by J M Hart
“How do you know that?” Amy said.
He spoke in a low voice so as not to attract attention. “It took me a while to work it out, but after the river and my mom I thought I was a complete basket case. Take the flight over, for instance. You felt sick, right?” He looked at Terry, desperate for him to understand. “What you felt was the emotional memory of the person in that seat on the flight before you. It was his fear, his emotional energy he left behind. Like an imprint of a sweaty palm on a bench, or footprints in the sand. You’re sensitive, Terry; receptive to other people’s feelings. See that one by the kitchen doorway, not moving; the one with a beard and a frown, well that one is a lost soul, and he thinks he’s still alive.”
The windows stopped rattling, the projectiles against the house had ceased, and the apparitions flickered in and out, like a lost signal, a fading hologram. “The thing I don’t understand is why I haven’t seen my mom.” Suddenly the room seemed vast as the apparitions vacated the space and went back into their reality. Casey stepped forward and the surrounding light disappeared. He looked back at Terry and Amy, scanning for a hint of what they might be thinking.
“They’re gone but …” Terry said, “… it feels like they’re still here.”
“I feel it too,” Amy said.
“That’s because they are, we just can’t see them any more. They’re in between the two worlds, ours and beyond.”
“What two worlds?” Terry asked, following Casey into the kitchen.
Casey went to the back door and called for the dog. She didn’t come. He called again, she still didn’t come. The ground was littered with insects and they were embedded in the door.
Terry knocked them off the door and brushed them back outside. Casey and Terry circled the property, checking the house for damage while calling for the dog.
“She probably sensed the storm and took off for shelter,” Terry said. “She’ll come back. Don’t worry about the dog. She will be all right.”
They stepped into the kitchen and Amy pulled her cardigan tight, as if a chill had passed over her body. “Close the door, Casey. We can’t go anywhere, we have to stay here.”
The thought of staying was terrifying to Casey, but the idea of leaving was worse. There was no hiding.
“Who’s hungry?” Terry said.
Casey watched Terry rub his hands together and pull out pots and pans. Cooking was Terry’s way of dealing with stress. The conversation about what had happened and what they saw was over. To be fair, they were handling it better than any adult he could think of. But he still didn’t know what they thought about him being able to see beyond this world. He wanted to show them what else he could do. How he controlled the flow of energy, whether it was the lights, Amy’s hairdryer, the stove or the car.
Amy stood next to the old wood-burning fireplace and watched Terry get the gas stove going. She moved towards him and held his arms softly, and turned off the gas. “I couldn’t think of eating now. I can’t believe what I just saw. We have to talk and Casey —”
She sat at the old wooden kitchen table and studied her fingers and nails. Terry hadn’t moved. She turned to Casey. “What else do you see?” she asked him. “Do we survive this?”
Casey saw her eyes glaze over. “Amy, you’re scaring me.” He had never seen her look vacant, but Terry had and was scared too. Terry sat beside Amy to slowly rub her back. Casey leant against the sink and crossed his arms.
With tenderness, Terry said to Amy, “Look at me. Look at me, Amy.”
She didn’t take her eyes off Casey and said, in a robotic tone, “I know you can see things, Casey, and I want you to talk to me, I do. I want to help you make sense of what is happening to you. But the truth is, I don’t really understand. It is so overwhelming, I don’t know how to help you.”
Casey had never seen Amy as anything but a tower of strength. He searched within himself for the right words to lift her from this dark place she inhabited. She moved slowly, like she was caught in mud, and it was encasing her. What could he say? He opened his mouth and let the first thing come out. “People have died and people are going to die. Maybe we all die tomorrow, I don’t know. What I know is my friend Sophia is real and she is coming. Whatever happens, it will be the right thing.”
Amy tumbled into the black hole. She said condescendingly, with a slight tilt of her head, “Your friend Sophia is a figment of your imagination. You conjured her up after your mother died so you wouldn’t be alone. I get it. At best, after today your friend Sophia may be a ghost. I’ll give you that.”
