Emma sat on the kitchen counter, swinging her legs and holding a walnut.
"Bunny," she said. "If I wanted to travel through time, how would I do it?"
Bunny looked up from his ledger. He was filing something under RIDICULOUS QUESTIONS ASKED BEFORE NOON.
"You wouldn't," he said.
"But hypothetically."
"Hypothetically, you'd fail and cause a paperwork disaster."
Emma cracked the walnut with a nutcracker. "But what if there was a way?"
Bunny sighed. He closed his ledger. "Fine. Bring me that walnut shell."
Emma handed him half of the walnut shell.
"This," Bunny said, holding it up, "is you. Right now. This exact moment."
He set it on the table.
"And THIS," he said, holding up the other half, "is you. But yesterday."
He set it on the opposite side of the table.
Emma frowned. "So... I'd have to walk from here to there?"
"No. That's the problem with time travel. Everyone thinks it's about WALKING."
"It's not?"
"No. It's about FOLDING."
Emma stared at the two walnut halves. "Folding what?"
"The table," Bunny said. Then, before Emma could argue, he picked up a piece of paper and drew two dots—one on each end.
"This is you now," he said, pointing to the first dot. "And this is you yesterday."
"Okay..."
"If time was a straight line, you'd have to walk ALL THE WAY from here..." He dragged his finger slowly across the paper. "...to here. That's slow. Boring. Impossible, actually."
"So you CAN'T time travel?"
"I didn't say that." Bunny folded the paper so the two dots touched. "You don't WALK through time. You FOLD it."
Emma's eyes widened. "So the two dots just... meet?"
"Exactly. No walking. No loop. No getting lost. You fold the space between them, and suddenly—" He tapped the folded paper. "—now and yesterday are in the same place."
"But how do you fold TIME?"
Bunny picked up the two walnut halves and held them in his paws. "You need a bridge."
"A bridge?"
"Not the kind you walk across," Bunny said. "A bridge you fold ALONG."
Emma tilted her head. "I don't get it."
Bunny thought for a moment. Then he said, "Do you remember Aftermath Bridge?"
Emma nodded slowly. Everyone knew about Aftermath Bridge. It was in all the old stories. The place where things that were separated... somehow weren't anymore.
"Aftermath Bridge isn't a bridge you CROSS," Bunny explained. "It's a bridge that FOLDS. It connects two places—or two TIMES—and brings them together."
"But how?"
"Entanglement."
Emma blinked. "What?"
Bunny held up the two walnut halves again. "Pretend these two pieces were once part of the same walnut. They were CONNECTED. They still ARE, even though they're apart now."
"Okay..."
"That connection? That's called entanglement. And when two things are entangled—even across time—they're tied together. Like a string you can't see."
"So the string is the bridge?"
"Exactly. And when you fold along that string..." Bunny brought the two walnut pieces together until they touched. "...the two moments meet. No walking. No erasing. Just folding."
Emma was quiet for a moment, staring at the walnut halves pressed together in Bunny's paws.
"So if I wanted to go back to yesterday..."
"You'd need to find something from yesterday that's ENTANGLED with today. Something that connects the two moments."
"Like what?"
Bunny set the walnut halves down gently. "A memory. A story. A..." He paused. "...a walnut."
Emma picked up one of the shells and turned it over in her hand. "This walnut connects to... when?"
"Whenever it mattered," Bunny said. "Whenever someone held it and it MEANT something. That moment is still there, folded into the walnut. You're not traveling TO that moment. You're bringing it HERE."
"By folding?"
"By folding."
Emma looked at the walnut shell for a long time.
Then she looked at Bunny. "So Aftermath Bridge..."
"Is where all the folds meet," Bunny finished. "Past, present, future—all folded together. You don't cross it. You stand on it, and everything you ever were and everything you'll ever be... touches."
Emma was quiet.
Then she said, "That's kind of beautiful."
Bunny picked up his ledger. "Don't tell anyone I said it."