Timeless (17 page)

Ben didn’t look at me as he submitted his,
and I realized only after he left that I’d been holding my
breath.

Eventually, I got up and turned my forms in
to Mr. Dean. On my way down the hall, I decided to visit Mrs.
Anderson’s office. It could only help.

I knocked on the door, already partially
open.

She looked at me with raised eyebrows. I
hoped she wasn’t too busy.

“Um, I was wondering,” I began after she
indicated that I could take a seat.

“Yes?” she inquired politely.

“Could I possibly have a different locker?
Maybe one of those near the gym?”

“But they’re for freshman, Emily. You’re a
junior.”

“I know.”

She looked at me kindly.

“Is this about Ben?” she asked.

Are you kidding me? Did everyone know?

“Yes,” I said, deciding that it was better
just to face it.

“Why don’t you shut my door, and we’ll talk
about it,” she offered. Clearly she wanted to explore my emotions,
while I just wanted a new locker, one away from Ben.

“Never mind,” I muttered, rising. I really
didn’t need a locker anyway. I’d just carry my books to every
class.

I got up and left her office in such a hurry
that I almost ran headlong into Ben, obviously hanging around in
the hall outside her office.

“Oh! Excuse me. I didn’t see you there,” I
said stupidly. I could feel myself blushing.

He looked down at me.

"You must really, really hate me,” he said
sadly.

“No, I don’t, Ben, honest. I…” I
faltered.

What could I say?

“I just don’t want to make things painful for
you, that’s all,” I finished, knowing all the time that I was
hurting him.

“I get it. You don’t want to see or speak to
me. Ever,” he said in a sad voice.

We stared at each other in silence, and then
Ben took me by the shoulders, looking into my face.

“I want to meet him,” he growled.

I began to cry, and when he saw it, he
abruptly released me. I took off, mentally chastising myself that I
didn’t have the guts to face Ben after I’d broken his heart.

****

A month passed and then another. My birthday
was in early November—I had just turned seventeen—but I didn’t
celebrate much. Normally, we would’ve had a cake and balloons. Ben,
Annie, and Zack would’ve come over, and Ben would’ve taken me out.
But not this year. I told Aunt Jo that I didn’t want anything
special. She still bought me a membership to a yoga class as a
gift, trying, I knew, to think of something to distract me. But I
doubted I would ever use it. Zack and Annie gave me some silver
earrings, and I didn’t, of course, hear anything from Ben.

We had avoided each other since the break up,
and I traded seats with someone on the front row of every class we
had together. No teacher had an objection to this and neither did
the students already sitting there. They counted themselves lucky
that I wanted to swap.

The weekend before Thanksgiving approached
for the fall fling, and two boys had already asked me, knowing I
wouldn’t be going with Ben. I’d turned down both of them, making
the excuse that I was going out of town early for Thanksgiving. In
a way, it was true. Aunt Jo and I had talked about driving to
Daytona Beach. Neither of us wanted to spend the holiday alone in
the house without Mom.

Everyday dragged. I didn’t want to wait for
March, but Ramona thought that might be my best shot at bringing
Damien to the present. It was going to take time for me to prepare,
in any case.

I’d searched online for more information
about witches, but most of what I found was unhelpful. I’d tried
the library again, but the only books I found about witches were
Witches and Puritan America, Witchy and Loving It, and Witches,
Warlocks, and other Psychopaths. I thought only the first one might
be helpful, but it only detailed the effect of “witch mania” on the
residents of Salem, Massachusetts during the trials. I suspected
that none of those unlucky victims actually were witches.

I tried looking also under the heading of
“wise woman” but turned up nothing remotely related to time travel.
Ramona was my best source for information, and I visited her shop
regularly to learn all I could.

She was now more convinced than ever that I
was a wise woman, or a “good witch,” if such a creature exists.

“What are our powers?” I’d asked the last
time I saw Ramona.

“It just depends,” she replied. “As you know,
mine is seeing across time and into minds.”

“How do you know what yours is?” I asked. So
far as I knew, I had no power.

