Chapter 7

Finn edged around the side of the house, doing his best to not make any noise. The wind picked up and he heard fat drops of rain, spaced far apart, thudding against the hard ground. All of his senses were magnified. It was an uncomfortable sort of internal buzzing that he couldn’t stop. His skin vibrated with it. He heard a vole rustle through the leaves and at the same time he heard Doc Lovell on the phone inside. Doc spoke urgently. Finn couldn’t make out individual words.

There was still one message he could hear loud and clear; it echoed in his brain even though he had only read the words.

Don’t trust anyone.

Leaning against the siding, he clumsily tied his muddied shoelaces. He couldn’t go to Doc for help. The plan was altered. Gran had changed her mind about him. Anyone.

Finn looked over at the trailhead, and the mountain didn’t look protective. It looked like a three-thousand-foot wall he had to climb to get to Mom. If he even could get to her.

He needed help.

Anyone. Gran couldn’t possibly have meant Gabi.

There was nowhere else to go. He had trusted Gabi since the third grade and no matter what the note said, he needed someone on his side right now.

Running through the back woods and out of sight of the main road, he clutched his backpack straps tight and took off through the trees. Branches fell around him as the wind kicked up, and another low rumble of thunder echoed through the valley. The line of thunderstorms was still coming. Even though he knew it was dangerous to remain in the woods, he stayed inside the tree line. He didn’t want Doc to find him on the road.

His breathing became ragged with the running, or maybe it was the remembering.

This couldn’t be happening. Gran couldn’t be dead.

The repetition of one hard footfall after another helped dull the constant buzzing. He could think a little more clearly. Gran had been there. She had been in bed and standing behind him at the same time. That was impossible. The only explanation was that Gran, or more accurately, Gran -5, was telling the truth.

Maybe Gabi had been right all along; maybe her fantasy novels went beyond his science textbooks.

No! He was not ready to concede that science had it wrong. How could all the women in his family time travel?

Vague images of biology homework flashed in his brain, Punnett squares and mitochondrial DNA. Certain traits were only hereditary through the female line. He remembered reading that it was possible for a gene to go from only mother to daughter through generations. Science didn’t have to be wrong. Science could explain anything given enough time.

A huge clap of thunder hit the sky like a punch, reverberating in his chest.

He began moving faster, leaping over fallen branches. His toe caught on a root and he went sprawling, catching himself right before he would’ve smashed his face against a large rock. He lay there on his stomach for a moment, catching his breath and contemplating his mortality.

He recognized the smell in his nostrils. Ozone. Another flash of lightning lit up the sky like the world itself was cracking in half. Close. Too close.

He stood up and found he couldn’t decide which way to point his feet. Neither of his choices were good: stay in the woods where he could be hit by lightning, or move out onto the road where he could be spotted.

Don’t trust anyone.

That meant he was supposed to do this on his own. But that wasn’t who he was. He was the one who studied, analyzed, found answers. He didn’t hike mountains and find portals. “Portals!” He said the word aloud in disbelief. And what would happen if he found it? He couldn’t time travel. He’d be obliterated—how did Gran -5 put it again? “Sliced clear through on the cellular level”?

No, that could not be. If there was a tree, that was all it was. A tree. There was no such thing as time travel! His brain said it, only his heart reminded him of a lifeless Gran and a Gran -5 standing behind him.

Another crack of thunder shook the earth he stood on. FINE! he thought defiantly. So what if there IS such a thing as time travel?

Test the hypothesis.

If there was a tree it was meant for Faith, not him. She was the one. His family had never moved past her death. Now, he was sure it was far more than that. So many times, he’d felt their disappointment when they looked at him. It was obvious now. They were thinking what a shame it was that the one with the talent had died.

He walked deeper into the woods and deeper into dark thoughts.

The buzzing grew louder. Except this was different. The hairs on his arms began to rise and he felt a tingling in his scalp.

Oh no—

The next lightning bolt hit like cannon fire. The ground shook beneath Finn’s feet and the white light of the explosion momentarily blinded him. He fell to his knees, covering his ears. When his dimmed eyesight returned he frantically patted his arms and legs, making sure they were still intact.

“I’m okay,” he said to no one but himself. Only he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t hear anything except a loud ringing in his ears. He held up one hand to his ear, then checked it for blood. Nothing. He took a deep breath of relief and surveyed the damage. The scent of burnt wood and ozone was all around him, and twenty feet deeper in the woods, he saw a glow. It was a huge old oak with a seam of fire burning within it. It had taken the direct hit. The tree was lit from the inside with a molten red that gave off heat like a furnace. It was beautiful and strange.

His brain said, A common sight after a direct lightning strike. His heart said, A sign. It wasn’t on the mountain and it wasn’t Mom’s tree, but it was enough to convince him.

He had to find Mom. Even if it meant climbing the peak and somehow finding one particular tree. He turned toward where the mountain should be, but the storm clouds hid it entirely.

He willed his legs to run, and they miraculously obeyed. He came through the trees and his feet hit the open road. There were no cars. The rain was coming at him sideways. He kept on running down the empty street, hearing the sound of his sneakers slapping against the pavement like it was happening far away.

He could make out the side of Gabi’s house peeking around the back of Dorset Peak’s slope. It stood there like a refuge, small and safe. Halfway up the yard, he realized he had no idea what he would say to Mrs. Rand. Gabi’s mom was sure to be home this early in the morning. He couldn’t say Gran was . . . dead. Was she? He wasn’t even sure himself. He had seen her. Dead meant gone forever for most people, but she had been there talking to him, promising to see him again soon. He wasn’t sure what to believe. Besides, he wasn’t supposed to have been there. He wasn’t supposed to know.

He changed course, heading to the back of the house. Gabi’s bedroom window glowed with a warm amber light. She was awake! He rushed up to her window and banged on the glass.

Gabi nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw him standing there. He probably looked menacing, backlit by flashes of lightning. He put his hand up in a feeble attempt to reassure her that it was only him. She opened the window and he clumsily crawled in.

“Finn! What on earth are you doing?” She was both whispering and shouting at the same time.

What was he doing there? He needed to trust someone and it was Gabi. “I need help.”

She put one finger to her lips and dashed out of the room, only to return a moment later with a large towel. Finn took off his sodden backpack. She draped the towel around his shoulders.

“What happened?”

All his words came out at once, like a stream of bees from a hive.

Gabi’s brown eyes grew steadily wider as he spoke, and once he was finished they began to narrow in concentration.

He braced himself for the inevitable disbelief. He waited for her to jump up and yell for her mom and say he’d lost his mind. Monday at school, she’d tell all her new friends that Finn was delusional. Sebastian and his crew would laugh.

But she said, “It all makes perfect sense.”

“What?!”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, Finn. Your family has always been, well, really weird.”