you after I climbed out that window.”
My lips were very dry and I asked for a glass of water first. After a few sips, I put the glass back on the nightstand. “Kiernan,” I said. “He gave me the medicine. He got me out of the hotel.”
“But how?” she said. “He was a very bright little boy, but I don’t see how that hotel could possibly have been standing when he got back. All of the historical accounts that I read—”
“He was a remarkable little boy,” I interrupted. “And he’s a remarkable young man.”
I gave her a brief synopsis to fill in the missing pieces, having to pause repeatedly to keep my brain on track. It felt like I was reaching through fog to find phrases to string together, and they never came out quite the way I’d planned. I must have dozed off for a few minutes at some point, because when I opened my eyes, Katherine had returned to the couch and was again reading her book.
“Where was I?” I asked.
“You were explaining Kiernan’s plan—or was it your plan?—for repossessing CHRONOS keys, when you drifted off between words,” she said, setting the book aside on the sofa. “After what you’ve been through the past few days, I was a bit afraid you might decide that you were done with us. You’ve got your life back for the most part and Prudence seems to have given you at least a limited degree of—immunity, I guess. You could walk away, you know.”
The thought hadn’t really occurred to me, but now that she’d spoken the words aloud, I was surprised that it hadn’t. I could return to my life before Katherine showed up with the medallion. Mom was back, Dad was Dad again—
“Charlayne?” I asked.
Katherine looked confused for a moment and then shook her head. “I haven’t checked, but I’m pretty sure nothing has changed for her.”
I asked her to bring me the computer, and after a brief search I pulled up the same wedding photo, the Cyrist emblem clear and distinct against Charlayne’s dark skin. Saving Katherine had fixed my life, but whatever happened with Charlayne’s family was entirely separate.
I pushed the computer to the side and looked back at Katherine. “Connor’s kids? They’re still gone, right?”
She nodded.
“Then you’re wrong—I really don’t have a choice.” The truth was, even if no one I cared about was personally affected in this timeline, I knew that I could never just sit by and watch as the Cyrists drew more converts and moved closer to some sort of mass genocide. Walking away wasn’t an option.
“So—what about you?” I asked, shifting slightly in the bed. The medicine was fading, which was both good and bad—words were less slippery, but the pain was also returning. “Do you remember anything from the day after the shift… after Simon?”
“I remember holding out the medallion to that foul cretin. And Trey…” She stopped, giving me a sad smile before continuing. “Trey’s car had just pulled up. I didn’t see any choice other than to have faith. Faith that Trey would move any mountain he had to in order to save you from Simon. Faith that Connor would work his magic with the boundary. Faith that you would be able to fix this timeline. I’ve never been good at that—at giving up control to others—but it seems to have worked this time.”
“But you remember being in the hotel and running from Holmes… and everything that happened that night. Isn’t that… disconcerting? I mean, you have two sets of memories.”
“It is a rather odd feeling,” she said. “But all of that happened so long ago. I do remember wondering whose daughter you would be—Deborah’s or Prudence’s—when the two of them were small. My bet was on Prudence, given the resemblance, until she disappeared.”
Katherine fell silent for a moment and then asked, “Prudence wasn’t in on it, then? She was trying to save me?”
I debated lying to protect her feelings, but I knew it wouldn’t serve much purpose. “She was saving you in order to protect herself, Katherine. And maybe to protect Mom. It definitely wasn’t out of any sentimental ties to you, or to me, for that matter. I got the feeling she thinks you traded her off in some sort of a custody battle. But I do think she’ll keep them from going after you again—at least until she finds out I’m still trying to stop the Cyrists.”
Katherine bit her lip but nodded. “Which means we’re going to have to move very carefully this time.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
I was quiet for a moment, not sure how to broach the subject that was nibbling away at the back of my mind, but I finally just decided to tackle it head-on. “You handled it okay, didn’t you? Having two different sets of memories? So how can you be so sure that Trey wouldn’t have handled it, too?” I could hear the petulant tone in my voice and didn’t really like it, but it was hard not to feel a bit cheated.
“I can’t know anything for certain,” she admitted. “But Trey doesn’t have the CHRONOS gene. And with me, we’re not talking about recent memories. Even something as vivid as being trapped in a burning hotel with a serial killer hot on your heels fades after a while, so it’s not quite the same as two conflicting sets of memories. It’s more like reading an old diary and remembering things you’d forgotten you knew. Or remembering both the truth about an event and a lie you’ve told so many times to so many people that both versions seem equally real. Does that make sense?”
