Rewrite Redemption

by Walker, J. H.

  So I almost forgot until that massive wave tsunamied me in Spanish.

  I didn’t like unpredictability when it came to my strangeness. My jumping back had been fairly stable for the last couple years, and I wanted it to stay that way. It was hard enough in grade school when I only jumped back every few months. But when I hit puberty, things went wild for the better part of a year. The first month I jumped back twice a week. It was terrifying because I had absolutely no control.

  At first I didn’t stay long—maybe fifteen minutes—but the stress of it wore me out. Then about once a month I’d have an extended trip. Once I was gone for almost two days. That time I thought it was permanent, but eventually, I got sucked back home.

  So, there at the tree house, after what happened at school, I was going a little crazy trying to make sense of these new developments. I certainly didn’t want a replay of that horrid year when everything was so out of control. I didn’t mind the soothing energy or the lack of the static. It had been great to feel okay at school, and I hoped that part was permanent. But soothing energy was one thing. The sensation that hit me in Spanish was something else entirely. Not that it felt bad, but….

  I tried to relive the feeling since Ipod would expect details. What would have happened if I hadn’t bolted the minute it touched me? I shut my eyes and savored what had scared me earlier, the feeling that had thrown me completely off course.

  But that was a mistake.

  The tingle started at my back and torso and moved to my arms and legs. It began slowly and then escalated fast, flowing off my fingertips.

  No!

  I took a deep breath and tried to stop it. It didn’t help. I heard Ipod and Lex talking as they came into the yard, tinny voices in the distance like a bad cell connection.

  “You up there, A.J.?” Lex called.

  As soon as she spoke, I felt the tingling ramp up like the volume on the TV. I had just enough time to grab my survival pack and get into position so that I didn’t hit my head when I passed out. With Ipod at her heels, Lex lunged into the room. They couldn’t see me. But I still had a bit of consciousness left.

  As I faded away, I heard Ipod say, “Well, this can’t be good.”

  And then nothing.

  Devon and my mom were gone. A note said he had a doctor’s appointment. I was alone in the house—most excellent. I cued up some music, taking full advantage of the fortuitous, empty-house moment. I kicked off my shoes and turned it up loud, losing myself in the beat. There were possibilities now, and that changed everything. In the never-ending battle between glass half-full and glass half-empty, half-full had the upper hand. I wanted to hold on to it as long as I could.

  When I came to a good riff, I couldn’t help but do a few steps in socks on the hardwood floor. I was in a surprisingly good mood, given I hadn’t really gotten much info yet and lived in depression central. Maybe the combination of the empty house and the hint of possibilities were doing something much needed to my brain. Or maybe my mom was spiking the milk with happy drugs. Probably it was the hit of energy I’d received from the Shadow.

  I made a sandwich, poured a glass of milk, and took everything to my room. I might have even smiled as I opened my laptop—detective work—something I was good at. Since she didn’t seem to have much of a high school record, I decided to go earlier. After checking Google Maps, I scanned for the nearest middle schools, finding her at the second one. I wormed my way into her records.

  Autumn Juniper Jones, only child of Samuel Jones, an environmental scientist. Father teaches online classes for the University of Colorado. Mother, Simone Jones, deceased.

  Whoa, lost her mom. So the kid had a screwed up life…something I knew about. Her grades were average, varying from quarter to quarter, but her test scores were sky-high. Okay, smart, but doesn’t apply herself. No surprise—been there, done that.

  There was a report to the counselor from her 6th grade P.E. teacher talking about A.J. being the victim of bullying. There were some interesting entries, particularly from English teachers.

  Autumn has a vivid imagination and is a gifted writer. I would recommend entering her in the state essay competition.

  Autumn Jones is a quiet child, speaking only when called upon. But when she does speak, she is articulate and obviously quite bright. I would encourage having her screened for depression, given the obvious mood swings and family history. I would also suggest having Autumn tested for the gifted program. She is an unusual child and someone more qualified should evaluate her.

