“The void beyond time? How’d I end up here?” I asked.

“Oh, it was a simple redirect,” she said, sitting down. “You were trying to go somewhere you can’t go, and we felt it appropriate to discuss that with you instead of just kicking you out. You can sit down if you like.”

“Where?”

“Wherever.” I went to speak, but didn’t know what to say to that, so I just lowered myself as if there was a chair behind me and soon felt myself sink into a cushion. I looked around, but there was nothing there. I leaned to the side against an armrest that must have been composed of the void itself, and the woman nodded. “Now. What were you trying to do?”

“I was…well, I had started trying to see if I could learn what Hecate was planning, but the farther I looked into the future the more some moment was just drawing me.” She nodded.

“Yeah, it’ll do that. You’re seeking information, and it is a wellspring of information.”

“What is?”

“The time you were trying to reach. There’s so much information there, in fact, that no one is allowed to look there from any other point. Except us, of course.”

“Why you?”

“We are not subject to the rules.”

“Why not?”

“Because we are the rules.” She smiled again at that and leaned back, folding her hands on her stomach. “We are the Metaphysical Realm, in a sense.”

“In a sense?”

“Well. Nothing here is as easy as all that.”

“And here, this is…part of the realm, somehow?”

“Sure is! Or at least it is when we’re in it. I’m not actually entirely sure whether or not it exists as a distinct thing.” She turned to look at the man. “Do you know?” His hands, which I now saw were uncovered and the same tone as his face, reached out of his sleeves and signed something quickly. “Right, right. That makes sense.” She turned back to me. “It’s complicated, but a yes will suffice.”

“Is that what he signed?”

“No.”

“Oh.” We sat for a bit.

“Well, anyway. The point is, you can’t look at that period, and if you can’t resist the urge, you may want to just not look forward at all.”

“What period?” She looked back to the man again, who sighed and signed something else.

“October 31 through November 4, 2028,” she said with a nod as she turned back to me.

“Wait, there’s information I won’t be able to uncover for another twenty years?”

“Yup!” I leaned back.

“That’s…”

“It’ll be fine. You have plenty to occupy your time. Now, if there isn’t anything else.” She stood up and offered her hand.

“There’s so much else!”

​“Not today, there isn’t.” I sighed and took her hand, and suddenly found myself standing back in Chicago, still holding her hand. I turned to look, and the man was still standing behind her.

There was something intoxicating about seeing this far into the future. At first, I assumed it was just the excitement of knowing things that were yet to come, but as I pushed farther along I began to feel a pull. There was something, somewhere ahead, that seemed to be beckoning me, calling to me, promising greater knowledge than I could even imagine. It was mild at first, just flickering at the edge of my senses. But as I approached it, it grew stronger, and before I realized it I was ignoring everything else I was passing and pushing forward with reckless abandon, diving deeper, pouring more and more of myself into the quest to find this one bright, burning, powerful moment that felt like the very center of the entire metaphysical realm.

I was losing myself, losing sense of what I was doing, hopelessly fixed on this one point, when I suddenly stopped.

I found myself floating, adrift in an endless void, dull gray everywhere and no sense of direction, or time, or anything. It was just me, lost. I took some time, could have been seconds or years for all I knew, to refocus and figure out what was going on. I no longer felt the pull of that point in the future. I no longer felt anything. I knew this was wrong, somehow, but couldn’t place my finger on what was wrong about it. When I finally had regained my composure, I tried to focus again to move forward. Then I tried to move backward. But if either attempt worked, I couldn’t tell.

As I floated and tried to determine what was stopping me from moving, the void ahead of me began to pinch together and form into shapes. There was no color at first, and no light or shadow, so I’m not sure how I knew that was happening, but I did. Finally, the gray of the void dripped off the shapes, and I found myself looking at a man and a woman. Or at least, two entities that took on the form of a man and a woman.

I could make out very few identifying details on the man. He was wearing a light brown robe that hung down farther than his feet with sleeves that covered his hands, and the parts of him that were exposed where it opened were covered in black, shining armor, with bits of black fabric showing between the highly decorated pieces. The hood of the robe lay low over his face, and the shadow of it hid everything from view except his mouth and chin. That little bit of exposed skin, the only skin I could see, was a light brown, not dark but unmistakably meant to look like a black man. This, and the fact that he was about as tall as I was, were about all I could make out of what he must look like with the hood drawn away.

