Hearsay Horizons

Nothing happened, and yet the timelines built up like cobwebs. Thought slowed. Time slowed as more of it occurred in a single place.            "How long have you been ten? How many times around have we done already? I'll keep doing this until I crumple from the inside out. I don't think even you can stop that, warper."            The world--worlds--shivered, and Buddy's hand closed harder on Sarah's. How could his grip hurt? Sarah whimpered. She'd never heard that sound from her own throat.       "He's made you--normal," Jane said. "Like Disney Hercules." The woman sat on the ground at their feet, clutching her torso as though racked by cramps. "Slower. Soft. Vulnerable. So you can taste and feel, and need him , for the thousand-to-one chances and good saves, because you can't depend on yourself. Erased your family, or ensures they get killed in the worse way possible." She took a slow breath. "Where is...

Sarah sighed. "Someday I'll get Barb to expense cider and donuts." She leaned against her bike; Buddy held her free hand.            "You should ask again. Third time's a charm, right?" Sarah opened her mouth to agree, or hatch a circuitous plan, but her words died when a girl--a woman--popped into existence just a foot from them.             "Teleporter?" She'd barely managed the word before the woman vanished--and the memory of the word with her.             "time's a charm, right?" Buddy asked. Sarah opened her mouth, but a woman popped into existence close enough that their bodies touched. The woman wore a grimace; she wrenched Sarah and Buddy apart, but then she was gone--and they were still holding hands.             "charm. right?" Sarah almost expected the woman when she appeared. She slugged Buddy in the jaw, and Sarah got a long glance at her: wa...

Why did Buddy's knock on her door startle Sarah from sleep? Must have been a deep sleep, deeper than she usually got. Sarah pushed through the confusion as she pushed herself from the bed.                   "Comin'," she mumbled. Sarah moved toward the closet, then stiffened for just a moment. She was already dressed. Not unusual, for an emergency responder, but what had she come from, or prepared f--                   Another flurry of knocks sent a pulse of anxiety through her. "Coming, Buddy!" Sarah raced through the apartment, but when she wrenched the door open, Buddy already had his fist up to knock again. He turned it into a fist bump as she stepped outside the apartment.                   "Whatcha think, Sarah?" The boy turned slowly to show off his forest green windbreaker. Sarah smiled.               ...