This is the big one, folks, the one where details start to unfold. (Basically, the primary plot of the story, which should have come up long before now but didn't because I was a terrible story-planner back in the day.)

[Thursday, December 12, 2019]

The next afternoon, Chris felt out of sorts. The whole day his head felt stuffed with cotton, and he had difficulty concentrating in class. He had promised to meet up with Dwight; so after school, instead of orbing to Jake's as had become his habit, he found himself trekking through a large cluster of trees behind his old playground. He took care to step over roots bulging out of the ground and avoid the tangles of low-hanging vines that could easily yank his feet out from under him if he weren't careful. From the playground he could still hear muffled echoes of children calling out to each other, laughing.

But there was something else, too. Strange echoes that sounded closer and had Chris repeatedly glancing behind him to identify the source of the noise. A few times he thought he saw something twitch out of the corner of his eye, but whenever he turned to look head-on there was nothing there.

It's probably a chipmunk, he told himself, though he would not have expected to spot one this close to winter. Still, it was the likeliest explanation. I'm just on edge because of those unearthed memories. One day soon, he would have to pour mayonnaise in Prue's shampoo to thank her for her lovely spell.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed a few branches out of his way and continued onward. Finally, the Shack came into view. He hadn't visited since the summer, when he and Dwight had spent long days there speculating about what high school would be like, but the place hadn't changed at all in the intervening months.

Chris pushed open its door with an ever-familiar creak and stepped inside. When the door swung shut behind him, the last remains of noise from the playground disappeared. Dwight was already waiting for him, cross-legged on a large swath of moss. Dumping his knapsack at the door, Chris joined his friend. Dwight had his own knapsack propped up against his side. As Chris made himself comfortable, Dwight pulled the bag toward him and rummaged inside.

"I grabbed snacks from the vending machine before last period." Without looking up, he tossed Chris a bag of chips and pulled out another for himself. Chris tore his open, stuffing a few chips into his mouth at once.

Dwight also withdrew his deck of cards from the smallest pocket, waggling his eyebrows. "Casino?" he asked, shaking the cards out of their box and onto his open palm. Splitting the pile, he began to shuffle.

Chris shrugged. "Sure." He knew Dwight had something to tell him, wouldn't have asked him here without reason, but he also knew there was no point in pressuring his friend into talking. Dwight would speak when he was good and ready.

They played through a couple rounds without much chitchat, setting their cards down on a small stretch of bare floor between their two lumps of moss. Chris was losing badly to neither boy's surprise.

Dwight considered his hand momentarily, then picked up the ten of diamonds with a ten from his hand. Chris made a show of groaning at the loss of points. Instead of gloating, Dwight stared hard at the remaining cards on the floor and announced, "So my mom has a new guy."

Chris paused on his way to discard a queen. After a moment, he said, "Oh?" Taking Dwight's casual cue, he continued with his turn.

Dwight picked up the queen with one of his own. This time, Chris barely noticed. "Yeah," Dwight said, "Charlie." He uttered the name as if it were something disgusting he had stepped in, with a wrinkle of his nose and furrow of his brow.

"Is it… serious?" Each boy let go of his last card—seven of spades, two of clubs, respectively—and Dwight scooped up the deck to deal the next four-card hand. Chris went first, picking up the two and seven with a nine, his eyes trained on his friend.

Dwight set his hand facedown on his knee and met Chris's gaze. "Serious enough that she ambushed me with him on Tuesday night," he sighed.

"Yikes." Chris winced, then waited a moment. "And?"

Dwight's nose scrunched even tighter. "He likes fishing."

Chris felt pretty neutral about the idea. Though he himself didn't enjoy the prospects of spending hours on the shore with a rod in hand, silently waiting for a tug, only to reel in a wet, wriggling creature, he did not begrudge others their hobbies. Fishing seemed very much like a middle-aged thing to do. But Dwight's tone clearly conveyed disgust, so Chris tried to mirror it for his sake. Pulling a face, he replied, "Weird."

"Yeah." Dwight picked up his cards to play out the rest of that hand and the next in silence. When he was dealing the last hand of the round, he said, "He wants me to go with him."

"Fishing?" Chris asked. He got a jerky nod. "You gonna?"

