The Dregs of Murder

I opened my eyes. "I did it!" I cried as I looked at the table.

"Did what?" Lena asked.

I stared at the table, trying to understand what I was looking at. I moved into the kitchen for a closer look. The saltshaker was on the other side of the fruit bowl where it belonged, and the spilled salt had been wiped up.

"Cam?" Maggie asked as she stopped beside me.

"Who moved the saltshaker?" I asked. "And when?"

She glanced at the table as Lena and Keller arrived. "It's right where it normally is."

"I know, but I knocked it over."

"When?"

"Just now. Well, I mean, just now in the past."

Keller stopped beside me after nudging Maggie out of the way. "Camille... tell me about the shaker."

I looked at him, a sense of dread washing over me. "Do you remember telling me to move the saltshaker?"

"Yes... but you weren't able to."

"I know, but a couple of minutes ago you, well Maggie actually, asked me to try again, so I did, and I knocked it over. You said if I could move it even a little bit, you'd take my turn washing dishes tonight."

He stared at me for a long moment. "So... the shaker was still at the edge of the table?"

"Until a moment ago, yes," I said.

"I found the shaker knocked over when I went to get the locket from Mom, so I put it back where it belonged and wiped up the salt," Maggie said. She glanced at Keller. "Remember, I told you."

"I remember," he said softly as he stared at me.

"What?" I asked.

"You knocked the shaker over?"

"Yes."

"And for you, it was only a couple of minutes ago?"

"Yes."

He looked at Maggie. "But you told me you found the shaker knocked over a couple of hours ago."

"That's good, right? It proved she could do it."

"Yes..." he said slowly as he scratched at his face, "but think about what you just said. You said you put the shaker upright two hours ago, while from Camille's point of view, she just did it."

"Oh my God," Lena said softly.

"What?" I asked again. I was becoming concerned because I didn't understand what Keller, and now apparently Lena, grasped.

Keller held my gaze for a moment. "None of us knew that you were trying to move the shaker because for us, there was no shaker to move. Two hours ago you were still failing to move it, but in the future... you did in fact move it, and that changed the past."

I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying... and failed. "I don't understand."

"By moving that shaker, everything we've done between then and now has changed. Maggie didn't ask you to move the shaker and I didn't offer to do your chore for you. For me, for us, that never happened because that past no longer exists for us."

I stared at him for a long moment, thinking. "So what happened to that other you?" I finally asked.

He shook his head slowly. "I have no idea... and that scares me to death."

I lay in my dark room as I stared at the ceiling. Moving the saltshaker had scared everyone, including me. Keller, Lena, Maggie, and I spent a long time talking about the ramifications of what I'd done. None of the three remembered the past as I did from the moment I'd returned from watching Maggie give the locket to her father.

Where for me, Maggie had asked me to move the saltshaker, for Lena, Maggie and Keller, I'd said I'd wanted to take a break, had paused, and then declared I'd succeeded. It was a little frightening to think about what had happened to the other me. Was that person... gone... or was I that person? If that other version of me disappeared, where did I go?

When Aunt Vicki and Aunt Liz first suspected I had the gift of seeing, or maybe a better way of looking at it now would be to call it traveling, Vicki had said thinking about it made her head hurt. Thinking about it now was starting to make my head hurt as well, and it was no longer theoretical. I'd changed the past with unexpected results.

Keller had thought with so minor a change, nothing would change for us. He'd thought if I did manage to move the shaker, it would simply disappear from where it was and appear where I left it. He didn't understand how that might work, but that was his working theory, and he'd said each time I'd tried to move the shaker, he'd watched it intently to try to see what happened. He hadn't expected to have his past erased, though he admitted after thinking about it for a moment, it made perfect sense.

So far as we could tell, the only result of my manipulating the past was a bit of confusion by the four of us. Where a saltshaker sat on a table made so little difference in our daily lives, the change probably wouldn't extend from this moment, but what if I made a bigger change? Or what if, simply knowing it was possible for me to alter the past changed the future?

