I shout at her to stop being childish.
She shouts at me to stop being childish about her being childish about me being childish, and we agree to remove the crockery from the floor and never tell anyone how we’re still behaving at twenty-nine and thirty-one years old. Artemis leaves her wet sea clothes in a bag until it starts to smell like a teenage boy, so I hang them outside in the hallway and she tells me I’m being “totally ridiculous,” so I hang them on her headboard while she’s sleeping and she changes her mind.
I wake up one morning with her giggling face three inches from mine and her finger up my nostril, so I smack her.
She wakes up with her empty suitcase balanced on top of her; she smacks me.
We get a little bored when we’re in our little adjoining double beds, so we play What Am I Pinging?, a traditional game we developed as prepubescents—fascinated with our developing bodies—that involved snapping your knicker elastic or the elastic in your brand-new bra and challenging each other to accurately guess which one it was. I win because adult bras sound nothing like teenage bras: they’re an entirely different noise, it’s not even a real test.
It’s like no time has passed between us at all.
As if we’ve found a way to time travel without going anywhere, simply by being sisters. Ten years evaporate, and then they just keep disappearing: twelve years, fifteen years, twenty years, twenty-nine years, and I clearly remember Artemis being brought back from the hospital, standing in front of her cot and declaring her mine. My sister. My baby. My best friend.
Mine, like a cartoon mug that nobody else can drink out of.
Every few hours, Artemis gets a text or a phone call from Will and I watch her glimmer like an opal: first taking them out of sight or earshot—sensitive to my “recently singled status”—and eventually just falling in love in front of me.
For three whole days, I watch as my sister’s ears go pink, her feet grow lighter and bouncier; as she smiles with her whole body and bends down to talk to every single bloody dog that ventures onto our path. Every single one. Sometimes she crosses the road, specifically so she can cuddle a canine. She ends up with hair all over her, saliva coating her face, and a small wet nostril in her ear, and all she does is laugh and look for another one to be assaulted by.
“Can you stop,” I say eventually. “They keep touching me too.”
“I want one.” She beams, scanning the road for a new one. “I want loads. And pigs. Chickens. Kids. The human kind, not the baby goat kind. Although maybe some of the baby goat kind too. I want kids just everywhere. Climbing up the walls and up the trees and up on kitchen cabinets, like I used to. Remember? I want laughter and shouting and sleeping bags and tents in the garden and a house that’s just full, all of the time. Doesn’t it sound like bliss?”
“No,” I decide firmly. “It sounds loud and dirty. It was loud and dirty, and there were only four of us.”
“Exactly.” Artemis smiles.
On our last night, just before we head back to London, I catch her watching me with a peculiar expression over an early dinner. It’s so weird: I can read her without trying again. And I suddenly realize that she’s the only person I have ever been able to do that with. It’s a magical, heady power, and if this is how other people feel all the time, I don’t know how they ever take it for granted.
“I haven’t time traveled,” I say when I’ve finally swallowed.
She frowns. “Are you sure?”
“I told you, Artemis, I’m not doing it anymore. It’s exhausting. And confusing. I’m terrible at it. All I do is screw up and forget what I’ve done and what I’ve undone. Also, let us be reminded of what happened to Trojan Cassandra when she kept telling everyone what was going to happen to them next.”
“From what you’ve told me, she pissed everyone off.”
“Exactly.” I nod, satisfied that she was listening. “Nobody liked her. She was super unpopular. So unpopular that Agamemnon kidnapped her, and his wife, Clytemnestra, murdered her. Cassandra spends all of Greek mythology standing outside gates, yelling warnings and being told to bugger off because she’s crazy, and then the Trojan War happens anyway. History does not treat prophets well, or know-it-alls, or people who really like being right. Even if, like me, they can’t see the future but only sort of guess at it for the next three months.”
Artemis nods. “What’s happening right now? Just out of interest.”
I glance at my watch. “The agency is stuck in an overrunning brainstorm about home composting. Everyone is fuming about being kept so late, the pizzas aren’t well received and there’s going to be a load of complaints to HR tomorrow. It’s riveting stuff.”
