This Is How It Ends

“Stop!” I yelled. Like they were going to listen. I sprinted after them, dodging the branch that hung low at the start of the trail. It had been years since I’d hiked it, but I still remembered every twist of the path. I jogged up the steep section, careful to keep my eyes on the ground. It was easy to hit a stone or hole and sprain your ankle. I could hear the person ahead of me crashing through the brush, stepping on twigs as they went. What could they possibly want? The money Trip’s dad had given me was tucked securely in a bank account. We had nothing else of value. Except the lighter, of value to only one person.

The trail’s incline evened out as the path zigzagged around trees and brush. I kept up a jog. The person sounded farther ahead, but I knew I’d catch up. Another forty feet, and the trail seemed to disappear. To find it you had to climb through two fallen trees, their branches forming a knotted obstacle not unlike the maze of strings Sarah and I had created in the physics closet and at Natalie’s trailer. I doubted the person ahead of me knew that.

I rounded the last bend, stepping into the small clearing before the trees.

It was empty.

And then I saw the slightest movement. Someone crouched behind a bush to the side of the trail. I might not have noticed if it had been a little darker. Or if her coat hadn’t been bright red.

“Sarah?”

Nothing.

“I see you.” I took a step closer. “You can come out.”

She stood slowly, her long hair tangled, pieces of twigs and dead leaves clinging to it. There was a scratch across her cheek. She looked wild, her eyes jittery and desperate. It struck me that this was the first time since Trip had died that I’d actually seen her eyes, that she’d looked at me straight on.

“Sarah,” I said gently, stepping toward her. “Are you okay? I’ve been really worried—” I stopped, seeing her shrink from my reach. I let my hand drop back. She didn’t want me to touch her. I understood, but it stung. I’d only wanted to comfort her. She looked like she needed it.

“You were in my house,” I said softly, afraid to scare her away. “Do you need something?”

She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. I could see them glittering.

“What, Sarah? Did you need to see me?”

She shook her head. Then said something, her voice too quiet.

“What?”

“The binoculars,” she said louder. “I need the binoculars.”

“What?” I noticed the deep hollows of her face and circles around her eyes and wondered if she’d gone over the edge. “Why?”

“Please, Riley,” she said, the tears now running down her cheeks. “Please don’t make me explain. Just . . . just let me have them.”

I felt a tickle of something, the same kind of warning I’d felt when we’d first found them that night at the cave. Just give them to her, my inner voice said. Don’t ask questions. But I hadn’t listened to it before, so why start now? I’m a slow learner like that.

“Sarah,” I started. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. “Why do you want them?”

She wiped at her face, leaving streaks of mud from the tears and dirt. “Riley . . . I . . .” She took a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what, Sarah? The stuff that’s happened . . .” I didn’t want to say his name. “It’s not your fault.”

“No.” She shook her head miserably. “You’re wrong, Riley. It is my fault. All of it.”

“Sarah—” I stepped toward her, meaning to soothe, but again she shrank away.

“They’re mine,” she said starkly. “The binoculars.”

I froze. “What?”

“I’m the one who put them in the cave,” she said. “Before that night when we found them. I’ve known what they were—or what they were supposed to be—all along. I just . . . I never thought . . .” She stopped, crying too hard to continue.

I didn’t move, struggling to work through the words. I wanted to believe she was crazy, as horrible as that would be. She looked crazy. But something told me she wasn’t.

“What do you mean?” I heard myself ask.

Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes squeezed shut. Then she wiped her hands harshly across both cheeks and took a deep unsteady breath. “My mom gave them to me. Before she left.” Sarah barked an angry laugh. “I guess that’s the thing. When you abandon your family, you leave something behind. Nat got a vase. I got these effed-up binoculars.

“She called them her déjà vu glasses,” Sarah said hoarsely. She cleared her throat before continuing. “The first time I saw them, I must have been seven or eight. She was all excited about them, a new project she was tinkering with. I’d hear her and my dad talking about them from time to time, tossing around ideas of hypnosis and brain function. That was the kind of background chatter that went on in our house.”

“Yeah, mine, too,” I said, but Sarah didn’t crack a smile.

“It’s not a joke, Riley.” She sucked her lip in, biting at it. I knew it wasn’t. I didn’t feel like laughing either. I felt like screaming or running away, the way I’d felt at my dad’s grave on our anniversary visit. Wishing I could rewind time. “I didn’t think anything of it,” Sarah continued. “I mean, why would I? I was a kid and there were always things my mom was making, new machines, new projects. This was just another of them, right?

“One day when I was ten, she sat me down in the kitchen. My dad was out, and I knew it was serious, because my mom didn’t have sit-down conversations. That meant she’d have to stay still. And focus.” Sarah smiled bitterly. “She brought them out.

“‘Do you remember these?’ she asked me.

“‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘Your dish-a-view glasses.’

“She laughed. ‘Déjà vu,’ she corrected me. ‘Do you know what that is?’

“I didn’t, and she explained it. ‘These glasses make that happen,’ she said—”

“What does that mean?” I interrupted. My mouth was dry, and every nerve thrummed with energy. And fear.

She had known, I realized. That’s what she was telling me. This whole time Sarah had known what they were. And now I was about to know too. Had I really seen my future?

“There are big parts of our brain that we never use,” Sarah said. “That’s what my dad’s dissertation was about. The one my mom got so interested in. Dormant centers. There are a lot of theories about what goes on in there and whether people have untapped powers, ESP, telekinesis—”