Dwight shrugged. "I think the whole thing's kind of gross, but Mom's all for it. Says we should 'bond.'" He used air quotes to emphasize the word.

Chris grabbed a cluster of cards with his last one. Dwight took a jack and got the rest of the pile, scraping everything toward him with a smug grin, like a poker player collecting the pot. "Pretty sure that's the game," he said, but they counted up points anyway. He was right.

Chris waited a few minutes, but Dwight had nothing further to add about his mother's latest boyfriend. On the one hand, she'd gone through a number of them over the years, and Dwight never really concerned himself with them. On the other hand, though he did run into them by accident from time to time, she had never before manufactured an introduction. Chris watched Dwight chew his lip as he shuffled the deck for another game. He had no idea what to say.

They played another two games before calling it quits. The sky, dark early this time of year, had already deepened to a pale indigo. It was too dark to see much inside. Dwight collected the empty chips bags and stuffed them into the front pouch of his knapsack to discard at home. The cards he tucked back into their box and then into his pants pocket. Chris stood up with him, swiping at the dampness on the seat of his pants left by the moss.

"See you tomorrow," Dwight said, shrugging into his knapsack and turning to head out.

"Dwight," Chris called. The boy turned back. "I just…" He wanted to say he was sorry about the whole boyfriend thing, but Dwight was protective of the nonchalance he had cultivated as a persona. He wouldn't appreciate sentimentality. "Good luck. Catching fish." Dwight rolled his eyes but smirked, giving a quick nod before he left.

Chris was a few minutes behind him and just about to head out himself when he heard a muffled voice to his left. He whipped around. This time the flash of movement at the corner of his vision, though hazy, didn't vanish when he turned to look. In fact, the image was clear enough to make out exactly what he was seeing. In the far corner of the room, cast in shadow, he saw Dwight… and himself.

"What is this…" he whispered.

They appeared grainy and completely colorless, as if Chris watched them on an old black-and-white television set. But they were definitely there. They looked just a bit younger than they were now; Chris's hair was slightly shorter, Dwight's slightly longer. They wore the caps and gowns from their eighth grade graduation. Though the robes appeared gray here, Chris remembered them as a pale blue. He stood rooted to the spot as the boys, oblivious to his presence, sauntered across the room.

Dwight tossed his hat to the other side of the Shack. His lips were moving, and Chris heard something, like the crackle of an old radio, but he couldn't make out the sound. Occasionally, a clear word of phrase floated to him. "…can't believe it… didn't think you…" Smirking, the black-and-white Chris said something inaudible in reply.

By the door, the real Chris felt the beginnings of panic tickle in along the edges of his psyche. His heart raced; his hands clenched. His hair stood up at the back of his neck. "What is happening?" he demanded aloud. His fingers rose to tangle in his hair. Squeezing his eyes shut, he willed the apparitions to disappear. The dead radio noise faded to silence. When he opened his eyes again, one at a time, he was alone in the room. "I'm losing my mind," he breathed into the stagnant air.

Gripping his knapsack shoulder strap so tightly his knuckles turned white, Chris fled the scene. He didn't slow down until he was out of the wooded area entirely and two blocks away from the playground. Briefly, he paused to catch his breath, hands on knees as he gasped for air, before he continued at a more bearable pace. When he got home, his heart was still racing.

He brushed past the dining room with a distracted hello to his parents, who were poring over some of P3's recent financial documents, and blew straight up to the attic and the Book of Shadows. Wyatt was already there, dressed in demon-hunting garb (dark cargo pants and a trench coat, each of his many pockets filled with vanquishing potions).

"I need the Book," Chris stated from the doorway.

Wyatt barely looked up. "Wait your turn," he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"I need it," Chris repeated with urgency. He didn't feel calm enough for the usual back-and-forth bargaining, so he jumped straight to, "How would Mom and Dad react if I told them what you were using it for?"

Casting a surprise glance at his brother for the implicit through, Wyatt countered coolly, "I could ask the same thing."

Chris stepped nearer, unyielding. "You have no clue why I need it," he pointed out.

