Rewinder

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

It’s three in the morning when I appear in the empty lot down the street from my family’s house. A few minutes later I’m at the bottom of the steps that lead up to our door.

The house, like all the others around it, is dark. I can see the window of my room where twelve-year-old me should be sound sleep. There’s also the window to my parents’ room — well, my father’s room, since at this point it’s been a year and a half since my mother passed away. Neither of these is the room I’m interested in, though.

I carefully move around the side of the house until I can see the window of my sister’s room. Using the location calculator to home in on the hallway outside her door, I make a jump of thirty seconds.

The floor creaks as I appear so I hold my position, fingers hovering over the escape combination in case my father decides to check out the noise. When all remains silent, I pad quietly into Ellie’s room.

The strongest memory I have of Ellie is of when she was fifteen, not long before she died, with hair chopped short, her skin ashy white, and bones showing everywhere. She’s asleep on the hospital bed, and I’m sitting on the mattress holding her hand. Father is by the window, looking outside as the doctor finishes his prognosis.

“The truth is, Mr. Younger, there’s little else we can do here,” he says. “Home would be the best place for her now.”

My father says nothing, so I decide to speak up. “But there are treatments. I’ve read about them in the paper. I even found a book at the library that—”

Looking embarrassed, the doctor says to my father, “If you have any questions, you can always contact me.”

“I have questions,” I say.

“Denny. Quiet,” my father orders. “Thank you, Doctor.”

After the doctor is gone, I say, “But there are treatments. We can—”

“Not for us,” Father says. “Pack your sister’s things. We’re going home.”

If we’d been Fives like I am now, it would have been different, but we were Eights, and our options were limited to waiting for her to die.

Tonight, that day is well over a year away, and she lies before me with her hair still long and her face full of the promise of the beautiful woman she should have become.

Tears roll down my cheeks as I stare at her.

My God. It’s her. My sister, alive.

I ache at the sight of the pills on her nightstand that help her sleep. The illness that will waste her away has started to move in. I hoped to come before that happened, but the Chaser’s lack of power meant this was as far back as I dare go. Still, the disease is in its early stages. I know from the research I’ve done on the subject after reading about the medical documentary that there’s an excellent chance it can be stopped. But not here. Not in this world.

I grab the pill bottle and shove it in my pocket. After prepping my Chaser for the automated series of hops to the next destination, I kneel next to Ellie, gently wrap her blanket around her, and then climb in beside her. She stirs slightly as I put my arms around her but doesn’t wake.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” I whisper, and then we jump.

The last hop takes us into the copse of trees about a hundred yards from the Three Swans Tavern, where everything started.

“What’s going on?” Ellie mumbles, her lids barely parting.

Wincing from my post-trip pain, I whisper, “Just sleep.”

“Dad, my head hurts.”

Dad? Does my voice really sound like his? “Hold on.” I remove one of her pills from the bottle and slip it between her lips. “Chew it up, then rest. I’ll return soon.”

I wait until she drifts back to sleep, then I leap even further back in time.