By the Everstill, I should have kept them in my hand. I should have kept them in my fist like a few of the others had done because now it was going to take me days and days to get them out. I was trying, giving it my everything to push my hand to move forward, to get to my pocket faster, but it wouldn’t. Time wouldn’t let it. We could only move with the flow of it, and in here, the flow was broken.
Not going to lie, I thought that was it.
In a flash, my whole life passed before my eyes. I saw myself and all the others remaining stuck right here on our knees, trying to move, to plant those seeds somehow, for the rest of eternity. The world around us would continue to move because time waits for no one, and we’d be here, slow,barely breathing, never blinking, never aging. Stuck for real. Stuck in time.
But as luck would have it, Russ, Anika, and Cook had all kept their seeds in their hands. So, while the rest of us were reaching for our pockets still, they managed to pry their fingers open and let the seeds fall on top of Reggie's and Silas’s.
It took alongtime.
The vibrations came the second Russ’s last seed fell over the others. Suddenly it was like the entire tree was shaking from the roots up, and when I lost balance and began to fall, I did soslowly.
Time’s Teeth, I’dneverfelt more powerless in my life, even when I was giving away my memories. I had never felt so completely out of control of my body, and my heart was about to burst right out of me with how fast it was beating.
Treesdid first, though.
Treesexplodedright out of the floor where the others threw their seeds.
I only had a second before I was flung back into fast-forward, but I saw the trees—or maybe just branches. About five or six of them, thick and smooth, burst right out of the floor and twisted around one another into a tight braid.
They shot up toward the sky lightning fast, and the energy with which they moved, the speed with which they moved became our own. We were all thrown back at the same time and slammed against the floor with so much strength it felt like every single bone on the left side of my body had shattered into splinters.
I passed out when I hit something hard with my temple, thinking I would never wake up again.
18
Idid.
What could only have been a minute later, my eyes opened, and the pain in my body was almost unbearable. Black dots in my vision, and it took me a few blinks to clear them out. It took me a few deep breaths to manage to sit up, push through the pain, and focus on my ears.
Holy Hour, that had been real. The branches were still there.
They’d sprung out from the floor and they’d twisted together, had grown so impossibly tall that I couldn’t even see how far up they went.
Most importantly, I seemed to be moving in rhythm with my heartbeat.
Time was no longer slowed down.
A new wave of energy came over me, and for a moment, I was able to forget all my pain. Others were just making it to their feet, too. Mimi was shaking Reggie, and Helen and Levana were slapping Silas to get him to wake up, and March was just three feet behind me, blinking his eyes slowly.
I fell to his side and grabbed him by the suit, pulled him to sit up as well as I could.
“You’re okay, you’re okay, we’re okay,” I chanted, touched his cheek to feel his warmth, pushed his hair away from his eyes.
His hand closed around my chin, and he spun my head to the side while he was still blinking fast, probably to clear his view.
“Blood,” he said and touched the edge of my temple. His fingertip was stained with blood.
“I’m okay.” I touched it with my fingertips and barely felt it. “It’s just a scratch. Can you stand?” I whispered, a little flushed, checkinghishead now for a sign of blood, but there was none.
March nodded, but he still swayed a little to the sides a bit when I pulled him up by the arm.
“Time’s Trousers, this shit is slippery!”
Russ was already by the branches that had sprung from the floor, touching the wood. Itlookedslippery, indeed. Like someone had just polished the wood, and they’d done an amazing job of it, too.
“How in the world are we going to climb up there?” said one or the other as we approached.
“Impossible.”