  Autumn is bright, writes beautifully, and is intellectually advanced for her years. However, she only applies herself sporadically. At times she seems quite sad and despondent. Her absences result in lower grades than she deserves. She appears in class in dark and outdated clothing and sometimes other children make fun of her. I would advise a parent/counselor meeting to determine the presence of problems at home.

  I wanted her help in solving my disaster, and it seemed like she needed help even more. I felt bad for the kid. I checked the obits for her mom’s name.

  Simone Jones passed away in her home on August 10th. She is survived by her husband, Samuel Jones, daughter, Autumn, 9, and her father, Jeffrey Lane of Palm Beach, Florida. Mrs. Jones was a longtime activist for Greenpeace International, where she fought battle after battle to save the rainforests.

  I did a search on Simone Jones + Greenpeace. Seems Simone Jones was pretty busy in the late eighties and early nineties. I scanned the page: tree sittings, protests, awards, trees saved, etc. Then I found an article from Life Magazine.

  Trees Give Life, Greenpeace Does It Green.

  “Trees give life,” says Simone Jones of Boulder, Colorado. “They make the very air that we breathe and they remove harmful carbon dioxide. They are a vital part of our ecosystem, yet we destroy them without thought. When are we going to do something about this?”

  Greenpeace worker, Simone Jones, decided to do something. After almost a decade of tree sitting and political activism for Greenpeace International, Jones has taken her work home. In a time when advertising is everything, Jones made quite the statement by giving birth in a tree, well, a tree house to be exact. On September 15th, at 7:22 a.m., the exact moment of sunrise, Simone Jones gave birth to Autumn Juniper Jones in the tree house nest of a large, red oak.

  The birth was attended by proud father, Samuel Jones, also a Greenpeace activist, and midwife, Ramona Desmond. The baby and mother are doing well and thriving in this life-giving tree...

  No frickin way….born in a tree. No wonder she was so powerful.

  There was a photo of a stunning red oak, holding the most spectacular tree house I’d ever seen. Oak leaves blazed like fire around the structure. Standing on the porch was a beautiful woman, mid-twenties, with auburn hair cascading over bare shoulders almost to her waist. A green sheet wrapped around her torso, leaving her long legs exposed. Piercing amber eyes stared into the camera from a solemn, soulful face. She looked like Eve surrounded by nature in the Garden of Eden.

  The woman held a naked baby with flawless skin and tufts of honey-colored hair. Her tiny hand grasped a branch pulled tight to her chest as she peered over the flame-red leaves. She looked straight into the camera, as though she knew how important the moment was…that her birth had made a statement to the world.

  So this was A.J. Jones…born in a tree house.

  Interesting.

  Awareness morphed in slowly…one sense at a time. First, I felt my body, heavy on the ground. Then the tingling faded and I struggled for consciousness. It took a moment before my eyes would open. When they did, I sighed with relief. Maybe I was back in time. But I was still home—and earlier version of the tree house—the best possible scenario.

  I got up slowly, avoiding the windows in case someone was in the yard. Afternoon light filtered in from the stain glass windows, casting rainbows across the room. Outside, the leaves were green—summer. The desk held a picture of my mom as a teenager standing with her grandf
ather, Charlie. A thin sheen of dust covered everything, and when I opened it, I found an empty fridge. Mom was at college, yes!

  No one would be using the tree house. I was safe for the four or five hours till time sucked me back home. Fate was on my side this time. All I had to do was lay low for a while. An earlier version of the tree house was my usual jump destination. But sometimes, I ended up in the middle of nowhere, away from any signs of civilization. Those were the scariest jumps, the ones that really freaked me out…lions, tigers, bears, and all that.

  One of the scariest jumps happened when I was five. We’d gone on a picnic to see the fall aspen leaves. I had been running from tree to tree, looking at the dark “eyes” found in the white aspen bark. As I stopped and stared into a particularly life like “eye”…tingle, blur, bam…I was gone.

  I woke in an aspen grove. But the trees were newly budded so I knew things had changed. I didn’t understand yet about time travel. I just knew that strange things happened to me. I sat for a moment, rubbing my arms because it was cold, wondering how long I’d be there.

