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When Jeremy woke up that morning, he felt something strange in the air.
It was fuzzy, like static. Like someone had left the universe on a channel with no signal. It made his brain feel like it was made of cotton.
He'd definitely felt something like this before, but he couldn't quite place when. Maybe it was because his mind was still halfway stuck in the bizarre dream he'd been having. It had been some inane plot involving large, weird-looking rodents.
The things his brain came up with…
He rolled over and squinted at his ceiling, his eyes not quite ready to open yet. Did he have a shift at Slushy Dawg today? Was that it?
No, that couldn't be right. He'd asked for today off since it was the last day of summer. Eleventh grade started tomorrow.
The thought gave him a brief moment of annoyed dread. Summer always went by too quickly for his liking, and this had been a particularly great one. He was kind of sad to see it end.
He'd done a lot in the past three months. Why, just last week, he'd…
…What had he done last week?
His eyes finally opened, and he wiped the sleep from them as he tried to focus. Why couldn't he remember the specific activities? He certainly remembered the feelings. Excitement, amusement, fun. And something else, too.
He vaguely recalled sitting in a theater. The taste of popcorn. Had he gone to see a movie? Which one? And with who?
How bizarre.
He glanced at his clock. 9:39 a.m. His family had let him sleep in. Normally, by this point, he’d already have been woken up by either his alarm or his little sister. He was an early bird by pure circumstance, and sleeping this late was unusual for him, but appreciated.
He considered shutting his eyes again and falling back asleep to escape his forgetting problem, but his nerves and his growling stomach both prevented him from drifting off. Breakfast was calling his name; he could already smell something delicious drifting in from the kitchen. Maybe food would jog his memory.
After he'd gotten dressed and combed his hair, he found his mother at the table, setting down a plate of pancakes, fluffy, warm, and fresh off the stove. She'd arranged blueberries in the batter so that each one had a smiley face.
He smiled in turn. His mom was awesome.
She spotted him as he entered the room and gave him a playful wink. “Well, look who's out of hibernation. Morning, hun!”
“Morning, Mom.” He pulled out a chair and took a seat, eyeing the food hungrily.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Kind of?” He shrugged. “I had a weird dream.”
“Oh, yeah?” Hawkeye used a fork to slide a couple pancakes from the big stack onto an empty plate and served them to her son. “What was it about?”
“A lot of stuff. Like, there were these weird semi aquatic mammals with flat tails–”
“Like a platypus?”
“Nah, not a platypus.”
A teal platypus popped into the front of his mind. Jeremy knew him – his name was Perry. Jeremy was familiar with his owners. A nice British man, and his wife who made great pies. They owned an antique store and were friends with his parents.
The strange thing was, once he was reminded of the Flynn-Fletchers, he felt like he was missing something specific, even more important than what he couldn't remember when he woke up.
He stared into space for a moment. Mrs. Flynn, Mr. Fletcher, and their pet, Perry. There wasn't anyone else. They'd never had any children together. Did they possibly have a niece or nephew or something?
“How about a beaver?”
Jeremy's train of thought was derailed as his mother questioned him further. He blinked a couple times in a row and rubbed his eyes.
“Yeah… it was a bunch of beavers.”
Beavers. He knew what beavers looked like. His mother had hosted a benefit brunch for the Eurasian variety a couple years ago. And even if she hadn't, a toddler could identify a beaver. Why hadn't he recognized them until he was reminded they existed?
Hawkeye approached him and brushed his hair to the side so she could lay a hand on his forehead. “You feeling okay, sweetheart? You slept for so long, and it looks like your mind’s a million miles away.”
He shook his head. “I’m not sick or anything.”
He didn't want to lie to her.
His eyes drifted to his plate again. Maybe digging into his plate of muffins would help –
Muffins?
As his mom circled back around the table to sit down, Jeremy stared at the food like it was a puzzle. Why was this throwing him off? She'd given him a plate of muffins just a few minutes ago. He'd watched her do it. They had always been muffins.
