Living Large in Purgatory Bay

by Aerolumen

When Max returns to Arcadia Bay, her new photography teacher is dead and she's shocked to discover that her best friend from years before, Chloe Price, has died as well. Max had hoped to rekindle her friendship with Chloe, using her newfound power to rewind time as an icebreaker. Instead, she finds herself pulled into a mysterious alternate world, where only Arcadia Bay remains.

3. Chapter 3 - The Junkyard

I hurried out of the Prescott Estate, not wanting to hear or even sense what Maxine, Warren, and/or Megan were about to do. That just wasn't something I wanted on my mind at that moment.

Outside in the mist, beneath a streetlamp, I decided to try Maxine's teleportation trick. I raised my hand and froze the pieces of time around me. I focused on what I'd felt when Maxine had taken us out of the photo tunnel: a sense of pulling on another piece of the world. And I found it, an action as easy as reaching out and grabbing something off of a table. The dense web of space and time in Arcadia Bay spread out around me, curving up into a shape like a bowl. The pieces looked far away but felt as if I had only to reach out to touch them. And it took only a moment to figure out where to go: I'd grown up in Arcadia Bay and I'd never forgotten its shape or its streets or its landmarks. And that included the junkyard: Chloe and I had snuck into it several times as kids and I'd visited there only a few weeks before, adding a pitifully small bouquet of flowers to the tiny pile where Chloe had died in my universe; the pile of flowers where Nathan and Jefferson had buried Rachel had been far larger.

I kept time frozen, found the spot on the bowl-like map around me, and reached out, squeezing my eyes closed as I pulled on that piece of space and time. A brief wave of tingles rushed over my skin and I opened my eyes: I stood right at the entrance to the American Rust junkyard, its sign obscured by a thick wall of fog. I continued to keep time frozen and I could see what Maxine had meant about the junkyard being difficult to enter: the slivers of time inside looked far denser, somehow. I could tell that trying to move through those pieces with my power would be like trying to swim through syrup.

I let go of my grip on time and walked into the shadowy junkyard, where a handful of spotlights illuminated parts of the dirt paths between rusted vehicles, broken pallets, and stacks of oil drums.

It didn't look all that different from the last time I'd seen it. There were obviously no flowers at the spot where Chloe died in my world. And where Rachel had been buried, a life-sized sculpture of a doe stood, its head and neck covered with garlands of flowers...

"That was Maxine's idea," came Chloe's voice.

I peeked back and forth around a pile of old pipes but didn't see Chloe anywhere in the dark.

"It's pretty," I called out, "but…I don't know much about Rachel."

"She would've liked it," came Chloe's voice, "but she would've preferred something more dramatic, like her striking a pose in costume or clutching her heart as she collapsed to the ground or something. Or nothing at all: she probably would've been perfectly happy leaving that place blank. But then obviously have a badass statue of herself somewhere else."

"There's that big one in town," I said.

"Oh, Maxine showed you that?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, that's more Rachel's style. Still not exactly what she would've wanted but I kinda got overruled on that," she said.

"Is it true that Rachel, um, lives in there?" I asked.

"Yeah, kind of," she said, "or…something like that. Anyways…boo-yah!"

Chloe suddenly leapt out from behind an old car, her hand splayed out and big pieces of metal spinning in a circle above her head, flashing as they passed through the beams of the spotlights. I jumped in surprise, bouncing backwards and nearly tripping on a broken bicycle.

"Behold," she said with a cackle, "Chloe the Kinetic!"

She grinned and wiggled her fingers, making the sheets of metal leap and dance in the sky.

I grinned back and said, "that's really awesome, Chloe."

Her face fell.

"Mother fucker, she told you, didn't she?" she asked.

I winced and said, "yeah, she mentioned it. Sorry."

"Ah, that's okay," she said. She flicked her hand backward and the pieces of metal soared away behind her, clattering and crashing to the ground somewhere in the dark.

I approached and gently grabbed her wrist.

"It was very impressive. It's really cool that you have a power too," I said.

"Aww, thanks, Max," she said, ruffling my hair, "now, are you here to chill or does Maxine have you on some kind of mission to bug my ass?"

I frowned and said, "no, I really wanted to spend some time with you, Chloe."

"Oh right, your me is…right," she said, scratching her head, "well, here…"

She led me to a cinder block shed lit by a pair of warm lamps. A couch sat up against one wall next to a refrigerator, and a large TV sat against the opposite wall.

"Wowser," I said.

Chloe laughed and said, "you shoulda seen this dump back in the day. I bummed most of this shit from Blackwell after Maxine's big clear-out."

She collapsed down on the couch and stretched out before furrowing her brow, looking at me, and then swinging her legs down and putting them up on a table.

"Sorry," she said, "been a while since I had company."

I quickly glanced around and saw a bin overflowing with trash. I pointed at it.

"Did you clean up just for me?" I asked.

A blush darkened her cheeks and she said, "yeah, maybe."

I grinned and sat down next to her.

"I like your hair, the blue," I said.

She looked up and said, "thanks. I almost let it grow back out natural but it's kind of my brand or whatever now." She shrugged.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah," she said with a smile, looking at me out of the corners of her eyes.

"And you used to have it shorter?" I asked, remembering the pictures I'd seen.

"Yeah, it was convenient and shit but I kinda like it longer like this," she said, her fingers playing at the ends of the blue hair, "not as long as when we were kids but it's nice."

"It is," I said, "it may not be a blue beard but it's so you."

"Aww, thanks, Max," she said, "and if I grow it out long enough, I'll bunch it up around my face and make a beard, just for you."

I laughed and she reached over to a tiny refrigerator nestled right next to the couch, pulling out a bottle of beer.

"Want one?" she asked.

"Yuck," I said.

"Never change, Max," she said, her voice casual but her face saying that that statement carried a lot of weight.

She popped the cap off of the bottle, took a swig, and leaned back.

"So, I guess you probably want to know what the fuck happened around here?" she asked.

