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crazy or kill him,” she said. She looked around nervously, like she was betraying a trust, but eventually locked eyes with Tippicks. “He thought they started the fire at the warehouse just to get to him.”
    Tippicks felt his body tense. Something gurgled in his stomach. Perhaps it was his long-dormant acid reflux coming back for a visit. He tried not to let the pain show.
    â€œHarry’s mind works quickly. Too quickly for his own good. They say he’s been delusional…,” he began.
    But she cut him off with a shake of her head that said simply, No. You don’t get it.
    â€œIt works faster than that,” she said. “Faster than anything. It works so fast you can break it just by giving it a little shove. Remember the shooting? Harry thought someone was trying to make Todd Penderwhistle kill Jeremy Gronson, then kill himself. He thought somebody was trying to turn Melody Glissando into a murderer….”
    She was talking too fast, so Tippicks raised his hand to try to slow her down, make her think more rationally.
    But her words came out in a flood.
    â€œAnd he stopped them. He did the right things at the right time, and he stopped them. Then he figured out that whoever it was who did all this was after him now. He had a new girlfriend, Elijah. I thought it was her, but it turns out no one at school ever even saw her except Harry. I’m starting to think he just hallucinated her, or someone made him hallucinate her, just to drive him crazy.”
    Tippicks pressed his fingers into his temples and rubbed. The poor girl was tired, upset. Keller could be persuasive. He’d probably talked her into sharing his delusions, and now she didn’t know which end was up anymore.
    He tried to make his crackly voice sound gentle: “He’s your friend, so naturally you believed him when he told you these things, yes?”
    She gave him that derisive, impatient head shake again. “Hell no, I thought he was nuts. But then he showed me. In the auditorium, when Todd fired at Jeremy, Jeremy tripped on some chairs and the bullet missed him. Harry arranged those chairs.”
    Tippicks kept rubbing. “I remember. It was in the security report.”
    â€œHe can see the future and rearrange it.”
    The burning stomach acid lapped up into his throat. “Excuse me?”
    As if gesticulating would make things clearer, she flared and waved her fingers as she spoke. “He can make it so that things that were going to happen, don’t. Or sometimes he can make it so that things that were never going to happen, do.”
    The image of his father in Windfree, babbling nonsense, again flashed in Tippicks’s head.
    â€œHow…how does Harry change the future?” he said. His voice was weak, his eyes closed.
    Her voice was tinged with regret. “You just think he’s crazy, and now you think I’m crazy, too, don’t you?”
    Tippicks shrugged and shook his head. He opened his eyes and offered a weary smile. “No. I think we’re all tired. As for crazy, some of my favorite people are crazy. I only asked a question: How? How does Harry change the future?”
    He saw the girl swallow hard.
    â€œHe thinks the part of his brain that organizes reality into linear time was damaged by the trauma of losing his father.”
    Tippicks’s brow didn’t just furrow; it knotted. Something old and dark was dragged out from inside of him, and he was too weak to stop it.
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œHis brain takes him to this place where he can see the past, the present, and the future all at the same time in, like, these trails. The past is hard, but the future is like clay, and he can change it. He calls it A-Time.”
    Tippicks couldn’t keep himself from asking, “And you say you’ve seen it?”
    She stared at him, seeing something new in his face that made her speak more confidently. “Yes. He took me there. I’m not