Keller had entreated me to not travel again until he could talk to 'some people.' He'd seemed truly frightened, so I'd agreed. Tomorrow, he was going into town to contact the 'some people' and the Council, and that worried me. What if the Council decided my gift was too dangerous? What if they decided I was too dangerous? Would they block my gift... or kill me, afraid I might be able to override the block like I'd proven I could? Would I have to live like a fugitive the rest of my life if I refused to be blocked? Would Keller tell me the truth? He'd already proven he'd lie if it suited him. Would he tell me everything was okay, only for me to wake up one day with my head in a bag? Or maybe I wouldn't wake up at all.

I lay in my bed, thinking. I had to protect myself. I had to know what my future was, or if I even had one. I'd seen my older self from the future already, but had that changed because I moved the shaker? I'd proven that making even tiny changes in the past changed the future. Did that future version of me even exist anymore?

I spent the next eternity waffling between wanting to know my future and remembering my promise to Keller. I didn't care about my promise as much as I was afraid of what might happen if I traveled.

I'd been working on traveling into the past because that was easier. I could look through my album and pick a place and time to visit. Trying to do that with the future didn't work. It was like my album ended the moment I began to travel. I'd made one tiny jump into the future after my block was removed, to see if I could. Everything had looked exactly the same, except the sun was lower on the horizon. I was there barely a moment, perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, before Lena yanked me back to the present. That was when I was still struggling and made random jumps that I couldn't control. That travel had felt different than my others, so I assumed I was looking at a future sunset, but I supposed it could have just as easily been a past one.

After proving I did have future sight, probably, I hadn't tried to travel into the future again. Lena, Maggie, and Keller were keeping me so busy learning to control my travels into the past that I hadn't had the time, nor the desire, to attempt to future travel again... but now I did.

I'd learned so much in the past three days. I knew I still had a lot to learn, but at least now I generally had an idea of where I'd land. Maybe I could do that for the future too. I could just pop into the future, see if I was still alive, and then pop back. Nobody would be able to see me, and if I didn't touch anything, what harm would it do? After all, I'd traveled into the past dozens of times, and nothing had happened until I moved the saltshaker. If I was alive and well in the future, then I could stop worrying about what was going to happen after Keller met with the Council, and if I wasn't... I could decide what I wanted to do now to protect myself. I closed my eyes and strained for the future, wanting to go to the place I remembered most fondly.

I was standing outside of Coffee w/ Cream... or at least where Coffee w/ Cream should have been. I glanced around. Other than the block where Coffee w/ Cream should be, and the next one beyond, everything looked more or less the same. I wasn't sure, but it seemed a few of the businesses looked slightly different, and a few had different names, but I was clearly in Pokagon.

By far the biggest change was where I was standing. Where there should have been Coffee w/ Cream, and Cathy's next to it, and ¡Picante!... and another block of buildings just like it, there was a three-sided mall like structure with a large parking lot in its center.

I looked up at the sign that was blinking messages above my head. Shoppes on Main in an old-fashioned script flashed on the large screen, followed by the time and date, before it exploded into fireworks and began displaying gaudy advertisements about the upcoming Fourth of July Sales. There was a single car in the lot, a car unlike any I'd seen before. It looked a lot like a dark purple egg on three silver tires.

I was still trying to understand where, or when, I was. This looked like what I'd imagine would happen had Larson Figgette managed to complete his deal. This can't be right! Figgette went to jail, and I'd bought the building!

Movement caught my eye. As I watched, the door of the car pivoted at the front and rotated, the door opening up and forward slightly rather than swinging wide. A woman stepped out. I couldn't see her features very well in the dimness, but she was dressed in some sort of tunic that reached almost to her knees with pants beneath.

"Cam? Are you here?" the woman asked. I barely heard the distant rumble of thunder over my pounding heart. How had she known I was here? "If you're here, please don't leave. Please. I have to tell you something. Something important." I stood stone still, unsure of what to do. The woman approached, like she knew where I was going to be. The woman stopped slightly to my right and perhaps ten steps away from me. I put my hand over my mouth.

