When It All Goes Still

by Allison Mullinax

  “Johanna! Jo! Wait.” His voice sounds softer, breathless, and I can hear him running up the driveway after me.

  I stop at the top of the porch stairs and whip around to meet him. He’s panting for breath by the time he reaches the house, his hands resting on his knees. “You are my brother. Why don’t you stop being a cop for five seconds and act like my brother? And you let her, of all people, convince you that you don’t know me at all,” I accuse, allowing the hurt I feel to reveal itself through my words.

  “I’m sorry, Jo.” He looks at me and then to the ground. “Katie called me this morning and told me what she saw. She said she was worried about you.” At his words I bark out a sarcastic laugh. “I went to the garage and I still didn’t see your Jeep. I panicked. I didn’t know what to think. She said people are talking. Everyone saw you Friday night. They saw you coming out of the woods alone and sweating. Then passing out. It looks bad.”

  “I am a runner. Runners are sweaty!” I yell at him.

  “You’re right. And you’re my sister and I do know you,” he admits, as he climbs the steps to me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Katie freakin’ Carter.” I look at him with disappointment. “You know, I expected you might be a little worried about me last night. But this?” I shake my head.

  “I know. I know.” He runs his large hands through his hair.

  “She’s never going to let me be happy. It wasn’t enough to take my boyfriend, she had to do it the night of my parents’ funeral, and make sure I saw it happen. All because I moved on from this town and left her behind. And it isn’t enough to let me move on now and be content, she has to run my name into the ground and make the people of this town believe any rumor she conjures up. And obviously, she has the power to do it. My own brother—”

  “No. Not me. I may have had a momentary lapse in judgment, but not me, Jo.” I believe him, but I want him to suffer for a minute or two more. “Not Mary-Beth either.” I walk into the house, kicking my shoes off at the door. I turn the corner of the foyer and walk into the kitchen where MB is sorting through some old mail.

  “Told you,” MB says to Andrew, giving him a look that could slice him in half, causing him to grimace.

  “Coffee?” she asks me.

  “Absolutely.”

  “You,” she looks at Andrew, “Go away. I’m going to talk to my sister about her date with a handsome man, and you don’t get to be here. Go.” She points out of the kitchen. Creasing his forehead, he snatches the paper off the counter, then stomps up the stairs just as he was told. I snicker behind my coffee cup as Mary-Beth places a plate of blueberry muffins in front of me.

  “For the record, and I’m sure he left this part out of his groveling apology, I never for a moment thought there was any validity to Katie’s concern,” she says, making air quotes as she says the word concern, rolling her eyes. “In fact, I grabbed the phone from him and told Katie to mind her own business.” A satisfied grin finds her lips.

  “You did?”

  “Yes. How everyone doesn’t see through all that BS she layers on every day is beyond me.” She scowls, clearly disgusted with her sister’s antics.

  I shrug my shoulders. “Are people really talking about me and what happened Friday? I was seriously only in need of some food. I was lost in the woods is all.” I refuse to let myself cry.

  “I don’t know, Jo.”

  “Well, if Katie has her way, and a listening ear, she will spread her lies all over the town.” I look up at the ceiling and let out a sigh. The tension at the base of my neck winds like a clock.

  “Screw them.” MB nudges me in the arm. “Tell me about Traveler,” she says with her chin propped on her hands, “and don’t leave out the good stuff.”

  I sink my teeth into a muffin feeling the large blueberries dissolve on my tongue. I don’t want to reveal anything by accident that could cause me to look insane. Especially since there’s a petulant bitch walking around town already trying to make me appear that way.

  I have a dreamy expression I can’t wipe from my face when I think about Traveler. “He’s smart, an exceptionally hard worker, protective, a gentleman, a good listener,” I begin.

  “And hot.” Mary-Beth giggles, and I can’t help but join her.

  “Amen to that.” And we clink our coffee cups together. I think about him, and how I already miss his touch and his eyes, always staring at my mouth.

