The next morning, Julie wakes up to hot sunlight flooding her bedroom, as if the sun itself has been made brighter by last night’s storm.
She lies for a moment in her early morning haze, but then the memory of everything that happened the night before comes rushing back. Claire. Claire almost died. Claire’s grandmother was the one who wanted her dead.
And Claire is staying down in the hall, in the guest bedroom.
Julie flings the covers off the bed and slips out into the quiet house. The scent of coffee wafts up from the kitchen. The door to the guest bedroom is closed, and Julie pads over, knocks once.
No answer.
A cold fear seizes her—has Audrey come back?
She flings the door open and finds the room glowing with yellow sunlight, the bed neatly made, Abigail’s gray dress hanging to dry over the back of a chair. It’s been ruined, seawater stains set deep into the fabric.
A sheet of notebook paper sits in the middle of the bed. Her chest tight, her hands shaking a little, Julie picks it up—but it’s a note from Claire. Went for a walk along Sweetbriar Avenue. Come find me!
Come find me. An invitation this time, not a rescue.
Julie darts back into her room and changes into the first clothes she can find: cut-off shorts and her Lunachicks shirt and her busted-up old Doc Martens. Then she bounds out into the morning’s shimmering brightness.
It doesn’t take her long to find Claire. She’s at the playground at the end of Sweetbriar Avenue, sitting on the swing set in a sundress she borrowed from the back of Julie’s closet. Julie’s mom bought that sundress last year, and Julie always refused to wear it—but the tiny floral pattern suits Claire, her hair neat and shining in the lemony morning light, the sea breeze pushing it back away from her face. The air smells clean, the way it always does after a storm, as if the rain washed away all the old layers of salt from everything.
“Hey,” Julie calls out, suddenly nervous.
Claire twists around in the swing and gives Julie a wave. Julie moves toward her, picking through the patches of muddy water left over from the storm last night.
“Hey,” Claire says as Julie slides into the swing next to her.
They sit quietly for a moment. Claire leans her head against the chain of the swing, her gaze distant.
“How are you doing?” Julie asks.
Claire looks over at her. “I’ve been better.” She laughs. “But I’ve been a lot worse too.”
Julie isn’t sure how to react, if it’s okay for her to laugh at that.
“Everything still feels—” Claire knots the fabric of the dress up in her fist. “I don’t know. I’m going to have to call my mom. Tell her something. I mean—” Claire looks up at the sky. “Audrey was going in there to—to take the rest of Grammy’s life away. I don’t—”
“We can send Lawrence over there,” Julie says, pressing her hand against Claire’s back. Claire looks up at her and smiles a little, and something flutters sweetly in Julie’s stomach. “He can take care of all the official reports and stuff. He can call your mom. It’ll probably just look like natural causes, you know?”
“And she was sick.” Claire shakes her head. “I mean, Audrey had been—feeding off her for weeks.”
Julie nods.
“I wish I could tell my mom the truth.” Claire sighs. “But there’s no way she’d believe it. I hardly believe it myself, you know?”
“Yeah.” Julie squints out at the sun. “It feels like a bad dream.”
And it does, especially in the buttery light of morning. Like it could all slip away, a memory undone.
But Julie knows she can’t let that happen. She’s going to have to sit down with her dad, with the entire council, and explain to them about Audrey and Mrs. Sudek. Lawrence will back her up. They have to know that the monsters aren’t enemies. They saved the town. They saved everyone’s entire existence.
Just like Javier saved Abigail, all those years ago. And just like Julie saved Claire.
Her cheeks burn a little, thinking about it.
“Thank you again,” Claire says, looking down at her hands. “For everything. For letting me stay with you. It probably won’t be for long, I’m sure my mom’s going to make me go back to Houston.”
Julie closes her eyes. She’d been trying not to think about that.
“I don’t want to,” Claire says quickly. “But—”
“Hey,” Julie says. “We’ll work it out. We can talk on the phone. You won’t remember the monsters, but I’m sure you’ll remember me.” Julie isn’t sure of that, though. She just doesn’t want to think of the other possibility: that Claire will pass the city limits and disappear completely.
“I hope so. I mean—” She peers up at Julie, her eyes big and luminous, her cheeks pink from the morning heat. “You saved my life. I just—thank you. Thank you so much.”
Claire looks so beautiful in that moment that Julie doesn’t want to think about her leaving for Houston. She doesn’t want to think about conversations with the council about monsters. She doesn’t want to think about anything.
Julie can’t help it: She leans forward in her swing and kisses Claire on the mouth.
And Claire kisses back without hesitation, just as she did last night after she was free. She touches Julie lightly on the arm—hesitantly, at first, but she pulls Julie closer, dragging her out of the swing.
