“Drop your weapon!”
Diego skidded to a halt, nearly tripping before regaining his balance. He turned to run in the opposite direction but the security guard closed the gap.
The cop pointed his gun at Diego’s back. “Drop your weapon, now!”
For Nikki, the moments played out in slow motion. She watched as Diego turned to face the cop again. Before, Emilio’s eyes had displayed a gamut of emotions ranging from terror to confusion to hopelessness. Now, only one emotion blazed in Diego’s eyes—pure rage. He raised his gun just as the woman ran into the line of fire. Ian dashed forward and pushed her out of the way, leaving himself exposed. The police officer kept his gun locked on Diego, waiting with narrowed eyes. Diego stared at the cop—seeing nothing else, all of his anger focused on him alone. He pulled the trigger, the blast deafening. Ian lurched back, blood spreading at his chest. He dropped to his knees. The cop fired his gun, once, twice, a third time—deafening explosions against hard surfaces as the rounds kept coming and Diego spun back, then back again, each bullet tearing into him.
Nikki closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her ears. She waited to get sucked through time and space back to her garden. But that didn’t happen. She opened her eyes as her friends gathered around Ian. Wrapped in shock, she walked toward them. To everyone else, Ian remained alone, dead on the floor with no one to rush toward him or cry out or bend weeping over his body. More police officers rushed in, surrounding the crowd, acting on orders that no longer mattered, the threat gone. People stared from within stores where they’d run for cover. None of them saw Nikki, as she knelt and cried next to Ian’s body. None of them saw Henry, when he placed his hand on her shoulder. He waited and she finally looked up at him to see tears streaking his face too.
“We should go back now,” Henry said, his voice just above a whisper. “I’m sorry, Nikki. But we should go back now.”
20
A Door Left Open
A moment later, they touched down outside Halfway House and it was like nothing had happened. Everything remained the same—the sun shining down, the air mild, the peaceful sounds of their neighborhood the same as always. Still, she waited for some sign showing the gravity of what had just transpired—the sound of a siren keening against the sky, the muffled sobs of someone grieving within a nearby house—but no such sounds came, of course. Even though she knew it made no sense to hope so, just this once Nikki wished this painless realm she lived in could reflect at least a recognition of the brutality of the other realm they’d just left. But that wasn’t how it worked. That reality didn’t exist here, nor could it be created. She’d been in this realm long enough to know that too. Anger could be experienced here but not manifest physically. Maybe there was a place in the afterlife for that—Nikki supposed there had to be—but this wasn’t that place.
Still, this realm wasn’t exempt from sadness and that was evident from the stricken faces and tears of those surrounding her. In this moment, there was only one thing for her to do and that was to lend comfort where she could. Nikki started where it was most clearly needed. She wrapped her arms around Naomi and drew her close. Naomi pressed her face into Nikki’s shoulder as she continued to convulse with sadness. Simon and Jamie stared at the ground, their eyes vacant, while Henry stared into the distance.
Jamie was the first to speak. “I’m really sorry guys, but at least we tried.”
Simon nodded and, after a moment, Naomi did too while remaining nestled against Nikki. Henry kept his gaze on the horizon, a muscle working at his jaw as he thought.
Nikki wondered if he might again be thinking about whether all of it was in the end random. Whether their efforts mattered or if, instead, what was meant to be couldn’t be changed regardless of how much they cared or how hard they tried. She felt herself sinking at the thought of Henry losing the quality that had drawn her to him in the first place—his steadfast belief that, even in the afterlife, they could make a difference in the lives of those they loved. There was so much she wanted to say to him but this wasn’t the time or place.
Instead, Nikki spoke softly to the group. “Maybe we should go inside.”
As if they’d all been waiting for that simple prompt, they shuffled toward the door. Nikki wasn’t sure if they’d split off from one another once inside but it seemed that none of them were ready for that yet.
Thankfully, Naomi knew exactly what to say. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
She probably couldn’t have suggested anything better. If they could take comfort anywhere, it would be in that smaller space where they could gather around a table.