She was certainly naked, but had no anatomy showing that would have made that more obvious than an incredibly form-fitting outfit. She was broader and taller than I was, and her body was covered in swirling designs and runes that danced around, some of them seeming to lift off her body or sink below her skin, yet still visible, completely of their own volition as they moved across her blue skin. The markings glowed faintly, and her face shone with a warm and inviting smile. Her features, I would later find out when I went digging online for pictures of various ethnicities, looked like she had taken inspiration for her form from one of the myriad island peoples dotted along the Pacific. Her hair was thick, long, and tightly curled as it lay over her shoulders and hung down her back. She hid nothing, but aside from her basic features, there was nothing about her that stayed constant long enough to identify.

“Jackie,” she said, extending her arms in a hug, which I returned before thinking about it. She held me for a moment, then placed her hands on my shoulders and held me at arms’ length. “How are you?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, looking her over again, “do I know you?”

“Oh, not yet. But we have met. You may remember us more in our raven forms. Right?” she asked, turning to the other. “That already happened, yeah?” He nodded, and she turned back to me with a broad smile. “Yeah, that happened already.”

“Wait. Huginn and Muninn?”

​“Oh, we get called that sometimes, sure,” she answered, letting go of me and waving her right hand dismissively. “We get called lots of things. Officially, if there is an ‘officially,’ we’re King and Queen, but spirits tend to call us The Two. Welcome to the void outside of time, Jackie! We don’t get many visitors.”

The problem with moving forward, I suspected, was not going to be getting into the flow. I’d already learned how to do that. The problem was going to be moving at the pace I wanted to move, stopping when I got where I wanted to go. The other problem was that I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, or how concrete the future was. Would I change things by looking forward? It seemed unlikely, based on how the Fates described the weave of time, but I couldn’t be certain. I needed to be careful.

Nan had given me something new this time. It was one of the shards of colored glass that hung from the ceiling in the shop and tinted the sunlight coming in through the windows, dancing around the store. I had always loved those shards, and the effect they had in the shop, and she knew that. She explained that, unlike when I was traveling to the past, I wouldn’t be able to just fall back into my own time if I found myself struggling. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of getting lost! She told me the shard was a focus, something I could hopefully use to find my way back to the shop if I had difficulty. I thanked her, and went to begin my meditation.

I was able to feel the tug of time’s flow quickly, but I didn’t jump in right away. I continued to focus, steadying myself, until I was certain I would have about as much control as I could muster. Then, and only then, did I let myself flow along. Everything was a blur at first, and it took me another moment to recenter and focus on the work at hand. I forced myself to slow down, at least enough that I could start taking in some of the sights flashing past me. Here I was in a cabin with Rick, Matteson, and Alice. There I was at the house. I saw myself in a tuxedo and forced myself to stop.

I was standing in a room in the house, the size and layout looked like Henry’s room, but the decorations were clearly mine. The tuxedo I had on was clearly tailored, and looked damn good on me. She knew it, too, and her eyes in the mirror shifted to look directly at me and wink. I laughed; I hadn’t really considered that I would remember watching this happen. She smoothed out the jacket, then left the room as I followed. The house looked entirely different, I saw almost nothing that belonged to Matteson. What happened? When even was this? But she wasn’t lingering, and neither did I. We made our way out to a car, I suspected our car, and I slipped into the passenger seat as she turned the ignition. She sat for a moment, as if deep in thought, and then turned to me. She was younger than the mother at the crossroads, but still had those golden flecks in her eye. I suddenly felt exposed, as if she could see me with it.

“I can see you,” she said, calmly. “And also I remember this. It’s…a significant day for us.”

“Does it work? Do I get my answers?” I asked. She scowled.

“I can’t tell you that. But listen, you can’t stick around. I’ll take you where I’m going, and you can see briefly what it is, but that’s it, got it?” I nodded. “Good. Wouldn’t want to give everything away.” She smiled, turned her attention to the road, and pulled out.

“Is it because of those flecks in your eye?” She nodded.

“Yeah, they help a lot with time magic, and there’s a certain low-level awareness I have all the time now. I suspect I can see any time travelers, it just isn’t a common enough practice for me to have seen any other than myself.”

“That is a very flattering suit.”

