Chapter 1
Moonlight spills across the frayed mustard carpet to reach Nicki, splayed on her back atop the rock-hard mattress of her bed. The brightness wakes her as she had intended. At bedtime, Mother had lowered the shades, but Nicki had quietly raised them after she left.
The time is three in the morning. Her hands tingle as she rises and puts on her heavy blue hoodie over her pajamas. She crosses to the chair, trying not to look at the yellowed wallpaper with pictures of little girls in pigtails playing on a slide, on a swing set, in a sandbox, and splashing in a baby pool. However much Nicki grows—she turned sixteen last month—it feels like she’s forever trapped inside the moments of childhood depicted on these four walls.
She picks up Cinderella, a large stuffed bear with one eye missing, and reaches under her skirt through the hole she slashed into her long ago. With the stuffing removed, the space serves as a hiding place for any cash she manages to steal, and for the treats she saves for Sadie. Nicki removes half of a Hershey’s chocolate bar and pockets it before putting on her sneakers and tiptoeing to the door.
With practiced caution, she turns the knob, slips through the narrow opening, and silently closes the door behind her. She pauses to listen to Uncle’s gruntlike snores from the room next to hers. It gives her some courage to confirm he’s asleep. Unfortunately, she can’t be certain about Mother, in the bedroom across the hall, who never makes a sound that can be heard outside her room.
Nicki proceeds to the stairs and descends them with delicate steps, careful to avoid the parts that creak the loudest. She’s almost at the bottom and ready to congratulate herself, when the wood groans under her foot. Freezing in place, she listens for sounds of stirring.
After a minute passes without anyone coming, she decides it’s safe to continue. Thankfully, the hall and kitchen have linoleum floors that allow her to cross quietly. The drawer, on the other hand, sticks to its frame and makes a horrible noise if she’s not careful. She must open it for the flashlight, though, and she manages well enough. She’ll worry about closing it later.
She takes a water bottle from the box by the counter before snatching the key to the shed from behind one of the shelves. Some time ago, she discovered where Uncle kept it by spying on him from inside the pantry.
Her last hurdle is the back door, so tight in its frame it has to be yanked open. It makes some noise and even rattles the house a bit, but it’s too late to turn back now. She escapes outside and down the steps, where she pauses for a gulp of the brisk air scented with pine. A shiver skips down her spine at the sight of the moonlit trees, lurking around the edge of the property like rows of tall, spindly jailers.
She dashes across the carpet of pine needles to get to the shed, and lets herself in with the key, closing the door after her. Switching on the flashlight, she’s careful not to aim it at the bed since no one likes to be woken with bright light in their eyes.
Four-year-old Sadie is curled under the blanket looking up at her. Her hair is matted and there’s a dark smudge on her left cheek. She sucks on the tip of her thumb, with a filthy, threadbare rabbit missing most of its stuffing clutched under her arm.
Nicki sits on the mattress beside her and touches her hair. “Hey there,” she whispers.
Sadie lowers her thumb. “Hey.”
“I brought you a treat.” Nicki takes out the chocolate bar.
Sadie sits up and leans against the wall. “Thank you.”
“Should we have a tea party?”
Sadie nods.
Nicki arranges the rabbit and a stuffed dog with a monocle on either side of them. Recovering four plastic teacups piled in the corner, she sets them in front of everyone and pours a bit of water into the cups. “Sugar?”
“Yes, two please,” Sadie says.
Nicki drops imaginary sugar cubes into her cup and turns to the rabbit. “Becca?”
“One half, please.” Nicki provides the high-pitched voice of Becca the rabbit.
Pretending to struggle to break the cube in half, Nicki speaks in an aside to Sadie. “She only wants to make things difficult.”
“I heard that,” the rabbit voice replies.
“Mr. Fluffernutter doesn’t need any. He doesn’t like sweets,” Sadie says regarding the dog.
“They, hem, interfere with my digestion.” Nicki lends Mr. Fluffernutter a deep growly tone.
Sadie places a piece of her chocolate in front of Becca.
“I’d like half of that,” the rabbit says.
“No!” Sadie says, laughing.
“Tomorrow let’s take Becca to the salon and get her fur done,” Nicki says.
“I went there yesterday!” Sadie does the rabbit voice. “Can’t you tell?”
“Oh my, and a beautiful job they did too.” Nicki winks at Sadie.
“Mr. Fluffernutter should get a pedicure,” Sadie says.
“Hem, only if I may get the purple glitter polish,” is Mr. Fluffernutter’s response.
Sadie sips from her cup. “I want to see my mommy.”
Nicki glances back toward the house. “Mother’s sleeping now.”
“Not her.” Sadie makes a face. “My real mommy.”
“She’s your real mommy now. And he’s your uncle.”
Sadie shakes her head hard. Her face crumples and tears start to flow.
“Come here.” Nicki moves everything out of the way and sits beside her holding the girl’s hand in her lap. “You have to be patient. Things that are important take time.”
“I miss her,” Sadie whispers.
“I know. I’ll take care of you. You have to trust me.” But even as the words emerge from her lips, she hears the heavy shoes pounding down the back steps of the house and rushing toward them.
Chapter 2
Rebecca hurries toward Dev as he waits for the garage elevator.
“Hey there,” she says, slowing abruptly, becoming all casual, like she hasn’t been waiting in her white Honda Fit parked near the entrance, watching for his return from work.
He glances back, surprised at her appearance. “Oh, hi. How are you?”
“Great. It’s my night off,” she says.
“Have anything special planned?”
“Maybe.” She tries for an enigmatic smile, which only causes him to look puzzled.