In this instance, more like a mother than someone nearly perpetually a young girl, Naomi automatically went about her task. She turned on her oven and gathered her bowls and mixes. For once, no one asked what she was going to bake. After all, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d offered this moment when they’d been unsure of which step to take next. They took their seats and when Henry’s eyes finally met hers, Nikki tried to silently assure him they’d done the best they could. What more could they have done?
As if reading her mind, Simon said, “I’m sorry, guys, but we tried everything we could think of. Don’t get me wrong, I feel horrible about what just happened. But at least we know Curtis is going to be okay.”
When so often Simon’s words were met with rolling eyes, this time Jamie nodded, albeit half-heartedly. “You mean Ian.”
“Well, that’s kind of my point,” Simon said. “No one knows better than us, right? As bad as it can get—and take it from a kid who got smashed by a double-decker—dying is basically just a bad day.”
Nikki waited for at least the corner of Henry’s mouth to lift in a smile. After all, if anyone deserved license for graveyard humor, it was definitely them.
Still, the sadness didn’t leave his eyes. That part Nikki understood, but the distance remained as well, as if Henry had lost part of himself.
Naomi picked up on it too. She stopped mixing batter and looked over at him. “Henry, are you okay?”
Henry spoke softly. “I’ll be okay, Naomi. Don’t worry about me.”
When he didn’t add more, Naomi went back to baking, leaving them sitting in silence. Nikki stared at her clasped hands, still fighting back tears. When she looked up again, she expected to still see a collection of downcast expressions but everyone stared across the room. Naomi too remained frozen in place, her mixing bowl cradled in the crook of her arm, mouth open and eyes wide. Nikki tracked their gazes to the doorway, where Ian stood looking back at them.
Henry’s chair screeched against the floor as he jumped to his feet. “Ian? Do you know where you are? Do you remember us, we’re—”
In that same instant, Ian flickered and faded. For one moment, the doorway remained empty, then Curtis flickered into view.
Nikki got up and walked toward him. “Are you okay? We know what happened. We tried to stop it.”
Curtis locked his eyes on hers and opened his mouth to speak. He stepped toward her, then faded.
Nikki looked around at the others. “Please, someone tell me what’s going—”
“Look,” Henry said.
Ian stood in the doorway again, this time with Curtis next to him, both gazing back at them. Nikki expected to see confusion, fear, disorientation in their eyes. What she saw, instead, was recognition. A smile spread across both faces—and Nikki realized only then that Ian and Curtis shared the exact same smile. Then, both of them faded. Nikki waited to see if either, or both, would reappear. The doorway remained empty—that simple space, hallway to kitchen, that had just transformed into a portal between their world and another.
Suddenly, the room lit up, blindingly white. Nikki clenched her eyes shut as a blast of heat engulfed her. All of her senses fired at the same time, skin tingling, ears ringing, hair lifting into the air. No, not heat, she thought. Electricity. Lightning. We’ve just been struck by lightning. But that wasn’t possible and she couldn’t process
it. She waited for pain but instead a nearly overwhelming sensation of peace washed over her, replacing that sudden charge with a comfort she couldn’t comprehend. The light started to fade and Nikki opened her eyes again.
A figure stood next to Martha for a second or two at best, even though—like Ian and Curtis before—this figure was already fading from view. Even for that short a time, Nikki still had to squint against the light coming off of him. Or was it her? Nikki couldn’t be sure. All she had time to make out was the person’s long white hair, piercing golden eyes unlike any she’d ever seen and a blur of motion that Nikki could have sworn momentarily took the shape of wings.
“Who was that?” Nikki pointed to the empty space beside Martha.
Martha hesitated for a moment. “That was Lysrus. I’m sorry—normally, I’m careful to shift levels completely when coming here but there wasn’t time, given what happened. I realize that must have been disorienting.”
“What did just happen?” Henry said. “We saw both Ian and Curtis. How is that even possible?”
