Springback

by Jana Miller

  “What? I didn’t tell her that.”

  “Yes, you did,” Leah said. “You said she doesn’t have the four people she needs.”

  “But—I mean, she can’t get four people, right? None of us are going to help her.”

  “Don’t underestimate my mom,” Leah said. “I’m sure there are cousins or other people she could rope in.”

  Jake stared at her for a minute. “I just wanted to be sure she knew it wouldn’t work.”

  “I know,” she responded, “and I agree—we need to give her something specific. But we shouldn’t have told her anything about how to actually do it.”

  A huge jolt smacked me and I fell back agains the seat, my hand to my head.

  “Crap,” Leah mumbled from the front seat. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Did you try to rewind?” I asked.

  “Yeah. But I only managed like ten seconds.”

  Great. “Do you want me to try?” I asked reluctantly.

  Leah shook her head. “I’m guessing the likelihood of her finding three other people to even try it—let alone actually enter the Ring right now—is pretty slim.”

  Jake and I nodded vaguely.

  “We better find the amulet soon, then,” Jake said.

  “Did you find anything about where the Stonemans used to keep the amulet?” I asked.

  “Not a location,” he said, his brow furrowing, “but ideas of places that would be safe.”

  “Such as?”

  “Uh, let’s see…caves, museums, safe deposit boxes…hidden safes.”

  “Those are the best places for the amulet?”

  Jake nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know why they would think a cave was a good idea, but the other ones seem like possibilities.”

  “It can’t be in a safe deposit box,” Leah said. “My mom controls Gene’s finances, so she would know if he had one.”

  “And we know he doesn’t have a safe anywhere?”

  Leah bit her bottom lip. “With all the searching we’ve done in the house . . .the safe and the key would both have to be hidden somewhere else, but I wouldn’t have a clue where to look.”

  “He doesn’t have any close friends or family nearby that might keep it for him—no questions asked—and never tell Lillian?” Even as I asked the question I realized how unlikely it was.

  “Most of his friends and family are still in Show Low,” Leah answered. “I guess one of them might know, but…we’d have to get a list of everyone it might be, call all of them…” She shook her head at the impossibility of it. “And we’d have to hope that someone would actually tell us, which they probably wouldn’t.”

  I sighed and started chewing a nail in thought.

  “That leaves museums,” Jake said.

  “Seems like the worst idea out of all of them,” I said skeptically.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. Or maybe it would be brilliant. Hidden in plain sight. Who would look for it in a museum, where it could be passed off as something else?”

  “But anyone who knew about it could see it and steal it,” Janie argued.

  “Unless…” Leah said thoughtfully, “unless he put it somewhere we wouldn’t look. He didn’t know about you guys, so he was really only hiding it from my mom and me. What if he put it somewhere he—” Her eyes suddenly grew wide. “Oh my gosh.”

  Jake and I watched as her face told us plainly of a huge realization.

  “Oh my gosh, you guys, he’s told me. His favorite museum. He’s told me like a million times. The Pinetop-Lakeside Historical Society Museum.”

  Jake made a face. “Pinetop-Lakeside?”

  “Yeah. You know, the little town on a lake near Snowflake and Show Low? Oh my gosh. I can’t believe I didn’t realize what he was telling me.”

  “What?” I finally asked, my voice pleading.

  She looked at me. “He used to tell me I’d go there someday. Even when I tell him I don’t care about those little towns, or when I tell him I don’t even care about old stuff…he’s always been so sure I’ll be dying to get to that museum eventually. ‘One of a kind gems.’ That’s what he always says about it. ‘It’s full of one-of-a-kind gems. You’ll never see anything like it anywhere else.’” She shook her head in wonder. “Am I stupid to not have figured it out before?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jake said. “How could anybody be expected to figure that out? You probably just thought he was a crazy old man.” He cringed slightly. “I mean—“

  “No, seriously,” Leah cut in. “That’s exactly what I thought. He rambles about all kinds of random stuff every day.”