"We don't have to talk about that," I said, "I, um, actually really want to hear about your life. You know, after I left."

She furrowed her brow and said, "after you…oh, right. Yeah."

"I never got a chance to get to know you again so, I mean, I do want to know what's happened here but there's always time to find out more about that," I said.

"And you want to hear it from Maxine?" she asked, pursing her lips to the side.

I paused.

"Not really," I said, "I think I'd prefer to hear it from you. I heard some of it from her and it sounded like it came from a carefully written history book. You've always been pretty blunt and honest and that's what I'd really appreciate with all of this."

She raised an eyebrow and stared at me for several long seconds.

"I really wish I had a camera right now," I said.

Her expression softened and she laughed.

"I've missed you, Max," she said, almost to herself, "and yeah, we can find you a camera. Sorry, I completely spaced on that."

"That's okay," I said.

"So, you really want me to blab on about myself?" she asked, her face painted with skepticism.

"Yes," I said.

"Okay, consider yourself warned," she said.

She took another swig of beer and began.

. . . . .

A lot of what Chloe told me of her life during our five years apart matched what I'd heard in my own world. The details were sharper, of course. And her commentary was far more negative than what I'd heard from the people in my world, who'd been hesitant to speak ill of the dead. At more than one point, I stopped Chloe to give her a hug. Each time I did that, I could see tears in her eyes, tears that she tried to hide.

We talked about David, who I still barely knew.

We talked about Rachel, whose doe-like spirit would apparently visit Chloe every few days.

Chloe didn't mention Maxine until she reached the fateful week that led to the end of the world.

I could tell that Chloe left some things out as she told the story. But everything she left in was pretty heavy to hear: the incident in the bathroom, Kate's near suicide (it turned out that Maxine stopped her from jumping, making me wonder anew where Maxine's coldness towards Kate came from), stumbling into the cave with the symbols, their brief first contact with Rachel's spirit, and Jefferson taking Maxine to his secret bunker.

"She never did tell me all of what happened there," Chloe said, looking off into the distance, "I mean, fuck, getting drugged, tied up, and photographed must have been bad enough but I got the sense that she had this…hopelessness that really got under her skin. I can't know for sure but I have this feeling that most other versions of her learned how to cope with it or got some kind of help or something. But I'm not sure Maxine ever fully recovered."

When she said that, I looked around, alert, and Chloe followed my eyes. She laughed.

"Don't worry, Maxine can't hear us here. She almost never comes here; it's the spot where Jefferson stuck her with a needle and then killed me. She fucking hates it here. And there's something about it that messes with her powers," she said.

I nodded and said, "it's…dense here."

"You Maxes and your time shit," she said with a little smile, "anyways, apparently the shit in the bunker led to a bunch of different timelines and there were…a lot of deaths before she helped David rescue her ass and found a way to save both of us and take Jefferson down." She shrugged. "But after that, the storm was coming so we got a group together, grabbed a bunch of the tablets, made a bunch of guesses, and then saved the town. Or put us all in purgatory, depending on how you look at it."

"Purgatory?"

"Kate's term," Chloe said, looking into her nearly-empty bottle, "after one of the times Maxine called it a paradise." She chuckled mirthlessly. "I've heard more than one person call it Purgatory Bay."

"Hmm," I said.

"Seriously, Max, look around," Chloe said, "if you had to describe this place, would you call it paradise or purgatory?"

I glanced out at the low ceiling of dark clouds and blinked at a flash of lightning.

"I see your point," I said, "so…what happened next?"

She sighed and said, "what happened next was fucking chaos. People were running all over trying to figure out what was going on, especially since the fucking storm just stopped and went quiet. A bunch of people tried to get out of town and came back as soon as they tried to go past the Barrier. A group of the fishermen guys kept going and never came back…I found them a few months later." She shuddered. "And the five of us, the ones with powers, we went around trying to talk to people and tell them what happened but no one was listening to a bunch of teenagers." She shrugged. "There were emergencies declared and things kind of settled down after a day or two as they took stock of supplies and shit. That's when Maxine…she still went by Max back then…figured out the whole fractured pieces of spacetime shit. Warren and Brooke helped a lot with that. Then we started getting in people's faces. I started using my telekinetic shit." She flicked a finger and an empty beer bottle went spinning through a hole in the roof. "And then Max did this big demonstration that finally got everyone's attention."

She grabbed another bottle.

"People finally started listening to the story, especially after Max showed she could rewind in all of the food and stuff that we needed. People calmed down a lot after that. That was…actually a really good time." Chloe smiled. "Max and I…sorry, Maxine and I were together all the time, solving problems around town. It took maybe a month before the Mayor and all of the town's leaders started consulting Maxine on everything. She just wanted so badly to help. I don't think I realized it at the time but I think she felt guilty…she blamed herself for, you know, destroying the world or whatever." She shrugged. "Wish I would've realized it back then. Maybe I could've talked her through it. Maybe things would've been different. But no matter what was going on in her head, she just wanted everything to be nice and peaceful. But after a while…" Chloe frowned. "After a while, Maxine was basically running the town. She made all of the decisions. At first, she didn't like it. Then they built that fucking statue of her and, well, everyone was always thanking her and giving her stuff. I mean, that had been going on for a while but I didn't really notice it as much until the statue. And they gave her all of the credit for saving the town; for a long time, she insisted that it wasn't her and that it was Rachel that had really saved the town. And fuck, when they made that stupid fucking statue, she was still humble enough to insist that they make a Rachel statue, where she put that magic cube thing that Rachel lives in. And then she discovered that she could take pictures of other realities…"

Chloe looked over at me.

"Are you sure you want to hear all of this? It's…kinda sorta you, after all. I know I was really fucking disturbed when I found out about other versions of me, especially when they did things I didn't exactly…approve of," she said.

I nodded and said, "yes, I want…I need to understand."

