by Jana Miller
“Yes. Though yours are way less noticeable now. You’re obviously good at it.” She peered at me. “And now we’re feeling them from somebody new. You’ve felt the new ones the last couple months?”
I nodded.
“There’s another person pulling time, and we don’t know who it is. I thought you might have noticed them, or might know something about it.”
I did, of course, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. It wasn’t my secret to share. I deflected by going on the offense. “So after all these years, this is the only reason you’re willing to talk to me about it? Because you have questions and wanted to get information out of me?” I didn’t bother masking the bitterness in my voice.
Leah pressed her lips together, absorbing the accusation before responding. “No. Well, not about the new springbacks. I’ve actually—already asked you about that.”
I swallowed. For some reason, this felt worse than anything else she’d told me so far, because it was proof—proof that she’d used me. Erased conversations. Erased memories.
I almost walked away right then.
But I couldn’t leave without knowing the full story, so I just glared at her as she continued.
“I guess I did come for selfish reasons,” she confessed. “I need your help. I don’t know anybody else who might help me figure out what my mom did or how to fix it. She won’t talk about it, which is how I know it was her. Otherwise she’d be blaming everybody and trying to figure it out herself.” She shook her head. “Instead she just hides in her room and ignores my questions. I’d ask my grandpa, but he…he can’t help.” She bit her lip, waiting for me to answer, but I still didn’t know what to say. “I can’t figure it out on my own, Chloe. We need to fix it,”
“Sounds to me like your mom is the one who needs to fix it.”
Leah scoffed. “Oh, she’s definitely the one who needs to fix it,” she said bitterly. “But I don’t think she can.” She shook her head. “And either way, I doubt she cares about fixing it. She still just wants to enter it.”
Her mom sounded kind of crazy. I huffed. “So now you’ll tell me everything, since you need my help?” I asked pointedly. “If I say no, will you just rewind this whole conversation?”
“No!” She blew out a breath. “Chloe, I’m really sorry. I never meant to—I just, I didn’t think about it when we first started; I thought I was doing the right thing. And then the more I got to know you, the more I just wanted to...I don’t know, be your friend. I’ve actually been thinking about telling you for a while now.”
I studied her face, willing it to clue me in on her sincerity. How was I supposed to know? She’d known me for years, and I hadn’t ever doubted her until yesterday. Was I just a really bad judge of character?
“Look,” she continued. “I can’t say that I totally know how you feel, because I don’t. I’ve never been on that side of it, except for with my mom. She’s the only one who rewinds me. And I hate not knowing what she’s rewound, but at least I’m used to it. I know what she can do. But I’m sure that for you, this feels like—”
“Being manipulated?” I suggested. “Or betrayed?” Maybe that was overly dramatic, but I was overwhelmed.
Leah gazed at me. “I’ve never done anything to betray you,” she said evenly. “I’ve never lied to you, even though I’m sure that not letting you remember the truth feels like a lie to you. But I’ve never manipulated you or played tricks on you. I don’t spy on you. I talk to you and rewind it.”
“Seems like the same thing to me,” I retorted. “Either way, it’s a way of controlling me.”
“And you don’t do that every day?” she asked, though her voice didn’t rise with the challenge. “You don’t talk to people and rewind? You don’t use your ability to get things done? To control what people think of you?”
“I—” I didn’t think I did those things, but I’d always felt at least a small twinge of guilt with each rewind. And I did try to control what people thought of me, but not in a deceitful way. Right?
I looked away, at a loss, suddenly realizing that I had, possibly, done that with Jake. Okay, not possibly. I’d told him and then rewound. Then I’d told him again, just to get information. I’d done the exact same thing.
But it was different. I’d only done it once. And I wasn’t trying to control his rewinding.
“And I know it’s different,” Leah said after a moment, interrupting my guilty thoughts. “I know I kind of...tricked you. But I’m not going to anymore, okay?”
It didn’t change a whole lot, but I nodded, not looking at her.
I was silent for long enough that she finally prompted, “So...?”
I sighed. “How do you plan to fix it?”
“I’m not…entirely sure,” she admitted. “That’s part of the help I need: coming up with a plan.”
A car pulled up next to us and I glanced over—then did a double-take as I saw Jake opening the door to get out.
I never would have expected to be relieved to see Jake Monson, but I was.
I put up a hand, gesturing at him to stay in the car. I didn’t want him to get involved in this yet. He was already standing inside the open door though, and he gave me a confused look. “We can talk on Saturday,” I told Leah before I stepped toward the passenger’s side door.
“What about tomorrow?” she asked, suddenly sounding desperate.
I shook my head. “I need to think about it.” And talk to Jake about it. “I can meet with you on Saturday morning.” She could wait two days.
“Chloe—”
“Do you know where Tree Park is?” I asked. “A couple streets that way?” She nodded. “Ten o’clock,” I said and got in Jake’s car.
He stood there even after I’d closed my door, looking between Leah and me, until I said, trying not to sound bossy, “Let’s go.”
Chapter Nine
“What was that about?” Jake asked as we drove away.
