Clutching the stack of plates to my chest like a shield, I exhaled and tried to calm my racing heart. It wasn’t fair that just being near him could make me weak in the knees.
I joined Dante at the table, handing out plates and pizza while Leo poured water into the glasses.
There was something soothing about the routine of a meal, and I was glad that Leo had insisted we come here. I sat down, thinking that it was good to be home, even for a short time.
As we ate, I brought Dante up to date on what had been happening, Leo chiming in as needed. It was harder than I’d thought it would be to tell the story without mentioning Zo’s name. The few times I slipped up and said it out loud, I felt a shiver in the air, as though a trap was about to spring shut. I finally settled on calling him “L” for Lorenzo and hoped that Zo wasn’t listening for that particular nickname.
Some of the story Dante knew from our conversations while I’d been on the dream-side of the bank, but most of it was new. He asked a few questions, but mostly he listened quietly and attentively. Some of the details were new to Leo, too, and by the time I was done explaining everything, I had drunk two glasses of water and the last slice of pizza was long gone.
Dante was still for a moment, absorbing the flow of information. He placed his hands flat on the table and then turned his eyes to me. “You are indeed a brave woman, Abby.”
“I thought you said I was dangerous,” I said with a wry smile. My throat felt sore from the constant talking.
“Is there a difference?”
“I guess it depends on which side you are on.”
“Then I always want to be on your good side,” he said. He reached for my hand, lifting it to his lips and pressing a kiss to the curve of my palm.
I felt a shimmer of electricity run through my arm.
“Your turn to talk. Tell me about these,” I said, nodding at the gold bands around his wrists.
Dante looked down at his hands, turned them over. “I don’t know what happened. They were black when I went in, and gold when I came out.”
“L has them, you know. So does V. Did Tony?” I looked at Dante as the familiar shiver ran between us at the mention of the names. I mouthed Sorry and winced, reminding myself that I needed to be more careful.
Dante’s mouth thinned and a shadow rimmed his eyes in black. “If he did, I never saw them.”
I swallowed hard, remembering Tony’s fate. I traced my fingers around the gold, interlocking loops.
“What?”
I noticed that the hair on Dante’s arm stood up at my touch and I heard the quiet quiver in his voice. I smiled. Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who felt weak in the knees.
“I wonder if going through the door a second time . . .
reversed things.”
“Because we were going back in time?”
I nodded. “What if it was more literal than anyone expected? Maybe going back was like going in reverse.”
“Then shouldn’t my black chains have reversed to white? Or at least silver?”
“It’s just a working theory,” I said with a wry smile.
“But it’s a good theory,” Leo said thoughtfully. “Didn’t you say that when L changed things in your life, the world around you reversed for a moment from white to black?”
I nodded. “Though it hasn’t happened for a little while. I wonder why. I don’t suppose it’s because he has decided to leave me alone.”
“No, I don’t think so. There is something about you that has drawn his attention,” Leo said.
“Obsession is more like it,” I muttered.
Leo and Dante exchanged a glance.
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hands. “Do you guys know something I don’t? Something about L?”
Dante shifted in his chair. Leo looked away.
“What are you not telling me? Now is not the time to hold on to our secrets.” Frustration gave my words a bite, but I didn’t try to soften them.
“We all know how long L can hold a grudge,” Dante said quietly. “And we know how far he’s willing to go to exact his revenge.”
“Yeah, I know. He ruined my family and redirected the river.” I looked at Dante and shook my head. “You said letting him go was our best chance to stop him, but he’s doing whatever he wants with the river. How are we supposed to stop him now?”
“Yes, the majority of the river may be under his control, but V gave you a clue when he said he couldn’t travel beyond the point where your timeline intersected with Zero Hour.” Dante covered my hands with his. “In a way, you have already stopped him. At least a little. You are protecting a key part of the river, Abby—a part L can’t see, that he can’t touch directly. And the more you are able to bring under your protection, the more we can control where L goes and what he is able to do. You are the key to stopping him.”
“How can I protect the river? It’s not like I can change when I first met Zero Hour and protect more of my past.”
“No,” Leo interjected, “but you can protect your future—as well as the future of other people. Remember when we talked about fixing things in place?”
“You mean by taking pictures?” I asked.
Leo nodded. He stood up from the table. “I think it’s time to put our idea to the test. May I use your phone?”
I waved to the phone on the kitchen wall but kept my attention on Dante. “So why me?” I asked him, still feeling frustrated. “I’m nobody. Why isn’t he targeting you, or Leo?”
“Because neither one of us poses the kind of threat you do to his goal,” Dante answered.
“What is his goal?” I asked. “V didn’t seem to know. Or if he did, he wouldn’t tell me.”
Dante hesitated, his gray eyes dark with thought. “When you traveled to the bank today, did you notice anything different?”
“About the bank? Yeah, sure—”
“No, about how you got there. The traveling.”
I thought back to the moment when Leo, V, and I had slipped from here to there. “It was a lot easier to reach the bank today,” I said finally, knowing the truth before I said the words. “And I don’t think it’s because I’m getting better at it or because I had help. It’s because the barriers are thinning, aren’t they?”
