“Uh,” I say to no one, to Umlaut, as I pause, half in, half out of the tree. I thought all this nonsense had stopped after the party. After the last wormhole. Except for, um Gottes Willen, Gottie you moron, except for the fact you could suddenly read Thomas’s email this morning! Talk about a screenwipe.
As I watch, captivated, the writing reappears, followed by the tarnish. The lock re-rusts at warp speed. The time capsule pulsates back and forth, faster and faster: clean/dirty, letters/blank, rust/shiny. Past/future, past/future, past/future. The Weltschmerzian Exception didn’t begin when Grey died. It’s starting now.
And a drop of rain falls.
Upwards. There’s not a cloud in the sky. As another drop of rain hits me, I scramble away from the time capsule, and “Oh, shit—”
I think I hear someone shouting my name as I fall out of the tree.
Five Years Ago
“Did you just SEE that?” Thomas shouts through the rain.
It’s pretty dark, but I still saw the ginger cat run past us under the annex.
“Yeah, it’s under here.” I get down on my hands and knees, trying to peer under the building. The grass is gross—all wet and slimy—but my jeans are already soaked. It’s just water though. I’m a twelve-year-old girl, not the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Here, kitty kitty.”
“What? No,” says Thomas behind me. “G, you have to see this.”
“Mmm. In a minute.”
“G,” says Thomas impatiently. “Forget the cat for a minute. A girl just fell out of the tree.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Geee…”
I sigh. Thomas has been weird all day, ever since the head-butt kiss. I don’t want to play his stupid game. I want to get the cat. But I stand up anyway, turning round, wiping my muddy hands on my jeans.
There’s a girl lying on the grass under the apple tree.
Seriously.
It was just me and Thomas in the garden. Grey booted us out the Book Barn, then came home and booted us out the house too. Unbelievable! Thomas is leaving for Canada today, and it’s my last chance to kiss him—to kiss ANYONE in my whole life—and we keep getting interrupted. Then the cat ran through. And now there’s this girl. She sits up, rubbing the back of her head.
“She fell out of the sky-aye,” Thomas sing-songs as he starts crab-walking towards me.
“Actually,” says the girl, standing up tall tall tall. “I fell out of the tree.”
She shields her face with a hand from the rain and peers at us. At me. “Hi, Gottie.”
I stare back, spooked. How does she know my name? She looks like my mami, who I’ve only seen in photos. They all look the same as this girl: dark and skinny, with a big nose, and choppy hair like mine.
“Aren’t you cold?” I ask. I’m wearing rain boots, jeans, a T-shirt, Thomas’s jumper, and a Windbreaker. The girl is wearing pajamas and a book bag and no shoes. She must be friends with Grey. And she’s not wearing a bra. I can tell. Her toenails are cherry red and chipped.
“Did you hit your head?” asks Thomas. I sidle next to him and take his hand. He squeezes mine back.
“No, I hit the hedge.” She giggles.
She’s loopy: there isn’t a hedge back here. The ginger cat comes running to her, and it purrs and rubs against her ankle.
“I knew I should have called you Schr?dinger!” she says to it, then turns to look up into the apple tree. “Holy long division—it’s a paradoxical time loop.”
What is she talking about? Thomas looks at me, and, slowly so she doesn’t see it, I point my finger at my ear and move it round in a circle. Mouth: “Cuckoo.”
But how can he smile when he’s going away today? Doesn’t he mind?
“But why here? Why does it open today and not somewhen else? Is it the time capsule?” the girl murmurs to the tree. Then she looks over at us. “Hey, Trouble Times Two. Can you do me a favor?”
“No,” I say, at the same time as Thomas says, “Yes.”
I glare at him.
“After I’m gone, climb this tree and see what you find,” says the girl, taking something out of her pocket and throwing it through the rain to Thomas. It’s small and silver.
“I’ve got a knife!” I blurt. It’s true.
“I know.” She winks. “And you really shouldn’t. Gottie. Listen. I know I should say something so ficken wise to you right now. Like, talk to Papa. Eat your vegetables. Phone Ned when he’s in London. Pay attention to the world. Say yes when someone asks you to bake a cake. Make grand gestures. Be bold.”
She laughs. “But … eh, we’re going to forget, and do everything wrong, anyway. But be careful with that knife, okay? We could get hurt.”
I think We? But the girl’s already darting off through the garden and Thomas is tugging on my hand, saying, “There’s something in the tree, I’ve got the key. C’mon.”
And he’s leaving me for forever in an hour and we have a blood pact to swear, so I climb up after him, the knife in my pocket.
*