Max had a crayon in her hand. She looked down at a crude picture of a pirate ship, with a blonde and a brunette stick figure aboard. The blonde was wearing a captain's hat. Of course.
"I'm drawing a circus! What are you drawing?" Chloe's voice came across the table, startlingly high pitched but still definitely Chloe.
"Um… a pirate ship," Max replied. "You're the captain." Her own child voice sounded high and strange in her ears.
"As long as you're first mate!"
Indeed, Max thought. She grabbed another crayon, started drawing a town on the shore. The pirate needed something to plunder, after all. She could hear the voices of William and Sean Prescott behind her in the next booth. They were speaking quietly, but she could tell the conversation was heated. She leaned back in the booth, strained to listen.
"William, please, reconsider. I need your talents."
"I told you not to come near me or my family. I said I was through, and I meant it."
"I can still fix this, if you'll let me."
"No, you can't. You're done, Prescott, you just don't know it yet. There's a storm coming, and when it comes, you and everything you've built here will be gone. And she'll be free of all this. Now get the hell out of here, you don't want to cause a scene at the local diner, do you?"
Max's crayon froze in her hand. Did he mean THE storm? How could he know?
"A storm, eh? We'll see about that." Prescott sounded rattled. "Alright William, have it your way." Max heard him get up, saw him walk past, out of the diner. She grabbed a grey crayon, started scribbling frantically.
William appeared at their booth. "Hey kids! What've we got here?"
"A circus!" said Chloe, holding up her menagerie.
"A tornado." said Max, holding up her storm, looming over the pirate ship and the town.
William looked at her, cocked is head slightly. "Max, are you feeling quite yourself?"
Oh shit, she thought, he does recognize it. Hadn't really expected that. "Um, yeah, I'm super!"
"You look like you could use some air. Let's go outside, get you some fresh air. Chloe, wait for us here OK?"
"OK!" Chloe said, and returned to drawing.
William took Max firmly by the arm and led her out into the parking lot. Then he squatted down to look her in the eye. "Sorry to scare you, Max. I think something… funny is going on right now. Why'd you decide to draw a tornado?"
She looked at him. "It's just a drawing."
"Max, what day is it today?"
Oh, shit! "Um, it's… I guess I forgot?"
"Why'd you draw the tornado, Max? Is that town Arcadia Bay? Have you seen it? I think you're older than you look, right now."
The gig appeared to be up. How was this even possible? She caved. "Yeah I… I've seen it. I'm visiting. Just for a few minutes. But William, I have to be careful not to change anything, and just talking to you like this is dangerous!"
"Huh," he said, rocking back on his heels. "Interesting. Don't worry about changing anything, I already knew about this… visit. And I've gotten pretty good at keeping secrets about the future. How old are you where you're visiting from?"
"Uh… eighteen. How did you know?"
"I've been able to… catch a few glimpses of what's coming. I saw you holding up the the picture. I knew you'd be… someone else. From after the storm, I think."
"Yeah… right after. You know about the storm."
"I do. Does Joyce… is there any chance?"
Max shook her head, her ponytail brushing her back. "I would have lost Chloe. I'm so sorry William. I couldn't find another way."
He looked down at the ground for a moment, then raised his head. "It's alright, that's what I expected. She would have made the same choice, Max. She doesn't want to outlive her only daughter any more than I do. But Chloe is…?"
"She's fine. She convinced me to come back here. She wanted to know why you were talking to Prescott."
"That's my girl! But it might be a longer story than we have time for. The thing you need to know is, the storm, this… whatever it is you're doing… it's been building for a long time. The Prescotts started it, decades ago, before Sean was even born. They've been doing… bad things. Weird stuff. Spirits. Blood. Visions. Messing around with people's destinies to suit their own ends, to control the town. And it's killing Arcadia Bay. The town is losing its… light, you might say, becoming an evil place. You can see it if you know where to look."
"Yeah. The town was definitely not doing very well. How do you know all this?"
