Rewrite Redemption

by Walker, J. H.

  I felt a knife in my gut. “We can’t have that. How do you know there was a single causal factor?”

  She grimaced and kind of shook her head. “My mom found out Ipod crashes here most of the time. Since she’s such a sleaze herself, she assumed we were all going at it like bunnies and that it would be a problem for her if I got knocked up. So, bitch manipulator that she is, she decided to remove Ipod from the equation. The easiest way to do that was to tell Ipod’s dad she’d sue his ass if Ipod got me pregnant.”

  “Whoa,” I said, “that’s lame.”

  “Yeah, lame is her first name. Right before bitch.”

  “Can you sue for that? Doesn’t sound—”

  “She’s a lawyer!” she said, slamming her fist down on the sofa. “She sues if someone looks at her funny. It doesn’t matter if she has a case or not. By the time it’s over, the other person’s broke. Besides, she plays dirty and she always wins.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Exactly, “she said. She got a determined look on her face. “She screws up—Ipod pays. Not okay. She made a big mistake, messing with my people. I’ll deal with her later. Right now I want to know about rescuing Ipod.”

  “Are you and Ipod…?”

  “No…well, first, not my type. He’s like my little brother. God, when I met him, we were still losing teeth. I know him way too well for anything romantic to possibly happen. But he’s family.”

  My hopes sank even lower. So it was him and A.J.

  “I just…I kind of feel responsible for them,” she said, sighing. “A.J.’s my BFF, but she has a lot to deal with. Somebody needs to have her back. And Ipod, someday he’ll do something amazing. But he’s just so freaking brilliant, he doesn’t fit well in the real world. And now they’re both gone. They could be in serious trouble, and I just…” she trailed off and shut her eyes for a minute.

  “It’ll be okay,” I reassured her. “How’d his parents allow him to live here in the first place?”

  “His mom’s dead, and his dad couldn’t care less,” she said, opening her eyes and scowling. “He never has.” She told me the story of how they found Ipod lying in the ditch.

  “Harsh,” I said when she was done. “That’s messed-up.”

  “Exactly.” She narrowed her eyes. “He was in bad shape that day. But A.J. healed him, and the three of us have been tight ever since.”

  “What do you mean she healed him?” I asked, confused.

  “You know, she tapped into the tree and channeled it into Ipod. Twenty minutes later, he was fine. Don’t you all do that?”

  “Not that I know of,” I answered. “Most Editors can keep themselves healthy. We heal fast and we have long lives. But healing someone else? I don’t think so. Besides, the things we do take time to learn.”

  “That’s my girl. I always knew she was all kinds of special. People laugh at her. They don’t have a clue.”

  I was blown away, but at that moment, I didn’t want to think about how special she was. Mostly, I didn’t want to think about her and Ipod. I stood up and stretched, hoping that Lex would change the subject.

  She didn’t. “It took us some trial and error, but we finally realized that as long as Ipod showed up for violin lessons once a week, he didn’t have to go home. I guess getting the bill for that once a month was how the Hammer knew he was alive. We were fine until my mom butted in. So, one causal factor. You can get him back, right? It’s making me crazy, worrying that he’s hurt and suffering.”

  Suffering—that word hit home. I had to help her. I couldn’t leave him there, not even to get him out of the way. Their gain/my pain. “It sounds pretty straight forward,” I said, reluctantly. “Once A.J.’s back, we’ll figure it out.”

  “What has to be figured out?” she asked.

  I couldn’t put it off any longer. “I have a problem,” I said. “I majorly screwed up a while back. For now, I’m blocked from the timeline. ”

  She arched her eyebrows at me. “You can still get A.J., right?”

  “Yeah, I haven’t lost all my abilities. I just can’t travel. That’s why I have to pull A.J. back.”

  “So, can you do that with Ipod?”

  “No…whole different scenario. The timeline will have to be changed. If we can figure out a way to keep your mom from talking to Ipod’s dad, we can pull it off. But A.J. will have to travel back and do it.”