“Thanks! Getting sized for it was a pain, but thankfully I knew the result would be worth it.” I watched out the window and realized we were pulling into Buhl Park. The car wound around a bit until it reached one of the pavilions, clearly set up for a wedding. I saw Matteson, Alice, Marz, and a few other faces I recognized there.

“Who’s getting married?” She parked the car and smiled at me.

“We are, of course!” With that she was out of the car, and I scrambled to catch up to her. “I’m glad we could do it outside. They were saying there was a chance of rain, but of course,” she pointed to the sky and I looked up into a cloudless expanse, “I knew they were wrong.”

“Wait what?”

“Well it wouldn’t be a day important enough to stop you if it was anyone else, would it?” I considered that as we walked. Alice glanced up, talked briefly with Matteson, then ran over to Jackie.

“You’re here! Good, we’re almost all ready. Don’t go snooping around behind the pavilion, now,” Alice said. I glanced down and noticed Alice was wearing a wedding band. Jackie smiled.

“Thank you so much for all of this! I really appreciate your help.” Alice leaned closer.

“John says you aren’t alone,” she whispered.

“Ah, yeah. I should’ve probably told you. That’s me from the past, she won’t be staying long, but that is how I knew the weather would cooperate.” Alice sighed in relief.

“Okay. That makes sense. I never know what to expect with you. Hello, past Jackie.”

“Hello,” I said. She clearly couldn’t hear me. “How long am I staying, anyway?”

“As long as you want, really, as long as you don’t get too close to Matteson,” Jackie answered. Alice nodded and walked away, apparently confident she wasn’t part of what was now happening. “But you’ll know when you’re risking seeing too much. I have things to do, explore a bit.” She went off toward the people who were finishing setting up, and I stood looking around for a while. What was behind the pavilion? I made my way through the ceremony space, taking in the flowers and the ribbons. It was all very nice and beautiful, and purple. There was more purple than I would have expected. I rounded the corner of the building and caught sight of her. I couldn’t see her face, she was turned away from me, but I could see the wedding dress and the women fussing over her.

​Of course. It was bad luck for the couple to see each other before the wedding, so she couldn’t peek back here. Did that apply to me, too? Part of me felt a bit sad, and as I slipped back around the corner to stop looking I considered why that was. I mean, yes, it was disappointing to know Rick and I didn’t work out, but I wasn’t that committed to being with him, was I? I wanted to look around the corner again, see who she was, but then I realized that this was it. That was too much information. I sighed, focused, and stepped back into the flow.

There are those who take issue with this argument, so I should clarify right at the start that I fully believe Atlantis was real and, not only the first advanced civilization, but the very first civilization. Whether it was advanced by any modern or ancient reckoning is irrelevant and probably mistaken anyway. Different people remembered it different ways. I believe the Greek story borrowed from their culture’s memories of it. I believe the Bible is trying to describe it when it talks about Cain establishing the first city, and again when Noah escapes the great cataclysm that destroyed it. I believe the Epic of Gilgamesh does the same thing, as do countless other stories from around the world. Every legend, every religion, every bit of folklore and magic and ritual in some way traces back to echoes of Atlantis. And I believe Atlantis is where we would find the very first worshipers of Hecate.

I submit that there was a single pantheon of gods honored in that place. Whether or not the Atlanteans themselves considered these entities gods is unknown and probably unknowable. But they knew the world had a spiritual component, and engaged with it in some way, and therefore knew the things we now call gods in their most primal form. And as the earliest civilization, they would have looked out on a world that was raw, untamed, dangerous and flawed, filled with people who hadn’t yet learned how to live together in peace. What they must have thought of these outsiders! These were the first people with a border; and along with a border comes the knowledge that things live beyond the border. Whatever gods or spirits or guides they knew within their ancient cities, there was one they absolutely knew: the Guardian of the Edges. The Outlander. The One Who Paces At The Border. The Gnawing Darkness Beyond. Whatever fears or hopes drew them to form a society, whatever they were walking away from when they came together, was known to them all and associated with some primeval spirit who waited just beyond their reach.

