Alarmed, she pulled down another book—Something Wicked This Way Comes—and flipped through it. Nothing, only a collection of empty pages.
“Carlin!” she called. But there was no answer, only the sleepiness of the empty cottage on a Sunday afternoon in her childhood. She used to love the times when Carlin was gone, when it was just her and Barty and neither of them needed to look over his shoulder, anticipating disapproval. But at the sight of the blank books, she felt the cottage’s familiar quiet tilting into nightmare.
She took down Carlin’s Shakespeare—surely that bulwark of language was too indelible ever to be erased—but it was blank as well. In a panic now, Kelsea pulled down book after book, but they were all empty. It was only the semblance of a library, nothing more. Without words, the paper held no value.
“Carlin!” she screamed.
“She’s not here.”
Kelsea turned and found William Tear standing behind her. His presence seemed quite reasonable, as things always did in dreams. Only the empty books were too awful to be true.
“Why are they blank?” she asked.
“I would guess because the future is undecided.” Tear picked up two of the discarded books and placed them gently back on the shelves. “But I’m not sure. I never tried to dabble in the past.”
“Why not?” Kelsea demanded. “The pre-Crossing . . . you could have gone back and changed it, couldn’t you? Frewell, the Emergency Powers Act . . .”
“It seemed easier to control the future by changing the present. The past is an unwieldy thing.”
His words tugged at Kelsea’s memory. Someone else had told her almost the same thing, hadn’t they? Something about butterflies . . . it seemed decades ago.
“You think I have no right to meddle with the past?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that. But you should be prepared for the decision to cost you.”
“I am prepared,” Kelsea replied, not sure whether it was true. “There’s no other option. The Tearling is wrecked.”
“The Tearling,” he murmured, his voice musing. “I told them not to name things after me.”
“They didn’t listen.” Kelsea looked around at the library, the empty cottage. “Why are we here?”
“To speak, child. I used to talk to my ancestors as well, though not in this place. We would go to Southport, to the promenade where I grew up. It used to scare me, seeing the prom so empty . . . but then, I was younger than you.”
“Do you know who I am?” Kelsea asked.
“I know you’re my blood, else I wouldn’t be here. But are you Tear, or Finn?”
Kelsea considered this question for a long moment, then admitted reluctantly, “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does. Why did you cast Row off?”
“We didn’t tell him. His mother was supposed to keep it a secret.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“I didn’t know Sarah was pregnant until after the Landing. I couldn’t stay with her, not once I knew that Lily was more than a vision. Sarah demanded that I choose. I chose Lily, and so lost my son.”
“But Row knew.”
“Yes. She was a weak woman, Sarah, and Row a consummate manipulator. She never kept anything from him for long.”
“You were proud of him.”
Tear frowned, troubled. “I was proud of his potential. But I foresaw ruin.”
“Ruin is upon us,” Kelsea pressed. “Can you not help?”
“What is your name, child?”
“Kelsea Glynn.”
“Glynn . . . I don’t know that name. I see that you have many stories to tell, and I would like to know what became of our town. But I sense that your time is short. Come.”
He led her out of the library and down the cottage’s tiny front hallway. Everywhere Kelsea saw items she remembered: Carlin’s silver candlesticks; the vase that Kelsea had chipped when she was twelve; the shoe stand that Barty had carved to hold their boots. But there were no candles in the sticks, no boots in the rack, and the vase was brand-new.
Tear opened the front door and beckoned her on. Following him, Kelsea expected to see the same raked patch of dirt that had always fronted the cottage, but when she stepped outside, she gasped and clapped her hands to her ears.
They were in a howling tunnel, Kelsea’s skin buffeted by wind that seemed to blow in all directions. She was reminded of the tunnels from Lily’s memory, fast cars and deafening sound, but this tunnel was empty, no cars or people. Instead of the concrete walls of Lily’s time, Kelsea saw the tunnel as a broad vista, people and places, all of them constantly in motion. Her vision seemed to stretch for miles.
“What is this?”
“Time,” said Tear beside her. “Past, present, future.”
“Which is which?” Kelsea asked, looking right and left. She could not distinguish the scenes before her.