NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 58

Friday morning brings with it more rejection, this time from the museum. Apparently, I'm not fit enough to be anyone's assistant. And here I was thinking myself to be overqualified for the position. But there's something else that's strange about this morning. Hazel's butt isn't glued to its usual spot. I enter the ground floor of her building – the front one that's beneath our standard; that is, us on the elite top floor. Yet, no answer comes from door fifty-one. Is Hazel dead? Please God, don't make Hazel be dead. I swear to you, I'll mount that rooftop and jump over if you take my Hazel away too. God doesn't respond either. Could it be a case of him being unimpressed? Maybe I should resort to begging instead. Zero. There's no way I'm going down on my knees in this lowly corridor to plead for Hazel's life. Besides, her God never sends anyone back. A half-naked girl peeps out, her lower body stained red by the sea. "Looking for Hazel?"

"Er, yes," I say, avoiding her light yellow eyes. "She's not in her usual spot."

"No one's there." The girl holds a towel against herself now. "She left just after nine."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"Something about an angel paying a visit. Oh, and that she was going to heaven with him."

I race out before the girl sees my thoughts burst into flames. So Hazel really is going to leave me after all. That means I'll be the only one owing rent. My feet pace back and forth between a short distance then dump me in Matron Caine's herb garden. I'm about to let out my loudest scream when the front gate opens; and my Hazel walks in wearing her biggest smile. It yanks a smile out from me as well, my first in a while. Relief pushes my feet towards her.

"Where the hell have you been? I thought you were dead."