Dante, come see my newest creation. What do you think?
Not my color, baby, but you did good. You always do good.
What are you writing so late at night?
Just trying to be creative, like you. It sucks—forgetaboutit.
Yeah, sure, I’m going out. He’s a good guy—you’d love him.
Nothing to worry about, just a hookup. Not gonna marry the guy.
This one will be different.
This one will be real.
This one will be—
The sound and the color all converged into a single point above the table and exploded outward, knocking out every light in the house and knocking everyone on their ass.
In the following silence, all Alex could hear was the thundering of his heart, and then that sorted itself out to other sounds.
“Ouch. Fuck,” Jordan muttered from his left, flat on his back, legs spread. “That hurt worse this time.”
“It was the table,” Bartholomew muttered from a fetal position on Alex’s right. “There was a lie in there. We got zapped with the spell and zapped with the table and zapped with the lie, and my hair is buzzing. Lachlan, is my hair buzzing?”
“No, Tolly,” Lachlan said, sounding slightly less dazed, “but it is glowing in the dark.”
Alex sucked in his first breath since he’d found himself knocked on his ass, and he turned his head to see that it was true—Bartholomew’s hair, Jordan’s hair, and, he presumed, his own, all stuck up in nests of static, which continued to dance between the strands.
“That’s new,” Alex observed, struggling to sit up. “Kate, Josh, haven’t heard from you guys yet.”
“My ass hurts,” Kate muttered. “Do we always have to get knocked on our ass when we try that?”
“My head hurts,” Josh replied. “Guys, I think I cracked the plaster and… oh shit.”
Something about that last “oh shit” had Alex and Jordan scrambling to their feet while Lachlan helped Bartholomew up too. The lights flickered above them, fuzzing for a moment and then deciding to come on—both the overhead kitchen lights and the lamps in the bedroom.
So did the television—at top volume—and Bartholomew’s computer, Spotify app launching music from his speaker loud enough to rattle the windows.
“I’ll go get that,” Lachlan muttered, rushing off to silence what sounded like Gaelic rock.
“What?” Jordan asked, stepping back to let Lachlan go turn off the music and the television. “What’s ‘oh shit’? Josh, what happened?”
“You guys, she was right here on the couch!” Josh said disbelievingly. “She couldn’t have run past me. She’s not under the table or behind the furniture—”
“Oh no,” Alex said, stomach sinking.
“Has anyone seen the goddamned dog?” Josh asked, his voice rising in hysteria.
“Calm down,” Lachlan muttered. “Calm down.” He turned to Alex as the appalled silence fell over the coven. “Don’t worry. Alex is going to call Simon right now and make sure she’s safe.”
Alex did a slow blink. “You guys think?” he asked, brain just barely getting there.
“Well, call quick,” Jordan urged. “And then if we’re wrong we can… I don’t know.” He leaned against the wall dispiritedly and dragged his hands through his hair. “Panic and cry, I guess. I’m out of options.”
“Wait,” Bartholomew murmured, leaning over the table. “Look!”
The candles were gone, but in their place were lovely colored streaks staining the tabletop, shooting out from a center like a rainbow sun. The center itself was black—but not sinister black. It was dancing with stars and planets, sparkling and lovely, drawing the eye ever inward, ever deeper to a mysterious universe.
“That’s pretty,” Jordan said, studying it. “Wow, that’s… I mean, too bad that spell exhausted us, because that looks amazing.”
“Wood staining by magic,” Lachlan muttered. “Go figure.”
“There’s more,” Alex said, phone in hand but number not yet dialed. “The medallions are gone.”
“And the picture,” Jordan murmured. “It changed. Look at it.”
They all peered over his shoulder, and the picture, which had just been sitting on top of the newly decorated table like someone had set it there, truly had changed. Cully’s sweater was the same—a basic block sweater he’d knitted himself in a bright orange. But Dante’s sweater had gone from a commercially made black hoodie to an obviously handknit sweater in deep cerulean blue. The sweater had been worn almost to death—the yarn at the wrists fading, pills all over the front from washing—but that wasn’t even the most striking change about the picture.
The two men in the photo who had stood so stiffly, as though not quite comfortable, were now close, relaxed. Dante’s arms were around Cully’s slim shoulders, as protective as any lover ever.
They were each wearing the medallions that had been on the table, but the cords had changed to silver.
Alex swallowed, and his legs gave a definite wobble. He must not have been the only one, because Jordan and Bartholomew sank into their own chairs as well.
“We… we did something,” Alex said through a scratchy throat.
“We did,” Jordan agreed. “We… I think we changed time.”
“Oh dear,” Lachlan muttered.
“Oh no,” Kate agreed.
“This can’t be good,” Josh said bluntly. “No—no. Every science fiction movie I’ve ever seen tells me this can’t be close to good.”
“Where was that picture taken again?” Alex asked, trying to get a feel for the universe shifting beneath their feet.
“Mendocino,” Jordan said automatically. “Three years ago. We all went to check out the tide pools, and Cully sat and made a sand castle. Dante….” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Dante made sand castles with Cully—”
“At the exact same time he was looking at the tide pools with us,” Bartholomew filled in. “My brain is doing it too.”
“Both memories,” Alex murmured. “I feel it. Both things happened simultaneously. It’s like split pasts. In one memory they’re lovers, and in the other memory they’re roommates and friends.”
“All… shit.” Kate took a breath. “You guys, I bet if we start thinking about them, all our memories will be like that. I mean, I thought about them just before they disappeared, as sort of a test. In one memory, Dante is about to overnight at someone else’s house. In the other memory, he and Cully are going to a play together. They’re holding hands.”
“Oh Jesus,” Jordan muttered. “What did we do?”
Alex took a deep breath and pulled up Simon’s number. Before he hit Dial, he snapped, “Oh, I think it’s perfectly obvious the magic is doing what it bloody well wants to!”
Just as he said that, all the lights in the house went off again, and Simon answered the phone.
“She’s right here,” Simon said, and Alex was so relieved to hear his voice—and that the damned dog was okay—that his eyes burned.