WORTHY AND I split up, and I take the pickup into downtown Bixby. No need for the deputy to be caught driving a stolen truck. Every few seconds, my eyes flick to the rearview mirror, checking the other cars on the road through the falling snow for any signs of Paul, but I see none. If he’s out there, he’s keeping well hidden.
I ditch the pickup behind a liquor store near the train depot, then slip between buildings and descend to the railroad tracks. Run down them till I come to a crossing a quarter mile away.
Worthy’s waiting there in his Chevy Bel Air. Elvis Presley’s singing on the radio as I approach. The deputy moves some folded shirts from the dry cleaners to the back seat to make room for me. I get in the car and wait for him to drive. But he doesn’t.
“Worthy, we really need to go,” I say, then look at him. See his expression’s gone dark.
“I need to say something first. How truly, truly sorry I am for not letting you go that day in Hanover’s driveway, for not trusting the feeling I had that there was more to you than Dorothy Frasier. And that day in the visitors’ room,” he says, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, “when you walked in on the arm of that nurse. It was obvious the damage they were inflicting on you. I should’ve fought harder with Dr. Sherman and the hospital superintendent—”
“Stop. There was absolutely nothing you could have done, except what you did—which was respect me enough to tell me the truth,” I say, hoping to end this revisit of victim me.
But as we head down the road, he says, “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“All you’ve got the stomach to share.”
I start my rehash as an effort to give the minimum of details necessary to satisfy Worthy’s curiosity—a sort of Reader’s Digest version of my tortures and humiliations that I can shed quickly.
But once I get going, I can’t stop the unspooling. There’s this comfort with Worthy that fuels my letdown. He doesn’t interrupt my torrent of words with questions, just lets me talk. I tell him everything I’ve learned about 2035 and time travel. Tethers. Links. Nerds. My mystery mission to speak to some shrink at Hanover, convince them to give up the location of a virus sample that could hold the key to stopping the Guest. That time is running out. Maybe it already has …
And I tell the increasingly horrified Worthy what I remember of those last days in the Unit.
Of my battle to hold on to what he had told me in the visitors’ room. Of Mary saving me from electrocution, then helping me fake the seizure to avoid complete regression. Of my time recovering—and dodging Lester—in the infirmary.
But when I get to Paul bringing me “home,” my throat starts to tighten, and the voice tries to end my words.
Stop. Baring your soul to this guy accomplishes nothing.
The voice is a remnant of the old me. The Bix before time travel, the one who is fine with beating up nurses, hitting deputies with rocks, stabbing doctors, eliminating suspicious spouses—but can’t handle sharing her feelings. Old Bix.
I’m no longer that person.
So I don’t stop. I tell Worthy about Paul and Eloise gaslighting me, and by the time I reach the point where I distrusted myself enough to turn my care and upkeep over to Paul, the words are coming out half-strangled, each one draining a little more energy from me.
How could I have let Paul’s bullshit happen? How could I give myself away like that?
Even with the damage from the machine and the protocol, how did I not see it? Sense it?
Route 29 is a four-lane highway lit only by the Chevy’s headlights and those of the cars sharing the road with us. On either side are deep gray woods, freshly dusted in snow.
I close my eyes and try to forget my tale and self-blame, think only of the cool, gray woods.
It’s the sound of my own voice that wakes me. A keening moan, ragged and feral, pouring out of me that I can’t seem to control. So I let it have its way with me, rock back and forth, watching the butterfly-shaped stain on the wall slowly spin around.
No, that’s not right—I’m the one that’s spinning, writhing, twitching in perpetual motion on the padded beige floor.
I try to stop myself but can’t find the off button.
The lock on the padded door CLICKS, and before it can swing open I scramble back to my corner, where no one can sneak up on me from behind. Two nurses are watching me from the doorway. One’s Wallace; the other I don’t recognize. She’s new, maybe sent here by the people who really run this place … the ones who steal things from your mind and don’t let you see any sky even though they could …
“What’s her story?” the new one asks. Like she doesn’t know … like she didn’t write the whole book …
“Hasn’t been lucid for months,” Wallace says. “Somehow got hold of a sharp piece of metal and slashed both wrists. They found her sitting in a pool of her own blood, muttering something about ‘proof.’”