The woman was me. Not the me I'd seen before, but a different me. Older yes, but not as old as the other older me I'd seen, and this me looked tired. I'd put on a lot of weight, and my hair needed a trim, but it was my eyes that stopped me. In the flashing glow of the sign, I could see the bags and wrinkles. More than years had aged me.

"Listen to me. I'm you, Cam. I'm you. I need to talk to you. I desperately need to talk to you. I know you can't talk to me, but I can help you. I want you to turn your back to me, okay? I want you to turn your back to me, and then imagine you're talking to Mom. Pretend I'm Mom, okay? I know you want to talk to Mom. If you're here, please try, Cam." As I watched her, she began to tear up. "I want you to please try. Will you do that for me? Please?"

I stood, unmoving, until she seemed to collapse upon herself and turned away. She looked utterly defeated, and I heard myself begin to cry. I didn't know what to do. The woman, me, obviously knew I was here. If I spoke to her, would I change anything? What if not speaking to her changed something?

Swallowing hard I turned my back. I did want to talk to Mom. If I could just talk to her one more time, if I could just tell her how much I loved her, and how sorry I was that I hadn't been there when she needed me.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said. "I love you."

"Cam?" the other me gasped. "Cam? Are you here?"

"I'm here."

"Cam? Please, won't you say something?"

I called on all my pain. The year since Mom died had dulled the pain, but it hadn't eliminated it. "I miss you," I said.

"Yes!" older-Cam said. "Yes! Yes! Thank God you're here! Please! I have to talk to you."

"I can hear you," I said.

"Yes! Yes! Thank you," she whimpered. "Thank you so much!"

"What do you want to talk to me about?" I asked, pretending I was talking to Mom.

"It's about Mom. You're going to make a terrible mistake! A terrible mistake! Please, don't do what I did, what you'll do."

"What?"

"You, I... saved her."

A thrill like I'd rarely felt rushed through me, and I had to fight the urge to turn to look at myself, afraid that seeing the older me would break the illusion I was trying to keep in my mind. "I save her?"

"Yes... no. Listen, I know this is hard for you, so I'll be fast. Sometime in the future, you will have learned so much about your gift that you're going to go back and try to save Mom. You will, but... things don't go as you expect."

"How?" I asked.

"You'll think that because Mom is basically a nobody, saving her won't make that much difference. And it doesn't... to the world. But to me, and Mom, and Aunt Vicki and Liz, everything changes."

"How?"

"Mom... she's still alive, but she's not the same. She's broken, Cam. A guy named Larson Figgette had the town seize the buildings under eminent domain using some court ruling from back in the early 2000s. She never recovered from that. She's gone back to being a server, and she's cut off all contact with Aunt Liz and Vicki."

"Why?" I cried.

"Because they tried to help her. They offered her a position at Tramree, but she's too proud to take it. Because she's become a spiteful old woman who won't let anyone help her. She thinks the whole world is out to get her."

"Oh no," I murmured. "What about you?"

"I don't matter."

"What, of course you matter!"

"No. I did this, and I have to live with it."

"What about Hunter?"

"Who's that?"

"You don't remember Hunter Avery?"

"No."

"He helped me with..." I began before I ground to a halt. Of course she wouldn't remember Hunter. Mom hadn't died, so I probably hadn't met him.

"Ken? Did you save Ken?"

"Ken died in prison for murder years ago."

"What! Why? I saved him!"

"Maybe you did, but I didn't."

"You had to have! It happened before now... before I went to the island."

"I didn't know. His parents kept his arrest hidden. By the time I heard, he'd already been convicted."

"Oh my God! He didn't call you for help?"

"No."

"Why?"

"How would I know?"

I was reeling with everything I was telling me. "What about you? What's happened to you?"

"Nothing. I'm an ER nurse at Michigan State Hospital in Grand Rapids. I love the work but..."

