"Oh G.o.d, Elliota"don't do it!" screamed a ragged voice from behind me.

I whipped around and spotted Trevor, white as a ghost, pain and fear etched across his face.

I felt such a deep tenderness for him. He'd come for me. The eye of my storm became bigger, but then awareness thundered through me. He thought I was going to jump. It stung to see it written on his face, now that everything had changed in a heartbeat.

That was the moment my foot slipped out from under me. My arms spun like twin waterwheels.

I plummeted downward, twisting and turning, trying to find a way back to him. A rumble of thunder vibrated the air. In a flash of lightning, I realized he would always think that I'd left him on purpose. The thought of it took my breath away. I kept my eyes open, realizing that I was leaving my life behind, but I wasn't out of choices. This was a stark moment of clarity. I'd spent seventeen years looking in the wrong direction and now wasn't the time to be blind. I relaxed and stopped fighting the fall. My soul was gathering speed and catching up to the rest of me. As I twisted around one last time, I found myself looking back up to the ledge I'd never intended to leave. Trevor's eyes locked on to mine . . . and then he jumped.

"Noooooooooo!" I screamed into the wind. My body smacked the water. Thoughts scattered like a handful of beads dropped on a bare wood floor. I gasped for air and the current rushed in. My throat burned. Panic, thrashing, spots of light exploding in my head. Everything went blue. Surrender.

27.

frozen

in

place

I could still feel Trevor attached to me when my head broke the water. I instinctively wrapped myself tightly around him as we bobbed in the middle of the lake. No sooner was I curled up against him, than I started to worry that my weight would make it impossible for him to tread water. It was deep here, maybe even bottomless. I tried to break away from him, but his arm was like an iron band around my waist.

"The dead don't die, Elliot. When are you going to remember that?" There was a bite to his words.

"Oh." The reality of our unreality sank back in. I was still feeling relief that I hadn't killed myself in a momentous leap, but there'd been consequences for my choices. I'd put myself on the edge, in a place where I had very little control. How far can you push chance before it isn't chance anymore? I swept the thought aside, opting to leave my subconscious out of the thought process. I hadn't jumped. That was all I needed to know.

I pulled myself out of my memories. Something wasn't right. I was suddenly freezing, my teeth chattering. Glancing around I could see why. The Obmil was coated in snow and ice. Everywhere I looked it was as if the White Witch's Narnia had sprung up. I sucked in a shocked breath and the cold air burned my lungs.

I turned my head to see what Trevor thought of this new development but when I saw his face, I knew. He'd created this winter. The pain was frozen on his face and his eyes were ice. I wondered if he was frozen all the way to his heart.

"Trevor?" I asked. I reached up to stroke his face.

"Don't," he growled as he pulled me closer to him.

I didn't understand his intense reaction. We knew everything now. We had the last of our memories back. We had a chance at a fresh start and yet he seemed to be shutting down, while I only felt relief. I wouldn't be carted off to h.e.l.l, ripped from his arms. It was easy to see what had happened now. I had fallen and then he had jumped . . . "Oh my G.o.da"NO!" I shouted. "It was an accident."

"It wasn't an accident." He sounded as cold as the icicles hanging like daggers from the surrounding trees. "I went after you."

"Then it's fine," I said as soothingly as I could manage with my teeth chattering. "You were trying to save me again, like you saved me when I found you at Oliver's grave. You loved me despite myself. Our time together was short-lived, but it's all right. Now I have you back again. We can move on together."

"Here, let me help you. Put your hands on the ice." Trevor cupped his hands around my foot and helped to elevate me out of the water. When I turned around he was still bobbing in the small hole in the quickly thickening frozen lake.

"Give me your hand." I kept trying to picture a warm front, but nothing was working. Trevor's creation was just too powerful. "Come on, I'll pull you up," I said as I reached trembling fingers out to him.

"You don't get it, Elliot. I didn't jump after you to save you."

"You slipped too?" I whispered.

"No! I came after you." His words were painfully slow and deliberate. "I remember." His voice was bitter. "I jumped knowing full well that you would shatter into a million pieces. I knew that there would be nothing left to save. I jumped anyway."

"Then why?" I asked, unable to think straight in the icy cold.