So where had the pancakes gone?
The blueberry smiley faces were still present despite the change in format, and they all grinned at him like they were in on a joke that he wasn't.
He cautiously picked one up. “Hey, Mom?”
A knife clinked on the butter tray. “What's up?”
“Has Dad been using the dimension splicer again?”
It was the only explanation. An entire summer was absent from his memory. He wasn't able to recognize a beaver. And now the breakfast foods were acting up. There had to be a diverging timeline somewhere .
Jeremy remembered where and when he'd felt this feeling before. He'd been pretty young, about six or seven. He couldn't even remember what his father's scheme had been, but whatever he'd done, it erased an entire species of butterfly from existence. Only Jeremy was able to remember what it looked like; none of his family had known what he was talking about when he tried to describe it.
They'd deemed the dimension splicer too dangerous to use after that incident. He wasn't sure what happened to it afterward, but he didn't know anything else that could do what it did.
His mother looked a bit surprised when he brought up the device. With a swift shake of her head, she replied, “Nope. We scrapped that thing for parts ages ago. Good thing, too – it made me antsy after what happened to that poor genus of butterfly. I can't even imagine… to not even go extinct, but to never exist in the first place…”
The butter knife turned into a spoon when he wasn't looking.
Jeremy kept a straight face. “I think something’s up with the timeline.”
“You think so?” Hawkeye took a bite of her muffin. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, ten seconds ago, that spoon you're holding was a butter knife.”
“Hmm.” She examined the utensil. “I haven't even touched the knives today.”
“There's been a couple other things, too. Like, I think that's why I didn't know what the animals in my dream were.”
“It's certainly possible that someone nearby is the cause. There's plenty of other talented mad scientists in L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N.”
“Do you think we need to report it?” He plucked a partly-melted blueberry from his meal and ate it.
“The fabric of time and space is a lot less delicate than you might think. It's probably already sorted itself out. Plus, there couldn't have been too much damage. Beavers and spoons still exist, after all.”
“Yeah, but…” He shrugged. “It kind of had me worried. I feel like there's more things I'm not remembering. Bigger things.”
She reached across the table and lightly pinched his cheek. “You always were more perceptive to that kind of thing, kiddo. But if you're remembering the fact that you're forgetting, that means you'll remember soon enough.”
He chuckled, his mouth full after taking a bite. “Now I'm even more confused.”
“Why don't you take a little walk after breakfast? It's a beautiful day, and the fresh air will help clear your head, if nothing else.”
“I just might.”
When Jeremy left the house, he took his phone with him even though he wasn't able to unlock it. It had a four digit code set as the password, but he had no clue what it could be.
He'd tried his birthday and a couple of other simple combinations before giving up. Nothing worked. It must have been linked to something he couldn't yet recall.
When he'd stepped outside and seen the large, metal thing in their driveway, he remembered it was a car. He knew how to drive. He had his license.
Cars had been wiped? What else was he going to find?
It really was nice outside. He was comfortable in just a t-shirt and cargo shorts – not too cold, not too hot. The dog days were well behind them, and autumn would be here soon.
He liked it when the leaves changed colors. Cozy yellow, deep red, and a distinct, vivid orange–
He had no clue where he was going. His feet were guiding him without any input. They told him which turns to take and how many houses to pass.
He didn't fight it. Maybe his subconscious knew something he didn't.
On his left, a house with dark gray paneling passed by. The mailbox read ‘Van Stomm’. The name rung a bell.
He mentally repeated it a couple times, trying to make the answer surface, and then it hit him: Buford. Buford Van Stomm. His mom was named Biffany, and she attended a few of the same clubs as his own mom.
Jeremy wouldn't have just forgotten that Mrs. Van Stomm had a son. Buford must have been one of the things affected by the strange goings-on.
So it was making him forget people, too. That was a little bit worrying.
