The Locket (16 page)

“Anyway, the wedding seems like it should be fun,” he continued, not seeming to notice my angst. “I get to have an entire table at the reception for my friends. You and Isaac are invited, of course.”

“That should be fun.”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes drifting across the yard. “And I was thinking of inviting Sarah too if you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind? I love Sarah.”

Mitch’s eyes flicked back to mine. “So you two are still good?”

“Yeah, why shouldn’t we be?” I asked.

He paused a second too long before shrugging. “Cool. Then I’ll invite her and the rest of the band and we’ll have a full table.”

“Great.” But it wasn’t great. There was something Mitch wasn’t telling me.

Just like Natalie. Could I afford to keep letting people lie to me?

“I’ve got to go. My gran’s here and I’m supposed to be visiting and catching up and stuff.” I backed away from the tree house, eyes on the ground.

Maybe people
were
lying to me, but right now I couldn’t handle the truth if it meant Sarah—or Isaac—had betrayed me. And besides, I knew Isaac well enough to know he hadn’t . . .
cheated
on me. He’s like an open book. I would know. In any event, I had to keep thinking the locket had made mostly positive changes in my life or I was going to lose my mind before this do over was finished.

“See you,” Mitch said. “And thanks again. For real.”

I forced a little smile and hurried back to the house and in through the sliding back door, grateful for the warm air and the someone’s-been-cooking-good-things smell that always lingered in our kitchen. At least my house had stayed the same, no matter what. The giant oak table still glowed faintly gold in the dining room, the wallpaper still sported way too many red flowers, and the grandfather clock near the stairs ticked comfortingly in the silence.

Grandfather. I was suddenly possessed by the need to look at the picture of Gran and Grandpa again. It was obvious no one was home—Gran must have decided to go to work with Dad this morning, and Mom had to go to a baby shower this afternoon—but I could at least look at the picture and see if
something
was back to normal.

I pulled the locket from beneath my shirt and flipped it open, rushing through the anxious moment like a kid ripping off a Band-Aid. It hurts less when you rip them off.

But seeing the picture didn’t hurt any less than it would have if I’d taken an hour to open the locket. There was no way to lessen the impact of seeing Grandpa’s picture flicker, shifting from my clean-shaven, brown-haired Grandpa to the blond man with the mustache and back again, right before my eyes. It was like one of those hologram stickers I’d had when I was little, the ones you tilt back and forth to change the image, but I wasn’t touching the picture.

It was changing all on its own, as if reality couldn’t make up its mind which version of events it should go with this time around. As if time itself were short circuiting, skipping like a scratched CD.

The impact of such a thing was almost too big to comprehend, but it wasn’t too big to fear. I slammed the locket closed, pulse thudding erratically in my throat.

Trembling, I fumbled at the clasp of the locket, but I should have known better by now. It wasn’t going to come off the normal way. I was going to have to try more extreme measures.

I grabbed a pair of scissors from the junk drawer in the kitchen and hurried to the downstairs bathroom. In the mirror, my eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, like an anime sketch brought to life. It looked like they’d bulge straight out of my head as I slipped the locket’s chain between the blades of the scissors and squeezed.

Again and again, I sawed away at the delicate links. Ten minutes later, I had nothing to show for it but sore fingers. The locket wasn’t the slightest bit damaged, despite the fact that my scissors looked like they’d lost a battle with a garbage disposal.

I might never get the locket off.
Never
. Even though the necklace had saved someone today, the thought was terrifying. What if I had to wear it for the rest of my life? What if it kept pulling me back into the past with no warning? What if the world never returned to normal, but was always changing, flickering back and forth like a candle I couldn’t trust not to blow out at any second? What if waiting for that flame to die really made me crazy?

The scissors fell into the sink with an ominous clatter. I buried my face in my hands, praying the world as I knew it wasn’t about to come crashing down around me.

Chapter Twelve

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1:15 P.M.

P
opularity, I was discovering, was a lot like the plague. It triggered fever, chills, unexplained sweating, was highly contagious, and might be the death of me within seventy-two hours.

I’d been a “heroine” for less than four full days and I already felt like hurling myself off the Shelby Street Bridge. I wasn’t meant to sit in the spotlight for so long. It made me a mass of symptoms.
Plague
symptoms.

