CHAPTER 21

Morning arrived with Alistair lying on Maria’s bed, the covers kicked down, the tape player on his stomach. He popped open the deck, pulled the tape out, and yanked at the ribbon. Wincing, he yanked, tore, and kept going until there was a nest of black plastic on the bed.

He did the same thing to the other tapes, his actions more violent with each one. Fiona’s voice kept playing in his head.

Not because I love him. Because I could have loved him.

Dot’s voice was there too.

There’s something terribly wrong with you. There’s evil in you.

He didn’t know which one to believe, or if to believe both of them. He balled up the ribbon in his fist and hurried from the room, through the hall, and outside. He threw the ribbon in the air and wind caught it and it littered the street like ticker tape.

He jogged the short distance to his house—that is, to the older Alistair’s house—and he rang the bell.

“You’re still here,” the older Alistair said when he opened the door.

“I’m sorry,” the younger said.

The older shuffled his feet. “You listened?”

“How did you know where to dig up those tapes?” the younger asked.

The older shrugged. “A memory. A childhood promise. I don’t know if Fiona meant for me to find them, or didn’t realize what was planted in my brain.”

“Did she have a chance to do it? To change you? To make things … easier … for the both of you?”

The older shrugged again. “I don’t know. I still have my memories. I still feel like me. Why don’t you ask her? You’re the one she could have loved. Did you figure out where she is yet?”

The younger shook his head. “Is there any way I can get a message to everyone? The entire town, I mean.”

“Boaz runs the Sutton Bulletin. Most everyone reads it. It’s a newspaper.”

“I know what it is.”

*   *   *

The office and printing press for the Sutton Bulletin were down a long, lonely road bordered by nothing, by an endless void. From the tapes, Alistair had learned that Fiona had recreated the things she could remember from home, but not much else. Sutton was the next town over from Thessaly, and she didn’t know it well. She knew the road and the building, because their class had taken a field trip there when she was in third grade.

The older Alistair drove, and the younger Alistair looked out at the void as they pulled into the lot.

“Anyone ever go out there?” the younger asked.

“When we were kids, Boaz, Rodrigo, and Trevor rode their bikes as far as they could get in a day. They didn’t find anything. Sometimes nothing is nothing. That’s why they call it Nothingland.”

The parking lot was half-full, and the two walked past a variety of rusty and beat-up cars. Inside, the younger Alistair recognized a receptionist who greeted them. She was a thirtysomething version of Kelly Dubois, who was generally considered the prettiest girl in Alistair’s class. She was still pretty, but now she looked tired. She barely glanced up when she said, “Morning.”

“We’re here to see Boaz,” the older replied.

Kelly waved them on as she huddled over a mug of fragrant tea. “In the back.”

The back was a room of low-walled cubicles with a handful of reporters lazing at cluttered desks, nibbling muffins, chatting quietly. A man, dark-skinned and muscular, stood in the corner, surveying it all like it was his kingdom. This was Boaz, and he looked intimidating, but also a bit silly. He wore a plaid newsboy cap that was barely big enough to cover his shaven head. Spotting the two Alistairs from across the room, he mouthed, What the hell?

The younger didn’t bother with an introduction. “I’ve got a story for you,” he said.

*   *   *

The story on the front page of the next morning’s Sutton Bulletin read:

DOPPELGÄNGER HAS A MISSION

Two days ago, a boy who resembles a younger version of our very own Alistair Cleary (and happens to share the same name) arrived in town. He claims to be a friend of Fiona Loomis, the strange girl who never aged and disappeared from our town thirteen years ago. He is searching for her. Any information about Fiona should be brought to Dorian Loomis’s home, where this young doppelgänger now resides. He is also willing to answer questions you may have for him about his appearance or his mission. “I have nothing to hide. My sole purpose is to find Fiona,” he says.

By the afternoon, the street outside of Dorian’s house was clogged with onlookers, but no one bothered to approach the door. So the younger Alistair came out into the yard. The only thing he could think to say was, “I come in peace.”

The crowd huddled up and consulted, then sent the mayor as their envoy. The mayor was Werner Schroeder, a handsome German man with an accented voice and a perfectly tailored suit.

“You are welcome in our fair town,” he said, and he handed Alistair an oversize novelty key. “We, however, have no information to assist in your search. Best of luck to you.”

With that, the crowd dispersed, except for a woman with frizzy brown hair, denim head to toe, and brown tasseled boots. She ambled over and shook Alistair’s hand. Her hand was covered in small warts. “The mayor was being too kind,” she said. “My name is Kendra Tolliver. I was a friend of Fiona’s, at least for a bit.”

“Nice to meet you,” Alistair said, though he’d met her before, or at least a younger version of her, back home at school.

Kendra ran a finger across her lower lip, which was caked in a thick pink gloss, and she eyed Alistair up and down as she said, “Fiona and I had a chat when we were both kids. She told me a secret. She said that the only reason she’d ever leave town would be if she didn’t ever want to come back. Respect her wishes. Let her be.”

“But—”

“And she said if anyone suspicious ever showed up in town claiming to be looking for her, then we shouldn’t trust that person. You, kid, fit the bill.”

Having said her piece, Kendra walked away too, and Dorian came into the yard and placed a hand on Alistair’s shoulder. “Prospects aren’t looking good,” Dorian said.

Staring at the now-empty road, Alistair asked, “Do you have any more of those planes? I’d like to try something.”

*   *   *

Using a Sharpie, Alistair wrote a message on a piece of ribbon: Is Fiona there?

Dorian then tied the ribbon to the tail of a yellow model airplane. The ribbon fluttered as the airplane hopped down the runway, took off into the damp evening air, flew into the tiny cloud, and disappeared.

They waited. Quietly. Sitting in the grass, looking at the cloud as the sun began to dip. Darkness seeped in, but not so much that they couldn’t see when something finally fell from the cloud and landed in the weeds that edged the runway.

They ran over and got down on their hands and knees to search. Dorian was the one who found it: a helmet. A space helmet.

Written across the visor in what might have been red marker, in what might have been blood, was a short but clear message.

You’re still It.