I blink. Cauterized by what just happened. Confused by how this Jennifer seems so different from the one that greeted me at the door and shot words into my brain through her eyes.

“Honey, are you all right?” she asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

The eyes stare, then another tunnel of motion, forward.

CHAPTER TEN

Her consciousness unbuttons, moving at warp speed through time and space while her body stands lifelessly in front of Matthew, staring, for hours. The body is such a faithful servant, ignoring its own needs in favor of the mission. Hundreds of timelines to travel. She is gone. Far away.

FORWARD

A dinner table. Cleveland’s Last Supper. My mother has prepared a feast. We dine by candlelight. Everyone is glad I came home for winter break. They want to know about Dartmouth. What’s it like living in a winter wonderland? Tonight all will be laid bare. Healing is inevitable when the truth comes out.

FURTHER FORWARD

The realm of prayers where blessings rise from the ether like mist over the sea. A transcendent dimension outside of time and the material world. I rest there for an eternity before a tunnel of luminous, bright white light swallows me whole. Then, a procession of singing ancestors. “Do you want to return as Echo Brown?” they ask through electrical impulses before the miracle.

THE END

A drowning or a rebirth. A completion of the mission or a new life cycle. A Legend or a Lost One. The end of timelines threaded by millions of choices. Events unfolding one after another until conclusions are reached.

BACKWARD

So many faces—penetrating, unfamiliar. The third week of October, a homecoming for the ages. They will worship Him first, then try to destroy Him and His games. His wicked smile taunting me again. I throw rocks at him, watch them come barreling back down. He is immune to my attacks. “Luke, I am your father now! Your mother’s God has forsaken you again. Look how the Chosen One falters,” he laughs wildly. “I will defeat you!” I shout angrily.

They are all caught under His spell, running in circles, ripping off their clothes—white flesh, mad white flesh everywhere—kneeling in the dirt, praying to the God of Light, even as he, the Joker, inhales their prayers into his flaming nostrils. His chaos rules us all. He has to die.

BACKWARD

The calculus midterm exam. Pencil writes, but only doodles come out. Squiggly lines. No words. No numbers. Time’s up. Professor takes the exam. Stares. His face malfunctions, switching abruptly to Mr. Walsh’s and then back again. They are one and the same. They don’t understand. Mr. Walsh’s prophecy of failure fulfilled.

FURTHER BACKWARD