by Mel Teshco
They walked to the front door, their tread loud in the quiet stillness of night. No owl hooted or frog croaked. Not even a cricket chirped. Even out this way, such utter silence was odd. She moved closer to Jessie. ‘It’s so quiet,’ she whispered.
Jessie pushed the door open before he glanced at her. ‘At least there’s no wind. The clapping roof iron is even worse than the stillness.’
They stepped inside. The stuffy dankness of a house closed up for too many years hit first. But she ignored the now familiar smell. There were more important things to deal with.
Jessie adjusted the backpack and held the hamper with one hand, so that his free hand gripped the ladder rungs. ‘Here goes nothing,’ he said hoarsely.
She shone the light up the manhole, waiting until he’d climbed the whole way before she started the ascent. When she joined him in the darkness of the ceiling, she handed him the flashlight and her lipstick. He murmured thanks before crouching on his haunches and writing carefully.
Déjà vu. Hit-&-run driver dead. Widow and kids have my childhood home. Mercedes living in my house. I’m still a murderer. Tara and I have met?
He looked up, catching her stare in the semi-dark for a couple of seconds, before he refocused on the writing. On what had happened in the dimension they were about to leave behind.
CHOOSE WHERE YOU BELONG.
He recapped the lipstick and handed it back to her. Tara looked down at him with a little smile, before brushing a hand over his scalp and wishing she was better with words. Better at saying the stuff that was important. Instead she said softly, ‘Now to choose the manhole.’
Hello.
The too familiar sound echoed along the ceiling when he straightened. Her hand fell away, her nerves immediately jangling at the eerie voice that was distinctly Jessie.
The flashlight cut into the absolute darkness of the ceiling, highlighting the shadows and planes of Jessie’s face, his conflict. But the tension she saw seemed to have little to do with the voice and all to do with choosing the right dimension when he said, ‘We’ve narrowed it down already. We need to choose a manhole close to this one.’
She decided to ignore the voice too, aware it wasn’t something they could do anything about at this point. Jessie was torn about which dimension was his own to find his sister, but really it was pot luck.
They descended one of the many ladders and stepped back into the room that appeared every bit the same as the one they’d just been in.
Tara watched as he carefully upended the chair and read beneath, just to be sure. ‘Choose.’ He looked up. ‘Least we know there are no more than four words to worry about.’
He set the chair back on its side then moved towards her, his face creased with concern. ‘Are you sure you’re okay about all of … this?’
‘Positive,’ she answered. ‘Jessie, you’ve opened my eyes, shown me parallel worlds I never thought possible. And aside from needing to save your sister, who knows what other possibilities are out there? Who knows what our other selves have achieved? Hell, I could be a celebrity chef myself—’
He leaned forward and kissed her, cutting off further words. Not that she minded, not one bit. He knew of her love of food, of one day being a chef. And she’d much rather spend time kissing … making up and making out.
His stubble prickled her soft skin, his lips firm and yet gentle, coaxing. When he finally released her, he rested his brow against hers, his eyes closed and breath warm on her face.
‘You could be anything you wanted, no matter the dimension,’ he said at last, stepping back from her, leaving her wanting his touch again. ‘You’re strong and gutsy. Not to mention beautiful and smart.’
She waved a hand, though her insides were mush from his praise. ‘My grades were abysmal.’
‘But you’re street smart and savvy. Everything a business person should be, no matter what their chosen career.’
Her smile felt tremulous and her heart warm. ‘Thank you.’
Soon enough they were outside again, the velvet night with its blanket of stars showing no sign yet of pre-dawn light.
She checked carefully in the glove department for any unexpected surprises. Finding none, she stashed the gun and money packet inside before leaving the passenger seat for Jessie and taking the driver’s seat.
She fired up the engine. The dash lights gave her just enough luminosity in which to see into the back. She reached behind and dragged a jacket from the rear seat. ‘You could use this as a pillow while you sleep.’
He stared at the jacket, as if seeing it for the very first time. It was his jacket, surely?
