This was a Cocoon, the equivalent of a time-traveling bomb. It was something dropped by a Butterfly to change the future in some way, usually by revealing something that was about to happen so it could be changed. I felt my blood go icy in my veins, and I turned the letter back over, looking again at my name in my handwriting. If this was a Cocoon, and I knew that it was, that meant that I was the Butterfly. My mind immediately recoiled from the idea. Me? A Butterfly? It was so absurd a thought that my brain refused to accept it. Never, not in my wildest of wild dreams, had that possibility ever occurred to me. I’d been raised to hate Butterflies with every fiber of my being, but the evidence in my hand was almost undeniable. There was my name, in my own handwriting, on a piece of strange paper I’d never felt before in my life. Which meant that in the future I was going to write this letter and drop it here, in this exact moment, so that I could change the future in some way. If that didn’t make me a Butterfly, I didn’t know what did. Snapping my head up, I looked left and right, but the corridor was empty except for a very impatient Elliot Mason and me, and despite the panic that had frozen me to the spot, I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world my future self would choose a moment that included Elliot Mason. Apparently, future me was an idiot.

Looking back down at the letter, I felt fear creep up my spine like a spider up a web. If this was found out, I’d be imprisoned for life and my mom would lose her job. It wouldn’t matter that I’d done the crime in some unknown future or that current me had no flying clue what was going on. The condemning evidence was sitting in my hand. But despite all that, all I could manage to do was stand there, reeling at what this meant.

“Why do you look like you just saw a ghost?” Elliot asked, peering at me. “What’s in that thing?” I’d just put together that I needed to hide the letter, and fast, when his hand shot out to grab it. I jerked back reflexively, but it was too late.