by C. M. Murphy
"Well," Kayli said. "It's not as easy as that. There are things you need to know before you go."
Alma knew she was being childish, but she didn't want to hear any more. Something about this parallel-lives construct rattled Alma to her core. The idea that nothing was "real" and that even the life she lived was just a more elaborate construct had begun to take hold in Alma's mind. That even "the universe" was just a construct like this room. It all made her feel boxed in and confined.
Alma ran harder, and Kayli chased after her. Alma knew that Kayli could dash out in front of her if she wanted to, but Alma imagined her future self knew there really was no running away. A thought sprang into Alma's brain. If this reality was just a construct of Kayli's mind, then it was just a construct of hers as well.
Alma pictured a door and told herself that when she went through it she'd be back in her reality.
The door appeared.
"No! Alma wait!" Kayli shouted.
But Alma had already popped through the door.
She fell through the darkness, but this time she found it comforting. It meant she was going home.
Chapter Thirty
The usual dizziness of her sudden return to her body in this reality was amplified by her passionate kiss with Doug. Alma heard a moan escape from her throat. Memories of the last five minutes flooded her mind. Doug wasn't gay, and he loved her. She'd been angry, but from the feel of all this now, she'd come to terms with this information quickly.
His arms were so much stronger than she'd imagined. She dropped all of her thoughts and focused on kissing Doug back. He pulled her tighter, and she could tell he was as excited as she was. She was kissing Doug! And it felt amazing.
Their kiss ended, but they remained in an embrace.
"That was unexpected," Doug said, his voice a low, husky grumble.
Alma let out a breathy laugh. "Yeah." Too many thoughts bubbled into Alma's befuddled brain to say more. She'd never allowed herself to admit she'd had a crush on Doug.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the crash of broken glass.
She turned to see shards of glass from the small window on the kitchen door scattered across the yellow and white tiles. Her skin tingled. The air in the room turned brisk and even the light in the room seemed like it brightened.
"You fucking whore!" Haniel said.
Alma's gaze snapped upward just as Haniel broke open the back door and stepped into the kitchen. His feet crunched on the broken glass. His eyes darkened to an almost-black-violet.
Her senses heightened. She felt almost as if she was watching the scene from somewhere else. To Alma, he looked so much like his father, and the burning in his eyes reminded her of how James looked the day he'd killed Irene.
"What happened to you?" Alma heard herself ask.
"You were supposed to be different, but you're just like your mother," Haniel said.
A chill shuddered through Alma's body.
"He's the vampire," Doug said, and called for Taylor.
"Alma run!" he said, pushing her away and stepping in front of her.
But Alma's body didn't move. A clarity she'd never experienced before guided her actions. She'd once heard an athlete on TV talk about how in a game time slowed down, and five seconds could feel like ten minutes.
As she dashed toward Doug, the truth broke through.
Time wasn't a finite occurrence. It was an illusion. Everything that was and will be already is. Time is just the construct in which one experienced it. Even the person she was in this lifetime and the next was an illusion. Perhaps it all was some kind of dream, but she liked to think of it as something bigger. One mind.
One consciousness. All of everything was one.
Knowing this, she watched this reality play out in slow-motion.
Haniel lunged at Doug, but Alma pulled him away. She could feel the electricity in the air.
Tita Win Win rushed into the kitchen.
"Take him away," Alma heard herself say as she pushed Doug toward her aunt. She ordered everyone to leave and knew they'd obey. They had no choice. It was what was supposed to happen. She turned to Haniel, and he reached for her.
Alma found herself unafraid. What was next was only what she perceived as next. Everything had already happened.
Haniel lunged toward her. His expression looked surprised when she didn't try to run away. His hands caught her wrist and her neck. She wondered why he didn't reach for her third eye. Maybe he didn't know to do that yet.
"We could have made an amazing child," he said.
Alma's thoughts drifted to all the parallel lives she'd seen. She'd been so consumed with the ones where her mother survived, she hadn't bothered to notice if one existed where she and Haniel or she and Doug wound up together. "Maybe there's a lifetime where it happened," she heard herself say.