“Ow!” Julie laughs, stumbling to her feet. Claire’s blushing. Adorable.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Hey, no worries.” Julie grabs her hands and pulls her up to standing and they kiss again, properly this time, their bodies twining together. Claire pulls back, giggles nervously, then kisses Julie along her jawline, along her neck. Julie’s whole body flushes with fever.
“Is this okay?” Claire whispers.
“More than okay,” Julie says, her heart swelling.
And then something snaps in the shrubbery behind them.
Julie whips around, grabs Claire’s hand—but it’s just a monster, the one that looks like a small silken alligator. It stands up, unsteady on its hind legs. The red scarf wrapped around its neck flutters in the wind.
“You!” Julie says, surprised.
“Girl,” says the monster, nodding at her. Then, to Claire: “Girl.”
Julie glances sideways at Claire. She doesn’t look afraid, the way she did the first time this monster came for a visit. The first time Julie ever saw her.
The monster drops forward on all fours and ambles toward them, its long thick tail swishing through the muddy grass. Claire squeezes Julie’s hand.
“Girls,” the monster says.
Julie smiles, glances at Claire. “That’s about the whole of it, yeah.”
The monster crawls closer, then rises up on its hind legs again. Claire stumbles back a little, but Julie holds firm, looking the monster in the eye. If there’s another threat, she’s going to stop it.
Instead, the monster drops back down to all fours and scurries away, vanishing into the grass.
“What was that about?” Claire says, a tremble in her voice. “Do you think Audrey—”
A tremor vibrates through the ground, rattling Julie’s bones. The air takes on a heavy quality, thick and hard to breathe. Like the air inside the power plant.
And then a towering figure materializes, stepping out of nothingness like it’s stepping through a doorway. It unfurls itself against the blue sky. Human-shaped, but not quite.
“Aldraa?” Julie gasps.
Aldraa bares his teeth in that way that’s meant to be a smile.
“It’s okay,” Julie says to Claire, who’s gaping up at him. “This is Aldraa. He’s—” Julie looks over at him. “He’s like the leader of the monsters.”
“Not exactly.” His voice booms out and the playground equipment rattles, clanking like chains. Claire slaps her hands over her ears.
“Forgive me,” he says. “I don’t often leave the power plant. I know my presence is disturbing to your kind.” He bends down, lowering one of his long, strange arms. The gray monster jumps out of the grass and scurries up to Aldraa’s shoulder, peering down at Julie and Claire with its bright eyes.
“But I have a gift,” he says. “On behalf of all of the xenade.”
And then he reaches out and presses the tip of one bony finger against Julie’s forehead. Something sparks inside her brain, like all the synapses are firing at once. She yelps, reaches out to Claire just as Aldraa does the same thing to her. Claire jerks back, rubs her head.
“What kind of gift?” Julie asks slowly.
The wind picks up. Aldraa draws his hand back. “The council has freed you.”
“Freed us?” Julie blinks. “From what?”
“From the cloudiness.”
Julie looks over at Claire, who shakes her head a little.
“The cloudiness?” Julie calls out.
“When you leave this place,” Aldraa says. “You will remember. You will remember us. You will remember the astronaut. And you will remember each other.”
There is a swell of strange, staticky sounds, the wind and the cicadas and the ocean all rolled up together.
Claire is the first to speak. “Thank you,” she says, her voice tight. “That’s an amazing gift.”
“Yeah, I agree. Thank you.” Julie takes Claire’s hand and smiles up at Aldraa. “That’s really righteous of you.”
Aldraa makes a low humming noise. “I have been too long outside the power plant,” He says. “But I wished to deliver the gift myself.” He steps backward, and the playground shudders again, and the strange sounds grows louder and the sun grows hotter and then Aldraa is gone.
Everything is still.
Julie looks over at Claire and feels a surge of electricity between them, then a sudden jolt in the air, and for a half second they are not on a playground in Indianola but standing in front of a coffee shop on a busy street, Claire with a backpack slung over one shoulder, Julie with a stack of flyers for a movie premier. Her movie, she knows. Their movie, that they made together.
And then the sound dampens. The world goes still. They’re back in Indianola.
Claire’s face is gleaming.
“Did you see that?” she whispers. “We were in Austin, I think.”
Julie nods.
“The timeline.” Aldraa’s voice drifts on the wind, painless with distance. “This timeline. Folded for just a second. So you can see what you created.”
Julie laughs. Claire throws her arms around her shoulders, startling her, and Julie buries her nose in Claire’s hair, breathes in the scent of her flowery shampoo. Breathes in the scent of this timeline, shaped once again by a storm, by a night on the beach, by love.
A timeline where an Alvarez saves a Sudek, but this time, they leave Indianola.
Together.
* * *