"Sean roped me in. Said I had 'a gift', had me take part in his messed-up rituals."
That sounds familiar, Max thought.
William continued, "It started before I married Joyce. I was young and stupid. And curious. He knows a way to invoke the animal spirits, bring on visions of the future. I didn't believe it at first but, it turns out… 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' He needed me because he's afraid of something in his own visions, he won't do it himself anymore. It was exciting, and I played along for a few years, until I realized what was really happening. And I saw how working with Prescott had changed my own fate, and Chloe's. I knew I couldn't save myself but… Chloe could make it, maybe. At…" Here his voice cracked. "at a cost. I asked for it, Max. I asked for the storm, to save her and to stop Prescott."
Max was staring at William in shock. "William. Wowser. You really think it's the right choice?"
"For Chloe? It's the only choice. I think you agree with me."
"Yeah… I didn't have to let it happen, but I did. So you… know what's going to happen to you?"
"Not the specifics. Don't tell me. But I've made my peace with it. I'm determined to be the best husband and father I can be in the years I've got left. It's more than some people get."
She reached out, put her small hand on his. "I did find a way to save you, but… it just made things worse in the end."
William's eyes widened. "Wow, that's quite a trick. You've got real power, there, Max. More than the Prescotts ever had. But I know you made the right choice."
"It wasn't easy. Sometimes this power feels like a curse."
"I'm sure. You don't deserve any of this. It all comes down to the Prescotts, but if I hadn't gotten mixed up with Sean… it would have been easier on the two of you, and Joyce. I want you to tell Chloe what we talked about. Tell her I'm sorry, and I love her. This is the best I could do."
Max felt herself slipping, the light around her closing in.
"I will. I'm running out of time. She loves you too, and she still misses you. So do I."
"Yeah." William's eyes were wet. "Yeah, OK. You take good care of her, Max."
"Always. I love her, William. I always will."
He smiled, looked back at little, blonde Chloe in the window of the diner. "Tell her I approve of the blue hair and the awesome tat, by the way."
And then she was back in the motel room, clutching the Two Whales brochure. She felt Chloe's arms around her, then blood started dripping from her nose, spattering on the photo of the diner. She started, looked around.
"And… you're back! Shit, lemme find you a tissue." Chloe ran into the bathroom, returned and pressed a clump of tissues to Max's face. "What did you find out?"
"Chloe… there's so much we didn't know."
Max told her everything.
"All these years I've been blaming my dad for walking out that door, and my mom for calling him, and it was all because of fucking Prescott! I hope he didn't die in that storm because I want to kill that evil motherfucker myself!"
Chloe was pacing up and down the room, while Max stood at the foot of the bed trying to talk her down. "More death isn't going to solve any of this! You don't want to be a killer, trust me! And he's dead anyway, with the rest of Arcadia Bay."
"Why do you still have your power, then? I bet he's still out there. I bet we can use your power to take him down for good!"
"Jesus, Chloe! After everything we just went through, everything I went through, you want to, what, go hunting for this guy in the wreckage so you can murder him? We can't do it. I can't do it. We have to move on from this, live our own lives, together. That's what I did this all for!"
Chloe stared at her, her face hard, angry. Then she relaxed, wrapped Max into a bear hug. "Yeah, maybe you're right. He's probably a corpse. He can't come back from the dead to ruin my life… hopefully."
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"Oh, shit," said Chloe, breaking the hug.
"Chill out, it could be anybody. If people realize we're from Arcadia Bay they'll want to talk to us. Reporters, or police, or angry meteorologists, or something." Max walked to the door, hooked the security chain, pulled it open a few inches. And stared into the barrel of a gun. She ducked backward, and the man wielding it kicked the door open, breaking the chain and knocking Max to the ground. Behind her, Chloe leapt for David's revolver.
Max rewound.
"I want to kill that evil motherfucker myself!", said Chloe, again.
"Chloe there's a guy coming with a gun. I'm going to take it from him. Be ready, but do not shoot him."
