Chapter 26

Faith whimpered next to him, and he slowly became aware of his arms. He was holding her tight against his wet chest and she wasn’t struggling anymore.

“It’s okay, Faith. It’s okay,” he lied as he sat up.

He could feel Faith’s tiny arms trembling in the cold already. He had taken her from a hot summer day, where she’d been soaking wet and near drowning, to the depths of winter. They were both soaked to the bone. He had no idea when they were. The air tasted like snow and it was bitterly cold. Could they have been that lucky? Did Faith actually bring him to the top of the mountain where Mom was waiting?

“Hello, Finn.”

A strong beam of light blinded him in the darkness.

“Let her go,” a woman’s voice ordered from the other side of the light.

Finn shielded his eyes with his forearm. “Mom?”

There was a mocking laugh. “I suppose it makes sense that we’d sound alike. Try again.”

The flashlight moved, thrown to the ground. Finn could just begin to see the outline of a young woman moving between trees. She was holding another woman around the neck.

Mom.

As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he could also see something bright and silver in the other woman’s hands, pressed against Mom’s neck.

“Thanks for doing all the hard work for me, brother.”

Faith. A grown-up Faith was standing in front of him. She wore a long gray coat buttoned up to her chin. Her cheeks were red with the cold, and her hair and eyes were the same colors Finn saw in the mirror each morning. The family resemblance was uncanny. She looked like a younger version of Mom and at the same time she was undeniably his twin.

She pushed Mom over to a tree stump and forced her to sit down, still keeping the knife at her throat. This was a different Mom, a Mom even more malnourished than before. She was wearing layers of old-fashioned clothing and a knit scarf. She was bony, all angles. Finn was sure she could be broken in half.

Frantically, he took in the surroundings, very different than the mountaintop he knew. A clearing had been made, with a dilapidated shed off to the right and the woods surrounding them. The snow was deep around his legs, and his body was starting to shake violently—or was that young Faith? He held her more tightly to his chest, trying to give her all his warmth, while searching Mom’s eyes for some consolation, but her eyes only mirrored his defeat.

“Faith, come sit by your mommy. It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” The woman was speaking to her younger self with a syrupy kindness that made the girl shrink farther into Finn’s arms.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s me,” Mom pleaded.

Young Faith let go of Finn cautiously. His instinct was to pull her back, but the child moved toward her mother like a magnet and he didn’t stop her.

As Finn stood up, though, she turned back, shaking violently in the cold, and took one last questioning look at him. There was something new in her face besides fear. Finn began to wonder if the little girl was finally ready to trust him. He held out his hand to her and willed her to know that he was sorry.

“Careful, Finn. If you so much as touch her, I will slice our mother’s throat wide open. I’d be doing her a mercy. Her future is bleak from here on out.”

“Please, Finn. Do as she says.” Mom’s voice was shaky. Finn couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or fear.

Young Faith was now taking in the situation and she slid one step backward, toward Finn. She watched the woman with the knife carefully. Adult Faith was imposing and tall. The child was confused—she had no way of knowing she was staring at her future self. Finn wondered if adult Faith had the same dizzying sense of memories being created in her head that he’d experienced at the quarry. If so, it didn’t seem to affect her at all. Her face was calm and full of purpose, though Finn could swear she was trembling with rage, not cold.

“Child, if you don’t listen to me right now you won’t have a mother at all.”

“Go, Faith, it’s okay. Sit by Mommy.”

It was Finn who she finally obeyed. She ran to Mom, collapsing in the billows of her skirt and coat. Without moving her head, Mom splayed five fingers over her hair and quietly promised her it would all be okay. She opened her coat and let Faith curl up inside next to her. All this she did calmly with the blade still poised at her throat.

Adult Faith drew in a breath and smiled. She pulled the knife away from Mom’s neck and Finn’s knees nearly buckled with relief.

“You saved me an awful lot of trouble, Finn. I should thank you . . . but I won’t.” They were at the edge of the clearing, and behind him Finn could almost hear the trees cracking and groaning with the weight of snow and ice. The shed was so tiny that even labeling it a shed was generous. They obviously hadn’t come back on the same night he left. How long had Mom waited for them?

Adult Faith spoke to him again. “Now that the child is in my care, none of you can change a thing. It’s over. I win.”

“What could possibly be the purpose of kidnapping yourself?” Finn demanded.

“Little Faith here needs the proper training. Don’t you, darling?” The hand without the knife leaned over to brush against the child’s head, but young Faith sank farther away and Mom shifted her body to shield her. Adult Faith’s mouth twisted in anger, and she quickly regained composure.

“She doesn’t know it yet, but the entire universe is hers for the taking. Once we get rid of certain obstacles, of course.” She flicked the wrist holding the knife and gestured toward Mom.

Finn jumped forward.

“No, Finn! Don’t!” Mom cried.

Faith laughed. “Go ahead, Finn. Come at me.” She threw the knife far away into the field of snow. “Look, I’m defenseless.”

Finn stayed still. He knew enough bullies to recognize a trap. He needed to keep her talking—needed more data before he chose his next move.

“Smarter than you look.” She turned her back toward him as if he was unimportant, gesturing over her shoulder as she spoke. “The knife was just for show, you know. I don’t need a weapon.” She walked a few more feet away from him and then, WOOSH, she was in his face so quickly he flinched. “I am the weapon. I am the last in the family line. I have all the powers of our mother here, times ten.”

“You can’t create a portal,” Mom chimed in. She was standing now, with young Faith behind her, wrapped in her coat.