“No,” I admitted. “Not really. But I’ve kind of gotten used to things not making sense. I’ve decided the only way to stay sane is to just roll with the punches.”
“I’m afraid that reconciling the past month will be a more difficult task than reconciling the distant past. Connor and I have been talking about the best way to adjust our own little slice of the timeline. The only reasonable thing is to have you go back to the day of the time shift—otherwise, your mom and dad are going to be very worried.”
Mom. Dad. It felt unbelievably good to hear those words and be reminded that I was back in a world where I had parents again.
“You’ve been gone for over a month in this timeline, at least from their perspective, and this way, we can spare them that agony.” Katherine traced her fingers along the edge of my bandage. “I took a peek while you were asleep and applied a bit more of the hydrogel to the two spots on your scalp. The burn on your neck is pretty deep, but I don’t think the scar will be major after a few weeks. It would have been a very different situation if Kiernan hadn’t been prepared. So any ideas for a cover story that your parents might buy?”
I thought about it for a moment. “Maybe we could pass it off as an idiot with hot coffee on the Metro? I could tell Mom that I just had a cab bring me here, rather than trying to find Dad on campus. And you took me to an urgent care…?”
“If we give it another day or maybe two, to heal, I think that might be plausible,” she said. “And then, once you’re settled with them, I think it might be best if Connor and I made ourselves scarce for a few weeks—fewer points of overlap for you and for us. We’ll tell Harry and Deborah that there was a last-minute opening with an experimental drug trial in Europe.”
“I’m going to tell Dad everything, Katherine. I mean, he’ll be living here, so we’d be lying to him constantly. I’m not good at that, so we can tell Mom the cover story, but—”
I broke off suddenly. Her comment about a drug trial had finally reached my brain, and it reminded me of my conversation with Kiernan. “You’re cancer-free in the other timeline, Katherine. Kiernan was certain of it. Can you think of any reason why you’d be sick in one timeline but not in the other? I know that there are some environmental causes for cancer, but they don’t develop suddenly, do they? I thought something like that would take years to develop.”
“It should,” she agreed, looking a bit stunned. “The only time I was outside of the protection of a medallion after Prudence disappeared was during a hospital stay when they were doing a biopsy. I was adamant that I needed to keep it on me at all times—I told them it was a religious medal. But when I came to, the medallion had been placed in the plastic bag with my other belongings.”
She was silent for a moment and then shook her head as though to clear it. “Just one more thing to think about when Connor and I go on our little vacation, I guess. Do you think you could keep an eye on Daphne for us?”
Daphne thumped her tail once at the sound of her name and then went straight back to her nap. I laughed. “I don’t know, Katherine. She’s a real handful. Of course, we’ll watch her. Dad won’t mind staying here on the nights I’m with Mom. The kitchen might actually get some real use for a change.”
Just the mention of food started a rumble in my stomach. “Speaking of food… I’m starving. Is there anything to eat?”
“I saw half of a large deli sandwich, if that sounds okay?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking that Connor must have already raided the fridge at least once if all that was left from O’Malley’s was half a sandwich. “That sounds amazing. And chips. And a banana or anything else you can find. It’s been at least twenty-four hours since I’ve eaten.”
Katherine started toward the door and then turned around, crossing back to the couch. She opened the cover of the book she’d been reading and took out a computer disk. It was sealed in a white disk envelope, with my name in large letters across the flap.
“I found this on the porch, right next to the door. I’m guessing it’s from Trey?” She walked back over to me and placed the disk on top of the computer. “I really am sorry about Trey, Kate. But I still think it was for the best.”
I closed my eyes until I heard the door shut behind her and then picked up the disk. I was pretty sure it was just the Cyrist financial information that Trey’s dad had promised to give him, but I held it against my lips for a moment before opening it. My hands weren’t very steady as I opened the envelope and placed the disk in the drive. I expected to see a file directory, but after a couple of seconds Trey’s face popped up, and my breath caught in my throat. He was wearing the same shirt that he’d worn that last night. His gray eyes were a bit red around the edges, and he looked dog-tired, but he smiled into the webcam.
“Hey, pretty girl. If you’re seeing this, you’ve successfully saved the world, just like I knew you would. And if you’re seeing this, I’m probably only a few miles away, but totally oblivious to the fact that I made this video and that the most beautiful girl in the world is watching it. But I’m missing you, Kate. Even if I don’t know it, I’m missing you.”