"What? Oh man, this dispatch-from-the-near-future stuff still messes with my head."
Max went to the door and stared through the peephole, her hand on the knob. As soon as she saw motion, she flung the door open, dashed past the man with the gun. Sean Prescott, alive after all. Middle-aged, pudgy, wearing glasses. It was not a very intimidating look.
He spun toward her and she rewound a fraction of a second, watched him rotate back toward the door. Then she bolted down the walkway to the stairs, stood just below the top step. "Hey!" he called, confused, whirling again, raising the gun. Max rewound farther, staying put herself, watched him spin and then walk backward toward her. As he came down the top step, she stopped rewinding, grabbed his belt from behind, and hauled him off balance. He tumbled down the stairs, swearing, the gun clattering away on the floor as he hit bottom. She followed, picked up the gun, rewound again, watched him roll back up the stairs. Once we was upright on the stairs again, she stopped, saw him step up onto the walkway, then look down at his empty hands in sudden surprise. She raised the gun, aimed it at him.
All too easy, she thought to herself. All his foresight and he's not ready for this at all. She reflected that on Monday she never would have dreamed of pointing a gun at anybody, on Tuesday she had done exactly that to defend Chloe, and now on Friday she had to fight the urge to just execute this vile man where he stood. What would Saturday bring?
She called up to him, climbing the stairs. "Just keep walking, Prescott. Guess you're more of a desk jockey these days, Jefferson was much better at this than you are."
He looked back at her, enraged, confused. "Caulfield!" Then he lunged at her. She rewound him back to the start of the lunge, stepped sideways. Now there was nothing in front of him but air, and he tumbled down the stairs again, swearing, again. He staggered to his feet, bruised and bloody from the the fall, then turned and ran, disappearing around the corner of the motel. Max walked down the steps, then rewound him back, all the way to a heap below the bottom step. As he staggered up, again, she aimed the gun at him, point blank. "I can do this all day," she said, calmly. Not true, she told herself, but I can do it longer than he can, he's lucky he survived his trip down the stairs.
Now there was real fear in his eyes. "How can you… so fast…?"
She gestured with the gun. "Back up the stairs. Don't think I won't pull the trigger, I've done it before, and you have a lot more to answer for than the last guy."
Grumbling, he slowly, painfully climbed the steps. When they reached the top Max saw Chloe standing in the door of their room, aiming her own gun at Prescott.
He was not encouraged by this. "Jesus fucking Christ! Both of you!"
Max gestured with the gun again. "Get in the room and sit down on the floor."
He looked back at her, wild-eyed. "What is your game anyway, Caulfield? You came to Arcadia Bay just to fuck with me? What kind of deal did you make to even get this kind of power?"
"You're not in a position to ask questions. Get in the room and sit down on the floor."
He fumed, glared at Chloe, and went into the room.
They tied him up on the floor with some bungee cords from Chloe's truck. He raved incoherently for a little while, apparently having been wronged by several woodland creatures, but soon came to his senses, such as they were. Max doubted his brain was firing on all cylinders, given his amateurish attempt to get the drop on them. "How?" he asked at last. "At least tell me how."
"It doesn't matter how," Max said. "What matters is that my power, and the storm, are the price we all pay for your family's corruption. Arcadia Bay is on your hands."
"And William Price's."
"Only because you tricked him, you God-damned psycho!" yelled Chloe.
Prescott took a deep breath, steadied himself. "Well, what are you planning to do with me now? If you plan to exact some kind of revenge, you'll just end up in jail. You may have power but you were still wanted for questioning in connection with a burglary and grand larceny investigation, and you were on camera in the Dark Room. The law will catch up with you eventually."
He had a point. Chloe was controlling her murderous instincts for the time being, but it was not clear how long that would last.
But Max had an idea. "I want to see it, Prescott." she said. "I want to see how you've been doing this trick of yours, how you used Chloe's dad."
His lips pulled up into a grim smile. "Is that all?"