Wyatt rolled his eyes. "Relax, Chris, I'm almost done." He went back to perusing the page of a lower level demon, then flipped to the next, reading that one as well. Chris gritted his teeth, folded his arms, and waiting. Wyatt seemed to slow down each time Chris let out an impatient huff.

Finally, Wyatt closed the cover with a thunk. Smiling sweetly at his brother, he chirped, "There. All done. That wasn't so long, now was it?"

Scoffing loudly, Chris elbowed past him to stand in front of the lectern. With an offended snort, Wyatt orbed down to the Underworld. Chris opened the tome, starting at page one. He had no idea what to even search for. Visions? Apparitions? Demons who caused hallucinations? Every demon he had heard of with the ability to alter the mind did so with purpose: to show the victim something he feared or to show him something he greatly desired but could not attain. Never had he heard of visions with absolutely no emotional significance whatsoever. Demon of boring memories, perhaps?

Because Chris did remember the scene he had witnessed, remembered that day. He hadn't heard the words spoken, but he hadn't needed to. The memory was only about six months old. He and Dwight had gone straight from their graduation to the Shack, celebrating their newfound adulthood. They had congratulated each other on surviving without expulsion.

"I didn't think you, of all people, would actually graduate," Dwight had said with a laugh. Chris had smirked and responded with something equally cheeky and meaningless. Mostly what Chris remembered of that day was the giddy high of feeling on top of the world, ready to face the next step of their lives.

"Demon of vaguely positive memories?" Chris muttered to himself. "No, that's stupid." Perhaps not a demon, then. The most recent occurrence of possible significance he could recall was, of course, Prue's spell. It had unlocked other memories; why not more? Except this memory hadn't been hidden, just a random day of a random month he had no reason whatsoever to forget.

So he started at the beginning. With no hints where to search, he ruled things out page by page. Brute demons, out. Nymphs, out. Leprechauns, probably out. Demon of fear, maybe. Chris remembered his mother telling them of a parallel world where the roles were reversed: the Charmed Ones were evil, and demons were good. Maybe that version's Barbas, the demon of hope, had gotten loose here? Loose to wreak… not much in the way of havoc… mild confusion? Unlikely.

Three hours later, Chris had scanned the entire Book of Shadows and was no closer to an explanation. He was flipping back to the beginning when Wyatt orbed back to the attic, covered head to toe in dust and debris but grinning with satisfaction. When he saw his brother at the Book, he raised his eyebrows. "Still haven't found what you're looking for?" he asked.

Instead of responding, Chris snapped the tome shut and dully thumped his forehead against the cover with a groan. Shrugging, Wyatt changed the subject. "Were Mom and Dad suspicious I wasn't at dinner?"

"Mom's at the club tonight," Chris mumbled without looking up. "I don't know if Dad was. I told him I was working on an essay so I couldn't come down. He didn't ask about you."

"Excellent. I'm gonna go shower."

"Good," Chris muttered from the lectern, "you stink." Ignoring the comment, Wyatt marched out of the room, shedding debris with every step. A few minutes after, Chris, too, exited the attic. There was nothing more the Book could offer him, and he had no idea where to search next. Defeated for the night, he decided to turn in.

His reluctance to mention his possible madness to his parents made sense. What surprised Chris that night after he had gone to sleep was that he felt the same reluctance to tell his other self. He's me! he thought in exasperation. Besides, with his magical expertise vastly superior to Chris's own, he was Chris's best shot at figuring this out. But the embarrassment remained. He had to force the words out at first, but once his older self started asking questions—what did it look like, was the vision hazy or clear, what did they say?—he found it easier and easier to talk. This man treated it all with a reassuring matter-of-factness that soothed Chris.

Eventually, the other Chris leaned back in his seat, drumming his fingers against his thigh. "It's nothing to worry about," he said simply.

Chris jumped up from the desk chair he had claimed when he arrived. "Nothing to worry about?" he repeated in disbelief. "I'm going crazy!"

"You're not," his older self replied calmly. He chewed his lip thoughtfully, as if considering whether or not to speak, then motioned Chris back into his chair with a sigh. "Those are your powers. They're advancing."

With a huff, Chris dropped back down to the chair, one arm draped across its back. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, "I don't get premonitions. That's Prue and Aunt Phoebe's thing."

