“He’s my uncle. Or, he was,” Margaret said. Asking her how she knew him had been a simple question, but that answer felt like a labyrinth. A thousand thoughts wrestled for my attention at those words. I had to follow the threads of my memory to make sense of the claim. There was an image of Melody. I didn’t have a perfect memory, but I had the tapestry of time at my fingertips. I ran my fingers along the thread of every loop I’d lived through, and every interaction I’d had with Melody. I found the answer in Margaret’s memory, rather than mine.

  My brother certainly isn’t going to help us.

  I’d missed it, at the time. Or I wouldn’t have known it mattered. Then again… My brother certainly isn’t going to help us. That was a sentence heavy with implication. Not just about the woman’s extended family, but about their relationship, and very likely, her brother’s position. It wasn’t simply that he couldn’t help her, but that he wouldn’t. It wasn’t enough that I could have known she meant the elusive Matthew Cross, but I should have noted it when I heard it. But I suppose it was minor, compared to the rest of the vision.

  The revelation carried more questions with it, and I had to take long, deep breaths to work through them. I’d assumed Margaret had been lucky—or unlucky, depending on perspective—when one of the stray shards of the spell had landed near her. But that would be a remarkable coincidence. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. As I thought about it, the spell breaking off into three distinct pieces had the scent of design, rather than chance, behind it. Was Margaret… supposed to find it? Was she meant to gain that strange, impossible magic?

  And if she was… was Luke’s power by design as well? I finally let my eyes fall on Margaret.

  “You… You said he was dead?” I asked. Margaret sighed and looked toward the wall, in the direction of the cemetery and her former home.

  “He is. Has been for weeks. I dug his grave myself. Even helped lower him in,” she answered.

  “Are you… sure?” I asked nervously. “Some things changed after you, uh, saved your mom. Could they both be alive in this loop?” Margaret paused and bit her lip. At least, she appeared to. She didn’t actually have a physical lip to bite. Finally, she shrugged.

  “I suppose so. But this place doesn’t seem like it’s well-visited,” Margaret responded.

  “Had you seen it before he died?” I asked. “A few weeks isn’t enough time for a lot of this wear and tear.” Margaret nodded in assent.

  “Fair enough. We can check his grave, if you want. Although, I wouldn’t head out there in this loop,“ she answered. She was right. It wasn’t safe. Staying here would be better. Even if Cross was alive. Especially if Cross was alive. I would need to see in the next loop. For now, the only question was whether he might come back while we were searching his study if he was alive. But I was looking for him anyway. If he did, I would finally get to speak to him, I supposed. The real risk was Luke’s magic. His control. I wanted to run, just considering the possibility. But I couldn’t avoid Cross forever, even if he did have the same abilities. I didn’t have a strong reason to believe he did, especially if he’d been dead during Margaret’s version of the loop.

  That cowardly part of my heart still prodded at me. But… the loop had to end. And I’d finally made a small step toward learning more about it. I had to face it. Maybe it was a false confidence, like what had pushed me into Luke’s control the first time. Or maybe, that had been just enough to terrify me out of being certain of anything. I had to hold onto it either way. All of this—everything Margaret had done, and everything Luke was doing—had to end. And I would take the confidence to end it, regardless of where it came from.

  “How did he die?” I finally asked. Margaret opened her mouth to answer, then paused. She stopped leaning and stood upright, furrowing her brow.

  “I… can’t remember,” she replied. I opened my mouth a little as I processed that.

  “You said you buried him, right?” I asked. She nodded.

  “I did. It was… a surreal moment, actually. He was always this… figure I knew about, but only met a few times. He didn’t really acknowledge the rest of us much. He didn’t reach out when mom was sick, and he left her funeral early. I guess that may have changed. But to me, he was a strange man I knew about, and then he was a body I was putting in the dirt,” she answered. I took a deep breath. I needed to know more.

  “I… see,” I responded. I wasn’t sure how to push more. She seemed upset but… like an unsteady bridge. She was confused. Shaken by events she couldn’t quite line up. “Did he… have other family?” I asked. She didn’t respond at first. She looked like a key had just failed to turn for the first time.

  “Um, yes. Yeah, I think so. I only really knew about him through my mom. Dad didn’t seem to care about him. So I haven’t met them. But he had kids. I… buried his daughter a few years ago. She had a brother, I think. Which means he had a partner at some point as well. I know Mom’s parents are gone. I visited their graves often, growing up. But I don’t know about his wife, or whoever the mother was. I’m not sure about their family,” she responded. I took another deep breath.

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  Cross had a son. I wasn’t certain how old either would be, but Margaret was older than I was. Melody looked younger than Luke’s mother by at least ten years. But there were larger gaps between siblings out there. Especially if the woman looked older than she was because of her health.

  “His son, you met him?” I pressed. Margaret furrowed her brow in frustration, but nodded.

  “Yes… he was there to arrange her funeral,” she replied. I clenched my fists and took a step toward her.

  “Was it him? Was it Luke?” I asked. There was an urgency in my voice that only seemed to frustrate Margaret more. She bit her lip and held her head with one hand.