“Seems docile. Why is she in J-Ward?”
“Docile?” Wallace smiles. “Just don’t turn your back on her,” she says, and the two begin to cackle like witches. So I speak my words of protection, unbroken syllables to keep them away, the ones who are after me … the ones who really run this place …
“Time to go, Dorothy,” Wallace says, hands reaching for me—and I claw at her—
“You’re safe. It’s okay!” a voice says.
“Don’t come any closer!” I scream.
“Bix! It’s me, Worthy!” And I feel his hand on my shoulder.
I open my eyes, see Worthy’s eyes shifting their worried gaze back and forth between me and the road ahead. He’s got a fresh scratch on his cheek. I must’ve done that. “That was some dream you were having. You all right?” he asks.
Just a dream. I take a few deep breaths, let it fade away.
“So, how does it feel. To know you’re her, Bix?”
“Good. The certainty’s good,” I say. I don’t tell him it also feels like a yoke’s been lowered onto my shoulders, but how much water I will be hauling in its buckets has not yet been revealed. What exactly is my mission here in ’54? And what does that woman walking down the street on my disc have to do with it? “Did you recognize the woman in my wrist?” I ask.
“No, too small and too fast for me.” He glances over. “So how long has it been since you last time-traveled?”
“Weeks at least. Maybe a month.”
Worthy’s quiet, probably thinking the same thing I am—that it’s been a while. What if we don’t find the real Dorothy Frasier and get back the link Ethan spoke about—so there are no more trips to the future? And I’m left wondering what all of this was for.
What I was for.
I turn up the radio, eager for a break from all the dread and speculation tumbling through my head. The announcer’s talking about Hemingway and his ill-fated safari in Africa. Next he moves on to Khrushchev, Matchbox cars, and the Chevy Corvette. All appear to be taking America by storm.
We drive through the seedy Rosslyn section of Arlington, past its pawnshops, pool halls, and brothels, rounding a large curve in the road whose sign reads WELCOME TO WASHINGTON D.C.
We ascend a straightaway onto a beautiful moonlit bridge lit by old-fashioned pale green streetlamps spilling ghostly circles of light onto the snowy roadway—
And my heart just about leaps from my chest.
I know this bridge—unlike anyplace I’ve seen since waking on the bus. Its name floats to the surface of my memory with the certainty of cherry Life Savers: “Key Bridge.”
“Yes, the Francis Scott Key Bridge. You remember it?” he asks, and I nod.
To our right, the lights of Washington twinkle with a warm incandescent glow.
To our left is a cluster of buildings clinging like barnacles to a steep slope. Georgetown University. Two church-like spires rise above the rest. I am certain I know these towers. Intimately. Like you would the playground of your elementary school. They are part of Healy Hall, a towering academic castle of granite at the heart of Georgetown’s campus.
My home. The one I’ve searched for everywhere in Dorothy’s life. I feel elation, vindication, a whole raft of ebullient thoughts—
But twisted up in them is dread, because I am absolutely certain some very bad things have happened there at Georgetown—or will happen.
Worthy sees me staring off toward the school. “That’s Georgetown University. Do you think you know it?” Worthy asks as we turn toward Washington and the towers recede.
I do not wish to share my dread—which is an option, now that I’m out of Hanover. “That’s where I grew up.”
We head down M Street, a road in Georgetown lined with upscale stores with colorful awnings spanning their fronts. Like Key Bridge, the street looks very familiar—but different at the same time. Cleaner.
Soon we’re veering down Pennsylvania Avenue, and the White House is coming up on the left. Eisenhower’s behind those walls. It’s not in any way barricaded, and I’m amazed how close we are to it as we drive by, like I could reach out and touch the portico. On our right is the enormous White House Christmas tree—which still prompts thoughts of drones and the Guest. But now those thoughts are more like questions, less like threats, and they do not derail me.