The air grew heavier with each step I took. Columns continued to line the walls and I noticed that each one had an eye carved on it. Each eye was a different shape and color, and in the pupil was a circle that wrapped an S—the Foreseer’s mark.I wondered if this place was some kind of place for Foreseers.

“What is this place?” I asked.

My father shook his head. “A place where no one wants to be.”

His words scared me, but before I could press him further, we reached the end of the hall where a large blue trunk, trimmed with gold, sat on top of an antique table. My father raised the lid slowly, and I held my breath as he reached inside the trunk and took out a crystal ball.

He held the crystal ball out to me, his eyes gleaming a bright violet in the light it casted. “This, Gemma, is how you’re going to save the world.”

I eyed the crystal ball warily. “With a crystal ball?”

He took my hand, his skin ice-cold, and set the crystal ball in it. “With this and your power.”

It wasn’t like any of the other crystal balls I have seen. It radiated a glittery, purple glow that came from a star-shaped light in the center. It was beautiful, that was for sure, and in a strange way, the purple glow kind of reminded me of my eyes.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. How is my power going to save the world? I thought my power was what ended it?” I raised the crystal ball. “And what is this for?”

“I’m talking about your Foreseer power, not the stars’,” he said, shutting the lid of the trunk. He stood there silently for a moment, looking as though he was struggling to tell me something important. “I have done things in my life that have led me to this place. Things that are unforgivable—things which you will understand soon.” He paused. “Gemma, I need you to put the future back.”

“Okay…how do I do that exactly?” I glanced down at the crystal ball sparkling in my hand. “And how do I use this?”

“That, I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have to figure it out on your own.” He smiled softly. “You and I are unique cases, even for our unique kind. We can both travel into visions without the assistance of a crystal, so, with enough strength, you should be able to change the vision I erased and recreated.”

I stared at him, confused. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. You changed a vision?”

He looked at me with regret in his eyes. “The vision I changed was so the world would end.”

I was taken back and I almost dropped the crystal ball. “You made it so the world would end? How…why?”

“That’s not important,” he said, his voice growing sharp. “What’s important is that you fix it—change it back to how it’s supposed to be. You need to make sure the world doesn’t end up like it did in the vision you saw.”

I shivered as I remembered. “The one where everything ends in ice—the one where Stephan wins?”

A look of darkness passed across his face when I mentioned Stephan’s name. “Yes, that’s what you need to stop from happening.”

I stood there, hardly believing what I was hearing. The first time I ever meet my father,he informs me that he changed a vision so Stephan would be able to end the world in ice.

“So how do I change the world’s future back to what it is supposed to be?” I asked, turning the crystal ball in my hand.

He tapped the crystal ball with his finger. “Everything you need to know is in here.” He touched his finger to the side of my head. “And in here.”

Okay, this was making no sense. “How do I use it then?” I stared perplexedly at the crystal ball. “Just like a regular crystal ball?”

He turned his back to me and started down the hall.“It’s time for you to return…you’re not even supposed to be here. Good-bye, Gemma. I have great confidence in you that you’ll be able to fix my mistakes.”

I started after him, desperate to know more, but strangely, the walls seemed to be blurring away like I was having trouble seeing—and walking.

My father kept moving further and further away from me as the hall flickered in and out of focus. I tried to chase after him, but it felt like I was only putting more distance between us. “But I don’t understand any of it. How am I supposed to change visions? And how do I know which ones to change?” I stopped, my feet feeling too heavy to move. “Dad, I don’t understand!”

“Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder. “You will.”

Before I could say anything else, the walls closed in, and everything went black.

Chapter 4

Water splashed across my face, soaking my skin and drenching my clothes. My body felt like it had been run over by a truck and my eyelids were as heavy as lead. I could hear the ocean lulling, but it didn’t make sense since I was up on the mountains.

Water hit me in the face again, and I opened my eyes right as a wave crashed over me. I scrambled to my feet, hacking up water as I scurried out of the ocean’s reach. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was standing on a sandy shore, the dark-blue ocean extending out before me, the golden sun reflecting against the water. Behind me, houses lined the beach, and one house in particular—a light-blue one—I knew would be the house where I would find my mom, Alex, Aislin, and Laylen.

Clutching the crystal ball my dad gave me, I ran for the house, the sand burning against the soles of my feet. People dotted the beach, and they probably thought I was crazy; soaked from head-to-toe, holding a crystal ball as I sprinted like mad. I didn’t care, though. They could stare. I was no longer on the mountain and that was all that mattered at the moment.

