by J M Hart
“It’s the first thing that came to me. I thought I could smell wood burning, which reminded me of a campfire,” Tim explained.
“I am part Native American on my mother’s side, my traditional name is Raven Wings. My great-grandmother, Great Turtle, was a medicine woman, a spiritual healer and could talk to the spirits in the afterlife. I had never seen proof of this until we disappeared in front of that wolf, into another dimension, where I saw Great Turtle watching us.”
“Can we call you Raven Wings?” Tim asked.
Jade stuck her neck out and eyeballed Tim. “No!” she said firmly and turned to Kevin. “Tell me what state you were in when you opened the doorway.”
“When I saw that boy drowning, nothing was happening to anyone. I was alone.”
“Why were you there?”
“I wanted to swim and keep swimming.”
He does that,” said Tim. “He will jump in the pool at school and lap swim for over an hour and he will do the same at the river.”
“Do you get into a rhythm?
“Yes, it’s peaceful in the water.”
“Do you swim when unhappy or upset, or when you’re happy, excited?”
“Both, I’ve seen it happen.” Tim’s eyes widened, understanding. He knew why Kevin swam so much. “He is slow, swimming for ages, when he has a fight with his mom.”
“Shut up, Tim.” Kevin frowned at his friend.
“Let him speak,” Jade said.
Tim stood up and paced in front of the window as if he was solving a riddle.
“Okay, Sherlock, lay it on us,” Jade said.
“When he is excited, he swims like a rocket and splashes a hell of a lot, like a man possessed.”
“So, K — Can I call you K?”
“Sure.”
“What were you thinking about before you went to the river?”
“This is stupid.” Kevin felt reluctant to admit he had been crying, and wanted his nanna to come back, and wanted his mother to hug him again.
“Come on. Look at this scientifically, an experiment.”
“I wanted to see my nanna, I missed her.”
“That’s right! Soon after his mother returned from the USA, they were killed in a car accident on the way to his place.”
“Tim, shut up!” Kevin growled.
“I know about your grandparents and I’m sorry,” Jade said. “That was a bad time for us all. So you were upset, wanted to see your nanna and went for a swim. You dived into the river, but when you surfaced you saw a boy fall off a footbridge where usually there was no bridge. No footbridge ever existed where you swim, right. I think you dived into, and surfaced, in his time and space, becoming a witness. Did you go on the internet to search for the details?” Jade was getting excited and leant her body forward waiting for his answer.
“Yes, and there were no missing persons or death-by-drowning reports. There were weather anomalies across the world that day. Nature had a seizure. There was nothing I could find, the virus had washed up on our shores and the authorities thought my mind was infected.”
Jade looked solemn, remembering her experience of that day, seven days after her mother went missing. “We are all connected.” She reached up and pulled Kevin’s pillow off his bed and lay on the floor with her legs resting on it. “Who’s the pebble?”
“What pebble,” Tim asked.
“The cause of all these effects. Everything starts in the Middle East.”
“I thought you were a geek with a sci-fi brain,” Tim said. “Thought you would believe in the Big Bang theory.”
“I do, but who created the big bang, the one sonic clap, the one pebble. We are all connected: six degrees of separation.” Jade had gone off into a spiral of thinking, believing there was something in front of her she wasn’t seeing.
“When was the next time you stepped out of this reality?”
“Last week there was a fire.”
“There was more than a fire, K,” Tim said. “It was a scorcher of a day and we went for a swim; all good. I heard something on the other side of the creek, so I went to check it out. There was a bunch of dropkicks smoking and I hid behind a tree but one of them saw me and the next thing I knew was a fist ramming into my face and a foot stomped on my leg, hard, breaking it in two places.”
Jade looked at his leg. “Impossible,” she said.
“I know, right. We were burnt to a cinder from the sun when we came round and the whole place was ablaze. Kevin here made a splint for my leg while I was unconscious then dragged me to the edge of this wall. I kept passing out.”
