《Headpats》Chapter Fifty-Five

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Taylor crashed back-first onto her bed, every muscle sore, every bone protesting wearily, every neuron in her brain sluggish. The day had started with a foiled bank robbery and had ended in a tense negotiation with a mercenary. It had been the single longest day in her entire life.

Not the worst by far, but the longest. She wanted to lay back down, close her eyes and just sleep.

Something, or rather someone, climbed onto the bed next to her and tucked themselves under her arm. Another weight simply appeared at the top of the bed and squeezed itself between the end of the bed and her head.

For a moment she hoped that was it. Then two more forms climbed onto the bed and there was a scramble for places that ended with a crash as a small body hit the floor. Then the person quietly tucked into her side was yanked out with a squeak and someone else hopped onto the bed to replace her.

“You bitch!” a familiar voice growled. “I’m older, get off.”

Taylor reached over, grabbed her pillow, and stuffed it over her face.

That was another sister’s cue to land on her as if she herself was a big soft pillow. Judging by the fluff rubbing against Taylor it was Tattletail. That, of course, sparked a war. One which was fought atop Taylor as if she was the western front; elbows and knees served as the artillery that would render her into a desolate wasteland.

There was a crack and the mattress shifted a little. The war ended in a sudden and expensive armistice.

Then the bed slumped to one side with a creak as one of its legs gave out.

“Alright! Enough!” Taylor roared.

By the time she was sitting up and glaring across the room there were six sisters that were trying hard to be the pictures of innocence--and utterly failing at it--standing in a row.

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“I just want to sleep,” Taylor begged. “Just, just some time off after today’s... todayness.”

Five pairs of eyes focused on their feet. Taylor met the eyes of the only sister not looking away. “I could use my power on your bed,” Alice said with her ever-serene voice. “It could improve matters considerably. But if you’re hesitant, then I wouldn’t blame you for sleeping on the decision.”

“Go ahead, sweetie,” Taylor said. She couldn’t be mad at Alice, she was too small and fragile-looking to be angry at. The others, on the other hand, had no such defence. Well, they did, but their innocent act had worn thin already. “The rest of you behave,” she warned.

Alice’s smile transcended space and time as she prepared to do horrific things to both. She stared at the bed, then hummed. “If you want, Big Sis, I can make your bed while fixing it.”

“Really?” Taylor asked. “That doesn’t sound time-related.”

“Well, perhaps I’ll be cheating a little, just for you. If I rewind it back far enough it’ll be just the same as the last time you made it.”

Taylor shrugged one shoulder. A sister ready-made for doing, or un-undoing chores. How about that?

Alice beamed again and focused on the bed. Taylor watched as the blankets shifted; then, like a movie being rewound faster and faster, the blankets moved into place, beams of sunlight that had long passed flashed across the bed’s surface and the entire frame lifted itself back into place, whole once more.

“It’s done,” Alice said with a sigh.

Taylor stared at the bed.

“Um, Alice?”

“Yes, Big Sis?”

“My sheets were green,” Taylor said as she took in the checker patterned purple-yellow sheets now covering her bed. An outstretched foot lifted the edge of the blankets to reveal a wooden bed frame that was similar to her own, thought not quite right either. Hers had had flowers carved into the sides. This one had vines.

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“Did I do wrong?” Alice asked.

“No? I don’t think?” Taylor said. She poked at the mattress a few times. It felt right.

“Oh,” Tattletail said.

Taylor turned to see the fox-girl with a hand over her mouth. “Spill,” she said.

“It’s your bed, but not your bed,” Tattletail said.

“That makes sense,” Alice said.

“No, no it does not,” Taylor shot back. “Could you explain, please?”

Alice nodded. “Of course, Bis Sis,” she said. “I made your bed go back in time, and since time is relative to this dimension in space my power rewound your bed from the past and brought it to the now, only it was a bed from another you’s past.”

“So,” Taylor said as she wrapped her head around the concept. “You don’t so much rewind an object as get another version of that object from the past.”

“I suppose that’s an approximately accurate description,” Alice said. “Though I do rewind the object, it's just that some core parts of it don’t remember what they should be, so they take examples from elsewhen.”

Taylor’s head was beginning to pound. “We’re going to need to test this before you can use it more.” She walked over to her desk and picked up the first thing on its surface, an old calculator that smelled faintly of orange juice which she had been using for math homework. Taylor placed it on the floor. She entered one, then added one to it. Every second she pressed on equal until sixty or so seconds had passed.

“Rewind that a minute,” Taylor said.

Alice nodded. The calculator shifted a tiny bit on the ground.

The display read ‘ten.’ A tap of the equal sign added up to eleven. “Okay,” Taylor said as she turned it around and inspected it for any changes. “Nothing seems different about it.”

Tattletail was grinning the smug grin of a little sister that knew she was going to earn her pats for the evening. “Shorter time changes mean smaller changes to the thing being rewound.”

Taylor blinked and considered that. It made a sort of sense, if she squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. Alice was the product of two capes, so her power couldn’t just be normal. “Can you rewind it a few hours?” she asked Alice.

“It’ll only take a moment,” Alice said.

The calculator shifted a little more on the ground, then, between one millisecond and the next, it was an entirely different model.

Taylor picked it up and turned it on. “Still works,” she said before inspecting it more. It seemed to be a slightly better calculator, but not by much.

“It’s good that you can still count on it,” Alice said. “I would have been disappointed to break Big Sis’s tools. I tried to reach for something better.”

“Make... Alice, could you make my bed bigger?” she asked.

“I could rewind until it’s bigger,” she said.

Taylor grinning. She was starting to see some possibilities here. “And could you rewind my piggie bank so that it’s full again even after I empty it?”

Alice blinked. “I could try. It makes cents that it would.”

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