When All is Null and Void

Chapter Thirty-Two

Danielle glanced to her left. The closest bench was covered in water. "I'll stand," she said. Waving a hand to signal for Caleb to go on, he took a breath.

"This isn't a purity ring."

"Uh... okay?" she said. "I mean, you could have told me that yesterday, or whenever. But I really need to get back..." she pulled on the door, and Caleb grabbed her hand to spin her back around. Their faces were a few inches from each other. The air between them was charged like the moment before lightning.

"It's easier if we just rip the band aid off," he muttered. He took a big breath and smiled. "Do you trust me?"

"Why wouldn't I trust you?"

"Okay."

At first Danielle thought something had flown into her eyes. Her vision blurred, but then she noticed Caleb hadn't. A fog slid down over them, filled with tiny particles of light. It was, Danielle thought, rather similar to what she'd imagined the inside of a snow globe to be. The light resembled the snow; however, that was quite where the resemblances ended. The world was blurred, but not dark. Danielle could no longer see the school, but her feet were still planted in the same position they'd been in before. Caleb's green-blue eyes were intent on hers. His hand was tight on her wrist.

And then it was over.

But it wasn't. She was standing on a sandy stretch of land, in warm sunlight. The need for her scarf was gone, replaced by an overwhelming humidity that prickled against her skin. Her heart thumped in her chest, a sledgehammer striking metal with sharp clangs. "What just happened?" she said. A turquoise ocean sparkled in the distance.

Caleb, decked in khaki cargo shorts and a horrible flowery button-up, shrank back from her. "So," he said. "This isn't a purity ring."

"You already sat that," she said. Her mind whirred and clicked and stuttered, struggling to take in every incongruous detail. Big, pink flowers hung inches from her face. She touched them. Real. Had she slipped on sleet?

"Alexander isn't my dad." Caleb's voice wobbled on the last word, as if it strained him to say.

"Wheu?" Danielle said vaguely, because it was the only coherent noise she could form as a huge turkey ran through the underbrush. Caleb nor Alexander looked even slightly related. She wasn't surprised. But then again, she was still reeling over the fact they were...wherever this was.

"Alexander's just my mentor, and he's sort of—well, how do I say it—teaching me how to be a Timewalker."

That word meant nothing to her, even though somewhere in her brain it sparked something. "What's that?" Danielle asked, as another big bird swooped above her head, scooping up a fat-bodied spider in its mouth.

"Danielle," Caleb said. She looked at him in the eyes. "I can time travel."

"Shut up." A stupid grin lit up her face. She must have fallen asleep during the test because of the heat and boredom. They'd watched too much Doctor Who, and she'd somehow fabricated this.

He pointed at the sand by their feet, the water in the distance. "I can go anywhere on earth if I choose. Well, if I study enough about it. I'm not very good at it." He glanced at his ring disdainfully.

All thoughts of a test were gone. She stared at the sand. "So you mean to say that all this time, we've been watching Doctor Who, speculating about where we'd go if time travel existed, and this wholetime you've been laughing at me behind my back?" She wasn't angry. Joy like one of the flower's grazing her head bloomed to life.

"No," Caleb said nervously. "We haven't been making fun of you..."

"I'm such an idiot..." she shielded her eyes as the sun glinted off the ocean.