Open it, Birdie’s voice echoed.
I looked up and down the empty road, eyes lifting to scan the trees in the distance. There was no one to see me standing in that field in front of a door that wasn’t there. No one to bear witness to my madness.
Before I could change my mind, I reached out, fingertips tingling when they touched the scalloped doorknob. My hand curled around it, and I heard myself exhale before it turned. With a shaking, terrified breath, I pushed it open.
My eyes widened as the hinges creaked and the door drifted away from me.
On the other side was another field. Beyond it, a blacktop road was carved into the earth against a thick tree line. I could hear the cicadas. The water in the creek.
Again, I looked behind me to the truck parked with the door ajar down the road. The cool metal of the doorknob was still there on my fingers. But I froze when I heard the sound of wind in the trees, the leaves rustling. Because I couldn’t feel it.
Carefully, my gaze returned to the open door. On the other side, the branches were bowed, the grass bending beneath a swift breeze. But on this side, all was still.
I lifted a hand slowly, moving closer, and when it crossed the threshold, a brisk wind wove through my fingers. My lips parted in an overwhelming awe as I closed it into a fist and drew it back. As soon as I did, the wind disappeared.
I stared at my palm, my gaze following the lines that spread like tree roots over my skin.
Two places at once.
It was Gran’s voice I heard as I counted the inhale. One, two, three. I took a step forward, the breath leaving my lungs. One, two, three. I don’t think there was a moment when I made up my mind. There was no single thought that made me do it. I was just suddenly moving forward until my boot was touching down on that glistening grass.
The wind caught me, pulling my hair across my face, and I filled my chest with the summer-sweet air. Dragonflies danced on the sparkling water below.
But when I turned around, the door was gone.
Nine
I looked around me, turning slowly in a circle. My breath shook when I caught sight of the freshly paved road winding between the fields like a snake disappearing into the hills.
The truck had vanished.
I was standing in the same spot. The exact same place where I’d pulled over only minutes ago. I knew where I was, but this road was . . . new. The air was filled with the smell of black, pebbled tar, the cracked pavement and rusted guardrails gone. The fields surrounding me were missing fences. Barns. There were giant old trees where I’d never seen them. And a tiny wood-framed house sat where there had been nothing before.
“Wake up.” I spoke the words aloud, but they were muted in my ears. “Wake up!”
My voice broke through the wind, my vision sharpening on the world around me. It was too clear. Too specific. This wasn’t the distant, dreamlike glimpses I’d seen before. It felt real. Visceral and detailed. This was something else. Something impossible.
My vision focused on the tilted silver mailbox on the side of the road. It was painted with the name GRANGER.
My mind stumbled from one thought to the next before a screech echoed out and the screen door of the little house rattled closed. At the top of the steps, a short, gray-haired woman was watching me, eyes wide.
“Excuse me.” I lifted a desperate hand into the air, barely getting the words out.
It wasn’t until I took another step that I could read that look on her face. Shock. Terror, even. She scrambled backward, catching the door with her hand, and then she disappeared, slamming it behind her.
My eyes jumped from one darkened window to the next. There was no movement, no sounds coming from inside, but I could feel her watching me, eyes peering through the glass.
I pressed a trembling hand to my hot forehead as I tried to think. There weren’t any another houses that I could see. No one in the fields or on the road.
I reflexively reached for my back pocket. My cellphone, my keys, everything was in the truck. I was too far down the road to see the turn onto Hayward Gap now, but I had no idea what lay in the other direction. There could be nothing between here and town, and it would take me half the day to get that far.
Trust me.
The words that had been scribbled on the back of the envelope Birdie gave me were a faint whisper now. The problem was, I didn’t trust anyone anymore. Not even myself.
I ran one hand through my hair, pinning it back from my face. If I’d crossed time, like Birdie suggested Susanna had done, then I wasn’t in 2023 Jasper anymore. That didn’t give me many options.
I started walking in the direction I’d come from, steps faltering when I passed the spot on the road that the Bronco had been. I was almost sure I could hear the rumble of the engine somewhere far in the distance. I could even smell the exhaust on the wind. It was like before, when I’d see or hear things that weren’t really there. Except now it felt like I was on the other side of those visions.
I walked toward the cascade of mountains in the distance. Those peaks and valleys, at least, hadn’t changed, and the farther I walked, the more I was piecing together my surroundings. The riverbank looked different, more overgrown and wild with the water half-hidden by the thick brush. But there were subtle things that helped me keep my bearings, like a particular curve in the road or a tree I thought I recognized.
Hayward Gap wasn’t marked this time. The tar crumbled onto the shoulder, where years of tire tracks had worn it down, carving a dirt track. It was lined with a wooden fence, and beyond it was the hill I’d seen yesterday, arcing up on one side before the land came rolling back down.
The rumble of an engine sounded before a truck appeared in the distance, and I squinted, trying to make it out. It was an old model. Not old like the ones in the Jasper I knew, 1990s trucks and station wagons that had been turned into utilitarian farm vehicles. No, this truck was much older, its deep blue paint gleaming as the sun flashed off its fender.
The driver didn’t seem to notice me on the side of the road until he’d already passed, and the truck suddenly slowed, as if he’d hit the brakes out of a sudden reaction. But just as soon as I was sure he’d stop, he started moving again, faster this time.