His expression didn’t change, so I went on. “Someone is altering reality… changing things. When I first looked in at the classroom this morning, my father, Harry Keller, was standing at the Smart Board. My desk—your desk now—was empty, because I was just arriving at school. And then, in an instant, I saw all of that change.”
There was sympathy in his gray eyes, but I could tell he didn’t believe me. Of course he didn’t. He would have to be crazy to believe what I was saying. He probably thought that I was mentally unbalanced, and I wasn’t sure I could argue against that theory successfully. “Someone—apparently my grandfather—is changing history. My grandmother says I’m the only one who can stop it, because I inherited the ability to work this piece of equipment. Some other people inherited the ability, too, but apparently they’re all on the Dark Side.” I put the house keys back in the holder and then tucked both that and the medallion back inside my shirt. “I was coming back here, to school, to pull my dad into this nightmare… I don’t want to make decisions about how to handle this alone. I’ve felt these time shifts twice before, but it was just… a bad feeling. No one ever disappeared.”
I sighed, staring down at my shoes. “And the key fit, damn it. I was so sure…”
“But… wouldn’t the key fit either way?” Trey spoke softly, the way you might around someone who was unstable. I recognized the slightly condescending tone, and resented it, but I couldn’t really blame him. “I mean, even if everything you’ve said is somehow true, if they hired Mrs. Dees instead of your dad, it… would be the same key to the cottage. Right?”
I closed my eyes but didn’t answer. Duh—of course it would be the same key.
After a few minutes I stood up and gave Trey a weak smile. “I know you need to alert security now, but would you give me a few minutes’ head start to the Metro? Please?”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to try and find my mom—she’s in DC. And then…”
“Okay.” He stood and brushed off his pants. “Let’s go.”
“What? No!” I said, beginning to walk away. “No, no, and no. I’m going, Trey. You go back to class.”
He shook his head firmly. “That would be very irresponsible of me. You’re either in trouble, in which case I might be able to help, or else you’re crazy, in which case someone needs to keep an eye on you. I’m volunteering, at least for the rest of the afternoon.”
I headed across campus in the straightest path to the Metro station. “You have school. You can’t just ditch. Don’t you have parents?”
He shrugged, matching his stride to mine. “My dad would—probably—say I’m making the right choice. He’s not going to complain either way. My mom might disagree, but she’s on assignment in Haiti for the next few months, and I don’t think the school will be giving her a call. Estella—she lives with us—will chew me out for ditching class, but the school won’t leave messages with anyone but parents. So you’re stuck with me.”
I was torn between angry and amused. Trey was nice and, I had to admit, very cute, but I needed to focus on the problems at hand. Maybe I could lose him in the crowds at the station?
Thinking about the Metro, however, brought a wave of anxiety. Suddenly the idea of having someone along, after the experience I’d had that morning, didn’t sound so bad.
“Okay,” I said, “you can come. But in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I was mugged on the Metro this morning.”
He gave me his crooked grin again. “Damn, girl, you have had a bad day.”
We had to wait about fifteen minutes for a train, but the ride into DC was short. Trey attempted to make conversation. My brain was on autopilot; I managed to nod in the right places, though. His mother worked with the State Department, and she traveled a lot. His father worked for some international firm—something that sounded vaguely financial to me—and they had just returned from two years in Peru, where he had attended a school for the children of diplomats. When I asked about siblings, Trey laughed and said his parents hadn’t been on the same continent often enough to manage a second child. They had decided that he and his dad would stay in DC so that he could finish up high school at Briar Hill, which his dad and grandfather had both attended. Estella, who had worked for his family since Trey’s dad was a kid, kept them organized and fed.
When they returned from Peru in December, Briar Hill told his dad that Trey would be admitted into the senior class in the fall, so he had been studying at home through a correspondence course in the interim. But a space opened up unexpectedly in January and he was able to start during the spring semester. It sounded like the same slot I’d taken when Dad accepted the job.