Mom closes the washer door and starts it up, and then follows me out. I set the laundry basket down by the couch, and Danny pauses the movie while Mom waits in the kitchen for the popcorn to finish in the microwave.
“I’m gonna go back,” he says. “For Mom.”
“So she can see the helmet?”
“Yeah. ’Cause she missed it.”
“What did we do before microwave popcorn?” Mom muses as she pours the popcorn into a bowl. “You know, we used to make it on the stove top. Back in olden times, I mean.”
“Yeah, you’re so ancient,” I say, rolling my eyes.
Danny turns to look at me as he cues up the DVD. “When you miss something, you should go back,” he says matter-of-factly.
My mind turns his words over, then runs them through again.
When you miss something, you should go back.
I look over at my mother—my far-from-ancient mother—and a thought takes root.
We need to go back.
I have an ancestor who, by all accounts, was the one and only Traveler who began it all. And a group of Dreamers—at some point in time—decided I’m the one to stop the ending of it all.
How? It’s not enough that they know it’s me. Somewhere, someone must have predicted how. Maybe no one could agree on the forecast, but the answer had to have been considered. Maybe even discarded. Or maybe Mario knows and just didn’t think I could handle it yet.
My sleep was dreamless last night. Whether that was out of respect for my pain, or anger at my outburst, I don’t know. Today, I am still hollow, but the empty places are slowly being filled with questions.
Tonight, we’re going back to the beginning, and I don’t care if I fill up ten journals full of notes in dreamland. We’re missing something, and we need to go back.
“Jess?” Mom interrupts my train of thought. “Popcorn?” She holds out the bowl.
“Are you staying here tonight, Jessa?” Danny asks.
Mom thinks he’s asking if I’m going out, but I know he’s asking more. He’s asking if I’m going to stay his Jessa, just like he’s my Danny.
“I’m staying here, Danny—with you and Mom.”
I’m their Jessa, but I’m more now.
I’m everybody’s Jessa. And I’m going to find an answer.
Epilogue
He watched them lower her into the grave.
Her mother stood, weeping softly, holding her son’s hand as she tossed the first rose onto the lid of the coffin. It took some time for the well-wishers to file past, tossing their flowers, one at a time, yellow roses, signifying loss.
He looked across at her parents, moved by the grief in their faces. For all their occasional differences, it was clear they’d loved her.
They’d loved her as he’d loved her. Still loved her.
Slowly, the townspeople and friends took their leave, climbing into their vehicles to join her family at their home, eating delicate finger sandwiches and talking in hushed tones.
He made his way to the grave, holding his rose—a vivid red for the vibrant young woman, lying cold in a grave that she didn’t deserve.
He would find the one who did this, and he would make them pay. He offered it as a vow, murmured over a corpse that had no business being sheltered in a coffin so soon.
He tossed his rose and bid his final good-bye.
And as he stepped aboard his ship, he saw his reflection in the portal glass, and he realized it didn’t really have to be good-bye.
Not if he didn’t want it to be.
Acknowledgments
I have an enormous list of people without whom this book would never be. First and foremost, to Holly West and Lauren Scobell, for noticing a book with a handful of great reviews but not a lot of buzz around it, and then for having the foresight and patience to help me shape it into so much more. Thank you for taking a chance on me, for holding my hand, for brainstorming and poking and prodding and cheering me on from the margins with a well-placed remark. You made me a better writer.
To my many blog and fan-fiction readers—you’ve been so incredibly loyal and supportive, giving me the confidence and the courage to push myself as I never had before, and oh, has it paid off in so many ways. Thank you for reading, thank you for retweeting, for reblogging, for Facebook sharing, for shouting me out in fan forums, and for beta reading in the early stages. You’re the best, all of you!
To Gary, the creator of LiveJournal Idol, and all of my former competitors there: I was just a girl who liked to tell stories until all of you came along. That contest was grueling and challenging and exhilarating. It gave me my start, and with a few of my best entries in hand, it gave me my first paying writing job. You made me think it was possible, and I cannot thank you enough for it.