Anne

Six.

* A/N Sorry, this is a short chapter. It serves only one purpose - to get one point across. Enjoy! <3 *

I quickly glanced around at our trio, but nobody seemed to have noticed what I had. My heart was hammering, my brain not comprehending what I was seeing. I had just seen two ‘me’s; both animated and alert. My mind was swirling slightly as Bridget and my past self disappeared.

The real Bridget looked over at me to see how I was coping. “That doesn’t make sense,” I stuttered, feeling slightly sick. “Why was I there when I’m actually here?” I neglected to mention the other curious sight of my shoe disappearing behind that building.

“That was us two days ago,” Bridget explained calmly. “You had just been hit in the head with that rock; and then we left.

“Mmm…” I mumbled, trying to create the false image that I understood what she was saying. Bridget rolled her eyes at me and then we simultaneously looked over at Mary, who had the sickly pallor of someone with a fever.

“I- I- I swear I just saw—” Mary’s finger pointed to the nearby building behind which I’d seen my shoe move. My eyes widened and I began to panic. “That was me,” Mary stuttered.

I gasped in shock. Why would Mary be with me? I mean, I must have been attached to that shoe I had seen… so why was Mary there as well?

I looked at Bridget, guilty and nervous, but the look on her face was not what I had expected. Rather than fierce and calculating, her expression showed mild fear and shock.

“So that’s how—” she began, but her eyes flicked up to mine.  Her face reassembled into one of a bossy attitude to which I was quite accustomed. However the illusion of this expression was broken when her lower lip quavered.

“Forget about it, Mary. Let’s get going,” Bridget said; her voice strained and high-pitched. Mary’s eyes swiveled to mine, and I nodded seriously at her.  She bit her lip nervously.

The three of us continued walking. Something whistled past my ear quickly, but I made no noise to notify the others.  My eyes drew to the side, and I saw my own face looking back at me from the side of the building.

The other me slowly pointed at Bridget and then shrank once again into the shadows. I happened to trust myself at that moment. There was something about Bridget… Was it that we weren’t supposed to go on? Were we not supposed to see the murder?

Something told me that we should not continue that night, so I did some quick thinking.

I screamed in fake agony, collapsing on the ground, eyes closed.

“What happened?”

“Charlotte!”

“Oh my God!”

“What are we going to do, Bridget?”

“Uh- I- Let’s take Charlotte home, I guess,” Bridget’s voice was panicked as I felt arms wind under my body. I tried to make myself as floppy as possible. I felt the warm sensation spreading through my body, felt the searing pain of it growing hotter, heard a strange popping noise, and the world steadied.

I grunted, fluttering my eyelids open. I heard two sighs of relief from around me.

“What happened?” Mary inquired after hugging me.

“I don’t know…” I mumbled, not trusting my acting skills to be believable.

“Oh, damn it! It’s nearly 6:00!” Bridget cried suddenly, “I have to go before your grandmother wakes up!”

Bridget waved goodbye quickly and left.

As soon as she had disappeared, I clutched Mary’s wrist tightly.

“What’s wrong?!” Mary exclaimed as my nails bit into her skin.

“May, I believe you. I know that you saw yourself. I saw myself too. We were together.”

I explained to Mary everything about me seeing my shoe, and then the silent warning about Bridget from myself. Mary was, frankly, flabbergasted.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Mary said, massaging her temple with a shaking hand.

“I have a feeling that Bridget is up to something. You and I were both in the past unaccompanied by Bridget. So, obviously, we need to start finding a way to send ourselves back in time on our own so that we can warn ourselves—”

“Stop, stop, stop. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. What are you even talking about?”

My pulse was racing, and so was my voice as I tried to explain to her what I was thinking. My words tumbled out of me a mile a minute.

“If we saw ourselves back in time – not with Bridget – then that means that we must have figured out two things: what Bridget is up to, and how to travel back to the past on our own. So, to get back in time, we have to start figuring out how to get back in time. Meaning that we have a lot of work to do.”

Mary bit her lip. “I still don’t understand. I’m trying to, but I- I just can’t.” Mary looked down, tears burning in her eyes.

“Mary, it’s okay. Even I’m confused! We just need to figure out what Bridget is up to, and how to get back in time. Think of it like a Sudoku. To find one number, you need to fill in many others. So to get back in time and warn ourselves about Bridget, we need to fill in all the numbers: finding out the secrets.”

Mary’s face began to light up as my words sunk in. Suddenly her voice grew hushed and serious. “Charlotte, what if you’re wrong?”

I chewed the inside of my lip worriedly, stressing about the new discoveries. We stayed like this in the silence, staring at one another intently.

We both nearly jumped out of our skins when my door was knocked upon. My grandmother made her way into the room when I called out that she could enter.

“Hello, dears. Did you have a good sleep?”