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  I point to my pass as I walk by. The guy at the gate stares somewhere above and to the right of me the whole time.

  I don’t wait for Ned to notice, just bolt toward my medical tent, leaving him to ponder the Who’s set list on his own. I think he yells out, “Hey, could you ask Anna . . .” But I ignore him. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t hear a thing, so focused am I on making a beeline for the tent, where, surely, I am sorely needed.

  chapter 12

  Michael

  Amanda is a unicorn. No, she’s a dragon. No, a rainbow. No, just lightning and stars and fire.

  She is everything beautiful and terrible in this world.

  I am consuming her. My mouth fits around her plump lips. We are like fish, needing the motion of our mouths to breathe. If we stop, we die. So I keep going.

  It’s like I have infinite vision. My eyes are wide open and I can see every pore in Amanda’s nose, the fine blond hairs above her lip, and the thicker ones in her eyebrows and eyelashes.

  But I can also see everything going on around me. Every single person, what they are wearing, who they’re with. Every fleck in the turquoise ring of the guy to the right of me. The long dark hair and red-striped dress of a girl who swishes past. Every strand of neon green grass. And I do mean every strand. I can see the water flowing through them. The molecules of chlorophyll. Hey, look, there’s Chemistry again. Or is that Biology?

  Biology. I can see it. I can see life itself and a strand of Amanda’s saliva as she breathes it in and out against my lips. With every intake of oxygen, the strand is almost broken, only to be resurrected.

  Resurrection. Like Easter. It’s like Easter drool. That’s what it is.

  Which makes me think of Easter eggs.

  Which makes me immediately pick out every pastel color I see: so many flowers on dresses to choose from. Some are peachy and some are minty.

  It’s been way too long since I’ve had Doublemint gum.

  Maybe I can use some now.

  Maybe Amanda can use some now. It’s actually hard to tell which of us, if either, is experiencing bad-breath issues.

  Though if we are sharing the same breath, does it matter?

  How many breaths do we each have left anyway?

  From one of my many eyes, I see a boy who can’t be much older than twelve. He’s with two people who look ancient, at least in their midthirties. The boy says the word “Dad.”

  Dad. Dad. Dad. Dadadadadadadadadadadadadad.

  What a strange word. And kinda funny. But also sorta sad. But also sounding like a drum.

  God, I remember being twelve. And saying “Dad.” That was ages ago. So long ago and far away. It’s like I was another person, and that other person is still twelve and living in 1963. And this person is in 1969. What will happen if somehow black holes collide and the old me and new me meet? Will that cause black holes to collide?

  Wait, no. I said black holes collided to make the first thing happen. So that can’t happen again as a cause if it’s the effect.

  Oh! Remember when I was the master of time? Wait, maybe I still am. I can do that again.

  Can’t I?

  Oh my God. I’ve lost it. I’ve lost my superpower.

  I’ve lost my youth.

  “Ack! Michael!” I hear Amanda scream from above me. “What are you doing?”

  The chlorophyll has the answers. I know it. It has all the molecules. It’s what we are all standing on, united.

  It has to be in there. My youth.

  If I can just dig deep enough into this soil, I will find it. I will triumph over this temporary setback.

  Someone is screaming. He sounds crazed.

  Oh, wait. I think that’s me. The me from two seconds ago. The me of three seconds later tells me to stop because screaming is loud and unnecessary.

  But those three seconds are taking forever.

  I will never stop screaming. I will never find my youth.

  I will never get to the bottom of this soil.

  From far above the hole I dig, I hear Evan’s voice. “Oh, man, I think we have to take him to the nurse.”

  Rob’s words echo against the millions of grass strands that are closing in around me. “He’s killing my trip, man.”

  chapter 13

  Cora

  “So a little birdie told me she saw you walking with Ned earlier,” Anna says to me as she dispenses two aspirin to a girl complaining of cramps.

  “A little birdie? Who?”

  “Maria,” Anna says, indicating one of the other nurses bustling away at the back of the tent.