  Suddenly, a face peered out from behind a bush. I startled, scrambling back against the tree. A boy, with reddish skin, stepped out into the clearing and just stood there, looking at me. He didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. He was wearing only moccasins and leather pants and had a couple of feathers in his long, dark hair. I would have been more afraid, but at first I thought he was just a kid in costume and was simply wandering the woods like me.

  Then I noticed that he had a bonelike knife stuck in his belt and was carrying a string of fish. Suddenly I felt a flash of fear. He was the real deal, like in the olden days. He didn’t act dangerous but I was petrified.

  He said something to me in a high, rapid voice. He waved his arms and looked around, as if he was searching for someone. I just stared. He looked around again, laid his fish down, and walked over to me.

  I stood up quickly, wanting to run. But I was too scared to do anything. I had acorns from my tree in my hand. They fell to the ground.

  The boy crouched down, observing me as if I was an animal in a zoo. He picked up the acorns, looked at them, and put them in his pouch. Watching my face, he slowly reached out and gave my red sneaker a poke. When I didn’t move, he pulled on the Velcro tab. It tore apart making a ripping sound, which startled him. His eyes got wide, and he hesitated a moment before pushing the tab back and pulling it again. Then he laughed and tapped on his chest. “Hosa,” he said. He gestured to me.

  When I didn’t move, he touched his chest again and said “Hosa.” Then he pointed at me…expectantly.

  “A.J.,” I said quietly, drawing myself in as small as possible. Even then I tried to be invisible.

  He grinned. “Aaajaay,” he mimicked, stretching out the vowel sounds. “Aaajaay.”

  He pointed at his hair and then at me. He stood up and slowly reached out and touched my hair, softly. Looking straight at me, he reached in his belt and slowly pulled out his knife.

  Suddenly, I remembered something horrifying the boys at school had said about Indians, knives, and scalps. I was only five, and the Indian had just touched my hair and was coming at me with a knife. I felt the prickly heat of fear and a warm trickle down my legs.

  Then it was as if it all morphed into a slow motion movie with me in the distance, watching it happen to some other little girl. He reached over and hacked off a hunk of her hair. I remember thinking he was bigger than the girl was. I wanted to yell at her to run. I felt so sorry for how much it would hurt when he scalped off her hair.

  I didn’t want to be there to watch.

  I remember seeing my dad’s face in my mind, wishing I were safe in his arms so that it wouldn’t happen to me too. I thought of him really hard. I felt his arms around me. I leaned back against the tree and the tingle came. I reached out for it, tried to meld into it, to hold on, to make it back home with my own scalp intact. I heard the boy chanting when I couldn’t see him or the scared little girl any longer.

  And then the world went white.

  I woke up to the sound of someone calling my name. I scrambled up, shaking and sobbing wildly. My father came into view and ran to me, asking if I was all right. But I was too overwhelmed to answer. He asked if I’d seen an animal, and I shook my head. Then he noticed that my pants were wet and assumed that was the problem. He told me I should have told them I needed to go, that I was too old to wet my pants, and knew how to use the bathroom in the wild. But when I continued sobbing, he just hugged me, took off his jacket, and wrapped it around me.

  “Don’t worry, Autumn,” he said. “Accidents happen to the best of us.” And he picked me up, wet pants and all, and carried me back to the car. I never told them.

  What could I say?

  Even then, I learned to hide my strangeness if I could. The last thing I wanted was to get them arguing about it. As soon as I got home, I ran to the bathroom to look at my hair in the mirror. There it was, on the left, about an inch below my ear—a ragged gash where a lock of hair was missing. I knew then that what happened was real. The evidence stared at me every day from the mirror for months before it melted into the rest of my hair.

  When I was older, I realized that the Native American boy probably hadn’t meant me any harm. But that trip—also in hindsight—was the first inkling that I was going into the past. I used to ask “why me, why me?” I don’t ask that anymore. It is what it is…out of my control.