Hecate was not her first name, nor was Hathor. They almost certainly knew the liminal spirit by whatever name they spat when they talked about the days before their city was built. The wild one. The wanderer. The hunter. She was, in those days, all that they no longer wished to know. She was the spirit of all peoples, the great power they had to throw off their backs to create civilization. She may have been the first guardian of mankind as a whole, the first spirit they knew and came to fear. The old ways of mankind as hunter and gatherer died, and she was the key to recognizing what they were leaving behind. The transition required that they know her, and then turn away. And as she in later forms would guide those entering their new lives after death, so she then served as the guide to those dying to the hunter/gatherer lifestyle and entering society. If that society knew banishment, they surely understood it as giving the person back to her. So she becomes associated also with the leaving, the outcast, those who never return. I doubt she had direct worshipers, but she was known and feared. She was almost certainly part of some great duality, the wild and unknown standing in opposition to the spirit of order and knowledge that the greatest Atlantean priests extolled.

And this would mean she was there when it ended. Those who watched the city fall would know that she, somehow, was involved. She would not be forgotten. She would arise time and time again. Some people embracing her, others shunning her, but all remembering her. Then, she stood at the crossroads of mankind’s fate. Now she stands at the Crossroads of all the places we have built and all the powers we have amassed. As the liminal spaces have grown, she has grown to fill them. But what must it have been like for her? How did she take that moment, when mankind began to turn its back on her? The eyes in the forest stalking uncivilized humanity, the voice on the winds of deserts only the desperate would enter, suddenly finding form as a thing to be left behind? And then, as mankind continued to entangle her in our affairs, piling names on her, creating new liminal spaces for her to govern while only occasionally accepting her guidance with them?

​What did she want, what desire welled in her heart when she saw the first city walls erected against her? Has she ever truly wanted anything other than whatever she wanted then?

I was planning on resting for the day, and went out to finish refreshing my energy. To that end, I was out at the shore of Lake Michigan shortly before dawn, meditating. I was deep in my trance when I heard Hecate’s voice, which sent me spinning around quickly. I was expecting that she was talking to me, but I quickly realized she wasn’t. There was a faint golden hue around her, and the Hound—and Alethea, sitting next to the Hound. Hecate was huge, probably twelve feet tall, her three faces showing.

“Have you come to take me away?” Alethea asked, turning her attention back toward Hecate. I slowly stood and walked closer.

“Where to, my dear?”

“Well, it’s...I haven’t crossed over yet, and I thought that’s what was next for me.” The Hound walked back to his mistress.

“Crossed over? Oh you poor thing, you should know by now you can’t do that until your business on Earth is complete” Alethea turned back and looked out at the lake.

“But he’s dead.” I racked my brain for a moment, and then remembered her father’s death.

“Is that all you wanted, though? Did you really stay bound to this world for so many years just to kill an old man?” Alethea rested her hands on her belly and looked down. Hecate began walking forward, shrinking as she went.

“I…well, no, but—” Hecate rested a hand on Alethea’s shoulder and knelt next to her.

“Roger was not the only man who let you down, was he?”

“How do you know?”

“I know much, my child. I know about you, and I know about John Matteson; and I know how to bring you together, if you will let me help you.” I gasped and took a step backward. She removed her hand from Alethea’s shoulder and stood, then held her hand out as if inviting Alethea to take it. The girl began to reach out, then stopped and looked up at the woman.

​“What do you get out of helping me?”

​“Is there a price too high to finally bring your child into the world, and be free of all this pain and these men?” Alethea paused, then took her hand, and they vanished. I stood in the silence for a moment, taking shallow breaths as I tried to process what I’d just seen. Hecate had been behind this? She sent Alethea to Matteson? What was her game? I knew I needed to tell Matteson what I’d seen, but not yet. First, I needed more information. I decided that I couldn’t wait. I was going to try and see the future today, and get whatever I could out of that. I gathered my things and headed straight back to the shop.

I fell asleep quickly that night, but soon found myself standing in The Crossroads. I looked around, confused, since the Hound hadn’t come to summon me. I just seemed to be there.

“Hello?” I heard my voice, but I hadn’t said anything. I spun around and there, coming down one of the paths, was me. I recognized her. This was what I looked like, back in elementary school. Nearly twenty years ago, well before my first trip to The Crossroads. But she was alone, and confused. I lifted my hand to wave, and opened my mouth.

