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The Stone twins had grown up too fast, in different ways.
Olive Stone was six years old when her brother was diagnosed with cancer.
She was at school. Cal had stayed home, he wasn't feeling well. He ‘didn't feel well’ a lot. She knew her parents were taking him to the doctors, but no one would tell her anything. Mom just kept saying everything was okay, but Olive knew it wasn't okay, she could feel it, not just from their weird behavior but also something deeper, the same weird feeling she'd had last year when Cal was being bullied.
“Olive Stone, please go to the office.” The intercom said. She poked her tongue at the rest of the class as they made a dramatic ‘ooo’ sound, packed up her books and left.
When she got to the office, her Aunt Michaela was waiting, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Olive, hey.” Michaela said with a smile, but something in her eyes betrayed her expression. “We're gonna go to my house and watch a movie, okay?”
Olive steps back with a frown. “Why? What's happening?”
“Mom and dad are spending time with Cal, so we're going to have a girls day.”
“Is Cal okay?”
“He's fine. He's just going to the doctor again, that's all.”
Olive shrugs. “Okay.”
Olive had always liked her Aunt's apartment. It had a certain smell that her house didn't have, something warm and fresh. And she had this pink fluffy blanket that Olive and Cal always fought over.
Today, though, Olive wrapped herself up in it alone and watched a movie. Michaela didn't sit with her. She was in the other room, talking quietly to someone- she'd said ‘Ben’, so Olive assumed it was dad, but usually when dad and Michaela called they'd just do it on speaker phone so Olive could say hi.
They finished two movies before it was time to go home. Cal's bedroom door was shut, but her parents were both sitting on the couch. Dad stood up when he saw her.
“Olive, how was your day?” He asks, ringing his hands.
“It was good.” Olive says, but something about the way all three adults are looking at her makes her anxious. “Um… how was yours?”
“Olive, honey, there's something we need to tell you.” Mom says. Aunty Michaela takes her hand.
“...what is it?”
“The doctors finally figured out what's making Cal so sick. It's… well, it’s cancer.”
Olive blinked. She knew about cancer. She remembered sitting in class, when a teacher came in to tell them that Rachel's Mom had died of cancer, and they all needed to be extra nice to her for a while. Olive had given her half of her lunch. “Is he going to die?”
Dad looks at Mom. “The doctors think he'll be okay. But he's going to need treatment, which will make him seem sicker for a while, but it'll help in the long run.”
“It might make his hair fall out.” Mom says. It's odd to think about Cal with no hair, and she'd laugh if she wasn't so worried. She’s silent for a long moment, and she can feel them all watching her with bated breath, the air heavy.
“Am I going to get cancer now? Like when he got chickenpox and gave it to me?”
Everyone seems to let out a collective sigh of relief. Aunty Michaela laughs, but Mom glares at her and she shuts up. “No, honey. Cancer isn't contagious. They’ll give him some medicine, and he’ll be alright in no time.”
That was one of the first lies Olive remembered Mom telling her.
Olive Stone was eleven years old when her twin brother died.
The plane landed, and Olive got off, holding her mom's hand. Grandma and Grandpa followed close behind. They went through baggage claim, got some food, and her mom found seats. Olive grabbed her grandpa's hand and dragged him off to look at the duty free section. She explores, with him in tow, for an hour or so. It's fine, but she misses Cal already. He's much more fun to go on a treasure hunt with than Grandpa, who says their song is creepy.
Grandma comes over, and clears her throat. Olive holds up a notebook. “Look! It's green! Cal likes green, we should get it for him.”
Grandma looks at Grandpa. She looks sad. “They're asking us to wait in a side room.”
Grandpa frowns. “Us? Why?”
Grandma glances down at Olive, then shakes her head. “They haven't told us why yet, but… they're looking specifically for people waiting for flight 828.”
Olive loves to read. She's never really understood the phrase ‘the colour drained from his face’, but as she looks at Grandpa, that is probably the best way to describe it. He looks almost grey, like Cal does sometimes when he’s going to throw up.
“What happened?” Olive says. Grandma smiles, but she doesn't look happy.