  Today all signs pointed to an afternoon of reading. I pulled my Kindle out of my pack. I finished one book and started another and the hours passed slowly by.

  Finally, I was just lying there, wondering what Ipod had found out about the new guy, and I felt the tingle. I grabbed my stuff and curled around it on the floor. I woke with Ipod and Lex hovering over me. They must have just walked in because I don’t stay passed out long.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked them, shaking off the dizziness.

  Ipod cleared his throat and looked at Lex.

  “Long enough,” said Ipod.

  Lex nodded.

  “Long enough,” Ipod said again.

  Heart pounding, I woke abruptly about an hour after I’d crashed. My throat was dry as though I’d been breathing heavily, and my legs were tangled in the sheets. It was the same nightmare I always have…the curse of the Constantine screw-up.

  It’s like watching a movie with the sound off. It’s a repeat, but each time it’s as though I can’t quite remember the ending. I’m standing on the roof with Devon, who’s wearing my M83 tee shirt and playing his black Strat. Christmas lights are strung along the roof, flashing yellow, like warning signals against the cold, night sky.

  I’m conducting him like an orchestra, waving my arms, and flipping my hair; and I notice he has on these stupid boots he wears to look taller. I’m thinking, I told him to wear grippy shoes on the roof. I yell at him to watch his ass, but no sound comes out of my mouth. I want to go warn him, but my own feet seem glued to the shingles. So I’m standing there, unable to move, waving my arms, trying to get his attention.

  Devon’s just rocking out with this stupid grin on his face. Then suddenly, he slips.

  And the grin disappears.

  Desperately, he flails, trying to regain balance. But those stupid boots are tangled in the Christmas lights. He falls backward, only he falls up, and out like a slow-motion back flip off the diving board. As he drops over the side of the house, I see his face.

  He’s looking at me like what the…?

  Then I look down and notice I’m holding the end of the string of lights he tripped over, and it’s pulled tight. And I hear the only sound in the dream…just a sickening crunch.

  Then nothing.

  But off in the distance, there was a muffled scream…low, guttural, and strained. And it took a moment before I realized—the scream was mine.

  I bolted up, heart pounding, hoping beyond hope, that I didn’t wake my parents. I cracked my bedroom door and waited, listenin
g hard—nothing. I’d lucked out; saved by the tranqs they took to make it through the night. The house was as quiet as a tomb.

  I splashed water on my face and pulled on some sweats and a long sleeve tee. After the nightmare, my house was giving me the creeps. I had to get out of there. I needed to see some signs of life. I’d take anything, a kitchen light, a passing car, a dog barking—anything that showed there was life outside this mausoleum. Grabbing tunes and running shoes, I crept down the hall and out the back door. It was a dumb thing to do, but I did it anyway.

  I was desperate.

  The night was crisp and clear, and I told myself I needed a good run. I’d mapped her address out earlier that evening…a few miles away. What could it hurt to get a little closer? Maybe just close enough to feel the calm. I wasn’t doing so well without my redwood and I needed relief. Like an addict, I’d had a taste of the good stuff. And now, I wanted more.

  Adjusting my earbuds, I broke into an easy jog to release the nightmare kinks. I cued up one of my favorite running tunes. I turned the volume up high. Stopping at a street corner, I did a few slow stretches, breathing deep, testing my reserve, testing my patience. I sent out my radar…still too far away.

  So I broke in to a real run.

  As feet pounded pavement, the nightmare terror drained out my pores, dissipating into the wind. I gave it everything I had, faster and faster, until I was flying down the middle of the street. My muscles burned, but I didn’t let up the pace. I wanted to pound the past into the cement. I wanted to stomp out the injustice of my wretched life.

  I wanted to run and never stop running.

  By the time I got to her street, my heart was thumping out of my chest. Searching for house numbers, I slowed to a walk, trying to cool down. Streetlights cast an amber glow on the pavement around me and in little spots every twenty yards or so. Down the block, the light of one illuminated the branches of a beautiful maple. I headed for that one. I was right.