Faith whirled around and stomped toward Mom, as young Faith disappeared completely behind Mom’s skirts. She raised one long elegant finger up to Mom’s face. “You have one little trick you’ve figured out before me. That’s all. And when I’m through here, you’ll show me how you did it.”

“I won’t.” Mom’s voice was calm and resolute.

“Oh, but I’m banking on you being such a great mother . . .” Faith’s voice was cloying and full of venom. “Surely you’ll want to teach little Faith here all your tricks. You do plan on being a good mother, don’t you? You want her to grow up to be a good and decent girl.” She laughed.

Finn shook with rage. He couldn’t help himself. Regardless of what she could do to him, he was going to fight.

He stepped forward. “L-l-leave them alone!” His voice quaking as he shook with the cold.

She turned back to Finn and smiled. “You want me to leave them alone? Give me the ring.”

“No.”

“Finn,” his mother called to him. “It’s okay. Please. Give it to her.”

It was against everything in Finn’s makeup to believe in a magic key ring, but that was exactly what it had become for him. He didn’t want to hand it over, but when he studied Mom’s face he saw a certainty there that couldn’t be ignored. She was staring at him with laser focus. There was no fear in her eyes. She wanted him to do it.

He took off the ring and tossed it on the ground in front of him. It sank into the untouched snow.

Faith strode forward and fished it out, held it up like it was a symbol of victory. She smiled wide.

“Do you know what you are, brother? You’re a footnote.” In an instant she had moved forward so that they were face to face again. It was a menacing trick that worked just as well the second time. Her breath was hot in the icy air and smelled of licorice. She leaned in and whispered, “You are nothing but a useless collection of blood and guts. You are the leftover genetic material of me.”

He winced at the description. It was how he’d always felt.

She laughed. “Don’t you get it? I’m always smarter than you. I’m always three steps ahead of you. Technology you haven’t even dreamed of yet is at my disposal. I’m always going to win.”

“You’re wrong,” Mom said, still standing firmly in front of young Faith. “You need him. He’s your brother.”

Faith whirled toward her again. “Oh, are we going to talk about family honor? Please. You’re the worst of all! How many times have you abandoned me, let me go? I’ve seen it all, in countless timelines. I’ve seen how you’ve lived on without me. How little you’ve done to find me. You! Who could have done anything.”

“Faith, everything we’ve done—”

“You’ve done for me, right? Don’t lie to me, Mother. You sent me away. You gave me away to strangers! Do you even know what happened in that timeline? Do you? It doesn’t matter. I saved myself. I found some Dorset marble. It’s everywhere, up and down the eastern seaboard, allowing me to Travel. I bested you even without knowing who I was or where I came from.”

Mom’s voice faltered. “I don’t know—I never did that.”

“Oh, but you did, just not in this universe. I can see them all. Each and every timeline in each and every universe. I know you better than anyone. Do you know what your deepest sin is? The one that tops even abandoning your child? You have consistently sat by politely and watched the world go on its horrific way without using your power to change it. You stand by and do nothing while cities burn! I am not afraid to use my gift.”

“And what have you accomplished, Faith? What have you changed?”

Faith laughed. “I’ve only just started. I can close nodes to the rest of you—and still access them for myself. Soon I’ll have whole sections of the timeline sealed off for my own use. This timeline and all its neighbors will be mine alone to shape.”

She was busy arguing with Mom—Finn could rush her now. Tackle her to the ground and . . . and what? He had never been in a real fight in his life. In truth, he was petrified. She could come back and change any course of action he took. He couldn’t change the future or the past.

And then the memory came to him, the snippet of the dream. He saw himself being surrounded by swelling stars. Stars like the twinkling sunlight in drops of water. Mom’s voice from the past: People are who they are. All you can control is how you treat them. The shiny iridescent stars that keep growing and swelling ever larger, that was the best you could leave behind.

He looked at both Faiths. One was beyond reaching and the other would likely never remember today. His chances weren’t good.

He studied young Faith, and he saw innocence and fear. If this woman in front of him wouldn’t listen, maybe the child would.

He bent down low and called to her. “Faith . . .”

Both Faiths trained their eyes on him. He spoke only to the child.

“I’m sorry. We’re here because of me. Because of what I thought on the thread. It’s not your fault. I’m always going to love you, Faith. You’re my sister and I’m always going to love you. Do you understand?”

The little girl still stayed close to her mother, clutching Mom’s overcoat. Finn refused to look away until she acknowledged him in some way. She was trembling with both fear and cold, but she looked directly into Finn’s eyes and nodded nearly imperceptibly. He felt the understanding. Something inside Finn cracked and opened, made his chest explode in warmth and rippled through him all the way to his fingers.

It was similar to how he’d felt at the quarry, but bigger, more far-reaching. It was as if this moment synched up with countless others, as if it were the missing piece of an impossibly long equation. For a split second Finn felt as if he were an old man, and a teenager, and a little kid, and someone his dad’s age, and all the versions of him were saying the same thing—all sharing the same feeling, radiating the same truth.

Finn forced himself to turn away and see how Faith’s older self was handling the instant memory build. Finn watched as her mouth contorted and her eyes squinted with confusion. For a moment, Finn began to think that time didn’t matter at all. What mattered was memory. If he could change Faith’s memories, make this one stick with her, maybe this was the key.

Adult Faith focused back on him, suddenly full of fury and hatred. She held up both hands and screamed, “NO!”

Her gesture was so familiar to him, like he had experienced it from the other side at some point. The church. Aunt Billie.

Finn heard his mother scream in horror, “Faith, no! Please!” and then he heard nothing more.