‘Jessie?’
He turned to her, a slow grin spreading across his face. ‘Um yeah, sure. Thanks.’ He took the jacket from her. ‘I’m not sure why it didn’t really click before, but in my own dimension I left the jacket in the back seat. In every other dimension it’s been in the front.’
She nodded, feeling giddy with hope that they’d finally chosen the right manhole. She cleared her throat, deciding caution was the better option just in case the jacket thing didn’t mean squat. ‘You need to catch up on some sleep. I’ll wake you if I need you.’
***
Jessie put his head on the jacket and immediately struggled to stay awake. God, he was tired, despite the uplifting sensation they were finally in his dimension. The Hummer cruised forwards in a lulling motion, and even when he noted the same barbed wire fence from when he’d driven the track the first time, everything quickly faded.
Somehow he knew he was dreaming. He was a spectator from high above looking down from a stormy, purple-black sky. But he wasn’t there in his physical form. His was a cerebral presence without substance or form.
And all around, hundreds of black crows circled him with their wings outspread, their caw-caws almost deafening as they conversed to one another. But their beady eyes weren’t on him, they didn’t seem to sense him at all. They were looking down, zeroing in on what appeared to be roadkill far below.
As if from a telescopic lens, his vision abruptly zoomed in on a handful of the crows. His breath hitched. The birds each had one beady eye, not two. The knowledge disturbed him on a seriously deep level, but he couldn’t put a finger on why. Especially not when the zoom abruptly moved away from the birds and brought into focus the body on the rain-wet ground.
His phantom belly heaved.
Not roadkill. A beautiful young woman, her limbs tangled and her body battered and bloodied.
His chest constricted and a hoarse scream burst free.
Lolita!
Except no sound registered in the dream. Anger and fear and a thousand other emotions burned through his body and ripped through his soul, his heart. Sobs tore from him as he tried to reach her, but it was as though the very air had become thick like soup.
The dark sky was no longer an empty horizon. Buildings came into being around him, neon lights flashing; cars and people everywhere. A crowd was drawing around his sister, everyone alarmed but none appearing to know what to do.
He had to get to her, had to help her.
The strain was so intense he could feel the pressure in his veins, his pulse hammering. But just as he began to make slow progress through the sludge-air, everything around him abruptly constricted, sucking the oxygen from his lungs. And suddenly he was hurtled backwards.
He woke up with a great, gasping breath, his eyes seeking and quickly finding Tara.
She glanced at him from the driver’s seat, a frown furrowing her brow. ‘Jessie, are you okay?’
It wasn’t real.
He took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Yeah, just a crazy-weird dream.’
She cast him a sympathetic look. ‘No wonder, with everything you’ve been going through.’ She let her window down a fraction. A cool and invigorating morning breeze flooded inside the Hummer, diluting the heated, thick air. ‘You’ve only been asleep for a few hours. I’m fine to drive for a while yet. You seriously need some more rest.’
&
nbsp; His eyes did feel gritty and dry, his senses heavy. ‘Are you sure?’ he croaked.
‘Jessie, I’m positive. Her smile was heaven sent. ‘It will be midday before you know it. And then you can take over.’
He didn’t recall falling back asleep, but he knew he must have when Tara’s croaky, out-of-tune singing jarred him from deep slumber as effortlessly as the screech of an alarm clock.
He rubbed bleary eyes, the sunlight bright and hot when he croaked, ‘Where are we?’
She clapped her lips shut, sealing off further bad karaoke before announcing in an overused voice, ‘We’re not so far from Sydney.’
Iced water poured over his head couldn’t have woken him more fully. He jacked up in his seat. Soon he’d find out if his sister was alive. Soon he’d discover if this was his dimension.
But Tara shouldn’t have driven all that way!
‘I’m sorry, you should have woken me.’
She glanced at him. ‘Relax. You were out to it and I was enjoying the road trip. You want to head to your mother’s first?’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, it’ll be the quickest way to find out if we’re in the right place.’
A touch of sympathy softened her beautiful face. ‘And if it’s not?’
