Repeat Rewind: Tales of Time Travel

August 25, 1997

The stranger came into our house when I was fourteen.

It was a hot, sticky August evening in 1997 when it happened, the sunlight thick and golden like honey, humid Georgia air settling into the creases in my skin each time I moved. The time was close to 7 PM; my twin sister Addie and I were lying on our beds like a pair of big drowsy cats. Our lips were slick with lip gloss we'd stolen from our mother's room, the backs of our pink cotton t-shirts damp with sweat. The cloying scent of sweet citrus and stale air lulled us both closer to sleep.

Mama was working the night shift in the hospital; we were alone, and we'd thrown our summer homework on the floor a while ago. Instead of studying, we'd gone into Mama's room to take her makeup bag, and the expensive perfume she wouldn't let us use—a last gift from a father we'd never met. Addie had been against it at first, a meeker girl than I was at the time, but the ticklish touch of the lip gloss brush had her giggling right away.

We got drunk on the cheap sweetness of our lips, on the honey air, on our mother's perfume. I tried to imagine my father giving it to her, stroking her cheek lovingly, leaning in to smell it on her, but I couldn't picture his face. Mama hoarded all photos, all memories of him like a jealous dragon. She had him and us. Addie and I only had each other.

I was drifting into a half-dream, smearing sticky red on my pillow, when I heard my sister's whisper from the other bed.

"Vicky?"

"Mmm?" I didn't bother with words.

"Vicky," Addie whispered again, and something in her voice made me open my eyes a little wider. "I think someone's in the house."

I blinked. "What?"

Addie's voice broke when she said, "I think I just heard the creaky step make a noise. Jesus, Vicky, someone's coming up the stairs."

I sat up, batting long mouse-brown locks out of my eyes. I hadn't heard a damn thing. "Don't be dumb, Mama locked the door," I said, not whispering back.

My sister's wide eyes, beginning to fill with tears, and her trembling red lips told me she didn't believe me. She still slept with a night light at the time. Five minutes younger than me, she was, but it might as well have been five years.

I was about to lay back down when I did hear a sound, and it went straight through my chest. Footsteps in the hallway outside our room. Soft and cautious like a cat, but the old floorboards creaked no matter who stepped on them.

Mama never walked that carefully.

My heart jolted painfully in my chest, then jumped into a mad gallop. I clutched at the front of my t-shirt, and felt a drop of sweat roll down my neck until it met cotton and soaked into it. I saw a burglar, a murderer, something worse, maybe. I had no idea what could be worse than murder, but I had no trouble imagining a man with some kind of dark intent creeping up our staircase. There had been talk of things like that happening in the area, not long ago, not at all.

The footsteps grew louder, and I shivered in the hot air. Addie whimpered.

"Shh!" I hissed, as softly as I could. "Under the bed," I mouthed at my sister, and shaking like a leaf, she obeyed me.

I still don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I didn't hide with her. I stood up, snatched up a pair of Mama's sewing scissors from my nightstand, and I held them in front of me like a sword. I had to protect Addie. I had always been the one who protected her. Slowly, with soft barefooted steps, I went to the door and opened it.

I screamed.

The woman in the white mask stood right there on the threshold, motionless and imposing, in a black coat despite the heat. Tall, thin, hands like a pair of pale spiders, her right holding the pair of gleaming shears Mama used to trim our roses. The mask was a simple dome with two round holes for eyes, smooth as an egg. Long, unkempt brown hair hung over her shoulders. Her eyes were the same color as mine.