“Hello, child,” my voice said. Again, it wasn’t me. I looked to my left and there was a woman, old and frail, like Abuela in her last days. She looked so much like her, but I knew that wasn’t the case. One blue eye and one brown, flecked with gold, peered out of that wrinkled face. “Let’s take a look at you all.” All? I turned around again and there, coming up from another direction yet, was another me. Another future, she looked to be maybe twenty or so years older. She looked confident, powerful. I stepped forward finally as the three other woman came together. The maiden, the mother, and the crone. Assuming I became a mother, I guess, but these are the titles we take in such a form. But what did that make me, the me watching this? The crone ran her hands along each of our jaws, looking us over.

“What is this?” I asked. The crone smiled.

“This is where we make the choice,” the mother said. “This is when we settle the path ahead.”

“But wait,” the maiden said, pointing at me, “if I’m here, and we’re all me, why doesn’t she remember?”

“You don’t know how to do this yet,” I said, piecing things together. “You were pulled here, rather than walking into it through magic.”

“And so it feels like a dream, and will fade like one,” the crone said. “But your input is valuable anyway.”

“How can we be doing this? How can we be here?” I asked. “The Crossroads isn’t ours to do with as we please.”

“This isn’t the Crossroads. I don’t know what it is,” the mother answered.

“You will,” the crone said, smiling.

“But—”

“But if I tell her,” she said, pointing a bony finger at me, “then you will know, and the cycle will be changed.”

“I don’t think we should break the cycle, whatever it is,” the maiden said.

“Valuable indeed.”

“So what’s this cycle?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s complicated,” the mother answered. “You’ll be told it isn’t a cycle.”

“And they’ll be right,” the crone added.

“And…I suppose they’ll be right. But we’ve learned much about time, and about The Crossroads, and about things we can do.”

“And who we know,” the crone winked to the mother, who sighed and scratched her hair.

“I don’t know if you remember how recent that is for me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” the crone said, “it will all make sense. When you return.”

“Okay, okay. You said we were here to make a choice? What choice?”

“What we will trust.”

“Who we will trust,” the mother said.

“What path we will take?” the maiden asked. The other two nodded.

“So how do we do that?” I asked.

“We do not choose. We have chosen,” the mother said, pointing between herself and the crone.

“So…?” I pointed to the maiden. The mother and crone shook their heads.

“She is here to advise. You choose.”

“How can I advise?” the maiden asked. “I don’t even know what’s going on!”

“But you remember what we wanted when we started,” the crone said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “And that will be helpful here.”

“What I want? I want to understand! You all talk like you’re in on some secret!”

“I’ve been trying to understand,” I said, “all my life.”

“And that understanding has shaped more than you know,” the crone said.

“Oh!” the mother said, stepping backward and putting her hands over her mouth. “It’s…we told him, and then—”

“That’s quite enough!” The crone stomped her foot with authority as she said that, and the mother stopped.

“Sorry, sorry. I hadn’t realized yet.”

“I remember.”

“How does this help me decide who to trust, exactly?” I asked.

“Who are we not sure about trusting?” the maiden asked.

“Hecate,” both older women said in unison.

“Who?”

“Oh,” I said. “I…I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“You’re going the wrong way,” the mother said.

“The beginning hasn’t happened yet,” the crone said. I gasped and looked between them.

“I don’t have to be looking backward!” I cupped my hands over my mouth as soon as I said it, and thought about that. “I can be looking forward, can’t I?”

“And you will meet others,” the mother said.

“Are they nice?” the maiden asked.

“They are…something like nice, yes.” The mother looked at me, and I noticed for the first time that she also had the golden flecks in her brown eye.

“Is that another spell gone wrong?” I asked, pointing and hoping she remembered what I meant. She smiled.

“It’s more like a spell gone right.”

“Do you trust Hecate?” the maiden asked me. I took a moment to think.

“I don’t think I do, anymore.”

“But you are still in her debt,” the mother noted. “You will need to do the job she has for you, and you do not want her to think you hesitant.”

“What is it? What does she want from me?”

“You are a means to an end for her,” the crone said, waving her hand. “It isn’t about what she wants from you, it’s about what she wants in general.”

“And I give it to her?”

“No,” the mother answered, “but you must do the task she gives you. And then, when you know the truth, you know what to do about it.”

“So I’m right not to trust her.”

“But what about the others? Can we trust them?” the maiden asked.

“Who are they?”

“You will know very soon now,” the crone said. “Very soon indeed.”