Dante nodded, the shadows sharpening the angles of his cheekbones and the set of his jaw.
“What happens if the barriers between the river and the bank disappear entirely?” I asked, dread settling like a weight in my stomach. “What if all the walls come down?”
“The river and the bank can never mix—L was right when he called them oil and water. And if the barrier between them falls, both will be destroyed. The river will be polluted beyond saving. And the bank, instead of being a place untouched by time, will become a place corrupted by time.”
“It would be chaos,” I whispered.
“Worse. It would be the end of everything.” Dante’s face paled as he spoke. “If the barriers break, then Zo could simply dam the river wherever he wants and cut off the diseased portion of the bank and start over fresh. With a clean slate ahead of him, he could erase the world’s history on a whim and rewrite the future according to his desires. Nothing would happen without his hand shaping it. Only his choices would matter. Only his vision. Time itself wouldn’t even flow without his permission.”
I felt a fist of ice-cold terror grip me. I didn’t want to hear any more, but Dante wasn’t quite done.
“Change isn’t enough anymore. It’s control he’s after. Total and complete control.”
“And it’s up to me to stop him?” I asked, feeling the impossibility of the task, like being asked to hold back the tide. I hadn’t realized I was crying until Dante brushed his fingers across my cheek and they came away wet.
“Leo is immune to his actions; L can’t touch him. And I am more his equal than he’d probably like to admit; he won’t touch me—not yet. Not until he tests my limits.” Dante’s voice was low but strong. “I told you once that our best chan
ce for success against him would come from the choices you make. You made an important choice at the door. And the choices you are making now—and those you’ll make in the future—can still change things.”
“What if I choose the wrong thing?” I asked, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. “What if I just make things worse?”
“You won’t,” Dante said, cupping my face with his hands. “Because I believe in you.” He leaned in and kissed me until my doubt and my tears were gone.
Leo cleared his throat behind us, and Dante let me go with one final brush of his lips across my cheek.
“I called my friend at the camera shop, and she’s willing to help us today,” Leo said, holding out the phone to me. “Call Natalie. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Chapter
19
Leo pulled up in front of the small shop at the end of the row. The building looked almost the same as the others in the strip mall: squat and square. But where the other shops were beige, brown, or gold, this one was painted black from top to bottom. Black paper covered the window next to the door, which was also dark with paint. It reminded me of Dante’s black door; what waited for me behind this black door also had the potential to change my life. I couldn’t decide if it was a good omen or a warning.
Dante, sitting next to me in the backseat, tensed at the sight. I reached over and wrapped my hand around his, feeling the strong bones beneath his skin lock into a fist.
Through the glare of the sun, I could just make out the two words written on a small sign in the window: The Darkroom.
“This is it?” I asked.
Leo nodded, stepping out of the car and opening the back door for me. Dante did the same for Natalie, who had been sitting in the front passenger seat.
“And tell me again why we’re here?” she asked.
“Leo’s friend works here,” I said, coming around to join the three of them on the curb. “He says she can help us take some pictures.” My hand instinctively connected with Dante’s.
“It doesn’t look like a studio,” Natalie said, shading her eyes from the sun.
“It’s not,” Leo said, nodding to the sign. “It’s a darkroom. And that’s what we need.”
“Is it even open?” Dante asked, glancing at me. “It doesn’t look like anyone’s here.”
I shrugged and looked to Leo.
“The darkroom is usually open only on the weekends,” he said, “but I called Lizzy and she agreed to help us as a special favor to me.” Leo knocked on the door and stepped back. “I told her it was an emergency.”
After a few moments, I heard a bolt being thrown back and then the door swung open. A small woman stood framed in the doorway. She wore a pair of faded jeans and a man’s denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows. Her hands were red and weathered. Her hair was mostly hidden beneath a multicolored scarf, the patterns broken like a mosaic, though a few dark strands escaped to fall across her dark, piercing eyes.
“Elisabetta,” Leo said, grinning and opening his arms to engulf her in a hug. “It’s good to see you. Thank you for helping us.”
“For you, Leo, it’s no bother. Come in, come in,” Lizzy said, gesturing for the rest of us to follow as she pulled Leo along behind her. She launched into a fast-paced Italian monologue that barely allowed room for Leo to respond.
The three of us exchanged a glance and stepped inside. I really needed Dante to teach me Italian one of these days.
As stark and plain as the outside of the building was, the inside was a riot of light and images. Black-and-white photographs of all sizes covered the walls, some as small as postage stamps, others taking up half the wall or more. One wall appeared to be devoted solely to portraits, a variety of emotions as individual as the faces they belonged to. It reminded me of the Dungeon’s Signature Wall—a place where you could leave your mark on the world.
Two cloth bins stood by the door, each one filled with small, card-sized pictures. Three glass shelves jutted out from the wall and held an assortment of cameras and lenses, each one tagged with a handwritten price. There was a small, antique cash register on a table with mismatched legs in the corner. A second door was almost hidden behind stacks of prints. I suspected it led to the actual darkroom. The room felt more cozy than cluttered. I loved it immediately.
