Teddy understood the theory of an astral telekinetic being able to jump around in time to influence an outcome. But she still didn’t see how to put it into practice. Neither the textbook nor the pamphlet had provided any practical way to do that. So she took a page from the professors at Whitfield, copying their methods: if she tuned in to people’s minds by imagining a walkie-talkie, and she sorted through their memories by imagining a house, she would devise a metaphor to control time.
She needed a device that would capture events second by second. She’d taken a film class in high school, and they’d used real film—not digital—to document action frame by frame. Teddy cut and pasted celluloid in the school’s lone editing dock to make dinky films about the kids at the local 7-Eleven. If she imagined time like an editing dock, she could run through events at the speed of her choosing.
And so Teddy started to visit the lower shooting range, where upperclassmen practiced marksmanship. She stood on the sidelines, pretending to watch but instead focusing on extending her astral self out through her physical body, while simultaneously trying to slow the movements of the world around her.
Gunshots always broke her concentration.
Panchadasi had warned that it took great practice and even greater patience to “become a being of a simultaneous universe.” Patience had never been Teddy’s strong suit. But that didn’t prevent her from returning to the range again and again.
May begrudgingly gave way to June, but the fog didn’t dissipate, and still there was no news from Yates. The sky was perpetually gray, the horizon blurred against the sea.
On a rare cloudless morning in early June, only one other student turned up at the range—a third-year named Max Waldman. One of the school’s best marksmen. He gave her a curt nod, then slipped on his protective hearing gear and shooting goggles. He lifted his weapon, checked the chamber, then assumed a firing stance and eyed his target: a paper cutout of a man with his arms resting at his sides, his feet shoulder-width apart.
Teddy stood to one side. She applied the lessons she’d been practicing for weeks. She focused on the scene in front of her. Watched Waldman squint as he sighted his mark. Heard the click of the trigger and the sharp explosion as the bullet left the chamber. She reminded herself that since time itself wasn’t linear, she could take all the time she wanted. I am a being of a simultaneous universe. She recited the line from the text over and over, like a mantra.
She saw the world around her as if in slow motion. The wind caressing pine needles through a nearby tree. The undulating pattern of a bird’s wing above. Teddy saw Waldman’s shot, and she imagined reaching out her astral hand to nudge the bullet, while also holding the film deck still. Her head throbbed. She felt the deck speeding up beneath her fingers. She was losing her grip. The bird’s wings were speeding up.
Then it was over. She was back in her body, back on the physical plane. Teddy looked at Waldman’s target. The bullet hole was nowhere near the head or the heart, where Waldman would have aimed. It was at the very bottom, just outside the target’s left foot.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Cannon. Even the best marksmen miss from time to time.”
She whirled around. “Nick.”
For a moment, she could only stare. In the weeks following the debacle at the FBI offices, she had seen Nick around campus. But the icy glare he had sent her way whenever he caught her looking in his direction had silenced her more effectively than anything he might have said.
She understood. She’d behaved horribly.
Still. Here he was. Close enough to touch. And since he hadn’t immediately turned and walked away, she chose to interpret that as a sign that he might finally be willing to listen to her apology. Not forgive her—that was ages away, if they ever got that far. But at least he might be willing to hear her out.
“Nick. About what happened—”
“You can’t be serious.” He turned slightly, his expression one of disdain. “You’re something else if you think I’m going to listen to your excuses.”
His words cut deep, but she deserved them. “I’m sorry, Nick. That’s all I wanted you to know. If I thought I’d had any other choice—”
“Right.” He laughed. “That’s exactly what I’d expect you to say.”
“What?”
“You had to lie to me, steal my files, break in to the FBI computer. You had no other choice.”
Teddy faltered but forced herself to go on. “I blew it. I know that. But what was between us was real. I felt it, and you did, too.”
He stared at her, his gaze cooler than she’d ever seen it. “Was,” he said. “Past tense. You like to gamble. You took a risk.”
She watched him stride away without looking back.
* * *
In bed that night, Teddy tossed and turned as she replayed her meeting with Nick in her mind. It was well past two in the morning before she finally drifted off to asleep. She dreamed of the yellow house. Teddy pounded on the door, screaming for her mother to let her in.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
IF TEDDY HAD THOUGHT MIDYEAR exams were tough, finals were another thing altogether. Twice as long and twice as hard. Teddy felt like she’d run several marathons on the astral plane over the last twenty-four hours. Each of the skills she’d learned this year were tested in a series of written and practical exercises. Only the last one—an oral exam—remained.
She entered the same small classroom in Fort McDowell where she’d taken her entrance exam all those months ago. She half expected to find Clint waiting for her, smirking, but Dunn and Boyd sat in the two chairs on the