“Nothing, sweet. We're going to go join mommy, okay?”
The room they wait in is plain and white, and the chairs are uncomfortable, but Olive sits still and says nothing because the room is full of crying people. Mom is crying, and she hugs Olive tighter than usual, but she won't explain why. No one will explain why, until a man in a suit walks in.
“As you've been told, flight 828 unfortunately experienced an incident an hour after takeoff.” The man says. “We lost contact with Captain Daly, and the flight dropped off our radar. Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to locate it, and…” he takes a silent breath, closing his eyes, before continuing. Olive recognizes that look. It’s the look the doctors gave Mom at Cal’s last appointment. It means bad news, it means finding Dad crying in the bathroom, it means one last vacation. “Everyone on board is presumed dead.”
Mom lets out a shriek, and Grandma is crying. Everyone else in the room is upset too. Olive looks up at Grandpa.
“Wait, what does that mean?” She knew what it meant, of course she did, but she had to hear someone say it, because it couldn’t be real. It had to be a joke, a dumb joke. Grandpa crouches down to her level, his hands on his knees. He won’t meet her eyes.
“There was an accident.” He says slowly. “Cal and Dad's plane crashed.”
“But they're okay, right?” Her voice wobbles as the tears start to spill. “They made it out okay?”
He swallows, and says nothing for a second. “Honey, I'm so sorry.” He reaches to hug her, but she steps away, shaking her head.
“No, you're lying. You're lying .”
He tries to protest, but she isn't listening. She runs from the room. A woman in a uniform tries to grab her, but she jumps out of the way. Everything is too loud.
“Olive!” She hears her mom yell, but she doesn't stop, running and running, back to the gate where the flight should've landed. ‘Cancelled’, it says. No one here even looks at it.
Cal's not dead. She thought to herself. He's not dead, I can still feel him.
It occurred to her that she wouldn't know what it felt like if he was dead. She'd always known he'd die first, ever since that phone call when they were seven. He'd only gotten sicker and sicker since then. This was, after all, their last vacation, and she was old enough to understand what that meant. But it wasn't supposed to be like this, she was supposed to say goodbye, he was supposed to be holding her hand and they'd do it the way they did everything- together. He wasn’t supposed to just disappear into the ocean.
I should’ve gone on that plane instead. It should’ve been me.
Out here, at the gate, everyone is acting normal. No one seems to realise that the world has just ended, because her brother is never coming home. She’s one half of a broken pair of glasses, just waiting to be thrown out. She’s a strawberry without the seeds- no, she is the seeds, because Cal is- was- everything.
Her mom catches up to her now, as she’s knelt on the floor of the airport, crying. Mom is crying too. They don’t say a word, and the people don’t say a word, just stepping around them and carrying on their days.
Olive Stone was thirteen years old when her mother decided it was time to move on.
“We've been talking,” Mom says, taking Danny's hand, “And we think it's time to pack up Cal's room.”
Olive drops her cutlery with a clatter, looking up. “What?”
Her mom takes a shuddering breath. “Every time I walk past his room, it's a painful reminder of what we've lost. I keep expecting him to just pop out of his closet or something. But he's gone, and to start accepting that, I need to clean up.”
Olive shakes her head. “Well you can't.”
“Olive-” Danny starts.
“No, you can't . I won't let you. He was my brother, and he's coming back-”
“For God's sake!” Mom yells, banging her fists on the table, and Olive flinches. “Look, honey, I know you miss him, but if you keep pretending he's still alive you're just going to hurt yourself.”
“He is still alive, mom! I can feel him!”
“We need space to heal!”
“No, you need space! Have you ever even thought about what I need?”
“Look, Ol, Doctor Brennan said-” Danny speaks up.
“I don't care what Doctor Brennan said! He's not my dad, and neither are you!” She scrapes her chair back, because she knows her mom hates it, and runs upstairs. Not to her room- to Cal's. Any time she’s upset, that’s where she finds herself. She crawls under the bed, pulling his stuffed dragon with her, and presses it to her face, holding her breath as long as possible to stave off the tears. Two years later, it still smells like him. She remembers squishing into his bed with him at the hospital, the dragon in her hands, because Mom and Dad said he didn’t need it but she knew it helped.
