Max's Journal

October 27, 2013

This can't be happening.

But I saw it. Everyone else in town saw it. The pictures are all over the web. Stop denying it, Max. Two days ago, you saw the aurora light up the sky-in broad fucking daylight.

In the other timeline, snow fell on a clear day. Then came the beached whales, the unscheduled solar eclipse, the twin moons. Then finally that enormous storm that had wiped out Arcadia Bay. Something that Chloe and I had been able to stop only by sacrificing Chloe's life.

Oh god, Chloe. Was everything we did for nothing?

The aurora stayed throughout the night, flying over our heads like a demon. Everyone in Blackwell was talking about it. But it didn't stop there.

The next day, around noon, the sun started changing color. First, it flashed into a bright ball of green flame. An hour later, it turned a kind of phosphorous blue. And after that, it became ochre, like clay. Then it turned to the color of dried blood until it disappeared into the sea.

That was yesterday. Today, every last animal was spotted fleeing Arcadia Bay. Squirrels, foxes, deer, cats, birds, and even dogs that weren't caged. They seemed to be heading for higher ground, and nobody knows why.

I hear the Vortex Club is setting up an(other) End of the World party scheduled for this Wednesday. At least that much didn't change this time round.

I can't take this, Chloe. I might just go crazy. And I hate it most of all that I can't talk to anyone about it. Not Kate, not Dana, not Warren. They keep trying to see if I'm okay, but I've been kind of avoiding them. Shitty of me, I know, but no one knows what I went through. No one can understand how I feel.

I wish you were here, Chloe. It feels like the Apocalypse and I miss you so, so much. I wish you could tell me—what do I have to do to stop this? What else do I have to give up?

Help me, Chloe. Please.

That Monday, her final class done, Max left Blackwell and walked towards the coast.

Today had been quiet, for which she felt grateful. No strange weather disturbance had occurred—at least not yet. She could almost pretend that the previous days were some kind of fluke. Yet the anxiety remained, twisting in her gut. She'd never been lucky in her life and she wasn't about to get her hopes up now.

She had no earthly idea where she was going, so she let her feet lead the way. Before long, she had crossed Arcadia Bay Avenue and onto the beach. Then she followed the winding forest path to the cliff, up to where the lighthouse stood like a watchtower over the bay.

The sun was beginning its slow descent in the west, forming a curving, golden path on the water. The tide was coming in. A breeze, heavy with the scent of brine, swept in from the Pacific, ruffling her hair and her loose jacket. She crossed her arms to keep out the chill as she watched the waves roll to shore.

Even as a kid, she loved coming here. She and Chloe had raced fearlessly up and down the lighthouse steps, screaming to scare off the gulls. They had played pirates and made this place their fort. Just a stone's throw away, by the town map, a stump bore their mark: BFF Pirates, 2008.

This was also where, a lifetime ago, she last held Chloe in her arms, where they shared a final kiss and a last goodbye. Chloe's words still hung in the air around her, like a distant echo. I'll always love you…And Max Caulfield? Don't you forget about me.

"Never," Max echoed her own response as she shut her eyes. If I could take it all back, I would. If I could just hear your voice one more time…

"There's nothing like the sea, is there?" an aged voice said behind her.

Gasping, Max spun about. She could have sworn she was alone just a few moments ago.

Yet just a few feet away from her were the three Native American women she had encountered in the Two Whales days before. The grandmother and the matron sat side-by-side on the wooden bench while the young girl stood behind them. They smiled benignly at Max-except for the girl, who merely crossed her arms and frowned.

"Um, I suppose," Max said, attempting to be polite. "Sometimes I come out here just to look at it. It's so beautiful in this light."

"Yes, it is," said the middle-aged woman, removing her hat to get a better view of the coast. "Gorgeous, really. A pity that most disasters in this town come from the sea."

Max blinked. "Disasters?"

"Storms and what not," the grandmother clarified. "You can never tell. The land is capricious. To be respected, certainly, but never trusted."

For a moment, Max felt like reality had tilted oh so slightly. Were these women speaking in some kind of code?

She studied them closely. They wore black from head to foot, loose clothes that hid their limbs. The eldest no longer wore her shawl, revealing a mass of crinkly grey hair pulled into a loose bun. Her mahogany, weathered face looked like a rocky cliff, filled with the deep ridges of crow's feet and jowls that likely shivered when she laughed. She wore brightly colored shoes woven from some kind of straw.

The middle-aged woman still wore her round, wide-brimmed hat, her dark hair tumbling down past her ears. Now she wore round spectacles on her face and a talisman of animal teeth around her neck. She also carried a nervous air, and her black eyes watched the sea as if she were waiting for a ship to dock.