Out of nowhere, the memory of Baljeet appeared hand-in-hand with the memory of Buford. Of course it did. They were a package deal, always attached at the hip. How could he remember one without remembering the other?
He wouldn't necessarily say he was friends with the boys, but they'd definitely hung out in the same space multiple times before. They were friendly acquaintances. Somehow.
He idly kicked a pebble down the sidewalk. It still felt like something was missing, and he had a feeling that he'd be compelled to keep walking around until he found it. But this was a start.
After that, he made sure to read every mailbox that he passed, hoping that it might trigger something, but he had no major breakthroughs for several blocks.
He remembered tigers when he saw a sports team mascot on someone's porch banner. He remembered suspenders when he saw an elderly man tending to his garden. He remembered oranges when he saw a couple of little kids snacking on them while playing in their yard.
But he didn't start to remember any more people until he saw a couple of eerily familiar houses that he was approaching.
One of them was an orange Spanish revival. The Garcia-Shapiros lived here. He knew them, too. Mrs. Vivian was also friends with his mother. Why were so many of these specific families linked to his family? He tried not to let that detail get to him, but it didn't work.
The other house was yellow and was a bit less visually interesting than the first, but he felt much more drawn to it. Just looking at it gave him a sense of… coziness?
He knew someone that lived here. Several someones.
He examined the mailbox. There was no last name, but he heard a group of people talking in the backyard. Maybe he could walk around and say hi? Would that be creepy? What if he was wrong?
If he was wrong, the worst they could do was tell him to leave or give him nasty looks. It was worth a shot.
He took a deep breath, tucked his hands in his pockets, and circled around the side of the house.
He was met with a wooden slat fence. The exact sensation of opening the latch suddenly haunted his fingers. The residents of the house had replaced it within the past year, and it still felt like new. It always opened with ease and a satisfying click, not scratchy and tarnished by the elements yet.
He wasn’t sure how he knew that. He didn't think about it too hard.
Voices could be heard from the other side of the gate as he got closer. One of them belonged to the kid named Baljeet – he was sure of it.There was a girl’s voice, too: Isabella, who lived in the house across the street. She was best friends with…
Another boy laughed, and a name popped into Jeremy’s head – Phineas. That was Phineas. And surely, Ferb was with them, too.
The noises from the conversation made his head hurt in a different way from that morning. A massive wave of memories hit, nearly overwhelming him.
Phineas and Ferb. Jetpack volleyball. A massive funhouse that defied the laws of physics. A coliseum.
A tricked-out vintage car. A five star restaurant. A biosphere. A giant scrapbook.
And through every last one of these things was the missing piece he'd been reaching for all morning. He was sure of it.
Jeremy opened the gate with an urgency he rarely felt. The backyard sprawled before him, empty and unassuming, but he remembered.
Under the oak tree sat a group of kids who, for the most part, paid him no mind. It was like they were used to people just walking in. Ferb noticed his entrance and waved, but the others were too engrossed in whatever tale Buford was spinning to notice him. Each one of them had a slice of pie on a paper plate.
The only other person who immediately turned around was Candace.
If Jeremy was hit with a wave of memories when he heard Phineas, he was leveled by a tsunami when he saw his girlfriend. All at once, every little detail about her was present in his brain at the same time.
The glow of her hair that contrasted with her freckles in a really pretty way. Her eyes, blue like his, but darker and more intense, he always thought. A blush that always seemed to consume her entire face when she was around him.
The little happy sigh she always did when he wrapped his arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder. It always made him feel like he was doing something right.
Her knowing all the words to every song he'd ever written. Nobody had ever taken the time to memorize him like she had. He first noticed this at a gig his band had landed a month or two ago. She had been cheering the whole time, and he couldn't hear her over the amps, but her mouth was forming every syllable in every word in every lyric. He'd ended up grinning like an idiot for the rest of the set.
How it felt to kiss her for the very first time, the two of them finally shedding all pretenses and allowing themselves something they had both wanted for years. He was her boyfriend. She was his girlfriend.
