by P. D. Cacek
Millie set the wrapped candy down on the side of the mattress then reached into her tote and took out a pencil. She scratched out Jessica Faith and wrote the name Jessie in its place.
“I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Go away.”
“I will as soon as you answer my questions. Will you do that?”
Jessie, the True Born/Newcomer took a deep breath.
Millie slapped the pencil down against the page. “Then I’ll just have to sit and stare at you, one imposter to another.”
“I’m too tired.”
“Then shut your eyes and get some sleep. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
Millie made her face go all soft and innocent against the green-eyed glare. “You’re not very nice.”
“I’m very nice, but I can outwait a mule if I need to.” Millie picked up the candy with her free hand. “It’ll help, sure you don’t want it?”
Jessie raised the hand closest to Millie and shook the restraint. Millie nodded.
“Ah. Well, I can feed it to you, if you like. It really is good.”
“Fine.” Green eyes rolled, but the mouth opened.
Millie unwrapped the candy, broke off a small piece and carefully placed it into Jessie’s mouth. “How’s that?” Jessie shrugged one shoulder but didn’t spit it out. Millie picked up her pencil.
“How old are you, Jessie?”
“Seventeen.”
Millie wrote it down and took a deep breath. The air smelled of peppermint.
“I’m not sure how to ask this next question, but I need to fill in the space. Jessie, are you a boy or girl?”
The silence that settled down between them was as thick as cooling molasses.
“I mean, I know your name is Jessica Faith and that would mean you were a young lady, but now….” Millie reached into the sack and helped herself to a peppermint stick. It didn’t much help, but it eased the sudden dryness in her mouth. “I just need to know if….”
“I’m still a girl?”
Millie felt her cheeks flush as the Newcomer’s jaw closed around the candy and crushed it.
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I’m asking.”
One of the shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t understand, Jessie.”
“I’m trans. I mean, I was trans.”
Trans. Millie felt her brow furrow. I know that word. Why do I know that word? “Uh….”
The beautiful green eyes shifted toward her. “Transgender. I always felt like a boy inside. Is that why I’m…” Jessie’s hand lifted as far as the cuffs would allow, “…like this?”
Millie exhaled before she could stop herself. “Well, that would explain it. You got a body that is a better fit to who you are, that’s all.”
The green eyes closed. “Like Ms. Samuels.”
“Who? Jessie, how do you…. Do you know another Newcomer who’s—”
“Yeah. She said I was like her…a freak.”
“Don’t you dare say that! You aren’t a freak, Jessie, and I won’t allow you to say it. You’re a Traveler, just like me and a hundred others. Can you tell me a bit more about this Ms. Samuels? What’s her first name?”
Jessie’s glare deepened so much that Millie felt it push against her. “George.”
“George?”
The weight pushing against her faded as Jessie looked at the ceiling. “Georgina. She…. It changed its name even before it…. Ms. Samuels is the school counselor. None of us knew she was an Imposter.”
Millie wrote down the name in the margin and underlined it. If Georgina Samuels was a Newcomer, she’d be in the files and maybe, if she was still alive, they could talk to her and find out how Jessie knew about things like Imposter and the True Borns.
When did you pass, Jessie Pathway? Maybe Ms. Georgina Samuels would know that too.
Millie cleared her throat and moved the pencil over the box marked M.
“So, shall I mark M for male?”
Jessie nodded and Millie checked the box.
“Now about this other Newcomer you mentioned, Ms. Samuels…?”
“I’m tired.”
Millie sat back in her chair and drew another line under Ms. Samuels. It was likely Jessie had said all he was going to about Ms. Samuels for the moment, but there might be something in the database about when Jessie would have met her.
“I know, Jessie, but just answer a few more questions and then I’ll leave you alone, promise.”
The eyes remained closed, but he didn’t say no.
“All right. When’s your birthday?”
“December 22, 2003.”
“And what was the last date you remember?”
“You mean the day I killed myself?”
Millie hadn’t expected the sharp twinge near her heart. After so many years of hearing one tragic story after another she thought she’d be immune by now. “Yes.”
“It was the same day Carly died, June 22, 2021. How long have I been gone?”
Millie wrote down the date and took a deep breath.
Curtis Allan SteinarJessica Faith Jessie
June 22, 2021June 22, 2021
The DOD of donor and Newcomer were identical.
“Hey!”
Millie closed the chart and looked up. Jessie’s eyes were open and boring holes into her soul.
“Did you hear me,” Jessie asked. “How long was I gone?”
“You weren’t.”
“What?”
“You were never gone, Jessie, not like the rest of us. You just closed your eyes in one place and woke up in another. You came back the same day you died.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Simi Valley, California
After the call ended, Barney continued to hold the cell phone against his ear for a moment before setting it down on the table.