  “So, what about all those qualities has you left with such a sad face?” She bumps my shoulder again, wanting me to talk.

  “It’s just. We live so far from one another. Almost worlds apart. I don’t know how it would ever work between the two of us.”

  “Really? It’s 2016, Jo. It’s not like you need a horse and cart to trek across the Oregon Trail to get to one another. There are planes, and trains, and cars.” She winks at me. “I know it’s early, but these things have a way of working themselves out when they’re supposed to.” She pats my hand before she stands and stretches. Her stomach is seemingly larger than it was even yesterday. And no matter how terrible things seem to feel at the moment, I can’t help the smile that pulls at the corner of my mouth when I think of my nephew.

  “I think I’m going to change and go for a run. I need to work some of this tension out.”

  “You mean Traveler didn’t take care of that for you last night.” Her giggle returns.

  “Oh, my God. MB!” I whisper, whipping my head around to make sure Andrew hasn’t wandered back downstairs. I laugh, walking out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my room.

  I slide the mint-green dress off and pull my dresser drawers open, looking for my running shorts and tank. Instead, I pull out Max’s T-shirt that I keep hidden in the back. I take it out and study the familiar college logo scrolled across the front. Instead of remembering the times we spent together growing up, the dreams that we would always be together, or the laughs we shared…all I see is Traveler’s shirt draped across my body last night. The way he stared at me wearing it. The way his clean smell clung to the fabric, and how it still lingers on my skin now. I walk over to the trash can beside my closet and chuck Max’s meaningless old cloth into the bin. Something that I should have done years ago.

  I slide on my shoes and stand to stare at myself in the mirror. It’s hard to imagine the person I was just days ago, before heading outside to run, and how Traveler has changed me between then and now. Nothing will ever seem the same, and I don’t want it to.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Traveler

  I’m still sitting at his desk when I hear Arden come through the front door. He calls out to me, but I can’t seem to find the want to answer him. I hear his footsteps padding down the hallway, and then come to a stop at his office door. The silence lingers between the two of us.

  “Is she okay?” I ask him, without looking up.

  “Mmm. If you mean the Shifting, then yes, she is okay. As for her heart, time will have a way of mending its brokenness. She will be fine. And you will be fine, too. It was a wise choice to make her feel for you in order to gain her obedience and silence.” There’s an edge to his voice. I ignore it. I don’t care if he doubts me. I don’t care about pleasing him.

  He’s waiting for me to ask him questions, for me to be angry and lash out, for me to be happy to have answers of any sort about my family. I know he is wanting something other than the silence. Only I have nothing to give him, and it appears to me he has taken enough from me already. I’ve never felt ill will toward Arden, but right now with him standing across from me, I don’t trust myself not to rip him apart.

  “Traveler—” he begins, but I stop him by holding up my hand.

  “If you say you’re sorry to me, the next thing to touch your mouth will be my fist,” I promise him, still avoiding his face. I can’t look at him. My mentor.

  Walking into the room, he takes the seat across the desk. I slide the picture over the smooth wood and it lands in front of him. Standing, slightly bent at the knees, I sta
b it with my finger. “Who is that woman?” I ask, finally looking him in the face. His expression is unreadable. “The fucking truth.” There isn’t any waver to my voice.

  He picks up the photograph and a small, barely visible smile forms. “Jaqueline Romanoso,” he says, looking up at me.

  “I figured as much. Who is she to me?” I leave no room for interpretation on the question.

  “She was brilliance in human form. Radiant and Magnificent. To her friends, she was the life and the light of any gathering. To me, she was my greatest friend and confidant. To the Herding Division, she became an anomaly and something to be contained and analyzed. And to you, Traveler…she was your mother.” Admiration rolls off his tongue in waves.