Not to mention how it felt to kiss her every time after that.
He was pretty certain he loved her. They hadn't admitted it in so many words yet, but he felt like it was only a matter of time. And once they started saying it, they wouldn't be able to stop.
Candace Gertrude Flynn. How could he have possibly forgotten her ?
She was mid-pie-bite when she turned to look at him, and almost choked when they locked eyes. She quickly set her fork down and wiped the corners of her mouth with her thumbs.
These were the mannerisms of a Candace who had just seen Jeremy yesterday, not one who had recently been wiped from existence. It would have been endearing under normal circumstances.
She stood, and the others looked toward the gate. Scattered, casual greetings sounded off from the congregation. Jeremy felt like he was in the Twilight Zone.
Candace abandoned her plate to approach her boyfriend, a look of pleasant surprise on her face. “Hey! You didn't say you were coming over.”
It took him a second to find his voice. She was right in front of him now, smiling at him like nothing was wrong. He replied, “Sorry. I was locked out of my phone.”
“Oh, it's okay. The more the merrier.” She gestured behind her. “My mom made pie. There's plenty left. Want some?”
“Uh…” He bit his lip. “Candace, can we talk for a second? Alone?”
“...Um.” Her face froze into an artificial calm and he could have sworn he heard her heart stop beating. “Oh.”
His heart twinged. He hadn't meant to make her worry. Taking her hand, he clarified, “It's okay. It's not about us. It's something else.”
Her shoulders visibly released some of their tension (but not all). “Okay. What's up?”
Jeremy led the two of them back through the gate, closing it behind them and taking her a bit farther away from the backyard and away from possible prying ears.
When he turned back to Candace, her eyes were as wide as plates. “Jeremy?”
Concern lacing his tone, he asked, “Candace, what happened ?”
She stiffened again. “Huh?”
“Something happened.” His grip on her hand tightened a little. “I don't know what it was, but something happened. Are you okay?”
Her unblinking eyes stared back at him. “What do you mean? Why wouldn't I be okay?”
“I've been remembering things all day, for lack of a better word. At first, it was small stuff, like muffins. They didn't exist, and then they did.”
“I don't have the slightest idea what you're referring to.”
He tried to convey the urgency he felt while also not causing her any undue stress. “It might be nothing, but it's been freaking me out all day. I know it sounds totally crazy, but–”
“Jeremy, hey. Hey. You are not crazy, okay?”
Her response had been swift, yet firm, and was accompanied by her grabbing his shoulders with conviction.
He was well aware that other people said some pretty cruel things about her behind her back; it had been that way since they were kids. So the fact that her kneejerk response to him calling himself ‘crazy’ was to reassure him that he wasn't?
Yeah, he was definitely in love with her.
Jeremy pursed his lips. “Listen. When I saw you a minute ago, it happened again. I… remembered you.”
“... Remembered me?” She frowned in a thoughtful manner. “So you forgot me.”
“I don't know if I'd call it that. It was more like… something took you away from me.”
“Aww…” She smiled for half a second, but quickly composed herself. “Well… I… hmmm.”
Something was on her mind. She would tell him. He just had to be patient.
He pulled her into a hug and tried to focus on the relief he felt. “I'm just glad you're okay. You are okay, aren't you?”
She returned the hug and snuggled into his chest. “Oh, Jeremy, I'm fine. I promise. I'm really sorry you were worried.”
“I couldn't help it.”
“You like me,” she trilled in a sing-song. It sounded less like she was teasing him and more like she was reveling in the fact.
Despite everything, it elicited a laugh from him. “Of course I like you. We've established that, haven't we?”
“Yeah, but I like being reminded.” She sighed. “I guess I owe you an explanation. But how did you even know? I thought we fixed everything and it was all back to normal. My parents didn't say anything.”
“I dunno… I guess I've got a sixth sense or something.”
