Page 27 of Intersect
She shrugs. “They’re just memories though. I mean, you’ve remembered thingstoo.”
“Not like you do,” I argue. “Not with that level of detail. And what about the insurance thing? Don’t you find it pretty freaking hard to imagine you completely forgot a conversation like that with your father? And then the new policy turns up the very nextday?”
She waves her hand. “Coincidence.”
“That’s one hell of a coincidence. All these things you just know too. Think about the story you told me about your neighbor: you dreamed you’d tried to save your friend and the dog followed you. What if it wasn’t a dream? What if you really did travel backward to saveher?”
She pauses. For a moment I see a hint of fear and then she shakes her head and laughs. “Come on, Nick. If I’d tried to go back to save her, I’d probably have died too. Yes, there’ve been times when I’ve known stuff I shouldn’t, like about architecture, about you and London. But that’s because we lived them before, somehow. The thing with the neighbor was…I don’t know what it was, but there’s no way I actually went there. If I don’t know how to time travel now, I sure as hell didn’t know how to then. It’s like I told you before. If we actually existed in some parallel time, maybe I read about the murderthere.”
Her refusal to believe she’s capable of doing this is almost pathological. If I, the biggest non-believer of all time, can buy into it, why the hell can’t she? “Dreaming you had a conversation with your father about life insurance and waking to discover he actually acted on it is a once-in-a-lifetime,” I tell her. “Dreaming your neighbor has been murdered and that the dog followed you when you went to save her—and being right? Another once-in-a-lifetime. So how many other times did you dream something that came true? Don’t just reflexively argue with me.Thinkaboutit.”
She folds her arms over her chest, and I see the temptation to argue written all over her face. But she doesn’t. And after a moment her shoulders sag, as if she’s finally admitting the truth to herself. Another second passes, and then her eyes go wide and she gasps. “Ohshit.”
I look behind me, expecting to see Jeff or Meg or my boss. “What’swrong?”
“It’spossible.”
She looks so shell-shocked I reach across the table and grab her hand. “I didn’t expect you to come around to my viewpoint so quickly. What’s thematter?”
She takes a single deep breath and a controlled exhale, her eyes wide. “I just remembered something that happened. It was so weird at the time that I didn’t even tell my parents about it and then I lied so they wouldn’t know.” She looks up at me in shock. “I think I might have shot a kid out of atree.”
I had no idea what she might say but it wasn’t that. “Youshotakid?”
“With a slingshot,” she amends. “This little asshole, Robby Harding. He used to sit in this tree, shooting birds with his BB gun. And one day he threw the dead birds at my back as I ran home, trying to get away from him. I fell and was all scraped up afterward, bad enough my mom thought I might need stitches. But that night I dreamed…” She flushes, looking anywhere in the room but me. “I don’t know. It will soundridiculous.”
“Tell me,” I urge. “You dreamedwhat?”
“I dreamed that I waited in a tree behind him and shot him with my slingshot, and he fell. When I woke in the morning, all my cuts had healed. It was as if they’d never happened. I wore pants for a week just so my parents wouldn’t ask how I could have healed overnight like that. And Robby…” She flinches. “Robby was in the hospital with a broken leg, because he’d fallen out of a tree the day before. He told everyone he got hit by something. I thought it was karma. But maybe it was justme.”
I laugh. Maybe it’s wrong, but the idea of little Quinn shooting a kid out of a tree is so damn cute. “You’re not going to start telling me about all the people you wished dead who died the next day,right?”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Don’t even joke about it. I mean, what if Idid?”
I grab her hand beneath the table. “You aren’t amurderer.”
“I may have shot a kid out of a tree,” she argues. “He could have broken his neck. But if it’s true, if I’m really doing this,” she says, “why can’t I do it when I’mawake?”
The question is a relief. I’ve been convinced for weeks that she is time traveling, but I needed her to actually believe it before I could push her toward the next step. “Have youtriedto do it when you’reawake?”
She looks at me blankly. “Of course Ihaven’t.”
I lean in and tighten my hands around hers. “Then maybe it’s time youdid.”
10
QUINN
That night, and into the following morning, I’m still thinking about what Nick said. About Robby and the life insurance and all the other bizarre incidents in my childhood. Maybe it should be enough to convince me I can time travel, but it really isn’t. There have been a thousand things in my life I’d have changed if I could. If I really had the ability, it would be more than some shadowy thing that occurs when I’m asleep. Nick is pushing this because he needs something to believe in. I suppose I need that too. But it’s not going to bethis.
The next day I go to campus to fill out some last-minute forms. I’ve always loved the Georgetown campus. Half of it is deliciously old and reminds me more of Hogwarts than anyplace else I’ve ever been, although I suppose that’s no longer true if you countLondon.
Nick meets me when I’m done, bringing us lunch from the hospital deli, and we sit under a tree, hidden from passersby and the blinding August sun. When we’re done eating, we lie side-by-side while I geek out over the courses I’m signed up for and he tries to get me to admit to shooting children other thanRobby.
“Just give me a number,” he says. “Approximately how many kids do you think you’veshot?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “One, atbest.”
He bites his lip, trying hard to keep a straight face. “Okay, maybe I’m being too specific. How many kids have you injured, stabbed, maimed, decapitated, or otherwise wished illupon?”