Deep breaths. In and out. This world was different, sure, but the only reason Rusty had even been investigating Earl Parker’s death was because we’d discovered my psychic powers. He had helped me figure things out. If he’d been in any danger, I should have been right there with him. Surely, he must still be around. Even if we weren’t friends.
We had to be friends. I couldn’t imagine a world where we weren’t.
The idea of entering the store filled me with dread. What if I was wrong and Olive didn’t remember me? Supposedly, I still worked here but—no. My calendar showed me here twice a week. She must know me. My emotions were getting out of control. I was a scientist. Calm, logical.
Terrified.
With great effort, I forced myself to form a hypothesis: Olive remembered me. Now to test it. I shouldn’t be this nervous. Still, I had to recite the first fifty elements of the periodic table before my legs were willing to carry me inside.
Finally, I opened the car door and walked into Missing Pieces. The familiarity of the store wrapped around me like a favorite blanket, from the rows of fabulous previously owned treasures to the rose-patchouli scent that I’d long associated with my boss and mentor.
Olive Green stood behind the counter in the middle of the store, as always. She looked up when the bells over the door jingled, and a smile split her face in two. “Funny thing. I’ve been expecting you.”
Her reaction filled me with relief. She knew me; she liked me. I really did work here. Not everything had changed. Meaning, if she were the Olive I remembered, I could tell her exactly what happened and how confused I was. Maybe she could help me fix all this.
One step at a time.
“Really? Am I supposed to work today?” According to my calendar, I was off until after New Year’s.
“Yeah. No, you’re not scheduled. I know what you’re thinking.” She reached under the counter and pulled out a box, setting it on the counter. “I woke up this morning, absolutely certain I needed to give you this.”
My boss’s psychic power involved connecting objects with their true owners. We’d first met when I applied for a job, but she’d already expected me to come in for the opal ring I wore. It never occurred to me she would have other wayward objects that needed to find me. Then again, since my power came from reading psychic impressions left on items, it made sense.
When I got close enough to see the box she’d placed on the counter, I snorted. “Tea? Since when do we stock tea?”
“We don’t. I picked it up at the magic store,” she said. “Amira’s been experimenting with some new blends.”
I picked up the box doubtfully. “Why would you buy me tea?”
“It helps the memory,” she said. “When I picked it up, my intuition told me you’d need it. Not sure why. You’re the smartest person I know. I thought maybe for exams, but didn’t you finish your last final yesterday?”
Even though I’d known Olive for two years, the depth of her intuition shook me. My eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Have a seat. I’ll turn on the kettle.”
A bistro table set stood next to the cash register. I thought it made everything feel more homey. While it was technically for sale, Olive and I used it all the time to chat or test my powers. I sank into the seat furthest from the counter so she could get back to the register if any customers entered. But when Olive returned, she set a silver tea tray on the table and locked the front door before sitting across from me.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” she asked while pouring the delicious-smelling liquid into a teacup.
Taking mine, I held it as if drawing strength from the warmth. I didn’t want to drink, didn’t want to remember anything. Not if it meant, as I suspected, losing Sam and Rusty. I wanted to hold them close in my heart forever and never let go. I didn’t want a new roommate, a new bestie, and a new boyfriend. This was horrible. What did Mary and I do? How could we have played with people’s lives like this?
I couldn’t even speak. Olive reached over and squeezed my hand, which my barely contained tears spill down my cheeks. She wrapped me in her arms, and I curled into her. She stroked my hair. At least this one thing had stayed the same.
As soon as I left here, I needed to get to Katrina. Seeing her would make me feel better about everything. I needed the reassurance that I hadn’t made a huge mistake and destroyed my life for nothing. Sure, I’d seen her step through the doorway into the present when we did the spell, but I wanted to hug her and feel that she was alive and not a zombie. To know that we’d done the right thing, even if I was dating a stranger and my boyfriend barely knew me.
Ex-boyfriend? No. Even “former boyfriend” wasn’t quite right. Those words described someone who remembered our relationship.
Ouch.
Olive stroked my hair. “Everything is going to be okay. What happened?”
I took a deep breath to relieve the stabbing pain in my gut. What had Mary said before we did the spell? If Sam and I were meant to be together, our love would find a way. I’d just have to tell Cal nicely that I had no memory whatsoever of dating him, and I was in love with someone else. Then reach out to Sam and let him know that we’d been together for several months and he loved me very much.
Sure. No problem. That wouldn’t get me slapped with a restraining order at all.
Olive was watching me, waiting patiently for the answer. I drew strength from having her on my side, as always. “Mary and I did a spell, and the whole world changed. Everything is different.”
Part of me hadn’t believed Olive was the same in this new world, had worried that she would laugh or not believe me. Instead, she sat back and took a long drink from her own cup. “That sounds very disorienting.”
The full story tumbled out. From my original memory of Katrina dying to the day I arrived in Shady Grove to learning about my powers and finding a magical orb that helped me bring Katrina back to life. Then, how I woke up this morning with a boyfriend I didn’t recognize, living in a new place and driving a new car.
The only thing I didn’t mention was Sam. If we weren’t together in this reality, letting Olive in on the secret hurt too much.
“Oh, wow,” she said when I finished. “Are you stalling on drinking that tea because you’re worried you’ll lose the old memories?”
That woman missed nothing.
“I don’t know what I think,” I admitted. “Maybe? Should I write everything down?”
“You’re the scientist,” she said. “What is the best method for retaining information?”
