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“How”—I paused for a second—“did you do that?”
“Body chemistry?” Cat acted like it was no big deal. “It’s hard to explain. Science has always intrigued me, especially the study of negative and positive matter, wormholes, black holes …”
She’d just produced matter. Matter. With her hand. I could barely believe it, but I didn’t see any way the spinning purple sphere could have been a trick.
“Creating true exotic—or negative—matter is generally considered impossible. It’s a very volatile substance.” Cat sounded as if she were repeating a lecture she’d given hundreds of times. “Liam taught me what we could do by combining our unique talents. In the simplest terms, I opened bridges, and he traveled through them.”
“I believe you, about all the science stuff.” I waved the thought away with my hand. While I was interested to learn how she and Liam Ballard put all the pieces together, right now I was more intrigued by her personal journey. “How did you figure out you could do it—create matter?”
“I grew up on an island. As a child, I used to sneak out of my bed at night to lie in a hammock that hung between two palm trees on our property.” Cat’s dark eyes took on a dreamy quality, and I was there with her, hearing the surf rolling in and out, feeling the warm breezes soothe me as I rocked. “I would stare at the stars above me and wonder what it would be like to float among them.
“One night I dreamed I could hold a galaxy in my hand. I watched it form, felt it orbit, as if I created it myself. Breathed life into it. When I woke up, what you just saw was spinning in my hand as if it was meant to be there.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
“Eleven. I knew what I could do was special and needed to be tested. I learned as much as I could in high school, graduated at sixteen, and went straight to college on scholarship as a physics major. I volunteered to be a teaching assistant so I would have access to a lab.” She paused, her lips parted in a slight smile. “That’s where I first met Liam.”
“How did he know what the two of you could do together? The time-travel thing?”
“He had some … outside resources.” The slight smile disappeared, and her voice turned businesslike. “You and Michael haven’t talked about the logistics of traveling at all?”
“No.” Because up until the purple ball formed in Cat’s hand, I’d half hoped he’d made the whole thing up, so I hadn’t asked. Now I hoped he was telling the truth, because if he wasn’t, my hallucinations had taken a whole new turn. For the worse.
o;You told me not to let it out of my sight.” I glanced at him over my shoulder. “It’s in my bag.”
“Would you get it and bring it down? And”—he paused, looking at Cat from the corner of his eye—“take your time.”
“Sure.”
I hurried up to Michael’s room but descended the stairs quietly with the binder, coming to a standstill just outside the kitchen door.
“Did you find her?”
“It’s more like she found me,” Michael said softly. I pressed myself against the wall outside the kitchen.
“How did she take it?” Anxiety laced her voice.
“She just found out a couple of days ago.”
“Is it like it was for Liam and Grace? The chemistry between the two of you?”
He didn’t speak.
“I knew it. I could feel it. Michael—”
“I never understood before, but now that I’ve met her …”
“Does she know?”
Again, Michael was silent.
I realized I was holding my breath. Did I know what?
“What’s taking her so long?” Cat asked. A scraping sound accosted my eardrums. I jumped and clutched the notebook more tightly to my chest.
I made coming-down-the-stairs noises and entered the kitchen, as breathless as if I’d been running. Cat stood by the table, and she practically snatched the binder from my hands, cradling it to her chest as if it were inlaid with precious jewels. The way she held it made me wonder why Michael had trusted me with it. Now I wished I’d understood more of what I’d read. I turned to leave.
“Em, wait. Sit down?” Michael gestured to the empty seat beside him. I stared at him for a moment. He pulled the chair out. “Please?”