I leaned my head back against the seat. “I think we’re into something way bigger than we thought.” I turned to look at him. “Thanks for coming, by the way. I didn’t expect that.”
He glanced at me. “I told you I was coming.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Texted you.”
“Oh . . .” I pulled out my phone and saw the text I’d ignored.
On my way.
I saved his number in my phone.
“Well, it was good timing,” I told him. “That conversation was a little…much.”
“So?” he prompted. “What did she say?”
“Uh . . .” I blew out my breath. “She said she thinks her mom messed up the ‘Ring of Time.’”
His head whipped to the side to look at me, then back to the road. “What the—? The Ring of Time?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Apparently, the strands we pull on are part of the Ring of Time. We can access it to rewind, and they think that if you enter the Ring of Time—don’t ask me exactly what that means—you can become a ‘Master of Time.’”
He glanced at me again then pulled over and turned toward me, his face animated. “I’m sorry, but you have to start at the beginning and tell me everything. Because ‘Master of Time’ sounds like my kind of thing.”
I let out a relieved laugh. “Okay, but I really should get home soon.”
“Better talk fast,” he answered with a half-smile.
So I told him about our conversation, but the more I told him, the more I realized I’d barely even scratched the surface. I couldn’t answer any of his questions—how long has Leah’s family been rewinding? How do you enter the Ring? What’s Leah’s last name and who is her mom...? I’d been so preoccupied with what she’d done to me that I hadn’t been able to think clearly. All I knew was that her mom had done something a few days ago that caused a mega-jolt, one that had completely messed things up.
“I’ll ask her all that stuff on Saturday,” I said, trying to wave it off. “I probably should have just now, but I couldn�
��t think straight. I just needed some—time. Some space. I can’t believe she’s known about my ability all these years and never let me know.” And she thinks my family...I couldn’t even go there.
“And she doesn’t know about me?” he asked after a minute.
I shrugged. "She definitely knows that somebody started rewinding two months ago, but she doesn't know who's doing it. They don't expect people to just be born with the ability. She says it's always been taught. Before me, they thought it had to be taught." Which, of course, brought up more questions in my mind, like...“Wait. She said that her family taught mine. But if—”
“Wait, so you’re from the other family,” he interrupted. “The one she told you about at the library.”
“Yeah, and she thinks my family is too reckless to be allowed to rewind anymore,” I said dismissively. “But if her family taught mine, then who taught hers in the first place?” I asked. “And does that mean I somehow actually inherited the ability, or...”
“Or were we both struck with some sort of nuclear fallout?” He had that excited, conspiratorial glint in his eye again.
I scoff-laughed. “How likely is that if we weren’t even born in the same place? You didn’t live here until a couple years ago.”
“You know what? There are a lot of ways to get a superpower. Look it up.” He looked at me like he’d just won the argument. I just raised my eyebrows at him. "I mean,” he continued, “I wasn’t born with the ability. Unless it was always there, just waiting for something to—for the right time to come out."
I watched him thoughtfully. "And this year was the right time for yours to come out?" I asked, wondering how his ability had reared its ugly head for him.
He ducked his head. "Well, maybe not the 'right time' exactly, but—" he bounced his knee a little—"for something to bring it out."
I wanted to ask about how his ability was triggered, but I knew if I made him share that, I'd have to talk about Max's death, and I had enough guilt about that to avoid the subject.
“Well, either way,” I said, “I’m related to one of the families. And I’m the first person they’ve ever known who could rewind without being taught. Doesn’t that make you think maybe I somehow inherited the ability?”
He gave me a reluctant look. It was probably too boring of an explanation for him. And I had to admit it didn’t completely explain it.
“Anyway,” I said, “I was thinking that we would tell her about you, but after talking to her…” I shook my head. “She’s been watching me all these years. What if she just does the same thing with you?”
He smiled playfully. “I don’t mind the attention.”
“Jake. She’s been stalking me for six years. Making sure I don’t break her mom’s rules.” I didn’t want him to ignore how serious this was. “They’ll try to control you too. Follow you around. Ask you questions. Erase whole conversations once they get the information from you they want.”
It must have finally sunk in, because he scowled and his shoulders dropped a little. It made me feel a little bad.
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, I just—”
“Yeah, I know. It’s cool.” Jake put the car in drive and pulled back onto the street. “You’re meeting her Saturday morning?”
“Yeah,” I answered, nervous butterflies reminding me of all the unknowns I’d be facing on my own. “Maybe once we know a little more about what she wants, you can decide if you want her to know about you or not.”
He lowered his chin. “Chloe. She could be my future girlfriend. Of course she needs to know about me.”
* * *
I had to rewind when Jake picked me up on Saturday morning because Janie was the one who answered the door when he got there. She’d never met him before, but that didn’t stop her from yelling, “Chloe! Your boyfriend is here!” So I immediately rewound—wishing I could tell her that I would definitely not be using my rewinding abilities again to help her with boys in the future if this was how she repaid me—and turned on a funny video on YouTube to distract her while I went to wait for Jake outside.
