Chapter Text
Alice woke up with a peculiar feeling that morning. She had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary would happen that day. Still, the feeling persisted.
The house was still dark, still breathing in that old wooden way it did before morning claimed it, and for one brief, soft second she could almost pretend she had woken for a reason. A sound. A bad dream.
But there was nothing.
Only the ceiling above her, the thin blue wash of dawn behind the curtains, and the heavy, familiar ache beneath her ribs.
Alice lay still with one hand resting flat against her stomach and listened for the pond.
She knew that was ridiculous. She knew the pond was too far from her bedroom to make any sound she could hear, especially through closed windows and old walls and the thick summer hush of the farm. It sat beyond the barn and the trees, ordinary in daylight, black and watchful at night, waiting in the same place it had always waited. It did not call to her.
Still, some mornings, Alice woke with the certainty that if she held herself still enough, if she breathed shallowly enough, if she let the whole house stay asleep around her, she might feel it again.
The pull.
That strange inward tug beneath her breastbone. The shimmer of wrongness that used to make the world seem thin around the edges. The proof that time could bend, that the life she had been handed was not the only one available, that somewhere behind water and grief and impossible rules, there had once been a door.
Nothing came.
It never did anymore.
Eventually the farm began to wake without her permission. A pipe clanked in the wall. A bird screamed from somewhere near the barn. Downstairs, Del moved through the kitchen with the purposeful clatter of a woman who believed quiet mornings were a sign of moral decline. And down the road, Anna and Eli would already be awake, preparing to terrorize their exhausted parents for another day.
The twins had arrived a year ago and immediately rearranged the whole family around them. Kat had wanted to name them Susannah and Elijah, after the people she had loved and lost in the eighteen hundreds, but Elliott had refused with a firmness Alice still found impressive.
“Naming them after anyone from the past is too risky in a family of time travelers,” he had said.
Alice thought he had a point.
She closed her eyes.
There were days when the life around her almost worked.
That was the cruel part. The twins had fit into her life in a way she had not expected. Anna with her carefree smile, Eli with his grabby hands and suspicious little face. There were mornings when Alice could hold one of them against her chest and feel lighter, like some part of her had been unclenched without her permission. There were afternoons when Kat laughed in the kitchen, exhausted and bright eyed, and Elliott looked at her like the whole house had been built around that sound. There were nights when Alice sat on the porch with a guitar across her lap, chasing a melody through the damp air while Del hummed along under her breath and pretended she was not listening.
She had reasons to be happy.
She knew that.
The knowing made it worse.
Because in the quiet, in the small spaces between crying babies and coffee cups and dishes in the sink and Cora’s manic voice notes and half finished songs, there was always Nick.
Not always the same version of him. That would have been easier. Sometimes he was the boy from 1999, grinning at her in the cove with his hair wet and his whole face open, like nobody had taught him yet that happiness could become dangerous if you let yourself have too much of it. Sometimes he was older, careful, standing too far away in the present with blue eyes that remembered more than his mouth was willing to admit. Sometimes Alice could not separate them at all. The boy she had lost and the man she was supposed to leave alone blurred together until wanting felt like grief and grief felt like hunger and every version of him belonged to a time that would not quite let her in.
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Alice opened one eye.
Then it buzzed again.
And again.
She reached for it with a groan.
Cora: I am outside
Cora: actually I am in the kitchen
Alice stared at the screen.
Then she sat up so quickly her blanket fell to the floor.
Cora.
Alice tried to hurry before Cora had a chance to traumatize Del.
By the time she made it downstairs, barefoot and half awake, Del and Cora were already sitting at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee between them, looking far too chipper for the hour. Cora had one knee tucked beneath her, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, her suitcase abandoned near the back door. Del sat across from her in her robe, listening with the calm, fixed expression of a woman who had accepted that the day was going to be strange.
“She’s been radio silent for three days,” Cora was saying. “Then I had this crazy, intense dream last night where Alice was abducted by aliens. Not the grey guys with the huge eyes. These things were like giant iridescent lizards. So pretty. Stunning, honestly. And they took Alice because…”
“Dare I ask?” Alice stepped into the room, interrupting Cora’s tale before it could become a felony. Del looked legitimately bewildered and deeply thankful for the rescue.
Cora looked up and smiled brightly.
“Hi,” she said. “So you weren’t taken by giant lizard people. Rad.”
“Not yet. It’s early.”
Cora pointed at her with her coffee mug. “Then why have you ignored me for three days?”
Alice stared at her. “I’ve been busy.”
Cora looked at Del for confirmation.
“She’s been wearing the thread down in her sheets,” Del said.
Alice gave Del a look that called her a traitor.