“You’ll feel it. And once you do, you have a
choice. You can use your power for good or evil. I once knew a wise
woman who could heal others emotionally. All she had to do was
concentrate on the pain of another person, and she could take it
away.”

I thought of Ben. I wished I could take away
his pain.

“I did find some information about witches
coming from a long line. I don’t remember my mother having any
special powers,” I said.

“Sometimes it can skip a generation, or come
through the father’s line. Women can also choose to ignore their
power, preferring to live as normal humans. It depends on the
strength of the power within them,” she explained.

“Do you suppose that my power may have
something to do with my dreams?”

“That’s a possibility. All of us share a
common bond. We can, if we concentrate, mentally picture some
person or event and then change what will happen.”

“But we can’t all shape the feelings of
others?”

“No. That would be a special gift.”

And not mine. I’d already tried three times,
holding the ring Ben had given me and trying to make his pain go
away through sheer mental effort. Since we didn’t speak to each
other, I didn’t know how much progress I’d made, but he looked
unhappy when I saw him and very thin. Zack told me he’d quit the
swim team, and I knew his grades had fallen. I’d seen his parents
with his teachers in the principal’s office and felt guilty when I
saw them there. Ben had been an A+ student.

“Ramona, could you try to see into my
immediate future—just until March? Perhaps if you could see my
efforts at concentrating, you could uncover my power.”

She looked at me thoughtfully.

“Yes, it’s a good idea. We can always
try.”

We went back into the room where she’d put me
under hypnosis, and I tried to concentrate again on Damien, whose
face I still saw in my dreams. Though I hadn’t had the dream where
Lamia and her knights chased us through the woods again, I did
still dream about Damien.

Ramona stared at me intently, and I had to
look away to keep myself focused. She began muttering some sort of
repetitive phrase I couldn’t make out, but rather than stop her and
ask, I tried to concentrate on helping her.

After about five minutes, she stopped
speaking and laid back in the chair, her eyes closed.

“What did you see?” I asked.

“The usual. Holidays with your Aunt Jo.
Shopping in Daytona. A colder January than you might expect.”

“Come on, Ramona, you know what I mean.”

She smiled.

“Yes, I know what you mean.”

She leaned in.

“I see that you have the ability to change
the circumstances surrounding people, not the people
themselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“Up to now, you’ve been concentrating on the
individuals themselves, not the events around them. If you think
hard enough, you can change events to fit what you have in mind.
So, let’s say, for example, that you wanted to miss gym on
Thursday. You’re outside playing soccer, right?”

I laughed; she’d certainly found her
gift.

“Yes,” I answered, confirming what she
already knew.

“There are a number of possibilities here.
Let’s say you make it rain so that you don’t have to play
outside.”

I became thoughtful.

“You can’t change a mind, but you can change
an event.”

“So I could have saved myself in my past
life?”

“More than likely. But you didn’t know how to
concentrate, did you? You didn’t know that you could have affected
events that way. And you felt a great hopelessness when your father
rejected you and Damien was taken.”

“Would I even have had the same powers
then?”

“Oh yes. Those always carry over from one
life to the next, often becoming stronger the more life cycles you
experience. And sometimes, you can acquire new ones as well.”

“Have you seen others like me who’ve
experienced a past life?”

“Yes, several times. And always their powers
are the same, if not greater.”

I went home shortly after that, anxious to
experiment. I decided to try first with Aunt Jo.

At four o’clock, her favorite soap opera came
on, and I knew she’d be watching. I looked at the TV and started to
concentrate, making the picture fuzzy in my mind. A few seconds
later, and the TV matched the mental image in my mind.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” Aunt Jo
muttered, getting up and banging on the set.

“Unbelievable!” I whispered, excited. It had
actually worked! I quickly re-imagined a properly working TV. That
had taken little effort. Ramona was right; once you discovered your
power, you could do anything. It was just a matter of
concentration.