  “Seriously? There are, like, a hundred thousand people here!” How on earth could Maria pick me out? Stupid small towns.

  “So . . . is it true? Are you back together?” There’s a twinkle in Anna’s eye. A part of me has always felt like it wasn’t just my heart that got broken when Ned and I split. I feel like I’ve let down my parents, Anna, and anyone else who’s ever had a soft spot for Ned. So basically everyone. Except for maybe Wes.

  I sigh. “No. He’s just being his usual helpful self. Helping my parents at the farm. Helping me walk across the field.” Helping me never, ever get over him.

  “Well, it starts out with helping. There’s a reason he’s hanging around you still, you know,” Anna says confidently.

  I don’t want to believe it, but I’d be lying if I said that a traitorous part of my stomach doesn’t do a little flip when Anna says that.

  “TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME.” Someone is bellowing. “WHAT HAPPENED TO TIME?!”

  A moment later, three guys have practically fallen into our tent, the two on the ends hoisting up the one in the middle—I soon realize he’s the one yelling.

  “It’s fallen through my hands like a sieve. A SIEVE,” he practically screams in Anna’s ear.

  “Whoa. Okay, first of all: INDOOR VOICE, YOUNG MAN.” Anna is just as loud as the guy, and his eyes get saucer-wide at the sound of it. I suddenly recognize him as Peach Fuzz from the day before. In fact, I think I saw him making out with his blond girlfriend on my way over here.

  “I’m sorry,” Peach Fuzz whispers.

  “What’s your name?” Anna asks.

  “Michael,” he whispers.

  “And what did you take?”

  Michael just shakes his head and presses his lips against each other hard. His eyes remain huge and dilated. I don’t think he has blinked once.

  Anna turns to Michael’s two companions. “It’s all right. He won’t get in trouble. I just need to know so we can help him.”

  “Acid,” the taller kid says.

  “What color?” Anna asks.

  Both of them think about this for a moment. “I think it was brown,” Rob finally says, and I realize I remember his name.

  Anna notes it on her chart.

  “When will it be safe to get old?” Michael whispers.

  “Do we have to stay with him?” the taller kid asks, an unmistakable panic in his eyes. “The show’s about to start any minute now. . . .”

  He trails off as a child of maybe about eight wanders into the tent, his left knee bleeding profusely. A moment later, a short, dark-haired woman comes meandering in after him. “Think we need a Band-Aid,” she says in a Southern drawl.

  Unfazed as ever, Anna quickly ushers Michael toward a chair and motions for me to take some of his vitals. She then takes the mother and child to a separate corner. “Tell me what happened,” I hear her ask in her matter-of-fact voice.

  I make sure Michael is in place before I take my penlight and stare into his glassy eyes. If it’s possible, they just get bigger. I’m surprised his tear ducts haven’t kicked in by now.

  I look back at his two companions and see that their panic hasn’t abated in the slightest. The taller one is staring at the boy with the bloody knee
and looks on the verge of a freakout himself.

  “Hey, what are your names?” I ask them. “Actually, you’re Rob, right?” I smile at him. I’m not likely to forget that physique anytime soon.

  “Yeah . . . ,” he says, eyeing me suspiciously before breaking into a grin. “Groovy. A psychic nurse.”

  Clearly, meeting me was not as memorable for him.

  “And you are?” I turn to the very tall guy standing next to him, the one who keeps staring at the child’s bloody knee.

  Rob hits his companion in the elbow to get his attention.

  “Evan,” he finally says, tearing his eyes away from the blood.

  “I’m Cora. Honestly, I think this one’ll be a while, fellas,” I say as I feel for Michael’s pulse. “How about I keep Michael in here and you come get him at, say, around . . .” I look at my watch. It’s eleven a.m. “Let’s say one?”

  “Oh my God,” Michael says and I see him staring agape at my watch, before turning his gaze back onto me. “You have caught time. In there,” he whispers as he points at my watch. “You are the master. How did you do it?”

