-Mates with Niall from school days
-Lyrics in notebook
I tapped the pen on the paper and then tried to remember the lyric that he’d written in his notebook, the inspiration he’d had while we’d been talking. It was his line, after all. It didn’t seem right for him to lose it just because we weren’t going to be having that exact conversation any longer. I closed my eyes, trying to recall it, then scribbled what I was pretty sure was right:Sometimes home is your favorite sweatshirtyou’veoutgrown. I looked down at the list for a moment longer, trying to memorize as much as possible so that I wouldn’t freeze up and lose my train of thought. Then I folded the paper up again, dropped it in my bag, and hurried off to find Freddie.
It didn’t take long—he was, as before, standing in the middle of the crowd and staring into space, like he was trying to process the news he’d just gotten. I let myself look at him for just a moment before I hurried over to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hi,” I said, when he turned around.
“Hi,” he said, giving me a polite, if slightly confused smile.
I held out my hand. “I’m Cass Issac.”
“Freddie Sharma,” he said, shaking it, even though he still looked a little baffled.
“Can I talk to you a second, Freddie?”
“Uh,” Freddie said. He ran his hand through his hair, causing that one lock of curly hair to fall forward on his forehead like a Mr. Darcy dream. “I suppose so, sure. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Kind of.” I tipped my head to the side of the path, and we got out of the way of the seniors running around and yelling, off to the rides or the DJ or the games. “But there’s also something I need to help you with.”
“Me?”
“Yes.” I took a deep breath, knowing there was no way to do this but to begin, and just hope it would work this time.“Excalibur.”
He raised an eyebrow. “What’s that now?”
“Excalibur.You and your brother, Jack, used to play the video game. But more than that, you used to talk about the possibility that there was a magical world just alongside ours. And you had that as a code in case one of you found it. The other one would come back and say it, and you would know.”
Freddie just stared at me. “You—What are you saying, that…”
“We’ve met before. We’ve had a whole night where we talked about everything. I know about theExcaliburposter above your bed, and Geraldine Bewley and the school project. About the Sweet Emporium and their rocky road ice cream. About the lyrics you write in your Moleskine notebook. About your weird vegetable allergy—”
“It’s not weird—”
“And about how you told me to tell youExcalibur—that you would believe me when I told you. That you might even…remember.” I swallowed hard and looked up at him.
Freddie’s eyes were wide, but he didn’t seem worried that I was an unhinged stalker, like he had before. It was more like his thoughts were churning so fast he could barely keep up.
“So, it’s real?” Freddie finally asked as he looked down at me, his voice just above a whisper. “Magic—it exists?”
“It certainly seems to,” I said, feeling relief course through me. Freddie wasn’t walking away, or calling security, or looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Cass,” he said, smiling at me, and it was like he was practically vibrating with excitement. “Tell meeverything.”
Iknew we would both be getting hungry soon. But? going back to the Hollywood Lounge would mean running into Bruce. So I steered us over toward Grizzly Peak, where I hadn’t yet spent a ton of time—and I just hoped I’d be able to avoid running into Reagan or Zach, or Greta and Nora. I glanced at my phone, seeing the same texts I always got from Bryony—telling me that they were waiting on line for the Incredicoaster.
As we walked toward Smokejumpers Grill, I explained as much as I knew to Freddie—occasionally repeating his own theories back to him, which seemed to delight him to no end. He was rolling with the stuck-in-a-time-loop thing a lot better than I had, that’s for sure.
“And you said it restarts at the door?” He shook his head. “Brilliant. It’s just likePettigrew’s—”
“Loop,”I finished. “I know.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“No, but you told me all about it.”
“This is mental,” he said, sounding awed. “It’s the kind of thing I always used to dream about, and now it’s happening! And I mean, it’s happening to you. But I’m here as well, aren’t I?”
