As I stared at the date printed at the bottom of the brightly colored poster, the world started to spin. November 10, 1985. It was the same date Mr. Sam had stamped on the front cover of Edgar’s book the night before in the library. So, if that was in the library book, and this was on the poster…

Did that mean that I had just woken up in the 1980s?

That was nuts. There was no way I could be in the ‘80s. Right? When Mr. Sam had asked me if I really wanted to know the ending, he didn’t mean it literally. Right?

The world tilted around me, and I turned and looked at the students passing, heading to class, all looking like they were extras on Stranger Things. A couple of people noticed me freaking out, so I took a deep breath and tried to look a little less obvious as I attempted to think it all through. There was something very strange happening here, and obviously being transported back in time seemed like the least likely explanation, but how else could I explain all the weirdness happening around me? The clothes, the hair, the music—my clothes missing from my closet, my laptop and phone having vanished, and the USSR making a surprise reappearance in my textbook?

There was a lot going on that didn’t make any sense at all unless I accepted a pretty impossible premise that I had, in fact, been transported back to a November day in 1985.

I leaned against the wall. It made me dizzy to even consider the idea.

I thought about Mr. Sam and everything I knew about him. That didn’t take long because I didn’t know anything about him. I had never met him before last night, and even if he was always in the Rare Book Room, I spent a lot of time in the library, and most of it on the third floor. How had I never seen him going to the bathroom or leaving for a break?

I rubbed my head as my thoughts spun. I hated to think the worst of him, though. He had been a little strange, maybe. Mysterious, but he hadn’t seemed sinister. And if I accepted that I had been…transported, I just couldn’t believe he would have dropped me somewhere dangerous.

But why was I reluctant to believe that? What was stopping me from thinking the worst of a person who had shoved me through some kind of time portal with a library book? What did I really know about him?

I shook my head with a frustrated sigh. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I trusted the guy. I had only just met him, but my instincts told me that he was someone I could trust, and I didn’t believe that he would endanger me.

But I needed some answers, and I needed them now.

A guy walked by wearing a pink polo shirt and a gray Members Only jacket. He looked like he was wearing a rich-boy costume, all the way down to his cuffed jeans and deck shoes.

I grabbed his arm. “Hey, what’s the date?”

He gave me an odd look. “Um, November 10^th.”

“What year?” I pressed.

“What year?” The guy looked a little alarmed and pulled his arm from my grasp. “It’s 1985. Are you okay?”

“So, Reagan is president?” I demanded.

“Uh, yeah. Don’t tell me you wanted Mondale,” he said disparagingly. He glanced around, like he was looking for an exit. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” I breathed, though this was not remotely true.

The guy looked terrified and sped away as fast as his boat shoes would carry him.

Holy shit. What the actual hell was happening? All I knew was that I had walked out of the library last night in the year 2023, I had woken up this morning in the year 1985, and I had no idea how it had happened. But I needed some answers. Fast.

I ran out of the dorm lobby and headed to the only place I could think of: the library.

The morning was bright and crisp. The leaves had turned and were falling from the trees, scattering across the lawns, but I barely noticed. I was practically sprinting across campus, desperate to figure out what was happening.

But as I passed the student union, I saw a guy sitting on the grass of the quad beneath a tree bright with red leaves. He was wearing a denim jacket and was holding an acoustic guitar, and even from a distance I could see that he was smoking hot.

He had dark hair that curled over his ears, and he was leaning over the guitar, He was strumming softly and singing the lyrics to a-ha’s “Take On Me,” and I slowed down to listen.

I really loved that song. It was maybe my favorite song of the whole decade. There was something so powerful and soulful about the lyrics that always drew me in, and I slowed to a stop in front of the dark-haired guy.

But as I listened to him, I had a strange sense of déjà vu.

I looked at the guy, wondering how I could possibly recognize him. I wasn’t the only person who had stopped to listen. He was surrounded by a circle of people—maybe twelve or fifteen, all young women—who sat listening with rapt attention.

Under normal circumstances, I might scoff at the cliché nature of the scene, but I didn’t feel like scoffing. I wasn’t much of a swooner, but I was listening pretty closely myself. The song had drawn me to a stop, but the guy’s voice kept me there. It was low and melodic, sexy and velvety. The sound of it was strangely intimate, like he was singing just for me.

And then, halfway through the song, he looked up from his guitar and caught my eye.

I felt electricity jolt through me when our gazes locked. I was shocked. I had never felt anything like that before. It was almost like…fireworks.

I needed to get to the library, but I didn’t move a muscle until the song ended.

As soon as he’d strummed the last chord, his fan club burst into applause. He smiled around, but his eyes found mine again. Without thinking, I took half a step toward him, but before I could get any closer, a blonde girl with glasses slightly too large for her face appeared at the guy’s side and threw her arms around him, hugging him tight.

“That was so beautiful!” she squealed.

I turned on my heel and walked away. That did it for me. The last thing I needed was to get a crush on a guy who already had a girlfriend.

What was I doing, anyway? All I needed to be doing right now was finding a way back to 2023, and the faster the better.

When I reached the library, I stared up at it in surprise. The new addition had been built in the early 1990s, so the library that stood in 1985 was the old library—the original stone structure. It was much smaller than the one I was used to, but because I favored the old wing, at least I knew where to go.

I headed inside and bounded up to the third floor, bee-lining right for the Rare Book Room.

Just like the night before, the place was empty.

“Mr. Sam!” I bellowed as soon as I’d walked in. “Mr. Sam! Are you here?”

There was a shuffle, and Mr. Sam walked out from an aisle of books. He looked to be exactly the same age as he had appeared the night before. The only difference was that last night, he’d worn straight-legged jeans and a cardigan, and his glasses had been dark-rimmed. This morning, he wore a sweater vest, and his frames were thinner, and gold-rimmed.

“Oh, hello, Apple. How are you?” he asked casually. The ordinary greeting threw me off. He spoke as though nothing was wrong, and he hadn’t just bent space and time with a rubber stamp.

“I am not good,” I snapped.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong! Where the hell did you send me?! What’s going on?!”

He looked confused. “I don’t understand. I asked you if you wanted to check out that book. You said yes, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said, waiting for the part about the wormhole into the past.

“And?” he asked.

“And? And what? I wanted to check out a book, so you sent me back through time? That’s not usually what people assume is going to happen when you borrow a book from the library! Why the hell would you do that?” I demanded.

He tipped his head. “You said you were sad because you never got to read the end of Edgar’s story.”
“Yeah, so? I’m still failing to see how that ends me up here,” I said harshly.

“This is how you do it,” he said again. He gestured around. “This is the only way you’ll find out the rest of the story.”