Casey had wondered about it himself from time to time, thinking maybe Sophia was a ghost, or part of his own creation. “She is real, Amy. I thought that you of all people believed me.”
“I believe you are emotionally sensitive and caring. Like when you took hold of that little kid’s hoodie, seconds before he stepped in front of the car. His mother should have been holding his hand, and you knew that, and that’s why you held him back. No other reason. Not that you saw the car before it came, or that he was about to step in front of the car, but that you were aware he was not being cared for by his mother, because you were missing your mom, and you are emotionally sensitive.”
“I can’t believe you, Amy. That’s a load of crap, and you know it!” Casey’s head started to hurt, his throat felt tight. His hands gripped his head, trying to stop the pain. “So that’s what you thought,” he yelled. “And you pity me.” Shocked, Casey felt his energy as a river that dragged him to its murky depths which then surged up and pumped through his veins. The kitchen lights started to flicker and the bulb overhead blew. Amy and Terry jumped out of the way as the shards of glass fell on the table.
Casey pulled the back door open and ran outside.
“Casey, stop,” Terry yelled after him. “Casey, where are you going? Come back.
Amy, stay inside and shut the door behind me.”
Terry saw Casey pass the barn and as he did the car and motorbike roared into life. Terry, confused, didn’t know if he should stop and turn them off, or keep chasing Casey into the woods.
Tears blurring his vision, Casey tripped. He never realized Amy pitied him. All this time she was just humoring him. He couldn’t believe it. He screamed and released his anger into the forest. The crows took flight and sticks and leaves started swirling around his feet, moving up and outward. The debris around him spiraled faster and faster. He didn’t see how dangerous and out of control his behavior had become. A bad smell hung in the forest, the same smell that was in the house, but Casey was blind to his environment as he pushed his energy further and further away from him. He pounded his fist into the trunk of a tree and a shock wave vibrated into the ground, lifting the soil. It rocked fear into Casey.
Terry watched amazed at the growing force and chaos. He was worried Casey was going to get hurt unless he got himself under control. “Casey!” he called out. Terry hid behind his forearm, protecting his head and face and pushed through Casey’s personal cyclone.
Casey faced Terry. A flying branch hit Terry on the side of the head, knocking him down. Casey heard the dog bark in the distance and everything went still, hovered in mid-air, and dropped. Casey felt electrified and exhausted. Then his senses focused on Terry and, horrified, he ran to Terry’s side. He had never lost control in this way before, never hurt anyone. He had never wielded such power. He had felt detached and it terrified him. He bent over and brought up his lunch. Sophia was right — he had more power than he ever would have believed and he couldn’t handle such power. He wiped his mouth and slid down by Terry’s side and started crying. Terry wasn’t moving. “I’m so sorry, Terry, please, Terry, I am so sorry. Please, please wake up.” The dog and Amy came running.
“I am so sorry, Amy. Please wake him up.” Amy was quick to act. She checked his breathing, running her hands along the top of his head. “He’s got a bit of a gash just above his ear.”
Casey sniffed back the tears, and nodded.
Amy res
umed checking Terry’s body from head to toe. “He’ll be alright, Casey,” she said. “He’ll have a big lump on his head and a massive headache, but he will be okay. I’m sorry about before,” she said. “You are my first child, and you’re hardly a child. I have only had a year to get to know you and how to be a parent. I love you, Casey. This is very new to me and I handled it poorly. I am frightened, and I am sorry I hurt you. I saw what you just did and we will help you. You will learn to control it, or shut it down.” Amy wrapped her arms around him and he dropped his head onto her shoulder and cried.
All the pain over the past year came flooding back. Terry started to stir and sit up. He gently placed his hand on Casey’s arm. Casey felt the touch and lifted his head from Amy’s shoulder to see Terry smiling at him.
