Timepiece (Hourglass 2)

“Okay.” Em waited for the rest. The amount of concern she was putting out made me tense. Lily didn’t seem like the kind of girl to needlessly overreact.

“I was going to look for Kaleb’s sword from the masquerade earlier, by using my ability.” Lily took a deep breath. “We didn’t get around to it. But just now, when I touched the map, I saw the sword. Immediately, and exactly. In my mind—through my fingers. Like I was reading Braille or something.”

“Where?” I asked Lily, my palms on the table. “Where was it?”

“In your backyard.” She met my eyes. “In your fire pit, surrounded by ashes.”

“I tried to set the sword on fire,” I said.

“The costume, too?” Lily asked.

“Yes. The costume was the only thing that burned. I needed to do it.” I didn’t know how to explain further without talking about Poe slitting Em’s throat, and I didn’t know how much Lily knew. “It was … cathartic. But how did you find it?”

“I felt an instinct, and I knew I needed to put my hand on the map.” Lily’s voice was stronger now, and the color started to return to her cheeks. “There was a pull, the same kind of pull I felt earlier when Kaleb and I were practicing.”

“Has anything like that ever happened to you before?” Michael asked, concerned.

“No.” She held her hands over the map, a half inch away. Then she pulled them back and folded them in her lap. “But I’ve never actively searched for things before, either.”

“I have an idea,” Dune said. “A way to test this out. Emerson, think of something of yours Lily has seen before but hasn’t seen lately. Preferably not somewhere Lily could guess easily, but you need to know exactly where it is.”

Em thought for a few seconds. “Okay. I know what and where it is.”

Dune leaned down, and he and Em had a hurried, whispered conversation. After they came to some sort of agreement, he straightened.

“Map?” Dune asked.

Lily gave it to him, this time with no teasing.

Dune opened it to the side-by-side pages that featured a full map of the United States. “Okay, Em. Tell her what object you’re thinking of.”

“It’s a movie, My Fair Lady. We used to watch it over and over again in middle school,” she explained. “We both wanted to be Audrey Hepburn.”

Lily laughed softly. “We were so sad that neither one of us looked a thing like her. A curvy Cubanita and a tiny, little white girl.”

“We tried, though.” Em laughed, too, and the bond between them felt warm and solid. “Remember the hats?”

“And the cigarettes, with the long holders? I thought your mom was going to kill us.”

“She never forgave me for the hole we burned in the couch.” Em faltered, and tears formed in her eyes. Michael took her hand in his, and she leaned into his shoulder, quiet for a moment. “Anyway, the movie disc. I know exactly where it is.”

Dune put the atlas down on the table and flattened the crease. “Ready?”

oked up at her sideways, and his expression rivaled that of a kid getting ready to blow out his birthday candles. “It was 9.5, but I had an add-on and I was able to manipulate—”

I cleared my throat and tapped my fingers on the tabletop.

Dune’s smile disappeared, and he pulled out a piece of paper. It was a black-and-white picture, and it was grainy. “Here’s what the search uncovered.”

A copy of a photograph. I peered down at the face. It wasn’t super clear, just a tiny scan from a yearbook, but there was no mistaking it. “That’s him. Jack. With a really bad haircut.”

“Someone put it up on a social networking site pretty recently. They’re trying to organize a high school reunion, and Jack was on the ‘cannot find’ list. He grew up in Germantown. The rough part.” Dune shuffled through the papers some more and removed a set of school records. “No brothers or sisters, no dad. Not even on his birth certificate.”

“You found his birth certificate?” Lily asked, sounding impressed.

“It’s easier than most people think,” Dune answered, sounding modest.

“Well,” I said, sounding pissy, “we obviously need to focus our search on West Tennessee.”