  “I… I don’t know. I can’t remember his face,” she replied. This failure seemed to wriggle under her skin like a swarm of insects, and she shuddered as she admitted to it. “It could have been? Luke's mother is older than Cross was, though. As far as I can tell.” I bit at one of my thumbnails.

  It was a possibility. A likely possibility, as far as I was concerned. Margaret’s connection to Cross was too much of a coincidence. But… even if it was true, I wasn’t sure what to do with the information. “Did… did he leave you anything? Or leave anything behind for you?” I asked.

  “Oh. Yeah, he did. I remember thinking it was strange, since I didn’t really know him,” Margaret confessed. I let out a breath.

  “Oh? If it’s not too personal, what did he leave?” I asked. She gave me a blank stare.

  “I… I’m not sure. I remember… I remember I went to find out, but I can’t seem to grasp the next memory. It’s like grabbing a fistful of water when I try. Mars… why can’t I remember?” Margaret answered. There was a growing panic in her voice, and I felt my mind try to slip from my body with each word she spoke. Like her anxiety was infectious, my mind wanted to abandon my body as it was so used to doing. But I took a deep breath instead, even as I counted every red item in the room at the back of my mind.

  “I put you together using threads of a time that no longer exists,” I answered. It felt almost cruel to put words to it, if not quite so cruel as remaining silent. “You are… just the memories of a woman who never existed. You died before any such memories could be made. The truth is, parts of who you are must be missing. It was only a matter of time before the cracks in this spell revealed themselves. I’m… sorry.”

  Margaret shook her head even as I apologized. “No. No, that’s not it. I understand what you are talking about. That’s a feeling I can’t avoid. I always feel like white cloth in the water, sheer and thin. But this is different. It’s like the memories aren’t missing so much as they don’t belong to me at all. They didn’t slip from my mind. It’s more like trying to grasp someone else’s memory. But it doesn't make sense. It must have happened. Because I remember everything around it so clearly. But… some things just don’t belong to me, somehow. Does that make sense?” she asked. I crossed my arms awkwardly.

  “I… suppose,” I replied. It was a uniquely strange question for me, since I seemed to sometimes be perfectly capable of accessing other people’s memories even more clearly than they could. Of course, no sooner did the thought enter my mind than I realized that was exactly what I needed to do. “Do you... I mean, I can try to do the same thing I did before, maybe?” Margaret’s frustration remained on her face, but the suggestion seemed to slow her breathing a little. It was a panicked, rather than an angry, frustration.

  “Wouldn’t that be fucking something? You owning my own memories more than I do. Fine. Do it,” she agreed. I took a deep breath.

  This was a spell without a chant. One I couldn’t actually cast at will, exactly. I could use it when I needed it. I knew how, even without the words. Even without my grimoire, if I needed to. But I also knew... when I could use it and when I couldn’t. It was a spell which reacted to need. Casting it was like pounding on the chest of a corpse to force its heart to beat. It could be used only when it was needed, and only when it could help. But, looking at Margaret’s face, I knew it was needed. I knew it could help. Even if I didn’t need the answers she should have, it would be needed. I’d brought Margaret back into a world she’d left behind, and this spell could help make her whole.

  So I began to cast. Aura burst from me like suddenly disturbed snow, and the world collapsed into darkness around us. But that was where the spell stopped. No new scene formed around us. Margaret’s history failed to materialize. I felt like it was the third day, and I was trying to approach the center of town. Like some pressure was pushing me back and denying me access to the window of time I was trying to look through. My stomach started to churn as it always did under such stress, and I felt my mind trying to separate from my body. Before it could, I was forced to release the spell. All of my aura fell to the ground all at once, and the real world formed itself back around me.

  “Mars, are you alright? What was that?” Margaret asked. The concern in her voice sounded alien, like it had no place in her throat. I took a deep breath. I wasn’t sure if that was true of Margaret, or just the remembered sound of my own crushing bones affecting my perception. It didn’t matter.

  “I failed,” I answered. “I can’t touch those memories.” Margaret let out a breath of her own. One which, considering her nature, didn’t even exist in a real sense.

  “So it was just a waste of aura, then? I’m sorry, Mars,” Margaret apologized. I shook my head.

  “No,” I denied. “No, because I can’t touch them. My magic... my connection with this loop is like olive oil and bread. My aura permeates time in Beddenmor. I don’t know everything that happens here, and I can’t just watch every event like a stage play. But I can move through time a little. I can stop it, or slow it. And if I really need to, I can witness it. This didn’t feel like a failed spell. It felt like a successful spell that was denied. It felt exactly like what happens when I try to walk to the epicenter of the spell on the third day, or when I try to find that center on any other day. Like whatever exists there is entirely outside of my reach.”

  “What does that mean?” Margaret asked.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it matters. It explains why you can’t remember it. Whatever you experienced, it exists outside of any time I can touch. Just like the spell that trapped us here. It’s something to hold onto. It means we’re on the right track.”

  End of the Second Day