Four years ago he would have added the information to the growing data he had on the Travelers and not given it a second thought. The phenomenon was still too incredible to do more than take notes and wonder what the hell was going on. They still didn’t know, but there was a set of parameters that each Traveler emergence followed: (1) an individual died, (2) the soul of another individual entered and reanimated the body, and (3) usually the gender of the deceased and the Traveler remained the same.
But not always.
Barney knew of fifty-seven recorded cases of gender change.
Millie’s Traveler was number fifty-eight.
That was a very low number given the number of Travelers who were emerging around the world on a daily basis, but it happened. What had never happened before, as far as Barney knew, was a Traveler dying and coming back almost instantaneously. No wonder Millie called again.
Barney took a deep breath.
He had a full week of meetings and consultations ahead of him, but he also had a first-rate assistant who was a crack at rescheduling or who could, if needed, take his place…and probably do a better job of it. That was the first call he made after retrieving his phone from the table. The second wasn’t so much a call as a quick swipe to the Southwest Airlines site to book their next earliest flight to Philadelphia.
The trip wouldn’t cause too much turmoil as long as he was back for the surprise birthday party on Sunday that Amandine had been planning for months and that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about.
One tap and he confirmed the Thursday, 5:20 a.m. nonstop from LAX to PHL, after which he called the New Beginnings toll-free 1-800 number and left a message for Millie with his flight information and ETA.
He really needed to get her to change her mind about getting a cell phone.
“Ahem.”
He’d just finished typing Georgina Samuels/high school counselor into the Notes app when the door of his
office, his homme des caverns, cavemen being the closest Amandine could come to man cave, opened. She smiled and the room brightened. She was like Miranda in a number of ways, not all of them, of course, and it was the differences that made it easier to love them both.
“Bonjour,” she said, “I am making breakfast. How do you want your oeufs?”
He smiled and saved the file before slipping the phone into the pocket of his robe.
“I would like my oeufs scrambled, merci.”
* * *
Arvada, Colorado
Jess found that if he looked at the faces of the congregation or at the sun-bright colors in the stained-glass window set high above the entrance arch, and not at the spray of pink and white miniature roses that draped the white casket in front of the altar, he could focus on the liturgy printed in the memorial program in his hands and almost believe it was just another funeral he was officiating.
“A time of grief,” Jess said to the microphone that carried his voice to those who filled the pews and others who were standing along the sidewalls. So many people loved her. “A time of letting go, but also a time of remembering as well.”
Abigail sat alone in the front pew, her head bowed, a single pink rose in her hands.
“And we need that, we need to remember Jessica, cherished daughter and sister, beloved friend, but not in pain or grief, for that only darkens our memories of her. We must remember Jessica with love and joy and keep the memory of her smiling face ever before us. Her heart was too ki—” Jess cleared his throat. “Her heart was too kind to want us to suffer because of her. She would want us to go on with our lives and our cause, for she was, as we are, True Born. We should not weep for her loss, but rejoice in the knowledge that as her soul is safe with our Lord God, her body will be safe within its grave, a hollow vessel pure and uncorrupted. One body, one soul.”
“One body,” the congregation answered softly, “one soul.”
Jess closed his eyes and lifted his face toward the arched dome above him.
“Blessed child, my beautiful daughter Jessica, you are safe and we who are left, who have gathered here today, come not to mourn your passing but to remember and be glad of the time we had with you.” Jess took a deep breath and felt the tightness that had constricted his chest since Jessica’s death start to loosen. “She is at peace. Our Jessica is at peace and bathed in the glory of the Everlasting Light. What we bury here today is not my daughter, it is only the earthly shell that housed her soul and only her soul.”
Jess opened his eyes and finally allowed himself to look down at her coffin. It looked so small.
“Jessica was a child of light and brightness and also a child of this church and of the one truth. So let us remember her at peace and whole. I now ask anyone who would like to share their memories of Jessica to raise their hand. Who would like to start?”
Jess smiled at the number of hands that rose. Jessica had been so loved. He wished she had known that, had known how many cared for her. Maybe if she had she wouldn’t have been so confused.
Jess chose the first speaker, Mrs. Betancourt, who’d wept bitterly when he told her about Jessica’s accident. Jess stepped down from the dais, walked down the center aisle and offered the woman his arm. She leaned heavily on it as they walked back.
As the woman began to enumerate Jessica’s virtues and abilities, Jess sat down next to Abigail and took her hand.
All these people, all this love…Jessica would have been so happy.
* * *
Haverford, Pennsylvania
After the Imp…the woman named Millie left, and just as Jessie was drifting off, a doctor came in and started asking more questions, mostly about how Jessie felt about being a he and if he had any questions or if he would try to hurt himself if they removed the restraints.
No, Jessie had said, he wouldn’t.
And didn’t even after the doctor removed the padded cuffs and walked out of the room.
The woman had said something that Jessie hadn’t thought of and it had made every inch of skin on the body crawl.
