Chapter 20
I stay up until three in the morning pulling together a last-minute presentation outlining how a gala can help Ivernia, then collapse into a fit of restless sleep after I send it to Ellerby.
My dreams feature my dad in ordinary settings.
Tending the garden in our backyard. Beckoning me into his office to show me something he’s researched.
It feels so real my chest physically aches when the last of the dream-state slowly melts away, like clearing a filmy haze from chlorine eyes.
It takes longer for the tightness in my throat to subside.
I become obsessed with checking my email over the next two days, but nothing from Ellerby comes through.
There is, however, an email from Mr. Westergate noting the date for next semester’s anatomy and physiology placement exam, which includes a slew of PDF study guides.
November twenty-first. My second chance.
I should be elated, but instead of relief, it feels like my stomach’s made of lead.
This seems like an insignificant problem with all that’s occurred, but what happens if Ivernia closes before next semester, and I never get to take the class? Then I’ll have to come clean to my mom.
That can’t happen.
I focus on the next big issue. The internet is almost entirely useless when it comes to researching isoborometers with the exception of a singular academic journal in JSTOR.
But when I try to access the database, it tells me to enter my college email credentials.
I work around this minor issue by using Jared’s, and once I’m in, I find a paper titled “The Implications of Isoborometers in Time Travel” alongside the exact diagram my dad had sketched in his journal.
After several minutes of digesting, I piece together what an isoborometer is—a type of generator—and what it could theoretically do: change the polarity of a geomagnetically induced current by stimulating the core of the vortex.
This would manipulate the time pathway and change its direction.
As long as William is within the boundaries of the vortex, and as long as there’s a geomagnetically induced current present, an isoborometer would send him to his original starting point in 1859.
The biggest issue is engineering it. A feat no one has accomplished before.
When I text this information to Sumner and Lionel, Sumner replies with a simple: meet up on Friday. Danforth’s room.
He’s been at crew practice every other evening this week since the team has to take advantage of the lake before it freezes over in the winter months.
Analiese begins sitting with the newspaper crowd at dinner and encourages me to join even though I’m no longer writing, but I finagle my way out of this by sitting with Lionel and William instead.
We take turns transcribing his handwritten English papers on our laptops since he hasn’t quite mastered typing in an efficient manner.
I’m leaving the astronomy lab Friday evening when I catch the tail end of an ultimate Frisbee game happening on the grassy spread near the boathouse.
A whoop of collective hollers sounds across the field as someone dives for a catch.
It’s only when he rights himself with impeccable posture that I realize it’s William.
He’s wearing a new Ivernia crew neck paired with comfortable athletic pants. I glance around and find most students dressed similarly, opting for comfort over styled outfits since coursework has picked up. There’s a specific type of ease in this familiarity. I like knowing what to expect.
I wait until the team disperses before approaching. His smile is wide as he accepts a series of high fives and overlapping compliments.
“Hi?” I offer as he brushes dead grass from his pants. “That was impressive.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” William beams. “They needed another player and insisted I join, though I warned them I’ve never participated in anything like this before.”
It occurs to me how little I know about William. “You must have done some sports in school?”
“I’ve never attended an institution like this.
Instead, I had a governess, then private tutors, up until I decided to further my education in London,” he tells me.
“Croquet was about as entertaining as it got in Dunbry Park. Though I suppose the hand-eye coordination translates, so those skills must remain.” He taps the side of his temple as he tosses me a wink.
A vibration like a plucked guitar string dances on my skin. It’s the accent, I tell myself. It’s the effortless charm. Get ahold of yourself.
I attempt to smooth that fizzy Mentos-in-Coke feeling in my stomach. “What was home like?”
William reaches for his book bag nestled in the grass. The initials S. W. are marked in Sharpie on the strap. So, not exactly his.
“Our estate sits just behind a river that extends well into a forest. Being near this lake, with all the foliage surrounding us, it’s almost like I’m back.
” A tinge of longing hangs on the end of his words.
“My younger sister, Caroline, currently resides there with our mother and father, though Father often travels to manage other estates we own. He expects I will do the same one day. I had to convince him my education should come first.”
