The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(53)

In truth, Mia had been struggling with her weirdness from the day she arrived. Her temporal quirk was too subtle for the cameras to register, too insane to share with others. She figured even Zack wouldn’t believe her when she showed him her precognitive paper scraps. He’d probably assume her mind had cracked into split personalities. She wasn’t ready to rule out the possibility herself.

On her third night in Terra Vista, Mia returned to her bed and found a tiny new roll of paper on her pillow. Unfurling it revealed a fresh missive, once again scribbled in her handwriting.

I know you’re freaking out right now. So was I. I know you’re skeptical about these notes. So was I. But trust me when I say that our power’s a blessing, not a curse. I’m loving it now. And I’m only six months older than you.

She continued to manage her problem in secret, receiving at least one new dispatch each night. The messages ranged from the obscure to the inane.

Took my first ride in a flying cab today. Holy @$#%!

Commemoration has to be worst holiday ever. Learn to dread October 5th.

If you see a small and creepy guy with a 55 on his hand, run. That’s Evan Rander. He’s bad news.

There are no words to describe what they did with New York. So beautiful, it brings me to tears.

On her fifth night, Mia finally saw a portal up close. A shimmering disc, as small as a button and as bright as a penlight, hovered a foot above her pillow. Its tiny surface rippled like a thimble of milk. Before Mia could get a closer look, the portal spit a new note and then shrank out of existence. She unrolled the paper.

Don’t trust Peter. He’s not who he says he is.

Ten minutes later, she was awoken by another tiny breach just inches above her face. A new piece of paper dropped onto her nose.

Disregard that first note. I was just testing something. Peter’s good. He’s great, actually.

Daunted by all the baffling new intel, Mia asked Czerny for a journal. “Just to collect my thoughts,” she told him, with loaded candor.

The next day, he indulged and insulted her with a ferociously girlish pocket diary—neon-pink, and covered in cartoon hearts. She tepidly thanked him, then transcribed every note she’d received. The original papers were flushed into the sea.

Soon it became routine for the others to find Mia scrutinizing her journal, tapping her pen in deep contemplation.

“What are you writing in there?” David asked her one night. He playfully peeked over her shoulder. “Anything about me?”

She slammed the book shut. “No. Go away.”

Despite his blistering intelligence, David often displayed the social tact of an eight-year-old. He openly guessed that the scar on Hannah’s wrist was self-inflicted. He idly observed that Amanda and Zack had nearly identical builds. He informed Mia that she would suffer fewer stomachaches if she ate more sensible portions. After each thoughtless gaffe, he turned sheepish in the heat of his victim’s stare.

“I was raised by a brilliant scientist with atrocious personal skills,” he explained to Mia. “From an early age, I was dragged through a gauntlet of foreign nations, each one with different rules of etiquette. Suffice it to say I’m a little bit strange. I might as well be from a third Earth entirely.”

Once Mia caught David canoodling with Hannah, walking arm in arm around the property like old Victorian lovers, she lost her fluttering crush on him. For all his alleged nonconformity, his fondness for large-breasted dingbats made him tragically typical. On the upside, Mia could finally relax around him. Her stomachaches gradually stopped.

On the second night of August, she received a tear-stained message on a scrap of motel stationery.

God, it makes me sick to look at you. The fat, clueless idiot I used to be. You think you’re adjusting? You think you’re getting a handle on your new life here? Trust me, hon. Your problems haven’t even started.

Beatrice Caudell watched on the monitor as Mia crumpled the note into an angry ball. An hour later, while the Silvers dined, Beatrice searched Mia’s room and found the paper under the bed. Soon it lay flat and wrinkled on the desk of Sterling Quint.

He suddenly became very interested in his youngest guest.

Brace yourself, an older Mia warned her. Things are about to get hairy.

On August 7, twelve hours after Amanda brought the ceiling down on her sister, Mia stood outside her door with Czerny, hoping to coax her out of exile. While the good doctor expounded with flowery optimism, Mia teetered miserably with flu. She would have killed for some of her grandmother’s minestrone, or at least a good long nap. But Amanda needed her support.

Don’t ever take her for granted, her future self insisted. She’s the best person you’ll ever know on this world.

Suddenly Mia noticed a shimmering disc of light in front of her. She assumed it was another spot in her vision until it spit out a roll of pink paper.

Czerny furrowed his brow at the tiny object. “What is that?”

She scrambled to pick it up. “Nothing. I dropped something.”

Unconvinced, the good doctor harangued her until she finally confessed her predicament. The news spread like current through the building. Quint was exuberant to the point of giddiness. The Holy Grail of temporal physics was now resting under his roof, nestled inside a meek little girl.

It wasn’t until the hullabaloo of the day finally ended that Mia remembered to read her latest message.