Art pretends to deliberate. “And on a national scale?”
“I’m not telling you the lottery numbers, Artemis.”
“Oh, come on.” She makes her gray eyes even bigger. “I’ve got the numbers right here—just rewind enough and we’ll go get tickets.”
“No.”
“Just five of them? And a bonus ball?”
“No, Artemis. It’s unethical.”
“Ugh.” She sighs and cuts her steak. “I wonder if it’s even the same numbers. Like, if it’s a different timeline, does it mean different balls? Maybe something happens and there’s just a second of delay? And it changes everything? It’s an interesting hypothetical question. Philosophers have been pondering this for thousands of years. You know how we could find out for sure?”
“No, Artemis. I’m not time hopping so you can win the lottery.”
“Fine.” She shoves the carcass in her mouth. “In that case, you are paying for dinner, you magical tightwad.”
Art’s phone rings and the air turns bright pink.
“It’s Will.” She studies my face. “Can I get this? I won’t get it if it’ll make you sad, Sandy-pants. It sucks, going through a breakup. I don’t want to rub it in.”
“My pants are only a bit sandy,” I say with a small smile. “Take it.”
For the last few days I’ve waited patiently for Romantic Heartbreak to arrive, and I don’t think it has. I could be wrong, obviously, but from all the books I’ve read and films I’ve seen and songs I’ve heard, real heartbreak feels a bit worse than a blue fluttery sensation, similar to indigestion. From what I can tell from my colors, I’m a little sad, a bit lonely. I’m going to miss Will. I’m very worried I won’t be having good sex again for a very long time. But I’m mostly okay. Maybe that means I’m broken, or a monster; maybe there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way I’m wired.
But hey: this time my weirdness kind of worked in my favor.
“Hello, you!” Artemis hits the button. “Are you all packed and ready to go?”
I continue eating my pasta, listening to Will’s warm voice bouncing off the side of her face. He has such a lovely voice. Thoughtful. Interested. I’m so glad he’s being kind and warm to my sister. And I appreciate that might sound like sarcasm or bitterness, but it genuinely isn’t.
“I looked up vaquitas, by the way.” Art winks elaborately at me. “They are supercute. Like dolphins with smiley faces. Please can you bring one back—I promise I will take such good care of it.”
She did not look up vaquitas: I looked them up for her.
Will says something else.
“Yes!” Art bounces in her seat. “I’d love that! I’m just having dinner with my sister. I got the steak, chips, spinach, which I picked off, and Cass got the...” She looks up. “What did you get, Cassandra? Some kind of mushroom tagliatelle.”
I freeze with fungi still dangling off my fork.
“Huh?” Artemis frowns. “Cassandra. I told you about her! I did! My big sister. We haven’t spoken for years, but I think she’s very close to forgiving me.” She winks at me, then frowns again. “Her last name? Dankworth, obviously, same as me.” A short pause. “What do you mean I’ve never told you my surname? I’m sure I did. Or maybe it just never came up. We’ve only just met. Why are you being weird?”
Unable to move, I watch as Art’s face changes.
Her colors have shifted into something dark, tangled, horrified, confused: an unwound ball of gray and green string.
Okay, I probably didn’t need the powers of prophecy to predict a point in the near future where Will might ask for Art’s incredibly rare surname. Or for the name of her sister. Or somehow put those two extremely obvious points together and reach an accurate conclusion. I’m just not very good at multitasking and I was having such a nice time arguing with my sister again, I totally forgot about it.
“I’ll call you back,” Artemis says flatly, putting the phone down.
She stares at me in horror.
I close my eyes.
“Don’t you dare,” she breathes. “Don’t you bloody dare, Cassandra Dankworth. I swear to God, if you time travel right now, I am going to—”
“It’s Will.” Artemis studies my face. “Can I get this? I won’t get it if it’ll make you sad, Sandy-pants. It sucks, going through a breakup. I don’t want to rub it in.”