Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

She looked at the two women behind Amy. “They don’t really want to do this. They don’t even have my card.”

“I know,” Amy said, “but they promised and they have to honor that, don’t they?”

The woman looked Amy up and down. “You usually get your way, don’t you?”

“I think that may be part of the problem,” Amy said.

There was a tiny bit of a smile from the woman, then she turned and they followed her to the back of the house, to a room with windows along one wall. She sat behind a big desk and looked at Amy as the three of them sat down.

“You know the rules?”

“I think I do,” Amy said, “but maybe you’d better explain them again.”

“You may go back in time to any three weeks that you want, and when you return, you may choose to remember or not remember.”

“Remember?” Zoë asked, not understanding.

The woman looked at Zoë with a hard glare that seemed to go through her. “You were in a serious car wreck, were you not?”

Zoë just nodded and in her mind she begged the woman not to say more.

She didn’t. “If you go back and manage to prevent the car accident, you may choose to remember that it happened or not. Your choice.” She looked at all three women. “I must warn you that if you change the past, you will change the future, there is no question of that. If you choose a different…” Hesitating, she looked at Faith. “If you choose a different man back in, say, 1992, when you return here, you will have lived a new life.”

“So we wouldn’t really change just three weeks,” Faith said, meeting the woman’s eyes.

“No. It will be your entire life that you’ll change. You’ll make the decision during your three weeks in the past, but I can’t control what happens in your new life.”

“I’d like to do something that wouldn’t make me end up in mandatory ther

apy,” Faith said.

Zoë gave her a look that spoke of betrayal, that Faith was beginning to believe this absurd idea. “If we don’t go to therapy, we won’t be here visiting in Jeanne’s summerhouse.”

“That won’t change,” Madame Zoya said. “You will return here to now. You may each have lived different lives, but you’ll still end up here in this room.”

The penetrating eyes of the woman made Zoë slump down in her chair and she almost said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Madame Zoya looked from one to the other of them. “Have I made myself understood?”

The three of them nodded.

“Did your sister tell you what I want to do?” Amy asked. “I don’t want to go back into my own time. I want to go back to earlier. Your sister had never heard of that being done before.”

“My sister doesn’t know all that I do,” the woman said dismissively. “Now, if you will join hands.”

“I have a question,” Faith said.

“And what is it?”

“Is this Amy’s one time to go back and change things, or does it count as ours too?”

“This is hers,” the woman said. “Now, will you join hands, and it would be better if you close your eyes.”

“I think I’ll keep mine open,” Zoë said, and it was obvious that she wanted to see what the woman was up to. She had a little smile on her face that said she knew it was all just a joke and nothing was going to happen.

“Suit yourself,” the woman said.

They reached across the chairs, took their hands, and Faith and Amy closed their eyes. There was a bright flash, then for a moment the three women couldn’t get their breaths.