Cora was no stranger to the Landry house. She had spent pieces of the last two summers there since she and Alice had become best friends at college, drifting in and out with expensive luggage, impossible stories, and the kind of confidence that made people either adore her or need a nap after ten minutes. She was an acquired taste to most people, but Alice had acquired her quickly. Something about Cora reminded her of the feeling Evelyn used to leave behind. Not in any obvious way, and not enough for Alice to explain without sounding ridiculous. It was the quickness. The magic. The sense that a room had changed shape the second she entered it. The feeling that she had stepped into Alice’s life like a missing puzzle piece.
Since losing the pond, being with Cora was the only thing left to remind her that magic exists.
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here,” Cora said, lifting her mug with both hands. “My summer plans fell through, so I decided to come earlier than expected. Surprise. And Del has very generously agreed to let me stay while she’s on her girls’ trip.”
Alice looked at Del. “Girls’ trip?”
Del took a calm sip of coffee.
Cora smiled brightly. “See? Surprises for everyone.”
“On the condition that both you girls help around the farm and with the twins,” Del added.
Cora placed a hand over her heart. “Doing farm work is literally my dream.”
Alice narrowed her eyes. “The last time we went hiking, you called an Uber to take you back to your car.”
“I wore the wrong shoes! Besides, I have evolved.”
“You wore a silk evening gown to a bonfire.”
“And maybe I’ll milk the cow in Chanel. You don’t have to sacrifice style for an honest day’s work.”
Del hid a smile behind her coffee.
Alice laughed despite herself. “We do not have cows.”
Cora looked wounded. “Then what exactly is the point of this farm?”
“Mostly emotional damage and vegetables.”
“Excellent. I packed for both.” Cora sprang from the chair and launched herself at Alice, peppering her face with tiny kisses before abruptly going still.
She took off her sunglasses and looked Alice up and down. Her face softened in a way that made Alice immediately suspicious.
“Oh,” Cora said.
She grabbed Alice by the arm and pulled her into a hug. Alice thought Cora might actually leave bruises from the intensity of her grip.
“Cora, don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said oh.”
“That was barely a syllable.”
“That was a diagnosis.”
Cora’s eyes moved over Alice’s face, the oversized shirt, the bare feet, the hair Alice had not bothered to brush.
Alice crossed her arms and tried to look stern, which was difficult because she was still in sleep shorts and Cora had somehow already charmed Del into feeding her. “You were supposed to be in Europe.”
Cora’s face changed for half a second.
Alice caught it.
Then Cora spun on her heel and started pointing at Alice in a dramatic little dance. “I missed you, girl. Just couldn’t stay away.” She sang it like a bad pop song.
“Cora.”
“What actually happened?”
Cora kept dancing, now catching Alice by the hands and forcing her into it.
“Nothing happened, Alice. Nothing except a musical revelation from the universe herself.”
Alice studied her while Cora moved her arms like she was a deeply unwilling backup dancer.
Cora held her gaze with exaggerated bravery, but there was something underneath it. Something tired. Something almost pleading.
Alice wanted to press. She wanted to ask why Cora never talked about her family, why she looked exhausted beneath her sunny exterior, and why she was suspiciously evasive anytime Alice asked her anything too personal.
Instead, Alice said “Okay, I’m waiting to hear more about this revelation.”
“It’s more of a show, not tell situation. This kind of genius cannot be explained with words.” Cora took a victorious bite of her toast.
Alice rolled her eyes and smiled as she took a sip of her coffee. For the first time in weeks, the morning did not feel quite so empty.
Cora was exhausting, and quite frankly insane, but she filled rooms. She made silence impossible. She could look at Alice for half a second and know exactly which nerve to step on, which was irritating, but useful. There were days when Alice needed someone who would not use the careful voice, someone who would say the worst possible thing loudly enough to make it funny.
By the time Alice carried Cora’s third bag inside, Del had fed her two pieces of toast, half a peach, and enough coffee to power a small country. Cora sat at the kitchen table with one knee tucked beneath her, gesturing with a butter knife as she told a story about a man in first class who had removed his shoes before takeoff and should have been arrested by air marshals for crimes against humanity.
Alice leaned against the counter and listened, almost smiling despite herself.
That was when Del said, “Your mother called earlier.”
Alice looked up.
The shift inside her was immediate and small, the way a deer might lift its head before anyone else heard the branch break.
Del kept buttering toast. Too casually.
Cora noticed. Alice could feel her noticing.
“What did she want?” Alice asked.
“Wanted to know if you’d come by this morning. She said the twins miss you.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Del slid a plate toward her. “Eat.”
Alice narrowed her eyes. “Is Mom being weird?”
Del did not answer fast enough.
Alice’s stomach tightened.
