I had nothing but my nightgown on, so when I opened the door, the cold air raised goose bumps all over my arms. I reached for the hanger nearby without looking and grabbed the first thing I touched—a black leather coat that was my mother’s, but it would do. I put it over my shoulders and slipped the chronobank into the pocket, just in case, then stepped outside, barefoot as I was, analmost-smileon my lips. The lights mounted on the outside wall of our house were bright enough that they illuminated the entire front yard. Empty. Nobody was there—and nobody was outside in the street, either. Just the night, the sky dark and full of clouds, the air sometimes warmer, sometimes colder, like it was still deciding what to be.
Closing the door behind me, I walked barefoot on the grass and to the side of our house, stopped right by my window. I could see my bed from it, could see my room. Could almost seemyselflying there, staring at the ceiling for the past two hours, too.
No idea why I was so excited, why some part of me felt likeit knewexactly what to expect, like I’d gotten out of bed in the middle of the night and had snuck out of my room regularly before, too, which I hadn’t.
Except I waited there, a minute and three and five, and no more rocks slammed against the glass, and nobody moved or breathed around me. It would make sense that I’d imagined it, of course—except there, on the glass, I could just see where the rocks had slammed, and some had left scratches behind, and that last one had left a little dirt near the corner, too. Somebodyhadthrown those rocks, and they’d pulled me out of my bed, and now they wanted to hide?
My excitement waned. Anger took its place all over my chest so suddenly, and then I was walking ahead toward the trees, calling, “Allan! Finn—I know it’syou!”
And who cared what time it was or that I was shouting—it was them, my cousins, and I was going to make them pay. Maybe right now was my chance to give magic a try, to finally spend a couple of minutes from my new chronobank. Maybe I could set their hair on fire or give them hives for days.
Never mind that I didn’t have the first clue about setting things on fire or giving people hives, but I would certainly try. The way I felt, therawdisappointment that was acting as fuel for my anger, I was willing to spend every second of Sparetime I had—however I’d earned it—on paying them back for this.
For making me…feel somethingother than dread.
“Come out—I know it’s you! Show your faces this instant, you stemwits!”
And I might not have hadanyidea where I even heard such a word, or who could have possibly come up with it, but in those moments, I couldn’t bring myself to care. I just wanted to see their faces, and I wanted to relish the feeling oftriumphwhen they saw what was in my hand—the chronobank.
They wouldnotbe laughing then. I would make sure of it.
Except…
I was already by the trees, having jumped over the low fence that circled our house, and the boys weren’t coming out.
I called their names again, two-three times, but the woods in front of me remained silent. Dark.
My heart skipped a couple of beats.
“Hello?”
I waited, ears strained, breath held, fists tight…
No answer.
But there was a light.
It burned somewhere between the trees, deeper into the woods—and I knew this woods like the back of my hand. I’d grown up in it. The poplars were tall, with plenty of distance between the trunks, and it was only about fifty feet wide. The other side was bordered by a low hill where we used to play when we were kids. In there, too—we played a lot in this wood, and so I knew for a fact that there was no lantern anywhere in it.
Yet the light burned, dim at first, but with every beat of my heart, it was becoming brighter. Greener, until it was a clear teal light ball, possibly the size of my head.
Magic, liquid and gas and everything in between floating in the air between the trees like it had always been there. Like it belonged in this woods when it didn’t.
Before I knew it, I was walking toward it.
Before I knew it, all that anger had disappeared, and in its stead was now a sense of wonder, of curiosity so deep it felt likeawakening.Like feelingallof me for the first time in a very long time.
Then I heard the noise behind me when I was still halfway to the light—or maybe it was floatingawayfrom me?
I turned, expecting Allan or Finn to jump at me, but it wasn’t them.
They hadn’t been the ones who’d thrown rocks at my window. It had been…someone else. Someone taller, hooded, and with a piece of wood in his hands, which he swung with all his strength into the side of my head.
A gasp, and then I was gone, my mind dark long before I hit the ground, the last image in my head that of a crescent moon that was also the sharp teeth of a grinning cat.
I heard things,though at this point it was impossible to tell if any of it was real, if it was just things I was imagining while I stared at the ceiling or the sky or a door, if I was in a dream for real—or if I was getting those flashes of faded memories that forever slipped between my fingers.
There was no way to tell the difference anymore, but I did hear voices. Male, two of them, I thought. They talked about—check the rope,andcheck her head-bag,andcheck her pulse, too.
