A World Without You(90)

I ignore them both—I ignore everything: the Doctor rushing to Ryan’s aid, the scared cries and whispers of the other students gathered on the lawn, the shouts of teachers to remain calm and to stay put—and turn back to the building.

Fire doesn’t melt bricks, but it’s melting Ryan’s illusion. It falls away like ash, and Berkshire is far clearer than I’ve ever seen it before. Everything’s clearer. Dr. Franklin and Gwen and Ryan look more real, like the difference between a photograph and an actual person. I look down at myself, holding my hands out in front of me. I look more real.

And so does the iron key.

There’s a thread connecting the key all the way into the academy. Just like the threads of fate that make up the timestream. I touch the thread gently, and it’s hot, burning my fingertips. But in that moment of connection, I also see, for just a flash, Harold. His body is slumped inside the closet, one arm still raised as if beating against the door, but it’s motionless. He’s entirely still. His eyes don’t even blink as the smoke swirls around him.

For as long as I’ve had my power, for as much as I’ve tried to understand it, I’ve considered some laws unchangeable. There are moments in time that I cannot prevent. I could no sooner change Harold’s fate than I could change the sinking of the Titanic. That is the rule of time.

But I don’t care about the rules anymore.

I wrap my hand around the thread connecting Harold to the key. It burns like hot wire melting through my palm, slicing open the thin skin between my thumb and forefinger. I grit my teeth and wrap tighter, pulling it, straining against time itself, begging the universe for the power to finally make a change to the pattern of history.

Even though it feels as if the thread has maimed my hand, when I blink, I can tell that this is an injury no one else can see. Ryan’s still clutching his face, and the Doctor’s shouting into a phone that there’s a kid inside the building. Gwen’s watching me, a slight frown on her face. She can’t see the thread. She can’t see how close I am to breaking it.

With a mighty heave, I pull.

The thread snaps.

And now time itself can be altered.

I don’t waste a second. I move like a puppet master, grabbing handfuls of threads from the timestream, sifting them through my fingers. I know exactly where I need to go, because I have already been there.

I go back to a few weeks ago. There’s a past version of me sitting in front of the old Salem ruins. It’s starting to piss rain, the clouds dense and dark. And Harold—still alive, still well—is walking up the path toward me.

Before he rounds the corner, I step in front of him. In moments, he’s going to go to the ruined brick fireplace and talk to me about darkness and voices, and then we’re going to go back to the academy together. But first, I stop him here.

“I want you to have this,” I tell him, handing him the iron key.

Harold looks at me in surprise, but he accepts it.

“Keep it with you all the time,” I say. “You are definitely going to need it in the future.”

He keeps his head down, staring at it. His fingers wrap around the metal, and he starts to lift his head to speak to me, but I’m already gone.

I’m back in the present, in front of the fire, my eyes on the door. Carlos Estrada is no longer in front of me, framed by the flames. Instead, it’s Harold staggering through the smoke, coughing, the iron key in his hand.





CHAPTER 62




I saved him.

I went back in time. I gave him the key. I saved him.

My power is real.

“Harold!” Dr. Franklin yells, abandoning Ryan so abruptly that he drops to the ground. The Doctor falls to his knees in front of Harold, clutching his shoulders, running his hands along his sides, looking for injuries. One of the teachers—the science tutor, Mr. Glover—passes over a bottle of water, and Harold chugs it, sputtering through a sore throat.

“Where were you?” the Doctor says over and over.

“I was locked in the book closet in the library,” Harold says in a weak voice. He raises his arm, pointing to Ryan. “He left me there.”

“How’d you get out?” Mr. Glover asks.

Harold shrugs. “That lock was really old, and I guess with the heat, it sort of snapped. I’m sorry, I totally broke it.”

The Doctor sob-laughs in relief and hugs Harold tightly.

I creep closer, searching Harold’s eyes. Does he really not remember using the key I gave him? Or is he pretending not to know because he still doubts the Doctor, as I do?

I look at his hand.

No key.

Above us, the windows burst, shooting out shards of glass followed by bright red-orange flames. Several students on the ground scream and dash even farther away.

“Where are the damn fire trucks?” Mr. Glover asks Dr. Franklin.

One of the windows that broke was to Sofía’s room. And while I don’t see Sofía’s face, I see the outline of a girl in flames. An invisible girl, trapped in the fire.

I move forward without thinking.

The illusory world Ryan created—the one where he made me think I was crazy, that Berkshire Academy was for kids with special needs instead of kids with special powers, that Sofía was dead—has broken away. The fact that Harold is still alive proves that.