"It's not precognition," his older self explained, "Not technically." He shifted to a more comfortable position, legs open, hands clasped between his knees, and leaned forward. "It's true that a lot of what you'll end up seeing will be from the past or future"—what else even was there? Chris wondered, but didn't interrupt—"but it's not the same thing. Premonitions occur either to show you a near future to prevent or a distant past to give you insight into how to act in the present. Their purpose is to facilitate changing reality."

Magical theory wasn't Chris's strong suit, so he struggled to follow his older self's lecture. "Okay," he said slowly. "So what's this power about?"

"It's about being a witness for time itself. It's our destiny. We see visions of anything, different timelines, different planes of existence. We see it all. They're not meant to teach us something or guide us in some direction; they're just there."

"Since when is that our 'destiny'?" Chris asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Since always." The man shrugged. "I grew into them a bit later than you. My guess is your sister's spell unlocked the powers early."

"Wait." Chris held up a hand to silence his counterpart while he grappled with everything. He couldn't avoid the feeling of betrayal that tightened in his gut. "So you… you knew about this alleged destiny of mine? This whole time? You knew I was gonna be this 'witness to time' thing?"

His future self raised an eyebrow. "Well, traditionally it's called Keeper of Time, but…" He shrugged one shoulder, "Of course I knew. Why do you think I'm the one who travelled to the past to save Wyatt? We are the point of intersection between all timelines. You think Aunt Phoebe or Aunt Paige would've let me go if either one of them could take my place?" Chris had honestly never considered this before, but it did seem unlikely. "Wyatt had to use all his power as the twice-blessed just to send someone after me."

Chris's irritation made him antsy. Unable to sit still, he jumped to his feet, beginning to pace on the rug at his older self's feet as the man continued, "We have an innate connection to the timeline, to every timeline. I tapped into that connection. If anyone else had gone, it would have caused a paradox. If they succeed, they erase their future, which means they never would have travelled back to save it. But our power allows us to transcend timeline. We alone can circumvent paradox. We alone can change the past."

Chris lurched to a stop directly in front of him, glaring. "That's what you meant last night. You said, 'We of all people can't forget about time.'" The man inclined his head. "If you knew all this already, why didn't you tell me?"

The man's continued calm infuriated Chris. He sat there unaffected by Chris's explosion, neck craned upward to meet the glare with his own steady gaze. He replied, "Some things you have to find out for yourself."

Chris threw up his hands, spinning away. "You're me!" he shouted. "I'm not supposed to keep secrets from myself!"

His older self ignored the outburst, instead reassuring him, "Don't worry, you'll grow into your powers. They just take some getting used to."

But Chris didn't have the time or attention to dedicate to learning about his new powers. He already spent enough time keeping his magical and mortal lives balanced. Plus, he had midterm exams starting next week and (unsurprisingly) had yet to begin studying. When he shared this with his older self, the man winced in sympathy.

"Yeah," he said, "Thankfully, I never had to deal with any of that."

Curious, Chris let his anger subside as he eased back into the desk chair. "You never took exams?" He propped his elbow on the desk, leaning his cheek against his open palm as he observed his other self.

The man shrugged. "Not really. Certainly not while I was Keeper. By the time my powers emerged, formal education was sort of a thing of the past."

Chris tried not to think about Wyatt orbing to their high school and burning it down with a casual twitch of his fingers. As time went on he was getting better and better at divorcing the Evil Wyatt of his imagination (a guy who in his mind dressed like a goth punk and wore his curly blond hair gelled into spikes) from his real brother. He couldn't quite joke about the atrocities committed or speak so cavalierly about them as his older self who had lived it could, but he could shake off the grim melancholy that came over him when he heard about them. He did this now, giving his head a quick shake to dislodge the imagery.

"Well," he said, "I don't have that… luxury. So I've got four months' worth of classes to study for and…" He groaned. "Three days to do it."

"Sounds fun," his older self piped in helpfully.

Truthfully, after the half-panic that he might be losing his mind, it felt good to shift his focus to something as mundane as exams. Now that his counterpart had assuaged his fears. A good stress, one he lavished in even as he realized how long he had let this responsibility slip and how little time he had left to prepare. This problem he could solve. Chris considered his options. "If I stay up all night Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, that'll give me"—he calculated quickly—"about sixty-five hours of study time."