The youngest stood ramrod straight behind them, dark sunglasses in her hair, her mouth a grim line. Despite her severe expression, Max found her exquisite: sharp cheekbones and even sharper eyes, a small upturned nose, unblemished bronze skin, a single dark feather hanging from her beaded headband.

"I've never seen you around here before," Max ventured. "Do you live in town?"

The young girl snorted. "Do we look like we live in town?"

"Manners, child," said the matron, clucking her tongue.

"We come from another place," the old woman answered. "Our tribe, Storm Raven, lives north of here." She gestured somewhere over her shoulder, but her eyes never strayed from Max's. "And you, young lady? What is your name?"

"I'm Max Caulfield. I study at Blackwell University."

"Manahuu, Max. I am Tuhudda." She touched the shoulder of the woman beside him. "This is my daughter, Ada. And the impudent sore behind me is my granddaughter, Lulu."

"Um, nice to meet you all." Max felt her hands clenching and unclenching at the attention they focused on her. She wasn't used to such scrutiny, especially from strangers. At least they didn't seem dangerous. Just…weird, really.

"Does your tribe live far away?" Max asked.

"Far," replied Lulu, checking her nails. "Not nearly far enough."

"…Have you come here to sight-see?"

"We came to bear witness," said Ada, whose smile had vanished from her face.

Max tilted her head. "Witness? Witness what?"

Tuhudda turned her dark eyes down to the beach far below. "Three weeks ago, I had a dream. I saw the ocean flee from the shore and the seabed give up its secrets."

Max followed her gaze. "The sea? You mean here in Arcadia Bay?"

"Yes. This is what I saw in my dream. Our guardian spirit led me here, telling me to come."

Okay, wow , thought Max. Spirit guardians giving side-quests. I've officially entered Final Fantasy territory.

"Well, some strange things have been happening with the weather lately," Max said. "I wouldn't be surprised if what you said did come true."

"Yes," Ada agreed. "Strange would be right."

Max thought for a moment. "I noticed you in the Two Whales before, when the aurora came. But you didn't seem surprised to see it."

The old woman shrugged. "No, we were not. Auroras are common enough, daytime or no." With some effort, she pushed herself from the bench to her feet. "Truth be told, we were more interested in what you would do."

"What… I would do?"

Lulu crossed her arms again, the impatience clear in her voice. "Gramma, are you sure we have the right girl?"

"We do," Tuhudda replied as she approached Max, eyeing her from head to foot. "The right girl in the wrong time."

Max felt the hairs on her neck standing on end. "W-what are you talking about?"

Now Ada stood up to approach Max, who took an involuntary step back. "We came here hoping to meet you."

"You…you know me?"

"By face," Tuhudda replied. "You were also in my visions. Just like the sea."

"What you're saying sounds impossible."

"An aurora in the daytime sounds impossible, but we all saw it happen," Ada said. "One night three years ago, we saw smoke and fire rising from the forest north of Arcadia Bay, the likes of which we hadn't seen in a generation."

"A great cleansing flame," Lulu added. "It set back the Prescotts' designs for Arcadia by years."

"And that was when our people knew…the cycle has turned," said Tuhudda. "The land has chosen, and the Incarnate comes once more."

Max looked from one woman to the other. "I…I don't understand. None of what you said made any sense. What do you mean by 'Incarnate'?"

"She is the judge," Tuhudda said. "She is the God in the Wood, the Land-Who-Speaks. It is her duty to make things right. Her arrival is long past due."

Ada continued, "Many moons have come and gone, and still she has not prevented the harm done to the land. The fish drown in the sea, the trees torn down to make way for rich men's homes. But we could neither hear her voice nor feel her presence."

"She's gone," Lulu muttered, then shook her head in anger. "She was killed."

"Her blood on a Prescott's hands." Tuhudda spat out the name like it were poison.

All the women fell silent, heads bowed in either sorrow or shame. Max's own head was spinning, so she latched onto a single word in a bid to understand. "You say Prescott killed her?" she asked Tuhudda. "Nathan Prescott?"

"The younger...and the elder. Yes."

"And this, um, Incarnate…d-did you mean...Chloe Price?"

Tuhudda's widening eyes reflected inner fire. She drew something from her pocket and held it to Max's face. "I mean the Incarnate."

Dangling from her fingers was a blue feather earring.

Images floated before Max's eyes—a headline, a missing persons poster, a folded picture in Chloe's room. "Rachel Amber," she whispered.

Tuhudda lowered her hand. "Without her, the land has no eyes and no voice. Now it can bring only suffering and ruin to the Bay. But…"

She smiled, reaching out clasp Max's hands with her own. "You are here now. While you live, there is hope."

Lulu strode forward. "It's been weeks. Why haven't you done something about all this?"