There were different kinds of weird in the Landry house. There was exhausted new parent weird, pond weird, Elliott trying to hide a present weird, Kat pretending she was fine weird. Alice had lived through all of them.
Then there was Nick weird.
A specific, suffocating brand of careful that made everyone in her family behave like they were trying to move furniture around a sleeping bear.
Del turned toward the sink.
Alice pushed away from the counter.
“Oh.”
Cora looked delighted. “What? What is happening?”
“Nothing,” Del said.
Alice pointed at her. “That confirms it.”
“Confirms what?” Cora asked.
Alice grabbed her by the arm and pulled her towards the door. “Come on.”
Cora brightened. “Am I being included in family drama already? I knew coming here was inspired.”
“You wanted to see the twins.”
“I do love tiny people with no financial responsibility.”
Del called after them as Alice opened the door. “You two be nice to your mother.”
Alice glanced back. “Why did that sound ominous?”
Del smiled into her coffee.
Cora whispered, “I adore her.”
“Everyone does,” Alice said. “It’s how she gets away with everything.”
The walk across the farm to Kat and Elliott’s part of the property took less than five minutes, but Alice felt the whole way stretch under her feet. The morning had grown warmer, the early cool burning off into the thick, humid promise of a June day. Cora walked beside her, dragging a large suitcase that she claimed was full of baby clothes from a tiny boutique in the south of France and hand sewn silk stuffed elephants for the twins.
Alice had not opened it yet, which felt wise. Cora’s taste lived somewhere between heiress on the run and rock star fleeing the country, and Alice was genuinely terrified to see what she considered appropriate clothing for two one year olds. Tiny linen sets, probably. Impractical hats. Sunglasses nobody asked for. Maybe little vegan leather jackets with gold buttons.
She glanced at the suitcase.
“Please tell me you did not buy the babies anything with chains.”
Cora looked offended.
“Only spikes, Alice. Babies deserve styling too.”
“They are one.”
“Exactly. They have no bad opinions yet. This is the window.”
She kept glancing around.
Not openly. Cora did very few things openly unless she was making a performance out of it. But Alice saw the way her gaze caught on the barn, the tree line, the old farmhouse, the path leading toward the pond. Saw how her fingers tightened around the suitcase handle for half a second before she smiled again.
“Hey, seriously, are you okay?” Alice stepped in front of her to block the path.
Cora looked at her too quickly. “Just enjoying the natural beauty.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Alice let it go because she had bigger problems, and because Cora’s bad answers had become part of their friendship’s architecture. Press too hard and she turned into smoke. Let her be strange and she stayed.
Kat’s kitchen was already alive when they arrived.
Anna was in her high chair, wearing one sock and screaming something that almost sounded like a song. Eli was on Elliott’s hip, trying to grab his father’s nose with both fists. Kat stood at the counter wiping down a surface that was visibly clean. Her hair was piled into a loose knot, and she had the bright, strained smile of a woman who had decided cheerfulness could be used as a defensive weapon.
Alice stopped in the doorway.
Cora bumped into her back.
“Ow. Warn a person.”
Alice did not move.
Kat looked up. “Hi, honey.”
Elliott looked up too. “Hey.”
Too casual.
Way too casual.
Kat’s eyes moved from Alice to Cora, then back again. “And Cora’s here. Perfect.”
She tried to sound cheerful.
She sounded terrified.
Alice pointed at them. “There it is.”
Kat blinked. “There what is?”
“The face.”
Elliott’s mouth twitched. “This is my normal face. Hi, Cora.”
Cora gave him a tiny wave.
“No,” Alice said. “That is your something is happening and everyone hopes Alice does not make a scene face.”
Cora stepped around Alice and looked between Kat and Elliott with visible fascination. “Oh, this is already getting good. And just so everyone has been properly warned, Alice will absolutely be making a scene if I have anything to do with it.”
“Please do not encourage her,” Kat said, exhausted and looking genuinely afraid.
“Well, someone has to,” Cora said solemnly. “My plan is simply to create conditions in which her most authentic self can flourish.”
Anna slapped both palms against the high chair tray, as if in agreement.
Eli saw Cora.
Everything changed.
The baby went perfectly still, eyes widening as if Cora had personally arrived from whatever kingdom babies believed in. Then he lunged so violently out of Elliott’s arms that Elliott had to tighten his grip around his middle.
“Whoa,” Elliott said, laughing despite himself. “Buddy.”
Eli reached both hands toward Cora and made a sound of such intense demand that Alice actually laughed.
Cora laughed too, a laugh more genuine than normal. She had been this way with the twins since they were born, sweeping in every few months with absurd gifts and enough confidence to convince two infants she was worth worshipping. Anna usually clung to Kat. Eli adored Del. But Cora had somehow become a visiting holiday.