Chloe nodded and said, "well, a lot of this is fucking guesswork but I think that Maxine started to really believe that she was the town's savior. And why not? She provides everything for us. Fuck, even I was encouraging her to think that way because I was worried she was being too fucking hard on herself. Then she started taking pictures of other universes. She didn't tell me about it at first but something about her changed. It wasn't right away, of course. It happened slowly. But she started having this…thing, an attitude where she was just…above everyone else. It was kind of like Victoria but it wasn't some surface-level bitchy thing, Max, it was fucking deep. She had a bunch of contractors do a big project behind Blackwell and refused to show anyone. That's also when she started having people call her Maxine. Then she showed me. It was that fucking tunnel of hers and she'd put up pictures of about fifty different universes. Most of them looked the same to me. And I still remember exactly what she told me when she first showed me…" Chloe cleared her throat and made her voice softer and higher, a pretty good impression of me. "'Chloe, I think all of this was meant to be. We're in a special place, a place from where we can see everything. I was meant to do this and meant to see it all. We didn't destroy the world, we made ourselves a new world, an immortal one.' And damn, she was so fucking happy then that I went along with it. She'd resolved her whole guilt thing and I was fucking relieved. I didn't think it was weird or creepy or anything. I thought she was right; a big part of me still thinks she could be right."

She took a long sip from her bottle. I didn't say anything at first…in my head, I just pictured those seemingly endless walls of photos.

I finally asked, "did you…see any of the weird photos?"

She laughed and said, "are you talking about the ones where you and I are, like, spies or rockstars and shit? Or Maxine's porn collection?"

"Both?" I said, feeling my face burn.

She laughed and said, "yeah, I've seen them. Look, I've seen people fucking before; I've seen plenty of pics and videos and the real thing. So that didn't really bother me that much. Actually, I found it kind of hilarious. But seeing all of it together, especially all the pictures of my dead ass, really started messing with my head. That's why I stopped going. And, honestly, because Maxine gets kinda weird down there: she gets all starry eyed and talks about how lucky we all are to see this stuff and live forever and shit. It just got…um, weird."

I chewed at my bottom lip before asking, "you don't think that Maxine, um…"

Chloe raised an eyebrow at me and then grinned.

"You want to know if your other self polishes her pearl while standing alone in a tunnel, staring at pictures of Rachel's boobs and shit?" she asked.

I nodded, my face on fire.

"No, I don't think so," Chloe said, shaking her head with a frown, "it's not like that for her. It's…almost more intimate than that, I think. Honestly, I think I'd be less weirded out if she was getting her rocks off to that shit. Besides, that's what she has her boytoy and girltoy for." A painful frown crossed Chloe's face.

"Warren and Megan?" I asked.

"Yup," she said, "Warren was a shoe-in for the role: he would've done fucking anything for Maxine even before all this shit went down. Fuck, he's had a crush on her since they met."

"Really?" I asked, suddenly running every encounter I'd ever had with my Warren through my head.

"Yup, I'm sure your Warren was crushing on you too," she said, "almost every version of you misses it."

"Huh," I said.

"And Megan…she was one of Jefferson's victims," Chloe said, her face going sour, "it was, I don't know, maybe the third or fourth week after the storm when Maxine found Megan just sort of vegging at home. And fuck, Maxine was a boss with that, talking Megan through all of it. She brought her back to life. And Megan's basically been Maxine's puppy ever since."

I nodded and then furrowed my brow.

"So wait," I said, "Maxine started to, um, believe her own hype but then what happened?"

"Then she started acting the part," Chloe said, "she started actually running things. That's when she took over the Prescott house, cleared out Blackwell, had everyone start coming to her to decide stuff and plan stuff, and started propping up the interests of her inner circle."

"Including you?"

"Including me," Chloe said with a wince, "and oh, did I go along with it. And so did most people, for a while. Everyone was more than happy to obey the savior, after all. But there were grumbles. And the grumbles got louder and louder."

I could see where this was going and I gripped the fabric of the couch, digging my fingernails in.

Chloe continued, "the ringleaders were Mayor Cochran, Principal Wells, and my good old step-douche. They started having meetings and shit, getting people on their side. See, they didn't believe Maxine that we couldn't leave this place. And they didn't buy that we're all immortal and stuff. They wanted to take back control of the town and get Maxine to use her powers to get us out of here. Of course, they had no fucking clue that Maxine had Victoria listening in on every single one of their meetings. We all knew what was happening. We knew every dumbass plan that they came up with. So when they began the march, we were ready."

She sighed.

"I disobeyed Maxine and went to talk to them. I tried to talk them down and convince them that they needed to do it a different way. They refused. Then David went and talked down at me and gave me shit like he never had before. And I flipped out. I almost threw a fucking truck at him." She took a long sip. "But I didn't. I flipped them all off and went back to Blackwell. And they followed: torches and baseball bats and even a few guns." She chuckled. "You know, Maxine tried to get rid of all of Arcadia Bay's guns but somehow, they found some. But it didn't help them. They didn't stand a chance, Max. It was just Maxine and I against them but they didn't stand a fucking chance. Victoria and Kate stayed out of it and Warren…well, Warren was right there with us but he was kind of useless. Honestly, Maxine could've done it all by herself."

A long pause.

"What happened?" I finally asked.

"Maxine had to make a hard choice that day," Chloe said, looking off into the distance, "I supported her. I supported her completely. If I went back to the same time and place, I'd probably do the same again. We couldn't have a civil war and we couldn't have that kind of unrest. Maxine is the only one that can keep us alive, after all. They attempted a coup, there was a big fight, and we won. They're all still alive, if that's what you're wondering. They're just…go a bit past the Blackwell parking lot and you'll see."

I shivered and said, "so…what about Kate and Victoria? I…haven't seen them anywhere."

"And you won't," Chloe said, "the two of them, and a few others, were also starting to question Maxine's role in all of this and whether or not she was telling the truth. They were just, you know, very quiet about it. And they didn't want violence, they just wanted to confront her and talk to her. But after the big coup, Maxine got super paranoid about betrayal. Oh hey, actually, tell me if I'm right about this: at some point after I left that lovely and totally drama-free lunch, either Megan or Stella said something to you about loyalty?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, my eyebrows rising.

