A World Without You(13)

I take a deep breath. I have to move quickly; I’ll waste precious time if I let myself get sucked into the past.

I try not to think about the irony of a time traveler worried about wasting time.

I zero in on a moment in time, a portion of the string. Before I can doubt myself, I snatch the string, yanking it back and letting go as quickly as possible. I see it pucker and then—

—I see the past. I’m used to pulling myself physically through time, but this is different: I stay where I am, watching as the past plays out in my mind like a movie.

A session early in the year. Dr. Franklin was trying to make a game of us getting to know one another better. He’d shout out something like “If you were born before August, stand up, and if you were born in August or later, stay sitting!” or “If you’d rather go to the beach for vacation, hop up and down, but if you’d rather spend your vacation in the mountains, wave your arms.” Ryan pretended like the whole thing was stupid, but everyone else had fun.

I see the Doctor now, grinning at us. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him smile.

“If you’re the oldest in your family,” he says, “stand up. If you’re the youngest, sit on the floor. If you’re a middle child, jump up and down. And if you’re an only child, stand on your chair!”

The me in this vision jumps up, looking around, eager to see what everyone else did. Ryan deigns to get up, then turns the chair around and stands on it, sighing as if it takes too much effort. Gwen plops on the floor, and Harold—little, quiet Harold—starts jumping around. Laughter breaks out in the room; none of us had seen him act so silly before.

But none of us had seen Sofía look quite that sad before either. She hadn’t known how to answer because she used to be a middle child, and now she was an only child. I had merely a moment to register the deep sorrow etched into her face before she turned transparent and disappeared from sight.

I shake my head, hard, trying to clear it from the vision. Glancing at the timestream, I see that my plan has worked, at least a little. Sofía’s string is looser and has moved slightly within the pattern of the timestream. But this small victory is tinged a little by melancholy—I can’t help but remember how long it took Sofía to talk about her family with the group, and longer still for her to say anything more personal than their names to me in private.

The week of her family’s funeral, Sofía stayed invisible and silent. Her father stayed drunk and not silent. He was angry, so angry because he’d lost his wife and daughters, but he didn’t understand that even though Sofía was alive, he’d lost her too.

I’m glad Sofía lived at the academy and not with him.

Lives. Not lived. Lives.

I force myself to push the memories aside. There’s work to do.

I select another point in the timestream where I can pluck up the red string. I brace myself, ready for the memory, as I pinch the string and yank it back as quickly as I can. I hear Gwen and Sofía’s voices before I see the common room on the day Harold turned sixteen—which shocked us all because he still looked about twelve. His birthday was on a weekend, and though Gwen and I usually go home on weekends, we decided to stay because Gwen wanted to throw him a party.

Gwen, Sofía, Ryan, and I sit around the big table; Harold stands off to the side chatting with his ghosts.

“His favorite books are the Harry Potter series,” Sofía says in a hushed voice.

“I can work with that,” Gwen says. “Maybe we can make up a letter from Hogwarts and slip it under his door.”

“Lame,” Ryan drawls.

Gwen rolls her eyes at him. “Then what do you suggest?”

Ryan leans back lazily. “Hey, Harold,” he calls. “Want to play Quidditch?”

Harold’s whole face lights up.

The vision fades from my mind, but I’m left smiling, remembering what happened next. Ryan had been right—if we had powers, why not use them? Sofía scrounged up four brooms while Gwen found some volleyballs in the beach supply closet, and Harold, Ryan, and I went to the courtyard. Ryan used his telekinesis to make us fly on the brooms—or, more accurately, float in place or slowly move backward, since he still didn’t have much control of his ability. With a little effort we got an actual Quidditch game going. Sort of. Either way, it was hilarious and fun.

When the Doctor came out to see what we were all doing, Ryan floated his gold fountain pen from his front pocket and used it as the Snitch. I think he made sure that Harold got it; Ryan wasn’t so much of a dick back then. Ryan was still Ryan, though, so he made sure the ball we were using hit Harold as soon as he snatched the pen from the air. Harold collapsed onto the soft grass below, laughing his brains out.

As the vision fades, the timestream comes into sharper focus. Sofía’s string is a little closer, but it’s not enough. The end is still trapped in the dark spot swirling over 1692. I work quickly and select another moment along the string, striking like a cobra as I snatch it, tugging it from the weave.

Ryan, Harold, and I are hanging out by the marsh. Harold’s wearing shorts; this is still at the end of summer. When Ryan starts to talk, I realize that this memory is from one of the first few days at Berkshire, when everyone was still moving in, before classes had even started.

“I’ve been to three of these before,” Ryan says, gathering rocks into a little pile. He starts throwing them into the marsh, aiming for the birds.