Nikki absolutely wanted the answer to that question too. At the same time, she felt curious about the presence who’d nearly overwhelmed them by being in the room for just seconds.
“And where did they go?” Jamie said.
At any other time, Nikki would have laughed. Jamie’s head had whipped back and forth so many times that his mohawk splayed out at bent angles. Nikki reached up and smoothed her own hair, realizing that the charge from Lysrus being in their space had left strands still floating in the air.
Naomi knelt on the floor, gathering pieces of her shattered crockery. Nikki hadn’t noticed her dropping the bowl—hadn’t heard it either—but that didn’t surprise her.
“Naomi, we can get that later.” Martha spoke softly, her expression kind as she waited for Naomi to look up at her. “Right now, I’d like to take you all somewhere.”
Naomi set the shards back on the floor and rose to her feet.
Martha waited just long enough for all eyes to be on her. A moment later, they stood on a plateau overlooking a canyon. Across the divide, a waterfall cascaded into the river below, the powerful crash of water against stone muffled by distance. Birds swooped through the cloudless sky above, calling out to each other. Nikki followed Henry’s gaze, wondering what had caught his attention. She saw it too—on the other side of the chasm, a lone and ancient fir tree reaching toward the sky, towering on the bluff like a sentinel. Nikki recognized it immediately—the same tree Henry had chosen to manifest on his first day among them and in which they’d all met him that first time.
Naomi said it first, “That’s Henry’s tree!”
“Yes, it is.” Martha waited a moment and turned to Henry.
Henry already seemed to know what she wanted him to say. “Curtis also jumped into his new life from a tree like that.”
“Exactly,” Martha said. “It seemed fitting. A place for both endings and new beginnings. Why don’t we sit?”
Martha lowered herself to the ground and the others did too, arranging themselves in a circle on the soft grass. Nikki suspected such soft grass would never be at this elevation on Earth—where most likely they’d be sitting on dry soil and rock—but this wasn’t Earth.
“I wonder if we should start with Lysrus,” Martha said, surprising Nikki but definitely getting her attention. “I was with Lysrus, watching, when it happened. The same as you, we weren’t sure of the outcome. Which is why I showed up rather abruptly. You might say that I didn’t close that door quickly enough. The only reason you even caught a glimpse of Lysrus was because of my haste in getting to you.”
“Nearly blinding us,” Simon said.
Martha smiled. “My bad. Isn’t that what you guys say?”
“I don’t,” Simon said.
“Me neither,” Naomi said.
“Yeah, no one says that anymore,” Jamie said.
Martha blushed, something Nikki had seen rarely. “Well, then. In my day, we would have said, ‘A thousand pardons,’ but I suspect that might seem a little antiquated.”
“Maybe just a little,” Nikki said. “Unless you’re living in Camelot or something. Can we get back to Lysrus and what happened with Ian and Curtis? That may have been the freakiest thing ever.”
The blush faded from Martha’s cheeks as she collected herself. “As I was saying, I was with Lysrus when it happened. I was asked to be on the Mentor level for what we imagined to be Ian’s moment of Transition.”
“Is Lysrus a man or a woman?” Nikki knew it didn’t really matter, especially under the circumstances. Still, she remained curious.
“Neither,” Martha said. “Or both, depending on how you look at it. To keep things simple, unlike us, Mentors manifest all lifetimes simultaneously whereas we manifest only one a time.” She looked around at the blank stares facing her. “It’s complicated, so let’s leave any more about that for another time.”
Nikki thought back to that blinding moment, realizing now that the light hadn’t come from Lysrus’s presence. It came from the intersection of their realm with the one Martha visited to be with her Mentor.
“While on Lysrus’s level the perspective is broader than this one,” Martha said, “some things still remain unknown until the Universe makes its determination. Even in the simplest of events, the variables are immense. One action, in one moment of time, can change many things. The reason I was with Lysrus was to prepare for the likelihood of Ian’s arrival to this realm. However, Lysrus knew that, in the event of Ian’s death on Earth, he would have been joining your group here again.”