  I slumped down on the sofa with my feet on the coffee table. I let my head drop back and closed my eyes for a moment. “Think of it like having clearance, like a key card to get into top secret facilities. Each card has an ID or a signature like a retinal scan. Mine has been blocked. A.J. has 007 special, black ops—no one even knows she exists. She can come and go as she pleases. I just need to show her how.”

  She jumped up and raised both clenched fists in the air. “Yes!” Then she gave me a sly kind of look. “So, New Guy, what exactly did you do?”

  I told her the story of how I’d changed my timeline and what happened to Devon.

  “That sucks!” she said sympathetically. “We knew he was in a wheelchair, but we didn’t know why.”

  “Now you do,” I said, feeling a wave of guilt creep back over me. “Yes, I am the why. Anyway, the Guild caught me and yanked my travel privileges.”

  “You mean, they wouldn’t let you go back and fix it,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “That blows.”

  “Tell me about it!”

  “The reason?”

  “Teach me a lesson, I guess.” I shrugged. I didn’t want to launch into the power addiction speech, at least not then. “It’s complicated.”

  She shook her head and folded her arms. “So, nobody else knows why it all turned out this way with your brother?”

  “Other than Guild members, you’re the only person who knows about any of this. And the Guild banned any other Editors from helping me.”

  “Shut up!” she said. “So that’s why you were so eager to meet A.J. You screwed up, and now you need redemption.”

  “Sadly so,” I said, running my hand through my hair. “I’m going to get my brother his life back if it’s the last thing I do.”

  First, I had to get her back. Sure, she wanted Ipod, but at least she’d be safe. If Ipod made her happy, well, I’d get him back too. I needed to concentrate on Devon and my family. School. I had a brief little jolt of satisfaction that at least I was having forethought. Small jolt. Atom sized jolt. And then just a punch-in-the-gut feeling of loss.

  “I think it’s time,” I said, walking to the door to look at the fading light.

  “Cool! What do you have to do? Can I help?” She got up off the sofa and stood there waiting.

  “Does she pass out when she jumps?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “She usually gets into position so she doesn’t hit her head.”

  “It might happen too fast for that this time,” I said, walking over to the trunk. “So just be ready to catch her when she morphs back in. I’ll do the rest.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “It could take a few minutes, or it could happen really fast. I’ll try and give you a warning.”

  “This is soooo cool!” She braced her legs, and held out her arms. “Ready.”

  I rolled up my sleeves and took a deep breath. After giving Lex a slight nod, I closed my eyes. The moment I put my hands solidly on the trunk, an energy surge ripped through my body almost knocking me off my feet. “Damn, this is one powerful tree!” I yanked my hands free and shook them. I needed to play this right. I needed to ease into it slowly.

  Lex gave me a worried glance.

  “It’s all good,” I reassured her. But I didn’t feel reassured. If it hadn’t been A.J. out there, I doubted I’d try again. But it was. And I would. This was probably my fault and she could be in trouble. She might need help. She might need me. I wanted her to need me. What I needed was to not screw this up.

  I spread my legs wider, getting a more solid stance. I touche
d the tree again, just barely with my fingertips. Slowly, I moved my palms closer to caress the bark, letting my energy meld with the tree. I felt the surge, but I stood my ground, letting it wash through me.

  The tree hummed with life and infinite vibrations. I struggled to separate out the noise, get rid of the clutter, and find the basic melody. I played with it like a piano, dancing lightly over the surface, learning the music. When I achieved harmony, I followed the flow. I played my way through the rings, back, back, back. My consciousness stretched like a rubber band between the now and the ether of time.

  A hint of her, far away and ephemeral, breezed lightly into my awareness. Ahhh. Gently I latched on to it and tugged it my way. I felt a touch…recognition…a hesitation…and then….

  It pulled back!

  Wham! I broke free of the now. The past sucked me in so fast I couldn’t stop it.

  On the way out, I heard Lex yell, “Nooooo!”

  But it was too late—I was in the vortex.

  I fell asleep to thoughts of Constantine. I even dreamed of him. But in the middle of the night, I woke up shivering. I knew where I was immediately and swallowed a huge hunk of disappointment. The temperature had dropped about twenty degrees, and my fingers were ice. Pulling my hoodie tight, I wondered how I was going to make it through till morning when I was so very cold.