“Heed their warnings. Do not forget that they have different goals than you,” the mother said, stepping closer to me. “What is good for them is not always good for you.”

“Are their goals good?” I asked.

“That is a matter of some interpretation,” the crone answered. “I may have an answer, soon.”

“You must decide whether to trust them or not,” the mother said. “We can only advise.”

“What do you advise?” I demanded.

“Caution,” the mother said.

“Diligence,” the crone said.

“Hope,” the maiden said. We all turned to look at her. “Well? You both made it through, right? There’s hope, then.” The crone smiled.

​“Perhaps the most valuable of all,” she said, mussing the maiden’s hair. I was about to ask them another question when I suddenly found myself sitting on the couch in Nan and Sergei’s apartment. I made my way into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. The clock read 1:11 as I drank, and I couldn’t help but feel like the timing was important. But I doubted I would get any more answers tonight, so I finished my drink and went back to bed.

I do not think Hecate is the first name she had. I do not think that was the first people to know the Guardian of the Edges. Is it possible there were multiple different entities who slowly became one? I don’t know. I tend to think it’s the other way around, that there is one spirit who holds this office, and each culture that comes to know it only knows some part of it. I think the people of her first known tribe learned of her from somewhere else. I think, before she was Hecate, she was Hathor.

No, I don’t think Hathor was her first name, either. We’ll get to that. But think about it. Hathor is primeval, like Hecate. She is of an old guard that are eclipsed and absorbed by some body of upstart gods. And what did she look after? We know her primarily for her role in fertility and femininity, but her first worshipers did not. Not that she didn’t have those traits, but that she had others. Hathor was also the goddess who guided souls on their way to the Underworld and helped them adjust to their new existence, in the same manner as Hecate did to those souls on their way to Hades. And she was the goddess of the outside, the patron of goods coming from lands beyond the borders of Egypt.

We think of the Guardian of the Edges as the darkness beyond the light of civilization, but that’s because we’re used to her as Hecate and Trivia and the Devil at the Crossroads. Even Trivia was not so dark, though; and perhaps the Egyptians had a more natural curiosity and love for the beyond than we do. Where other cultures viewed outsiders with suspicion, Egypt praised the goods they brought. Where Mediterranean peoples viewed death as a dreary place from which no one returns, the Egyptians embraced it as a waiting friend. They did not fear the world beyond themselves. They romanticized it, embraced it, lusted after it. I submit that it is not incidental that the goddess of undeath is the goddess of fertility, that the goddess of the outsider was a goddess to be lusted after. The Greeks feared her place in the cycle of death and rebirth, as the Egyptians praised it. The Greeks looked to the darkness beyond their cities with fear, while the Egyptians looked to it with desire. But perhaps it is not that they saw something different when they looked there. Perhaps they simply had different appetites.

Hathor comes to Egypt at the edges of all they know, carrying the gifts of lands abroad, stirring the hearts and loins of the Nile people, promising them a welcome transition to their next home. The Crossroads was not a thing named, but they knew where to meet her. They knew how to trade with her. They knew she would understand their desire, their longing, and would reward it. Is this not the same mistress of the Crossroads, the same three-headed goddess who stands at the fringes of life and death and day and night, the same goddess who guards travelers as they move from one land to another, the same stranger who meets the outcast under a moonless night and grants a wish in exchange for something of equal value?

​Hecate was Hathor. And before that? I think she may have been known even farther back.

At Nan’s urging, I took a break from attempting time magic and went into the city. I felt like I was fine, and could probably try again, but she was having none of that and basically kicked me out of the shop for the day. I wandered around the neighborhood a bit, without thinking much about where I was going, and ultimately found myself standing in front of the statue I had animated back when Hecate first took me on as an apprentice. I saw it move and jumped back with a yelp, but it was exactly as it already had been and people walking by looked at me strangely before slightly speeding up. I turned and took a step away, then watched myself take that step, and I stopped. Maybe Nan was right about how much recovery I had left. I took a few deep, centering breaths, then walked away without further incident.