  I smiled a little. “Maybe he’s not as senile as you think he is,” I suggested.

  Leah tipped her head back and groaned. “Grandpa!” she said to herself, exasperated. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me?”

  * * *

  In typical Jake fashion, his first words were, “Let’s go.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll text my dad.” I was surprised he was so willing to invite his dad along, but I saw his jaw tense as he tapped on the screen. He probably wouldn’t be inviting Rob if we didn’t need four people.

  The first response that popped into my head was right now? But I didn’t say it. Of course it had to be right now. “Okay,” I said slowly, “but I think we also need to go get Janie first.”

  “What?” Leah asked, surprised.

  I turned to Jake. “Jake…can you access the cords?” His jaw clenched as he looked away from me. “I didn’t think so,” I said after a few moments.

  “I might be able to,” he said. “I haven’t tried yet today. It just—it hurt really bad to try,” he said defensively.

  “Hey, we’re not blaming you,” Leah said. “But don’t you think you should have told us? We need four people, and you’re one of them.”

  “I know,” he said tightly. “That’s why I’ve been giving it a rest. I think I just need to let my brain—calm down, or whatever. I’ll probably be fine.”

  I watched him steadily. “Okay,” I said, “but I told Janie I’d talk to you and Leah about teaching her so she can help us.” Jake looked incredulous and opened his mouth to protest, but I pushed on. “I think we should take her with us today. That way we have a backup if you can’t do it.” I knew my words probably sounded harsh, but I didn’t want to take any chances, and I wasn’t nearly as hopeful as he was that he’d be able to help.

  He blew out a breath, looking out the window. “Fine.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Leah said softly. “You’re really new to this.”

  He turned a cynical face on us. “So you’re replacing me with someone who’s never rewound?”

  I sighed. “I know it doesn’t make sense,” I said. “And maybe she won’t even be able to do it. But you haven’t been rewinding as long as I have, so your ‘heightened activity’ hasn’t had time to turn into a mass like min, which is probably actually a callous. That’s why my headaches aren’t as bad as yours. I used to practice rewinding as far as I could almost every day. I pushed so hard, trying to rewind days, thinking there was some barrier I could eventually break through and go as far as I wanted.” I didn’t know why I was telling them this. “But apparently, all it did was give me a callous on my brain. Either that or a tumor…” I added in a mutter.

  “You don’t really think—”

  “No, I don’t really think it’s a tumor. And I think that it’s usually harmless, but it’s bad because the Ring is broken. I think we’re all infected because we’re attached to the Ring. And Janie will get infected too, as soon as she accesses it. So you have to know that I really hope you’ll be able to do it. But if not—”

  Jake nodded, the fight gone out of him. “Okay. Let’s go get her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I texted Janie, and we picked her up ten minutes later.

  “I can access the cords!” Janie exclaimed as she got in the car.

  “What?” I blurted. “I told you to wait until I could teach you!”

>   She shrugged with a grin. “Like I could wait for that. And it wasn’t that hard.”

  I sighed. It was true: all you had to do was picture them. “You didn’t do anything with them?”

  She looked at me like I was stupid. “Of course not. Wouldn’t you have felt it?”

  Wow, she’d actually been listening.

  “Leah, this is Janie,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’ve met her.”

  Janie’s face twisted in confusion. “Did you?” I asked Leah. I hadn’t been sure.

  Leah glanced back at her. “Oh. Right. Before the rewind. Sorry, Janie. I’ve met you, but you haven’t met me. I’m Leah.”

  Janie blinked at that. “Oh,” she said, then smiled. “Well, hi.”

  “Everyone ready for a road trip?” Leah asked.

  “Yes!” Janie said, more exuberant than usual from having taken an extra pain pill before we left.

  “What did you tell your parents?” Leah asked Janie as she put the car in gear.

  “That we’re going to have a girls’ afternoon out,” she said, then turned to me. “Mom was so excited.”