“Well,” Cora said, holding out her arms. “A man with taste.”
Elliott hesitated only a second before handing Eli over. The baby grabbed Cora’s shirt immediately, pressed one sticky hand to her collarbone, and settled against her with a deep, satisfied sigh.
Cora looked down at him and kissed the top of his head, then began bouncing him. “Hey, best friend. How’s life been treating you? Have they let you try ice cream yet?”
Alice watched her friend’s face with a strange little tug of curiosity. Cora was dramatic with babies the way she was dramatic with everything, but this was different. She held Eli with surprising ease, shifting his weight automatically, tucking one hand behind his back, angling him away from the edge of the counter without even looking.
Anna noticed Cora from her high chair and raised her arms, demanding to be picked up too.
Cora looked at her. “And you too! You guys may have gotten too big for a double hold.” Cora shifted Eli to one hip and motioned for Alice to put Anna on the other. “Nope, I’ve still got it.” She grinned brightly.
Kat laughed, though her eyes had not quite left Cora.
Alice noticed.
Cora noticed Alice noticing and immediately lifted the babies higher. “Babies love me. It’s one of my best qualities.”
“They love anyone with hair they can pull,” Elliott said, sounding as frazzled as most new parents eventually did. His eyes went everywhere but Alice. She could feel the dread radiating off him. Elliott had never been subtle when he was trying to be subtle, and deep down, Alice already knew what he was about to say.
Eli grabbed a fistful of Cora’s scarf.
Cora winced. “This relationship is already toxic.”
Alice should have relaxed.
She did not.
Kat wiped the same clean spot on the counter again.
Elliott shifted his weight and looked toward the window.
Alice turned slowly back to them.
“Okay,” she said. “Enough. Who died?”
“No one died,” Kat said quickly.
“Well?”
Elliott sighed.
Kat shot him a look.
Alice’s stomach tightened before he even spoke.
“Nick is coming by today,” Elliott said.
The room changed.
Maybe it was only Alice who changed inside it. Maybe everyone else kept breathing normally, kept holding babies and coffee mugs and dish towels, kept standing in the same squares of morning light. But to Alice, the air seemed to fold in on itself.
Nick.
One name and her body became a traitor.
Her heartbeat kicked hard enough to hurt. Her stomach dropped. Every inch of her skin went alert with a humiliating immediacy she would have given anything to hide.
She hid it badly.
“Oh,” she said.
Cora’s eyes slid to her.
Kat set the dish towel down slowly. “He has some work to do at the house, and he is bringing a swingset for the twins.”
Anna screamed as if in support of outdoor recreation.
Eli laughed into Cora’s shoulder.
Kat’s expression softened, and Alice hated that softness because it meant her mother could see too much.
“He got into town last night,” Kat said carefully. “He wanted to come by before things get busy.”
Before Claire.
Before the wedding.
Before starting his life with someone else.
Cora shifted Eli on her hip, laser focused on the drama unfolding around her.
“When will Claire be arriving?” Cora said her name with open disgust. Then she made a gagging sound.
Cora treated Alice’s heartbreak like a personal insult, which was one of her more exhausting love languages.
Kat glared at Cora, as if she could seal her mouth shut with laser beams from her eyes.
“The third. She’s coming to the carnival.”
There it was.
The second bullet.
Alice nodded because apparently her head still worked even though everything inside it had gone white around the edges.
“Great.” She couldn’t even pretend to be anything but defeated.
Elliott looked pained.
Kat looked worse.
Cora looked at Alice in a way that almost made Alice turn on her. Not pity. Cora did not do pity. This was sharper. Angrier. Like she had known the wound was there but resented seeing someone press on it anyway.
Alice forced a smile.
“Swing sets,” she said. “Fiancées. A full day.”
Kat opened her mouth.
Alice turned away before anything gentle could come out.
“Cora and I need to go work on our music for the carnival.”
She moved too quickly, because if she slowed down, if she gave anyone in that kitchen time to look at her with pity, she was going to come apart in front of all of them.
Her hip clipped the little table in the hallway.
A framed photo tipped, slid, and hit the floor with a sharp crack.
Alice froze.
For one second, no one moved.
Then she bent to pick it up.
The glass had not broken. Of course it had not. The universe was not kind enough to give her something easy to blame.
Behind the glass, Nick stared back at her.
Younger. Sun browned. Laughing.
Elliott stood beside him with one arm slung around his shoulders, Kat pressed against his other side, all three of them caught mid summer and grinning like the world had not yet learned how to take things from them.
Alice’s throat tightened.
Even the hallway had him.
Even the past had him.