Whispers From the Grave

by Leslie Rule

  “He’s climbing the tree!” Chuck cried.

  I must clear my mind of the here and now, I ordered myself. I must concentrate on another time!

  Shane’s kiss. The memory of it was still tingling on my lips. I desperately grabbed at that moment—trying vainly to transport myself back a few hours to when I was safe in his arms.

  Evil laughter echoed off the rickety walls of the tree house, and my eyes flew open. Sky’s head had poked through the opening of the floor, and he grinned at me triumphantly.

  I forced my eyes shut and willed myself to think only of Shane’s soft lips pressing against mine. As I blocked out all else, the memory grew vivid—so vivid it was real.

  I was kissing Shane, and his strong arms were around me. His hand slid up my back and he gently stroked my hair. “Hey!” he said, fingering the visor. “Where did this thing on your head come from?”

  We were standing on the ferry deck, watching the soft blue hills pass in the distance. “Oh, Shane!” I cried. “You’re real! I’m really here with you!”

  “Wow. My kisses have never had this effect on anybody before. You’re trembling.”

  “It’s the cold air,” I said, turning my face to the breeze. I took off the visor and tucked it in my purse.

  He kissed me again, and I felt electrified. Our lips pulled apart, and he shook his head. “I just had the weirdest feeling I’ve lived this moment before. What do they call that? Déjà vu?”

  “We have lived this moment before—just three hours ago. Someday there will be an island here, with pink buildings that glow in the sun. But I guess I wasn’t supposed to tell you that until about an hour from now.”

  “You’re a trippy chick,” he said with a grin.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” I told him, and launched into my tale of time travel.

  I didn’t have to search for Rita. I knew she’d be on the upper deck, crying over Ben. “Rita,” I said as she fixed her red eyes on me, “I want to talk to you about Ben.”

  “I’m sick of your premonitions! If you’re so psychic—”

  “Then why don’t you tell me what I’m thinking right now,” I finished for her.

  She gasped in surprise.

  “I’m not a mind reader, Rita. I lied to you. I was only trying to protect you. I made a mistake—a big mistake. Ben has his problems, but he’s no killer. Someone else is going to hurt you. It’s a long story, and I hope you’ll believe me even though I haven’t been completely truthful before.”

  When the ferry reached Seattle, the three of us got off together and I dashed to the nearest phone booth and called the police.

  “There is a body in Crab Cave on Banbury Beach,” I said. “It is Dr. Crowell, a scientist at Twin-Star Labs. He was shot by Sky Mettley, his assistant. He killed him so he could take credit for Dr. Crowell’s inventions.”

  “Who is this?” the detective asked suspiciously.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you. Just look in the cave.”

  We watched Sky on the six o’clock news, his face stark white, his eyes wild with confusion as the police led him away. He had no memory, of course, of our encounter on the beach, for I had erased it when I turned the hands of time back three hours.

  “He’s probably wondering how they caught him,” I said. “He thought he was so clever.”

  “I still can’t believe it,” Rita whispered through shocked tears. “I thought Sky was my friend!”

  “I’m shocked too, especially about Kyle! I thought it was your boyfriend who was a killer, but it was mine! Kyle pretended to care for me, but he only cared about keeping the Mettley secret. When I look back, I realize it must have been Kyle I heard lurking on the beach that night when I walked with Mr. Edwards. He was probably planning to kill Mr. Edwards that night.”

  “How awful!” Rita said. “Do you think it was Kyle who erased your computer files?”

  “It must have been,” I said sadly. “He was always trying to get me to forget the past. I guess he was afraid I’d figure things out.”

  My sister and I hugged and cried and then I said, “If I put it off any longer, I’ll change my mind and stay.”

  So Rita accompanied me to the attic, and before we said good-bye I attempted once more to change fate. “Don’t let our father fly in any small planes,” I said.

  I slipped on my visor and visualized the attic in the year 2070.

  28

  I returned to 2070 and was shocked to learn that my short visit to the past had altered the history of the entire planet. My smallest action was like nudging the first domino in a row of dominoes that circled the earth. Everything I did—from letting the cat out of the attic to eating a wedge of lemon cake—caused an endless succession of events that influenced the lives of millions of people. Some of the changes were subtle: a house painted blue instead of red, a girl named Dora instead of Doris, a holiday celebrated on the sixteenth of May instead of the seventeenth.

  Other changes were more obvious.

  Kyle was never born. He was never born because his father was never born. Sky Mettley never married, never had sons. He was put to death in 1971 at age 22 for murdering Dr. Crowell.

  I did not spill a tear for Kyle. How could I, when I knew what he was capable of? He was every bit the killer his grandfather was. When Kyle had his chance at life, he murdered an innocent old man.

  When I prevented Charles Edwards from going blind, I changed the course of his life. Sometimes I sit and gaze at the Charles Edwards painting hanging in our hallway. The sweeping seascape of the calm waters is vividly real—so real it’s like looking out the window. The waters are peaceful, but dark threatening clouds creep over the horizon.

  They make me think of the dark that nearly closed in on little Chuck Edwards.

  “It’s an original Charles Edwards!” Mom proudly tells everyone who visits. “He was once a neighbor of my Aunt Ashley’s. It’s quite valuable, but I’d never dream of selling it. Isn’t it a pity he died at eighty when he was caught in that fire at the art gallery? He rushed in to save his paintings and never came out again. I’m sure he had many more wonderful creations in him.”

