A World Without You (13 page)

I go back to my room
and shut the door.

Can't trust the Doctor. He's being manipulated by the government officials.

Can't trust my parents. They believe the Doc.

Can't trust Ryan. He may want to help me get rid of the officials, but Gwen's right: He's helping me because what I want lines up with what he wants. If that ever changes, Ryan wouldn't hesitate to drop me.

Can't trust anyone.

I call up the timestream, focusing on the swirling black hole where 1692 is. I can't go there and I can't pull Sofía out, but I'll get as close in time as I can, maybe reach Sofía that way.

I rub the back of my neck. These futile attempts to save my girlfriend are wearing me down, mentally and physically. I'm
exhausted
. But I can't give up.

I reach out, grabbing for the red string swirling into the vortex. It slides through my fingers like water, but I grab some
other threads woven into the timestream that lead to a time close to where I left Sofía in the past. I hold on with all my might, gritting my teeth against the pain of their pull, refusing to let go. I steel myself for the fight, holding on to the threads of time with the same desperation as I'd hold on to a rope if I fell off a cliff, but then I feel it, the familiar tug in my body, the sweet release as time lets me slip through its cracks.

I am standing in a field.

No, not a field. There's grass, but the soil is sandy. I'm definitely still on the island. I whirl around. No academy. No remains of the camp for sick kids.

The house, however—the one built in Salem—is in front of me. The paint is bright white and new on the wooden siding, and the bricks of the chimney are not yet soot-stained.

I head toward it. The air is warm and the sun high in the sky, but even so, there's smoke rising from the chimney. Behind the dark glass windows, the house looks abandoned: no people and few pieces of furniture—a table and two chairs, one of which is knocked over, as if the residents had left quickly. But someone has to be here, or nearby. The fire in the hearth blazes like it was set just moments ago.

I whisper-shout for Sofía. No reply. Still, she could be close but invisible, hiding. Not from me, but from something or someone else.

The door to the house is slightly ajar, and I step inside, still calling her name.

Nothing.

She
has
to be here, somewhere. The threads of the timestream brought me to this moment and this time for a reason, and the threads connect me to her.

I step back out onto the porch. At the Berk, in my time, the boardwalk cuts through the marshy parts of the island, creating a nature preserve for birds and the old dudes who watch them.

In this time, there's nothing but dark water and shadows. The perfect place to hide.

I leave the house, aiming for the swampy wilderness. The island is vast, so I could search all day and not cover it all. Which is weird, since in my time, the island feels tiny. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go, really. But when you add it all up, it
is
actually large.

Large enough to hide a girl with powers from the future.

The ground grows mushy as I approach the swampy water. It isn't deep—only knee-high in most places, to my waist at worst—but there's something truly icky about the way the cold, silty water squishes between my toes. No point in shoes here.

She has to be here.

Maybe she went to the lighthouse? Was it even built by this point? Or maybe it's just an empty beach, like the southern part of the island where one day Berkshire will be. Either way, I don't have many options. I have to pick a direction, so I start heading northeast, toward the lighthouse . . . or where the lighthouse will one day be.

The silence of the marsh is weird and unsettling. I can see little fish swimming in the water around my legs, darting away as I slosh forward. In my time, the marsh is murky. But here, the water is clearer, the sky is wider. A bluebird cuts through the air, a bright flash of color that reminds me of Sofía's house.

I hear people.

I drop down, squatting behind a clump of reeds, crouching so low that the water's up to my neck. The people I heard were
on horseback, and they stop not too far from me. The horses flick greenhead flies away with their tails and snort so loud that I'm sure the men can't hear me breathing.

“Nineteen,” one of them says.

“For truth?”

“In Salem.” The first man sounds a little older. “Nineteen.”

“Madness.”

I strain to hear more. The men's voices are loud and deep but heavily accented, their words almost indiscernible.

“How many in the prisons?” the younger man says.

My mouth drops open as it finally dawns on me what the first man means. Nineteen. Nineteen witches. Nineteen
people
. Hanged. Crushed. Dead.

They move again, heading away from where I'm hiding.

I stand up. The men could turn around and see me, but I rise anyway. They know what's going on. They might know if Sofía is among those taken.

