The scene rolls forward without my participation, without my focus. I can’t feel my toes. I’m no longer breathing. I don’t have ears. This is good, all good. I’ve retreated to the space of my imagination, waiting for the portal to activate…waiting for it to show me the way to the black void…

And…here…it…is…

The portal flashes at me invisibly. Blares at me soundlessly. I don’t know how I’m sensing its location, but it’s right here, hidden in the gray matter of my brain. I move toward the beacon—and fall through a metaphysical door.

For an instant, I’m surrounded by inky blackness. In front of me, I see a bright wavering line. Below me, the colorful streams of time unfurl. And then the brain waves of my memory sync up with the vibrations of the past. The force would have my teeth clicking together, but I no longer have any in this bodiless void.

I steel my consciousness…

…and then I’m hurtling backward through the blank nothingness of time.

Chapter 44

Chapter 44

I come back to myself as though I’m waking from a deep sleep. Disoriented, foggy. And standing in front of someone. Flaming monkeys—my mouth is moving.

“I love you,” I blurt. “That is all. Goodbye.”

Except that’s not me saying the words. That’s not me wheeling around, ready to sprint, when a hand snags my arm.

Instead, it’s my past self feeling these things, performing these actions. I can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch everything she does, but she controls our body. Not me.

Holy moly, we did it. We sent my consciousness to the past.

“Wait a minute,” Bandit says, his eyes 2 percent less bored. “Are we in third grade? Do you want to give me a note asking if I love you back so I can circle yes or no?”

My cheeks burn hotter than the sun assaulting my skin. Hotter, even, than the flames that got me into this mess.

Oh, past Alice. That’s not just embarrassment you’re feeling. That flash of heat is also me—your older self by one week, fully waking up in your consciousness. You don’t happen to notice because you’re dying a slow death in the middle of the basketball court.

Which gives me an idea. I know how to attach myself to my older self’s consciousness without her realizing it.

I spare my younger self one more moment of pity—don’t worry, past Alice; this humiliation, too, will pass—and begin to sift through the space inside our mind, looking for a third consciousness, one that’s from ten years in the future.