  I didn’t doubt it. Mom was always talking about how she and her sister were best friends, and obviously she wanted us to be like that too. And maybe we would be, now that Janie was a part of my seven-year-long secret.

  We met up with Rob at a gas station, where he was waiting by his motorcycle. “What are the chances they’ll just hand this thing over?” Rob asked, leaning into my car window.

  “Not good,” Leah said. “Unless it belongs to my whole family and I can like…claim ownership or something.”

  “And what are the odds of that happening?” I asked.

  She just shrugged.

  “Well okay then,” Rob said. “Wait, who’s this?” He’d just noticed Janie in the back seat.

  “That’s my sister, Janie,” I said. “She—” I wasn’t sure what to tell him. Did he know that Jake might not be able to access the Ring?

  “She’s a rewinder too,” Jake said, and before Rob could answer, he asked, “You ready?”

  Rob leaned back and put his helmet back on. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  We wouldn’t have stopped at all on the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Pinetop-Lakeside, but Jake, Leah, and I all had such bad headaches that we had to switch off driving several times we could take turns resting our eyes—plus Leah hadn’t gotten gas the whole week, so we had to stop for that. We spent the drive catching Janie up on the situation and trying to make more sense of the diagrams in Melvin Wright’s journal, and Jake took the opportunity to tell us all about the Alchemy of time, adding some new information about an Indian diagram he’d found called the Kalachakra—“Anybody want to guess what that means?” he asked importantly.

  “What?” Only Janie was fully interested in his mystical revelations.

  He widened his eyes. “The Wheel of Time.”

  “And that has to do with this…how?” I asked.

  “Have you forgotten that Apollonius travelled to India, among other places?”

  I just closed my eyes again and tried to go to sleep.

  The sun was setting and we were all antsy by the time we finally found the place, ready to hop out and go in.

  Leah bit her lip as she pulled in. “Did anybody—check the hours for this place?”

  My heart dropped at the sight of the small but completely empty parking lot. Jake had his phone out, and as we opened our doors, he groaned. “Ten am to four pm,” he reported as Rob pulled in behind us. “Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday.”

  They had closed almost three hours ago. “How did we not even think of that?” I moaned. It was a tiny building in a tiny town, probably run by tiny old ladies. Of course they would hardly ever be open.

  Rob hopped off his bike and Jake called over to him, “It’s closed.”

  His eyebrows raised, but Rob didn’t say anything else. He walked over to the doors and gave them a shake, as if they might open anyway. He peered in through a window, then wandered around to the back.

  “So we drove all this way for nothing?” Janie asked. “We’ll have to come back tomorrow?”

  I leaned against the car in frustration. “I guess so.”

  “Maybe not…” Jake mused, and he started in the direction Rob had gone.

  With looks of confusion, the three of us followed him around to the side of the building, where Rob was prying at a window.

  “What are you doing!?” I exclaimed.

  “Jake, come boost me up,” Rob said, and as we watched, Jake hurried over and boosted Rob up the few extra inches he needed to get the window open and clamber inside.

  Jake motioned us over. “Ladies first,” he invited.

  “Can’t Rob just open the front door for us?” I asked.

  Jake considered. “Probably shouldn’t risk it,” he said, and I sighed. How was climbing in a window less risky than unlocking a front door?

  I could not believe I was doing this.

  Or maybe I could. It would be the second building I’d illegally entered in less than a week—and Jake hadn’t even been around to convince me for the first one.

  Jake boosted us each up one by one, then Rob pulled him inside and we started looking around the musty little museum. A little came in the windows, but as we got farther inside, we had to turn on the flashlights on our phones.

  The museum seemed to mostly consist of small rooms that were each dedicated to one of the pioneer families who’d settled the area, so we went in search of any mention of the Stonemans. We spread out to look, and after only a couple minutes, I heard Jake’s voice from the adjoining room. “Chloe…come see.”