The man snorted. "Yeah, except there's a reason people sleep. Not exactly something you can skip for days on end. I should know; I tried. And for reasons far more important than a couple of small tests."

Chris wanted to get the last word here, irritated by the know-it-all half-smirk that his other self so often employed, but he knew the man was right. "Unless…" he said slowly, thinking aloud, "Unless I didn't need sleep."

The man raised an eyebrow. "But you do."

"But maybe I don't!" Chris snapped his fingers, a grin expanding as his plan began to come together. "A spell. I could just remove the need for sleep until exams are over."

His older self seemed more amused than concerned. With his arms crossed, he drummed his fingers against the opposite elbow, still smirking. "Don't do it," he warned in a singsong, "I'm telling you, personal gain."

Chris waved him off without even looking his way. "It's just a couple of days. I'm sure it'll be fine."

"Uh-huh," the man agreed, "I'm sure."

"Oh, relax," Chris retorted, "It's not even cheating. I'm doing it to actually study. I could've cast a spell to magically know all the answers. That's personal gain. This is nothing."

Since arriving here tonight, he had more sharply sensed the perimeter of this abyss, the curling edges that touched the world of dreams and his true subconscious. He had never noticed it before, but this time the awareness was there just at the edges of his consciousness. Perhaps it was an outgrowth of becoming the Keeper of Time. Regardless, he had a guess that he could better command his comings and goings now than his first few visits, and he had no intention of giving the man further opportunity to refute the brilliance of his idea.

Standing, he marched away from his future self and the little bedroom alcove. When he reached what his brain perceived as the perimeter, he cautiously held up a hand, feeling for an invisible, solid wall. His fingers groped lower as he pictured a door in his mind, willing it to manifest. As soon as his hand landed on something curved and cold, the invisible became visible and a tarnished copper doorknob appeared under his palm. Color spread outward from it in all directions, expanding into a thick, austere, mahogany door with simple copper arches etched into its frame.

Satisfied that he was already getting the hang of this place, Chris turned the knob and pushed the door open a crack. "See you in three days," he called over his shoulder, then smugly slipped into his dreams.

Chris cast his spell the next morning in a bathroom stall between first and second period. He mouthed the words with hardly any sound so no one would overhear. "Let sleep not come to me these nights / So I can study without fight." It was quick and perhaps not terribly thought through, but it would do the trick. Popping out of the bathroom, he headed off to English.

That period, Mrs. Williams gave them a refresher on what she expected to see in their essays at the end of the week. Chris sat there with one notebook open on his desk. Beneath the desk, tucked away on his lap, he kept glancing at his biology notes to memorize the parts of a plant.

Suddenly, in the empty desk beside Chris, a flicker caught his eye. He turned to look but saw nothing. Mrs. Williams's voice took on an echo, as if two of her were speaking. Blinking, Chris looked toward her, but she seemed not to notice the echo as she trailed back and forth across the front of the classroom. Another flicker drew his attention back to the empty desk, which this time was no longer empty. Instead, Wyatt sat beside him.

Chris sat up straight, eyes wide. His brother looked a couple years younger, but it was unmistakably him, wearing khaki pants and a maroon hoodie. He had his arms crossed against the desk and his chin propped up on his interlaced fingers as he stared dully at the whiteboard. Strangely, this apparition—for it had to be an apparition—was crisp and in full color. If Chris hadn't known his brother couldn't be there with him, he would have mistaken him for a real person. Was this just part of his new power, or had his spell altered the visions somehow?

Back at the whiteboard now paced two versions of Mrs. Williams. Chris couldn't tell which was the real one. Had his teacher been wearing a crisp black A-line skirt with a pale blue blouse or a pair of slacks, a pink shirt with ruffled collar, and a forest green brooch? He couldn't recall.

Chris looked back to Wyatt again, giving his eyes a hard rub. Wyatt's head had turned now to face the window, gaze unfocused. One of the versions of his teacher said crisply, "Mr. Halliwell!" Both Chris and Wyatt jumped in their seats, their heads jerking to the front of the classroom, where one of the teachers had paused her lecture to frown. "Pay attention," she said severely.