"Do you really want to know the ugly truth?" he barked at me without waiting for an answer. "In those endless moments when I saw you slip and fall, everything stopped. My life flashed before me. I realized that until I'd let you into my heart, I hadn't lived at all. Right before your back hit the water, our eyes met and I knew that I would go to h.e.l.l and back for you."

I pressed my fingers into my temples. It was beginning to sink in.

"And," he continued, "if everything we suspected is true, I just might be on my way therea"without you."

It was like a dam had burst. Wild ideas, things I hadn't allowed myself to investigate, came flying at me from every direction. Horrified, I turned away, not wanting Trevor to see my thoughts. I couldn't make a sound.

"Elliot, I need to get out of here."

I reached for him.

"Not with you," he said, his voice heavy.

My tears burned hot tracks down my frozen face. I tried to suck in enough air to say the words that would keep him here, but I couldn't breathe.

"Don't you realize how hard it is, knowing that I may never . . ."

"It's just rumors," I said. I was shivering uncontrollably now. "That's what you told me. We don't know anything. No one knows what comes after here. Let's go find Mel. She'll be able to help us. This can't be as bad as you think." Prattling on, I tried to keep him close and my fear at bay.

"You find Mel. I've got to get out of here."

As I reached for him, he ducked under the dark gray water. My fingers slammed into the ice, as the hole froze solid over his head. My only consolation was that he was already dead, as he so often reminded me. It didn't make me worry less.

The top of the lake was a thick sheet of ice. I bent down and ran my hand along the surface, thinking about the walls we build when we're scared and vulnerable. I concentrated, thinking the warmest thoughts I coulda"a kiss from Trevor. The memory made my face flush but his flash-frozen anger was untouchable. When I could no longer feel my hand, I stood up and faced the sh.o.r.e. I tried not to think of Mel keeping her distance and of Oliver, so obviously hurt and angry. I needed them now.

I turned around one more time to see if Trevor had decided to stay with me after all. He hadn't. He must've swum to the other side of the lake, exited the water, and headed up another section of trail. As he moved northward, the previously green landscape was icing over.

Now I understood. Trevor's raw feelings were too strong for me to affect them. I couldn't breach the wall of ice that he'd placed between us. I'd never seen anyone impact the environment so powerfully. It scared me that he was pushing everyone else's thoughts out of the picture. He was such an emotional force right now that I hadn't even been able to cocreate with him.

I moved closer to the sh.o.r.e and felt a subtle thaw. As I ran, the distance between us grew and so did the variation in temperature. The thick ice was now making groaning noises under my weight. Even though I knew nothing would actually happen to me, I shivered at the thought of breaking through the frozen water. Trevor hadn't needed to come up from underneath the ice to breathe, but I still resisted, unable to shake my innate fear of drowning.

I placed one foot on the ladder leading up to the dock, when my other hiking boot crashed through the ice, sending frigid shards under my pant leg and into my sock. I yanked my already dry foot out of the water. The last time I'd come up out of the lake, Mel had been there to greet me. It felt strange and lonely to walk up that path alone.

I stopped short, realizing I wasn't by myself after all. Julia was perched atop a large boulder, sitting all cross-legged and Zen-like. She hadn't said a word, but she was watching every move that I made. How long had she been here? What had she seen?

"He's not here." I bristled, unsure if it was because I suspected she was searching for Trevor or because I didn't have him.

Julia opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but before she could mess with my head again, I pointed at her. "Do. Not. Say. It."

"But Ia"" Julia stood up on the boulder. I took a step in her direction.

"I said, don't say a word. I've had enough of your mixed messages." My voice took on a high-pitched imitation of hers. "I don't want to room with you. Or be your friend. But I love you and I'll make you paper cranes to prove it." I was so close now that I had to tilt my head backward in order to stay in her face.

"Is that what you think?" Her face went blank for all of thirty seconds and I expected her to melt into tears. I realized my mistake right as the shock wave of anger hit me, blasting me into a Delve so hard I was blown over on my back.

a a a "Julia, open-this-door-NOW!"

Julia's mother. I could hear her banging her fist against the door and swiveling the k.n.o.b. The only thing I could see was the ceiling. Julia wasn't moving.

"Fine, I'll get the key. I am coming in, young lady. You are not doing this to me."

