Six-year-old me made the change—I delayed us over ten minutes by spilling juice all over my shirt. It should have been more than enough and I’ve always wondered why it wasn’t.

It did matter. Couldn’t have mattered. It was no accident—he was waiting for us.

I whirl back around to vision-Smith. “You did this!” I shriek, even though I know he can’t hear me. He’s not really here; he’s just a phantom. A memory. I stand there, barely managing to remain upright. Everything I always thought I knew was wrong.

I didn’t kill my father.

Smith did.

And my entire world tilts off-kilter.

“How could you?” I whisper.

He stands there, silently, out of sight of the crash scene, with a tiny smile of satisfaction on his lips. I want to strike him, to punch him in his smug mouth, and my hands are clenched into achingly tight fists when he turns, looks directly at me, and grins.

My two seconds of surprise give him the upper hand and by the time I lunge at him he’s already moving away. I leap, but a second later I’m sinking through the ground and settling into another scene. I turn, looking for Smith, wondering where I am, but he’s gone.

I try to walk forward but something holds me back. I look down at my arms and there are thick strands of black twine tied around them. My hands, my elbows, my feet, my knees. I try to brush them away, but they only tighten painfully until I let out an agonized groan and stop trying.

“That’s better.” Smith’s voice again. But not from all around me like before; it’s definitely from above. I look up and see a giant Smith’s face, enormous fingers holding something. All of the strings are connected to it and it takes only seconds for me to realize that he’s put me in a bizarre puppet/puppeteer scenario.

“This isn’t real,” I whisper in confusion. These strings, this weird setup, it’s not actually true. It can’t be. His dome is somehow different than mine. It shows the past. It shows physically impossible scenarios. I don’t understand any of it.

But my hands are moving and now that I can see past the strings, I realize I’m at my house. I’m making coffee. My hands reach into my pocket and pull out a small, dark glass bottle. I add something to the drink and then wrap my hands around the steaming mug. The heat from the coffee seeps through the ceramic and burns my palms, but I can’t let go. Tears sting my eyes from the excruciating pain, but the strings just guide my feet down the hallway to my aunt’s room.

“Thought you could use a fresh cup,” my mouth says against my will as I set the mug on my aunt’s desk and am finally able to release my burning, throbbing fingers.

“Oh, thank you, Charlotte,” Sierra says with a smile, and takes a sip.

The strings yank me backward and I fall on my butt, jarring my spine. But still, backward, backward, until the lighting changes and I’m in a new scene.

A grave site. I stand by my mom as she sobs. I don’t want to look but the strings turn my head and I see Sierra’s name on the stone. “No,” I whisper. “I won’t do it.”

“You’ll do whatever I want you to,” Smith says from above.

I try to run. But I take only two steps before the strings pull me back again. I claw at the grass, my fingernails tearing against the stony soil, but still the strings drag me. My bathroom this time. The air is steamy and I see my mom’s empty wheelchair sitting beside the deep tub. She’s lying in the warm water with her eyes closed, a rose candle burning on the edge of the bathtub.

My hands are rising in front of me even as I try to push them down. I’m silent, despite the screams in my mind, and she doesn’t even open her eyes until I’ve grabbed her head with both hands. She’s too shocked to resist when I slam her skull against the handicap shower bar with all my might. Blood pours from her temple, but she fights me now.

I have too much of an advantage; I’m whole and on solid ground. My arms shove her beneath the surface and hold her there as she thrashes. I scream, I beg for this to end, but I can’t even close my eyes as her body stills, gives one final twitch, and then relaxes.

“You can’t make me do this!” I yell to Smith, and finally the words escape my mouth, rattling my teeth.

“I can make you do anything,” Smith says not in a victorious voice, but simply stating a fact: like the sky is blue, and grass is green.

“No!” I grit my teeth and reach into the water that’s turning red from my mother’s blood. I have to rescue her!

Before I can touch her, the strings pull me away and suddenly I’m dangling from them, swinging violently back and forth. I look up as the tiled bathroom wall rushes toward me and I brace myself for the hard impact.

There is none. Smith swings me into another scene where together, we torture someone I don’t recognize. Then time is passing quickly and scenarios flash by in more of a montage than individual snapshots. Soon it becomes clear that I’m rising in power and wealth. And influence. Everywhere people pander to me. I order; they obey. I see myself clutching the necklace as I change the future to my favor, gain influence, and rid myself of enemies.

But now, in the background, so nondescript that everyone’s eyes pass over him, I see Smith. Within arm’s length all the time as we kill, as we curry favor, as we trample those weaker, smaller, until I’m sitting behind a huge desk in an ornate office somewhere, signing documents.

The text is blurred—of course he wouldn’t reveal his true intentions to me now. But I know whatever I’m signing can’t be good. It must mean destruction, agony, death. Smith is standing by my elbow, silently, but now he steps forward, addresses me directly. “This is our future, Charlotte.”