I hopped on the L at the nearest station, figuring I’d just go to a different part of town and find something to do to kill some time. I watched the city through the window as the train clattered along, and my senses started to lag. Everything would start to slow down, almost to a crawl, and then snap back into place with a rush of information. It was disorienting, and when I realized it was getting more frequent I fought through the mental fog to reach the door. I stepped out at the next station and stumbled through the path to the street as time ebbed and snapped around me. I was holding my head, and now I was on the sidewalk, and now I was on a park bench. I tried to focus, and it was starting to help a little, but the jolts were too harsh to ignore and the mark on my forehead was beginning to sting again. I tried to focus, I tried to control my breathing, I did a little rhythmic chant I’d been taught growing up, and slowly things started to calm down.

“Jackie?” I looked up at Jacob, standing on the sidewalk in front of me, carrying a book.

“Oh! Hey, Jacob. How’re you?” He smiled and stepped closer.

“Better than you, it looks like. What are you doing? When did you get into town?”

“Oh, a couple days ago. I’m working on a project and needed help from Nan and Sergei.” He nodded.

“They seem good for that. Hey, have you had lunch yet?” I shook my head. “Well, come on, then. I was on my way for a burger.” I joined him and continued trying to push back the way my senses were struggling with time. He noticed something was wrong, but waited until we had our food and no one was around to lean in and ask what was really going on. I told him. When I opened my mouth, I thought I would brush it off, but it just came out. I told him about how my mentor was showing concerning signs about her intentions for me and apparently for Matteson, and how I was trying to learn how to see through time to find out what was going on, and how I was now struggling with backlash from pushing too hard the day before. He asked if that explained the mark on my forehead and my eye, and I told him the eye was something else. He seemed concerned, but didn’t press for more information on that.

​After we finished eating, he suggested I go back to the apartment and say hi to the couple people who hadn’t gone separate ways. He explained that Matt was still there, and I found myself kind of excited to see what he was up to these days. So I went to the apartment, and met the new people who were there and started catching up with the people I already knew. It was a nice afternoon, and my head was starting to feel better, but Matt took me aside after a little while to ask if everything was okay. I found myself explaining everything to him, as well, and he just nodded quietly as I did. Finally, he expressed his agreement with Nan that I should not be practicing magic today, but he did offer to help make sure I could do it again soon.

“You’re getting unmoored from the flow by poking at it too much,” he said, bringing me back to the living room. “We can try to help you reconnect more quickly.” He explained to the others that we were all going to try a ritual, and they all scattered around gathering supplies and figuring out seating. I was seated in the center of the room and the others were in a circle around me, and Matt gave instructions to everyone. He explained to me that if this worked, it would probably take a little time yet to fully set in, but it should help speed my recovery. I agreed to let them try, and as I sat in the center of them they began.

​It was a complicated rite, and since it was guided largely by Matt’s druid knowledge and style I only recognized parts of it. But those parts were things that petitioned for peace, or bound things together, or involved a sharing of burdens. I tried not to analyze it too much—it was better if I just focus on my participation than try to work out the details—so there was a lot of what was happening that I didn’t bother piecing together. By the time they were done, we were all hungry, so pizzas were ordered and we all laid around and watched a movie and joked around. It was nice, and I hadn’t realized how much I missed some of these people. We exchanged updated information and promised to keep in closer touch before I left, and Jacob escorted me across town back to the shop well after dark. He gave me a hug before leaving, and told me to be careful. I promised I would try.

After the successes the day before, I decided to try pushing further back. I wanted to see if I could go back further than my own memories. I decided to shoot for Robert Johnson’s missing year, and to that end, I had a record of his music playing softly in the meditation space. The record and record player belonged to Sergei, who I had no idea listened to the Blues, and he insisted that I be very careful with them. I slipped into my trance and began to push backward against the flow of time, checking on my progress as I went. Here was my first day of Kindergarten. There was my parents’ wedding. I was now beyond the scope of my own lifetime, but still limited to perspectives connected to me. I pushed harder, trying to move outside of that specific stream of events. I felt the pressure building around me as I found myself looking at what seemed to be a gas station in…well, those cars looked like the 50s? Maybe 60s? I never was great with that. But the air was humid and the sun was hot and the people were speaking English. Probably getting close to where I needed to be, but it was growing more and more difficult. I tried to focus on the music, which I could still hear just on the edges of my senses. I leaned into it, tried to find its origin. Against a mounting wall of opposition, I found myself looking at a man with a guitar, sitting in front of an old microphone, strumming and singing along to the music. But the vision was distorted, as if I was looking at it through a thick pane of imperfect glass. The timing was slightly off, the features were indistinct, the edges of the image were just vague sweeps of color. I pushed, and time pushed back, and suddenly I felt myself falling, rushing away from that moment, unable to stop or slow down or even fully recognize what was around me. I crashed back into the meditation space, falling out of my seat and screaming as the paste on my forehead burned at my skin. I remember a sense of someone entering the room in a rush, and then everything was black.