The elevator doors open and he waits while she enters first. Her gaze drinks him in as he presses the button for their mutual floor. A marketing exec at a high-tech company, he’s meticulously turned out in dark slacks and a white button shirt that contrasts beautifully with his toffee-colored skin. No jacket or tie because this is Silicon Valley, not Wall Street. As the doors slide together, the sensation of their being alone in an enclosed space causes a prickle of excitement inside her.
“You remember that new wine club I told you about?” she says.
His eyes light up with interest. Since the time some months ago when he passed her in the hall carrying a case of premium California cabernet, she’s been aware of his obsession.
“I got my first shipment three days ago. And I know I should let the bottles rest, but I couldn’t resist opening the pinot. Russian River Valley. It’s amazing.” She ought to use more precise descriptors to impress him—earthy or spicy or notes of barnyard—but she’s never gotten the hang of that and is certain she’ll screw it up.
“Really? Remind me what club this is,” he says.
“It’s called … wait, don’t take my word for it. I’d feel terrible if you joined and didn’t like the wine. Our tastes might be different.”
“True, I never like the stuff that gets high ratings from The Wine and Truth Journal.”
“Have you got a minute? You can come try it yourself.”
He looks nervous at this point. No doubt it flashes across his mind that his girlfriend might not be thrilled by his interaction with this young, unattached neighbor. But the lure of wine is too strong. “Uh, sure, why not? Thanks.”
They spill out of the elevator and he follows her into her living space. “Nice place,” he says, glancing around. She’s never been in his apartment but she assumes it’s exactly the same, other than their decorating choices. Her furniture is only one step up from college student, but he shouldn’t expect anything fancier from someone earning a pittance as a waitress. Although she does have some inherited income, it mostly goes toward paying the absurd cost of renting a measly one-bedroom unit in Silicon Valley.
The open bottle of pinot noir awaits them on the counter. She takes out two wide-bottom wineglasses and fills them a third of the way. Handing one to Dev, she clinks it with the other. “Cheers.” Slipping into full connoisseur mode, she swirls the glass and sniffs the wine before sipping and swooshing it inside her mouth. She closes her eyes and parts her lips to breathe in and let the air open up the wine. Only then does she swallow and look at Dev, whose fathomless eyes are fixed on her.
“Have a seat?” She nods toward the couch, letting him settle there ahead of her. She brings the bottle along with her glass and sits right next to him, pinning him on one side with their arms nearly touching. He looks as if he’d like to switch to a chair, but doesn’t want to seem rude.
Rebecca prompts Dev to talk about wine. While he waxes poetic regarding the optimum terroir for cab versus pinot, she wriggles out of the coat she has kept on until now. Underneath, she wears a short, ass-hugging black skirt and a lowcut silk camisole with no bra underneath. Quite accidentally of course, she pushes closer to Dev after tossing the coat behind the couch.
He loses his train of thought and compensates by slurping down the rest of his wine like lemonade on a hot day.
“So you like it?” she says.
“Love it.”
It is, in fact, an absolutely delicious concoction that glides over the palette. It took many days of experimentation for her to identify a pinot noir that would be exactly to Dev’s taste.
“Let me get you some more.” She leans past him for the bottle and gives him a telescopic view of her breasts while she fills his glass. When she’s done, she unintentionally loses her balance and falls into his lap. He grasps her waist to help her, which naturally leads to her arms wrapping around his neck. He’s not the man to resist kissing her now, and the rest follows because, of course, wine. Besides, he must be thinking if he’s going to get nailed for cheating, he may as well experience the full benefit of it.
The sex ends too quickly, which is both the good and bad of it. It’s like the adrenalin rush of jumping off a cliff as opposed to the gentle, euphoric sensation of gliding to the bottom with wings.
They hold each other briefly afterward, while she questions her life choices. Eight months ago, she became a time traveler after being sparked by an unusual rock she encountered off the trail during a hike. At first she thought she was having unbelievably realistic dreams. But before long, she learned she could pick the moment she wanted to revisit simply by concentrating on it. Her time jumps ended naturally whenever she achieved a sense of completion or simply when she could no longer remain awake. She made up a name to describe the process—mindcast. Her body stayed home while her consciousness leapt backward to occupy younger versions of herself.
Through experimentation, she found that her actions in the past never changed anything in the present. It was as if an alternate time thread opened up … like there might be infinite possible variations. Mindcasting allowed her to experience some of these variations, without, fortunately, becoming stuck in any one of them. In the end she always returned to what she thought of as real-time.
It soon came to her how she could use this power to do things no one but she would ever know about or remember. If she seduced Dev during a mindcast, he would have no idea in real-time. She would have all the pleasure of fucking him, without any of the complications.
It took eleven jumps to perfect the method of seducing Dev. Since then, they had done it seventeen times using this exact scenario. Despite telling herself it was enough, she kept returning to this day like a glutton unable to forgo cheesecake at the end of each meal. Each time, remorse and disgust filled her afterward, but it wasn’t sufficient to stop her from repeating the same act on the next night or the night after that. She imagines she’s some sort of sex addict, but even more twisted because she craves that extra level of fervor that comes of his thinking this is the first time he’s ever touched her in his life.
Escaping before the inevitable moment of extreme awkwardness, she begins her return journey through time. The inside of her head grows hot and her vision fades. But this time, instead of seeing only blackness, she pictures four-year-old Sadie as if through a shroud. An instant later her sister is gone, disappearing as she did outside their house nineteen years ago, when Rebecca was six and supposed to be watching her.