"W-what?" Max shook her head, pulling away from her grasp. "I don't know how to help you. I'm not…I mean…I can't..."

"You have a gift, do you not, Max Caulfield?" Tuhudda asked.

This is happening. This is actually happening. Max swallowed, looked about for some kind of escape. "You know about my power too?"

Now it was Ada who strode forward. "We saw it in our dreams. The land, it saw this Incarnate was special...and in peril. So it chose another to protect her. It gave you your own gift."

"A mighty gift," Tuhudda cut in. "The power to set things right."

"You mean my rewind power," said Max. "But I can't use it. Not anymore."

"Can't?" Lulu said, arching her brow. "Maybe...won't?"

Max whirled to face her. "Does it matter? Every time I tried to change the past, something always goes wrong. Yes, I can manipulate time. I did do something about this. You know what happened? In a different timeline, a storm came to destroy Arcadia Bay—all because I saved my friend."

Lulu tilted her head. "Is that what you think happened?"

Max stared back at her, dumbstruck.

Tuhudda spoke up again. "Nature knows what it is doing, young Max. It gave the raven wings to fly, the wolf fangs to kill. The land is wiser than you and I. Wiser even than Prescott, try as he might to outwit it. If you were given the power to ensure a just world, should you not use it?"

"I did use it!" Max cried. "I…I changed so much that reality started coming apart! I saw it happen! Are you saying I…I…"

Before she could finish the thought, the ground began to tremble. It started as a gentle rocking, like a truck was rumbling nearby, but it quickly gained strength. Max cried out as she lost her footing and landed on all fours. Taken by surprise, the women also tumbled to their knees.

Earthquake, thought Max. Today's anomaly had come at last.

Around her the trees and bushes creaked and rustled, and from above came the groaning of rusted metal as the lighthouse swayed with the trembling earth. A glass window broke and twinkling shards fell to the ground around them. Max didn't know what she feared more—that metal tower crashing on top of them, or the cliff they were on sliding into the sea.

But neither happened. The earthquake lasted a full unbearable minute before fading away. Max reached out and grasped Tuhudda by the arm to help her up. Lulu did the same for her mother.

Then Ada gasped. "It's happening! Mother, it's just as you said!"

As the women gazed at sea, Max turned to look—and wished she hadn't.

The ocean was retreating from the shore, like a cloth drawn back by a giant invisible hand. It hissed faintly as it went, uncovering rocks, starfishes, seaweed, a sunken buoy, the forgotten remains of a sailboat. The seabed giving up its secrets, Max thought. The old woman was right.

And I was wrong. It's not a storm coming for Arcadia Bay this time, but a tsunami. And I sacrificed Chloe for nothing!

Tears stinging her eyes, she turned to Tuhudda. "Why is this happening? Why couldn't I fix it?"

"Disasters always come," the old woman said, her shoulders slumping. "They are delayed, perhaps forgotten. But never denied. If not a storm, a fire. Or the unquiet sea." She shook her head. "We are too late."

A whimper escaped Ada's lips. Lulu turned her dark, penetrating stare at her grandmother.

"What do you mean 'too late'?" Max's hands clutched at the old woman's shoulders. "You told me we had hope. You said you saw all this in a vision, that you were sent here to help!"

But the spark had fled from Tuhudda's gaze. "It seems the land will wait no more. Today is the end for this town, its demise written in water." She pointed to the horizon. And sure enough, far out at sea, the waves had begun to swell. The hissing noise was replaced by a low roar, like a monster rising from the deep.

"No!" Max whirled to the old woman. "You can't mean that! All those people–they don't have time to get to higher ground! There must be something we can do!"

But Tuhudda just shook her head again. "We should have found you earlier. We knew this would happen, but not precisely when. If we had time, perhaps you could have found a photo, gone back into the past. But there is no time now. The land has chosen for us."

"Then you must choose for her," Lulu said suddenly.

Max turned to watch the other girl as she came to stand beside her grandmother. "You must send her back yourself."

"Granddaughter, you know I cannot. There are rules. We were sent to witness—not interfere."

"Oh drop it, Gramma!" Lulu stomped her foot, her braid swinging like a sword. "If you really believed that, you wouldn't have come all this way to find the Incarnate's guardian! You wouldn't have shown her my feather, or told her about Prescott or about your visions! You came here knowing exactly what you wanted to do!"

Ada laid a hand on her daughter's arm, but Lulu shook it off. "We waited years—years—for another Incarnate to come, to defend the land and to make Prescott pay for his crimes. Are you really going to stand here on higher ground and talk about hope, then fold your hands and do nothing? While so many die? While the land remains blind? When she—" She gestured to Max "—can do something about it?"

Tuhudda sighed, closing her eyes. "When we interfere, we invite dire consequences."

