Chapter 2

Weeks, or maybe months, passed in that silent, unresponsive world.

I was a prisoner in my own skull.

Then, a flicker.

Not in my hospital room, but somewhere else.

A different kind of awareness.

My maternal grandmother, Esther Kowalski, had just undergone a minor heart procedure.

She was in her late sixties, recently widowed.

A pragmatic woman, Polish-American, no-nonsense.

Stern, sometimes, but fair. She loved her daughter, my mother, fiercely, in her own way.

Esther was recovering in a different hospital.

And then, she woke up.

But it wasn' t Esther who woke up.

It was me. Sarah.

My consciousness, somehow, inexplicably, was inside her body.

The world swam into focus through Esther' s eyes.

The hospital room, the smell of antiseptic, the slight ache in Esther' s chest.

A nurse bustled in.

"Mrs. Kowalski? You' re awake. How are you feeling?"

I tried to speak. Esther' s voice, raspy and older, came out.

"Fine," I managed.

My mind reeled. This was impossible.

But it was real. I could feel Esther' s hands, see the age spots.

And then a chilling, electrifying thought.

The date. I saw a newspaper on the bedside table.

I focused, my heart, or rather Esther' s heart, pounding.

The date was three months before my accident.

Before the hit-and-run. Before the coma.

I was in my grandmother' s body, and I was in the past.

A chance.

A chance to save my mother.

A chance to stop Brenda.

A cold fury, a sharp determination, solidified within me, within Esther' s frame.

Brenda Hayes was going to pay.