“The version of the watch that exists today, it’s destroyed. But we could go get the version from yesterday, and have it back, intact! In fact I think - I think we already did!”

“But I-” Aiden is clearly struggling as hard as I am to make sense of all this. “What about the flood, and the car, and-”

“Clearly we’re going to fuck something up somehow.” I flip off the display lights at the front of the store. We technically don’t close for another ten minutes, but I don’t want anyone to overhear this conversation. “I don’t exactly understand how it all goes down, but - think about it. We could get the watch, and this time, not destroy it. We wait until the right time to use it. Then, when we’re done and we don’t need it anymore, we just - give it back to ourselves. Earlier today. This morning. I bet one of us put it in Kent’s mailbox!”

“Wait, but if we give it back to ourselves - ultimately it’s destroyed, anyways?”

“Yes, but by then we’ll have William. What do you think he’d prefer, that his old watch gets destroyed, or that he’s stuck in incorporeal limbo forever?”

“True…”

“Aiden, if we could successfully time travel, we can keep the watch for however long it takes us to get William. It doesn’t matter how long we have to keep it, because we can just come back to today from whenever and give it back to ourselves. We could have it for months, if we needed to!”

I can almost see things adding up in Aiden’s head.

“Maybe you were the distraction,” he says slowly, “While I was stealing the watch. That’s why we saw you, but not me?”

“Yes! Maybe!”

“Why didn’t we just tell ourselves? If this is what happened, why didn’t we leave ourselves a note or something, explain and - save ourselves time, or-”

“Again, clearly we’re going to do a number of things wrong,” I answer. “But-”

“But, if this already happened… It means we will successfully get the watch back, which means we will successfully time travel.” Aiden speaks slowly, like he can’t quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. I flip the sign on the door to closed and turn to face him, beaming.

“And if we gave ourselves the watch back, this morning,” I continue, following his line of reasoning, “It means that we didn’t need it anymore. Which means - I think - that we will rescue William!” I let out an amazed laugh, and Aiden suppresses a smile.

“Hang on, now,” he warns. “Let’s not count our chickens before they hatch. Maybe we figured out that the watch couldn’t help us, or maybe we put it back because we gave up on the hunt.” He chews his lip, watching me hop from foot to foot. “Although... on the surface, it would seem like…”

“Like we’re going to do something fucking right!” I shout, and Aiden breaks, grinning openly.

“Normally this is where I would say that what we’re trying to do is ridiculously difficult and might not work,” he says, tapping a thoughtful finger to his chin. “But - I guess we know that it does work.”

“Yes!” I slap a hand on the countertop, smiling so wide that my cheeks hurt. It’s such a good feeling to jump from complete hopelessness to brilliant, thrilling possibility. To know, just once, that something we’re going to do is the right thing - it’s a lovely change-up. More than once on this hunt I’ve wished that there was someone to tell us whether we were on the right track. Now, somehow, we’ve managed to tell ourselves.

“I can barely believe this,” Aiden says, echoing my thoughts.

“Does this mean one of us is going to buy a Corvette in the future?”

“Um. Not unless you have a hidden stash of a lot of money that I don’t know about.”

“Aiden, you do realize that it’s okay to be excited about this? We just got our first indication that we might really do this thing and rescue William. Don’t you want to like - I don’t know, yell and scream?”

“You’re doing enough yelling for the both of us, I think.”

“No, bullshit! You have to be as excited as I am. I know you are. Just do it, just yell!”

“I don’t want to celebrate before we know for sure that-”

“Fine, don’t yell, don’t be excited, but I will! I know we would only give that watch back to ourselves if we'd used it to make William physical. So, watch this!” I break out into a very stupid dance next to a stack of topsoil bags. It’s a blend of six or seven moves together, my arms wiggling over my head, my feet hopping me down the aisle, my head thrown back. I hear Aiden start to laugh. “We fucking did it, cause we are amazing, and I am so proud, la la la-”

“Okay, enough!” Aiden grabs my arms, his eyes warm and smiling. “Go on singing that song and you’ll jinx it.”

“Are jinxes real?” I whisper, leaning in closer.

“We’ll find out soon enough now!” Aiden laughs, releasing me.

“Do like, one dance and I will chill out.”

Aiden does a little shimmy with his shoulders, instantly making me gag with delight.

“Holy shit! That was adorable.”

“Are we good now?” he asks, still laughing.

