I want to weep. I want to surrender. I want to collapse onto this narrow cot and disappear, because then I won’t have to feel this pain anymore.

But instead of giving in, I focus on his words. I think about the first time I heard that phrase: the ordinary miracle. I remember a car wash, long ago, of a girl in cutoff jean shorts, the soapsuds wetting her legs. Of the boy for whom she yearned with every cell in her body.

They were so young, so innocent. As worthy of protection as the baby inside me now.

I wish they didn’t have to grow up to live in this world. I wish my baby didn’t have to be born into conditions so desolate.

But it’s too late for wishes now.

An indescribable pressure rips through me—and then a baby swaddled in a cotton blanket is placed on my chest. I sob. It’s over. I can’t believe the pain has finally stopped.

Through my tears, I see that the baby is wrinkled and not terribly cute. Her skin is the color of an acorn, which is perhaps fitting because she looks more like a chipmunk than an angel. She moves her tiny fist through the air, bopping herself on the forehead, and I free-fall through zero gravity into love.

I will never abandon her, I swear to myself. I will travel from timeline to timeline to keep her safe.

I’ve already chosen her name. Hope. The thing with feathers, as Emily Dickinson said. She will help us transition from this world into a new one.

Heaven help us, may we all survive.

Chapter 36

Chapter 36

That night, back in the present, I thrust up on the frame of a window outside of Bandit’s house. It doesn’t budge. Great. At least the latch doesn’t appear locked. Instead, the glass seems welded shut by paint and old age.

The moon shines in the sky, full tonight, as though it’s casting a spotlight on me and my upcoming crimes. The smell of budding growth mixes with the rich dampness of the earth, and the ground is hard and packed beneath my sneakered feet. My breath puffs into the air. There’s so much vapor, you’d think I was sneaking into a factory.

I wish. Because then, my only offense would be burglary.

And not murder.

I don’t know how I keep traveling to the black void. Why I’m getting flashes of my original time stream. But like my trip to the underground tunnels, this latest vision is exactly what I need to propel me to act.

It reminds me of what’s important. Hope. The baby girl I swore to do right by, since my mother couldn’t, wouldn’t do right by me. She’s the priority. Everything else fades into the background. Even boys. Especially boys.