Chapter 20. Reed
Reed
“Here goes nothing.” I select the hourglass icon. We’re ready to leave this party and its haunting memories behind.
“Do you remember when we started?” Tessa leans over my shoulder to examine the small screen.
Suddenly the party chaos gives way to a soft morning light spilling in through the front windows. We’re alone in the foyer once again, bathed in a warm summertime glow.
“What just happened?” Tessa’s eyes are wide as she scans our now quiet surroundings. “We definitely left in the evening.”
“You saw that message flash across the screen, right? It said it was returning us to the present, but look …” I hand her the phone.
“It’s now 5:26 a.m. on June thirtieth. I think we just …
broke time.” The sky outside is laced in pinks and oranges, a perfect sunrise.
We step through the door and onto the porch, greeted by birdsong and a promising morning.
“Okay. That’s weird. But I have a hypothesis.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “Care to share with the class?”
“Well, you gave me the idea, actually, when you said earlier that you didn’t think we were time traveling, but instead watching an instant replay of something that happened in the house.”
I wait. Where’s she going with this?
“What if time continues to move forward? What if the present that we were trying to return to, 7:22 p.m. on Thursday, is no longer the actual present?”
“Interesting.” I nod, leaning against one of the rickety banisters on the porch. “So we were spit out now because, what … we’re not allowed to arrive in a time we didn’t experience? We skip over the hours we missed.”
“Which means—” Tessa begins.
“You can’t game the system,” I finish for her. “You can’t hide out in the past and get more time on the clock.”
“Exactly. Which for a hot minute there sounded like a fantastic idea, but if time passes during the replay, it passes here, too.”
I playfully shove her shoulder. “Damn, you’re smart.”
Tessa shrugs with a yeah, I thought that was obvious look, but I catch her private smile.
“5:26 a.m. on the thirtieth. That’s …” She runs a quick calculation in her head, “ten hours and four minutes from when we left. Doesn’t that cover how long we’ve been gone?
We went to the séance, stayed overnight on the stairs …
” She blushes a little at that, her eyes drifting to mine.
My mouth turns up at the corner, remembering her lips, her hitching breath, our confessions in the dark.
Focus, Reed, focus.
She clears her throat, continuing, “Then we went to the party where we set the clock back a couple times to do more digging. Ten hours and four minutes sounds about right.” She tosses me the phone.
“But why be able to do this at all? Why allow us to visit the past?” I stare at the device in my hand, so much power in such small packaging.
“Well, not everyone’s been murdered.” Tessa shrugs. “But that doesn’t mean people escape life without some past trauma or baggage to deal with. Maybe letting people see their memories helps with the process of letting go, helps them leave it all behind.”
I lean my head against the post, considering her words. “And what, by going home and confronting our lives, we showed we were willing to put in the work? To face some hard truths? So the hourglass icon appeared with the option to dig into our past?”
Tessa raises her hands then drops them back to her sides. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Do you think it’s helping us with the process of letting go?
” I remember Tessa’s panic attack by the door.
I’m not ready, she’d said. I’m not sure how she feels now, but I know I’m still not ready.
How do I let go, or move on, with my dad’s death on my conscience?
And now I’m responsible for Tessa’s death, too.
Because if there’s one thing I learned from our trip back to the night of the party, it’s that neither of us would be in this situation if I hadn’t walked out with that drink of Carl’s.
That makes two people who’d still be alive today if it weren’t for me: Tessa and my father. I’m an absolute menace.
There’s no moving on from something like that.
When Tessa’s eyes seek mine, there’s an intensity burning behind them. “We have a killer to stop first.”
To be sure our theory is correct, we head upstairs to check that the timer above the door matches the phone. It does.
“Only eighteen days left.” I try to hold the wave of worry back, though it feels treacherous, like a rip current ready to drag us out to sea if we let it. Maybe I don’t know how to move on from my past, from my litany of mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still do some good.
Tessa squeezes my hand. “Then we better use every one of those days to help Tilly. Because Carl’s still out there, and I’ve no doubt in my mind he’s coming for her next.”