Leah was sitting at a picnic table when we pulled up at the park. She stood and walked toward us as we got out, openly confused that I would show up with somebody else.
“Leah, this is Jake,” I said nervously.
“Hi,” she said, her eyes questioning.
“Hi,” Jake said easily. None of us was sure who should talk next, so he did. “I do have a good reason for being here.”
Leah’s eyebrows went up slowly.
I took a deep breath. “The springbacks you’ve felt,” I began, and her eyes grew wide. “Those were Jake’s.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again, then started about three different questions before settling on, “Oh.”
“I’ve been rewinding for two months,” he explained. “Chloe and I just figured this out about a week ago.”
Leah looked between the two of us a few times. “Why didn’t—? You’ve been--?”
“I didn’t tell you the other day because I was afraid you would...start keeping tabs on him, too.” I watched her face transform from shock to understanding, mixed with a little bit of guilt.
“But now you don’t think I will?”
Jake shrugged. “We hope you won’t.”
Leah thought for a moment. “Do you…mind if I ask your last name?”
“Monson.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Monson? I can’t think of any Monsons in either of our families. I mean, it sounds a little familiar, but…” She thought for a moment. “What’s your mom’s maiden name?”
“Monson.” The side of his mouth pulled up.
“Oh,” she said, blinking. “So she’s single?”
“Yeah, she divorced my dad when she was pregnant with me.”
Leah looked like she didn’t want to push too much, but she had to ask. “What’s your dad’s last name?”
“Jensen.”
As soon as he said it, her face lit up with recognition. “Which Jensen? What’s his first name?”
“Rob?” he said, his surprise making it come out as a question.
Realization lit her face as she breathed, “Ohhh. That’s right, he was married for a while.”
“You know my dad?” Jake asked, stunned.
“He’s my mom’s cousin, but I only met him when I was younger,” Leah replied, and I could see Jake struggling to keep the disappointment from showing as his future girlfriend turned into his second cousin. “He moved out of state, right?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah,” he answered, clearing his throat. “A few years ago. My mom has wanted to move back here for a long time, but she didn’t want to while he was still here.”
Leah made a face. “I can see why,” she said. “My mom says he’s kind of…” She made a yikes face and I scowled, not inclined to trust her mom’s opinions of people at the moment.
I glanced at Jake, but he didn’t say anything.
“Well, okay then,” Leah finally said. “You ready to talk?”
I blinked, surprised at how easily she’d accepted our revelation. “Sure,” I said, and as we followed her back to the table, I leaned in to whisper to Jake, “Second cousins. I’m pretty sure it’s still legal somewhere.”
He glared at me, but then his shoulders drooped. “I guess I should have known,” he mumbled. “The same dark hair and painfully good looks…”
I rolled my eyes and walked ahead of him.
“So,” I said to Leah as we sat down at the table where she’d left her bag. “You didn’t finish answering my question the other day. How did you find me?" I wasn’t going to help her if she wouldn’t even tell me that.
She nodded slowly, as if she’d expected the question. Then with a wry smile, she answered, "It wasn't easy. It took a couple years. First we thought it was somebody in our family, but we've kept track of them, so it was easy enough to check up on them. When it wasn’t any of them, we realized we would have to find ever
yone who's descended from the Wrights—that’s on your mom’s side a couple generations back—and test them."
I stared. "Test them?"
"Yeah. It’s easy to tell when somebody feels a springback. You just rewind and watch their face when you let go.” She let that sink in for a moment, and I marveled at how ingeniously underhanded it was. “My mom and I kind of split them up. I mean, it wasn't that many—we could only do the ones who live around here anyway. She took the adults and I took the younger ones."
I mentally gaped at the idea of them spending all that time and energy looking for me.
"So when did you find me?"
"When you were ten." Her eyes held a bit of apology.
"I've known you—or you've known me—for six years?" This was weirder than any experience I'd had so far with rewinding. And not in a good way. "Well—where did you meet me?"
I had the feeling she was trying not to look uncomfortable. "My mom somehow found out about a wedding reception for one of your relatives, and we…well, we pretty much crashed it."
A memory of her face, a little younger, popped into my head. "That was you?”
Her eyebrows shot up. "You remember?"
"Yeah, because I hadn't ever felt a jolt that strong before—at least not one that hadn't come from me. But you were there and I had to pretend like I didn't notice it."
She barely smiled. "Yeah, that was me. I made the jolt strong on purpose. I’m surprised you remember it, though. We didn't talk about it at all, so I didn't rewind it. I did find you once or twice in the year after that, but when I brought up pulling time, you seemed more freaked out by it than anything, so we didn't worry about what you might do."
I didn’t remember being that freaked out by it by the time I was ten. I’d probably just been freaked out about her.
I took a deep breath, trying to push down the sense of powerlessness—the sense of being used—so I could focus on my questions. "How many times?"
She cleared her throat. "About once a year. Not many, just enough to make sure you weren't teaching anybody else or doing anything drastic with the ability."
