Emma smiles at me, her eyes practically glowing with confidence.“Together, we can do anything. I know it. So for round three, we stick together, figure it out as we go, and kill her. She has to die—this whole mess ends with her death.”
Her words light something inside me. Hope. For the first time in forever, I feel like there’s a chance we can actually win. I run over and throw my arms around her, pulling her into a hug. I’m so caught up in the moment, I go to kiss her cheek, but I miss and kiss her lips instead.
“S-sorry,” I stammer, pulling back so fast I almost trip over my own feet. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay,” she says softly, her lashes fluttering.
“You’re brilliant!” I blurt out, the words tumbling over each other.And beautiful,my brain adds silently. “If this works, we can end the Tether. We can stop the curse for both our families. We won’t have to keep running.”
I know it’s not going to be easy, but for the first time in forever, I let myself believe. Emma’s hope is infectious, and for now, it feels good to let it take over. It feels good to think we might actually win.
“We’ll be free,” she says, hope lighting up the flecks of caramel in her brown eyes as she sways on the floor, dancing around the books she’s scattered.
My heart deflates like a balloon. She’ll be free. Free to leave me. We won’t have to work together anymore. What if the only reason she’s hanging out with me is because she needs help and protection? I might not see her again. “Yeah,” I say, trying to fake joy. “You’ll be free to go on adventures of your own.”
She must have heard the sadness behind my words, because she steps closer and says, “Or we can be free to be together. Eat those cheesesteaks you promised me. Go on adventures without Sabine and her evil birdies stalking us.”
I hate myself for the dopey love-struck grin I must be wearing. “That would be amazing! We could go to ancient Egypt, see the Sphinx being built. See everything!”
“It’s settled,” Emma says, beaming. “When the Tether is over, it’s us and the world! We’ll travel through time and see it all.”
“Good.” Then, I hesitate, knowing there’s still things I need to tell her ifwe’re truly going to trust one another on this journey. I take a deep breath. I try to muster the courage to tell her what I’ve been too afraid to, until now. Hoping she’ll still like me, still wanna travel with me when she knows. “Emma, I… Emma, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What? Malcolm, you can tell me anything.”
I stare at the drizzle of caramel in her wide hopeful eyes again, her happy smile… and my mouth snaps shut. I’m too scared of losing her or ruining the moment to burden her with my ugly truth, so instead I share another fact. “You’re the best thing in my life. I love you like I love music. You see me. Sometimes my family just sees me as a protector. A soldier. A rockhead,” I laugh, thinking of my twin. “And being Black at any time in America is hard. The world assumes I’m a player or a thug. People love to watch me perform, but they just like the music. They don’t know the boy behind the guitar.”They might not like me if they did.“But you do, Emma. I don’t want to lose that,” I say, my voice thick with emotion.If you knew the entire truth, you’d be out. You’d hate me.“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Ditto,” she says. “Malcolm, nothing can change us. I swear. I know it’s been fast, but I’ve grown closer to you than anyone, and no Tethers, no ravens, and no witches are strong enough to change that.”
A wave of joy washes over me as she looks into my eyes and adds, “I love you too.”
I want to hold her again, but before I can try, she pivots on her heel and says, “So let’s get back to work. We have a Tether to end and a witch to kill. I need to do some research.” Emma heads to the information center in the corner of the room. “Wait. There’s a keyboard, but where’s the screen?”
“Type on the keyboard,” I say.
Her slim brown fingers glide over the rune-etched keyboard. The air in the dim room vibrates with energy. A blue digital face appears in the air above the keyboard, its features made of moving ones and zeroes that form a thin nose, wide blinking eyes, and long wavy hair before shifting to a wider nose, fuller lips in metallic gold lipstick, smaller sloping eyes, and then shifting again, changing faces like a digital chameleon. Emma gasps, staring at the face in awe.
“How may I assist you?” the computer asks.
Emma stammers, “What happened to Emma Baldwin and Malcolm Davenport? Did they get married? Do they have children?” Her eyes sparkle, like she is joyful to see what this computer will reveal about our futures.
The computer’s face pixelates and blurs blue. Its slim lips pull down in a frown. “Emma Baldwin and Malcolm Davenport died on Grand Belle Island in 1860. They were teenagers at the time of their death. No records of marriages or children exist.”
Emma’s mouth hitches open, her eyes yanked wide from horror. The digital face morphs into a holographic image of two bodies, bloody and twisted, in the mud in a sugarcane field.
It’s us—Emma and me—looking the same age we are now. Our bodies are battered with bruises dark as dying leaves. Emma’s curls stick to her cheek, wet from rain and blood. There’s so much blood the rain couldn’t wash it all away. My heart turns to ice when I see a raven above the sugarcane fields, looking down on our corpses.
Emma shakes. “We… we die, Malcolm,” she whispers, her face a pale chalky brown. “Is that where the Tether is? Does the witch kill us? Or her game? Do we kill each—” She breaks off, unable to finish the thought.
I move closer to her, my heart pumping fear. My hands vibrate, but I struggle to still them. To be strong for her. I suck in a breath to calm myself so I can calm her. Every part of me aches at seeing her distress. “Emma, listen,” I say, cupping her face in my hands as she stares up at me with teary eyes. “That’s not us,” I say, trying to convince us both. “I’m here. You’re here. We are alive. So whatever this computer is reporting didn’t happen yet. It won’t. We can undo it. We won’t go to that island. Okay? We’ll run forever, if we gotta.”This is probably one of the many conflicting possible futures that Imani saw. But she said we have one chance at living. We just gotta find it. Somehow.
I tell Emma words that feel like comforting lies. “We’ll grow old together. One day we’ll get married and have a house full of cute and crazy magic babies. You’ll see.”
A tear runs out of the corner of her eye. She looks at me like she’s searching for some shred of hope. Begging me to soothe her fears. “But how?” she asks. “Malcolm, how do we fix this?”
Damned if I know.
“We’ll change it.”
