The Secret that Everyone Knows

You will find out today.

I tear the note to shreds, tossing the bits into a glass of water on my nightstand. Noticing the note’s envelope is still intact, I take it — important red wax seal and all — and toss it into the garbage. This is stupid, Archer, I find myself thinking. After all these years of waiting…you throw away your one opportunity to discover the Secret?

All these years of waiting have built up into this one spectacular anti-climax — my eighteenth birthday. What exactly have I been in the dark about? Well, there’s a Secret. No one’s ever told me of its existence — the only physical proof I have is the letter I just destroyed — but I know It’s there. I can feel It. It’s lingering in the floor I walk on, It hums in the walls, It even floats in the rafters of the attic I sleep in (not because my parents are poor or cruel, but because I like the solitude). And the awful part is, everyone seems to know about this Secret except me.

Everyone. I see it in my mother’s eyes when she’s sending me off to school, my brothers’ eyes when we part ways, my father’s eyes when he comes home from work, my best friend Alicia’s eyes when she’s doing homework with me, my teacher’s eyes when we’re discussing history, the random kid’s eyes when I’m on the bus home from school…need I go on?

I’ve known about this my entire life, and what makes my skin crawl the most is I think it has something to do with me. And now, after all these years — I don’t want to find out. Not anymore. Because a secret this big can only ruin my perfect life.

Thankfully, my mother calls me down for dinner. Perhaps there’s a way I can avoid finding out. I step down the two flights of stairs and enter the kitchen, sliding into my seat between my two brothers.

“Archer, is something wrong?” my mother asks.

I shake my head, silently filling my plate with food. I’m already planning on how I’m going to finish my homework and chores after dinner to get to bed on time…and meanwhile, my parents and brothers engage in a high-spirited conversation that drifts from school to sports to catalytic converters. As usual, I’m left out—other than the infrequent, strained glances in my direction, which are also normal. It seems that whenever they look at me, they can only see the Secret.

The Secret everyone seems to know.

It seems ages before I can take my dishes away, but I’m thankful when the time comes. Except, the second I rise to do so, the doorbell rings, almost making me drop my plate on the hardwood floor.

“I’ll get it,” my father says, his brow scrunched in concern. We’ve never had visitors at this hour on this day of the week.

Oddly enough, it’s Alicia, my best friend — and only friend. Suddenly I find I’m mirroring my father’s expression; as often as she comes to help me with my homework, which is the only thing I mildly look forward to, she never comes at this hour.

She stumbles through the door, clutching a backpack to her chest that’s stuffed with several textbooks. Her fluffy brown hair falls into her face, shading her deep brown eyes, and then she breaks out into a grin the second she notices me—immediately washing away my suspicions. Even after a monotonous, colorless day, her smile lights up my world, especially when I didn’t expect to see her in the first place. Once she’s inside, I hurry to wash my dishes so I can follow her to the attic.. This might mess up my schedule a bit, but it should be worth it.

I arrive just as she’s laying her textbooks on my desk under the window — calculus, advanced chemistry, history — and pulls her composition notebooks and pencil case out of the backpack. This shouldn’t be different from any other meeting we’ve had over the course of high school…well, maybe other than the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Where is the feeling coming from? Is it just me stressing over the fact that she’s not supposed to be here right now?

Or could it be…the Secret?

I clear my throat. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

She glances back, a little surprised, and shakes her head.

Well, I know she knows the Secret, but if she’s not going to be the one to tell me…she doesn’t need to know that I’m about to find out.

You won’t find out, I tell myself.

I push the Secret out of my mind as my conversation with Alicia takes the structure it usually does on the two days of the week we meet. We chat about things beside school, we compare notes from class, we work through our homework together. She makes no mention of why she’s here on a Wednesday, but I don’t bother to ask. That might just be what tips out the Secret.

“I should go,” she says suddenly, bolting up from the chair at my desk.

My stomach drops to the floor; she’s never acted this way. “So soon?”

“My mom needs help with something.” Alicia smiles weakly, gathering her books and shoving them into a backpack.

I glance down at my hands. I know I’m making a mountain out of a molehill…but I can’t stop the letter about the Secret from flashing back into my mind. You will find out today. The tingling, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach far overpowers the anxiety I have because I’m demolishing my routine.

This sucks.

“Wait!” I yell as she steps through the door.

She whirls in surprise—and I might be hallucinating, but maybe fear, as well.

“Can I—” I clear my throat uncomfortably. “Can I walk you home?”