Chloe snorted and said, "yeah, they're full of shit. It's…how to describe this…" She put the bottle down and sat up, leaning toward me. "Maxine just wants everything and everyone to be okay. She only went nutso over betrayal because it messed with the only fucking peace that makes sense to her anymore. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it suppose it does," I said, crossing my arms tight over my chest.

Chloe blinked and said, "oh, shit, right. It's…shit, it's not you, Max. It's Maxine and...fuck, I'm sorry."

"No, Chloe," I said, forcing myself to relax my body, "it's okay. This is what I need to hear."

"You're sure?" she asked, her brow furrowed, "I didn't completely just fuck things up by kinda calling you paranoid and nuts?"

I smiled and said, "you didn't."

"Damn," she said, shaking her head, "first chance I get and I start dumping this shit all over you."

"I did specifically ask for it," I said.

She pursed her lips to the side and said, "I guess. So, um, what were you asking about?"

"Kate and Victoria."

"Oh, right," she said, "so, um, yeah, after the whole coup thing, Maxine started hunting down anyone that might've supported it and Kate and Victoria got scared. And that's where Kate's power came in: she can hide anything, even from Maxine. Her, Victoria, and the others just vanished."

"They're…gone?"

"No," Chloe said, "they're somewhere around Arcadia Bay, just completely invisible. We can tell because they've been sneaking stuff out of the stockpiles of supplies. But they don't dare try to confront Maxine, something they learned the hard way. Even hidden, they can't get past her rewind."

"I'm not so sure of that," I said.

Chloe's attention snapped to me.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

I tapped my fingers on my knee before saying, "I can tell when Maxine is lying."

"You can?" she asked, her eyes going wide.

I nodded and said, "I'm not sure why it's so obvious but maybe I just know my own tics and tells. She's lied to me a bunch already. So…I'm not one hundred percent sure but based on some things she said, I think she's done a lot of big rewinds and…I think that her ability to rewind may be weakening."

"Holy shit," Chloe whispered.

"And…I think she was lying when she said I couldn't go home," I said.

Chloe's eyes went even wider and she stared at me, her eyes flitting between each of mine. She bit her lip and looked outside; I followed her eyes to see the ghostly doe standing outside.

"Really, Rachel?" Chloe asked, "is all of this you? Are you fucking up to something?"

The doe tilted its head and Chloe sighed.

"Alright, Max," she said, "let's be real: the Max that I originally knew, the one that became Maxine? She started to die a few months before that fucking coup attempt and was pretty much gone by the time it was over. And then…look, no one really talks about this but after all of the coup stuff, Maxine decided that the two most dangerous people in Arcadia Bay had to go: Sean Prescott and Mark Jefferson. They'd been rotting in jail ever since the storm came and…I think Megan had been pushing Maxine to do it for months but after the coup shit, she decided to pull the trigger: she took Jefferson and Prescott out past the Barrier. It was an execution, Max. And when she came back? She didn't seem any different. That's when I finally realized I'd lost her. That I'd lost you, I guess. Not right then, obviously; I'd lost Maxine months before…but it took that moment for me to finally realize it. And then, about two days later, she changed completely. One second, she was still fucking shaking over everything that had happened. And then in the next moment, boom: she flickered into the version she is now, rewinding from some point in the future. Maxine became the manic frost queen that we now know and maybe a few people love. That's also the moment when she stopped being my friend at all, much less what she'd been before."

"Do you know why?" I asked in a whisper.

"I can only assume that I did something bad to her in some future," she said with a shrug, "it was a rewind, obviously, and I'm guessing that that spot, two days after executing Prescott and Jefferson, is as far back as she'll ever go. Any further and she has to go through the bad stuff again."

I nodded, looking out the open door to see the ghostly doe still standing there, watching us.

"Sorry," Chloe said, "that's really heavy."

"No, Chloe, I needed to know," I said, feeling a cold and heavy weight in my heart, "so thank you, even if it kind of freaks me out."

"Max," Chloe said, leaning over and resting a hand on my shoulder, "you're not her. And she…she does care about the people here. She's never done anything cruel, as far as I know. Some messed up stuff? Yeah. But deep inside, I think she's a good person. She wants peace for all of us. I just think…I think she got lost. Really lost, if it's true she could send us somewhere else and won't."

I nodded.

She took a sip of her beer.

"So now what?" Chloe asked.

I pursed my lips to the side.

"What do you do for fun in Purgatory Bay?" I asked.

She chuckled and said, "not what I thought you'd ask."

"Follow something heavy with something light, right?" I asked.

"Probably a good idea," she said, "well, um, I drink, I smoke weed, I smash shit around here." She gestured out at the junkyard. "I talk to the ghost of my ex-kinda-girlfriend." She pointed at the ghostly doe, which twitched its ears. "I go for walks out past the Barrier…I know where to go to not see anything really fucked up, which makes it all weirdly peaceful, especially knowing I'm the only one out there. Well, the only one alive, I guess. And I help Maxine out with her routines and stuff, moving shit around with my magic trick." She shrugged. "I do some art stuff too, sculptures and stuff…the telekinesis thing helps with that a lot. And, um, I'm learning stuff. I guess I never did give up on the idea I might end up somewhere else or I wouldn't have bothered. At this point I'd make a damn good mechanic. And I could probably pass an entrance exam to a halfway decent physics program. Maybe. I can also plumb like none other; you should see my plumber's crack." She grinned and I rolled my eyes. "So yeah, keeping busy."

She frowned and then said, "um, not to go back to heavy stuff but do you really think Maxine was lying about us being able to leave?"

"I think so," I said.

"If that's true, it changes everything," she said.

She paused for a second and then pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket. She opened it, looked at it, and then handed it to me. I skimmed it: it looked like a schedule, with times and locations spelled out along with some notes and a crudely-drawn map.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Maxine's daily schedule," Chloe said, "she does basically the same thing every fucking day, with only a few exceptions. And if she cancels anything, there's a specific spot she goes."