I made it to the house panting and charged up the wooden steps of the back porch. “Mom,” I called out, throwing open the back door. “Mom!”

I moved across the kitchen and went into the living room. No one was there and the only noise was the tick-tock of the wall clock.

Where were they? Did they go looking for me? Probably. I had, after all, been missing for nine days. Great. I needed to find a phone and see if I could get a hold of someone—let them know I was back.

I have no idea why people thought it was a good idea to get rid of house phones. Yes, there are cell phones, but cell phones don’t do any good when you don’t own one.

I searched the house, looking for a phone, but ten minutes later, I was still phoneless. I was just about to walk out the front door to go find someone who would let me use their phone, when the door opened on its own and Alex entered. His dark-brown hair was messy and not in an intentional way like it usually was. The color of his green eyes popped against the black t-shirt he was wearing. My happiness and thrill of seeing him bubbled up inside me and I just about ran over and threw my arms around him. It was a bit of a shock, feeling this way toward him, and I wondered how deep my feelings for him were getting. It was extremely confusing to think about.

But I resisted the urge to run over to him, remembering Stephan’s words: If you stay close to each other for too long the star’s power will fade out. And so will you and Alex.

“Hey, did you find him?” Alex asked, before I got a chance to speak. He shut the door and walked up to me, creating a bit of a problem because the electricity was firing up like a firework show.

I took a step back. “Did I find who?”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Laylen.”

I was so confused.“Why…Did something happen to him?”

Alex looked as confused as I felt. “Yeah, he disappeared remember. Everyone’s been out looking for him. I take it, though, you didn’t find him.”

WTF. What was he talking about? “But I’ve been gone for nine days.”

He looked at me like I was insane. “No you haven’t.”

“Yes I have…oh…” My mouth fell open as it dawned on me.

“Gemma, what’s wrong?” His bright green eyed gaze moved all over me. “Why are your clothes all wet?” He took the crystal ball from me and turned it over in his hand. “Where did you get this?”

I didn’t answer. I just stood there, with my mouth agape, struggling to grasp what was going on. My father had sent me back to before Nicholas had captured me and handed me over to Stephan—before I had spent nine days locked away in the cabin. And he did not send me back in vision form. I was here in the present, and I could communicate and touch things…I think.

Without even thinking, I reached out and placed my hand on Alex’s arm. The electricity surged against our contact.

“Holy crap,” I whispered. I took the crystal ball from him and sank down on the couch that smelled of salt water and sand. “I can’t believe it.”

Alex sat down beside me, a concerned look on his face. “Gemma, please tell me what’s wrong.”

I swallowed hard. “Something happened to me.”

“Okay…do you want to tell me what it is?”

I slowly nodded and then started to explain everything that had happened to me—or didn’t happen I guess I should say, because if I was here at this very moment, then those nine days at the cabin never took place. I was back where I started only now I had a unique crystal ball in my hand and a ton of new unanswered questions.

I knew right away that I shocked the heck out of Alex. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly hanging open. It took him a minute, after I finished explaining, to say something

“So what you’re saying,” he spoke slowly, “is that right now we’re nine days in the past.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think the nine days I spent at the cabin were somehow erased.” I set the crystal ball in my lap, thinking about what my father said about how he erased a vision and recreated it. “I think, somehow, my father erased and recreated some of the events of my life, so that I would end up back here.”

“So that my father never got a hold of you?” Alex asked, still looking really lost.

It was weird having him ask me questions, and it kind of sucked because I didn’t have answers to give him. “I don’t know...I’m not sure how it works. He only told me he erased a vision and recreated it to change the outcome of the world’s future.” I twisted the crystal ball in my hand, staring at the glowing purple star inside. “He said he changed it so that the world would end the way I saw it in my ice-vision.”

Alex’s forehead creased over. “Are you saying that he made it so my father could end the world?”

I felt kind of ashamed of my father. “I think so.”

Alex stared off into space, thinking about what I said. “So where was your father exactly?”

“I have no idea. He never told me. He wouldn’t tell me anything, really, just that I was going to save the world.” I held up the crystal ball. “And that everything I needed to know was inside this….Oh yeah, and in my head.”

Alex dragged his fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots. “But none of what you said makes sense. Foreseer’s aren’t supposed to be able to control how the future turns out—they’re not supposed to recreate visions to their liking.”