Dad is in the kitchen when I come down. He has his earbuds in, and he doesn’t hear me at first. If we were back in our cottage at Briar Hill, he’d have been blasting his music while he cooked—I’ve been awakened many, many times by the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated”—so he must be worried that his musical tastes would not appeal to Katherine and Connor. I’m not sure what they listen to, if anything. My first thought is that Katherine would be a Peter, Paul, and Mary fan or something like that, but she probably prefers music similar to whatever she listened to back in the 2300s—and I haven’t the slightest clue what that would be. Punk music from the 1980s might sound like something from the baroque era to her.
I reach around Dad to snag a strip of bacon from the plate on the back of the stove, and he swats at my hand with the spatula. “You’re getting slow, old man,” I say, shoving the bacon into my mouth. “What’s the occasion? Pancakes are usually weekend fare.”
He pulls the earbuds down around his neck. “No occasion. The blueberries were just at the tipping point, so I decided we should finish them off. And since I only have a few days left until school starts back up, at least for us poor, downtrodden teachers, I’m treating each one like vacation.”
We eat in silence for a couple of minutes, and then he says, “What were they like? I mean, I watched the video—thanks for that, by the way—but what were they like?”
It takes a few seconds for me to realize he’s talking about Evelyn and Timothy. I finish the bite in my mouth and then answer. “Your father is so much like you. He even makes the same expressions when he’s grumpy. He’s a little bit heavier than you, though.” In that regard, he reminds me a bit more of Dad from the previous timeline, who was a little thicker around the middle, too, and I push away the thought that my dad might be one of those people who tend to be chubby when they’re happy.
“Your dad likes food that’s bad for him,” I continue, “even though he said they were usually vegan. Your mom is the more no-nonsense of the two . . .”
I spend the next ten minutes or so answering his questions.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I say after I’ve exhausted all of the details that I can remember. “I should have told you all of this the other day when I got back. I know you’re curious about them.”
He smiles. “That’s okay. If you’d done that, I’d have been late picking up Sara. And this is the first time since then that it’s been just you and me. That’s the one thing I kind of miss since we moved from the cottage.”
“Me, too. But now you have this ginormous kitchen. And I don’t know about your bed, but mine is a major upgrade from the pullout sofa.” I slide the last bite of pancake around the plate to pick up the remaining syrup. It isn’t up to the task, since I usually dump way too much syrup on my pancakes, and I give in to the urge to run my finger around the plate to get the rest.
Dad looks at me for a minute, and I think he’s going to remind me that what I’m doing is kind of gross, but he just says, “Even with the bed upgrade, you don’t look like you slept very well . . .”
“I slept okay, I guess.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You were up in the middle of the night again, weren’t you? My room is right below the attic. I was going to come up and check on you, but then the thumping stopped.”
“Oh, crap. I didn’t think about that. Sorry I woke you.”
One side of the attic has been converted into a mini dojo and gym combo. Thick mats cover most of the floor space. A weight machine and rower take up a small corner, but the rest is devoted to a standing kick bag, a Muay Thai banana bag, some kettlebells, and other assorted equipment that Sensei Barbie suggested.
“You didn’t wake me for long,” he says. “Couldn’t fall asleep?”
“Couldn’t fall back asleep. Stupid dreams.”
“Are they getting worse?”
“Not really, but it’s usually not a double feature. This last one was where I’m running from Holmes. Except this time the fire shooting out of the gun turned into leaves, like the ones that I saw in Dallas the other day. It was kind of weird.”
“Hey, leaves are safer than flames, right? Maybe you’re starting to control the dream, rather than it controlling you. Have the other dreams changed too?”
“Nope. Pretty much the same.” There’s fire in those dreams, too, but instead of trying to save myself, I’m trying to save other people—sometimes people I know and love, sometimes people I’ve never seen before. In a few of the dreams, I hear someone crying and I dig through all this rubble, but just as I’m getting close, the person vanishes. In others, I’m pushing people out this big window to save them, but we’re high above the ground, so they just hit the sidewalk below, popping apart like they’re made of Lego blocks. (Apparently my dream censorship committee isn’t a fan of blood and gore, something for which I’m eternally grateful.) In the dream, I know the people will hit the ground, and I know they’ll die, but it’s like I have no choice. Out the window they go, like it or not.
“These dreams have been going on for a while now, Katie. Do you think you need to see someone? I mean, a professional?”
“And tell them what? If I told them the truth, they’d lock me up.”
“True, but maybe you could get something to help you sleep? To relax? We could say you have test anxiety or something.”
“If it gets worse, maybe.”
He looks like he’s going to say something more but then changes the subject. “You missed a fun day of Exploring Art,” he says.
“Did you go to the National Gallery again?”
“No. We visited a few of the smaller galleries over on R Street. I’d planned to stick my head in and say good night when I got back home, but you were talking to someone, so I didn’t interrupt. Was it Trey or your mom?”
“It must have been when I was leaving a message for Trey. He asked me to some get-acquainted thing at school next weekend. Are you going?”
“No. I heard about it, but it’s a private party, not an official function. It’s at the house of one of the incoming students. I think it’s just the administrators and a few of the more senior faculty at Briar Hill. Probably to help smooth over the merger. You want more coffee?”
“No, thanks. What merger?”
Dad looks surprised. “You don’t remember all of those meetings I complained about?”
I shake my head, and he gives me a puzzled look before continuing. “Carrington Day, the private school over near Silver Spring that purchased Briar Hill?”
“What? No. Although I think Trey said something about Carrington Day in his message. When were these meetings?”
“The worst of them were right after I started in January, but they dragged on for several months. It was so crazy I was about ready to quit. Briar Hill parents were raising hell about their middle school kids now having to go all the way over to Carrington.” He stops. “Oh, wait. Timeline change?”
“Must be. I don’t remember any of this.”
Every few days I stumble upon some other little change in the timeline. Sometimes it’s easy to see how it’s related to the Cyrist surge in numbers—there are dozens of towns scattered around the world that are named Cyrus City or whatever. Southern Florida is almost entirely Cyrist, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case before. Other differences just seem to be odd ripple effects. Like the Iron Man series. I’d swear on my life that Gwyneth Paltrow played Pepper Potts in those movies. I’ve seen them, and I know this for an absolute fact. But I watched a trailer online the other day, and someone named Cassie Mortimer was playing Pepper. According to IMDb, she’s always played Pepper. Gwyneth is still an actress, and she’s done very well, but that particular role went to this Cassie person. And she isn’t nearly as good.
Every time I notice some new point of disconnect, I can’t help but wonder what other changes I’m going to discover, especially once school starts back up.