“Wait. Big break moment. Gotta-” I dig my phone from my pocket. “Document.” I frame Aiden against the dark rows of flowers. The heat lamps over the plants make little points of light around the shape of him. I watch through the camera as he makes a face. “Oh, come on, the photos have been helpful before, and don’t you want to remember all this?”

“Honestly, Jamie, I don’t think I could forget any of this. But -” He smiles, shakes his head in a resigned way. “Go on, take the picture.”

He’s a brushstroke of brightness in the dark shop. I take a few photos, then swing around and face my back to him so we can take a selfie. He surprises me by looping his arms around my neck, pressing his chin against the top of my head for the shot. That one's going to be cute, I can already tell.

“Satisfied?” he asks, when I put my phone away.

“Never.”

Now that we’ve shaken off the sense of hopelessness that was starting to pervade our hunt, we’re both excited to get planning. I pull two sodas out of the mini-fridge below the counter and crack them open for us.

“Did you say your mom tried to use some kind of tool? Ms. Callahan has it?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Aiden takes a sip, thinking. “It could be in the stuff my mom left for Aunt Sarah. I can go ask her, see if she remembers anything about it.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No.” Aiden hesitates. “I haven’t exactly… told Aunt Sarah that you know about my abilities.”

I find myself a little caught by surprise.

“Oh? You haven’t?”

“No.” Aiden fiddles with the label on his soda, clearly searching for the right words. “Thing is, telling someone - telling anyone - it’s an enormous decision. My mom had some very… strong opinions, about it.” He falls silent for a moment before continuing. “I don’t know my aunt’s thoughts about it, because we didn’t discuss it. I never planned to tell anyone, so it wasn’t going to matter.”

“Never?” Even having heard what his mother said to him, it seems unfathomable to me. “You were just going to carry that around with you your whole life, with no one else knowing what you’re - going through, or…?”

“Yep. And then you came along.” He lets out another one of those perfect, huffing laughs. “Life always has other plans. The point is, I’m nervous about telling Aunt Sarah that I’ve - shared that particular part of myself with you. There’s a chance it could upset her, if she and my mom were on the same page about it. So we have to be careful with how we approach it. I can’t just show up with you and go: Hey, Aunt Sarah, I started telling Jamie about what I can do, even though I know full well that it’s not allowed. Please just trust me and know that I only make smart decisions. Oh, and by the way, do you still have that time travel thing mom left you? Because Jamie and I need to go back in time to steal a golden artifact that we accidentally exploded like a ball of tinfoil in a microwave.”

“Well - when you put it like that.”

“Look, I’ll go ask her about it tonight, but I should probably do it on my own. At least this time.” He glances at the door. “I should go soon, before she goes to bed.”

“Wait, I want to show you something.” 

I leave him at the counter and slip into the back room. The little shoot that Aiden grew out of the malachite is on the windowsill, where I left it. I retrieve the pot and bring it carefully out to the counter. Aiden watches with interest as I set it down. The plant has sprouted smooth, sea-green leaves, unlike any I’ve seen before. The leaves are marked with irregular, curved veins of lighter and darker shades, more like the inside of a gemstone than the coloration of a plant. The stem is growing thicker, and the entire thing is standing a little taller, now about four delicate inches high.

“Is that-?”

“Yes. Watch this.” I trail my fingers over the leaves, knocking them against one another. Aiden blinks in surprise at the tinny, musical sound that escapes. “The leaves are soft, but they make a sound like they’re made out of glass or something.”

“You got it to grow?” Aiden asks, his eyebrows arched. “I’ve made things like this before, but they never grow.”

“I looked up the stone. Malachite forms above copper deposits, so I went to the hardware store and got a little round copper - thingie. I put it in the bottom of the pot, and the plant seems to like it. So far as I can tell, though, it doesn’t care about sunlight. I tried leaving it on the windowsill and tried keeping it in the dark, pretty much the same rate of growth. Very unusual. There are only like, twenty plants that can grow without sunlight, and even those need indirect exposure, or a lamp or something. It’s where they get their energy.” I nudge the plant towards Aiden, who reaches for it. We both pause as the leaves turn to face him like a sunflower tilting towards the sun. “Unless… this plant gets its energy from something else.”

Aiden backs up from the counter and takes a few steps to his right. The leaves shift and follow the movement like an interested cat.

“Holy shit,” he says, his eyes wide, and I couldn't agree more.

“Okay, I think this needs to go home with you if it’s going to keep growing. Don’t worry, I’ll help you take care of it.”