Simultaneously, the brothers muttered, "Sorry, Mrs. Williams."

After a moment, Chris realized the class had fallen silent. Everyone, including the second Mrs. Williams, stared at him. Beside him, Wyatt sank back into his chair, fading away as he did so. The teacher who had called for his attention melted away as well.

"Sorry for what, Mr. Halliwell?" the remaining Mrs. Williams asked.

"Huh? Oh…" Chris sank low in his seat. "Nothing," he mumbled, "Never mind."

Raising her eyebrows, the woman slowly returned to the essays. Eventually, the students, too, lost interest in Chris's strange outburst and shifted focus.

The rest of the day, Chris made a bit of a fool of himself, dodging people in the corridor who weren't really there, bumping into people who were. Dwight was convinced he had taken some type of pill that caused hallucinations. "Maybe it's an allergy to Benadryl or something," he suggested when Chris denied any illicit drug use.

"I haven't had Benadryl either," Chris growled. He bumped into yet another shoulder. It was difficult to maneuver in a place that appeared to have double the usual crowd.

Dwight trailed behind him, looking skeptical. "You sure? Maybe you forgot. I've heard it can alter your memory if you take too much." Chris rolled his eyes and said nothing.

As soon as the last bell rang, he bolted out of the building and orbed back home. After a series of full-color visions throughout the day, he was now largely confident that they were his spell's doing. He couldn't quite explain why, but he could sense a wrongness to them that he hadn't felt the first time. Even without knowing its origin at the time, that vision with Dwight at the Shack had felt right, familiar even, as if his powers were sending him reassurance to ease the transition. Now, they felt too real, as if in blocking his subconscious he had forced the other planes closer to reality.

"So it's one teeny side effect, messing up my powers a bit," he muttered to himself as he grabbed a green apple from the fridge. "I just have to get through a couple days. It'll be fine." He trudged upstairs, already mentally scheduling his study evening. Now that he was home, surely he'd have an easier time differentiating between vision and reality. There were fewer people around, for one. And it was already the weekend, which meant he didn't need to worry about acting like an idiot in public for the remaining duration of his spell. "It'll be fine," he said again. Dumping his knapsack beside him at his desk, he bit into his apple and got to work.

He managed to study for eight hours with a break for dinner, but as the night dragged on he found it more and more difficult to focus. At no point did he feel tired, but his mind drifted. His body itched, so he took a break to change into sweats and a t-shirt. He started to get cold, so he dragged his comforter from his bed and draped it over his shoulders at his desk. When that didn't work, he put studying on pause again to take a hot shower. His eyes burned, but closing them only made it worse.

Annoyed, he dug his knuckles underneath his eyelids, rubbing fiercely, then forced himself back to work. He got through a further hour and a half before he needed another break. Maybe sleep would be beneficial here, a quick catnap just to help him refocus. He got into bed, setting his alarm to sound in thirty minutes.

He lay there were his eyes open, staring at the peeling ceiling paint. Sleep didn't come. He turned to one side, gazing out the window at the clouds that obscured the waning gibbous moon. No stars were visible. An ache developed in his shoulder, so he turned to his other side, facing the dresser. A couple of drawers lay half-open. He really ought to fold his clean clothes properly instead of stuffing them into his drawers so that fabric bulged out and prevented them from closing.

The alarm began to buzz. With a growl, Chris shut it off and sat back up, returning to his desk. But he couldn't concentrate in that position at all, the hard back of his wooden chair digging into his shoulder blades, so he took several minutes to relocate all his history notes to his bed, then climbed onto his mattress and sat cross-legged with his notes splayed out around him in a semicircle.

That worked better for a bit, but his mind kept straying to his disorganized dresser. Finally, when he couldn't take it anymore, he called another break and emptied out the contents of his dresser onto the floor. One by one, starting with his socks, he began to fold.

Halfway through, the itch to clean finally abandoned him. He crept downstairs for a cup of cocoa. Taking that back up to his room, he returned to his desk and worked on some math practice problems. By then, early signs of morning were brewing out his window. The sky had turned a pale gray with strips of blush and lavender inching up from the horizon. Birds were just waking up and starting to chirp.