"Why are you giving me this?" I asked.

"You don't like to admit it but I know that you're a huge snoop," she said, "and with your power, you're the only one who could possibly stand up to the time goddess or, more to the point, sneak the fuck around her. So if you want to get out of purgatory and maybe help the rest of us leave too, maybe you can find out how by digging into her life further than any of the rest of us can. For instance, Principal Wells' old house…"

She reached over and tapped the paper and I saw that the schedule included a half hour in that very building right after breakfast.

"I've never been in there and neither has anyone else; she doesn't allow it and can tell if someone tries," Chloe said.

"What am I even looking for?" I asked.

"Any evidence of what's really going on," Chloe said, "and anything that could help you or me or anyone get through to her."

I nodded and said, "you already had this schedule written out for me so I guess you suspected Maxine was hiding something and you'd be asking me to snoop?"

Chloe nodded and said, "as soon as you mentioned that a doe got you here," she raised her bottle at the doe that still stood outside, "I had a hunch. So far, my hunch has been right."

"I think so too," I said, folding the paper carefully and sliding it into my pocket, "and it's crazy but I'm kind of glad we're doing this: plotting and scheming. I mean, it's you and me again, on an adventure.

Chloe grinned and said, "partners in crime."

I grinned back and said, "why not? Partners in crime."

"Now," she said, "enough with this dark shit. There was a game that Maxine and I used to play with all of these empty beer bottles and our powers. And I can show you the crazy, messed up stuff that happens when they pop out of the Barrier." She pointed towards the edge of the junkyard.

"Okay," I said with a smile, "lead the way, Captain Bluebeard."

She ruffled my hair and then pulled me up with her.

. . . . .

A few hours later, we walked toward the front of the junkyard, laughing so hard that we had to lean on one another.

"Wait, wait, do it again…with the sound," Chloe said with a snort.

I moaned and wailed and said, "no, please, not my huge, cheap prints! You can't doooo this to such artistic geeeeenius."

I wiggled my fingers in caricature of despair and Chloe laughed again.

After playing with our powers and chilling atop what was left of an old boat, we'd spent much of the last hour using pens and paint from a box in Chloe's lair to draw images of us as pirates going after Mark Jefferson. We'd drawn a picture of us hurling swords at him as he ran away, shrieking. We drew a picture of us running over him with a pirate ship (with some rather gruesome red splatter, courtesy of Chloe). We drew him in anguish as stomped on his expensive camera and tore up the posters of his photos at Blackwell (the source of my over-dramatic reenactment).

Had anyone but Chloe been there, I would've felt bad about what we did. After all, Jefferson's crimes had been horrifying, even more so in this Chloe's universe, and anyone could easily think we were making light of them. But with just Chloe and I, it all felt okay. It was a way for us to take out our feelings together. And it turned the dreary darkness around us into something bright: we'd been laughing so much that my stomach hurt.

Then, as we rounded a corner, Chloe's laughter suddenly choked off and her hands, clutching my shoulder and side, tightened. I looked up to see Maxine standing at the entrance to the junkyard. She stood with her arms crossed and her eyes narrowed.

I took a hand off of Chloe's shoulder to wave at my other self; her expression softened and she returned the wave.

When we got close enough, Chloe called out, "yo, Maxine, what up?"

A sad shadow passed over Maxine's face before her expression hardened again.

"It's nearly dinner time," she said.

"Since when did you become my mom?" Chloe asked.

"Ask your actual mother," Maxine said, "we're dining at the Two Whales tonight."

"Oh?" Chloe asked.

"Breakfast for dinner," Maxine said, "it was always a favorite of mine so I decided we would treat Max." She tilted her head at me and smiled.

"Oh, um, thanks," I said, "er…speaking of which, what do you do for money here? I…don't really have much in my bag."

Maxine waved a dismissive hand and said, "we don't really do money here. Everyone gets what they need from what was already here so there's no scarcity."

I just nodded, not wanting to delve into post-apocalyptic economics.

"I'd like a few moments to speak with Max alone," Maxine said to Chloe, "so I'll take her to the Two Whales. You can take your truck."

"Sure thing, boss," Chloe said. She turned to me with a wink and said, "see ya later."

"See you, Chloe," I said.

I went to Maxine with a smile on my face and she held out a hand.

"Have you learned to step through the quanta yourself or do you want to take my hand?" she asked.

I felt as if there was more to that question than what sat at the surface so I reached out and grasped her hand.

"I did learn but I'll go with you," I said.

Behind Maxine, Chloe gave me a surreptitious thumbs-up as she sauntered over to her truck.

As for Maxine, she looked delighted. She sighed and squeezed my hand, pulling me close to her.

"Let's go," she whispered.

A moment later, we stood across the street from the Two Whales. I looked over my shoulder to see the tornado, looming over us like a silent giant. I swallowed and turned back toward the diner.

Maxine still held my hand and when I started to step towards the curb, she held me firmly in place. I turned to her with a raised eyebrow.

"Chloe told you the history of this place, didn't she," Maxine said, her voice curt.

"I asked," I said, "it seemed like a good time: her, um, lair is pretty peaceful so it was a good place to absorb it."

"It's a peaceful place if you don't know what happened there," Maxine said.

I turned fully to her and took her other hand. An odd mix of emotions fueled that particular action: on the one hand, I knew that she was looking for validation through physical contact and doing so gave me the best chance to learn more, even if I felt a constant twinge of unease around her. But on the other hand, I also did it out of genuine affection: I couldn't get the full shape of it but I could sense something injured inside of her. With only the barest knowledge and experience with this odd mirror of myself, I found myself feeling both love and loathing. Did it make sense? Not to me, not really, but I felt both of those things nonetheless.

She took my hands and intertwined our fingers.