It’s not such a far-fetched request; she actually lives a few houses down. Her eyes widen in shock all the same.

There’s a moment where she’s staring at me blankly — there’s that flash of fear again — but she hesitantly agrees. I nod, taking her backpack for her, and follow her back down both the flights of stairs.

My mother, who is washing the leftover dinner dishes as we pass the kitchen, glances at me with a look I can’t tell is confusion or suspicion—as if I’d stolen a cookie when she’d told me not to repeatedly. My father has the same look as I pass his study…the look is even on my brothers as they play chess in the living room.

Even when I shut the front door behind me, I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s following me.

Yes, me, not Alicia.

I don’t think I’ve ever been outside at this hour in my life; normally, I’d be finishing my homework by myself. The air is warm with a light breeze, and the sky is a rainbow of colors—a vibrant cerulean that explodes into green, light purple, pink salmon, and bright yellow as the sun sinks in the west like a pat of butter.

“Archer?”

I snap my head around. Alicia is considerably farther up the sidewalk; I hurry to catch up to her. Not only have I never seen a sunset, but I’ve never even been to Alicia’s house. It never crossed my mind. Back when I was a freshman and she’d come to me with the idea of studying at my house, I’d just agreed without a second thought. I never considered that we could work at her house as well.

How deep is this pit in my stomach?

We stop in front of Alicia’s three-story house, that’s nearly identical to mine, attic and all. In fact, all the houses seem to be cookie-cutters…all white with black trim, each driveway immaculately white, and the grass of each identical lawn manicured to perfection. I guess I’d never paid attention during the bus ride to school, and I never left home on weekends.

“Archer!” Alicia yells.

“What is it?”

“Goodbye. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

“ ’Bye,” I mumble.

“I—”

She pauses, biting her lip, as if she’s on the verge of spilling something she’s never told anyone.

“Yes?”

“Nothing.” She shoots me a glance before she whisks herself inside her house, and in that glance, I can only see one thing…

The Secret.

I stand there, frozen, for who knows how long…images flashing through my head. The note. The strained looks. The sinking feeling. Over and over and over…

“Archer Cook.”

My stomach drops so low that I can hardly feel it anymore. I slowly turn on my feet to face a hooded figure — much taller than me — his face completely hidden behind a mask.

“It is time.”

I hear the words in a guttural voice, but I can also…feel them. As strange as that sounds, there is no other way to explain it, and feeling the words give me can only be described as…run.

He’s going to tell me the Secret.

I stand here, my heart and head in a stalemate…torn between running for the hills, the smart thing, or staying for the Secret, the wise thing. I’m unable to move, as if someone glued my feet to the ground.

“Today is the final day of your life, Archer Cook. Use it wisely.”

If my whole body was frozen before, I’m completely immoble now. I was right, I didn’t want to hear the secret — I should have listened to my head —

“This device will allow you to travel backward in time and fix your mistakes,” he growls, dropping what looks like a ball made of crystal in the palm of my hand. “Think hard on the time you would like to travel to, along with the place. Rub the ball three times. You will then travel to that moment and remain there for only ten minutes, after which you will return to the present. It can only be used twice. Remember that. Use both the ball and your final remaining hours wisely. And good luck.”

“Wait!” I yell as he steps away. “That was the secret?”

He pauses, and even though I can’t see his eyes, I know he’s staring directly at me, boring holes in my eyes. A single word comes out of his mouth. “No.”

Relief washes over me as he strides away and vanishes — and then I remember I won’t live another day after this one. But if this crystal ball will really allow me to fix my mistakes, what does it matter? At least I'll have lived a perfect life; a meaningful one. I tuck the ball into my pocket, intending to use it as soon as possible. What mistakes have I made? I know there’s a big one, perhaps I’ll figure it out when I get home —

I hurry back down the sidewalk to my own house, which would’ve been extremely hard to find if it weren’t for a sign with our family name hanging on the front door. Something seems off the moment I step inside — even more so than normal, with the Secret and all. I find my mother standing by the telephone, her face grim as I’ve never seen before.

She sets down the receiver and turns to me.

“Your friend is dead,” she says bluntly.

It takes several moments for the words to register in my head. “What?”

“Your friend,” she repeats. “The one who studies with you.”

“Alicia? What — what about her?”

“She’s dead. She was poisoned.”

My eyes widen as the reality sinks in. I whirl and burst back through the front door, sprinting down the sidewalk. Multiple neighbors walk out of their houses at exactly the same moment, but I barely notice. Where is Alicia’s house?