  “Better make that two,” I say. “Can you do that? Come back at two for him?”

  “Yeah,” Rob says. Evan mumbles something unintelligible and then they both scramble out of there. I can almost see cartoon zoom marks in their wake. I sincerely hope they come back for Michael. It’s a big farm and it won’t be hard for him to lose his friends.

  “Can you give time back to me?” he asks when I turn to him again.

  “Sure. First, just open your mouth.” I use a tongue depressor and my penlight again. Then the otoscope to check his ears.

  “Okay, Michael. So here’s what we’re going to do. First, I’m going to give you some tea.”

  “Tea?” he asks.

  “Yes. And then, we’re going to go for a little walk just around the tent.” Believe it or not, these are our actual instructions for dealing with freak-outs. Which is why Anna handed him off to me so easily. Nothing a candy striper can’t handle, especially a veteran one.

  I find a plastic cup and pour water out of the kettle that’s being kept warm on a small gas burner. Then I take a Lipton packet out of a bin and plop it in, dunking it a few times.

  “Here you go,” I say. “Drink up.”

  Michael goes to take a sip, but then looks at me suspiciously for a moment, squinting his light green eyes. “And then . . . you’ll show me?”

  “I’ll show you . . . ?” I wait for him to finish his thought.

  “How you lassoed time?”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely. Time lassoer. That’s me.” I have discovered in my one day working here that it’s best to just go along with whatever is happening in our patients’ heads. As much as soberly possible, anyway.

  “Finish that and we’ll have a chat all about it.”

  Michael looks satisfied as he takes a sip of his tea. I think I finally see him blink.

  chapter 14

  Michael

  Two enormous brown eyes are staring into mine. Thick lashes frame them. They look like feathers. Wait, no. They are feathers. They are the brown circular orbs found in peacock feathers. And now they are multiplying. There were two, now four. Only this bird is red and white, with thin stripes like rivulets of deep red blood going through every feather.

  Her plumage is fanning out, so many eyes and rivers. It’s impossible for it to be contained.

  “Tell me about your family, Michael.”

  Oh my God. She knows my name. This beautiful, rare bird is talking to me.

  I have to do it. Very softly, I reach out and touch one of the feathers. It’s like silk.

  I snap my hand away like it’s been burned. Idiot. I’m too impure to touch the bird. Don’t I know that?

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, hoping she is forgiving.

  “It’s all right,” the bird responds calmly. “Everything will be fine. Just tell me. Start with your parents. What are their names?”

  “Charles and Annemarie Michaelson.”

  “And do you have any siblings?”

  “Just me. Michael Michaelson. Michael M. Michaelson. The M stands for Mitchell.”

  The bird lets out a small coo. A laugh? “You’re joking.”

  “Never!” I yell, terrified. What happens to those who joke with a creature such as this? The words “fiery death” keep blinking on and off in my brain. “Please, I’m sorry. I wasn’t.” I think I can feel hot tears crawling inside my face and up my tear ducts.

  “No, no,” she says. “It’s okay. Please don’t worry.”

  One of her feather eyes bends down and touches my arm. I inhale sharply. It feels like a balm, reaching into my skin and drawing itself to the water in my tear ducts like a dowsing rod. Everything suddenly becomes cool and calm.

  “I like it. Michael Michaelson. How did you get here, Michael?” she asks.

  So I tell the bird everything. About my mother’s purple Chrysler, picking up Amanda and the girls and Evan. I tell her about yesterday’s burger. I hope she’s proud that I didn’t eat bird. Never again. Not now that I’ve been touched by the feathers of a goddess.

  Time has stopped again. This gorgeous creature has been with me for only a millisecond. No, nine days. No, thirty-two minutes.

  chapter 15

  Cora

  It’s been six hours since Michael Michaelson was dropped off at my tent. His friends have not come back for him. He sits in a corner now while I tend to other patients. I’ve been keeping my eye on him, though, and it seems to me like his gaze has become just a bit more focused in the past half hour.