He blew out a breath. ‘Then we have another long drive ahead of us again.’
They pulled into a service station to refuel and use the restrooms, before Jessie took over the driving. He munched on a sandwich from the hamper while Tara dozed beside him.
The final hour-and-a-half or so seemed to take forever before he finally turned into his mother’s driveway. Adrenaline hit as his gaze swooped in on the stub of a tree trunk, and it was odd acknowledging how it felt as though he’d cut the tree down a lifetime ago.
Tara rubbed the sleep from her eyes before she glanced hopefully at him.
‘Maybe this really is my dimension,’ he said hoarsely, his pulse speeding up as he recalled the jacket in the back seat, the barbed wire fence edging the track.
Tara appeared to wake fully, her eyes going round and her voice an excited squeak, ‘Really?’
Sudden barking from next door caused his heart to bottom out and all breath to leave his lungs. He turned to the fence line, where Tilly vocalised her guard dog duty.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’
The touch on his arm was feather-light soft. ‘Oh baby, I’m sorry.’
No amount of sympathy was going to take away the fact he was in the wrong dimension and still unable to help his sister. He drew in a ragged breath, forcing himself to focus and be rational, no easy feat.
‘I’m sorry too,’ he said hoarsely, staring blindly through the windshield to the empty space in the yard. The boughs of the tree he’d cut down would have once swayed gently in the breeze, the midafternoon sun shimmering among its leaves.
Her soft touch firmed, resolute, bringing him back to reality … at least, to this new reality. ‘We’re here now,’ she murmured, ‘let’s find out what we can before we leave.’
He turned to her, for just one moment losing himself in her tentative smile, the way her blonde hair fell around her face in complete disarray thanks to her opened window. He nodded. ‘You’re right. I need to focus, need to uncover anything I can from here.’
The earlier déjà vu was much more pronounced as they traversed the path before knocking on the door that had been his mother’s home.
Footsteps approached. The door swung open. At seeing his father, Frank, standing there, looking weary and aged beyond his years, Jessie took an involuntary step back. ‘You’re still here,’ he whispered, somehow shocked by the revelation his dad had chosen to stay with the family in more than one dimension.
His father scowled. ‘What do you mean? Of course I’m still here, I got bloody nowhere else to go.’ His stare sharpened, assessing him. ‘Who are you?’ His lips thinned. ‘Motherfucker! If you’re one of those people from the bank to come and repossess my home, you can get the hell off my property.’
‘No.’ His gut churned, hating that his parents were in financial straits when his own bank balance, at least in his own dimension, was more than healthy. He rubbed the back of his neck, then asked, ‘You really don’t recognise me?’
His father’s eyes flashed distrust and awareness in one contrary hit. ‘You do look kind of familiar, feel like I should know you, but that don’t mean shit to me right now. If you got something to say, spit it out an’ get the fuck off me property.’
Bloody hell, this wasn’t the quiet, dignified man he’d met in the other dimension. This man was bitter and twisted and all kinds of fucked up. Even the way he spoke revealed volumes about his character.
‘Okay then … I’m looking for Lolita.’
His father’s face paled into chalk-white, his eyes blinking sharply, as though the light was too much for them. Jessie sensed his father’s bone-deep despair even before he bit out, ‘A hit-n-run driver took her from me ‘bout the same time my wife gave up the will to fight her booze addiction.’
Oh, god. Little wonder the man he shared DNA with was so bitter and twisted. But where was he—Jessie’s other self—in this equation?
He sucked in a steadying breath. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about your family.’
‘Yeah? And why would you give a shit? There ain’t no one around here who cares.’
‘What about Jessie?’ he asked.
His father’s eyes hardened, even as a whole lot of hurt shone from deep within. ‘I wouldn’t know that boy if I walked past him down the street.’
Jessie’s belly tightened. None of this made any sense. ‘You wouldn’t recognise your own son?’