“My head feels like it’s being squeezed like a ripe tomato. And since I’m the one that was knocked out here, what about saving some of that loving for me?” Terry said in a mock-dejected voice. Casey let go of Amy and threw himself at Terry.
The dog started to bark at the sky. They followed its gaze and saw the dense metallic cloud that appeared to be made up of tiny winged creatures swarming, moving like a snake with purpose, towards them. They hadn’t noticed the sky turning charcoal, or that everything around them had darkened into shadows. An intense sickly smell was getting stronger.
“This isn’t good,” Casey said. “I think I attracted them.”
Amy and Terry in unison asked, “How?”
Casey and Amy helped Terry to his feet. “Negative energy. I think it’s the virus.” They started running back towards the house, the dog leading the way. The beastly swarm came closer. The air thickened.
Inside, Terry dragged the table across the floor to jam it against the closed door. All the windows simultaneously started to rattle, and the wind whistled between the cracks. There was a crashing sound in the living room. Casey ran towards it and as he stepped into the living room, the boards against the windows moaned and distorted, bowed and splintered, yielding to the force of the wind. The windows erupted, the boards went flying. The stench magnified, and the swarm entered the room. It stopped, searching; it rippled like the movement of wind on the surface of a lake. It banked left towards Casey; it wasn’t random they were heading straight for him. Amy grabbed his arm and dragged him back into the kitchen. Terry was right behind them, leaping down the basement stairs. The dog, thinking way ahead of them, barked at where the hole had been blocked.
“You’re right, what choice do we have?” Terry said to the dog.
“Give me a hand, Casey.” Terry’s head pounded, trying to push the cases away to uncover the hole.
Casey placed his hands against the stack and closed his eyes, pushing with his mind. He heard Terry say “on the count of three”.
“One, two —”
He put a little of his energy into his shoulder ready to push, but Terry never said three. Casey’s eyes flew open, fearing the worst, and saw Terry standing clear of the suitcases. They had already moved and the hole was clearly visible.
Amy and Terry were quiet and still.
“Ah, good, good,” Terry finally managed to say.
Terry picked up the torches and they moved into the tunnel. “Can you put them back across the hole from this side?” Terry asked.
“Maybe, yes.” He again imagined in his mind the hole and the bricks that had filled it, and the cases piled high in front of it. Just the way it was when they first found it. He opened his eyes. He couldn’t tell if the trunks were against the wall or not, because the cavity had been filled. They were entombed.
8
The talking stick: Jade. Australia.
The house was quiet when Jade crept out of Alex’s room careful not to wake Kath and tiptoed into the hallway. She could see the light under Callie and Daniel’s door as she moved towards Kevin’s room. She stopped to listen.
“We have to go. We have to leave the city,” Callie said. “If we can’t find Shaun’s family, we will have to take him with us. His hands will need to be cared for.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Saddleback Mountain. There is enough space, it has solar power, back-up generator, batteries — everything we need. My parents’ belongings are there, including dad’s light plane, a Piper Cherokee 6-300. Nothing has been touched.”
Jade could hear Callie blowing her nose as if she had been crying. Feeling guilty about listening, she started to moved away.
“I have to tell you something about Ellen.”
Jade was immediately glued to the spot.
“Ellen said, ‘Hide. An ingredient has disappeared. I have failed.’ Daniel, when she said it, I knew she was talking to me, telling me to run, to get out of the country and that’s what I did, I ran. I watched them force her from the lab. She asked them where they were taking her and one of the two men, who had Russian-sounding accents, pulled her violently by the hair and pushed her towards the stairwell door. They were only inches away from the door to the bio unit where I was hiding and I held my breath. The man was telling her to stop asking questions, she would have plenty of time to finish her research. They opened the door and pushed her into the stairwell.
That’s when I ran. I wanted to go to her family, to the authorities. Instinctively, I knew I should run and not look back. I took what she had been working on and ran. I felt like I abandoned them. I also think whoever took Ellen killed my parents and have been looking for me ever since.”
