Departure(85)

I look at the laptop screen. At her eyes. I hear the running water. Like a waterfall.

My head explodes. Waves coalesce into a bolt of pain. A hammer strike. Pain so bad I become numb.

I bring another handful of water to my face, pressing it into my eyes, and when I take my hands away, I’m standing on a muddy bank before a torn plane sticking up out of the lake. Every exhalation sends white steam into the night, and there’s no sound, no other sensation. The world, save for my breathing, seems frozen.

Slowly, with great effort, I turn to my right, where a woman stands, still, her face unreadable. “How about you?” I ask.

“Yeah . . . I’m good. I’m a good swimmer.”

I turn back to the plane in the lake, but it’s gone. I’m in my hotel room. The newscast is ending. The glowing computer screen stares at me. The face. The woman on Facebook. It was her.





49





I’m losing it.

My hands are slick with sweat. The voice over the loudspeaker booms, “All passengers, this is a final boarding call for Flight 314 to London Heathrow. All passengers . . .”

But I’m the only passenger left in the waiting area for this flight. I sit, staring at the woman working the counter. She’s holding the radio with its curling cord, the button depressed as she speaks, staring directly at me.

She knows there’s only one booked seat unfilled, one person left to board the flight who has cleared security and is somewhere in the concourse. She figures it’s me.

This is crazy. I should turn around and go home, get my head checked.

Instead I stand and walk over, hand her my boarding pass. She glances at my sweat-drenched hair and pale, clammy skin. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Fine. . . . It’s just . . . I’ve had some bad transatlantic flights recently.”





I don’t know Harper Lane’s number. I searched for it. No landline. No way to find her cell. Don’t know her e-mail. I thought about a Facebook friend request, but . . . how creepy is that? What would I say? Remember me? I got your carry-on down after a flight we shared. Hey, do you happen to remember that flight crashing in the English countryside? ’Cause I do, and things got really crazy after that . . .

What I do know—about all I know—is where she lives.

I’ve been there. In 2147.

And now I’m walking there. In 2014. The thing I need to figure out at this point is what I will tell the police when I’m arrested.

An elderly man wearing an argyle sweater and a flat cap holds the door to her building open for me as I approach.

I skip to catch it, thanking him.

Up the first flight of stairs.

Second.

Third.

On the fourth, I see her door.

Crazy.

I knock, every tap sending a sensation like an electric shock from my fingers to the pit of my stomach. I fight the urge to turn on my heel and run.

On the other side of the door, I hear the sound of socked feet on the wooden floor. I wipe the sweat from my forehead.

The tiny point of light in the peephole goes dark.

A thud on the other side of the door. The peephole is light again. She’s likely going for her phone, calling the police.

A clicking sound.

The door swings in slowly, and she steps into the narrow opening.

My voice comes out a whisper. “Hi.”

Her jaw falls as she turns white as a sheet. Her eyes go wide, making them seem even bigger, more endless, more captivating, than they already are.

“Hi,” she breathes, barely audible.

She lets her hands fall to her side, and the heavy wooden door creaks open, revealing the room. It’s a wreck. Wadded-up pieces of notebook paper lie in drifts at the edges of the room. Layers of construction paper cover the floor like unraked autumn leaves. Markers are scattered everywhere. It looks like a day-care center. Maybe her children? Nieces and nephews?

On the couch and two chairs, seven big sheets of construction paper are propped up, facing out, like artworks on easels at an exhibition. Actually, they’re more like scientific papers at a conference: titles scrawled at the top, rough drawings and timelines below. Dragons. Ships. Pyramids. And endless notes, scribblings. Arrows and strikethroughs.

Alice Carter.

They’re all about Alice Carter.

Who the hell is Alice Carter? Another passenger? Possibly. I only got a few names.

As the doors swings completely open, I see an eighth sheet of construction paper. A final exhibit. “Flight 305” is scrawled across the top in big block letters. Below it: “Stand-alone novel? Sci-fi? Thriller? Time travel?”

She thinks it’s all in her head. Another story she made up.

Below the subtitle, there’s a sketch: the round, torn end of a plane jutting above a placid lake, a crescent moon in the sky.

Names fill the space below.

Nick Stone. Sabrina Schr?der. Yul Tan.

Not fiction?

Hope fills me, gives me the courage to step into the room. She keeps her feet planted, her body still. Only her eyes follow me.

Time to take a chance. “How much do you remember?”

She swallows, blinks, but her voice comes out clear, confident. “Everything.”

I exhale. For the first time the pounding in my head subsides, every passing second washing it away.