by Box Set
“The old dorm buildings are still here,” Nate said. “Let’s check them out.”
I followed Nate, hoping we’d find students there. Maybe someone could help us by shedding light on what had happened.
My heart sank as we drew closer. The walls were full of graffiti, and the windows were boarded up.
“They’re abandoned,” I said.
“Let’s find a way in,” Nate said. “It’s shelter at any rate.”
I agreed with him. This version of the campus was closed down, but it wasn’t empty. There were other people milling about, slowly, like they didn’t have a place to go either.
We snuck around the back, until we found a ground-level window that had a board jimmied away. Someone else had done this before us. Maybe they were still inside?
“Nate?”
He sensed my concern. “I’m sure it’s just people like us, looking for a place to crash.”
I hoped Nate was right. It didn’t look like there was anything left to steal, so what other reason would anyone have for being here?
Nate went first and then helped me in, which I appreciated since my ankle was still complaining.
The only light in the room came from the crack between the board and the window. The space was vacant except for a few abandoned desks. Dust covered everything, and I held in a sneeze. I didn’t think there would be a comfy bed lying around waiting for us. I had hoped for something other than the industrial-looking carpet on the floor, but at least it was carpeted.
Nate didn’t waste any time and dropped to the floor and onto his back. He draped his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, then peeked at me. He patted the ground beside him, and I almost cried with happiness. I snuggled against him for warmth and he did the same. It was so good to be held by Nate again. A little sprout of hope poked out of my heart.
His breathing slowed and deepened to a soft snore. Even though we’d both just had a night of sleep, tripping home always took a physical toll. Sleep didn’t come as easily for me. The events of the past day flooded my mind. So much had happened, it felt like weeks of stuff rather than hours. Nate returned from Spain. He saw the picture of me kissing Austin. I trained into Boston to talk to him in person. A third picture of Austin and me was circulated. We got a block away from Nate’s dorm before spiraling to 1929. We hid out in a clothing factory and sewed ourselves costumes. We “borrowed” coats and boots from interlopers. We crashed a speakeasy and I danced for hire. Sheldon Vance chased us. Shot at us. Nate wrestled him to the ground and knocked him out. Marlene took us off the street, gave us a place to sleep and fed us breakfast.
And now we were crashing in an abandoned building in a timeline that wasn’t our own with no idea what to do next.
I focused on the rhythm of Nate’s breath and eventually dozed a little. When my eyes fluttered open again, Nate was standing by a window, peering out through a crack in the boards. I couldn’t tell if he was still mad at me or if everything that had happened since yesterday made my stupid kissing mistake inconsequential. Nate had always stood by me. No matter how crazy things had gotten, and they had gotten pretty crazy at times, he’d never faltered.
But this was different. Despite allowing me to lie close to him to keep warm, he didn’t offer me comfort or verbal reassurance. The way he looked at me when he turned away from the window… it was like he was angry. Angry and trying very hard not to be. The conflict on his face was difficult to hide, and I didn’t blame him. Things were really screwed up this time, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nate reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I’m out of cash,” he said, “but I have a bank card.”
The bank on campus was out of order, but Nate knew where one was in the next neighborhood and thankfully, it was still standing and functioning.
Unfortunately, Nate’s card didn’t work. He let out a frustrated sigh.
“Let’s go home,” I said. “Our parents have to be around, even in this altered timeline, and I’m sure they’ll feed us.”
“Okay,” Nate said.
I had my transit card in my pocket. We could get on the train even if the card didn’t work. We’d just have to dodge the ticket reader if we saw one.
The rest of Boston seemed relatively unchanged, though some middle-class areas looked more run down. Whatever we did to cause the alteration effected the university most of all.
We sat side by side on the train, but not touching. Nate sighed repeatedly and I almost slapped my hand over his mouth. The people on the train looked normal enough, a mix of teens, young moms with kids and nightshift workers on their way home. No aliens or cyborgs. Whatever we did, it didn’t change the nature of species occupying planet Earth, though there were a couple of overly pierced green-haired punks sitting across from us who were vying for the position.
Since Nate’s house was before mine on our route, we went there first. I almost suggested that I go on to my place on my own, but I didn’t know for sure what Nate would find at his house and I didn’t want to leave him alone until I knew he’d be okay.
His old ’82 BMW sat parked in the spot beside his house and I could sense Nate’s relief radiate off him. This was still his house. It looked much the same, except that it could use a coat of paint and the landscaping was less than shipshape. The Mackenzie house had always been the sharpest-looking one on the street with a perfectly trimmed hedge, well pruned trees and brightly coloured flowers. Now it was slightly over grown and the lawn was spotted with dry patches.
Nate removed a key from its hiding place under one of the many planters under the living-room window—another sign that things were on track with Nate’s life, at least in Cambridge—and we went inside.
“Mom?” Nate called out. “Dad?”
“In here,” his mom said, her voice coming from the direction of the kitchen.
