Clint released a loud, grunting snore and rolled toward us without waking up, slinging an arm and inadvertently striking my cheekbone.
“Ow!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
Tish shoved aside the blankets and tumbled over me, falling to the carpet. She rose and dashed for the bathroom while I braced on one elbow and slogged a hand through my tangled hair.
“Shit,” muttered Clint, both forearms crossed over his eyes as we listened to Tish throw up for probably the tenth time since midnight.
Resolve – or desperate foolishness – propelled me to my feet. “I can’t take this anymore. It’s time to fucking fix this.”
“Ruthie needs to know everything we know.” Aunt Jilly curled her fingers around mine as she spoke; seven of us crowded around table three. “We have to find a way to reach her.”
The more we talked about Ruthann, the more Mom and Aunt Jilly remembered her; as with Mathias’s sister, Tina, there was ample evidence to suggest the real timeline existed just beyond reach, there and very much alive, but shrouded as though behind heavy cloud cover. Determination burned anew in my veins; I would tap into the sunshine that would pierce and annihilate those clouds. I would accomplish this if it was the last thing I ever did. Shore Leave smelled of perking coffee; we were closed to customers but the interior lights created a warm glow to counteract the sobbing, steel-gray sky. It seemed only natural to gather here in times of stress, as we’d always done.
“But if Fallon already killed the Rawleys and Blythe’s ancestor in the nineteenth century, if those things already happened then, how could Ruthie hope to change anything?” Possibilities swam in endless circles around my head; one problem seemed barely solved when another five rose to take its place. Frustration struggled to gain the upper hand.
“What if we could get a message to her before those things happened?” Aunt Jilly sat with both hands wrapped around her coffee mug to keep from wringing them, I knew. “We have a tentative idea, after all. We could warn her.”
“If we could reach her before 1882, you mean,” Mom said.
“We’re assuming more time has passed there than here,” I explained to Robbie, who sat to Clint’s right, an untouched cup of coffee on the tabletop before him. Robbie wore an old Shore Leave sweatshirt Mom had lent him and a serious, troubled expression. “Derrick Yancy told Tish that time moves differently in the past, faster somehow.”
“You’re referring to Derrick from the correct timeline, right?” Robbie asked the question with an air of deferential politeness I sensed was somewhat foreign to him.
“Yes.”
“What if…” Robbie pursed his lips, frowning at the ceiling as he considered. “What if your sister could return here? Like this very minute, I mean. She can travel through time, right? What’s the possibility that she could then travel backward far enough to prevent the deviation from the original timeline?”
It was an angle I hadn’t yet considered. “You know, that’s close to what we were talking about at the Rawleys’ before everything changed. Bringing Marshall and Ruthann back by force, so to speak.”
Mom shook her head. “How could I let Ruthie go if she showed up here?”
Before anyone could respond, Clint’s face registered sudden concern; he sat facing the windows and I looked over my shoulder to see Tish shuffling across the porch. She wore a tattered bathrobe over jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair hanging in tangled loops; she made no attempt to shield her head from the downpour, as though sleepwalking.
Mom leaped from her chair, overturning it, and raced outside. She hurried Tish inside and wrapped her in a coat from the rack near the door,
“You should be resting,” Mom admonished, helping her to a chair.
The skin around Tish’s eyes appeared painfully fragile, bruised beyond repair. She made an X of her forearms atop the table and rested her head on her wrists.
“Let her stay,” Aunt Jilly said softly.
“Are you warm enough?” Mom hovered near her chair. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry…”
“Don’t call me that,” Tish begged, barely audible. “Please, don’t call me that…”
I knew ‘sweetheart’ was Case’s favorite endearment for her.
Robbie leaned forward, pinning Mom with an earnest expression. “Not all that long ago Fallon Yancy had me killed. Tish attended my funeral. Even though I don’t remember any life but this one, I trust what your daughter has told me in the past week. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance here, to reverse what happened. I’m willing to risk my life to get back to the real timeline, that’s how goddamn serious I am.”
I took up the gauntlet, intuiting what he meant. “Robbie’s right, Mom. Ruthie would be willing to do whatever was required, just like any of us. Whatever events changed things now, in the twenty-first century, happened to Ruthie in the nineteenth. Fallon said she ‘remembered’ and that he hoped Tish would, too. If I could, I would go back. I wouldn’t think twice.” Tears wet my eyes but I blinked them away, too impatient to cry.
“Camille, tell us what you talked about with the Rawleys,” Aunt Jilly requested. “How did you plan to bring Marshall and Ruthann back?”
“One of the places where the past seemed strongest was the foundation of the Rawleys’ original homestead. Ruthie and Marsh both felt the pull of time there. Marshall called it a ‘force field.’ We intended to gather there, all of us, and will them back. There was no reason to assume it would work, we just hoped. We decided this the Saturday we were last in Jalesville. Clark said there would be a full moon the next night, Sunday, and we’d try then.”
“But then everything disappeared.” Tish did not lift her face. Flat and monotone, her voice was all but lifeless. “Gone, just like that.”
Clint suddenly indicated the parking lot. “Whose car?”
The rain blurred all outlines and it wasn’t possible to discern who climbed