“Don't tell my brothers.” She was probably rolling her eyes. “They'll probably hook you up to some weird contraption and study your ions or whatever.”
“It wouldn't be the strangest thing that's ever happened to me.”
They both leaned back, and Jeremy tucked Candace's hair behind her ear. There was that blush again.
Her eyes focused on something to their left. “Hypothetically, if I told you it was my fault, would you be mad at me? You know, in a purely hypothetical sense.”
He shook his head. “No, I wouldn't be mad at you. Worried, maybe, but not mad.”
“Well, let's say that I went to Vanessa's house to give her DVDs back. It was a whole box set of those scary movies with the creepy guy in the hat. I watched them with Stacy last week. And Vanessa's dad had this machine – you know, within the hypothetical. And apparently, he builds stuff like my brothers do, because when you pulled the lever, it made the whole day reset. And I might have used it too many times to try and bust my brothers, and then time rifts started opening and sucking things up, and when they did that, the stuff would completely disappear. Like, my mom and dad didn't even know what spoons were. And then my brothers got pulled in, so I had to go in after them, and that's probably why you forgot me, but we made it back out and it's all good now.”
Jeremy blinked. “Hypothetically?”
Candace gulped. “Hypothetically.”
He inhaled, then exhaled. “In the event that that did happen, I'd reiterate that I'm really glad you're okay. And I'd ask if your brothers are okay, too.”
“Not a scratch on them, or any of the other kids for that matter.”
“I mean, you guys are more than capable. And I guess you’ve been through worse, huh?”
She bit her lip. “Yeah, but you might've not. And now that I'm saying it out loud, I guess it is kind of intense. I'm sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He shrugged. "There's been so many adventures this summer, I can hardly keep track. And besides, my family's pretty weird. You'd be surprised at the stuff I've seen.”
She shook her head. “ Your family? Weird? They're the most Midwestern people I've ever met.” Her eyes widened. “Not that that's a bad thing! I really like spending time with your folks.”
He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. “I’ve never told you about the Johnson family trade, have I?”
“Family trade?” She rested next to him. “Your dad's an astronomer, right? And your mom does conservation work.”
“Those are their day jobs.”
“So what are their night jobs?” She squinted. “Is that the opposite of a day job? Whatever. Anyway, I told you about my shameful blunder. You have to tell me about your family's deep, dark secret. It's the rules.”
Jeremy chuckled. “Well, it's not really a secret. It's just never come up, I guess. It can get a bit embarrassing sometimes.”
“Spill,” she said as she laced her fingers over his shoulder and rested her cheek there. “Only if you want to,” she amended.
“I do want to.” One of his arms wrapped around her midsection and pulled her a bit closer. “I want to tell you everything about my life.”
“You know what, mister? Every single time we talk, you drop at least one or two of the most romantic and sweet sentences I've ever heard, and I'm just supposed to continue acting like a regular human being afterwards. It's unfair.”
Jeremy's face might have been as warm as Candace’s now. He resisted the urge to just stand there and kiss her for the rest of the day. “Sorry, I think.”
“Apology accepted.”
“So, my family's evil.”
A beat passed in silence.
She echoed, “Evil?”
“Yep.”
“Suzy?”
“No, not Suzy. Not yet, anyway. She's too young for any of that stuff.”
Candace seemed like she wanted to say something, but her initial comment was swallowed down. She waited a moment, and said, “Well, that doesn't make any sense. Your parents are, like, straight out of a storybook. They're the cute little couple that runs a bakery in the town square.”
“Oh, they don't have a mean bone in their body. But evil isn't something you are , it's something you do . It's a job, you know? Kind of like what Vanessa's dad does.”
She sat up straight. “ Vanessa's dad is evil?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I gave him guitar lessons a couple months ago, and he was building some weird ray that was supposed to be able to talk to aliens. I dunno.”
She began chewing on one of her fingernails, but added nothing.
“Anyway, that's what my family does. My dad has a lair under the observatory. My mom leads vigilante operations on other continents to help endangered animals. That kind of thing.”
