Anomaly

by Caitlin Lynagh

  Alice’s body had been cremated a week after she had died and her ashes divided into two containers. Her parent’s marriage had been difficult from the start; even Alice herself had said she couldn’t believe they had stuck it out so long. After Alice died, the stress and pain of the situation didn’t help to bring them together, it just pushed them further apart. It was inevitable really, and they had filed for a divorce. Alice’s father took half of Alice’s ashes back to his Scottish roots and interred them next to his father’s grave. Elaine and Talia, moved to the other side of the world for a new start in Australia shortly after.

  Hailey and Jess had been quite upset, particularly Hailey. Talia had been her school friend for years and she was suddenly moving away, caught in the middle of a divorce and death. Alice and Talia’s sudden disappearance made a massive hole in their friendship group, and Kyle naturally had lost all interest too. His hobbies just didn’t bring him the same enjoyment as they had used to, and he stopped hanging out with their friends. The group never truly recovered.

  Kyle flipped through the pages until he found Sophia’s notes on dimensions and time. She had already written down the current theories, which included imaginary time, a timeline which cut vertically across the forward arrow of human time. It was quantum mechanic’s way of looking at the time dimension as though it were a dimension in space. Though imaginary time in physics didn’t mean it was made up. Kyle frowned. He didn’t think this was what Sophia had meant when she said she wanted to join dimensional theories, like the string theory, with time. Imaginary time was essentially a mathematical trick to help solve the problem of imaginary numbers and the origin of the universe. It didn’t really specifically focus on multiple dimensions with multiple possibilities. He puzzled over her work. Two interacting timelines? How would that work?

  Kyle was still thinking about it when the train had pulled into Glasgow and he caught another smaller train to Larrick. Once there, he hailed a taxi to the cemetery. It was all coming back to him now as the taxi passed down roads and streets to the outskirts of town, where the land became more open and the houses were sparse. He remembered the day Alice’s father James had interred her ashes; it had been a warm summer’s day at the end of August. The Hunters had stayed at a hotel the night before and then they had attended the afternoon ceremony the following day.

  The taxi pulled in by a brick wall just before a pair of massive iron gates. Kyle paid the driver and climbed out quickly, shouldering his rucksack as his shoes squelched against the slushy snow. He walked slowly to the entrance; the cemetery was more of a large hilly field with a brick building and a small carpark at its centre. Trees were stippled throughout and little paths zigzagged through the rows of graves. He headed to the centre and then took a path to the right which curved up and round a small rise. Not many people had been to the cemetery in the last couple of weeks; the snow was virtually untouched in most places. He got lost a couple of times as the path branched off at many points, but he eventually remembered his way again. He passed white, grey and black marble gravestones, and the faces of stone angels and saints watched him with empty eyes. He rounded a corner and passed a bare willow tree and then her grave appeared before him.

  His footsteps slowed as he approached Alice’s grave, with its white marble headstone carved along the edges with intricate roses. Next to it was a much larger, grey headstone belonging to James’ father, grandmother and grandfather. Kyle stopped in front of her grave, his eyes refusing to read the carved letters even though he knew from memory what had been engraved there. His eyes were traitors: Alice Lynam, 18th January 1991 – 18th June 2009, Beloved Daughter, Sister and Friend. He said nothing for a while as he stared at the grave; he knew in reality that only half of what had been Alice was buried beneath him.

  ‘So…’ he said aloud, ‘Why didn’t you tell anyone about your notebook? Why did you tear the pages out? Why did you hide them?’ He waited in silence, feeling foolish as he stared down at her grave. If the dead had voices, the living would never hear them, not for want of trying he decided, but lack of understanding. Minutes passed but no memories or answers presented themselves to him. There was calm, he realised. He gazed around at the silent graves and let his shoulders relax. ‘I guess I was being a little optimistic.’ Sophia’s words echoed in his head. Was this the source of his nightmares? Would the nightmares stop now? He stuffed his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat. ‘I miss you, Alice,’ he said; his throat felt like it was collapsing in on itself. ‘I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry.’

  He fell silent and stood with his head bowed for a while. He felt the remaining warmth in his limbs disappearing as he shivered there in front of her grave. Tears made tracks down his cheeks and splattered on the ground and his shoes. He missed her, he admitted to himself. He missed her so much that every living day hurt and every second without her dragged on for eternity. Kyle rubbed his eyes and wiped his face before turning away. He started to head back out of the cemetery when he heard a familiar voice call his name.

  ‘Kyle? Is that…?’ He turned around and was surprised to see Paula, wrapped up warm in a fur coat and hat, approaching Alice’s grave from the opposite direction. She had wellies on her feet and a large handbag tucked under one arm and a bouquet in the other.

  ‘Paula?’ Kyle hadn’t seen Alice’s grandmother since the interment of the ashes.