Apparently, I don’t need to find it. I see someone lying directly in the middle of the roads, her head lolling in a man’s arms—the hooded man, but without his mask. He looks up at me, frightened — he looks very young, even from this far away — and dashes away before I can even take a step, almost tripping on the random objects littered around. My blood boils. What kind of coward would take an innocent girl’s life and take off?

I try to make myself go over to Alicia’s lifeless body, but something stops me.

I can’t do it.

But I know what I’m going to do with the crystal ball.

The most obvious thing to do would be to prevent Alicia from dying, but I don’t even know how she passed away. She’ll still die in the future — possibly before me. Besides, the hooded man said I had to fix my mistakes. No, I know exactly what I’m going to fix — the mistake of meeting Alicia in the first place.

I breathe in deeply, pulling the ball out of my pocket, and placing it in the palm of my left hand. Then I rub the ball three times, all the while thinking hard on my first day of high school…

There’s a loud snap, and I blink and find myself standing in the school hallway next to my locker. Of course, no one’s in the building yet other than a janitor, since I was always the first to arrive. I hide in a hallway as I watch myself, a blond, gangly fourteen-year-old, enter the room.

My breathing quickens as a girl appears behind my younger self — Alicia, hugging her tan arms to her chest. The longer I wait, the more desperate I feel — I know she’s about to bump into me, making me drop my books, which she’ll help me pick up…

With a jolt, I realize it’s too late. I’ve already dropped the books, and Alicia’s already chattering uncontrollably. I’ve already wasted a use of the crystal ball. If I’d just intervened somehow, I’d never have met her, and I’d never have cared. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

As the hallway begins to fill up, I lean against the wall, waiting for the ten minutes to be up. I’d looked so dead just before Alicia had bumped into me, but then something had lit up inside me.

Before I can process what that means, there’s another snap, and I reappear in my attic. Sighing, I stare back down at the crystal ball and feel the sudden urge to smash it against the wall. I’m assuming I only have until midnight to live. What if all I do is mess things up?

No. I know what to do.

I grip the crystal ball tight to keep myself from chucking it away. I need to make sure I never find out about the Secret.

Rubbing the ball three times, I concentrate on the point in time ten minutes before I saw the hooded man. Then, I dash back outside into the street, just in time to see the sunset. There is the past version of myself saying goodbye to Alicia. There is that moment of hesitation before she runs inside. There I am, staring up at her house, my eyes almost lifeless. Maybe my life was meaningless without Alicia.

And then, I see the hooded figure creeping around Alicia’s house until he reaches the past version of me. I watch as he hands me the crystal ball — I’m running out of time. Then I watch as he vanishes.

No, he doesn’t vanish — he’s escaping, rather slowly, through the backyards. Then he cuts around my own house to the street again, feet away from where I’m standing…

I leap on top of him and grab him in a chokehold. I want to squeeze out his every breath of life…

“Archer, stop!” someone chokes.

I freeze.

“It’s me.”

I drop him — no, not him — and tear away the mask. Along with a voice distorter.

It’s Alicia.

She gasps for air as she pulls off her cloak and hood, along with the stilts and boots off her feet. Then she hands them over to me, and I numbly take them. It’s getting chilly, so I drape the cloak over both our shoulders.

“It’s not real,” she coughs, taking something out of her pocket. “None of it’s real.”

“You’re hurt. You need to get home and get some rest. I’m so sorry. I thought I didn’t have a choice—”

“No, Archer.”

She smiles at me through tears and strokes my face with one hand. In the other is a strange bottle.

“I’m not real,” she mumbles. “I’m—all I am is a figment of your imagination.”

“Alicia, you really need to get some rest. You’re talking nonsense.”

“No, listen to me.” She hacks out another cough. “You’re the only one who has a soul. I’m nothing—I don’t—”

I don’t say anything as she wheezes again. I simply hold her.

“I wish I could tell you to go find love…to find something worthwhile…but there’s nothing out there. It doesn’t exist. I’d only be hurting you.”

I say nothing, but shake my head.

“I wish I could say I’ll remember you,” she says. Then, before I can stop her, she unscrews the cap of the bottle and drains the liquid down. Then her head lolls to the side, and I panic, looking ahead of me. There’s the past version of me staring back in horror. I wrap the cloak around me completely and run off down the road.

At the last moment, I remember the ten minute timer on the crystal ball. There’s a snap, and everything goes black.

I was right. Again.

I didn’t want to know the Secret.