Rewinder

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I stare at her, unable to move.

Lidia.

From my timeline.

The world that is no more.

It takes everything I have to squeeze out the words, “Are you real?”

Without warning, she flies forward and throws her arms around me. This breaks my trance, though it takes me another few seconds before I hug her back. This is Lidia, after all, the girl who’s only shown me scorn until now.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

She lets go and takes a step back.

“Bernard,” she says, naming her supervisor. “He showed me how to tune my Chaser to locate other devices. It’s not perfect and I never know who I’m going to find, but…” She looks me up and down. “It led me to you.”

“Bernard, is he…?”

“He’s okay. We split up to see if we could find others.”

“Have you?”

She nods. “Last we checked with each other, Bernard had found four. I’ve found two. Well, three with you.” She pauses. “You were a little tougher to locate, actually. For a while, there were conflicting signals for your device. They seemed to be coming from both coasts and were strong enough to mask each other. I thought it was some kind of error, so I spent my time looking for others. When I checked your signal again, there was just the one.”

It was no error. It was my other self, the one lying unconscious in a New York hospital for four days — the same days I relived out here after I escaped.

She looks around. Though only a handful of people are on the sidewalk, it’s apparently too crowded for her. “Do you have someplace we can talk? Private?”

“I have a room.”

“Great. Let’s go.”

Upon entering my room, Lidia looks around with disdain. “This is the best you can do?”

This is the version of her I know.

“They didn’t ask for an ID or credit card,” I say in my defense.

“So what? I have a whole pocketful of credit cards now. I stay anywhere I want. You want me to get you a better room?”

I turn my back so she doesn’t see my annoyance. “This works for me.”

The bed squeaks as she lowers herself onto it. “Suit yourself, I guess. More your caste level anyway.”

There’s no disdain in her tone. She’s only stating the facts as she knows them, which makes me seethe even more than I would if she were trying to goad me. But I bottle it up as I pull over the rickety wooden chair that normally sits near the window.

“What have you been doing this whole time?” Lidia asks.

If her supervisor had come to find me, I’d confess that this whole new world is my fault, but I can’t say it to Lidia. The person I really wish for is Marie. If my old instructor were sitting here with me, we could figure this out together. We could—

“Marie. Did you find her?”

Lidia looks confused. “Your old trainer?”

“Yes.”

“Not that I know of. Was she on a mission?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Well, if she was, she’d have to have been pretty far back to still be around.”

“What do you mean?”

“So far, everyone we’ve found was at least as far back as the eighteenth century when things went wrong. I think the most recent Rewinder was in 1769. Bernard and I were in 1648. When were you?”

I lie without hesitation. “Seventeen fifty-one.”

“See what I mean?” She begins to pace, which, in my room, means a four-step loop between the front door and the bathroom. “Unless we find someone who was on assignment more recently than 1769, then whatever happened must have occurred within a few years either side of that point. Bernard says that since society moved slower back then, it’s possible the change event happened before 1769.” She snaps around and looks at me. “Nothing weird going on where you were, was there?”

I dive even deeper into my lie. “I wasn’t there more than an hour. Just checking grave markers. Didn’t even talk to anyone.” This is a standard step when rewinding a family history.

“Where were you?”

The last cemetery I checked pops immediately to mind. “England. Outside Southhampton.”

“With your supervisor?”

“No. I do solo missions now.”

Her eyes narrow. “Oh, really. How nice for you.”

After a few seconds, she resumes carving a path across my floor.

I let her make a couple of passes before I ask, “Do you really think a Rewinder did this?”

She looks at me as if I’m the stupidest person on the planet. “Look around you. Everything’s changed! History shifted! Who the hell else could have done it?” She takes a deep breath. Her tone’s more controlled when she speaks again, but it’s still infused with anger. “Bernard and I are going to find whoever it is, and once that person has fixed this mess, they’re going to pay for what they’ve done.”

“What if you can’t find them?”

“Oh, we’ll find them.” She looks at me. “And you’re going to help us.”

“Me? How?”

“By finding out exactly when the break occurred.”

“That might be impossible.”

“Of course it’s possible. No one knows history better than us. The others are already working on it so one of you will track it down. When we know where the point is, we’ll go back and fix it ourselves if we have to.”

She’s right. Someone’s going to figure it out, and when that happens, I’ll be exposed.

“We could end up making it worse,” I say, trying to come up with anything that will delay the inevitable.

She stares at me as if trying to read my thoughts. “Are you saying you like it here?”

“No, I’m not saying that at all. This isn’t home. It’s a mistake.” To me, every word that comes out of my mouth sounds fake, and I’m sure my attempt to deflect attention is doing the exact opposite.

But her face relaxes as she says, “You’re right. It is a mistake. That’s why we need to fix it.”

“I’ll, um, do all I can.”

“Yes, you will.” She pulls open the drawer of the narrow nightstand by my bed, shifts the Bible that’s inside, and then shoves the drawer shut. “Isn’t there any paper in this place?”

I pull a sheet from my satchel. “Here.”

She takes it and stares at me. “Not going to do me any good without something to write with.”

“Of course.” I give her my pen.

Using the nightstand, she scribbles something on the paper and then hands it and the pen back to me. She’s written a location number and the date May 12, 1702.

“When you have something, report here. The point is well before when we think the change occurred. We’ll use it for our safe zone when we change everything back.”

“It may take me a little while to figure out.”

“You have four days.”

“That might not be enough.”

“If it isn’t, we’ll reassess. But I’ll be leaving right at the deadline, so if someone does find the answer, then whoever’s not at the meeting point when I arrive will be left behind. I don’t have to tell you what will happen if you’re still here when we fix the problem.”

No, she didn’t.

“You have until Friday at noon, East Coast time,” she says. “What is that? Eight o’clock here?”

“Nine,” I say.

“All right. Nine a.m., then. Are we clear on everything?”

“Yes. Very clear.”

“Good. Then I’ll let you get to work. See you in the past.” She whips out her Chaser and winks out of my room.

I sit in my chair, staring at the space where she was, half expecting her to reappear and point an accusatory finger at me.

The sudden desire to be anywhere but this room is what finally gets me to push off my chair. I fold Lidia’s note and shove it in my pocket. My fingers touch another scrap of paper. When I pull it out, I see it’s the message Iffy left me.

Her address.

A place that’s not here.

Something’s coming! Iffy’s words.

Something came, all right.

I shove my few possessions into my satchel, pull it over my shoulder, and leave my dingy hotel room for the last time.