  ‘Oh it is you, Kyle!’ She smiled brightly at him as she approached, then gripped him in a tight bear hug. ‘Come, join me,’ she said as she stopped before Alice’s grave and placed the bouquet of white roses by the headstone – they were Alice’s favourite. She clasped her hands in front of her and murmured a quick prayer under her breath. Kyle stood awkwardly beside her, his legs shaking slightly as he tried to keep warm.

  ‘Feels like it were only yesterday, don’t it?’ Paula said finally.

  ‘Yeah,’ Kyle nodded. They fell silent again for a few moments; no traffic noise or even birds chirping sounded here.

  ‘How are you managing?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Kyle said, shrugging off the question and changing the topic. ‘How’s James?’

  ‘James still struggles,’ Paula said on a low sigh. ‘Though he’s met someone new now and he seems a little bit happier.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘What about you? Have you met anyone new?’

  ‘No,’ Kyle said.

  ‘Ah, well, you’re still young,’ Paula replied, her lips pinching into a tight smile. ‘How did you get up here?’

  ‘I came by train this morning,’

  ‘That’s a long way; when are you heading back?’

  ‘This afternoon,’ Kyle said.

  ‘You only came up for the day?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He shrugged. He glanced at Paula and wondered if she would know anything about Alice’s notebook; it was a long shot but… He opened his rucksack and drew out Alice’s notebook.

  ‘Do you recognise this?’ he asked. Paula’s eyes went wide as she took the book from him.

  ‘Yes, yes I do,’ she said. Kyle felt a rush of warmth inside; the thought of finally having some answers thrilled him. ‘I gave her this notebook in the hospital as a birthday present.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. Paula flipped through the pages and smiled. ‘She was a good artist our Alice, she had a wild imagination.’ She paused. ‘Physics was an adventure for her; she liked studying the smallest things. She liked imagining what they would look like.’

  ‘Yes she did.’ Kyle remembered Alice’s drawings. She would often create an artistic impression of the forces and particles that Mr Blakely taught them about in their lessons; she said it helped her to remember them better. If she didn’t have a notebook, she would draw them on her hands.

  ‘My granddaughter really loved you, Kyle, truly loved you. It wasn’t just that little crush that most teenagers go through, but
true love.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ He felt his cheeks flush.

  ‘True love goes beyond physical attraction and having a few things in common,’ she said, fixing him with a hard stare. ‘It’s when you put your partner’s needs above your own, and they do the same for you. You become each other’s priority, physically and emotionally, you care about that person’s dreams and future and they care about yours.’ She smiled and her blue eyes dropped to Alice’s grave. ‘When you and Alice were together it was obvious that you loved each other that way.’ Kyle didn’t reply. ‘I’m sorry; I shouldn’t be talking to you about all of this.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Kyle said, though he was struggling to contain his emotions. Alice really had loved him, he realised that more than ever now.

  ‘No it’s not. I’m just a foolish old lady who remembers too much. Keep your head up Kyle; my granddaughter didn’t fall in love with just anybody. She saw the good in you, compassion, strength, honesty, and that passion for life.’ Paula handed him Alice’s notebook. ‘If you’re looking for answers, you won’t find them at her grave; they will be in her drawings and words.’ He looked at her, shocked, how did she know he was searching for answers?

  ‘How..?’

  ‘Oh, we old people know things; most of us are still looking for our own answers.’ Kyle returned Alice’s notebook to his rucksack. They stood there silently for a few minutes, and then Paula sighed, as though she were exhaling her emotions. She turned to Kyle. ‘Would you like a lift to the station?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Kyle said. He took one last, long, look at Alice’s grave and then he followed Paula to her car.

  He waved to Alice’s grandma as the train pulled away and in half an hour he was boarding his second train. The floor was sticky and wet from snowmelt and other questionable causes and it smelled damp and musky. He was lucky enough to get a seat with a table again so he pulled out Alice’s notebook and went through the pages carefully one by one. He recognised a lot of the drawings and doodles; she had drawn similar things in other notebooks, on scraps of paper, and on her hands. There were a couple of realistic sketches of himself too and one of Alice; she had a way of capturing the life in people’s eyes with her drawings. He paused when he hit a drawing of a vortex spiralling up through the middle of a page. His throat tied itself into knots and he gulped. She had written down the lyrics from the song ‘Vortex’ by Dead Souls. He remembered Cameron playing the song on Red Oak’s radio station in the first semester. In Alice’s neat handwriting she had written along the edges of her sketch, ‘Look for possibilities, you’re the vortex surrounding me.’ He clenched his hands into fists as a stab of pain hit him in the stomach.

  ‘Possibilities,’ he murmured under his breath. He remembered Sophia talking about dimensions and possibilities. He tried to think back to their little chat in the chapel, but he couldn’t remember their conversation clearly. The near miss with the van had shaken him and skewed his thoughts into the irrational spectrum. What had she said again? What was it? He could picture her sat there with her hair tied back, her dark eyes watching him curiously. He wracked his brain as he tried to remember and then suddenly he could see her lips moving and her voice jumped into his mind. ‘I think you could use two interacting timelines to explain multiple dimensions, or rather, multiple possibilities.’ He gazed down at Alice’s drawing, his eyes catching on the lyrics of the song.