"I'm sorry, Maxine," I said, "Chloe did tell me what happened at the junkyard. And what happened everywhere else, too. You had to make very difficult choices."

"I did," she said, "and I came out strong. And I'm sorry, I know that Chloe's only trying to help. It's just…there are futures, other futures. You're not ready for those yet."

"Okay," I said, "you don't have to tell me. I won't bug you. And if you need to talk about any of what happened before, or since, I'm here."

"I can talk to you, Max, I can," she said, a smile lighting her face while her eyes went wide, reflecting a bolt of lightning, "oh, I can. I will. Not yet, not entirely. But yes. We'll share it. We'll share it all."

A shiver ran down my spine.

Before I could say anything, Chloe's truck roared around the nearest corner and slid into the parking lot. Maxine's smile vanished.

"Let's go," she said, "there are plenty of waffles in there."

. . . . .

I found it a little odd that Joyce was still working as a waitress at the Two Whales. As the mother of one of Maxine's "inner circle" and as someone close to Maxine in her own right, I figured she'd have retired to some quiet mansion near the Prescott place. But I didn't ask about it and no one offered any information on the matter. In my own head, I speculated that perhaps the daily sight of mist, fog, clouds, and a deadly magic tornado kept Joyce wanting something normal and predictable in her life.

Still, it was not only nice to see a smiling (if somewhat uneasy) Joyce, it was nice to experience something that approached normal, with a plate of familiar waffles in front of me and extra syrup handed over by Joyce.

Maxine had me sitting in a booth next to her; Warren and Megan sat across from us and the three of them played footsie under the table. I felt Maxine's shoe gently bump mine a few times but I figured I could get away with not joining in.

The other four people in Maxine's inner circle sat in the next booth over. Chloe had picked a spot where she could see me and made goofy expressions in my direction throughout dinner. I laughed several times but my nearest neighbors seemed to assume I was laughing over something one of them had said. I didn't correct those assumptions.

After Joyce cleared our plates, Maxine scooted close to me and rested a hand on my leg as her, Warren, and Megan talked me through the particulars of Maxine's job of rewinding things on a daily basis. I felt another wave of conflicting feelings at Maxine's physical contact but I rested my hand atop hers and saw her smile out of the corners of my eyes.

. . . . .

Shortly after dinner, while everyone talked about subjects ranging from video games to art projects, Maxine handed me a delicate silver watch, telling me that it matched the clocks and watches throughout town. Since there was no day or night in this place, just the forever storm, having timepieces manipulated by Maxine was the only way to actually tell time, as it were.

The conversations wound down by around 9pm and it took only one yawn out of me for Maxine to clap her hands and scoot out of the booth.

"Thank you for coming, everyone," she said, "we'll see you all later."

While everyone else headed for the exit, Chloe stopped next to us.

"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked me.

I opened my mouth but Maxine spoke first...

"She can come with us to the Prescott Estate; I had one of the guest rooms prepared. Or she can use my room at Blackwell; I had the sheets changed and the room cleaned," she said.

"Or you could come to my place," Chloe said to me with a grin, "we could stay up and watch movies and shit."

I opened my mouth again but a yawn interrupted me.

"Sorry," I managed.

"She's tired," Maxine said, directing a sharp look at Chloe.

"Okay, just thought I'd offer," Chloe said with a shrug, "you're always welcome to crash with me."

"Am I welcome to crash with you any time?" Maxine asked, crossing her arms and smiling a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"You too, Maxine," she said, "you too. But I know you prefer wiggling around on that big bed with the Ws. Can't blame you."

"The Ws?" I asked.

"Warren and Weaver," Chloe said, pointing out the door to where Warren was pulling a leaf out of Megan's hair.

"Oh, right," I said.

"Well, if that's all," Maxine said, turning to me, "where would you like to go, Max?"

With Maxine turned away, Chloe made an x-motion with her hand, shaking her head: I took that to mean that I should take one of Maxine's offers.

I said, "um, Chloe's offer is tempting but you're right, I'm really tired. And I do want to hang out with you guys at your place but I think I'd be most comfortable in something close to my own bed tonight."

"That's what I thought," Maxine said with a lopsided smile, "so here, let's go."

She held out her hand.

I took it and got out, "Good night, Chl…" before we slipped away into the starry fractures of Arcadia Bay and popped out on the lawn outside of the Blackwell dorms. It was darker, here, without the Two Whales' bright lights, and a cloud of mist hung low enough to obscure the top of the building. Maxine glanced up there briefly with a blank expression before heading for the entrance.

"Welcome home, I guess," she said with a smile, opening the door for me.

. . . . .

Maxine stayed while I changed into pajamas, pointing out things in the room and reminiscing to herself about her time there. I just let her talk. In the end, when I stood by my bed with tired eyes, she hesitated for a few moments before stepping right up to me, giving me a tight hug, and wishing me good night.

Then she was gone.

And I must have been more tired than I thought: despite everything going on, I fell asleep only a few minutes later.

My dreams were, surprisingly, quite normal: forgetting homework for Ms. Grant's class, trying to swim back and forth in the Blackwell pool while wearing the Hawt Dawg Man costume, and taking photos of people that kept changing into animals.

And when my dream changed to something pressing down on my arm, a warm statue that vanished up into clouds, it turned out to be the real world intruding…

My eyes fluttered open to find my room softly lit by the familiar string of spherical lanterns on the wall above. I blinked: Maxine leaned over me, her hands on my arm and her eyes wide with an excited smile.

"I found it," she said, her voice only a whisper.

"Huh?" I managed, "found…found what?"

"Let me show you," she said.

"What…what time is it?" I asked.

"Oh," she said, her brow furrowing. She pushed away from me and pulled an old-fashioned pocket watch out from a shallow pocket in her pajama shorts.

"3am," she said, "but don't worry, I'll rewind us and you can get right back to sleep. Now come; you'll want to see this."

I dragged myself out of bed and Maxine grabbed my elbow, pulling me out of the room. I started to protest: I didn't have socks or shoes or a bra.