There's a gentle knock on the door, and Danny comes in. Olive doesn't look at him. He sits quietly on the floor, leaning against Cal's bed. Olive's feet poke out the end when she lies under it now, even if she pulls her legs up. She's taller than her brother was when he disappeared.
“I'm not trying to act like your dad.” Danny says. “I'm sorry.”
“I know. You know I don’t mean it. It’s just- mom.” There's a long silence, during which he reaches up to smooth Cal’s duvet, before he speaks again.
“Your mom is dead set on getting rid of everything. But- if you want- I'll buy a storage container on the outskirts of town. We can keep their stuff as long as you need.”
Olive is silent for a while, considering this, before crawling head-first out from under the bed. She wipes her face. “You’d do that?”
Danny nods. “She doesn't have to know.”
Olive hugs him. “Thank you.”
Everything goes to storage. Dad’s clothes, Cal’s bed, his toys. It's still not a perfect solution- Olive misses hiding in Cal's room- but it's something. She keeps the dragon, hiding it under her covers every day, even though she's pretty sure her mom knows she has it.
Olive Stone was sixteen years old when her family came back.
Olive moves in closer to her mom's side, resting her head on her shoulder. They're on the last episode of a show they've been watching for weeks. Danny was trying to watch it with them, but he got sick of them always talking through it, so they started watching it when he's at work.
From across the room, her mom's phone vibrates. Her mom pauses the TV, and Olive groans as she walks over to answer the phone.
“But this is an important part.” She pouts jokingly, then falls silent as mom holds the phone to her ear.
“Yes, this is she.” She listens for a second, and frowns. “Really? After five years?”
Olive's heart seizes. There's only one thing that happened five years ago. Have they finally found the plane? A part of her was hoping they never would. That way, she could keep believing the feeling in her chest that Cal was still out there somewhere, trying to get back to her. She could keep believing in her ‘twin powers’.
Her mom's expression turns haunted, and the phone slips from her grasp. She starts to cry, covering her mouth, not looking at anything. It reminds Olive too much of when they found out that Cal's cancer was terminal.
Oh God, they've found bodies.
Olive grabs the phone from where it lies on the floor.
“What? What happened, what is it?” She asks, unable to hide her desperation.
“Who is this?”
“This is Olive, Olive Stone, I'm- Grace is my mom- please, just-” She cuts herself off with a choked sound. Her mom places a hand on her shoulder, and Olive realises it's not grief in her eyes. Fear, disbelief… hope?
“Olive Stone… daughter of Ben Stone? Flight 828 landed in Queens, two hours ago.”
“That's- that’s impossible.” Olive says, her voice breathy, but even as she says it she knows it's possible, of course it is, because this is exactly the kind of miracle her stubborn-ass father would create to get back to his wife.
The next few hours are a whirlwind. They go down to the police station. Mom calls Grandpa, and Jared, and Danny, and Olive calls any of her friends that will pick up. Everything goes by so fast, and the only thing Olive is truly aware of is her heart beating in her chest. For the past five and a half years that rhythmic beat has been whispering he’s alive, he’s alive, and now it is yelling and banging and straining to get out of her chest, trying to get to her brother.
Fourteen hours after the phone call, they’re sitting in a room with a detective. Some guy from the FBI. He says to call him Vance.
“We don’t yet understand how this is happening. We’re all just as shocked as you are.”
Mom is gripping Olive’s hand. She hasn’t stopped crying since she first heard. Olive hasn’t cried yet.
“Where have they been all these years?” Mom asks.
“That’s… just the thing.” Vance takes a deep breath. “Every passenger on flight 828 returned just as they were when they left. Same clothes, same luggage, the plane is in the exact same condition. None of them have aged a day- and, until landing, they weren’t aware a second had passed more than it should have.”
This takes a moment to register in Olive’s mind. “Wait- you’re saying Cal’s still eleven? How is that possible?”
Vance sighs. “We’re working on that.”
Grace shakes her head. “It’s a miracle.”
He nods, but he’s stonefaced.