Mrs. Going's footsteps strode briskly down the hall, changing to a more frantic pace as her feet took to the stairs. My heart raced faster in time with Julia's mother's footfalls. Just when I thought I couldn't stare at the cobweb strung between the blades of the white ceiling fan a minute longer, Julia turned her head. Or maybe it lolled to the side. I gasped at the sight. Julia had a dance barre attached to the wall of her room and it was backed by a full-length mirror. In it, I could see her lying on her beda"what was left of her.

She was probably always pet.i.te, but now she was skeletal. Her hair was limp and matted to her head, and the shadows under her eyes combined with her dilated pupils made it seem as if her face was landscaped with two black holes, capable of sucking every emotion out of the room. And yet she still managed to appear empty. I didn't think she was even capable of moving, but she surprised me, swinging herself into an upright position and then onto her feet. She wobbled like a young child on stilts and then, perhaps it was her dance training kicking in, she found her balance and walked to the door. She used her thumb and pointer finger, so small they looked more like tweezers, to turn the lock. She opened the door at the exact moment that her mother was trying to insert the key. Mrs. Going froze, staring at her daughter.

"Do you think you're being funny?" Julia's mother's voice sounded more controlled than any other time I'd heard it.

Julia turned away from her mother, who couldn't have heard the breathy reply, an emotionless mist of sounds resulting in a single word: "No." Mrs. Going also didn't see the sad little half smile that I caught in the mirror before the image of Julia disappeared. . . .

a a a I rolled over onto all fours and threw up. It was mostly water from the lake and it left an earthy taste on my tongue. As I emptied the contents of my stomach I wondered if that's how Julia had died. Did she vomit her soul out of her body, one little piece at a time? Or did she decide that there was nothing in life worth tasting? I cried outa"the ugliness of it all was more than I could wordlessly contain.

"Julia?" I whipped my head around, but she was gone. So utterly and completely gone. Just like Trevor. And I didn't know how to get them back. But maybe there was someone who could help me. I needed to hurry.

Setting off, I raced past the Haven and headed toward the school. I was as fractured as the ice that Trevor had left behind when he'd disappeared and taken a piece of me with him. In contrast, Julia had built a wall and closed me out, leaving a void. I wondered if the three of us would ever be able to put our souls back togethera"to be whole again. I dashed toward Mel's cla.s.sroom, holding my breath, hoping against hope that I might have a chance to make something right.

28.

choose

your

coincidence

I practically flew to the doors of the school, but when I got there my heart sank. They were exactly as only I'd imagine them. There wasn't a touch of frozen, urban grime anywhere. Nothing that would tell me Trevor was nearby.

My steps quickened as I hurried down the vacant hall, hearing only the faint echo of a rubber squeak every time I took a step with my left foot. Each tread announced the return of the prodigal dead girl.

Mel's door was ajar. I stood gripping the cool metal of the doork.n.o.b, making a half-baked attempt to control my heavy breathing. I was just about to plow through the door and rally Mel and Oliver to help find Trevor when something stopped me. The rest of the cla.s.s was talking. I froze in place, my ear tuned to the disgruntled sound.

"I don't know why we have to be here when our remaining Third Timers don't even feel it's necessary to show up," said an annoyed guy, possibly a suit. "Now that Lily's moved on, what are we supposed to do without someone to Delve?"

There was a chorus of agreement.

I felt instant relief that I didn't have to Delve with Lily again, but it was mingled with equal parts shame and regret. I hadn't made the effort to know her, let alone help her. I didn't even say good-bye.

"First of all," said Mel, "Trevor and Elliot need us here." I heard bangles jingle and pictured her pointing her finger at the spot where she was standing.

"Actually, it's pretty clear they don't need us. Obviously, they think its easier to figure stuff out on their own," came another voice filled with indignation.

"You never know when they're going to walk through that door," Mel continued. "There's also a second important reason for being here."

I sensed, without looking, that her eyebrow was in action. Despite my nerves, I had a moment of sympathy for the group. I knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that eyebrow.

"What's the second reason?" came an unfamiliar voice.

"Coincidence, of course."

"Coincidence?" It sounded like the whole room was thinking out loud.

"What about it?" someone asked.

"I don't think it exists," said Mel.

There was dead silence.

Mel waited a few beats before continuing. "Everything that is occurring, or in this case not occurring, may be exactly what's supposed to happen."