by Rae Agatha
The rain kept falling, soaking him. Single volleys of thunder could still be heard in the distance. Everyone got up and went outside to Rick. Anna reached out to him to help him get up. He grabbed her hand and got up cautiously, she embraced him to help him stand.
“Rick, listen to me, Rick!” She said, but she wasn’t sure if he was capable of hearing her. His eyes were absent, distant, he was looking above her. Anna put her palms on his cheeks and delicately forced him to look at her. “Rick, it doesn’t have to happen, you hear me? It doesn’t have to be like that!”
He looked at her, blinked quickly a few times and Anna knew she had his attention.
“Look, we’re all here because we’re having problems in our relationships, with our loved-ones, right?” She said to him directly at first, but then looked at Dan and Matylda standing about four yards away from them.
“I think there are two reasons why we’re here. I believe, we’re supposed to think everything through and decide if we want to go back and, if so, we are supposed to save the ones we love, warn them, make sure they’re safe,” she turned to Rick, “do you hear me?” She asked firmly. He nodded. “Good.”
“We all know now! We have the knowledge where and when we’re from. I think it’s our greatest advantage. We all woke up in different places, at different times, I believe we were not meant to meet, but we did, and now we can work this all out, figure out together how to leave this place, how to return home. We know we all have about two months before those horrible things I told you about happen. I think we were given the time to work something out, to save them, to figure out if we want to be with them or not.”
“It’s just that it’s a different story not wanting to be with someone and allowing them to die,” Matylda said.
“Then maybe we’re only supposed to save them, without any thinking or analyzing. I don’t know, it’s just a theory.”
“Or maybe it’s us who are supposed to be saved, thus we’re here?” Dan asked quietly. His thoughts were circulating around Johnny, he couldn’t even imagine his boy being all alone if his mother was to die in the subway bombing and he was to stay there, wherever exactly he was.
“But what will happen to you? Nobody here’s older than 2013,” Rick asked. He was now fully clear-headed, focused.
“I don’t know, but if the pattern’s the same for all of us, then something bad will happen to Brian about two months from now. He will be in danger in April.”
“I can’t fail her again, Anna,” Rick said quietly. She looked at him and, to her relief, saw determination in his eyes. “I’ve failed her once, I cannot do it again,” he repeated.
“You won’t. You’ll be back on time, you’ll save her,” she said and put her hand on his shoulder.
“We need to get back, somehow, we have to find our way back,” Rick said to all three of them. “It’s not only about us anymore.” Dan and Matylda nodded.
“Sorry, Anna. I won’t write that book,” he looked at her.
“Don’t you even dare,” she replied.
A muffled, barely audible thunder tore the sky indicating the storm was now miles away. They were standing in front of the house, looking silently at each other. None of them said it out loud, but they were all wondering what they were going to do now.
Gdynia, Poland, May 2014
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Agatha Rae, (real name Joanna Bogusławska) lives in the beautiful city of Gdynia in Poland. A co-author of ESL books, and a collection of essays analyzing popular culture, she made her fiction debut in 2013 with a novel “Oenone ” . Her articles have been published both in English in Polish in numerous magazines, for example: Forum for World Literature Studies or The Teacher. A huge fan of Canadian rockers The Tea Party, cinema-goer, CD-collector and a proud owner of the cutest and coolest mutt on the planet, who is trying to put together a Charles Bukowski PhD (Agatha, not the mutt, the mutt decided to quit her education and focus on searching the purpose in life). Agatha is currently working novellas Don’t Close Your Eyes, The Garden, and the second volume of Tangents for Firefly and Wisp and two ESL projects for Polish market.
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Also available from Agatha Rae:
Oenone - a romance full of drama served with a sprinkle of the supernatural.
Coming Home for Christmas – a Christmas story collection, co-written with Danielle Lee Zwissler
Coming soon:
Don’t Close Your Eyes – a dramatic, oneiric story about consequences, with a horror aftertaste.
The Garden – a romantic story of finding one’s home.
Tangents vol.2 – will Rick, Anna, Dan and Matylda find their ways back home?