He smiles brightly, chewing his lip like he’s thinking of saying something. But he only shakes his head and gathers the plant up into his hands.

“Alright. I’ll drop the magic plant off at home before I ask my aunt how to time travel.”

“Cool.”

“Yep.”

We stare at each other for a moment, then burst into dazed laughter.

“You have made my life so much stranger than it’s ever been before.” But I’m not upset about it, and Aiden can tell.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. On an unrelated note, can I walk you home? I hear there are two idiots in a Corvette robbing people right out on the street.”

I switch off the rest of the store lights with a smile.

~~~~

One day later, I sprint through the downpour, gasping. The trees around the Ghost Office creak and groan in the onslaught, their leaves shivering. Wind tears at the hood of my rain jacket and throws my hair into my eyes. It’s a short dash from the driveway to the door, and yet I’m almost completely drenched by the time I get there. I shove it up just high enough to dart underneath, then let it clatter back down. Darkness engulfs me as I wipe my hands on my pants and fumble for my vibrating phone.

I get it free just in time to answer.

“Jamie! You said you were going to call.”

“Dad, sorry, it’s been-”

“It’s good to hear your voice, kiddo. Cassandra told me the shed caught on fire! Something electrical?”

“Yeah, sort of. It’s okay, though. I’m actually here right now.”

“Don’t try to plug anything in. I’ve got a new handyman, I’m going to send him over soon, get some estimates on repairs. What are you doing there? That storm changed course, it’s going to hit Ketterbridge hard. We’re already seeing a drizzle over here.”

“Are you?” I glance through one of the broken windows just in time to see a flash of lightning race through the pounding rain.

“Get home while you still can, okay?”

“I will, but let me know before you send the handyman, I’ll meet him myself.”

“Fine. It won’t be tonight. It’s already dark out, and I doubt he’ll want to venture out into a storm.”

“No worries. I’m busy tonight, anyways.”

“Is everything alright, Jamie? You’ve been so busy.”

“I’m just helping Aiden with a project. But everything is pretty much normal over here-” I break off as a sound from one of the broken windows grabs my attention. “Um - I’ve gotta go.”

“Okay, but you are coming to dinner this weekend. No excuses.”

“Definitely, love you, bye!”

I hang up just as a head and broad set of shoulders appear in the window. Aiden vaults through the gap and lands on his feet, out of breath and drenched.

“Jesus, it’s coming down out there.” He shakes out his hands, sending a shower of droplets onto the concrete floor. “Sorry, did I scare you? The window was closer than the door, and Aunt Sarah dropped me off all the way at the end of the drive.”

“You’re fine.” I reach up and slick his wet hair out of his eyes. Watch a droplet run down his nose and catch on his lip. “So? Did you get it?”

He grins, pulls his backpack off, and drops it onto the workbench.

“Check the front pouch,” he says, working his way out of his soaked hoodie.

I reach into the bag and dig up a handful of things. Aiden is busy searching for a good place to hang up his hoodie, so I look over the items, laying them out on the workbench. There’s a passport with plane tickets poking out. Something small and oblong, wrapped in tissue paper. A packet of mints, a few stray pens. I scoop up the passport, curiosity gnawing at me. The tickets fall out onto the workbench. 

There are more than I thought - not just ones for air travel, but train and bus tickets, too. I find myself surprised at the locations listed: Madrid, Chiang Mai, Jeju City, Montreal, Tamuning, Auckland - and more. Some are old and yellowed, torn almost in half or stained beyond legibility. I run my eyes over the dates: all of them are contained to the eight-year span that Aiden was gone from Ketterbridge.

I hear him approaching and turn, the tickets in my hands.

“Are these all yours?”

“Oh.” He pulls them out of my hands. “Yeah, I guess I’ve haven’t done a proper clean out of my bag yet.” He tosses the tickets directly into the trashcan, where they tip over an old macchiato cup. I watch as sour milk and caramel spills onto them, eating up the fragile paper. Aiden doesn’t seem to give it a second thought. He’s already busy tucking his passport away.

“Wh- you don’t want to keep any of them?”

He glances up at me, surprised.

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Memories?”

Aiden almost looks like he’s about to laugh, but he doesn’t. Deep sadness flashes in his eyes, darkening their bright blue shade, and then he’s back to normal - or some approximation of it.

“No,” he says briskly. “Anyways, that’s not what we’re here for.” He picks up the tissue-paper package and begins carefully unwrapping it. Two small, dark brown pieces of wood fall out into his palm. “We’re here to do a different kind of traveling.”