Maxine giggled and said, "don't worry. It's warm outside and there's no one around. It's just us."

I glanced at her and noticed, now that I was at least somewhat awake, that she was wearing the exact same thing I was: gray shorts and a t-shirt with a pink butterfly. If it weren't for her longer hair pulled into a loose ponytail, we'd look completely identical.

Our feet were silent on the dorm hall floor and I kept very quiet: it felt very much like we were breaking rules by being out like this and I had the sneaking suspicion that Maxine wanted it to feel that way. I felt a pang as I realized that she probably hadn't done something like this in a very long time.

She led me outside and around the back of Blackwell toward her tunnel of alternate universes. I wasn't exactly a fan of running around outside barefoot but at least the pathways weren't cold (although I couldn't begin to guess how the storm or Rachel or whatever made that happen). But I was happier to get into the tunnels, where the concrete wasn't rough or damp.

"Okay," Maxine said, stopping at the bottom of the stairs, "what we're going to see is all the way at the end so we'll just time-step there."

"Okay," I said.

She grabbed my hand and then we suddenly stood deep in the gallery, so deep that my ears popped with the pressure change. Sections of Polaroid photos lined the walls, lit by spherical lamps, just like the areas I'd seen before. But at the end, instead of continuing on towards a curve, the hallway terminated in a rough, rocky surface with little holes in it. The walls leading up to it were bare.

"Almost out of room," Maxine said, "I'll have to have the team come down and do the next extension."

She nodded to herself and then suddenly turned to me. She took my hands and spun me around to look at the very last section of photographs. I raised my eyebrows at the marking above the section: instead of a number, it was a string of characters that read NP-N-N-YB-N-00008-5-5.

"What's that?" I asked, pointing at the string of characters.

"It's yours," Maxine said, beaming.

She released one of my hands and stepped up to the wall, brushing a photo with her fingertips. I leaned in to see that it was a photo of Chloe and Nathan, standing side-by-side with guns drawn.

"This…this is my universe?" I asked.

"Yes," she said, "yes, it is. It's actually been about four days since I said good night to you. I got it in my head to find your universe and I wasn't going to come back to you until I did."

A grumpy, sleepy part of me really wanted to ask why she hadn't rewound to before I went to sleep or waited until I woke up…but I held that back.

"How did you find it?" I asked.

"After a while, you get…a sense of navigating it all. You identify a starting point and then tweak it until you find what you're looking for. And yours…yours was easy to find a starting point for. It's a far smaller subset of the universes in which Chloe dies before we return to Arcadia Bay. With the details you gave me, it became fairly easy to pin it down," she said.

A rush of panic hit me: if Maxine could see into my universe, had she seen the ghostly doe that guided me? And shit: it hadn't been very ghostly the last time I saw it. If she saw any version of the doe, she'd know I'd been leaving it out. What would she do? Would she suspect that Chloe had told me not to mention it?

I leaned in and Maxine smiled as I scanned the photos. They were all familiar, of course, almost all of them being moments I'd lived myself. And by the time I got to the end, which featured a very unflattering image of me flailing as I tripped into the interdimensional crack in the air, my heartrate had returned to normal: not a sign of the doe.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

I turned to see her clutching her hands together in front of her, rising up and down on her toes, and grinning.

"Yes," I said, "it's…like a wall of my memories. And, I guess you already know this but you're an amazing photographer. The composition, the lighting. It's all amazing."

"Thank you," she said, "that means a lot. And I hope that this means a lot to you." She gestured at the wall. "It means that you can see your home, really see it while you live here and thrive here with us."

I tried to keep my smile from freezing, something quite difficult to do since I suspected that she could send me home. But she wasn't really paying attention to me: she was looking at the photos on the wall, her eyes shining.

"I'll teach you how to use the tablet," she said, "so that you can do this too and so that you can see any part of your home whenever you want. I hope you'll show me your photos and tell me about them through your eyes."

She stepped closer to me and her eyes flicked between mine.

I found myself clutching my elbow and feeling suddenly nervous.

I laughed a little and said, "I don't think you'd be that interested. My universe is kind of boring, really, compared to…"

She darted forward, pressed her palm to my chest, and pushed me back against the cool tunnel wall. Before I could do anything more than gasp in surprise, she kissed me. My eyes fluttered shut as her warm lips moved against mine. She walked her toes up onto mine and leaned into me, her entire body squeezing against mine. On their own, my hands snaked around her back and held her tight as my lips responded to hers.

My body fell into the kiss completely but my brain screamed at me. One half was screaming, "oh wowser, yes. This is so fucking weird but so fucking good…holy shit, this is better than I thought it would be. I want more." And the other half was screaming, "oh no, no way, this is so fucking wrong; what even is this? This is like…making out with my probably-insane sister. It's too weird, too weird."

The rest of me, the parts not involved with the argument in my head, soaked in the sensations. I could taste Maxine's chapstick, something subtle and sweet and probably scavenged from the Prescotts' house. I could smell her shampoo, spicy and intoxicating and definitely something expensive from the Prescotts' house. And I caught a hint of her toothpaste, instantly recognizable as the same kind I used. She brought her hands up into my hair and a moan escaped my throat as her nails scratched at my scalp; I did the same to her and felt her smile into the kiss. Then she pressed her tongue against my lips and I let her in.

I told myself that, technically speaking, this wasn't my first kiss.

But for all practical purposes, this was my first real kiss.

And it was with myself.

Kind of.

And again, part of me was thrilled by the uniqueness and weirdness of it. And a big part of me wished it was with Chloe, instead. That thought took me by surprise, partially because I could actually have a complex thought while my doppelganger was exploring my mouth with her tongue. But the truth was that I hadn't really given myself the time or space to process what had been dead obvious from the photos in Maxine's immense gallery: Chloe and I had a romantic connection. We were more than just friends, more than just best friends, and it spanned more universes than I could ever hope to count. It wasn't true in all of them, for sure. But it sure seemed to be true in most of them. It wasn't something I'd felt before because I hadn't experienced that spark of reconnecting with Chloe before. But now that I had? Yes, I could feel it: a little stirring in my heart when she smiled at me…and a little twinge in other places when she'd wink at me or smirk at me. Because yes, the photos on Maxine's walls had made it abundantly clear that most Maxes and Chloes were abundantly physical with their affections.

