*Lila*
I have no choice but to tell her the truth. My stomach knots, my mouth is dry, and the weight of Miriam’s question hangs heavy in the air. If she knows that song, then she already carries the same secret I do, and it’s one no one else in Salem could possibly know.
I take a deep breath and say it, letting the words out without hesitation. “I suppose there’s no point in lying. I’m not from this time. I traveled here from… 2025. I was born in 2003.”
Saying it aloud feels like stepping onto a scaffold, as though each word seals my fate in Salem. Even so, knowing Miriam must be facing the same impossible problem makes me feel I can trust her even more than I already do.
Miriam freezes, her eyes filled with wonder, as if the words have knocked the air from her lungs. “You… you mean,