“Fifty or more,” the old man says.

I start running toward the men, not caring about the noise I'm making.

“The dark one will be next to hang, surely,” the first man adds.

“Of the devil, no doubt.”

I shout for the men to stop, and they do pull their horses up short. Water sprays all around me as I surge forward. But as hard as I'm running—and I'm straining every muscle, my body aching to move forward—I barely shift an inch. The water droplets hang impossibly in the air around me.

Time snaps me back to Berkshire.

D
amn it.

I ended up right back here.

Not in my nice warm bedroom.

Nope, in the marsh. Without my shoes.

At least I'm close to the boardwalk. I pull myself up and begin the soaking wet walk of shame back to Berkshire, praying that no one will see me when I return.

Nope again.

Dr. Franklin's there, waiting for me. He has a flashlight and a radio in his hand, and there are a few other staff members in the main entryway. They were about to go look for me.

Great.

“What were you doing?!” Dr. Franklin shouts as the other staff members scurry back to their own units. “Where are your shoes?” His face sort of crumbles as I try to think of an answer. “This is about Sofía, isn't it?” he asks in a softer tone.

I nod, hoping that he can understand what I really
mean—that this was about saving her. How much of her and the reality of her situation have the officials erased from his mind? How much control of his own memories—of his own reality—has the Doc already lost?

“Go get changed,” he says, “and meet me back in my office.”

• • •

I need a shower, but the Doc didn't seem in the mood to be kept waiting, so I pull on some dirty clothes and head over to his office. The door is already open. Inside, I can hear low-pitched angry voices.

First I hear Dr. Rivers, but I can't make out what she's saying.

Then Mr. Minh starts talking. “I must say, we're very disappointed here, Dr. Franklin. Very disappointed. Your school may be private, but it still must follow Massachusetts law—”

“We're not breaking any laws!” the Doctor protests, his voice drowning out Mr. Minh's. “Sofía's accident was never supposed to happen, and I've been fully cooperative with law enforcement since then!”

I cringe. So the government officials have the Doctor so turned around that he's brought in law enforcement?

“Well, of course something like that isn't
planned
,” Mr. Minh's voice is harsh, cruel. “But regardless, it
happened
, and we're trying to ensure it doesn't happen again. Which, frankly, I'm not sure this school is capable of guaranteeing. I was shocked to see one of
your
students coming into the school late tonight. How tight of a rein do you have on your students if one can wander off into the
marsh
at night?”

Well, crap
.
I didn't realize they'd seen me too.

The Doctor splutters, but Dr. Rivers cuts him off. “It's just extraordinarily disappointing that not only were the master
files of the video observations you compiled destroyed, but the additional files are missing, and there is apparently no way to replace them.”

“What are you trying so hard to hide, Dr. Franklin?” Mr. Minh shouts. “This level of encumbrance from you makes me question just how much you want to reveal to us at all.”

“My practices have been transparent from the start!” the Doctor shouts back. “And my students are the most important people to me—not you and your damn paperwork!”

“That's what we want to see,” Dr. Rivers says in a clear, high voice, silencing the men's argument. “We want you to put your students first. But clearly something here at Berkshire Academy is wrong. That boy came back soaking wet and stinking of the marsh. Why was he allowed outside, alone, at this hour? He could have been a danger to himself or others.”

Is this an allusion to my powers? If so, the Doctor misses it.

Mr. Minh says something indecipherable in a low voice, but whatever it is, it's obvious from Dr. Franklin's flustered tone that he's offended.

I push the door open further. The hinges squeak, cutting through the conversation.

“Bo,” the Doctor says, relieved to see me.

“You told me to come back for a late-night, uh . . .” I start.

“Therapy session,” the Doctor supplies. “I didn't want to wait until tomorrow morning to discuss this situation.”

Dr. Rivers nods her head, clearly approving of this, but Mr. Minh still scowls. I stare him down as he sidesteps me and they both leave the office.

“That sounded rough,” I say.

Dr. Franklin collapses behind his desk, completely ignoring
my comment. “I'm concerned that you're not progressing,” he says bluntly.

“I—I'm trying, sir,” I say. I stare into his eyes.

I'm trying to save us all
, I want to say.