Thirty hours after the phone call, they’re in a waiting room at the airport. It’s awfully similar to the one where they found out the plane had disappeared, but this time the energy is different. People are still crying, but they are full of hope and apprehension, disbelief in a positive way. Everyone holds in their hands a polaroid photograph of the person they’re waiting for, obviously hastily taken just hours ago, as if that’ll make the shock of seeing them again any easier. Call traces a finger over Cal’s face. He looks so much smaller, so much younger, than she remembers. Dad looks confused, Michaela looks afraid. Members of the press have been bombarding them since the news got out, and they hang around the airport like flies, shooed off only by security guards.
Thirty four hours after the phone call, they open the doors to the building where the passengers are being held. Olive tries to keep up with her mom, but she feels floaty like her legs won’t work right and Mom sprints straight through all the people, Grandpa not far behind. Olive gets shoved out of the way by another woman, and falls to the floor. She tries to stand, but there are people everywhere. Everything feels like a dream. Someone offers her their hand, and she takes it, but all she can think about is Dad and Cal and Aunty Mich, and she doesn’t even look at the person who helped her.
Through the crowd she spots her mum, who’s hugging her dad, and Olive’s throat tightens when she hears him speaking to her. She thought she’d never hear his voice again, had lost count of how many times she’d called him just to hear the voice mail before Mom disconnected the number. Mich is hugging Grandpa and crying, so he’s already told her about Grandma. Olive’s chest does a funny jump and she gently pushes past someone to see-
Cal.
He looks so small, so fragile. Her twin, who’d always bragged about being three minutes older, was now five and a half years younger. She’d forgotten how sick he looked. He’s looking at her, too, and a tsunami of emotions crashes through her. She’d sat at his grave and cried for hours about how he was gone, and they didn’t even have a body for the funeral, and how she’d never feel his presence fully again. She’d stared at herself in the mirror for hours, picking out every detail of her face that resembled his, imagining it was his face staring back at her. She’d slept in his bed for days after the crash, trying to absorb every part of him before it all dried up.
And now he was back.
“Cal-” She chokes out. He looks afraid, uncertain, but she knows he recognizes her. His apprehension makes sense- as far as he remembers, two days ago she was a foot shorter and five years younger. He turns and runs off through the crowd. Mom runs after him. Olive feels glued to the spot, as if she’s being yanked in every direction by an invisible force. Dad pulls her into a hug, and she finally lets herself cry.
I was right. All these years, I was right. He’s alive- he’s alive- he’s alive.
Olive Stone was eighteen years old when her mom was murdered.
She had moved downstairs when Eden was born. Her parents said it was because she’d have more space down there, but she knew it was really so they could set her old room up for Eden, when she was old enough. Olive didn’t mind though. The extra space was nice.
Cal was missing. Again. He’d touched a part of that goddamned plane, and he’d disappeared. So Olive found herself doing something she’d done hundreds of times since his first disappearance- looking through old photos. She paused on a photo of them from Jamaica. Cal’s last holiday. His hair had thinned out, he had basically no eyelashes. Each night in that hotel she’d lain awake, listening to the air rattle into his lungs and wishing she could take the cancer from him. If someone had given her the chance to die to save him, she would’ve taken it in a heartbeat. But miracles didn’t happen- at least, not in 2013.
A scream rang out through the house. Olive jumped, closing her phone.
“Mom?”
Grace was upstairs. Maybe she’d dropped something, maybe she’d tripped maybe Eden was hurt-
The door to Olive’s room wouldn’t open. It was jammed by something. She threw herself against it as more ‘what ifs’ started racing through her mind. “Mom, mom, mom!” Eden wasn’t breathing, the passengers were gone, mom had fallen down the stairs. She couldn’t get the damn door open, she couldn’t, and she was going to fail her mom just like she’d failed Cal seven years ago.
Another sound. Eden crying. Olive shoved the door as hard as she could, but it wouldn’t open. “Mom!” She yelled again, between sobs.
The house falls quiet.
Too quiet.
Olive almost doesn’t want to see what’s happened, because she knows that if her mom could physically be at Olive’s door, she’d be there.