  Did I kill Charles Edwards? He died almost thirty years younger because of my interference.

  If I think too much about it, it makes me crazy.

  Still, I find my thoughts drifting to the missing ones. Where is Ruby? She does not live next door to us. Is she living in some distant state? Did she die young? Or was she never born?

  There are so many others who have vanished since I rearranged destiny. Marla Rindler and Josey Bells no longer exist. They’ve been replaced by two other popular girls with hair like sunshine who stroll down the school hallways, wiggling their bottoms as if they’ve always ruled the school. No one cares that Josey and Marla are gone.

  Of all the missing ones, I felt the worst about Suki. Maybe it’s because her life was so miserable and I did nothing to make her happy. Maybe Suki still exists, I thought, in our other life. Maybe in another dimension, she and I are part of a world that includes Kyle, Ruby, Marla, and Josey—all of us living the existence we had before I tangled with fate.

  If we are living a parallel life, I hope I am being nicer to her.

  My world is largely populated by people who were not here before I took my time trip. You would think I’d remember them, but I do not. When I returned, it was as if I stepped into someone else’s life with no recollection of that person’s past. My memories are those of my other life. I remember songs that were never written, places I’ve never been, and people who were never born.

  “Honey, did you bump your head or something?” Mom asked worriedly when I asked her who she was talking about when she mentioned her sister Patsy.

  Last time around, I did not have an Aunt Patsy.

  The father I remember is no longer here. Mom is married to Roy—the man she’d divorced in her other life. He is a sandy-haired man with an easy smile who loves to tease me. It’s funny, but even though I don’t
remember him, he seems more like a father than Mom’s other husband.

  I’m glad he’s in our life, and it makes me feel a little better about the ones who are not here. Still, I felt awful about Suki until that afternoon I browsed through the computer files of the Mills family album. There—in a photograph of one of my brother Jim’s students—was Suki. It was 1987 and her name was Nan Calacort, but she was definitely Suki. She had the same pale blue eyes and hay-colored hair, but her smile was different. Oh, they were the same lips, but they curved into a confident smile.

  It looked as if my visit to Madame Calacort had made an impact. Apparently, she’d reclaimed the embryo and had it implanted in her own womb.

  My time trip had another positive effect. Rita succeeded in talking our father into staying out of small planes. He and our mother lived well into their nineties. He got our mother to the doctor in time to catch the deadly cancer.

  Though I often reflect on all that’s happened, I try to focus on the life I live now. I destroyed the visor, vowing to never take another time trip. Still, I’m forever aware my smallest decision may have a tremendous effect on the future.

  Some may argue our future is set for us—laid out like a stone path by an unseen force. But I know differently.

  Each time I go to a restaurant and order a glass of juice, I think of Dr. Grady’s example. If it is the last glass, will the next customer walk out of the restaurant before he can meet his future wife? Will their child never be born? Would this child have been a great leader or a vicious criminal?

  Or perhaps it’s not the last glass of juice. But by ordering it, I will cause the waitress to become distracted and forget to serve the side dish of hash brown potatoes to a difficult customer. Will her boss fire her when the customer complains? Will she take another job, only to be in a terrible crash on her way to work?

  Or maybe by ordering the juice, I will remind the waitress she needs to stop on the way home and buy juice for her baby. At the store, maybe she’ll smile at the old woman shopping for cat food. And her smile will remind the old woman of her granddaughter. The old woman will call that granddaughter, inviting her for a visit. The granddaughter will meet her future husband during the visit, and their child will one day give birth to a doctor who discovers a cure for a disease that enables a great comedian to live, who in turn makes millions of people laugh.

  “Think of the chain reactions we cause,” I said to my sister. “Everything we do has the potential to change the fate of everyone in the world around us.”

  “Yes, it is mind-boggling when you stop and think of it,” Rita said. Her once chestnut hair now hangs to her waist in smokey curls.

  I visit her regularly in her apartment on Deep Brine Island. She’s lived there with our brother Jim since Ben died at age 105. After licking his alcohol problem, Ben became a counselor, helping others with addictions. My sister and he raised two daughters, and spoiled five grandchildren, twelve great-grandchildren, twenty-eight great-great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-great-grandchildren.

  I hoped Rita would tell me Shane never got over me. But he married right out of high school and eventually became a computer salesman. He and his wife perished together when they fell through an ice pond at age sixty.

  I’m glad Shane had someone to love. Yet I feel jealous. In my memory, it has been only weeks since he held me in his arms. He may have married, but I like to think he never forgot me.

  Tangling with fate proved to be a painful experience, and I find myself proceeding cautiously. As I told Rita, “Sometimes I worry that everything I say or do will set off a chain reaction that will end with sad consequences.”

  “Don’t let it worry you, dear,” she said. “In my long years I’ve learned that if we go forward with love in our hearts and best intentions for our fellow people, things will usually work out. And if they don’t—que serà serà. What will be, will be. We can carry in our hearts the knowledge that whatever happens, we meant well.”

  It is strange to have an older sister who has grown so wise.

  Whispers from the Grave copyright © 1995, 2012 by Leslie Rule. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

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  Leslie Rule is a professional photographer and the author of seven books with paranormal themes. She also has written dozens of articles for national magazines, including Reader's Digest. The daughter of best-selling true-crime author Ann Rule, Leslie grew up in a haunted house, where her lifelong fascination with the paranormal began. She lives in the Seattle, Washington, area.