  I lean back in the chair; my hands lock behind my head, staring at the ceiling. My feet are outstretched and crossed in front of me. “Her journals, I don’t understand.” I level him with my eyes. “Bonnie Smith. For twenty-seven years, I believed my mother was a seamstress. Twenty-seven years, I trusted you.”

  “Yes. And fear not, I will never apologize to you for lying. Not for a single word of it.” His eyes, already small, narrow to slits as he challenges me. I feel my skin tightening around my body, the anger threatening to explode from within. “Your animosity is misplaced. It’s misguided. And when you will allow yourself to listen to me without a preconceived notion of what you think may have transpired back then, I’ll explain,” he says, standing and leaving the room. I hear him walk into the kitchen, rattling something in the refrigerator, and then make his way back down the hallway. He places two frosted beers on the desk and leans back in his chair, taking a pull from the bottle. I snatch my drink from the edge of the desk and welcome the taint of alcohol in my veins.

  “I am not your enemy, Traveler,” he promises with conviction. “Everything. All of it. If anything, was out of love for you.” He sets his drink down and folds his hands across his lap.

  “Then, by all means, tell me what the fuck this is.” I wave my hands over the box.

  “Your mother had capabilities that we didn’t even know were possible, Traveler. And since her, there has not been a single sole come across the program that could even touch what her mind and body allowed her to do…until you.” He nods in my direction. “It is a blessing, but it can be your curse if it is ever brought to the light of day. And that is exactly what happened to Jaqueline. And it is something we could not allow to happen to you.”

  “You keep saying we?” I ask him, and he meets my stare head on.

  “She was my best friend, Traveler. She stood up for me when everyone around me was so different. She cared for me and stood by me. She befriended me, and a friendship like Jaqueline’s was a friendship to be cherished. She accepted me. Whatever she needed from me, and whatever hardship she was about to face…we did that together.”

  “And why did she need you? What happened?” My jaw muscles tighten against my words, and I’m growing impatient.

  “She fell in love…with someone from the past. Your father. She had been missing from work for several days. She claimed to have fallen ill. I went to her room one night to check on her, and she was crying uncontrollably on the bathroom floor. She was frail and weak, and it was obvious she had her mind made up to perish right there on the cold tiles of her apartment. Somehow, I coaxed her off the floor. She trusted me with her truth. Her heart and her secrets exposed.” Arden’s eyes are vacant, a memory playing behind them that he’d rather forget. “She revealed it all to me. She had been secretly visiting him for months. Shifting under the cover of night. One night she went to your father, and instead of being met with his open arms she was met with his casket. They claimed he had drowned. It was only a few days later she realized she was with child. She was lost and scared.” Arden stands up and begins pacing the room. “And as if her whole world hadn’t come to an abrupt halt, the Authority Division began to punish her for her efficiency and talent. It made them uncomfortable, and she was constantly under their microscope. Her entire life was collapsing around her. She was capable of too much, and they were closing in on her,” he says, so caught up in the moment, it’s like he’s living it again. He sits back at the desk and looks me in the eye. My heart pounds in my chest.

  “Your father didn’t drown, Traveler. He was murdered. And your mother believed The Authority was responsible for it.” He shakes his head, looking off in the distance over my shoulder.

  “Arden?” My voice pulls him back into reality. I need him to continue.

  “They found out. They realized she was far too talented, and to no one’s knowledge they began investigating her every assignment. Following her. Keeping tabs on her. They murdered him because he knew too much. And she believed it was a matter of time before she was next. She was capable of too much in their eyes. She wanted you safe, Traveler. Had they found out about you, they would have taken you, studied you and analyzed you. She did everything she could to save you from that.”

  “How?” My question comes out as a whisper, my voice no longer holding rage.

  “She revealed to no one about the pregnancy. She kept it a secret until the day you were born.”

  “Bonnie Smith?” I place both my palms flat on the desk.