But, no matter how much she cries and begs at that basement door, time doesn’t rewind. It doesn’t pause. She doesn’t get a second chance, and the silence stretches on. The house feels empty, and Olive feels properly alone.
One more solid shove, a clattering sound, and the door flies open. A stepladder lies abandoned on the floor. Someone had trapped her in there on purpose.
Numb, shaking legs carry her up the stairs. She doesn’t have the strength, she tells herself. She won’t make it up to the next floor. But her legs keep moving, and she keeps moving, onto the landing and down the hall and to her parents’ bedroom door. She already knows what she’ll find, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
There’s a knife buried, hilt deep, in her mom’s favourite sweater. Tears are not quite dry yet on her cheeks. Her blood is wet and shiny on the floor. Her head is resting on something soft, and green, and as she gets closer, Olive realises it’s Cal’s stuffed dragon. Cal has been here before her. Did he-
No.
She can’t even think it. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have. Not her brother, her younger older brother, who sacrificed himself to help people he barely knew.
Her brother.
Olive tears her eyes away from her mom, even though she knows she’ll see it again every time she tries to sleep. Eden is gone from her crib. She remembers the crying she’d heard, and now realises the front door had been ajar as she walked past it.
‘She’s my guardian angel-’
Angelina had done this. Angelina, who’d laughed with Olive over slushies. Angelina, who she’d comforted when Pete died. Angelina, who had been trying to steal Olive’s life.
Angelina had killed her mother.
Olive is the one to call the cops, once she can talk through the sobbing. Olive is the one to tell her dad that his daughter is gone.
They go back to Zeke and Mich’s house that night. Zeke sits beside her the whole time, while Mich and dad are organizing things with the cops. He talks to her in that tone of voice he uses when everything is shit, but it’s what she needs at this moment because everything is shit. She doesn’t talk back. She can’t. All she can see is that goddamn knife in her mom’s stomach. All she can think about is Angelina, getting back in the house somehow, and taking her little sister. God knows where Eden is, or if they’ll ever see her again. Angelina could be on a flight to Australia by now.
There’s a knock on the door. Zeke answers it. It’s someone he doesn’t recognize, but Olive meets the stranger’s eyes, and she can tell immediately that it isn’t a stranger. There’s not a single situation where she wouldn’t recognize her twin.
“Is it really you?” She whispers. He says nothing, but she didn’t need the confirmation anyway. There’s a moment where he hugs dad, and everything could almost be normal, except if everything was normal mom would be in that hug too.
And Olive knows exactly how Angelina got into the house. She knows exactly how Angelina knew where the spare key was kept.
And then she’s yelling, and she’s hitting him, and she’s saying horrible things that she doesn’t mean and she knows she doesn’t mean and everyone knows she doesn’t mean except for him, because he’s taking it all to heart but she needs it off her chest before she explodes. She’ll apologize a hundred times eventually, but tonight everything is too much and all she feels is rage.
“It’s all your fault!”
It’s not his fault. It was never his fault, she knows that. It’s hers.
Olive Stone was twenty years old when everything changed.
Cal is dying. Properly dying, more than he ever was nine years ago. He’s in his hospital bed all day, and Olive sits with him as often as she can, but she knows it pisses him off that she’s ‘wasting time’ on him, so she tries to act as if everything’s normal. She keeps working, picking up extra shifts after Zeke is fired, she keeps cooking, they hold things together the best they can through the 828 restrictions. She keeps her breakdowns for bathroom breaks, or when she’s alone with Zeke. He’s the only one she can talk to, which she knows is because of his bullshit empathy powers or whatever, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Olive’s at home when it happens, in the attic with TJ. All she can think about is Cal. She has to save him, because without him- without that distinct thrumming in her heart telling her that he’s alive- she’s nothing, because Cal is everything.
The front door slams open, and footsteps are running for the living room. For a second, she’s afraid of who it could be, but then she recognizes Aunt Mich’s voice yelling “No!” and her mind is screaming Cal and she’s running, sprinting down the stairs, three at a time.