Jade started to cry silently.
“Why would you think that?”
“I never changed my passport from my maiden name. My mail still went to their place and my parents died a week after I returned. I think they, whoever they are, have been looking for me and I believe they have found us.”
Jade backed away from the door and leant against the wall, trying to decide what to do next. She wiped her face with the bottom of her shirt before opening Kevin’s bedroom door.
Jade pushed him gently, but Kevin was dead tired and didn’t wake. She tried again and he woke with a start, nearly falling out of bed. Tim snored on, stretched out on the floor under the closed window. The full moon shone into the room, bathing them in the reflected light of the sun. The unity of the movements of the worlds fascinated her and she became absorbed in the essence of the moment, trying to forget what Callie had said.
“Jade, what are you doing?” Kevin said. She didn’t answer. He waved his hand in front of her, casting a shadow across her face, as if he thought she might be sleepwalking.
“Stop doing that,” she said. Jade watched him lean across to his side table and turn on the light. Kevin rubbed his eyes, waiting for them to adjust.
“How do you do it? I have to know,” she said.
“Do what?” he said, sitting up and throwing his legs over the edge of the bed. He didn’t have a shirt on and Jade admired his muscle definition.
“You work out?” she asked casually.
Kevin looked down at his chest. Looking self-conscious, he grabbed the shirt lying at the bottom of the bed and put it on.
“You have the body of an athlete. You should figure out what sports you like best. You will excel at whatever you choose. Anyway,” she said, sitting and making herself comfortable on the floor in front of him, “you have to tell me how you do it.”
“I don’t know, Jade. It just happens.”
“Nothing in this world just happens. We create our own reality; we are the cause of our lives. Let’s say the thing just happens to you. Is it happening now? No. So there has to be certain criteria, a particular state or energy force that creates it. It’s like the story about a mother seeing her child stuck under a car and she is miraculously able to lift the car. There is an energy force that comes from within her that enables her to do this. She is in a different state of being. What state of being is your body in when you are able to step through time?”
“I wouldn’t say that I step through time. I don’t know where it is; it’s not here,
but it is. It’s like running through the cavity between the inner and outer walls of a house,” Kevin said, scratching his shoulder.
Jade twirled the ends of her hair and started running the soft end up and down her cheek like a paintbrush. “A corridor, perhaps. It didn’t look like Earth, although it also did, just more vibrant. The colors were radiant and I saw Great Turtle.”
“You saw what? A turtle?”
“My great-grandmother. So it can’t be just out of your imagination. It has to have an existence in time and space. It seemed to be parallel to this reality. Tell me what your state was each time it happened.” Jade studied him carefully.
Kevin looked deep into her eyes and he saw a flicker of light. “Do you wear contacts?” he asked. “I can see the light reflecting off the right side.”
Reactively her hand shot up to her eyes. Wearing contacts was one of the changes she had made since her mother went missing, substituting the chunky black- rimmed glasses for them. “Yes, I do,” she said feeling a little defensive.
“Are they uncomfortable?” he asked, mindful of Tim, asleep nearby.
“Not as uncomfortable as being teased for being intelligent. The glasses attracted negative attention. Now tell me, what was your physiological state when you created an opening and stepped out of our time and space?”
Kevin tilted his head slightly to the side nearly resting it on his shoulder. The ceiling was absent of answers. “There was always urgency. Trying to avoid something, to prevent a disaster occurring. I am still trying to work this out myself. What you heard me thinking about in, what shall we call it … Kevin’s world?”
“That’s too egotistical even for you, K,” Tim said sitting up. “Having a midnight powwow without me, are you. Who has the talking stick?”
“Go back to sleep. Don’t mind him,” Kevin said, looking at Jade.
“Actually, that may be very perceptive of him. Why did you say that: powwow and talking stick?”