I followed Nate to the kitchen entrance and ran into his back when he stopped suddenly. His mom looked so different from when I last saw her, like she had gained thirty pounds. Instead of stylish clothes and a short salon cut, she wore a frayed housecoat and her hair was up in a greasy bun.
“Where were you all night?” she said with a look of disapproval. Then her eyes settled on me. “Oh, hello.”
“Just out,” Nate said, recovering from his initial shock. “We’re starving.”
“You know where the bread is,” his mom said as she stirred sugar into a cup of coffee. “Butter and jam is in the fridge. Keep it down. Your father just got in from an overnight flight and he’s sleeping.”
“Okay, Mom, thanks,” Nate said.
“No problem.” She stopped and looked at him pointedly. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
Nate’s startled gaze darted to mine. We’d been going out together for almost two years. I’d met Mrs. Mackenzie dozens of times.
“This is Casey,” Nate finally said.
“Nice to meet you,” she said with tight lips. I got the feeling she didn’t approve of Nate staying out all night with strange girls. A sentiment I shared actually.
Mrs. Mackenzie tightened the belt of her housecoat and patted her hair like she’d suddenly become self-conscious with me in the room. She cast another look of disapproval before leaving Nate and me alone in the kitchen.
Nate slipped two pieces of bread into the toaster and poured two glasses of apple juice. I was parched and gulped my glass down. Nate refilled it.
“The fridge is pretty barren,” he said quietly. “And my mom… I don’t think she’s selling real estate anymore.”
The toast popped and I buttered it while Nate toasted two more pieces.
“I should go home,” I said, after finishing my plate of toast. “Thanks for breakfast. I’ll text you if I still have a phone.”
“I don’t think I have a phone anymore,” Nate said. “At any rate, I’m not letting you go home alone.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, though I didn’t real
ly believe it. I just didn’t want Nate to do anything else out of obligation to me.
Nate just shook his head and made for the front door. He glanced back at me. “Coming?”
His keys to his BMW hung on a hook by the entrance, and he grabbed them on the way out. It was a long walk to my place from his and a cumbersome bus route. I appreciated the ride.
“Are we going to be okay?” I asked softly after we’d ridden in silence for a few minutes.
“We’ll figure something out,” Nate said, misunderstanding my question.
I reached for his hand. “I mean, are we going to be okay?”
He pulled his hand away to shift gears, and kept his eyes on the road. He hesitated a little too long before saying, “Sure.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, more worried now than ever that I was losing him. But even if Nate wanted to break up, he couldn’t get rid of me yet. If we were going to fix this—and I had no idea how we were going to do that—we needed each other.
He turned on my road but didn’t bother pulling into my drive. Because it didn’t exist. He pulled up in front of the house where mine normally sat. I double-checked the address. The house looked completely different. My house was a standard colonial with a flat front, symmetrical windows framed with black wooden shutters. This one was modern contemporary.
That didn’t mean I didn’t live here. I ran to the front door and pulled on the handle, but it was locked. I knocked on the door, fully expecting to stare down at my worried mother’s face, or maybe my father’s angry one, or maybe my brother’s annoyed one, but a strange woman with dark hair and brown skin opened the door.
“Can I help you?” the lady asked.
“I’m looking for the Donovan family,” I said with a tremor in my voice. “They… used to live here.”
“I don’t know that name,” she said. “If they lived here in the past, I wouldn’t know.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
I turned back to Nate in a stupor.
I didn’t know where my family was, and I had no idea how to find them.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I felt like a zombie walking back to Nate’s car. I folded into the passenger seat and mumbled, “This isn’t my house. I don’t know where my family is.”
Nate gave me a sympathetic look. He reached for my hand and squeezed, a gesture I deeply appreciated. “We’ll find them.”
I breathed deeply and shuddered. “How?”
“Phone book?” Nate shifted into gear and headed down the road.
“Where are we going?”
“The library.”
I couldn’t stop staring and blinking in disbelief. Much of the neighborhood looked the same, but then there would be a row of houses designed in an alternate style, like my own house had been, or a missing strip mall. In my world, the library was built in 1888, and it looked a lot like a fairy-tale castle. It was made of pale stone with dark contrasting arches over the main doors. Sloped red ceilings were dotted with gable windows. A turret tower topped with a red cone pointed to the sky. A modern boxy, rectangular expansion sided with a glass curtain and three times the size of the original library had opened in 2011.
The new expansion was missing.
I gulped.
Nate’s jaw went slack. “I hope they still have computers.
“You need a library card to use the computers,” I said.
Nate removed his wallet and pulled out his card. “I’m hoping, since I have the same street address, that this will still work.”
I opened the car door. “You don’t need a library card to look at phone books.”
The interior of the old library had concave ceilings and a lot of dark wood, reminding me more of an old tavern than a library. The books and tables were laid out differently than I remembered and it took a moment to find the librarian’s station. She pointed us to the reference section where we would find the phone books.
The current edition was on top, and I hurriedly searched for my surname along with my parents’ names. I ran my finger down the list of Donovans. My heart thudded. There it was: Donovan, Richard and Eloise.