I’d alerted my mother to the fragile state of her daughter’s health this morning, but not even my
slight
fever of 99.2 could convince her to let me stay home. The Catholic school where she taught first grade was on fall break and she and Gran—who was still suffering from amnesia regarding the locket—had plans to cook ten zillion cran-apple pies for the fall festival.

Mom didn’t want me lurking in the kitchen stealing piecrust— which is totally what I’d be doing if life were normal. Of course, life
wasn’t
normal, but Mom didn’t know that and there was no way I could tell her. So I’d been forced to drag my anxiety-ridden self to school after thanking her for spending one of her days off ensuring I did my part for the Junior League.

I was working the Junior League bake sale at the Belle Meade fall festival on Saturday instead of the cakewalk table, compliments of my newfound platinum status and Rachel Pruitt’s continuing favor. Mom had stepped up to contribute twenty of her famous pies to the charity of the moment . . . whatever that was. I’d been told, but I’d forgotten. It was the kind of thing I’d usually be really interested in, but I couldn’t seem to remember anything lately. I wasn’t sleeping and when I did, I had horrible dreams, nightmares of looking into the mirror and finding my face covered in locket-shaped burns, my mouth sealed shut with scar tissue.

A part of me was certain life as I knew it was over forever.

My new friends, however, had bigger things to worry about.

“Seriously, Khaki is really letting herself go.” Ally brushed on another coat of I Don’t Do Dishes polish and blew on her nails. “Her roots are at least two inches long.”

“I don’t think she’s been waxing either,” Melissa said, flicking the leftover sprinkles from our cupcake project off the table onto the floor. Antara and Anika, my old tablemates seated the next row over, glared at the orange and white specks. They were both clean freaks. I avoided catching their eyes, knowing I’d feel obligated to pick up Melissa’s mess if I did. “Her eyebrows are about to meet in the middle.”

“Maybe you guys should give her the makeover this afternoon,” I said, as nervous as I always was whenever I dared speak in my present company. Years of platinum-inspired terror didn’t vanish in a few days. I still braced myself for eye rolling every time I opened my mouth. “The hair on my face is so blonde, I don’t even look like I have eyebrows, so—”

Melissa laughed and flicked a sprinkle my way. “You are hysterical. I love you.”

“Me too,” Natalie agreed. She was actually eating a cupcake, the only one of the senior girls willing to risk sugar intake so close to the fashion show tomorrow night.

“Me three. I’m so glad you sit with us now!” Ally grinned at me, artificially whitened teeth so bright I had to squint a bit to look her full in the face. “But of course we’re making you over today. You look fine now, but come six o’clock tonight, you are going to be drop-dead fabulous.”

“Made of awesome with wicked hot on the side,” Melissa concurred, then turned the conversation back to Khaki, the cheerleader in need of bleach and wax. “So we have to stage an intervention with Kak Attack. She’s becoming an embarrassment to the squad.”

I nodded along with the rest of girls and tried to think of some way to contribute to the conversation. Like it or not, I was now seated at the popular girls’ table in family and consumer sciences—aka home economics. Our teacher, Mrs. Van Tassel, refused to acknowledge her class’s more politically correct title. And why should she? We baked cakes, poached eggs, and sewed aprons, just like my mom did when she was in Van Tassel’s class however many years ago.

Today, we’d made harvest cupcakes that were supposed to look like pumpkins. Being icing challenged and not really motivated to improve, my half dozen looked more like deflated basketballs than pumpkins. But who cared? The space-time continuum was probably on the verge of collapse. I had more important things to stress about than cupcakes.

I’d put some extra sprinkles on mine and called it quits.

Now I just had to survive another fifteen minutes of socializing before the bell rang without making a fool out of myself. Rachel was gone—she’d snagged a pass to go check on the state of the theater—so it shouldn’t have been as difficult as usual. But still, no matter how nice it was to fit in with Isaac’s crowd . . . I couldn’t help but shoot a longing look at my old table.