"But...?" I prompted.

"But all I have is work. It was like before, before Mom died, and I've wondered how my life might have gone if..."

"Can't you go back and change it?"

"No. This is my reality. I can't undo what I've done, but you can stop me from doing it in the first place by not doing it."

"If Mom didn't die, how did you know about your gift? How did you go to the island for training?"

"What island?"

"The island where I am now. Where I learned to use my gift."

"I never went to an island."

"So how did you learn to use your gift? How did you know about it?"

"Because she did die. I saw her die... but when I arrived at the shop, she was alive and well. After that... well... my gift kept popping up at unexpected times. I didn't understand what was happening, and I thought I was losing my mind, but then you came to me and told me what had happened."

"I did?"

"Me... you... some other you... I don't know."

"So... you didn't go to the compound for training?"

"No. What compound?"

"The compound I'm at right now, the one where I learned to use my gift... where I guess I'll learn to use my gift to go back and save Mom."

"No. I've had no training."

"But then how did you go back in the past to save Mom?"

"Because that me is you, not me. I can't do what you can. All I get are flashes, images..."

"But you're me! How can you not do it if I can? I'm so confused."

"Believe me, it doesn't get any better. I've made myself crazy over this."

"How did you know where and when to find me?"

"Remember the date and time. July third, 2049. You must remember it! You must! It's the only way you can stop me from screwing everything up."

"How did you stop Mom from dying?"

"I don't know. You must know something I don't."

I thought for a moment. "How did you know how to let me talk to you?"

"I learned it from you. You came to me a year ago and told me what had happened, and how this was the only way to undo what I'd done."

"I did?"

"Yes. A future you I guess."

I was quiet a moment. "I'm sorry she isn't happy, and that Ken died, but at least Mom is still alive."

"She's not the same as she was. I remember how happy she was when she opened Coffee w/ Cream, how much she enjoyed running the place. I took all that from her."

"No!"

"Yes," the older me whispered. "I've condemned her to a life of misery."

"But she's alive!"

"Yes... she's alive, but that's the cruelest part of it all. I'd gladly give my life to not see her like this anymore. I'm hoping, praying, that you're right and I've stopped myself from doing something I've regretted for years."

"What will happen to you?" I whispered.

"I don't know. I don't care."

"But what about everyone else? What about their lives?"

"I don't care about them either."

"Oh my God! What happened to you?"

"Nothing that won't happen to you too. I've been slapped in the face by cold reality. I thought I could change the world, and I did, but for the worse. You said Ken would be alive, Aunt Vicki and Aunt Liz will not have had Mom say all those terrible things to them, and Mom wouldn't believe she's a failure. It's too much, Cam. I should have never meddled, and I hoping to God now you won't."

"Maybe if--"

"No!" my other self snapped. "There is no maybe! There is only is! Learn from my mistakes! I'd give anything to have had me tell me these things before I... before I made the worst decision of my life. You told me this would fix everything. Please, Cam! You have to do this! Do it for Mom!"

I paused. "Wait... why didn't you have this conversation? I haven't saved Mom yet. Shouldn't you remember this same conversation?"

"No. I don't understand it. I'm not sure anyone can understand it... but my future hadn't been created yet because I hadn't saved Mom. I couldn't talk to myself, like I'm talking to you, until I had. I think there is only one future, and everyone's decisions affects it. Until that future is set, there is no future to travel to."

"So... doesn't this prove that I'm going to ignore your advice and save Mom?"

"Oh God... I hope not. I hope until you actually save Mom, this future doesn't exist."

"But it does! I'm here."

"I know... because I created it. I hope you don't."

"I don't understand."

"I know. I've been reading everything I can about time and paradoxes for more than twenty years, and I don't understand it either. Maybe it's beyond our understanding. Maybe in twenty-six years you'll be standing here, where I am, as me, talking to my former self, and you'll remember this conversation because I've changed the future, and there is no way to unchanged it." I was quiet for a long moment. "Cam? Are you still here?"