Nate and I turned to find Dune on the ground, tangled up with the teaching skeleton.
“I realize this is probably plastic and used for teaching purposes,” Dune said, handing Nate a tibia with the foot attached, “but I want it off me.”
Nate proceeded to use the metatarsals to scratch his back, and then he started to giggle.
I interrupted. “Guys. Look around.”
Either my tone or the situation put an end to the giggling.
The storage space was now a classroom. Neat desks lined up in rows, and a blackboard full of equations. The only similarity between this room and the one we’d walked into five minutes ago was the skeleton. Dune was still tangled up in it.
“Where are we?” Nate touched a couple of the desks with his free hand. “Is this a rip? Because I’m still holding this leg bone in my hand. That’s not normal. Right?”
“Shut up,” I hissed. “Someone’s coming.”
The door to the classroom opened slowly. A tiny woman holding a mop stuck her head in and looked around, her gaze landing on the leg bone.
“I’m sorry,” Nate said, gesturing with the bone. “It was an accident. We… we’re visitors from… out of… state?”
I groaned. This wasn’t going to end well.
The woman didn’t seem to hear or see him, but from the way her eyes moved, she did see the leg bone. From the way she dropped the mop and covered her mouth to stifle a scream, it must have appeared to be floating in midair. I rushed across the room and tapped her on the shoulder before she could run.
The dusty file boxes reappeared, and I heard a combined gasp from Dune and Nate.
The skeleton was upright and hanging from its hook, slightly more yellowed than it had been a few seconds ago in the rip from the past. It was missing a left leg bone.
The exact bone Nate still held in his hand. It looked brand new.
Chapter 16
“Can we just… regroup?” Em sat on the corner of my bed, staring at Dune, Nate, and me. “Number one, Lily pointed out to you that we needed to know what Jack’s ultimate goal is, so that we can better understand where to look for him.”
I nodded.
“Number two,” she continued, moving her attention to Dune, “you did a computer search, and there’s no information on Jack in any database anywhere.”
Dune nodded.
“And number three.” Em took a couple of deep breaths and looked at Nate, and then at each of us in turn. “Y’all looked through paper records at the college, and that led to you pulling a leg bone out of a ripple?”
Nate nodded and then patted the leg bone awkwardly. “I’d put it back, but… I don’t know how.”
“Why did you take it out of the rip with you in the first place?” Em asked in disbelief.
“We didn’t do it on purpose,” Nate assured her. “Don’t worry. It didn’t belong to anyone… who needed it.”
“It doesn’t matter why or how it happened, but it did,” I said. “I couldn’t tell Dad, because I didn’t want him to know I stole his key or what we were looking for, but I couldn’t leave the rest of the skeleton there, either. It’s evidence.”
“It’s creepy.” Em looked up at me. “And it’s a skeleton. In your closet. Your bedroom closet. I mean, the irony…”
I shut the closet door. “Back to regrouping.”
Em closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands.
“You okay?” I asked her. “Want me to round you up some water or something?”
She peered up at me through her fingers. “How about your flask?”
“Trust me, that’s not the answer.”
“That’s the wisest thing I’ve heard you say in a while,” Michael said from the doorway. Em’s eyes opened wide, and I could see and feel her relief. It went all the way to her soul.
Dune tapped Nate on the arm. “We should head out. Liam’s going to know something’s up if he finds us all in Kaleb’s bedroom.”
“Wait.” After Nate dropped the bone on top of my dresser, I tossed him the key to the science storage area. “Can you get that back on Dad’s key ring?”
“Lickety-split.” He was gone before I could blink. Dune rolled his eyes and followed, but a little more slowly.
Michael threw his coat on my bed and sat down beside Em.
“Is that it?” He pointed at the bone.
“Yes.” I opened my closet door, turned on the light, and let him compare the color of the bones.
“Just so I have all this straight, when you went into the storage room, the skeleton was there. It was missing a leg bone,” Michael confirmed.
I nodded.
Michael continued, “When you landed in the rip, the whole skeleton was there, and when you came out of the rip, you brought the leg bone with you.”
“Yes.” I dropped the leg bone on top of my shoes and shut my closet door. “This makes my head hurt.”
Em had been quiet. Michael leaned over, bumping her shoulder with his. “What are you thinking about? Because I know your brain’s going a thousand miles an hour.”
She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “The rips. They just keep getting stronger, changing. Suddenly, the people in them don’t see us, and now we can physically remove things. I’m just waiting for the past to overtake the present.”
“What about the future?” I frowned. “Everything we’ve seen so far has been from the past. No rips from the future.”
Michael didn’t answer.
“When’s the last time you saw a rip from the future, Michael?” Em hugged her knees more tightly to her chest.
“A while. Since the end of the summer. They started disappearing around the time the full scene rips showed up.”
“Around the time Jack started messing with the time lines,” I said.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Em said. “And it’s not very comforting to know that you don’t, either.”
“Jack is still doing damage to the continuum,” Michael said. “If I’m honest, I don’t think we have until Halloween to find him. I’m afraid the world won’t last that long.”
Chapter 17
If the world was in danger, it stood to reason that Lily and I had a lot of work to do.
Murphy’s Law was so full I’d had to wait for a seat at the bar. Everyone else had a laptop open in front of them, plugged into a power strip in the wall. I tried to look busy and important as I sent a few texts, but I only got dirty looks from people waiting for a seat.
“Not. Now.” Lily swung past me with a steaming coffeepot, and I pulled back just in time to avoid being smacked in the face with it. “My grandmother is in the kitchen.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know,” I said. “Where do you want me to go?”
Smiling, she topped off the cups of the people at the table closest to me, pouring with grace and precision. Obviously, she’d almost hit me because she wanted to.
“Clock tower steps. Twenty minutes. Get out.”
The stone clock tower served as the perfect testament to how far Ivy Springs had come. Connected to the old train station, it was now home to the chamber of commerce. It even had ivy climbing up the side. The clock hands moved via electricity rather than clockwork, leaving enough space that the top two floors could be rented for meetings or parties.
I sat down at the far left side of the steps and leaned back on my elbows.
Michael had made it very clear that we were running out of time. While he and Em continued to help my dad solve the riddle of the exotic matter formula, Dune and Nate would continue the computer and physical searches for any kind of records about Jack.
That left me to pair up with Lily.
“Kaleb?”
Nervous excitement. I opened my eyes to see the source. A blond girl I almost recognized. “Yeah?”
“I’m Macy?” She said it as if she weren’t sure herself. “We met downtown last summer? You let me drive your Jeep down Broadway.”