  “A woman born in the early 1900s, dying from an unknown blood disorder. We found her, and we Herded her here. Her striking resemblance to your mother was the key. We looked across centuries for a woman who fit all the qualifications needed to pull off our plan. And Bonnie did in every way. She was with child, and she knew from the moment of conception that the loss of blood from childbirth would likely claim her life. Your mother and I promised her that if her child survived, she would be well taken care of in exchange for her silence. We knew that the chances of either of them surviving were slim, and as suspected, childbirth claimed her life as well as her infant daughter’s. Stillborn. Her purpose to serve as the name of your mother was fulfilled, and they are both buried together,” he says it as though he is reading from a list of facts. As though he has gone over the scenario every day of his life. The emotion drained from him. All of it, for me.

  “So, Bonnie Smith died alone in childbirth as the obituary states. Except, she wasn’t my mother at all. Jaqueline Romanoso is my mother.” I lay out the facts, convincing myself of their truth.

  “Yes. I watched you come into the world that night. She held you, kissed you, then placed you in my arms to be raised safely away from her and the dangers her name would bring to you.” His eyes gloss over. “I took you in one direction to the foster housing that night, and she went the other direction to the Shifting chambers for the very last time.” He picks up his bottle and drains the last drop into his mouth. “I’ve watched you from afar since that night twenty-seven years ago. I’ve been there in the shadows, always mindful and watching you grow. I waited years until the time was right to retire from Herding. The day you went into Diagnostics to enter the Shifting Division Program was the day I stepped down to become an instructor. I made a promise to Jaqueline to watch out for you, to guide you should her same limitless capabilities arise inside of you, and I will keep my promise to her.” Arden leans forward in his seat, his voice gentle and pleading. “When I tell you Johanna’s life depends on you staying away, when I tell you that your life depends on you staying away…believe me, please.”

  I push my chair back and hang my head between my knees.

  “Because of your mother, we now have these.” I look up and see him tapping the scar where his chip used to reside. “They never found her. They never will. But they also make certain it will never happen again.”

  I slide the photograph back across the wooden desk and examine the picture of my mother. I look back up to Arden. “Where is she?”

  He inhales a slow breath and smiles at me. “There was a reason I sent you to 2016 to the dying stranger’s bedside.” There’s a mischievous gleam in his eye that I’ve never seen before. Or maybe I’ve just never noticed. “The middle-aged woman sitting behind the desk,
kind face, sweet smile? That, Traveler, was your mother.” He stands and walks over to me, sitting on the edge of his desk. “There have been moments all through your life when she has been there with you. Berkeley wasn’t your ancestor, Traveler. She was.”

  “Arden, how is that possible without a chamber?” I look up at him, already knowing the answer before it rolls off his lips.

  “She doesn’t need one. No one knows why the particles in her body, within her mind, harbor so much unwavering strength and power. But they do.” Even he seems to be baffled by her. “Authority wasn’t far from finding out that after that first shift, her particles were forever altered instead of temporarily. They would have found out that they could never have kept her in a prison cell. Her only option would have been death. And you, Traveler, you may not have sharpened your skill set, as of yet, but you too more than likely have this ability. Only for you, the dangers are much more imminent.” He brushes his finger over where my chip should be. “You can’t hide your talents for long.”

  I slam my fists down onto the wood, and the lid on the metal box slams shut. “I don’t want any of this!” I shout to him bitterly. He places a hand on my shoulder as I lay my forehead on the desk, wishing it all away. “Where in 2016 is she?”

  “She moves around. Last I heard she was in the Florida panhandle.”

  “How did she know I was going to be there? How do you know where she is?”

  “Do you remember learning about the communication satellites in Diagnostics?”

  An ironic laugh escapes my lips, and I shake my head. “Yep.”

  “I don’t communicate with her often. It wouldn’t take much for anyone remaining in Authority, who remembers the story of your mother, to start putting the pieces together again. But I do send her updates from time to time,” he admits to me. I reply by nodding my head.