I edge forward and crouch beside them. My mother’s eyes are two wide, unblinking beacons, holding us both in place. “I want to show you something.” She holds her hand up into a fist, her thumb poking out between her index and middle finger. Fresh, angry marks line her wrist. A bitter taste fills my mouth. “This means safe. Can you do it too?”
The little girl mimics the gesture, and my mother’s smile transforms her face. The hollows in her cheeks fill, and her eyes sparkle. “I’m going to teach you another one.” She crosses her index and middle fingers over one another, like a child telling a fib. “This is how we can tell there are people around us who are dangerous.”
“Evelyn, how did you get out of your room?” a nurse calls from the other end of the corridor.
My mother’s eyes widen, and she leans toward my younger self, fingernails digging into the girl’s tiny shoulders. “We can use these to communicate with each other. Our little secret, hmm?” Hospital staff in navy scrubs stride toward us, and my mother stands, thrusting the girl behind her. “You’re not safe, Mari,” she screams. “They’re going to kill us.”
Two nurses approach, speaking under their breath. “I found a stash of pills in her bedroom. She hasn’t been medicated for over a week,” one says.
“Explains the hallucinations,” the other says.
A younger man in black scrubs steps past the nurses and approaches my mother. “No one’s trying to kill you, Evelyn. We’re here to help you.”
Another nurse reaches for my younger self’s hand. “Time to go, Mari.”
My mother straightens, staggering backwards into the laundry cart. “This isn’t real,” she screams.
“We’re real, Evelyn,” the man in black scrubs says calmly.
A burly staff member clamps his arms around my mother, her bare feet lifting off the ground.
“Get off me,” she screams, and it sounds as if the words are being torn from her throat. “No. They’re trying to kill me.”
I jerk awake to the rumble of a garbage truck and the clatter of breaking bottles. My heart’s racing from my dream, my mother’s unhinged face fresh in my mind. Grabbing my phone, I open Silas’s message containing my mother’s death certificate.Bilateral vertical incision to ventral surfaceof wrist.Tears spill onto my cheeks at the memory of the fresh, raised cuts on my mother’s wrists and her high-pitched wail as she was dragged back to her room.
Schizophrenia, psychosis, post-traumatic stress disorder.
Did reading my mother’s death certificate somehow trigger a memory trapped within my own subconscious?
Electric sparks lick at my fingertips, and I shake my hands, hurling the energy away like it’s toxic.
I read the report again, each inhale more restricted than the last.
“Time travel isn’t genetic.”
“We studied theory of time travel with McGregor at Neurovida every day. For years. If it was genetic, we’d know.”
A shiver races down my spine, and my gaze jumps from the closed bedroom door to the sliver of night visible between my drawn curtains.No one is watching you.I creep toward the window and glance down at the empty street. A cat scampers beneath a parked car. A memory flashes through my head: my mother standing by her own bedroom window, fingers curled into her cardigan as she peered down at the street. “Shh,” she whispered, eyes glued to the front lawn. “Someone’s out there.”
My hand rises to my mouth.
Oh, God.
Time travel isn’t genetic. My mother killed herself. And there were warning signs. Her secret hand signals and lying about her medication. Her paranoia about being followed, just like mine.
There’s a knock on my door. “Ella, are you in there?” Anna says.
I cross the bedroom on numb legs and turn the handle, my thoughts scrambling. Anna’s hot pink lips are pressed together, her brows scrunched.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, seeing the subtle tic in her jaw.
She shifts on her wedges, arms crossed tightly against her chest. “I was at dinner with my father last night, and he ran into an old rowing friend and his daughter. Sarah Walker.” The blood drains from my face. “I told her it was really nice to finally meet her, seeing as she’s yourbest friend.”
“Anna—” I say, cringing.
The smile on her face sends chills down my arms. “She says she hasn’t seen you in years. Says you weren’t even friends at school. She only knew who you were because she said your mother killed herself when you were in elementary school.” Tears brim in her narrowed eyes. “Ella, you told me your mom died from a heart attack. Did you not think you could trust me? That I would want to be there for you? And I know you went through my closet again.”
“What?” I ask.
