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“Quinn, just becausetheyended up together doesn’t mean you and I should, even if we aren’t high and are actually them living another life, which I’m still not entirely certain of.”

“Abby, be serious. You know there’s no drug test here. This is real.”

“Even if it is, Quinn, we don’t even know each other. Deb and Harriet grew up together.”

“So? I’ve had images in my brain for days now. They’re all different. I even looked up the kinds of skirts with ruffles we both saw. I drew the umbrella. It’s really a parasol, and from what I can tell, the best time period for those outfits would have been Victorian England. I just had one that was from 1919, apparently. I’ve had one from a cabin with a straw mattress, I think. I have no idea where that one is from, but there are more that I’ve had glimpses of, and it only started when I saw you. I’ve been here for five years, Abby. I moved here because I felt drawn to this place. You were raised here; that’s probably why. I’ve waited years to find out why I don’t want to leave this town even to visit my family that I love, and it’s because I’ve been waiting for you to move back here, for you to walk through the front door of my shop.”

“I didn’tjustget back, Quinn.”

“No, but I bet if you tell me the day you moved back to town last year, I’ll remember it. I’ll remember some kind of strange feeling coming–” Quinn stopped. “When did you move back here?”

“Come on, Quinn…” Abby closed the computer and moved away.

“When, Abby?”

“It was September, I think. I closed on my house on September fifteenth.” Abby then watched as Quinn seemed to calculate something. “What, Quinn?”

“I was at home. I was working on my laptop, and it was a normal day, but I suddenly got the urge to take a drive around the neighborhood. Where did you move to, Abby?”

“I’m on Plum and Wilcox. Third house from the corner on the left. Why, Quinn?”

“I’m on Plum and Spencer.”

Abby swallowed because Spencer was just the next street over from the house that she’d bought without even seeing it in person.

“I drove down your street three times that day. I had noidea why. Then, the next day, I went for a walk. I just walked up and down Plum, back down Spencer, and all the way to Cherry, where I turned back down Plum. I did it at least four times. Again, no idea why. I went on a walk every day for a week before I stopped because it made no sense. I still go for walks around that block every so often, but usually at night, when I get home.”

“I didn’t take walks when I first moved here,” Abby said. “And I moved in on a Thursday, so you were probably here and didn’t see the truck. I didn’t have much to move, either. I ended up leaving a lot of stuff there, so it was a small moving truck, and I was done with it in a few hours. I didn’t start taking walks until recently, and I don’t walk at night.”

“We can’t ignore this, Abby,” Quinn stated. “Clearly, something pulled me here and maybe even pulled youback, too.”

“Then, why didn’t I get pulled here five years ago when you moved? Or, why weren’t we born in the same town, like Deb and Harriet were before?”

“I have no idea. But I’m guessing we’re not always best friends as little kids before we meet. When that guy brought me that box, I was drawn to the first picture you were drawn to as well, but it didn’t actually start hitting me how much untilyoupicked it up. And just like that, all of a sudden, my brain is turned upside down, and I’m getting these full-on visions, like I’m Harriet, only I didn’t know her name or that she was real. I’m picturing you, too, but it’s Deb, and we’re having a relationship in the 1930s, but you’re married to a man who also wants a man, and we all have a son together before they go off to war.”

“And then,yougo off to war,” Abby returned, and she felt it then, Deb’s anger at Harriet leaving her behind. “And I hated you a little for that. I loved you, but I hated you for leaving me there along with our son, a whole farm to take care of, and no one else. I was angry at John David, too, but he wasn’t you.”

Quinn took a step toward her and said, “I’m not her,either, Abby. I am, to a degree, because I have some of her memories, but I’m not the one who left you there with Paul.”

“I know. But the lines are so blurred now… I can feel how angry Deb was with Harriet. God, she cried almost every night, Quinn. She didn’t understand it. Even when Harriet came home, she didn’t get it.”

“I know,” Quinn echoed. “And I can only imagine how it felt. I think, for Harriet, it was just something that she had to do. Her whole life had been about Deb and later, Paul. She wanted something for herself.”

“To go to war?”

“Abby, she was a nurse. And she was in a hospital. I–”

“What?” Abby asked.

“It’s like I can’t see all of it, but I can remember all of it. Or, at least, some of it. I can feel why she had to do it even without having all the memories rush into my mind. I don’t understand this at all.”

“Join the club.” Abby crossed her arms over her chest before she lowered them again. “Shit.” Her shirt was still wet, as were her jeans, and there was tea seeping into her shoes and socks as well. “I think we need to get a little space from each other right now.”

“What? Why?Idon’t. I think we need to keep talking about this but not reliving their memories. We need to talk about what it means to us now.”

“But we can’t separate it. I’m literally feeling emotions that aren’t my own right now. I can smell grease. Why can I smell grease?”

“I have no idea,” Quinn replied and looked around the shop. “There’s no grease in here unless it’s inside something, and I don’t know about it.”