Rewinder (20 page)

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.”

__________

U
PON 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.”

“Of course it’s possible. No one knows history better than us. The others are already working on it so one of you will track it down. When we know where the point is, we’ll go back and fix it ourselves if we have to.”

She’s right. Someone’s going to figure it out, and when that happens, I’ll be exposed.

“We could end up making it worse,” I say, trying to come up with anything that will delay the inevitable.

She stares at me as if trying to read my thoughts. “Are you saying you like it here?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. This isn’t home. It’s a mistake.” To me, every word that comes out of my mouth sounds fake, and I’m sure my attempt to deflect attention is doing the exact opposite.

But her face relaxes as she says, “You’re right. It is a mistake. That’s why we need to fix it.”

“I’ll, um, do all I can.”

“Yes, you will.” She pulls open the drawer of the narrow nightstand by my bed, shifts the Bible that’s inside, and then shoves the drawer shut. “Isn’t there any paper in this place?”

I pull a sheet from my satchel. “Here.”

She takes it and stares at me. “Not going to do me any good without something to write with.”

“Of course.” I give her my pen.

Using the nightstand, she scribbles something on the paper and then hands it and the pen back to me. She’s written a location number and the date May 12, 1702.

“When you have something, report here. The point is well before when we think the change occurred. We’ll use it for our safe zone when we change everything back.”

“It may take me a little while to figure out.”

“You have four days.”

“That might not be enough.”

“If it isn’t, we’ll reassess. But I’ll be leaving right at the deadline, so if someone does find the answer, then whoever’s not at the meeting point when I arrive will be left behind. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you’re still
here
when we fix the problem.”

No, she didn’t.

“You have until Friday at noon, East Coast time,” she says. “What is that? Eight o’clock here?”

“Nine,” I say.

“All right. Nine a.m., then. Are we clear on everything?”

“Yes. Very clear.”

“Good. Then I’ll let you get to work. See you in the past.” She whips out her Chaser and winks out of my room.

I sit in my chair, staring at the space where she was, half expecting her to reappear and point an accusatory finger at me.

The sudden desire to be anywhere but this room is what finally gets me to push off my chair. I fold Lidia’s note and shove it in my pocket. My fingers touch another scrap of paper. When I pull it out, I see it’s the message Iffy left me.

Her address.

A place that’s not here.

Something’s coming!
Iffy’s words.

Something came, all right.

I shove my few possessions into my satchel, pull it over my shoulder, and leave my dingy hotel room for the last time.

CHAPTER
TWENTY

U
SING A MAP
I purchase near my hotel, I make my way to the address in Hollywood from Iffy’s note. There, I find a three-story house with green wooden siding and a large, dimly lit stone porch.

As I walk up to the door, I wonder if I’m making a mistake. Maybe I should find another hotel and lock myself away until I can figure out what to do. But I can’t stop myself from knocking.

A beautiful woman of African descent opens the door. “Hello,” she says with mild surprise. “Something I can help you with?”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I think I might be at the wrong place,” I say.

“Who are you looking for?”

“A girl. Her name’s Iffy.”

“Not the wrong place. What’s your name?”

“Denny.”

“Of course it is.” Turning slightly, she calls, “Carl, can you tell Iffy her guest is here?”

From somewhere inside, a male voice says, “Sure.”

The woman opens the door wider. “Come in, Denny.”

She leads me into a large living room that features a wide stone fireplace. The couch and chairs are leather while the small tables are stained dark brown. A blonde woman is sitting in one of the chairs, probably ten years younger than the woman who answered the door.

“Catherine, this is Denny. Iffy’s friend.”

The woman smiles as she rises from her chair and holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Denny.”

We shake.

“And I’m Marilyn,” the first woman says. “Please have a seat.”

I sit on the couch but perch near the edge.

Marilyn takes one of the overstuffed chairs. “So, you’re Denny?”

“Uh, yes.”

“She described you well.”

“She what?”

Marilyn smiles as she reaches forward and pats my hand. “It was all very innocent. Don’t worry.”

“She told you about me?”

“Only that she made a new friend and that you’d be stopping by tonight.”

“What do you do, Denny?” Catherine asks.

“Do?” I say.

“Your profession.”

“I’m a…student.”

“Oh. Which school?”

The only answer I can think of is one I saw on a sign at the library. “University of Southern California.”

That garners raised eyebrows from both Marilyn and Catherine.

“My, USC. You must be a smart one,” Marilyn says.

“Or rich,” Catherine throws in. “Let me guess—business school?”

My lies have been coming so fast and thick that I feel the need to say something closer to the truth. “History.”

“That’s…interesting,” Marilyn says. “What do you plan to do with that?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you graduate. What kind of job do you get with a degree in history? Teacher?”

I’m saved from burying myself under even more lies by the arrival of Iffy and a man I assume is Carl.

“Hi,” she says as I shoot to my feet.

“Hi.”

The awkward silence that follows is broken by Marilyn. “Perhaps we should give you two the living room.”

“That’s okay,” Iffy says. “We’ll go to my room.” She waves for me to follow her.

As we leave, Catherine says, “He’s cute, Iffy. Nice catch.”

“Leave them be,” Marilyn chides.

Once we’re out of the living room, Iffy grabs my hand and guides me up a set of stairs, all the way to the single room at the top of the house on the third floor.

The ceiling slants in either direction from the high point in the middle, convincing me this was once an attic. The shortened walls to either side are lined with bookcases stuffed to overflowing. A mattress lies on the floor at the far end under an opened window, the only other piece of furniture being a dresser near the stairs.

She leads me to the mattress. “We can sit here.”

As I lower myself, I say, “So I guess you knew I was coming.”

An uncomfortable nod.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You’re not crazy.”

“You don’t know me very well.”

She’s right about that.

“The something I warned you about happened, didn’t it?” she asks.

Instead of answering, I say, “I came because you said there was a room.”

Her lower lip slips between her teeth and she looks away.

“There is a room, right?”

She half nods, half shrugs.

“Can I use it? Who do I need to talk to? Marilyn?”

“Uh…”