“Wake up.” I spoke the words aloud, but they were muted in my ears. “Wake up!”
My voice broke through the wind, my vision sharpening on the world around me. It was too clear. Too specific. This wasn’t the distant, dreamlike glimpses I’d seen before. It felt real. Visceral and detailed. This was something else. Something impossible.
My vision focused on the tilted silver mailbox on the side of the road. It was painted with the name GRANGER.
My mind stumbled from one thought to the next before a screech echoed out and the screen door of the little house rattled closed. At the top of the steps, a short, gray-haired woman was watching me, eyes wide.
“Excuse me.” I lifted a desperate hand into the air, barely getting the words out.
It wasn’t until I took another step that I could read that look on her face. Shock. Terror, even. She scrambled backward, catching the door with her hand, and then she disappeared, slamming it behind her.
My eyes jumped from one darkened window to the next. There was no movement, no sounds coming from inside, but I could feel her watching me, eyes peering through the glass.
I pressed a trembling hand to my hot forehead as I tried to think. There weren’t any another houses that I could see. No one in the fields or on the road.
I reflexively reached for my back pocket. My cellphone, my keys, everything was in the truck. I was too far down the road to see the turn onto Hayward Gap now, but I had no idea what lay in the other direction. There could be nothing between here and town, and it would take me half the day to get that far.
Trust me.
The words that had been scribbled on the back of the envelope Birdie gave me were a faint whisper now. The problem was, I didn’t trust anyone anymore. Not even myself.
I ran one hand through my hair, pinning it back from my face. If I’d crossed time, like Birdie suggested Susanna had done, then I wasn’t in 2023 Jasper anymore. That didn’t give me many options.
I started walking in the direction I’d come from, steps faltering when I passed the spot on the road that the Bronco had been. I was almost sure I could hear the rumble of the engine somewhere far in the distance. I could even smell the exhaust on the wind. It was like before, when I’d see or hear things that weren’t really there. Except now it felt like I was on the other side of those visions.
I walked toward the cascade of mountains in the distance. Those peaks and valleys, at least, hadn’t changed, and the farther I walked, the more I was piecing together my surroundings. The riverbank looked different, more overgrown and wild with the water half-hidden by the thick brush. But there were subtle things that helped me keep my bearings, like a particular curve in the road or a tree I thought I recognized.
Hayward Gap wasn’t marked this time. The tar crumbled onto the shoulder, where years of tire tracks had worn it down, carving a dirt track. It was lined with a wooden fence, and beyond it was the hill I’d seen yesterday, arcing up on one side before the land came rolling back down.
The rumble of an engine sounded before a truck appeared in the distance, and I squinted, trying to make it out. It was an old model. Not old like the ones in the Jasper I knew, 1990s trucks and station wagons that had been turned into utilitarian farm vehicles. No, this truck was much older, its deep blue paint gleaming as the sun flashed off its fender.
The driver didn’t seem to notice me on the side of the road until he’d already passed, and the truck suddenly slowed, as if he’d hit the brakes out of a sudden reaction. But just as soon as I was sure he’d stop, he started moving again, faster this time.
An eerie feeling crept over me, my breath curling tightly in my chest. As soon as the truck disappeared around the bend in the distance, I stepped off the shoulder of the blacktop and onto the dirt road. I followed it, wincing when the sight of the chimney came into view. The same one I’d seen not even an hour ago. But now there was smoke drifting from its mouth.
The leaning, termite-eaten structure that had stood at the bottom of the hill was gone. Transformed. The farmhouse was nestled before the tree line that followed the creek stretching into the distance. The red brick still had its color, the wooden siding painted in a pale yellow. And behind it, acres and acres of tobacco grew in rows taller than I stood. The crumbling barn was no longer the bare remnants of a structure. It was whole.
I was frozen, half expecting the entire scene to disappear into a swirl of smoke, but it didn’t. The minutes just kept passing. Time kept moving. And I had, somehow, crossed it.
The overwhelming sense that I knew this place was even stronger now. Almost unbearable. The windows of the house were dark, but the distant sound of a hammer wove through the air, a sharp ping that grew louder the closer I came. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I could see the open doors of the barn, a few chickens scratching in the dirt.
I set both hands on the closed cattle gate, waiting for someone to appear.
“Hello?” I called out, my voice unsteady.
The thud of hooves drew my eyes from the barn to the paddock, where a horse was watching me from behind the fence. Dust kicked up into the air, casting it in a glow, but I knew. It was the same horse I’d seen before. The chestnut. She had one wild eye fixed on me as she stamped the ground, her head craning as she snorted.
The piercing ring of the hammer went on in a steady beat, echoing out over the fields. I lifted the latch of the gate and let it swing open, stepping onto the drive that stretched to the house from the road. Wild, wispy grasses lined the path that led from one side of the porch to an overgrown garden filled with weeds and dead plants. I followed it, searching for the source of the sound.
The horse trotted along the fence of the paddock anxiously. Her chocolate-colored coat was tinged with bronze, her mane catching the light. When I took another step, she whinnied, nostrils flaring.
“Hello?” I called again, coming around the house slowly as the pounding grew louder. It stopped suddenly as I made it to the corner of the porch, and my eyes landed on a figure standing on the other side of the barn.
A man.
His gaze was on the horse, as if he’d come out to check on her. A hammer hung heavy at his side, and I could hear the low, faint rumble of his voice as he made his way toward her. He reached up, running one hand up the creature’s snout.
The mare calmed for a moment, breaths slowing, and the man’s eyes followed her gaze in my direction. His dark hair was falling to one side, tucked behind an ear and curling at its ends. The suspenders that hung from his belt were slack against his legs, his white shirt damp across the chest. And when his eyes finally focused on me, his whole body went rigid, making me flinch.
I lifted a hand against the harsh light of the glaring sun, trying to make out his face. “Hello?”
He visibly exhaled, his chest deflating beneath the pull of his shirt, but he said nothing as he stood there, staring at me. And then, suddenly, he was walking. The hammer slipped from his fingers, hitting the ground, and he stalked toward me with an intensity that made me move backward. When he didn’t slow, I glanced at the road. Then to the house. There was no one else here.
“What the hell are you doing here?” His voice found me before his eyes did, and when they locked with mine again, it sent a searing flash of heat coursing through me.