Her dad is clutching Cal's hand, and her heart stops for a moment. But she can still feel him, and he looks normal, healthy, more him than he has in months.
But someone is on the ground. Who’s on the ground?
Zeke.
Aunt Mich is holding his face in her hands, begging him to stay with her. He’s reassuring her, but his voice is weak and full of pain, and his skin is as grey as Cal’s was half an hour ago.
Memories run through Olive's mind. Zeke holding her while she cried, taking her pain despite her protests, helping her get a job and hold everything together. They’d spent a lot of time together in the past two years. And they’d talked about him surviving his death date. He’d said he felt like he had a purpose , a reason he came back, something he was meant to do with his second chance.
He’d taken Cal’s cancer.
Mich pulls Zeke into a hug as he takes his final breath, and she is sobbing. Dad is crouched over Cal’s chest, and he’s crying too because Cal isn’t breathing, he isn’t breathing , Zeke died for nothing.
And then he gasps, and Olive finds herself able to breathe as well.
The front door is thrown open again, and there are cops. Olive finds herself instinctively stepping forward, in front of Zeke and Mich and Cal.
“What’s going on?” She says. Her words don’t sound right to her ears, like her mouth won’t quite obey her, because of the shock. Everything is happening at once. Someone flashes a badge at her.
“828 passengers are going into isolation.” Mich is pulled up by the arm. She fights it, not letting go of Zeke. Olive grabs the shoulder of the officer holding her.
“That’s her husband-” Olive tries to say, but she’s interrupted.
“Is he dead?” A woman points at Zeke. “How the hell-?”
“Cancer.” Olive says. “Look, we need-”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there are bigger things going on right this moment. Ben and Michaela Stone need to come with us.”
“Her husband just died!” Olive cries. “I understand that you have a job to do, but you can’t just-”
A bigger officer hurls Michaela off the ground, cuffing her arms behind her back. “Government orders. Keep interfering, and you’ll be arrested as an accomplice.”
“This is crazy!” Olive says, trying to pull Mich back, but her dad touches her shoulder.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of her, just-” Someone cuffs him, and they start dragging them out the door. “You’ve got this, okay? I love you, and tell Eden-” The cops drag him down the front porch, Olive follows. “Tell her I love her, and I’ll see you-” The door of the cop car slams shut. Olive is yelling at people, and she doesn’t think anyone is listening. None of her arguments do any good.
“He’s my dad, I need him, you can’t just-”
The police leave.
Olive goes back inside, wiping her face aggressively, knowing she has to keep it together for her siblings. Cal is sitting on the floor beside Zeke’s body.
“He sacrificed himself for me.” Cal mumbles. Olive swallows hard, and nods, and wraps an arm around him. “I didn’t-”
“Shh.” She says, resting her head on his shoulder, her eyes puffy. “Don’t do that. Don’t go there. You are my twin brother, and I love you, and I need you here with me.”
They’re both silent for a moment.
“Zeke made his choice, okay? And you’re alive, and that’s all I need.”
He nods. He’s crying. Hell, so is she. He laughs, no real humour to it, wiping his face.
“What the hell are we going to tell Eden?”
More sirens outside. Olive looks over her shoulder.
“Ambulance. The cops must’ve called it.”
“Fat lot of good that’s going to do.”
“How do we explain this one?” Olive asks, looking at him. “I mean, a completely healthy man dies of cancer in twenty seconds. And someone who’s been dying for months is suddenly fine? People can only take so many miracles.”
Cal shrugs. “Doctor Bates will come up with something.”
Life moves on. They organise a funeral for Zeke. His mom comes, Jared comes, Drea comes, and Grandpa comes. Olive’s heart hurts for Mich, locked up in that detention centre, unable to attend her own husband’s funeral.
Cal uses his fake ID to get a job. They sell the car. They live paycheck to paycheck, and they’re grateful that the house was left to Mich with no mortgage on it.
Cal doesn’t get to visit their family. Olive doesn’t know if he’ll ever see dad again, considering the death date is fast approaching and the restrictions aren’t lifting.
They pay the bills. They raise Eden. Everything sucks but they make it work, they make it all work, because at least they’re together.
