Wood cracked and splintered from inside, and a faint voice drifted. Micah peeked through the door, met with a crowbar sitting in the middle of the room.
He shivered and stamped his feet. This was ridiculous. He was going to have to call Everett and ask for money.
Unless…
Clutching his elbows, he hurried down the stairs and stopped at Ximena’s office. He was about to knock when he remembered her concern for his mental well-being whenever he mentioned Cosmo or the strange things happening in the studio. She’d already been worried about him getting depressed and morbid as a lonely shut-in, but now he was going to seem downright delusional unless he could show her what was happening in person. And even though the phantom construction noises had been going on all morning, it would be just his luck for them to stop as soon as she entered the apartment.
Before he could leave, the door swung open, and Ximena exclaimed, “Oh! Micah! I was just coming to talk to you. I know your social life isn’t my business, but I–”
Her words dissolved into white noise as he scrambled to tell her why he was there. He gave up and said, “Will you come up to my studio right now? I need to show you something.”
“Is it an emergency?”
“Kind of.”
She shrugged on a sweater and followed him to the steps. “Did a pipe burst? Oh! I didn’t grab my phone. I’ll have to call maintenance.”
He lightly took her elbow and urged her on. “Remember my mirror shattering? And when I told you I found a shower curtain ring even though I don’t have a shower curtain?”
“Yes.”
“And Cosmo–”
“I didn’t give him a lot of thought over the past years, but Ididfeel bad for him, and it seems like a nasty trick to make people think you’re dead. He never even told me he was moving out. All that being said…” She paused as they stopped before Micah’s apartment. “What’s that noise?”
Wood clattered, and someone laughed. Well, here went nothing. Micah opened the door and said, “Maintenance is already here. They’re ripping out the wood flooring.”
Ximena frowned. “You don’t have wood flooring.”
“Not anymore.” He peered inside. The crowbar still sat on the carpet. “After Cosmo moved out, do you remember breaking a bunch of lightbulbs all over the hall?”
She stared, and her frown grew deeper. “No. What is this about?”
The hairs rose on the back of Micah’s neck, and it didn’t have anything to do with the cold. “I don’t know how else to say this, but the timeline from three years ago is intruding into this studio. The past is bleeding into the present.”
Breath whistled through Ximena’s nose. Her eyes were wide, and she looked like she might bolt down the stairs. “I don’t understand what that means.”
She took a step inside, her knuckles white as she clutched the doorframe. The high-pitched whine of a drill came from the hall and she gasped. Someone said, “Do you know how much it costs to rent a pony for a birthday party?”
Ximena backpedaled so quickly that she ran into Micah. She crossed herself and gripped his arm. “That’s Rick. But he’s dead! He died of a heart attack. I went to his viewing.” Her face grew ashen. “His granddaughter loved ponies. He showed me the pictures from that party.”
Well, at least she hadn’t screamed and run away this time. “You’re hearing past-Rick. Rick from three years ago, when he was pulling up flooring before I moved in.”
Ximena clutched her throat. “The music playing in your place at night…”
“It was Cosmo.”
“How is this happening?”
“I don’t know. I know there isn’t a clause for intruding timelines written into my lease, but I’d really love to move to a different unit before I end up coming face-to-face with myself.”
“You have to!” She reached over and slammed the door, as if that would stop the timewarp inside from spilling out onto the balcony. “Otherwise the man who beat you will show up again. Won’t he?”
Oh god. Micah clenched his teeth. How he wished he would. How he wished he could come up on his attacker straddling past-Micah on the carpet, rip the blood-coated replica sculpture of Cattelan’sComedianfrom his grip, and smash the man’s face in with it. This time, Micah would shatterhiseye socket. He’d scarhisface. Paralyzehisiris. And there’d be no going to the hospital forhim. He would bleed out on the floor while the neighbors called the cops. Micah would cradle his past self in his arms while they waited for the ambulance, and Micah would tell him that it was okay to not be okay.
That’s what he wanted to do anyway, but that’s what he’d wanted to do while it was happening. And he’d failed. He couldn’t risk freezing up and letting himself down again.
“Micah?”