“But Ian died,” Henry said. “We saw it happen. Just like we saw it before.”
Martha took a breath and nodded, momentarily closing her eyes. “You did see Ian die those other times, that’s true. But what you saw hadn’t happened yet.”
“I don’t understand,” Jamie said.
“Same here,” Simon said. “I don’t get it.”
Martha looked around the circle, no doubt seeing confusion in each of their faces. “The fact is, it’s not easy to understand. What you saw was the future as it existed at that time.” She held a hand up to ward off questions. “You really did see what was going to happen. Right up until a few moments ago, I also thought that was going to happen. But, clearly, something changed.”
Nikki made brief eye contact with Henry before asking, “Was it us? It didn’t seem like we made any difference. I mean, the whole thing at the mall—” She stopped, realization dawning on her. The shooting at the mall had still taken place but not as before. It was a similar event—an unbelievably similar event, still horrible, senseless and vicious—but it wasn’t the same event. After all, one of the key elements had entirely shifted when Emilio passed that gun to Diego.
Nikki saw the cloud lift from Henry’s eyes as he too realized the same thing. In the shock of the moment itself, and in the brief time that followed, there hadn’t been time to process anything more than thinking they’d witnessed Ian’s death.
Henry frowned. “We also saw the other version. That time, the woman got shot instead of Ian.”
“I know,” Martha said, “I’m so happy to learn that other future didn’t manifest.”
“I still don’t understand,” Naomi said. “How can there be several different futures?”
Martha glanced briefly at the fir tree in the distance. “Originally, at least for Ian, there was just the one. He was to have Transitioned again today. As it turned out, what all of you did resulted in new possible outcomes. Evidently, in one of those outcomes, a young mother died. In at least one other—the one you just witnessed—that woman didn’t die and neither did Ian. As you saw, he got shot and was evidently quite close to dying. Close enough, in fact, that his spirit appeared here in front you.”
“But we saw Curtis too,” Nikki said.
“Well, in a sense this relates to what I was telling you about my Mentor. Beings such as Lysrus manifest all past lives at the same time. I know it’s
hard to visualize. But what I’m getting at is that, at certain times, we too can outwardly manifest more than one of our existences. Actually, on our level, such a time would only be at the moment of Transition. Technically, just briefly, Ian stopped living in the other realm before he came to consciousness there again. In those few moments—the same that he appeared here—you saw him in the two states in which you’ve known him. Did you imagine seeing Curtis and Ian standing next to each other?”
Martha glanced around again and waited to be sure. Nikki and the others nodded.
“That’s what I’ve experienced in the past too,” Martha said. “I’ve since come to know it’s not truly that way. The Curtis and Ian you saw were not separate at all but it wasn’t possible for you to perceive him that way. So, your mind created an image that made sense to you. Instead of seeing one Curtis-Ian, if you will, you instead saw Curtis and Ian. At least, that’s what you came away believing you saw.”
“That is completely bonked,” Jamie said, shaking his head.
“And there I was thinking Nikki had a split personality,” Henry said, a grin spreading across his face.
Nikki’s heart lifted. She’d been afraid that grin might have slipped away forever. Still, she kept a straight face and stared at him. “I’d need at least twelve personalities to deal with you and porcupine over there.”
Jamie looked up. “What did I do?”
“Guys?” Martha said. “Listen up.”
Martha kept a frown on her face just long enough to get their attention. Fair enough, Nikki thought. After all, she’d been stuck dealing with a bunch of teenagers for a long time now. Then again, what was time here? And Nikki saw in Martha’s eyes, as always, that she really was fond of them.
“You did good,” Martha said. “You know that, right?”
“But?” Henry said, reading her expression.
Martha waited a moment, then shrugged. “Well, don’t get me wrong but what I’m thinking is…”
“We’re like the masters of clueless intervention?” Naomi said.
Memories from a Different Future: Jump When Ready, Book 2 Page 17