Fresh air. That will help. Chris gathered up his biology textbook and his pillow and went downstairs. He set his pillow beneath him on the front porch for cushioning, propped his back against a support beam, balanced his textbook on his knees, and continued reading. The air was chilly, though, so he ran back inside to grab a sweatshirt.

The bushes beside the stairs rustled. When Chris looked up, a Siamese cat slunk out of them. It hopped onto the top step with a plaintive mrrow and jaunted over to wind around Chris's legs. Chris didn't feel a thing.

"I recognize you," he told the creature. It padded toward the front door, where a woman knelt down to pick it up, scratching its head as she did so. Chris shaded his eyes to look up. "I recognize you, too," he remarked. He had seen photos of the woman his sister was named after, pictures in old albums and on the wall up the steps. One of Prue, Phoebe, and his mother hung beside a wedding photo of his parents.

Heedless of the boy at her feet, Prue said, "There you are, Kit." Running her fingers through the fur on Kit's back, she turned back inside and closed the door.

Chris returned to his textbook. As the sun crept upward into the sky, several people passed the house. Some even seemed to talk to him, but other people, sometimes invisible, called out responses before he could. Twice, a newspaper got thrown onto the stoop before disappearing. Despite the half-imagined world carrying on around him, Chris managed to get through three chapters.

"You're up early." Chris didn't look up, barely even registered yet another voice speaking until the voice said, "Chris?"

The sun was directly in his face now, so he had to squint to see his father. Leo had come out to gather the newspaper; Chris hadn't even noticed this one hadn't vanished when it landed. His father was watching him expectantly. "You're up early," he remarked again when he realized Chris hadn't heard him.

"Studying," Chris grunted.

"Ah." Leo tapped the paper against his open palm. "Well, don't push yourself too hard."

"Yeah," Chris mumbled, burying his head back in his textbook.

He made it through Saturday with difficulty. Had anyone asked, he would have insisted he didn't feel tired, but his brain sure acted as if he did. The room spun when he stood up too fast, and the floor felt as if it rocked when he walked. His mind grew foggier and foggier. When his brother spoke to him in the hallway before dinner, he couldn't remember the beginning of the sentence by the time it ended.

Piper had a late shift at the restaurant. Leo was at Magic School, preparing for his own students' midyear practical exams, which required several layers of protection spells in anticipation of powers spiraling out of control. The kids were on their own for dinner, so Wyatt called in a pizza for everyone.

Prue, only in seventh grade with no upcoming exams, ate in the kitchen, but her brothers both grabbed a couple slices to eat in their rooms. Try as he might, Chris got almost no studying done. He wasn't even sure anymore what was vision and what sleep-deprived hallucination. Could you hallucinate after only a couple days without sleep? Did the spell exacerbate the symptoms of sleep deprivation? By late evening, he'd had enough. Dragging a pad of paper toward him, he struggled to come up with a rhyme to solve this. It took far longer than it normally would to compose the spell.

Clearing his throat, he stumbled through the words, which seemed to swim before him on the page. "Powers that be, hear my plea / Annul my spell and let it be." Nothing happened. Groaning, Chris crawled on top of his mattress, barely even noticing the pages of notes he crumpled beneath his knees. He flopped down face-first into his pillow, but when he tried to close his eyes they stung.

"Come on," he growled into the pillow. "I'm sorry, all right? Personal gain, I get it." But nothing changed.

The minutes ticked by until his mother got home. She came in quietly to avoid waking anyone after her late shift at the restaurant but stopped short when she saw Chris sitting in the dining room with his head folded into his arms. "Chris? It's past midnight. What are you doing up?" Slowly, Chris raised his head to blink at her. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" She stepped closer. "You don't look very good." His eyes were bloodshot, his face pale.

Wincing, Chris admitted, "I kind of… cast a spell."

Piper's eyebrows rose. She propped her hands on her hips, tapped one foot against the floor, and waiting. With no other choice, Chris heaved a sigh and explained. Piper said nothing through it all, even when he briefly mentioned the new power that was rapidly spiraling away from him, though she did release an exasperated sigh when he mentioned how he had failed to undo his spell. He ended with a sheepish, "I know I messed up, Mom. I'm sorry. I tried to fix it. I did."