  The sun is still blazing high in the sky when we all hear it: the very first strains of music. I look at my watch. It’s a few minutes before five p.m. Quite a few anxious patients informed me that the concert was supposed to start hours ago. I can hear some of them start fidgeting now. When I look up, my eye catches Michael’s. His face breaks into a grin.

  I hand the cup of tea to my latest freak-out patient and walk over to him.

  “How are you doing?” I ask.

  He shakes his shaggy blond hair. “Okay. A little . . . groggy. You still look a little . . . odd.” He blushes then, the pink of his skin rooting to his peach fuzz and reminding me even more of the summer fruit.

  “I get that a lot,” I joke. I lower my voice conspiratorially. “It must be because I’m part Seneca.”

  “Really?” Michael’s eyes get just a little brighter. “What part?”

  “My grandmother,” I say, surprised he’s interested.

  “Ah. Far out,” he responds. “Do you look like her?”

  Sometimes, I feel self-conscious about how obviously different I look. When I was younger, I’d compare my summer tan to my brothers’ and, every now and then, wish mine wasn’t quite so much darker. But I don’t feel that way when I tell Michael yes, not with the way he beams at me.

  We can hear some lyrics now, something about marching to the fields of Korea.

  “Do you know who this is?” I ask Michael.

  “I’m not sure. I thought Sweetwater was supposed to perform first, but this doesn’t sound like them,” he responds.

  “It’s Richie Havens,” a blond girl drinking one of my teas offers from a corner of the tent. “I need to get out of here so I can see him.”

  I walk over to her with my penlight. “Okay, let me see your eyes,” I say. A little glassy but focusing okay. “You feel like you can walk?”

  “Definitely,” she says.

  “Okay, take it easy.”

  “Peace, sister.” She gives me a hug, before taking out a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses from her shirt pocket and reaching the front flap of the tent in six long strides.

  “Hey,” a voice says softly from behind me. I turn around.

  Michael is smiling she
epishly. “Think I’m okay to go too?”

  I shine the light in his eyes, and they turn them an even lighter green, like the peridot in a ring my mother has.

  “I think you’re okay,” I say.

  “Great. Thanks. For everything. Sorry I was so messed up.”

  “I’ve seen worse,” I offer.

  He stares at me then for a moment too long and I wonder if he’s maybe not okay to leave.

  “Okay,” he finally says. “Bye.”

  “Bye,” I say, and turn around to busy myself. I can always cut more gauze strips.

  I go to the bin where they’re kept and grab the scissors from one of the makeshift shelves.

  “Um . . . your name?” comes from somewhere right beside my ear.

  I jump, nearly poking myself in the cheek with the scissors. I turn around to see Michael staring at me apologetically again.

  “Sorry,” he says right away. “Oh, man, I feel like ‘sorry’ has been half of all the words I’ve said to you.”

  I laugh. There have been a lot of other words, but he probably doesn’t remember them. Not sure he wants to, either.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Kara?” he says to me. “Is that right?”

  “Cora, actually.”

  “Sorry! Aaaah!” he slaps himself in the forehead.

  “It’s okay. I’m actually impressed you almost remembered. You get a B+ in freaking out.”

  He grins at me. I notice his two upper teeth overlap slightly. “So, Cora . . . would it be too forward of me to ask when your shift is done here?”

  “Um . . . seven . . .” I hesitate. I was not expecting that. Nor am I expecting what comes out of my mouth next. “But you have to go find your girlfriend again, right?”

  He blushes once more and his smile droops. “Amanda,” he stammers. “Yes. Her.”

  “Amanda,” I repeat, picturing the back of her head as I saw it that morning, in Michael’s tight grasp. Then, for no reason at all, I grin like an idiot.

  “Okay,” he says. “Well, thank you. Again. And, for good measure, sorry.” He gives me a smile before turning around and walking out of my tent.