“Recording it,” I grumbled. Same old Olive, making me figure out stuff on my own instead of just telling me the answers.
She stood up. “You’ve got your phone. Take a few minutes, write down everything you can think of. You can even go upstairs—Maria’s in class.”
Olive and her wife, Maria, lived above the store in a second-story apartment. Sam grew up here with them before he moved to New York City to get his MBA. Maria taught self-defense at I Will Survive, a studio located a few doors down on Main Street. Original Aly had taken some private lessons after learning about her predisposition for stumbling across dead bodies. I wondered if New Aly’s body would remember any of it.
How long would it take to stop thinking of myself as New Aly? I hadn’t changed on the inside. Only my memories were different. I was more than that.
“Thanks.” I stood up, taking the teacup with me.
The clock in Olive’s living room told me that, as important as this was, I shouldn’t waste too much more time before leaving for Kevin’s house. Since typing everything out would take too long, I pulled out my recording app and spoke into it while I paced back and forth across her living room.
From the rear window, I could just make out the red and white striped awnings of the coffee shop across the alley, On What Grounds? The owner, Julie Capaldi, was a former lawyer and also Kevin’s girlfriend in the reality I remembered. Part of me wanted to go in and see how she was doing, but she wouldn’t remember their relationship. Oh, man. I really liked Julie. She and Kevin had been happy together. I hated myself for breaking them up. Even though it was for the greater good.
Too late now. There was no going back. All I could do was hope that she met someone who loved her and treated her well and didn’t have a jerk sister who would play God and rewrite history.
What else did I know?
Rusty worked at the coffee shop when we met, but left to become a private investigator a few months ago. He’d been working as an apprentice for a firm in Saratoga Springs, the nearest decent-sized city. Maybe if I snuck over there on my way to Kevin’s house, I could learn how he was in this reality. It wasn’t that far out of the way.
First, the tea. It sat on the kitchen table, right where I’d left it when walking in. Steam no longer rose from the top. I hesitated. Would the tea make me forget who I was? We were hypothesizing that it might—that’s why I made the recording.
But at the end of the day, my world had changed. I was a stranger in my own life. If this tea could make any of that easier, I needed to try, right? That would be the next logical step, and logic had never once failed me in life. Unlike all these stupid feelings I kept having.
Forget logic. Olive had faith in this tea’s ability to help me, and I had faith in Olive. My trust in her was one of the few things that felt equally true in both realities.
“Bottoms up,” I said to no one as I lifted my cup.
I wasn’t sure what I expected, but the tea tasted good. A hint of lemon, some other spices that were familiar but hard to name. It went down easy. No dizziness, nothing like that. Everything seemed perfectly normal. Hopefully, I wouldn’t be assaulted by a barrage of memories as I drove down the Northway. Time to freshen up and then be on my w—
My body jolted. I lost my grip on the teacup. It clattered onto the table. A thousand memories assailed me. Just a blur of images and feelings, so abstract it was impossible to pull one out of the mess. Total sensory overload.
My head spun. I staggered to Olive’s couch and faceplanted. Images flew before my eyes. I squeezed them shut to block out the onslaught. Bile rose in my throat. There was nothing to do but ride the wave. Getting to the bathroom was unthinkable in this state.
That was some tea.
Thanks for the warning, Olive. What was Amira thinking, selling this stuff to anyone who walked in off the street? It couldn’t be FDA-approved.
As quickly as the flood started, it stopped. Tentatively, I opened my eyes. Still in Olive’s apartment, thank Curie. I couldn’t handle two involuntary teleportations in one day. My head throbbed. No surprise. Somehow, I’d magically shoved two years of information into my brain in about thirty seconds. Imagine putting two hundred pounds of stuffing into a seven-pound turkey, but you’re the turkey.
Cautiously, I probed my memory. Everything was there: Kevin’s call the day Katrina disappeared. Meeting Mary at their home. Enrolling in Maloney College. Playing with Kyle at Kevin and Katrina’s old house. Meeting Cal. Studying with Cal for finals. Getting late-night pizza and working in the science lab together. How nervous he looked when asking me out for the first time. Our first date. Our first kiss.
Rusty! There was Rusty, entering his number into my phone under Hottest Stud to make Cal jealous. That was why he wasn’t in my Contacts under “R”. A huge wave of relief washed over me. I couldn’t stand the thought that I’d traded my sister-in-law for my boyfriend and best friend. Seeing Rusty alive and well in my memories was an incredible relief for a split second, then the deluge moved on to show him giving me a set of lock picks as a gag gift. I saw Olive offering me a job, Professor Zimm working with me in the lab, and Cal. So many memories of us together. Laughing, talking, Cal giving me that poster for my birthday and saying he loved me.
A heady rush of emotion washed over me. Watching these events play out made me extremely happy, which also made me very conflicted. Cal was a good guy. I really cared about him, and he cared about me. To the casual observer, this appeared to be the relationship I’d hoped for when I was younger. The kind of thing I’d grown up watching in movies and on television, but my nerdy self never managed to manifest.
I was surprised to feel disappointment at this revelation. Part of me wanted Cal to be a jerk, a cheater. Someone I would feel no qualms about dumping so I could resume my relationship with Sam. Even if he didn’t know about my feelings in this reality, I’d been operating on the assumption that I could tell him and we could start over. But now the thought of breaking up with Cal made me want to cry. How was I supposed to choose?
Instead of a simple decision, I was faced with the uncomfortable realization that I was in love with two different men at the same time.