Sofía told me to trust the Doctor. I don't understand why he's been cooperating with the officials, but . . .

“You have a Band-Aid,” I say, staring at the Doc's hand.

He blinks in surprise, then glances down, staring at the Band-Aid wrapped around his left index finger. “I cut myself when I was changing my razor blade,” he says. “Bo, we need to talk about Sofía, about how you've stagnated since her death.”

That word—
death
—guts me. First it came from Gwen, and now the Doc's acting like Sofía is really gone. But his words sound like buzzing in my head, and all my eyes can focus on is that Band-Aid.

The Doctor can
heal
. His power is
healing
. There is
nothing
in the world that should hurt him enough for him to need a Band-Aid. A razor cut? That should be gone in two seconds. I've
seen
him recover from injuries far more serious than that.

“Bo?” the Doctor says. “Are you listening?”

A test. I'll test him.

I tell him a joke he told me a month or two ago. He laughs politely, like he's never heard that joke before in his life.

“Remember when I told you about my pet turtle, Shelly?” I ask. “How my dad accidentally killed him but lied to me about it?” I never told him I had a pet turtle because I never did; I got that from an old sitcom I used to watch at home. But Dr. Franklin nods along as if he knows exactly what I'm talking about.

“But let's talk about Sofía now,” the Doctor says. “I worry that you blame yourself, and you shouldn't . . .”

He keeps going on, blah, blah, blah, but it's pointless. This isn't the Doctor we all know. This Doctor can't heal—doesn't know he can heal. This Doctor is treating me like he's a school counselor, not like an advisor in a school of superpowered kids.

This Doctor has forgotten the way things really are.

Ryan and I really are the only ones left who know the truth.

“I know you don't fully understand what I'm saying now,” I tell Dr. Franklin, looking him dead in the eye. “But I want you to know that I haven't given up. Not yet. Not ever.”

The Doctor sighs and sinks into the chair behind his desk. “Is this about Sofía?”

“I can save her,” I say, praying that my words penetrate the fog of illusion that's clouding the Doctor's mind. “I can save us all.”

“Bo,” Dr. Franklin says, leaning forward, tears making his eyes watery. “Bo, she's dead. Sofía is dead. You can't save her. It's over.”

All around me, the world stills. The Doctor becomes a motionless statue. The clouds moving in front of the moon freeze. The clock on the Doctor's desk stops ticking. His words cut me so deeply that I have accidentally stopped time.

I blink, and the clock starts ticking again. But my heart is calm. Even though Dr. Franklin's not aware of what I've just done,
I
am, and I know that my powers are still real.

I still have a chance.

“I
can
save her,” I say again.

“No,” he says in a gentle voice. “You can't.”

I leave Dr. Franklin's office
and walk slowly back to my room. The Doc watches me go, as if he suspects I'll get lost along the way.

I pause by my door, looking back at him. All up and down the hallway, doors are closed. On the left side of the hall, the heavy wooden doors to the library are locked for the night, as are those to the common room and our classrooms. On the right side of the hall are the dormitory rooms. Harold's, then mine, then Ryan's, Gwen's, and Sofía's.

And by each of their doors, there's a keypad.

There's one by mine too.

They've never been there before. I look closer. The keypad is made of metal, but there are dings and nicks in it, and it's slightly worn from use.

“Is there a problem?” Dr. Franklin asks.

I jump; he'd moved silently down the hall, and he's waiting for me to go into my room. “How long has that been there?” I ask.

“It's always been there,” the Doctor says. “Bo, it's well past lights-out.”

“But—”

“Bo.”

I step inside my room, and Dr. Franklin closes the door behind me. I listen as the Doctor punches in a code, and I can hear the heavy metallic thud of a lock clicking in place.

Lights-out is literal—our overhead lights don't work from midnight to seven in the morning. But I don't go to bed. Instead, I cross the room to the window, where moonlight filters through my thin curtains. I sweep them aside, hoping to catch a glimpse of the ruins by the marsh, hoping that will give me some inspiration for what to do to next to save Sofía.

But my gaze outside is marred by iron bars on the window.

