Hourglass

“I only see people who are dead. Dead people from the past. People from the future aren’t dead. How can a rip from the future show up in the present? Which would be their past, I guess.”

Wrinkles appeared on Michael’s forehead, I assumed from attempting to follow my logic. Understandable. I couldn’t follow it either.

“It’s not so much past, present, and future.” The creases grew deeper as he tried to explain. “It’s more fluid than that, almost parallel.”

“Then it’s inevitable?” I asked, defeated. “I’m going to have to deal with people from the future?”

He nodded. I felt like I’d been slapped across the face.

“Have you seen people from the future?” I asked.

“I started out seeing rips from the future, but now I see them from the past, too.”

Great. A whole other group of people to look out for at parties.

“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, my voice edging closer to hysteria. “How did you know they were from the future? Did they show up in a hovercraft? With a trusty robot sidekick?”

“No.” He shook his head. His face grew more worried by the second. “At dinner you asked me about the first time I saw a rip from the past. I told you. But the very first rip I saw was from the future. We’d gone to Turner Field to watch the Braves play the Red Sox in an interleague game. The guy in line in front of me had on a World Series shirt. Something about the year—and the team that won—was off.”

Michael had been staring off in the distance as he relayed his experience. Now he focused on me.

“Two thousand four or two thousand seven?” I asked.

“Two thousand four.” He grinned. “When I reached up to touch his sleeve, my hand connected with his arm and he dissolved. I freaked, and my mom took me to the hospital. That’s how the Hourglass found me. They pay people to research that kind of thing.”

“People from the future. How strange. My rips show up in pilgrim bonnets or powdered wigs. But … people from the future. How strange,” I repeated. “Have you ever seen anyone you know?”

“Not exactly.” He looked away. His avoidance put my already overloaded senses on full alert.

“Michael?”

He said nothing but refocused his eyes on mine.

“Michael, who have you seen? Tell me.”

“I think this is a mistake,” he said, leaning forward to stand up. “Just forget it. You don’t really want to know.”

“No, I think I do.” I reached out to stop him, putting my hand on his shoulder then jerking away when the tremor started traveling up my arm. I repeated the question softly. “Who did you see from the future?”

He exhaled and leaned back in his chair before he answered.

“You.”

Chapter 14

Staring at Michael, I wondered which one of us was the nut job. I practiced my deep breathing, although I don’t actually know how to do deep breathing that is in any way official. But the chances were good I would pass out cold within seconds if I didn’t try.

Michael’s voice was cautious. “Em, it’s okay.”

“Don’t call me Em.” The nickname suggested way too much familiarity, which made sense, considering he knew me before I met him. Placing my forehead on the glass tabletop, I banged it a couple of times, mumbling under my breath.

I convinced myself not to run from the patio screaming, mostly because I would have to come back eventually. I did live upstairs. I was also pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to run in my bunny slippers. The fact that he saw the jazz trio at the party gave him some validity. Just a little. But now he was talking about people from the future, specifically me. I raised my head, trying not to whimper.

“I should’ve broken that more gently,” Michael said. “It’s just that when you found me you told me to—”

“Stop! Please don’t talk about anything I’ve said to you unless the words have been uttered in the past twenty-four hours. By me.” I pointed to myself for emphasis. “This me. If this is true”—I emitted a hysterical giggle—“how did you know who I was? Why did you believe me?”

“You were very convincing. You knew things about me, kind of like I know things about you now.”

“Like what?” The thought was intriguing enough for me to forget we were talking about the impossible.

“Let’s see. You’re a baseball junkie, an out-of-place Red Sox fan like me, but you think designated hitters are a joke,” he explained, watching my face for my reaction, clearly enjoying the upper hand even in the midst of my breakdown. “You listen to bluegrass when you’re alone because you don’t want anyone to know you like it. You had a belly ring, but you took it out before you came home and Thomas found out.” He grinned and cut his eyes to my middle. I forced myself not to squirm. “And …”

He was dead on so far. I wondered why he stopped.

“What?”

“I’m not ready to give up all my secrets. Have I been wrong about anything?”

“No.” I sniffed. “Although the designated-hitter opinion is still in development.”

“You don’t have to think about it anymore. Now you know what you decided.”

“Whatever. So, when me from the future found you”—that just sounded insane—“what did I know about you?”

“Why should I tell you?” He was having a little too much fun.

“What if this is the only chance you get?” I pointed out. “What if the information you give me right now, in this conversation, is the only time you ever tell me what it is I eventually tell you to get you to believe me?” I hoped he would answer without making me explain that again because I was having a hard time keeping up with myself.

Michael’s grin grew wider, and I had the feeling he was on to me. “You told me that my favorite ice cream is spumoni, that I got stitches when I was seven and my scar is in a really interesting place—you knew where—that I had a teddy bear named Rupert I wouldn’t part with when I was little, and that the first time I saw you, now, in the present, you would … take my breath away.”

“Well.” Heat crept up my chest to my face.

He looked up at the night sky, speaking his next words so softly I almost couldn’t hear them. “You were right.”

Deep, slow breathing, Em. Deep, slow breathing.

“When I found you … was I a time ripple?” I asked after a quiet moment.

“That’s a little complicated,” he said, drumming his fingertips on the glass tabletop again.

“Why is that your favorite answer for everything?”

He didn’t respond.

Dealing with my own anxiety, I found I couldn’t keep my legs still underneath the table. I wished urgently it wasn’t see-through. I took a breath to steady myself, knowing what I was about to ask meant either I was truly crazy or my world was about to be turned upside down.

“You said I came to you from the future. I can only think of one way that could happen if I didn’t appear to you as a rip.” Another hysterical laugh escaped from my lips, this time for a really good reason. Or a really bad reason. “Christopher Reeve and self-hypnosis? Doctor Who and his phone booth? Hermione and the Time Turner?”