“When Tim didn’t come back,” Kevin interrupted, “I went to find him and saw Shaun and his mates beating up on Tim. They saw me and I was knocked out with a king-hit. Before I hit the ground, I saw the petrol bombs lined up, so I know Shaun and his mates set the bush alight and left us there to fry. I regained consciousness and before I opened my eyes, I could smell burning sage. My nanna used to burn sage and lemongrass. Then I saw the wall and couldn’t see if Tim was breathing, or was it the other way round? I don’t remember. The wall was a massive ripple of energy and I could see through it. It went to somewhere not part of this existence, but there was nowhere else for us to go, we would have died. Once we penetrated the wall’s membrane and we were on the other side, Tim’s leg was healed and the sunburn vanished. The fire engulfed us and we didn’t feel a thing.”
Jade sat mesmerized by the story. “You were healed? That’s why, as soon as I stepped into the parallel universe, the atmosphere was calming and I didn’t feel dizzy and my head stopped hurting. So when was the next time?” she asked.
“We were at the same place looking for the wall and couldn’t find it. A couple of morons came around trying to pass themselves off as fire investigators. We knew they weren’t and I freaked. That’s when I saw a ripple, like a mirage. It wasn’t in the same place as before, and this time we rode our bike into the rippling wall. We skidded around to face the men and it was evident they couldn’t see us. They gave chase, but they couldn’t see the wall, they couldn’t see us, or hear us. I know they couldn’t hear because this one didn’t shut up,” he said, thumbing towards Tim. “The rest you know.”
“I think those guys have been looking for your mom. Your mom thinks they might be the ones who kidnapped my mom. She said tomorrow we are leaving for Saddleback Mountain. Okay, I want you to trust me,” Jade said, jumping to her feet.
“Wait, what, how do you know this?” Kevin asked.
“I heard your mom and dad talking as I snuck past their room. Come on, don’t lose focus.”
None of them felt tired. Kevin focused on the floor and noticed shadows moving quickly across the floor as if a full moon had moved into mid-heaven.
Jade stood behind Kevin and said, “Tim stand beside me.” Tim rolled himself over the bed nearly hitting Kevin in the head with his ankle. Jokingly, Tim massaged Kevin’s shoulders as if getting him loosened up for a boxing match.
“Stop it.” Kevin slapped at Tim’s hands.
Jade ignored Tim and focused on Kevin. “Now, close your eyes, and I want you to think about that day when you could smell the sage, and the fire was raging around you. How did it feel seeing Tim lying still beside you? What thoughts were going through your head?”
“This is sick,” Kevin said.
“Relax, K.” Jade watched Kevin’s jaw tighten and flex, his breathing increasing. “How loud was the roar of the fire? How powerless did you feel?”
“You’re making me feel like crap,” Kevin said.
Jade fired off the questions. Kevin was feeling more and more helpless, wondering how he was going to get her to stop, when a hum, a low pulse and the sound of the rustling wind like slow-tearing Velcro entered into the room.
“What the hell?” Tim said.
“Shh,” said Jade.
The scent of sage and lemongrass drifted past them. A metallic ripple of energy was forming in front of Kevin. A wall between two worlds. “Okay, Kevin, this
is just a memory. You are safe in your bedroom with Tim standing right behind you and I’m standing next to Tim. Now open your eyes.”
Tim couldn’t hold himself back and blurted out mockingly. “He loves me.” And held his hands to his heart and dropped onto the bed.
Jade whacked him on the side of the arm and he dropped the child’s play. The three of them stared at the spot, as big as a basketball, shimmering in mid-air, a window in time. It wasn’t a major opening, not like the other times. The energy flickered, folded into itself and disappeared.
“Awesome, K,” Tim said.
“Alright,” Jade said. “Now we know how you can create it. Next we need to see if you can choose your destination.”
“What do you mean?” Tim said.
“She means, can we go anywhere within the universe?”
“Well, I was really thinking a little smaller, like how about this planet first,” Jade said, tying her hair into a bun and sticking a pencil off Kevin’s desk into it. “Like maybe we could go to my place. Maybe we could go back in time before my mom was kidnapped and warn her. There are so many possibilities.”