Real pain twisted his dad’s features before he bit out, ‘Long story … but I left for some years. When Lolita died I came back. But it was too little too late. And as far as I’m aware, Carla hadn’t bothered taking pictures of our children. Or if she did, she burned them out of spite. Either way, the bottle had been more important to her than anyone else.’
His dad lost the faraway, regretful look in his eyes and came back to the present with a glare. ‘What the hell am I telling you people this for?’ He shook his head. ‘Get lost, the pair of you.’
As Jessie’s father moved to shut the door, Tara put the heel of her hand out. ‘We know your son.’
The older man stilled. Silence hung thick in the air. Then, ‘What?’
Jessie’s throat closed over, making speech impossible. Luckily Tara had no such concerns.
‘Yes, he, ah,’ she turned to Jessie for confirmation, evidently finding no refute in his expression, she looked back at Frank and added, ‘he couldn’t come and see you himself.’
‘You’re kidding me, right?’ Frank looked almost sick with hope. ‘Last I heard he was thick into the drugs. Is that why he couldn’t come himself? He’s in some kind of trouble?’
Jessie forced his throat to work. ‘You could say that.’
Tara swung him a smile of support, before loosening the package stuck in the waistband of her pants. ‘All we know for sure is that he wanted you to have this.’
If words couldn’t form earlier, they definitely couldn’t anymore. Jessie gaped at Tara, loving her so much it hurt.
Frank accepted the package and opened it with unsteady, arthritic fingers. His voice cracked, thick with emotion as he saw what was inside. ‘I don’t understand?’
Jessie stepped towards Tara, an arm going around her waist and bringing her close, as it lent him the strength to voice, ‘Jessie is hiding from the law,’ no real lie, ‘but he wanted to make amends and do the right thing by you. He doesn’t want you to lose the family home.’
Frank looked up, his eyes shining. ‘Tell that boy of mine I love him, no matter what he’s done.’ He swallowed, his throat convulsing. ‘And I’m not just sayin’ that ‘cause of the money, though I’m more grateful for that than he’d know. He’s the only one I have left. My only family.’
‘We’ll let him know,’ Jessie assured him q
uietly, trying so damn hard to keep back the emotions threatening to break loose.
His dad nodded and stepped back, his demeanour at least partially restored and the money clutched tight in his shaky hand. ‘See that you do.’
As the door closed, Jessie turned to Tara and said quietly, ‘Thank you.’
Chapter Twelve
Jessie used the same car park of a local shopping centre that he had in the last dimension to hide the Hummer. But as he killed the engine and turned to Tara, he mused aloud, ‘I know the police probably aren’t on high alert anymore, but there’s a chance they would be keeping an eye on the house I grew up at—not just the house where I live.’
Tara snagged a piece of blonde hair behind her ear. ‘So you think we’ve been lucky so far?’
‘Yes.’ His hands curled around the steering wheel. ‘You were smart not to let me use the credit card in another dimension so the police weren’t alerted and couldn’t track us down.’
‘But?’
‘But in this dimension I’ve got very little cash, if any, left in my wallet.’
‘And I gave the money packet to your dad.’ She blinked. ‘God, Jessie, maybe I shouldn’t have given it all away. I’m sorry—’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t. You did the right thing, believe me. I couldn’t have been more proud of you.’
Her voice softened. ‘Thank you.’
He unclipped his seatbelt and leaned close, pressing a gentle, lingering kiss to her mouth. In that moment he was certain that as long as they were together, nothing bad could touch them. He brushed a thumb over her moistened lips. ‘I should be thanking you.’
Her smile was wobbly and his heart jerked erratically. The car park was little more than a metal jungle, and couldn’t have been a more unromantic setting if he’d tried. But Tara didn’t seem to notice and he sure as hell didn’t care if her attention was all on him.
A car door slammed a few vehicles along, a toddler bawling for attention in the back seat. Jessie cleared his throat and drew back, wishing suddenly they were someplace more private. ‘I guess for now we check out my house and see who, or anyone, is living there. And then we drive as far as we can to Mirraway before we’re left with no choice but to refuel with the credit card.’