"Consequences!" cried Lulu. She jabbed her finger out to sea, where the bulge had grown into a wall of dark water. "Do something, do nothing—everything has a consequence! Well, if there has to be one, then let it find us as we seek justice!"

For a moment, they regarded each other, the young girl and the old woman. Defiance in the former, sorrow in the latter. What went on between them in the silence, Max would never know. But at last Tuhudda sighed, turned to her and said, "Max, are you willing to go back one more time and make things right?"

"But what can I do?" Max blurted out. "Whenever I tried to fix something, I ruined something else. I tried bringing Chloe's dad back but I only ended up hurting her instead!"

"Shoot an arrow aimlessly and you are liable to hit anyone and anything, except your target." She reached out a hand to Max's shoulder. "This time, I will help you aim."

Max lowered her eyes. "I don't have a photo with me. I can only jump back in time through one."

Tuhudda gestured to Max's bag. "But you have a journal, do you not?"

"I…yes." Max dove her hand into her bag and fished it out, holding it in front of her.

"Do you have an entry for a date just before April 22, 2013?"

That date sounded familiar for some reason. Then Max remembered it from all the missing persons posters of Rachel Amber. It was the day she went missing.

She flipped through the pages, her trembling fingers nearly tearing them in her haste. Behind her, the roar had drifted even closer. One glance behind told that the wave had turned into a colossus, a black wall wide as the horizon and nearly as tall as the lighthouse itself. Dark clouds gathered over it like a crown, and it had blotted out even the sunset.

"Focus, Guardian," ordered Lulu. "You don't have time."

Max wrenched her gaze back to her journal and flipped a few more pages. There! She held the notebook up. "I have an entry for Friday, April 19. But…I don't have a photo here. Just words, sketches."

To her surprise, Tuhudda had taken out a long reed pipe, lighting it with practiced ease. She drew in a few puffs, nodded in satisfaction, then blew it all out. Max caught a sweet, alien aroma, like nothing she had smelled before.

"Don't worry," the old woman said. "In a moment, I will show you a vision. You will use your ability to enter it into the past. Do you understand?"

"I do...but what then? What should I do once I'm there?"

The old woman pressed the blue feather earring onto Max's journal. "If you wish to save your home, if you wish to save your heart, this is your task: save the Incarnate and let her choose. Can you repeat what I said?"

"I…okay. S-save the Incarnate. Let her choose." Max shook her head. "But choose what? What do I tell Rachel? How are the Prescotts connected to all this?"

"We have only moments left, Max. You must find the answers out on your own." Tuhudda grasped Max's hand in her own bony grip. "Are you ready?"

Max swallowed a lump in her throat, then nodded once.

I'm going to try again, she thought. I'm going to save Rachel. I'm going to save Chloe. And I'm going to keep trying until I finally do. I'll keep trying till the end of time if I have to. Because Chloe's worth it.

"I'm ready," she said.

Tuhudda raised a finger in warning. "One more thing. This journey will not be like the others. You will have only one chance to make things right and there will be no going back. And you will face wickedness like you've never seen. Layers upon layers of evil."

"I'll do what I have to," Max replied, "if it will save Chloe."

Still clasping Max's hand, Tuhudda lowered them to a sitting position on the ground. Lulu and Ada sat on either side of them. Tuhudda placed the journal onto Max's lap, then handed her the reed pipe.

"Inhale deep and keep it in for as long as you can. Then read your journal."

Max took one deep drag from the lip of the pipe. Despite the sweet smell, it tasted bitter—bitter like vinegar, or tears. She coughed but managed to hold most of it in. Then she lowered her watering eyes to the journal.

April 19, 2013

Man, this Chem review is killing me. I'm trying to concentrate, but I just can't. It's like my bed is pulling me towards it with magnetic powers. I wonder if I could get away with cramming during break…

The world had narrowed down to the words on the page. Tuhudda was speaking to her, her voice echoing as if from the bottom of a well. "Look at me, Max."

Max raised her eyes. It seemed as if time was slowing to a stop. She could no longer hear the din of the oncoming tide, nor the howling wind, nor the panicked call of the seabirds. Tuhudda's face loomed before her, eyes black as night. Or the mouth of the underworld.

"Think back to that day. See yourself there. Where were you? What were you doing?"

And through the darkness, Max could see it. She was sitting at her desk in her room, trying and failing to study. Her lava lamp was on, the radio was playing a jazzy tune, her stuffed teddy bear, Captain Woolychins, sat propped up against her books like a drunken sailor.

It looked so crisp and clear, almost like a photograph. If she reached out her hand, she could pull herself through.

Ringing erupted in her ears. The world was slowing around her, like a clock winding down. A shadow fell over them as the colossal wave formed a canopy that blotted out the sun. The world blurred.

Chloe...