  I went to where he stood staring at a display of some old clothes behind glass—a lady’s blouse, skirt and bonnet, with a brooch pinned to the blouse.

  But it wasn’t just a brooch. It was a square emerald, framed in copper that spiraled across it.

  It was the amulet. The Káti Square.

  Hiding in plain sight.

  “Leah,” I whisper-called. “Janie.”

  They hurried over, Rob close behind them, and we all stared at it. It was smaller than I’d expected—maybe half the size of the palm of my hand—and it was beautiful. The huge emerald stone caught the light and the copper work scrolled across it delicately, in the shape of the Káti symbol we’d seen so many times. It was hard to believe that this one small item could cause disruptions in the fabric of time.

  We looked at each other in shocked silence. It somehow felt too easy, despite the weeks of asking and researching and digging. All I could think was, Now what? We hadn’t exactly thought this through—at least I hadn’t. I didn’t think any of us had expected it to actually be here.

  But Rob had no such hesitation or questions. He lifted the glass that covered it.

  And picked it up.

  It hadn’t even been pinned on like I’d first thought—just balanced in the folds of the blouse.

  All I could do was stare. We had the key to opening the Ring of Time.

  * * *

  We rounded the corner to the parking lot, and Leah stopped dead in her tracks, causing me to bump into her. “What?” I said—and then I saw her.

  Lillian was standing in the parking lot, propped up against her Lexus, holding Melvin Wright’s journal.

  I backed up instinctively, but she’d already seen us.

  “There you are,” she said imperiously to Leah.

  “What are you doing here?” Leah asked coldly. “How did you get that?”

  I stepped forward to stand next to Leah, Janie still behind me and the guys not yet around the corner.

  “Oh, this?” Lillian raised an eyebrow. “I’ve always told you to lock your car, Leah. Especially when you leave valuables lying on the seat in plain view.” She even tsked a couple times.

  Leah’s face fell as we looked at each other. I couldn’t believe we’d just left it in the car when we’d gone into the museum. Then again, it had been the onl
y car in the parking lot. And we hadn’t really expected to get in when we’d let the car. But how had Lillian even known where we were?

  “Did you follow us?” I demanded.

  She held up her phone. “Technically, I followed Leah’s location.”

  I gaped at her. She was tracking Leah?

  “You just happened to make it easier by stopping just long enough for me to catch up,” she continued.

  I groaned. The gas station.

  Lillian tapped the journal. “I know this has critical information in it,” she said, “and I’m sure you can make it easier for me by pointing it out before I give it back to you.”

  “And why would we do that?” Leah asked.

  “Well, you’ll have to if you want it back; I’ll keep it until I know what I need to know. And of course, you’ll need to give me the amulet.”

  I scoffed. “Um, no. That doesn’t even make sense. We wouldn’t even need the journal if we didn’t have the amulet.”

  “Oh. Well, that makes it easier, then,” she responded, standing up straight and taking a few casual-yet-somehow-menacing steps from her car. “I’ll just take both.”

  “Sure you will,” Jake said sarcastically, coming around the corner with Rob. “Because there’s only one of you and four of us. So that makes sense.”

  Lillian blinked, staring at Rob. “Well, this is a surprise. The prodigal drunk has come home.”

  Jake took a couple of angry steps toward her, growling insults, but Rob pulled him back.

  “He sure has,” Rob said amiably. “Did you miss me?”

  Lillian just lifted one eyebrow, not bothering to answer, and tapped her fingernails on the journal she held. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “You can have the journal back—and keep the amulet—if you’ll let me use them first.”

  “Too bad we don’t even need that book anymore,” Jake said. “Sorry, Lill, but we’ve got somewhere to be.” He started toward the car.

  Lillian ignored him and took a step closer, focusing on me now. “Don’t you wish you could go back?” she asked me, her tone eerily soft. “Don’t you want to go back and never have to worry about any of this again?” She took another step. “Don’t you want your brother back?”