CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
Of course I knew why. Delilah Abernathy had seen something. Or someone.
Instinctively, I searched for Penn again.
I pretended to adjust my backpack. I turned the opposite way just enough to tighten the elastic band securing my ponytail.
And there he was, but this wasn’t right either.
He wasn’t right. He’d made his ghostly form as small as it could be, motioning as if to say go on or go ahead.
But go ahead and do what? With Del watching, I couldn’t exactly ask.
Nausea swept through my gut, and my chronic headache issue decided to arm and engage.
You’ll handle it, Penn had said earlier. I’d believed him then, burying the anxiety and toting him along on that secret path because—real talk—I’d wanted to go to a place like this with a boy like him too.
Suck it up, Sylvie. The words came from future me. Independent me. If I was going to go off on my own, I’d have to deal with discomfort. On my own.
So I pushed two fingers into my aching temple and went.
Ethan trotted back toward the lake, shouting after a friend. I took his place near the folding drink table.
“Sylvie,” Del said. Too quietly—a throwaway.
“Thanks for inviting me. It’s amazing out here,” I said. The awareness of Penn at my back burned a ring around my body. I steadied my breath. One, two, set. “So, Anne Shirley. How’s the forever-home search going?”
That did it. Animals were Del’s power switch. Reaction achieved. She shifted her weight on her flip-flops, jaw softening. “Yeah, sorry, nothing yet. I’m really trying, promise. Mom and I appreciate you taking such good care of her.”
I scrutinized every word, each wayward flick of her eyeball. Did she linger for even a second on the watch circling my wrist? Or over my shoulder, at a tall, nineteen-year-old stranger who could float right through her body? If she had, she wasn’t telling, and that wasn’t good enough.
“How’s Troy Bolton? Doing okay with your other pets?” I prodded.
Oh yeah, something massive was zooming through her brain. It took her too long to register the existence of her dog. “Right, yeah. He’s, er, bossing everyone around,” she said after too many blinks. “So that means everything’s normal. All good.”
“Nice,” I said, trapping her gaze. “Del?”
“Hmm?”
She tried to look away, but I stepped forward. “Delilah.”
She expelled a rush. “I . . .”
“What’s going on? Did you . . . see something?”
Brown eyes flashed, springing wide. How did you know?
“Tell me,” I said. “Please.”
Her fingers drummed against her fleece-covered leg. “It’s nothing. No big deal.”
This sat all wrong. A beautiful ghost boy wasn’t a big deal? My headache bloomed, stomach rolled, but I had to know what the hell was happening.
I noted the moment she gave up, relenting. She gestured to a less populated zone, and I followed her, trusting that Penn was right behind me. I couldn’t even flinch his way. Not until I knew what Del had seen.
“When I came out of the lake,” she started, “you were there with my friends. Jones. Jasmine.”
“They’re really cool,” I said, even though I’d done little more than eavesdrop on their issues.
“I didn’t exactly see anything like a vision, but . . .”
My insides loosened a bit. “But something happened?”
“It’s more that I heard something, but not out loud. Words just appeared,” she explained. Now Del was the one pressing her hand around her forehead.
I gripped my half-filled cup, but I couldn’t even manage one sip. Was she about to spit out Penn’s last name or his birthday? A city? “What words, Del?”
Defeated, she sighed and checked to see that all her friends were tucked safe into the distance. “It’s not your time.”
It’s not your time.
Everything inside me itched to turn, to see.
Did Penn hear this? Did the cosmic message bring a hundred memories or revelations?
Time, like the ticking hand that had brought him?
Or was time more of an era? Did Penn fall into the wrong one?
Was this place where I lived, and he appeared, the wrong time?
My mind raced. Panic set in. Sweat glazed my already-throbbing head.
Del huffed a rough exhale. “Okay, hell, does that mean anything in your life? Maybe about your past, or something with your family?”
Now my heart received the jolting paddles, the violent jump of shock. “Me?” Not Penn? Not a ghost or a watch?
“Who else, Sylvie? The words were about you.”
But there was someone else, someone she couldn’t see, someone inextricably tied to me.
“Look,” she said, not waiting for a response from me. “Just because I wish I could shove the thing I just did into the lake, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. What I heard was clearly connected to you.” Del was shaking, her grip wobbling over her red plastic cup. Her eyes narrowed into a sharp point.
I managed to set this powder keg aside, stepping clean out of it. “It’s okay,” I said. “I believe you.”
She raised her head, licked her lips.
“I won’t tell anyone.” I pantomimed my mouth zipping shut. “Promise.”
She nodded rapidly. A slip of color returned to her clear, porcelain skin. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeated.
Her moment of peace vanished. Del clutched her stomach, doubling over. She tossed her cup onto the ground. “I’m going to be sick,” she said before running off into the woods.
With time on the brain, I spun around to look for Penn. Finally.
Nothing. No one.
“Penn?” I called, hoping he was simply hiding out of sight. I walked the perimeter of Del’s party, worming my way through the crowd, and the echo of dueling guitars, and the Orange Crush lick of bonfire flames. But there was no sign of him.
I realized then that he’d been with me so long that day, I’d forgotten that our time always ran out.
I’d forgotten that, of course, at some point during my talk with Del, it had been Penn’s time to leave.
I forced out a breath, done and ready to ditch this day and get myself to Bearberry Cabin.
Thanks to Penn, I would be able to find my way back.
But as I reached for the leather notebook that would guide my way home, my eyes lingered over the gold watch. Penn was gone, but the second hand still ticked.