  The moon was full and high in the dark, night sky, and it gave an eerie glow to everything. A mist covered the meadow. The water drops, on the waving grass, sparkled in the moonlight as they had at home from my fairy lights. At home it had been comforting. But there in the tree, it looked surreal and somewhat ominous. A coyote howled in the distance, and it made me realize just how very far away from home I was…to say nothing of very far-a-when.

  Down below, all three men were snoring. The campfire had died down low. In spite of the company, I felt alone. I felt really alone. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe I was stuck in the past, and up a tree, and clueless as to whether or not I could get back to my time. I hated this. My family needed me. They needed the tree house. It was their home. But without me, it wouldn’t be.

  And Sam?

  I didn’t even want to think about what would happen to Sam if I didn’t come home.

  I’m okay, I told myself. But I wasn’t really. I was starting to freak. I should have gone home by now. I thought I’d gotten through this mess pretty well so far. But what was I going to do when daylight hit?

  Holding my hoodie tight, I linked to the tree and pulled more energy. It smoothed me out a little, but I was still jittery. The cottonwood just wasn’t as strong as my oak. I pulled again, wishing I could just get warm. I lay back in my hammock, huddled in my hoodie, trying to hold in my body heat. A minute later, I realized I was no longer shivering.

  Okay? Was the tree warming me up? I pulled again and thought of warmth. Immediately, heat surrounded me like an electric blanket. Yes! I settled back into my hammock, psyched that I was no longer freezing. But I didn’t stay psyched for long.

  I mean, I was grateful to be warm. But every time I closed my eyes, images of the almost-rape kept popping into my mind: Joe leering at me with those beady, little eyes, walking towards me, fumbling with his pants. Edgar…just being Edgar. That whip had really freaked me out. In my mind, I kept seeing Joe crack it.

  I sat up and checked my pocket for the knife. I patted the pepper spray. There was no way I was going to fall asleep if I couldn’t calm down. The tree was helping a little. It was compensating for what ordinarily would be utter fear. I mean, I was still in the past, and there were bad guys down below. But if I was going to deal with tomorrow, I needed sleep.

  I focused on Constantine again, trying to distract myself. But there in the dark, even that went off in a screwy direction. My fixation on him had seemed confusing earlier, but now it just seemed bizarre. It wasn’t like me. I mean, I’d had my from-afar infatuations, but I’d never spent much time thinking about boys. There was no point, not with my secret. What I didn’t understand was why the pull towards him was so strong. I was obsessing about a guy I’d barely even met. Me. What was up with that? It didn’t compute.

  I remembered the incident in the hallway when our eyes met. The explanation I’d given Lex and Ipod, about the vampire compulsion, came rushing back into my mind. What happened to me around Constantine was scarily similar to stuff on the net about vampire mind tricks. I couldn’t get him out of my thoughts. I longed for him. I lost all control when I was near him.

  At the time, I hadn’t been serious. I knew vampires weren’t real. I was just using the compulsion thing to give Lex and Ipod an idea about what happened. But what if he was screwing with my mind somehow? What if he had hacked my brain and was making me obsess about him for some nefarious purpose?

  I lay there, exhausted, and supremely frustrated. I was making myself crazy. Ipod would say I was being paranoid. We researched Constantine. There was no mysterious, missing past. He had a paper trail, at least where school was concerned. Lex and Ipod both liked him. He was okay. He had to be. He was probably just like me.

  So I liked the guy. That was a normal thing. Maybe that’s what happened when you fell for someone—you thought about them 24/7. It had just never happened to me before. Or maybe the compulsion thing was just part of my strangeness and had nothing to do with him at all. Just because I was scared about tomorrow, didn’t mean that I had to turn Constantine into a scary thing too.

  I struggled to get a hold on my run-a-way brain by focusing on what happened when we locked eyes in the hallway. There was nothing scary about that at all. I pulled more energy from the cottonwood. This time it worked better, relaxing me a little. I thought of his hand touching my face and that indescribable moment our eyes met. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on it. I imagined his fingers running down my cheek. I saw his beautiful, blue eyes looking into mine. I watched him run his hands through his hair.