Antara and her twin sister, Anika, spent most of the period talking to each other in their weird twin language and cleaning the table obsessively, but they’d never made me feel this on edge. I kept ducking my head, hoping no one would notice my blond brows had been allowed to go free range all over my forehead. I’d never waxed a single part of me. “Live hairy and let live hairy” was my motto. I was the type of girl who considered winter an excellent excuse not to shave my legs. Who was I to judge Khaki?

I found myself twisting the chain of the locket around my finger until it cut off the circulation, a bad habit I’d gotten into ever since the night of my failed locket amputation.

“Great necklace! I love it.” Natalie leaned over and tapped the locket with her pencil, jolting me back into my body.

“Thanks. It was my grandmother’s.” My fingers brushed across the locket’s cool, smooth surface.

I’d started wearing it outside my clothes, a part of me hoping that other people seeing it might take away its power. At least enough to allow me to take it off and put it somewhere safe.

Stress about the fragility of time aside, I couldn’t deny the locket had made my life better—I had Isaac back, Mitch was my friend, Rachel was alive, and I was on my way to being a fully accepted and popularity-approved platinum. I didn’t want to get rid of the locket . . . I just wanted to know that I
could
take it off. If I wanted to.

“It’s gorgeous,” Natalie said, snagging another cupcake.

At this rate she wouldn’t have any cakes left to grade when Van Tassel finally made it to the back of the room. Not that it mattered. Everyone got an automatic A in this class. It was a big reason I’d taken it in the first place—aside from wanting to learn how to bake as well as my mom. I needed every A I could get this year if I hoped to get into whatever Division I college offered Isaac a scholarship.

“And it’s going to be perfect with your dress for the finale,” Melissa said, leaning in for a closer look.

“My dress for the finale?” I squeaked, praying I’d misheard her.

“Oh my God, you’re right,” Ally said. “It’s a different color, but with the same swirly things and everything.”

“But I’m running the lights,” I protested. “I can’t be in the finale.”

Natalie paused mid-cupcake lick and turned to me. “Sarah said she’d do the lights for you, remember? Because the sound is already programmed and all she has to do is hit play?”

“She did?” My heart did the seizure thing that had become horribly familiar lately.

“Yeah, silly. Remember, right after practice on Saturday?”

“Oh. Right.” I nodded, but I didn’t remember that conversation at all. Was that because I’d been distracted and freaked out by Rachel’s near death experience and not paying attention? Or was Natalie confused?

Or was reality tipping back and forth like kids on a teeter-totter, flickering like my grandfather’s picture?

“It’s an awesome dress,” Melissa assured me, mistaking my terror for fashion-related anxiety.

“Just a sec. Rachel made me take a picture of it to show Yin’s mom this afternoon,” Ally said, digging in her purse. “She wants to make sure your highlights won’t clash.” She punched a few buttons on her iPhone and pushed it across the table. “Here. Gorgeous, right?”

The burnt orange silk dress was a 1960s cocktail number with a flared skirt decorated with brown filigree embroidery. It was intricate, expensive looking, and a little ridiculous but probably one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It would certainly be the most beautiful thing I’d ever worn.

But Ally was right . . . the filigree pattern mimicked the swirls on the outside of the locket exactly.
Perfectly.
As if they had been made to go together.

Maybe, once I put the dress on tomorrow night, I wouldn’t be able to take it off either. Maybe I’d spend the rest of my life wandering around in a cocktail dress, wearing a locket no one could remember giving me, raving to myself about what things “used to be like” before I’d traveled through time. I’d probably end up in a homeless shelter with a bad bedbug infestation, smelling like I was brought up in a barn.

“You okay, Katie?” Natalie asked, big blue eyes concerned, though she continued licking orange icing off her cupcake.

“Just need to run to the bathroom. Girl time. Be right back.” I stood and hurried to the front of the room, grabbing the oversized pink key that served as the girls’ bathroom pass for Van Tassel’s room, silently berating myself for giving too much information.

Why did I have to say that? Who even called their period their “girl time” anymore? Dorks like me, that’s who. It was only a matter of time before Ally and Natalie and Mel figured out I wasn’t funny or cool but the same awkward doofus I’d been before. If I wasn’t so messed up about the locket, the stress of waiting to be dork-scovered would probably have driven me off the deep end anyway.