23

After an entire Saturday of rehearsals, Leila was ready to scream. So she did. She walked into her room, kicked off her shoes, and let loose.

“Do you finally hate Stephen Sondheim?” her mom called from her office down the hall.

“Yee-e-es,” Leila sang back.

“Happens to everyone!” she said. “But it’s temporary.”

It really, really helped to have a mom who understood.

Into the Woods was hard. Stephen Sondheim, the composer, was famous for writing hard music. Not to mention the staging, the lines, all of it—and Leila’s part, the witch, was the toughest vocal role ever written. Right now her throat felt like it was punctured with holes. Plus Rachel had kept forgetting her lines. And even though Claudia’s latest breakup had happened three weeks ago, she talked about it all through rehearsal and during the pizza party afterward, while eating every one of Leila’s spinach and mushroom slices.

Arggh.

She fell back on her bed. At least all the work had kept her mind off Corey. Sort of.

For about the nine hundredth time that day, she checked her phone. Not a word. For about the thousandth time, she checked her actual brain memory for the status of Corey’s grandmother, and it came back dead. Nothing about that had adjusted. Okay, okay, so she hadn’t survived. But what about Corey? Her heart was doing flip-flops. There had to be a way to know what happened. Soon Corey’s parents were going to suspect he wasn’t having a sleepover. Maybe they knew already.

Maybe there was a way Leila could know what had happened to him. He was a part of history now. If he was trapped in the attack, his name would be listed among the victims.

Her fingers felt icy cold as she tapped “Corey Fletcher World Trade Tower” into her search bar. She felt like throwing up as she tapped Enter. But his name wasn’t there. Which gave her about three nanoseconds of relief, until she realized the flaw in her logic. If he died, how would anyone know his name?

He didn’t work there, he was on no lists. Nobody would file a missing-persons report. He was a visitor from a different time.

She sat up and looked out her window, half expecting him to be walking up the street, whistling. In her mind he was eating a chocolate bar from the Mani Market on Columbus. It was his favorite thing to do.

The street was empty. But for the first time since entering the room, she noticed the lacquer box, still sitting on her desk.

Leila lifted it close, looking at the winter scene. The skaters looked so lifelike, so full of fun. They made her feel like she could just step in and join them. Maybe, if Corey survived and came home, he could teach her how to time travel back to this scene. Like a little tourist visit to the 1800s.

Now she felt tears pressing against her eyes. Was this what life was going to be like now? Always thinking about her best friend and knowing that he had gotten killed in the greatest disaster in American history?

Sadness and rage and heartache and frustration all raced around inside her brain, colliding against each other, exploding to bits. Her teeth were grinding so hard her jaw hurt. With a cry of helplessness, she drew the lacquer box back and threw it. It flew end over end toward the pile of Auntie Flora’s belongings by the door. With a loud crash, it smacked into the framed photo she had propped against the wall.

As the protective glass shattered into tiny shards, the box bounced back onto the floor. It left a big, ugly gash in the photo.

“Leila?” her mom cried out. She was in the hallway in an instant, pushing the door open to her room. “What the heck just happened?”

“An accident,” Leila said. “I got carried away . . . practicing choreography. Big gestures, small room, bad choice.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, I’m an idiot. But no scratches. I’ll clean it up. Really. You be sure to make your deadline.”

Her mom gave her a dubious look, then backed out. “Maybe you need a nap, Leila. You don’t sound like yourself.”

As the door shut, Leila crouched down by the photo. It was the 1914 gathering of the Knickerbockers, only now the heads of four members in the back row had been bashed in, replaced by a hole. She reached behind the image. The cardboard backing had been punctured, too. She pressed it in, but it would need a professional to restore it to its former glory. With a sigh, she shook loose as much of the glass as she could.

That was when she noticed the enormous white cat at the bottom right of the photo.

At first glance she’d thought it was a polar bear. But at this distance it was definitely alive and very feline. As she looked closer, she noticed the doglike snout, the piercing eyes.

“Catsquatch . . . ,” she murmured.

The resemblance was uncanny. Leila set the photo down against the wall again. She knew she had to get a broom and a dustpan, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the cat. It looked so . . . present. So alive and intelligent. Just like its modern-day version.

She stood and backed away, inadvertently kicking the box. As she bent down to pick it up, it still felt weirdly warm to the touch. Holding it in her hand, she examined the outside, turning the box 360 degrees. Up close, she could see the finely ornamented brass hasp that kept the box shut. It was an octagonal shape, with a round keypad in the center that showed the numbers 1 to 6 next to six small black buttons.

But Leila couldn’t keep her eyes from the photo. The white cat seemed to be growing brighter. For a moment Leila imagined that its paw was raised.

No. Her imagination was playing tricks. She was thinking about the real Catsquatch, earlier that day. The way it had followed her and Rachel, like it had something important to say. The way it had raised its paw and tapped it down repeatedly on the sidewalk like a horse in a circus.

Four . . . three . . . five . . . two . . .

Leila felt the blood flush from her veins. She sat on the bed, clutching the box, glancing at the photo.

What if it was trying to say something?

The idea seemed ridiculous. Impossible.

But so did time travel.

Her fingers shaking, she pressed the buttons in order. Four. Three. Five. Two.

The hasp snapped open. Placing her hand on the lid, Leila opened it carefully and looked inside.