  I played the scene over and over, getting mellower with each replay—way better than freaking out. Maybe I could even go back to sleep. I could do this, I thought. I could make it through the night. The fantasizing, along with the energy, began to lull me into a gentle semi-trance state where thoughts of tomorrow no longer mattered. I just went with it, relaxing back into my hammock, thinking this is really nice.

  After a while, I got a hint of his energy…the savory flavor of it. It flowed softly towards me, soothing and strangely sensual. It seemed to come from far away, as if there were wispy tendrils of it just floating out in the atmosphere. It washed over me, calming and blissfully warm. I reveled in it, letting it just swirl around me.

  Then, suddenly, it got stronger—like it was reaching out to me.

  I figured the tree was heightening my imagination. Maybe, at that point, I was dreaming. I didn’t care. I liked how it felt and I wanted more. I reached out with my mind and pulled it closer, like I’d done with the warmth from the tree. Then, BAM!

  The energy hit so hard, I gasped. I grabbed on to the limb to steady myself, breathing it in. It was like the first day I walked into Spanish, only now I was by myself, lying back, and able to enjoy it. Colors swirled around me. A strange sort of humming soothed me. Sensations of pleasure filled my body and brain, sensations I’d only felt around him. Closing my eyes, I floated on the buzz. How could I ever look at another guy, when just thinking of this one was so mesmerizing?

  Funny, I could almost smell him—sandalwood soap and some kind of musky guy scent. God, I was good! I might suck at volleyball, but I rocked at this tree pulling deal. I—

  A.J.

  Okay, that was strange. I heard my name inside my mind. It was as though I had a pair of earbuds in the middle of my head.

  A.J. There it went again, soft and insistent. It echoed a bit.

  Puzzled I looked down. I might have been kinda baked from the energy, but I heard something. I knew I did. The men below hadn’t moved. Besides, this was inside my head. And it wasn’t me faking conversations with I
pod or Lex to make myself feel better. It was his voice.

  “This tree’s getting me high,” I said to no one. “I’m hallucinating!”

  I heard a soft laugh…and then, my name again.

  Ahh…this time I just lay back and let it wash over me. Why fight it? This was so much better than lying there stressing—

  It’s Constantine…from Spanish class.

  I whipped up, swinging my legs to straddle my hammock. That was just a little too real world. I was either dreaming or those knocks on the head had done something to my brain. I was thinking of him and he appeared? Please. That just doesn’t happen. My hair blew wild around me in the breeze. I shoved it out of my eyes and listened carefully.

  Don’t freak. You’re not hallucinating. I’m talking to you in your mind. I don’t want to wake up the men below. Wave your hand if you can hear me.

  It had to be a dream—a lucid dream. I’d fallen asleep and now I was dreaming. Still, feeling like a complete idiot, I held up a hand and waved.

  Nice! I knew you could hear me.

  Startled, I shut my eyes for a second. I opened them again, slowly, half expecting to see a Cheshire cat or some other wild thing sitting on the branch. It was surreal. I saw nothing but I heard his voice again.

  I’ve just come from the tree house. Lex is there waiting.

  “Where are you?” I whispered to the air. Hey, I’m all for lucid dreams, especially one with him in it. I was going for it.

  About four feet up and to your left.

  “I don’t see anything,” I said, hesitantly. I felt like a dork. Even though, apparently, there was no one there to witness me talking to myself.

  Oh, right, sorry. Give me a minute…forgot…such an idiot! The voice said, laughing.

  Then to my great surprise, Constantine morphed into existence right smack in front of me. And he was grinning like a freakin, Cheshire Cat. Stunned, I held on to the limb. He just stood there, looking down at me. His hair was all tousled and wild and his mouth…

  Please don’t freak, A.J. My bad. I didn’t realize I’d morphed in shaded. That’s what happens when there are people near. I was just so surprised to be thirty feet up in the air, that I spaced it. Are you all right?