I try to get a closer look at the bars, but the window is sealed shut. I strain against it, but it's utterly immovable. I grab my cell phone and use its flashlight to illuminate the bars. They're painted black, but there are cracks of rust in them, tiny slivers of red leaking through the edges.

These bars have been here for a while.

But at the same time, they've never been here before. The locks on the doors, the bars over the windows . . . none of this was here before I went home this weekend.

I turn my cell phone off, letting the darkness wash over the room. For just a moment, I see a glint of something—fire, maybe, or just sparks—in the distance, near the edge of the marsh, near the ruins where I lost Sofía.

But I blink, and it's gone.

I move to the bed and sit cross-legged in the center.

The video from the USB drive plays through my mind. It wasn't real, I
know
that, but it seemed real.

And this does too. The iron bars and the locked doors. It's ironic; I just came back from a house where I wasn't even allowed to
have
a door, and now I'm in a room trapped behind one.

I jump up from the bed and test the door now. It doesn't budge.

We never used to have locks . . .
I think, but then another thought:
Yes, we did. We always did.

There have always been locks on the doors, iron bars on the windows.

No, there haven't.

• • •

I don't know what's real anymore.

• • •

Except . . . Sofía. She's real. I may only ever be able to see her in the past, but I still know that she's real. I can still taste her kiss on my lips, reminding me of truth.

I grab my calendar from the desk and use my cell phone to illuminate its pages, picking a weekend when Sofía was at Berkshire and I was home. I blindly reach into the timestream, grabbing the strings of that date and practically throwing myself into the past, before everything went pear-shaped. When I open my eyes, I'm in my bedroom, but my calendar confirms that it's March 15.

I burst out of my room. It's not yet time for lights-out, so I head straight to the common room. But first I check my door behind me.

No keypad. No locks. No iron bars on the window.

Ryan and Harold are still around here somewhere, and
there's a chance I could run into the Doctor or someone else on staff, but I'm too excited to be careful.

I throw open the door of the common room.

“Bo?” Sofía asks when she turns around.

I almost lose it right there.

“Sofía.” I breathe her name.

“I thought you left already.”

“I decided to stay here instead,” I say. “I'd rather be here.”
With you.

She smiles. “I was about to watch a movie, but would you rather—”

I stop her. “A movie would be great.” I want a normal date. I just want to remember that she's real. I don't need more than that.

The movies in the common room aren't that great—about a dozen crappy DVDs and Blu-rays that are a decade or more old, most of them for little kids. Ryan has a few newer movies that he brought with him from home, but he doesn't share. We can only watch them when he feels like it.

“How about this one?” Sofía asks, holding up
Titanic
.

I laugh. “That was my sister's favorite movie when she was a kid.”

“Too girly?” Sofía starts to put the DVD back on the console.

“It's fine,” I say.

I drag two beanbag chairs in front of the television while Sofía loads up the ancient player with the disc. She plops down on the red beanbag beside me, leaning into my shoulder. Her head finds that perfect place on my chest, where my arm and body meet, and she snuggles in, and I'm in absolute heaven.

I watch her more than I watch the movie.

I guess when someone's gone from your life for a while, all you think about are the big things. The big regrets, the could-have, should-haves. Or the big moments, the memories that are going to be with you forever, those life-changing moments, like first kisses and first confessions and first trusts. And you think about the lasts too: the last kiss, the last words, the last moments.

But the firsts and lasts and the big highlights between aren't a life. They aren't a person. They aren't what you love. When you fall in love, you don't fall in love with the first kiss, you fall in love with every kiss after that. The big moments are great, and it's obvious why you remember them, but it's the little things that make a person real: the smell of her hair, the warmth of her head resting on my shoulder, the way her ear curves, how her legs curl under her when she's relaxed, the little gasps and mutterings she makes when she's so focused on a movie she forgets that she's making sounds. The big moments are just photographs in your head; the little things
are
the memories.

Tomorrow, when this moment is gone, I'm still going to try to hold on to this feeling for as long as I can. I'm going to try to feel her head resting on my shoulder. I breathe deeply, memorizing her scent. This is what I want to remember.

But I know that these will be the first memories to fade, the way they always do. The little things fade, leaving me only with broad sketches that aren't real at all. I'll be left with the idea of Sofía, not the reality.

And that will never be enough.