When I woke again I was on their couch with a cold cloth on my head and a blanket over the rest of me. My forehead still stung, but it was more of a dull ache, and I felt weak. I heard the sound of the mortar and pestle in the kitchen, and tried to call out but all I managed was a whimper. Still, it was apparently enough; the noise stopped and Nan poked her head into the doorway.

“Oh! You’re up! Good, good. I was worried.” I laid there catching my breath as she disappeared into the kitchen again and then emerged with a plate of food. “You’ll need to eat, you’ve already missed lunch.”

“What…how—”

“Oh stop it,” she said, pulling a kitchen chair in the living room closer to the couch and sitting on it. “You still need rest. Seems you pushed yourself a bit too hard.” She handed me the plate and I smiled a thanks before slowly working at it. “I feel a little responsible, it seems the mixture I whipped up for you could have been improved, so I’m working on that now. But all the same, you shouldn’t go poking around in time any more today, maybe even tomorrow. You need to get all your energy back up.”

“My head—”

“Yes, yes, the paste reacted poorly to reaching its limits. I think anything we concoct will do that to some degree. But I don’t think the mark will stay, we got it cleaned off you pretty quick, the burn isn’t deep. Not like that eye of yours. You never did tell me how that one happened.”

“Oh. I—”

​“Now don’t you worry about it right now. I’m sure it’s more of a story than you’re ready to tell. But please tell me you learned from it?” I nodded. “Then why’d you go and do a fool thing like this?” she pointed at my forehead. I sighed. “Well, anyway. You rest. I’ll poke at this mixture some more, but you just let me know if you need anything, okay?” I nodded and smiled, and she patted my hand before walking back into the kitchen.

“So I’ll drop you off at the airport, and Alice agreed to pick you up when you get back,” Rick said, still sitting in my bed with the end of the blanket bunched up on his lap. I, or at least the me I was now watching, had finished getting dressed already and was now making sure she had everything she needed in her suitcase. The me that was watching, on the other hand, walked around my former self and sat down on the bed next to Rick.

“Well, you’re not going to be much use to me from there, now are you?” Past me asked.

“You usually find some use for me in here,” he said, smiling. She threw a folded pair of socks at him and they both laughed as he tossed the blanket aside. It passed right through me and I watched as he crawled over and kissed her, then hopped down off the bed and started pulling on his clothes as she continued.

“You know I’m paranoid about those TSA stations. Please hurry up.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” She grabbed his hoodie while he was pulling his shirt over his head.

“And I’m taking this,” she said. “For good luck.”

“What makes you think it’s good luck?”

“You were wearing it the night we first hooked up, and you and I both know that’s the best luck you’ve ever had.”

We were in Rick’s car, the two of them in the front seat and me in the back. I was a bit dizzy, and the conversation sounded distant and nothing looked clear. I focused and pushed again against the pressure I could feel building, and slowly the pressure faded and everything came back into focus.

​“…m just saying that it’s a great album,” Rick said. We had been talking about the CD that was playing now, something by a band called Trail of Dead. I tuned out as I glanced toward the window and saw The Two on the side of the road, watching the car as it zipped past them. I looked through the back window, but they were gone. Had they been there when we were driving past before? The pressure started to build again, and I turned my attention away from the figures and back to the task at hand. Now I was standing in the airport, on an escalator, passing the skeleton of a T-Rex while past me surveyed it. I was slipping, I realized. I was having trouble holding my place in time, and the flow of it was pushing me along. I decided I’d proven enough, though, and let go of trying to fight the flow. Everything from the past couple days rushed by me in a blur, the flight and the drive with Nan and the first night at the shop. As I flew past it all, there was a moment where I thought I saw The Two again, watching me zip by as if I was in a car and they were in a single moment, watching me pass. I had let myself slip too far by that point, and before I could try to back up to see if they were really there, my eyes snapped open back in the meditation space.