Piper shook her head with a tsk. "No way your powers will work properly when you're overly tired. You know this, Chris."

"I know," he muttered, thinking of the wonky visions, "I'm sorry."

She set her purse down on the table and tutted again as she scrutinized her son. "I'll fix you a sleeping potion. That should be strong enough to counteract your spell. You go upstairs while I work on it."

Nodding without looking her in the eye, he gathered himself up, swaying briefly, and trudged upstairs. He waited seated on his bed, propped against his headboard with his knees up and his forearms resting on them. He tilted his head back to stare at the paint cracks, which seemed to squirm and writhe under his gaze. He tried to count the minutes but lost track several times.

Finally, his mom knocked and entered. In one hand she held a mug that could have been cocoa, except for the smoke that bubbled over the rim and rolled down the sides of the cup before dissolving. She paused in the doorway, surveying the scene. Papers and notebooks lay loose on his bed, desk, and dresser. On the floor sat piles of clothes, some neatly folded while others lay in messy heaps.

Eyebrows raised, she climbed through the mess to get to the bed. Chris leaned forward eagerly as Piper held out the steaming mug. "Try this," she said. Chris took two greedy gulps before the taste caught up with him. Gagging, he made a face. Piper laughed. "Well, no one said personal gain tasted very good," she remarked as he reluctantly swallowed the rest as fast as he could.

Piper caught the cup just as her son slumped forward. Setting it on the bedside table next to the alarm clock, she eased the boy into a more comfortable position. When he was lying down, splayed across pages of notes, she tugged a textbook out from under his ribcage and set it aside. Taking the mug with her, she slipped out of the room with a shake of her head. She definitely planned to address those "new powers" he had mentioned—but later. For now, he needed sleep.

Chris groaned when he appeared in the familiar abyss, seated on the couch. The door, he noticed, had vanished again. His older self stood above him, arms crossed, wearing a wide smirk. Chris already knew what he would say and preemptively rolled his eyes as he curled his legs up onto the sofa.

"I warned you," his older self remarked smugly.

"Oh, shut up," Chris grumbled, resting his head against the cushion and closing his eyes. "Just let me sleep."

He heard his other self settle into the chair opposite him. "I thought you didn't want to sleep," the voice teased. Chris ignored him.

The next thing he knew someone was shaking him awake. Blearily, he opened his eyes. "You didn't hear me call you," Piper was saying softly, one hand on his shoulder. "It's time for school."

"Wha—? No, it's Sunday," Chris corrected, flipping over to his other side. He'd just catch another hour in bed; then he'd get back to studying for the rest of the day. He still had plenty of time.

"No, Chris," Piper replied gently, "It's Monday morning. You slept through all of yesterday."

"What?" Chris shouted, shooting up in bed so fast Piper had to jump to her feet to avoid getting knocked over. Heart pounding, Chris leapt out of bed. Immediately, he tripped over a pile of folded shirts, which went toppling forward. "How is that possible?" he demanded. He stumbled back to his feet and snatched the first shirt in his reach, exchanging it for his pajama top.

"Well, an anti-sleep spell probably didn't do you any favors," Piper remarked dryly. Chris glared at her. Smiling sweetly, she backed out of the room. "Well, I'll leave you to it."

Chris did end up having a serious talk with his parents, but it wasn't until he got home from school after his first exam. Piper and Leo called to him from the dining room before he could climb the stairs. They asked him about his new powers, and he described most of it, though he kept to himself the part about the fancy new title and the fact that his other self had been the one to explain. The first because Piper got tetchy whenever things gave off even a whiff of "destiny" vibes, and nothing said destined quite like "Keeper of Time." The second because he wasn't sure how his parents would take the realization that he still had contact with their former future son. Relieved or pained, the idea of them knowing made Chris uncomfortable. Instead, he spoke generally about the ability to see across time and timelines, the black-and-white scenes that played out before him. Leo confirmed to Piper that this was, in fact, different from precognition, and overall they seemed to accept it with minimal difficulty. Finally, they let him escape to study.

All things considered, by the end of the week Chris felt he did pretty well for himself. He got mostly Bs on his exams with a C– (biology) and an A (math) to round things out. Not his best work but acceptable under the circumstances.

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