Esther looked at me.
“So, what? I’m just going to lose my entire life?”
“Only if you don’t go back. You’re going to choose which life you want to live. If you stay here, then yes, you’ll lose your memories of that life. If you choose to go back, you’ll lose the ones from this one. You can’t have both. Not anymore.”
“Are you saying it actually worked?”
She nodded. “Yes. Once you lose all your memories of one life, your mind will exist only in one time. There’s no more fraying rope.”
I swallowed hard, chest burning with the breath I was holding. “So, it’s just . . . over?”
“For you and Annie, yes. Annie is an extension of your timeline. You thought that if you stopped the unraveling, it would keep hers from unraveling, too. If there’s no longer two timelines, the hope is that there’s no door connecting them. If there’s no door, Annie will never go through it.”
The four of us sat there in silence, the clock on the wall ticking.
“You said it was important that you had the choice.” Margaret’s voice softened.
When Esther had first told me that, there was no choice. I was going back, no matter what. And I still could. But if I crossed again to 2023, there was no returning. That would be my third crossing, and I’d forget my life here. I’d forget Eamon and Annie. If I stayed, I’d erase from my mind the entire life I’d lived before I got here. I’d never see Mason or Birdie again.
“You knew everything,” I whispered. “All this time.”
I’d never doubted Gran’s love for me, but it went deeper and further back than I ever could have imagined. She had known that I would be left in Jasper as a baby. She probably knew the exact night that the sheriff would knock on her door with me in his arms. She’d been the person I trusted with this. The person I knew I could count on. That had always been true.
Susanna had gone to Esther to help her save her child. I’d gone to Gran.
The plan had been a detailed one. It was thought through, but it wasn’t without risk. The margin of error was enormous. The only person Margaret had trusted with the truth was Birdie. The envelope she’d delivered to me that night, couriered through time by Margaret, had that been her fail-safe? The locket, too, had been entrusted to her.
I made a promise. One I’ve kept for a very long time, Birdie had said.
“Who is Birdie?” I whispered, a lump rising in my throat.
Margaret didn’t look at me. Instead, her gaze went across the sitting room, to where Annie was standing on the stool in the kitchen. She was reaching for the jelly jar on the counter.
The hardening stone in my throat plummeted into my stomach, and I stared at her, her blond hair like glowing threads of gold in the light coming through the window.
Birdie.
She’d been a fixture in my life as long as I could remember. The third member of our family. Gran’s oldest friend. But she’d been more than that, hadn’t she?
Annie Bird.
I could hear the name ringing in my head. I’d called her that, and looking at her now, I could see it. There was a sparkle in Annie’s eyes that hadn’t changed in seventy-two years. That golden-silver hair. The rise of her cheekbones. It was all there. In the face of my daughter.
I took a step toward her, then another, not stopping until I could touch her. She held the jelly-coated spoon in her hand, distractedly smearing it across a piece of bread as I wrapped her in my arms, a steady stream of tears falling into her hair.
I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around any of this. The woman I’d raised had then raised me. Then she’d sent me back in time to herself, and to her father. Did that make this a loop? A never-ending story destined to replay over and over again? All that time, she remembered me. She was just waiting for me to remember her.
“June,” Esther said, her voice frail. She was holding back the curtain of the window, watching as a cloud of dust drifted over the trees.
In the distance, another one appeared behind it. Cars on the road. And they were moving fast.
A faint twist ignited in my chest, the hair standing up on the back of my neck.
The sound of the sirens surfaced just before we saw them—police cars.
Thirty
Annie looked up at me, the spoon still clutched in her hand. Across the room, Eamon had gone white.
The sound of the sirens grew louder as I picked Annie up, hugging her to me just long enough to kiss her face. Then I crossed the room, eyes on Margaret.
“Take her,” I breathed, setting Annie into her arms. “Go to the barn.”
Margaret didn’t hesitate, heading straight for the back door. Annie was still watching me over her shoulder before the screen door slammed and they disappeared.
“Eamon, listen,” I said.
He wasn’t looking at me. His gaze traveled down the hallway, where Esther was unlocking a cabinet at the bottom of the stairs.
Through the window, I watched as the cars pulled into the drive too fast, slamming on their brakes, and then the doors were opening. I saw Caleb first. He was wearing his uniform again, his hat fixed on his head and his pistol at his hip. When the driver of the second car got out, I recognized Sam’s dark mustache.
I stood in the open doorway, my heart breaking into a sprint. He wasn’t here for Eamon. Caleb’s eyes were fixed on me.
The door to the cabinet opened behind me, and I froze when I saw Esther take a rifle from inside. In the next breath, she was handing it to Eamon.
“Don’t!” I tried to catch hold of him as he stalked outside, but he pulled free of me, going down the steps. “Eamon, don’t!”
Caleb and Sam both drew their guns the moment they saw him. Eamon had the rifle at his side, ready to raise it.
Sam’s hand lifted in the air. “Eamon, let’s just calm down now.”
“Get the hell out of here,” Eamon roared, eyes on Caleb.
But that smug look on Caleb’s face told me everything I needed to know. Somehow, he’d gotten what he needed, and now he’d come for me.
He pulled the handcuffs from his belt just as I heard Margaret’s voice behind us. “Annie!”
I turned. Annie was running up the fence toward us, Margaret chasing after her. I caught Annie in my arms, and when Caleb took a step in our direction, Eamon lifted his gun. In an instant, Sam and Caleb raised their pistols. Both were pointed at Eamon.
I turned my body, putting myself between Annie and the aim of the guns.
“Daddy?” Annie’s voice was bent. She stared at him over my shoulder.
I lifted a hand slowly, setting it on his arm. “Eamon.” I kept my voice even. “Stop.”
He didn’t look at me, every muscle in his body coiled so tight that the gun in his hands didn’t so much as shake.
My fingers curled around his wrist. “You pull that trigger, and she’s alone,” I whispered. “Do you understand?”
His chest rose and fell for several seconds before his grip loosened on the barrel.
“Put it down before one of them shoots you.”
After another breath, he listened. The barrel lowered, the butt of the gun still pressed to his shoulder, and Sam moved closer, placing himself in front of Eamon with his aim still trained at his chest.