Tessa and I plant ourselves on a bench outside Aunt Betty’s, Tilly’s mom’s store, where Tilly apparently works over the summer hawking locally made jewelry and soaps.
Our stakeout to catch Carl has been underway for hours.
We don’t know where he lives, but if he’s stalking Tilly, we’re determined to catch him in the act.
What happens when we find him, we haven’t worked out yet.
So far, Carl hasn’t come in, or even driven by. He’s not around when Tilly grabs lunch with some friends from the French club. We spy her through the café window, chatting, sipping iced coffee, and trying to pretend her world isn’t imploding. Tessa tenses beside me.
“That would have been me before.” Her fingers trace along the windowpane as she watches the girls inside. “Now, someone else gets to fill her shoes as best friend. Maybe not these girls in this moment, but someday.”
I hadn’t given a lot of thought to Santiago and Kira moving on without me, but in this moment, with time marching on in front of us, it’s a punch to the gut for sure.
“What hurts even more is that they don’t know Tills like I do.
They don’t notice how she’s drowning. She’s putting on a good front, but see how her eyes drift outside, lost and lonely, or the heaviness that hangs over her as she tries to make conversation.
I wish I could hug her, talk to her. But I can’t even reassure her that I’m okay. ”
I rest my hand on Tessa’s shoulder to let her know I understand, that I also feel the loss, but she shuffles out of my reach, saying something about casing the neighborhood for Carl.
I let her go. I need a moment by myself, too.
When she returns, I pretend I don’t notice how her eyes are red and puffy.
The afternoon progresses with no luck. We don’t find any trace of Carl during Tilly’s evening jog along the river path.
By the time night falls, our hours following her feel like they were for nothing.
Maybe we have this all wrong. Maybe Carl isn’t coming after her.
Maybe he panicked over what he’s done and has gone to ground instead.
“I’m starting to get that weird hollowed-out feeling again.
” I sit beside Tessa on the lawn, gazing up at the inviting warm windows of Tilly’s childhood home.
Occasionally we catch glimpses of Tilly and her family at the dinner table or puttering and cleaning up.
“Remember how Hal said you can’t be gone too long before you need a supernatural recharge back at the site of your death? ”
“Yeah. I feel it, too. That swooping, empty feeling.” Tessa runs her hand over her stomach. “I hate to leave Tills for even a moment, but we should probably head back. We can return in the morning.”
Just then, Tilly steps out the front door, tossing a goodbye to her mom as she walks toward her car.
She only makes it a few steps down the driveway when her phone rings. She fishes it out of her purse with an odd expression. “Who is this?” she demands. “Answer me.”
Silence.
“Carl, is that you?”
The hairs rise on the back of my neck as I shoot a panicked glance at Tessa.
“I blocked your number. Did you get a burner phone?” Tilly’s eyes roam the dark, empty street nervously.
Tessa and I are on our feet. “Is he nearby?” My heart races. He could be lurking anywhere.
Tessa’s eyes hunt the neighborhood shadows like mine. We hover beside Tilly as she makes her way to her car.
I can’t hear what Carl is saying, but whatever it is has Tilly upset.
“I don’t know what you think you saw, but he’s just a friend.
We both lost someone close to us, and he was consoling me.
You need to respect my boundaries and leave me alone, Carl.
I’m not going to say it again. If you call or text me one more time, I’m …
I’m going to the police.” She hangs up, hands shaking.
Tilly’s key fob rattles in her fingers as she unlocks her car.
“We need to find him if he’s nearby,” says Tessa. “This is our chance.” She races down the block, looking behind bushes, garbage cans, anywhere a psycho creep might lurk.
I inspect the side of Tilly’s house, in case Carl’s lurking in the shadows. With a last nervous glance, Tilly gets in and starts the engine, taking off down her driveway. That’s when Carl steps out from behind a tree across the street, heading for a yellow car parked under some long branches.
“He’s right there!” Tessa runs down the street toward me, as if I haven’t noticed. “Stop him.”
Stop him how? My mind casts around for any advantage we might have. What can I use? I can’t pick anything up. I can’t speak to him. I’m a shit ghost. In a panic, I do the only thing I can think of: I charge across the street and walk straight through him.