“That second one doesn't seem very evil.”
“There's usually a lot of property damage.”
“What about your grandma?” She scratched her arm. “She was very… um… motivated, but she didn't strike me as evil, either.”
“Oh, she cheats in all of her races. She's got a closet full of trophies she obtained through ‘illegitimate means’,” he said with air quotes.
“Your cousin from Australia?”
“Nicolette? Her stories were all true. She really does swim with piranhas. She just uses the video game excuse as a cover.”
“That other cousin I met at the reunion? Annabelle, right?”
“Owned one of the biggest evil anvil factories in the country. Evil anvils are different than normal ones.”
“ Uncle Joe ?”
“That submarine outside his shop?” He leaned closer and whispered, “It's a real submarine.”
She tilted her head. “And you're not pulling my leg about any of this?”
“Scout’s honor. It might be why I knew something happened today. My dad's built so many crazy things, and I usually get a weird feeling when something's off.”
“Do you wanna be evil?”
“Nah, not really.” He stuck his free hand in his pocket. “I wanna do something with music instead. My folks were kinda surprised when I told them, but they support me, and they said I'll always have a place in the family business if I want it.”
“Huh.” Her head found his shoulder again.
“They're all good people. There's plenty of evil people out there who are really nice when they're off the clock, and I've always trusted them, anyway.”
“Okay.”
Another beat of silence.
Jeremy would have given her a curious look if they hadn't been side by side. “So…?”
“I believe you.”
“You're okay with all that?”
“Sure am.” Candace gave his arm a squeeze.
“It's not a dealbreaker?”
“Jeremy, it’s gonna take a lot more than a weird family to scare me off. In case you haven't noticed, I've got one of those myself.”
“Hey, I love your family.”
“And I love yours .”
He leaned his head on top of hers and sighed happily. “You're awesome, and I'm really glad you exist.”
She giggled. “Ditto.”
“Try not to disappear on me again, okay?”
“I’ll tell you what. If I see any more time rifts, I'll be sure to let you know before I jump in. That way, you can come with me.”
“Deal.”
He shifted slightly, hooked a finger under her chin, and moved her lips to his.
The kiss was simple and sweet. And so was the next one. And the next one. If there was any stress still left in his mind, it was long gone by now; every move made by his girlfriend melted it away. He hoped he made her feel the same.
At some point, her arm ended up draped around his neck, making his skin tingle. He was about to deepen the kiss a little (not a lot – they were still standing in her driveway, after all) when a loud, mechanical noise startled them both.
They looked towards the backyard, but nothing could be seen over the fence.
Candace sighed as she rolled her head backwards in exasperation. “I thought they were done for the day,” she complained, her tone a bit less sugary than it was a minute ago.
“Maybe they got a last-minute idea,” Jeremy mused with a grin. “Once school starts, they won't be able to work every day.”
“Oh, I know.” She laid her head on his shoulder again. “But you know, it's not work to them. It's fun. It's just a bunch of fun.”
She sounded almost… sentimental. Possibly curious. Definitely loving.
He stood up straight and took her hands. “You wanna check on them?”
Candace looked thoughtful for a moment. “I'm not gonna try to bust them any more today. Especially after that happened earlier.”
“You don't have to do that if you don't want to. We could just go watch. Hang out.” He shrugged. “Or help them with whatever they're building now.”
“Alright, let’s not get too crazy.”
They walked to the gate, hand in hand, cozy smiles on their faces. He absentmindedly pulled out his phone to check the time, and he entered his passcode without a second thought: 0621.
It didn't really matter what they did. She could try and bust her brothers, and he'd have her back. They could just sit back and relax in the fresh air for an hour or two. They could pitch in and help with the boys’ newest creation. Or they could ditch the house altogether and go on an impromptu date.
As long as Candace was there to spend it with him, Jeremy couldn't ask for a better summer afternoon.