“I don’t think we can mess with time. I don’t believe we should play around with this, we don’t know what effect it has,” Kevin said.
Kevin’s bedroom door squeaked open and Daniel popped his head into the room. “Guys, it’s been a long day. It’s after one o’clock so get some sleep. Jade, back to Alex’s room. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow and we need to get up early.”
Jade, embarrassed, scrambled out of the room, ducking under Daniel’s arm. Tim jumped back onto his makeshift bed under the window. Daniel smiled at Kevin. “Lights out,” and started to close the door. Jade was halfway down the hall when Daniel said to Kevin, “Can you guys smell that?”
Holding onto the door handle of Alex’s room, Jade whispered. “Sage.” She smiled and walked into the bedroom, gently letting the door click closed behind her.
*
Kevin was surprised he had slept so well. He lay still listening to the sounds of the morning when he felt his dad’s big hand stroking his cheek softly and he swatted at it as if it was a fly, but his dad pulled his hand away quickly and Kevin smacked himself in the face instead. Tim opened his eyes just in time to see the impact and started rolling about with laughter. He was lucky he was already on the floor. Kevin threw himself out of bed and landed on top of him, and started punching him playfully in the ribs.
Daniel smiled, watching them for a second. Life almost seemed normal again. Then the smile fell from his face and he said, “Okay, you two, I need you to help me pack the car.” The boys stopped wrestling.
“Where are we going?” He looked at Tim and back to his dad.
“We are all going. Tim, your mom and sister will come too, as well as Shaun and Jade.”
“Where are we going?”
Daniel didn’t need to answer. Kevin answered his own question. “Nanna and pop’s, right? How did you convince Mom?”
“It was her idea. Now come on, get dressed and meet me downstairs.”
*
The door to the garage was open. Tim recognized his hiking pack amongst the bags already lined up to be crammed into the cars. “Fair dinkum, nobody tells me anything,” he muttered to himself.
“Your mom and Kath, about an hour ago, packed up a few things, and locked up your house,” Daniel said.
“But what about my things?” Tim asked.
“Your mom knows what you need,” Daniel said.
“No, there are things I want that she can’t know because I don’t know, so I know there’re things that she doesn’t know I want. I have to go to the house.” Tim walked quickly away from Daniel to the front door and ran for home.
“Tim, get back here. Kevin, go get him.”
Kevin chased, but didn’t catch Tim before he reached home. He ran around the backyard, dug the spare key up from under the rock, and unlocked the back door leading into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Kevin yelled.
“Wait there. Hang on,” Tim said.
Kevin looked around at the quiet street. He got a creepy feeling they were being watched. Across the road, Shaun’s mates and Kath’s boyfriend were coming out of a house. Tim stepped from the kitchen to see Kath’s boyfriend swing his bat; the metal smashed the window of the car in the driveway. Kevin pulled Tim out of sight as he reappeared, awkwardly stuffing an old photo into his Velcro wallet. Jumping the neighbors’ fence, Tim’s shoelace caught in a crack, pulling his shoe off. Together they unlatched the runners and sprinted back to Kevin’s.
“What was all that about?” Kevin asked, walking into his house.
“Nothing.”
“Yes, it was. What gives?”
“It’s a photo of my dad holding me when I was born. All right? Now shut up about it.”
“Chill. It’s all good. Don’t sweat it.”
Kevin followed the smell of pancakes. Jade was cooking with Alex’s help. Molly played with her breakfast, dipping her jam toast into a bowl of rice cereal. She seemed to really enjoy sucking the cereal off the toast. His mom was sitting at the table applying a fresh dressing to Shaun’s burnt hands. Shaun became agitated as soon as Kevin walked into the room and his mother looked up at him. Neither of them spoke.
She raised her eyebrows and Kevin shrugged his shoulders. They hadn’t communicated like this since — he couldn’t remember the last time. She tilted her head towards Jade and he nodded in agreement.
“Jade?”
Jade turned away from the stove and looked at Callie.