I knew the neighborhood where the address was listed. It was in a low-income area with lots of multi-family housing. “We’re living in an apartment?”
I borrowed a pen and scribbled the address on the inside of my arm. Nate took the pen and wrote the phone number on his hand.
“Let’s go,” Nate said.
It took fifteen minutes to get to the building where I apparently now lived. It wasn’t old in a cool, classic way. It was just old. We rode the elevator to the third floor. It smelled funny, like old sweat and last week’s dinners. I found the suite number, 307, and lifted my hand to knock.
Nate grabbed my arm just in time. “You don’t knock on the door of your own house.”
He was right, but it felt strange to turn the handle and walk in. It was small, with a combined living room/kitchen area, but decorated well, like a home-living magazine, all color-coordinated and tidy. At least my mom still had her flare for design. I called out, “Mom?”
“Casey?” Mom walked out of one of the rooms off the hallway. She looked the same with honey-blond hair tucked behind her ears. She wore jeans and a crisp button-up blouse. “You’re back from the library already? I thought you just left?”
She stopped when her eyes landed on Nate. “Oh. Hi.” She held out a hand. “I’m Eloise.”
Nate’s eyes darted to me briefly before he accepted her hand. “Nate Mackenzie. A friend of Casey’s.”
“Do you go to the same school?”
“No, he’s in university,” I said quickly.
“Really,” Mom mused. “Which one?”
Oh, man. Boston U isn’t functioning. Should I say Harvard, or MIT? She’d wonder how we met and why he was with me.
“Actually, I’m just applying for next semester,” Nate said. “Not sure which one I’ll be in.”
“You’re working?”
Mom! Why so many questions? Time to deflect.
“Is Tim here?”
Mom frowned. “Was he supposed to come today?”
What did she mean, supposed to come? Didn’t he live here?
“Where else would he be?”
“Your dad didn’t say.”
I cast an anxious glance at Nate. He shrugged subtly and said, “I have to go.” Behind my mom’s head, he made the universal “I’ll call you sign,” and pointed to the number on his hand.
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks for the ride.”
I excused myself before Mom could grill me. I needed time to get my story straight. Mom stayed behind in the kitchen, and I hunted for the bathroom. Thankfully, all the doors in the hall were open and I found what I was looking for. The bathroom was decorated in soft, marine blues with shades of purple and pink. Fairly feminine. My pulse accelerated as I opened the doors of the cabinets, looking for signs of a masculine presence. Not one bottle of shaving cream or aftershave to be found. This was not good!
I continued down the hall and found a storage room and two bedrooms, Mom’s and mine. Hers had a desk under the window where she managed her work, and I assumed she was still in interior design. I skipped lightly to the closet, and my chest tightened at the continued evidence. No men’s clothing hung on the rod.
The apartment had no sign of Tim at all, outside of a few photos of us as kids hanging on the wall.
It was clear that my parents were separated and Tim lived with my dad. There wasn’t much I could do now but investigate my own belongings. Most of the objects were duplicates of what I had in my own timeline. I wore the same kinds of clothes. There were a few small differences, like all the photos of Lucinda and me were missing. There was a cell phone on the dresser, mine. I searched for her number, but she wasn’t listed in my contacts. Strange.
There was a laptop on my bed. I opened it up and did a white pages search. I called Lucinda’s home number.
“Hi. This is Casey Donavan. Is Lucinda ther
e?”
“Hold on one minute.”
I waited and my nerves tingled. Finally, Lucinda answered. “Hello?”
“Hey, Luce, it’s me. The craziest thing happened and I don’t have your cell phone number anymore.”
“Who’s this?”
Blood whooshed through my ears. Lucinda knew my voice. “It’s Casey.”
“Casey?”
My throat felt tight as I forced out my last name. “Donovan.”
“Casey Donovan? Why are you calling me?”
“Because we’re friends?”
She confirmed what I already feared by saying, “That’s news to me.”
“Oh.” I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “Okay, well, sorry to have bothered you.”
I crawled onto my bed and curled up into a ball. Everything was such a big huge mess! My parents were divorced, I had no idea what kind of relationship I had with my brother, and my best friend sounded like she detested me. On top of that, Nate was as cold as a cucumber toward me. A single tear escaped out of the corner of my eye, down my cheek and onto my pillow.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Another white pages search produced the California number I was looking for. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Hello?”
“Adeline?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Casey Donovan from Cambridge. Do you remember me?”
“My memory’s not that bad.” I could hear the humor in her voice. “I think I can recall the last few days.”
“Oh, thank God!” I almost cried with relief.
She paused then asked, “Is something wrong?”
I pinched the bridge of my noise and tried to steady my breath. “Yes, terribly wrong. Is there anything wrong on your end?”
“Everything seems fine.” Her voice was all seriousness now. “Casey, what happened? You’re making me nervous!”
“I tripped with Nate, but we didn’t go back to my loop of 1883.”
“You’re stuck in 1929, then? Was it hard to navigate?”