We begin walking toward the academics building. “Sounds nice.”
“It’s lovely,” he agrees. “Caroline is expected to find a husband of similar status, but she’d much rather spend her time learning Latin and reading classic tales.
She was made for adventure, though, and deeply wished she could accompany me to London.
I’ve begun writing her, telling her all about my courses and what I’ve learned.
” He looks around, taking it all in. “She’d love it here, I think. ”
I hear the unspoken thought that fills the following silence. Because she would be allowed to attend.
“Things change,” I say quietly. “As you can see.”
William nods. “There are substantial benefits of this time. Many, in fact, I’ve come to firmly support, and I’d like to formally apologize to you for my initial behavior and judgments.”
“I could have been easier on you,” I admit.
“Well, we shall put it in the past.” William holds the door open for me and watches as I pass through. “Please know I am grateful to have met someone as remarkable as you.”
His words do nothing to quell the internal fluttering sweeping against my ribs.
The room is empty when we arrive. Mr. Danforth teaches calculus and physics, the latter of which Sumner and I took together our first year at Ivernia.
I always scored higher on exams, even with bonus questions.
It drove him nuts—though he got his retaliation in chemistry the following year, once I realized I was not gifted in balancing chemical equations.
I’m surprised by how much has remained the same.
A long whiteboard engulfs the front wall, leftover equations marked in deep purple and black.
A blue-gray Berber carpet blankets the floor and collects missing erasers and the occasional forgotten No.
2 pencil. There’s a distinct scent of lavender carpet cleaner with an underlying base of Expo markers and pencil shavings.
The walls aren’t bare or boring, but instead filled with posters.
One breaks down the anatomy of an atom while another reads Calculus Has Its Limits, because if Mr. Danforth loves anything more than teaching, it’s a math-based dad joke.
I migrate to my old desk. Second row to the left, one seat from the front.
Sumner sat beside me in the next row over.
It wasn’t that long ago, but it’s strange we can’t go back.
My life was so different then. Dad hadn’t died.
Jared hadn’t graduated. Sumner hadn’t spent the summer with us. Mads hadn’t entered high school.
Nostalgia falls over me, a warm comfort. Memory has a pulse. A steady push-pull heartbeat divulging tender glimpses into the past. It hides in sounds and scents and places. Sometimes sharp, sometimes less clear. A reminder of the connections we’ve made, the paths we’ve walked.
Forward momentum is intimidating, forever lurching onward.
The door opens, startling me from my reverie.
Sumner walks in carrying a cardboard box, his worn maroon sweater rumpled and baggy.
His hair is slightly damp, like he showered not too long ago, and there’s a rip in the knee of his jeans.
Lionel enters behind him, crew neck sleeves rolled up, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Danforth’s letting you use his room?” I ask.
“He likes me,” Sumner says as he sets the box down. “What kind of trouble would he expect me to get into?”
“Well,” I begin with heavy sarcasm. “I suppose there’s the cosmology-of-time-travel variety.”
Sumner flicks his gaze over to me. “About that.” He pulls Mr. Danforth’s wheely chair out from behind his desk and guides it toward us.
With a quick spin he’s straddling the seat, torso pressed into the backrest as he props his elbows on the desk in front of him.
“I told him we entered an engineering contest and needed a place to work on our project, so that’s what we’re doing. ”
“You,” I say, incredulous, “told him you were working on a voluntary group project with me?”
His brows lift. “Yes?”
“Sumner, we were at each other’s throats when we were in his class. You may as well have told him we were working on manipulating the threads of space-time because, clearly, that is more believable.”
Lionel changes the subject. “What’s in the box?”
“Some materials to get us started.” He jumps up and begins pulling out items. “Oscillators, copper wire, fiberglass, some different-size gears, but we’re going to need more.”
Then it hits me. “You read the article.”
“Well, I did have to sound out each word, but yes,” he says flatly, “I read it.”
William looks between us. “What does it entail?”
“Very little, it turns out,” Sumner grumbles.