Alma could feel the life draining out of her. Would her timeline simply end in this moment? Or would it become part of Haniel's? Her instinct to fight the drain had kicked in, but then she remembered. She'd experienced this before.
Haniel's father had tried to drain her before when she was in Irene Polk's body. She'd merely let go and returned to her own body. But now she was in her own body. There was no where to let go and return to.
Except, what made this body her own? This body. This Alma Davis was destined to die. But was she? In all of those lifetimes, she hadn't seen her death. She'd seen her future. The future.
Alma's mind flashed forward to the weird camera taking a photo with her mother. Alma asking to watch Dora. Her mother had shown her glimpses of her future. She remembered her mother's words the day she headed to her own death.
Forward.
The page Irene Polk had signed in her book hadn't been the inside cover. It had been the foreword!
Alma realized the message her mother had been trying to send her. Alma wasn't supposed to travel back in time so they could be together, she needed to go forward so they could be together. And so she took a deep breath, let go of this body—this Alma—and moved forward.
The wind from the kitchen whipped through the rest of the house. Tita Win rushed everyone out the front door. She made Charles carry Doug to ensure that he wouldn't try to stop her. As soon as everyone was outside, Win locked the door so they couldn't get back inside. She ran to the kitchen. The banging of appliances falling to the ground was still audible over the wind. But the noise and tornado-like gusts began to die down just as she approached the kitchen door.
Win barged into the kitchen just in time to see Alma's lifeless body drop with a sickening thud. The wak-wak turned to Win. She scanned the kitchen and spotted a knife on the floor and grabbed it. She looked back toward the monster, surprised to see a young man with tears in his hypnotically violet eyes.
"I erased her somehow," he said. "I don’t even have her memories." Then, he ran out the back door.
Win rushed over to Alma to heal her, even though in her heart she knew it was likely too late. The moment Win's hands touched her niece's body, she knew that no life existed in the empty shell that was left.
Win shook her head in disbelief. This couldn't have been what Bernadette had planned. It couldn't be.
The tattered ruins of Irene Polk's book open on the ground just a few feet away. Several pages had been torn out of it.
Handwriting on one of the torn pages—Bernadette's writing—caught Win Win’s attention. She crawled over to it and snatched the paper off the ground. All her sister had written was a date, a time, and a place, but it was all Win needed.
May 13, 1996
Winifred dragged Charles onto the escalator of the Westfield Shopping Plaza and continued to walk up each step of the escalator to get upstairs faster.
"What's the hurry?" he asked.
"There's a sale at Macy's," Win Win said. She'd brought her mother's old watch that Alma had left behind. The last couple of years had been hard, but Charles had been there to comfort her. She wanted to tell him about today—about her secret hop
e. But she couldn't risk it. She'd promised Bernadette long ago.
They reached the entrance to Macy's and heard a woman scream.
A crowd rushed over to the housewares section. Win and Charles followed the crowd to see what was going on.
"She's having a baby!" another woman yelled.
Win's heart jumped into her throat.
"Give her room," a man's voice said as Win Win pushed her way through the crowd. "Is there a doctor in the store?"
"My wife's a doctor," Charles called out as the crowd made way for Win.
Win kneeled down and took the young woman's hand.
An electric current rushed through Win's arm. She'd never Awakened anyone before, but her mother had explained it was merely a healing of one's memory. "You're going to be okay. Hold my good luck charm," she said, slipping the watch into the woman's hand.
"Hi Bernie!" Win Win whispered into her sister's ear.
"It's Joyce," the woman whispered back. Win worried she'd been mistaken, but then her sister squeezed her hand and spoke again. “I’ve waited so long, Win. I can barely wait to meet Alma.”
Win laughed and patted her sister’s hand. "I’ll introduce you."
A Note from the Author
Thank you for reading. This book was intended to be standalone novel of Alma’s story. But in the process of writing it, I found that there were so many more stories that I wanted to explore. If you’d like information on other books set in this world and other future titles, you can sign up for updates at this link:
https://christymurphy.activehosted.com/f/10
If you’ve enjoyed this book, would you consider posting an honest review? Reviews help other readers decide whether or not a book is for them. Even a short review can make a tremendous difference. Thanks, again.
Warmest Regards,
C.M.