“Hey, guys,” Natalie hissed, waving me and Dante over to her side while Leo and Lizzy continued their conversation. “Look at this.”
On the wall was a small, delicate print about the size of my hand. The image showed a Japanese pagoda with multilayered roofs and curling edges. The beautiful building stood by the side of a lake. A cherry tree was in bloom, and a few blossoms had been captured floating away on the breeze. The picture had been printed on what looked like rice paper, making the image look more like a watercolor than a photograph. I felt a great sense of calm as I looked at the art, and I thought that if someone could capture the feeling of a haiku, this would be what it would look like. I checked the single name printed in the corner: Dahla. Even the photographer’s name was lyrical and seemed to fit the image perfectly.
Next to the picture was a larger one, square like a window, showing a view of interlaced beams of steel, curving and twisting upward in a geometric pattern that dared the eye to follow the maze.
“What is it, do you think?” I asked Natalie.
“It’s the Eiffel Tower,” Lizzy answered, stepping up next to us. Her Italian accent had all but vanished. “My friend Angela shot this the last time she was in Paris.”
“It doesn’t look like the tower,” Natalie said, leaning closer.
“That’s because Angela stood beneath it and shot straight up. She said she felt caged in, surrounded by all that steel, and liked the idea that the only way out was through.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Dante murmured at my side.
I agreed, thinking about narrow hallways enclosed in darkness and doors that led elsewhere. Sometimes the only choice you had was to go through.
Lizzy folded her arms and looked up at Dante. “And where has Leo been hiding you?” she asked. “A man with your looks, your build—” She took a step back to appraise Dante. “Yes, Leo should have brought you by long ago. You will sit for a portrait for me.”
“Oh, no, thank you for the offer, but—” Dante started, a faint blush staining his face.
“It wasn’t an offer,” Lizzy said. Then she turned to me. “You must be Abby. Leo said you had a photography emergency.”
“Well, I don’t know that I’d call it that, exactly,” I said, feeling oddly shy around this bold woman with her declarations and unflinching gaze.
“I told Abby you could teach her how to develop film and print her own pictures,” Leo said from behind Dante.
Lizzy held my eyes. “Why are you interested in learning a lost art?” She flicked her gaze to Dante and then back to me. “Haven’t you heard? Digital is the new standard.”
I flushed a little at her tone. “Digital won’t work for the kind of pictures I want to take.”
“And what kind of pictures do you want?”
I looked around the room at all the various images covering the walls, from the weathered face of an old man laughing, to the wide sky stretching over a midwestern plain, to a rose resting on a table, the petals veined with shadow like wood grain. “I want pictures like these. The kind that can capture a moment, make it real, make it last. I need pictures that do more than reflect. I need pictures that are truth.”
Lizzy narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Then she nodded. “She’ll do,” she said to Leo. “I can teach her.”
I felt like I had passed a test or a ritual. Dante slipped his arm around me, pulling me against his shoulder in a hug. Now I had to hope that Leo was right and that we could fix a point and a person in time. If we could, then we could prevent future changes, future heartbreak. Maybe we could even prevent Zo from cutting off the river.
“Come with me.” Lizzy turned on her he
el, heading for the door that would lead deeper into the Darkroom’s hidden rooms. “I hope you’ve all cleared your schedules. This will take some time.”
Dante gave me one last hug and pressed a kiss to my
temple. “Have fun,” he said with a smile. “Learn what you need to. Leo and I will talk to Natalie. We’ll be ready when you are.”
“Wish me luck,” I said. As he turned away, I rested my hand on his arm and nodded to Natalie. “Be nice, okay? Don’t go overboard. I need her to believe, not be terrified.”
“Go,” Dante said gently. “We’ll be fine. I explained it to you, and you’re not terrified of me, are you?”
I let my hand linger on his gold-wrapped wrist. “Not in the slightest,” I said, lifting up on my toes so I could kiss the side of his mouth.
As I followed in Lizzy’s wake, I looked back over my shoulder to see Leo and Dante join Natalie by the wall of portraits.
“Natalie?” Dante said. “We need to talk.”
Smiling a little, I drew in a deep breath. If Dante and Leo couldn’t convince Natalie of the truth, then no one could.
Lizzy slid the door open and stepped through. She looked back at me, gesturing for me to follow.
I joined Lizzy in the darkness beyond the door.
***
“I’ll show you the process with one of my own pictures first,” Lizzy said while we walked in the dark hallway. “Then you can try it with one of yours.”
I rubbed at my arms, unsettled by the closeness of the walls, the shadows thick and heavy with the smell of chemicals. We turned once, then once more, the black hallway making two ninety-degree turns before releasing us into a small room lit with a soft white light. A row of metal sinks ran along one wall with an assortment of jugs and jars lined up on a shelf directly above. Posted on the wall was a chart divided into a grid, each small box filled with either the brand and type of film or a specific time.
The room reminded me of a laboratory: neat, clean, orderly, and with a peculiar smell that made me think of metal and disinfectant.