Page 27 of Echoes
“I’ve loved the water ever since I could swim. I want to do what you do. I just have a hard time beingonthe water.”
“That’s kind of a big part of it,” Rosie pointed out for the fiftieth time since she’d met this woman as a grad student.
Four years ago, at twenty-three, Felicity had been a promising student in one of the seminars that Rosie had been asked to deliver by a local university. She’d requested a chat with Rosie afterward, and Rosie had obliged. They’d gotten along well, and Felicity had offered to be her assistant, or, really, her intern whenever she needed one. On the next trip, she’d invited Felicity with her, but Felicity had struggled onboard the research vessel, having never been on one before. She’d been horribly seasick for most of the time on the water and hadn’t been much help. She’d been rather useless to Rosie onboard, but when they’d returned, Felicity had explained that when she was twenty, she’d almost drowned when a current had nearly swept her away, and her friend had saved her life. She’d been a little terrified of the water after that but had loved it before and was working through her fear to get back to the place where she could go out on the water and not get sick or terrified. Rosie had admired her courage ever since because she knew that to do this job, Felicity didn’t technically have to go on the water. She could certainly remain back in the lab and handle analysis. Still, typically, marine archaeologists were on or in the water, so not being able to do that would greatly limit her potential to get hired on to do the job.
Four years later now, whenever Rosie was on land, Felicity would pick her up and take her to the lab or the office as a way of saying thank you for Rosie’s mentorship over the years. While Rosie had totally forgotten what day of the week it was today, she usually lookedforward to Felicity coming over. She’d even given the woman a key because she had a vast collection of books that Felicity loved to use for her research. The key allowed her to come and go as she pleased whenever Rosie wasn’t there and to come in for coffee on the days Felicity was going to take her to work, if Rosie wasn’t running late.
“So, I think I’ll wait outside,” Felicity told her. “If the house explodes, I’ll call the fire department.”
Rosie just laughed at her and decided to have a little fun with her this morning. She reached for the bolt cutters and quickly snapped the padlock apart.
“Rosie!” Felicity yelped, and her hands went to her face as if protecting it from the nothing that was happening.
“I told you it’s not dangerous.” She lifted the lid and was happy to discover that she’d been right.
There was no water damage. This case was top-of-the-line and hadn’t succumbed to the water pressure. Of course, the ship had been hundreds of feet deep and not thousands, so that helped.
“What is it?” Felicity asked, leaning over now to take a closer look.
“I thought you were waiting outside,” Rosie teased.
“Fine. Fine. Just tell me what it is, if you survive.”
Rosie laughed. Then, her glance landed behind Felicity, and she saw someone she hadn’t expected to see.
“You’re back.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked her ex-girlfriend.
“I needed to talk to you about something, and I drove by and saw your car was here. End of the season?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “What did you need to talk about?”
Rosie hadn’t seen Ami in four months. The last time they’d seen one another had been when Ami had just moved in down the street. The woman had bought a house so near the one they’d shared briefly when they’d been together, and she’d wanted to tell Rosie that she would be there in case they bumped into one another on the street or something.
“I should leave you two alone,” Felicity spoke, looking a little disappointed.
“Thanks, Felicity,” Ami offered. “She’ll be out in a minute.”
Rosie lifted her eyebrow at her ex, not liking the way she’d simultaneously dismissed Felicity and had spoken for Rosie.
“I’ll be in the car,” Felicity said.
“Thank you. I’ll be right out.”
Felicity turned around to go, and just as she was almost through the door that led out of the kitchen, Ami reached for the handle and turned to close it. Rosie hadn’t planned it, but when she’d reached for the lid to close the case, her wrist brushed something, and suddenly, the room was black. One second. Two seconds. Three. Then, the light returned, but it wasn’t Felicity leaving the room anymore. Ami was leaving. Rosie was standing off to the side of her counter. She was standing off to the side of… herself.
“I still don’t like her,” Felicity stated.
Rosie went to say something in response, feeling utterly confused as to what was happening, but as she opened her mouth, she heard herself say something instead. But it wasn’t her. It was the other Rosie, who was standing three feet away from her.
“She never likedyoumuch, either. I don’t know why,” the other Rosie said as she shook her head.
“I do.” Felicity sat back down on the stool and closed the lid of the case for the other Rosie.
“You do? Why?”
Rosie’s eyes were wide as she watched this exchange between herself and Felicity, who had just walked out the kitchen door but was now sitting on the stool, and it had been Ami who had been dismissed somehow instead.