But here I was, making out with myself instead. With a version of myself that I didn't understand and sincerely hoped I'd never fully understand. And again: what did it mean? Was this just some boss-level form of masturbation? Was I cheating on Chloe, someone I didn't even have a relationship with? Had I just landed in some kind of love triangle? Chloe had loved this Max, now Maxine. She'd undoubtedly made out with her and had probably had sex with her.

Okay, I knew that there was no way I'd be able to work through those feelings in that moment….and maybe never. And besides, the temperature inside of me was rising like crazy and my ability to form strings of coherent thought melted away.

Maxine slid a hand between my back and the wall, reaching beneath my shirt to hold the small of my back. I placed my hand on the back of her neck, holding her to me as we kissed. My breathing became heavier and heavier and when Max withdrew her tongue, I pursued with mine. She eagerly let me in and let out a moan identical to mine.

Then she slipped a hand down between us and up my bare thigh, making my leg shake. Her hand brushed between my legs, where I absolutely had to be very wet, a thought that gave me a rush of embarrassment that confused me as much as any of the rest of this.

She brought her hand up underneath my shirt and to my stomach, a ticklish sensation that made me twitch. Then she began pushing her hand into my shorts, her fingers dipping beneath my waistband…

In that moment, the shrieking alarm-bell side of my brain won out and overrode everything else. I broke away from the kiss with a wet popping sound and my hand darted down, grabbing Maxine's wrist.

"Wait," I said, breathless, "wait."

She pulled her hand away and put both of her hands on my shoulders.

"What's wrong?" she asked, "are you okay?"

She glanced back and forth between my eyes, her expression looking so vulnerable that I forgot, for a moment, that she was some kind of ageless time goddess here.

"It's just…I don't think I'm ready for that," I said.

"Oh," she said, furrowing her brow. Then her eyes went wide, "oh, oh, I'm sorry, Max, I should've realized. That was really fast, wasn't it?" She laughed.

"Yeah," I said, a sheepish smile popping onto my face.

"But you liked it? Until then?"

"I…I did," I said; it wasn't a lie, even if part of my brain still felt a very uncomfortable itch at the idea.

She moved a hand to the center of my chest, over my heart, and smiled, her eyes going half-lidded.

"Good, I did too," she said, "I hope we can do this again."

I hesitated for a moment before putting a hand over her heart, too; I could feel it pounding beneath my palm.

"Yeah," I said with a smile.

"Good," she said with a sigh and a smile.

"Okay," she continued, "I'm glad I brought you down here, Max."

"Me too," I said.

"I'll let you get back to sleep," she said, "and please, come here any time to see your home. I'll set aside these next few sections for you. When I teach you how to photograph the multiverse, you can add more. As many as you want."

"Thanks," I said.

She smiled serenely.

"And Max," she said, opening her eyes fully, "I won't be upset if you do this with Chloe. Or more than this."

I was confused and it must have shown; Maxine laughed.

"Making out," she said, "and sex. Any of it."

"Oh," I said, my face heating up.

"I did it all with her, once upon a time," she said, "so it would hardly be fair for me to be jealous if you did."

"Right," I said, clutching my elbow.

"Don't you be jealous," she said, stepping close again, so that her toes touched mine. She placed fingertips beneath my chin and gave me a soft kiss. "Anything that's mine or has been mine or will be mine will be yours too, Max. You and I are already partners in more ways than anyone else could be. And if you want, we can be so much more."

. . . . .

She took me back to the hallway outside of my Blackwell room and gave me a long goodnight kiss before vanishing. As soon as she left, I stretched out my hand and felt the world around me slow to a crawl…I couldn't tell where Maxine had gone (I'd hoped that a view into the shattered piece of time would show some kind of trail) but if I had to guess, she'd returned to the tunnel of photo walls. I let go and took a moment to walk around the dorm hallway, the carpet rough beneath my feet.

After that physical and emotional roller coaster, I just needed to move around a bit.

I listened at several of the doors but couldn't hear anything behind them: it seemed as if most or all of my former dorm-mates had moved out, probably long ago. I wasn't sure if the idea of sleeping alone in the dorm felt serene and comfortable or surreal and creepy.

As I turned back to my room, a flash of distant lightning sent a sharp white light through the hallway…and for a split second, I thought I saw something, almost like the barest hint of a mirage. I stopped time and rewound: yes, there was some little flicker at the end of the hall. I swung time back and forth but couldn't see any more than that. I returned to normal time.

"Hello?" I asked to the empty hall. "Is anyone there?"

No response.

I walked all the way to the end of the hall and another flash of lightning showed a glint of metal on the floor. I crouched down and picked up a dorm room key. I took it over to Brooke's door and tried it in the lock; it didn't work. It didn't work on Victoria's door either. But it opened Kate's.

I crept carefully inside.

It looked quite similar to the version that I'd visited dozens of times in my own world. But this one had a handful of dark and sinister sketches stuffed into a corner. It also smelled musty. Alice the rabbit's cage was gone, as was Kate's violin.

I opened drawers and snooped around, finding nothing that seemed important: most of Kate's belongings were gone and what remained seemed to be things she had no interest in keeping. Then I found a paper sitting right on Kate's desk.

In Kate's handwriting, the paper said, "We don't want to be invisible forever. We don't want to live forever. We want to see the sun again. We want to be free."

Unlike everything else in the room, the paper was free of dust.

. . . . .

Back in my bed, I stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking that I'd never be able to get back to sleep. Between seeing photos of home, making out with myself, and finding Kate's message, I figured that my mind would be whirring until the sun came up.

Then I remembered that the sun never came up here.

Then I fell asleep.