“Thank you, Jessie. Now, is there anything else I can do before I leave you in peace?”
Jessie remembered puffing up the flat plane of the chest and meeting the Imposter’s gaze full on.
“Yeah, tell them to kill me. They can say it was a reaction to medication or something. It happens all the time.”
The woman hadn’t batted an eye. “It does in movies. This is the now times, but I can ask them.”
“You will?”
“Sure, you wanna die, I can’t make you stay, but you might want to think about something first…what if you die by accident or kill yourself and wake up in another body? You might not like it; fact is, I think you were taught not to like it, but you came back for a reason, Jessie, we all did. I can’t tell you what that is and you might never find out, but you came back when others don’t so it appears to me that you’re supposed to be here.
“But don’t let any of us stop you if you wanna try again. Maybe after you come back a few dozen times you’ll see reason. Here, have another peppermint. I’ll see you later…if you’re still here.”
And it’d just be his luck….
His.
It was funny how quickly the pronoun changed.
Jessie unwound the multi-control cord from the bedrail and punched the Nurse Call button.
A male nurse walked through the curtains and smiled. A male nurse for a male patient, how gender-specific.
“How are you doing?”
“Okay.”
“So what can I do for you?”
Jessie took a deep breath and nodded to the privacy curtains surrounding the bed. “Can you pull them out of the way?”
The nurse’s smile grew as he grabbed the edge of the curtain and pulled it open. “Yeah, I bet the scenery was a bit boring. How’s that?”
Jessie looked at the reflection staring back at him from the glass wall. The ghost boy’s face looked pale despite the sunburn.
“Fine.”
“Is there anything else?”
The ghost boy shook his head.
“You missed breakfast and a few other meals, so how about food?”
The ghost boy shook his head but the stomach growled loud enough that the nurse laughed.
“Good, I’ll go grab you a menu.”
Jessie watched the ghost boy momentarily fade when the nurse walked past the glass – if only it was that easy – then sat back and studied the face. It wasn’t bad, as faces went, although the nose looked a little out of proportion or maybe it was just the peeling sunburn that made it look bigger. An itch prickled the skin on the left cheek; it was peeling too. In the glass, it looked like the ghost boy scratched his right cheek. Reverse image.
Mirror images. Mirror twins, like Jessie and Abbie.
Once upon a time.
The ghost boy disappeared again when the nurse came back into the room.
“Hey, have you been scratching your face? Don’t. I’ll get you more cream in a minute. Here.” The nurse handed Jessie a printed menu and a kid’s blue crayon – you couldn’t hurt yourself with a crayon. “I checked with the doc and you can pretty much eat anything you want, but I’d stay away from things like the grilled cheese and tacos until your throat’s a little less raw.”
“I can have tacos?” But the thought reminded Jessie how sore the throat still was. “Yeah, maybe not. I can have burgers? And sushi? Really? What’s water ice?”
The nurse cocked his head. “You don’t know what water ice is?”
Jessie shook the head.
“Mark it down. You’ll love it and it’ll soothe your throat.”
Jessie could only guess, but checked off baked macaroni and cheese with green beans and a roll and chocolate milk. The body looked too skinny and it was hungry. The nurse took t
he menu and nodded at the choices.
“Okay, let me drop this off and then I’ll come back for our walkies.”
“I’m tired.”
“And I’m good-looking, but you still need to get up and move. You haven’t done a lot of that either.”
“You mean this body hasn’t.”
Jessie had hoped for shock but got a laugh instead.
“Not walking, no, but it has had a lot of PT, so you lucked out. We just have to get the muscles used to moving on their own again. That’s where you come in.”
The nurse turned and left, but was back in under a minute.
He snagged the robe off the foot of the bed and handed it to Jessie. “Slip this on unless you want everyone to see your bare butt.”
Jessie slipped on the robe while the nurse walked over to the closet and pulled out a wheeled upright walker, snapping it open as he pushed it toward the bed.
“Okay,” he said as he released the bedrail on that side and picked up the controller. “Let’s roll. And please make sure your seat backs are up and tray tables put away.”
Jessie felt the bed lower and jerked away as the nurse reached out. “I can do it myself.”
The nurse straightened. “That I seriously doubt. Besides, if you fall and crack your skull open it’ll cost me my job, and I like my job. Now come on, play nice.”
He reached for Jessie again.
“Are you one of them?”
The hand paused. “Them?” Jessie looked up but didn’t have to say anything. “Oh. No. I’ve always been this handsome. Now, quit stalling. Up and at ’em.”
The room hardly spun at all once Jessie got the stockinged feet under him and pulled the body into a semi-upright position. It was weird. The body was tall and long and felt as substantial as overcooked spaghetti. Straightening the arms, Jessie stretched out the spine and was almost standing eyeball to eyeball with the nurse.