  An idea struck him. He quickly unzipped his bag and pulled out Sophia’s notebook and grabbed a pencil. He turned to the nearest blank page and drew the rough shape of a vortex. Two timelines, perhaps two dimensions in their own right? His nerves felt jittery and his fingers trembled, not from the cold but from excitement, something he hadn’t properly felt in years. One timeline would be past, present and future and the second timeline, a spiral, no, a vortex, containing every possibility. He felt tender illumination shine through the dullness inside; for the first time in years he felt excited by an idea. He smiled, it was painful and his muscles ached from suddenly being forced to work. He drew a vertical line down the centre of his vortex to represent human time. Each loop of this vortex would relate to a single moment in time and each loop would contain every possibility. That was what multiple dimensions were; there was a theory that stated every possible version of you existed in other dimensions, but what if it was simpler than that? What if every possible version of you was just another possibility on one single loop in this second timeline Kyle had drawn? He started to draw more ideas and cross sections through his spiralling vortex; thinking of the big bang and what time was like before. His thoughts wandered down numerous pathways as he considered the mathematics involved. He didn’t notice the train speeding away past fields and alongside the motorway. He barely had time to pack his belongings when his station was called over the speakers. He had the beginnings of an idea – whether it was right or wrong, at least it was an idea.

  Twenty-Four

  The Thirteen were not human. Neither were they gods or goddesses, nor did they possess what humans would call magic, and even though they were technically deceased aliens, they had never been able to abduct a human, use mind control or had wanted to do those things. The movie images were grossly inaccurate. The Thirteen’s planet still existed, though it was now uninhabitable and unfortunately unreachable by humans.

  Alice stood before them; she had told them everything that had happened in the last few months and now she was waiting for their reply. It was strange watching them; sometimes the light would fade from their eyes and Alice would know that they were holding a private conversation with someone, silently within their thoughts. Others were talking, openly projecting their conversations around their reality whilst a few murmured under their breaths. A couple of them were creating small objects and images seemingly from nothing, which hovered above their hands as they spoke to each other, explaining their thoughts and opinions by simply creating and showing them. It was how the afterlife worked; when your whole existence was worked through thoughts, memories and emotions – technically the soul – these were the tools you could use to communicate. The Positive force simply held the energy that these souls used to fuel their conversations and to create their realities, similar to the way the living had to eat in order to survive.

  They were in a large circular room with pale walls. The Thirteen sat behind a large curved table which looked like it had been cut from one white block of solid stone. This was quite likely, since the only limit to what you could create in the afterlife was the imagination. The majority of The Thirteen were taller than a human, pale and slender with only two belonging to a different race, and hence half the size with darker skin tones than the rest. Alice knew the faces of all of them and she had been told the history of their world, but she hadn’t been shown everything like other deceased souls. It was one of the things that happened when you crossed over properly; all of the knowledge in the afterlife was given to you, carefully infused into your mind so that you could understand the inner workings of your new existence. The Thirteen and their planet’s demise was just a small part of the new knowledge you gained. It usually took newly deceased souls about a year in human time to properly process and understand their new knowledge. Alice hadn’t had this luxury; becoming a Deykashee soul meant that certain information had been withheld, just in case it affected her suggestions and, therefore, the choices of the living. However, she didn’t think that really mattered now; she had seen all of Kyle’s future pathways.

  Alice tried to imagine what it would be like to lose your planet, to die and cross over to find an afterlife that was finely connected to life on your former planet. Then to realise that the total destruction of life on your former planet would bring about the end of your afterlife too and could completely erase your soul from existence. It was mind boggling; Alice had barely managed to come to terms with her continued existence, let alone the idea that her existence could be wiped away again, along wit
h billions of others. The Thirteen were the only souls who had survived the destruction of their world; the rest had given into despair and had been claimed by Negative. The Thirteen had endured hundreds of millions of years in isolation with no real way of knowing if they would ever reach another planet with conscious life, whilst maintaining their Positive energy through Positive emotions. When The Thirteen had stumbled across Earth, mankind was barely walking, yet the fountain had been correct and the afterlife was reborn.

  ‘We agree with Ahrl,’ an elderly male said at last. His name was Ioel, another from the tall and pale race. He had short grey hair and silvery eyes. ‘You must have been caught between the forces.’ The others nodded in agreement, their eyes brightening as they returned their full attention to their current reality. ‘We will stick with the original plan, where you can continue to place suggestions in Kyle’s mind, hopefully as a Deykashee.’ Alice held back a sigh of relief; there wasn’t much more she could do anyway. ‘Hopefully it will be enough to steer him towards the right decisions. You have the strongest connection to him.’

  ‘Be careful Alice, sometimes it’s better to watch and let the timelines run their course,’ Ahrl said.

  ‘It is unfortunate that humans do not have the same abilities that we did,’ a woman from the pale race said. ‘If your kind could guide the energies with their minds whilst they were alive too it would be much easier to explain our existence.’