Olive Stone was twenty-two years old when the world ended.
It didn’t actually end, of course. Her dad made sure of that. But it came damn close.
She can tell she’s reaching her breaking point when they have to say goodbye. There’s a fifty fifty chance she’ll never see her family again. But Eden is there, and she’s so full of hope and light, that Olive knows she has to keep it together. No one really knows what will happen if they stop the death date, but Olive thinks of Zeke, of how he came back, and tells herself that that’s in the cards for her family, too. Jared and Drea’s presence helps her hold herself together.
Her fear is replaced with anger when they get home. Everything is different to how they left it, and she can almost feel Angelina in every room. The idea that Angelina felt safe coming back here, after what she did to Olive’s mom, is sickening.
The world is bathed in fire by the time they figure out the clue. Volcanoes are arising out of the ground. News stations talk about mass panic, and the apocalypse, and something bitter inside of Olive can’t help thinking that none of this shit would have happened if the authorities had just listened to the passengers in the first place. The clue is forgiveness, and that feels so obvious because of course it is . Zeke forgave himself, and he lived. Pete couldn’t forgive his brother, and he died. Dad has to forgive Angelina, has to carry her through the fire and onto that plane.
Olive calls him, and listens to the phone ring and ring. He doesn’t pick up. Of course he doesn’t, he doesn’t have his phone. Her heart sinks, but she tries anyway, talking and crying to his voice mail as if some divine force will perform one last miracle and let him hear her.
It’s bullshit. It’s all bullshit.
In their parent’s old bed, she pulls Eden close to her side. She tells her stories from before Eden was born, about their parents, and their grandparents, and Cal. She tells her all about Cal. Anything to distract her- both of them- from the lightning and the lava outside, and the sound of Drea’s screams downstairs. Olive shuts the blinds, pretending that will do anything to block out the sense of impending doom.
“We’re going on a treasure hunt…” she whispers, and somewhere deep in her heart, she feels a flicker of her brother’s presence again.
The clock strikes midnight. She holds Eden as tight as she can, and they hide under the duvet. Olive doesn’t know what it feels like to burn to death, but she wishes there was some way to protect her baby sister from the pain that’s surely coming.
But it never comes.
The lightning stops. The volcanoes fall quiet.
Olive opens the blinds.
There’s nothing. No sign of destruction, or death, or violence. Just a peaceful June night. She checks her phone.
June 3rd, 2024.
And the world hasn’t ended.
The world.
Hasn’t.
Ended.
Olive looks back over at Eden, who is very much there, very much alive, and she sweeps her into her arms. Eden giggles.
“What happened?” Eden asks.
“It’s over.” Olive says, a smile finally splitting her face.
They go downstairs. Jared is sitting next to Drea, who is cradling an infant. Drea looks over at them, her forehead shiny with sweat.
“Meet Hope.” She says with a tearful smile. Eden crouches in front of the baby. Olive looks at Jared.
“They did it.” She says.
“They did it.” He repeats.
“They actually did it.” The more she says it, the more it feels real.
The news is playing, the reporter prattling on about a miracle, the volcanoes sinking back into the earth as if they were never there. It’s batshit crazy, but so is everything these days.
For a second, Olive feels something in that special part of her heart, like another heart beating alongside her own. It’s Cal, she knows it, but it’s something else as well.
And then it fades, and she feels empty. She meets Jared’s eyes, and something in them tells her that he felt it too.
“They’re gone.” Olive says slowly. “They’re not coming back. They’re really not, this time.”
Jared swallows hard. “They’ve gone somewhere else.”
Somewhere else.
“It’s a sacrifice.” Drea whispers. “Our world, for this world.”
Our world.
Mom, dad, Cal, aunt Mich.
My world… for this world.
Tears spike in her eyes, but she looks around at Jared, at Drea, at Eden and baby Hope. It hurts- it hurts so bad that everyone is gone. She feels empty without Cal, and she’s reminded of the day he first disappeared. A strawberry, but only the seeds . But as she brushes the hair off of Eden’s forehead, she can’t help but think that maybe they’ll survive.
“Not our whole world.”