I greeted Aunt Jo and then went upstairs to
my room. I wondered…if I held Ben’s ring in my hand, could I shape
the events close to his life too? What if I could make something
wonderful happen for him so that he would forget me? I was suddenly
stung by that. I didn’t want Ben to forget me. It was selfish, I
knew, but I did still love him. And I missed him, missed us. What I
felt for Damien was stronger than love, more intense, as though he
were part of me. But somehow it didn’t detract from what I felt for
Ben. My past life couldn’t erase the bonds of my current one.

I opened the mahogany jewelry box that had
belonged to mother and took out the ring Ben had given me. I read
the inscription again: Timeless. I could feel the tears starting,
but I quickly pushed them back, knowing I would need all of my
energy to concentrate.

I slipped the ring on the third finger of my
right hand and began to think of Ben intently. I knew what I’d do
first. I would arrange for a college scout to call and offer him an
athletic scholarship to the University of Florida for swimming.
That should get him to rejoin the swim team, and he’d be able to
attend school with his older brother, who could look after him. But
I knew it wouldn’t be enough. I also decided he needed to earn
better grades; that would be easy. Each test would receive the
right answers, no matter what he marked. His parents would be
grateful for that, at least.

Finally, I went to work on his relationships.
This was harder. I couldn’t change people’s hearts, but I could
change what happened to them. Sighing, I regretfully imagined
Angela’s face. I knew she and Ben tutored together after school in
the student mentoring center on Thursday afternoons. I looked at my
watch. It was 4:45, just about the time when the last student
should have left. I took a chance and called from the phone in Aunt
Jo’s room, hoping that Angela would pick up. She did.

“Mentoring Center. Angela speaking,” she said
in a bored voice.

“Um, yeah...Hello. Could you tell me who is
there?” I asked, trying to disguise my voice.

“Just Ben and…. wait a minute…is this Emily?”
she asked accusingly. I heard several clicks and thought she’d hung
up on me. I wasn’t so lucky. Ben had taken the phone from her.

“Emily?” he said, his voice nearly
breaking.

This wasn’t going to work if I talked to him.
Guiltily, I hung up. I reminded myself that it was for a good
cause.

I concentrated on locking the door from the
outside. I could unlock it in a couple of hours. In the meantime,
Ben could pour out his heart to Angela. I knew she’d had a crush on
him all through high school and was just waiting for us to break
up. I cringed at the thought. Now was her big chance.

I do love you, Ben, I thought. I just want
you to be happy.

****

The next day at school, I pulled into the
parking lot beside Annie, who had been waiting for me.

“You’ll never guess,” she began.

“What?” I asked, dread filling me.

"Angela and Ben,” she said.

It was harder to hear than I’d imagined. I
couldn’t believe it had happened that quickly. Maybe Ben liked her
better than I thought. I remembered the morning of the swim meet
when she’d flirted outrageously with him in front of me. I’d only
hoped to get the ball rolling, never imagining that they’d already
be a couple, less than twenty-four hours later.

“Are you okay?” Annie asked, looked worried
about me.

“Sure,” I answered, forcing normalcy into my
voice. But it was a lie. Even though I wanted Ben to be happy, it
was going to be agonizing to see him with her.

“You know, Zack said that Max is really into
you. He’s kinda cute,” Annie offered, trying to lessen the blow. I
knew what she was thinking. I could tell that Annie couldn’t
understand why I’d break up with Ben. She was trying to cheer me,
though.

“No, it’s okay. I just want to be alone right
now anyway,” I said, not meeting her concerned eyes.

“Well, if you change your mind, I can get
Zack to tell Max,” she offered.

“Thanks, I’ll let you know.”

Later that day, I saw Ben and Angela together
holding hands. Though it hit me like a fist, it still couldn’t
compare with the grief I felt inside over Damien. I reminded myself
that I’d created this situation and that I had to sacrifice Ben to
save Damien in March.

Ben caught me looking at him and narrowed his
eyes. He’s showing me he doesn’t need me anymore, I thought. That’s
fine. I knew this would come. I gave him my best smile and looked
forward to a new day.