“Can you make Kevin a stack with lemon and honey to share with Tim, please?” Callie looked back at Kevin. “I’ll call you when they’re ready.” She then nodded in the direction of the garage. Kevin knew what she meant. She wanted him to help pack the car. He said nothing and left the room. He was excited his mom was back, but afraid she would turn again. He decided he would be cautious in her presence; she was still the dragon lady.
*
It hadn’t taken long to pack up the two cars and be on their way. Tim looked like he had been crying. Kevin focused on the carnage out his window. His dad was in the second car with Tim’s mom Sally, Kath, Alex and Shaun. Kevin was with his mom in the Dodge with Tim, Jade and Molly. Their car was out front. His mom steered around abandoned vehicles, tail lights flashing on and off. She turned off the main road, towards the coast, driving through the national park along the winding roads hidden under richly-scented vegetation. As they emerged out into the open, they could see the ocean on their left and as they rose to the top of a hill, Kevin could see the black cloud that hung over the city of Wollongong up ahead. His mom and dad stopped for Alex to use the bathroom at the lookout that was a jumping-off spot for hang gliders. Kevin could see the road winding below.
Thirty minutes later they entered the city and his mom slowed the car to a crawl. Tim said in a flat voice, “Look at that guy.”
Kevin leant across to see out Tim’s window.
“He looks like a zombie, without the blood drooling from his mouth. Why are they so pale?” Tim asked.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said.
“They probably don’t sleep much any more,” Jade replied. “Maybe they are low in iron, barely eat and just — keep wandering the streets, trying to remember what it is that they’re supposed to do.”
“It’s so quiet, nobody is talking,” Callie said. “There is no connection between anybody.”
“Check out his pants, that guy’s too, they look …” Tim hesitated, searching for the right word.
“Soiled,” said Jade.
Callie turned down a side street, away from the coast and towards Saddleback Mountain, some forty miles further south. The street was dark and looked cold. A shiver ran over Kevin’s body. “What the hell?” A winged giant of a beast hovered before them, eating. The banging of the car’s brakes as Callie tried to stop had no comparison with the crunching of bones and the horrific image of
the little clumps of hair caught between the beast’s bloody teeth. It slowly flapped bat-like wings while a scorpion’s tail flicked wildly behind it, lancing into people on the streets. The town was its buffet. Each claw had a person skewered and ready to eat. Over the building tops the grotesque heads of two more beasts could be seen. This one was the biggest and stood at least four storys high.
Callie threw the car into reverse and took the side street they had just passed. Kevin, Tim and Jade swung around to look behind. Molly started crying. He saw his dad enter the side street, closing in behind them. Kevin flung around to see out his side window, leaning his head back to look up and felt the demon looking straight at him. He quickly pulled away from the window. The blood drained from his face, a chill filled his chest and warmth suddenly filled his bladder. Uncomfortable, unable to prevent himself from rubbernecking, he watched the beast swallow a man’s bloody torso. His body became heavy with pain and dread. Suddenly, the creature’s head and body exploded into a thousand tiny versions of itself: it became an angry swarm, and headed in their direction. Molly screamed louder.
Callie yelled, “Guys, face the front.” The car jerked to the right, then to the left and the swarm, like a malicious pyroclastic cloud, raced up behind them. They didn’t have a chance.
Jade’s world spun, vertigo invading her senses. She slowly turned around to look at Kevin in the back seat and slapped his leg for attention. She was short of breath, pretending to be calm. “How do you feel now, K?”
Screwed, is the first thing that came to his mind. Kevin knew what she was hinting at: where, where to, where to go? Then the image of the long driveway leading up to his nanna’s home came into focus. Of course. He hadn’t consciously done this before but he had to believe it was possible. He felt the black wolf start to circle and doubt found a voice laughing in his mind. He pushed it away, blocked it out, and listened to Molly wailing; the sound fueled his desire to succeed, to create a safe place for them all. He looked over his shoulder, making sure his dad was following close behind. The cloud, the shapeshifting beast, the swarm — whatever it was — was close and moving up and over his dad’s car. Kevin saw his dad violently swerve his car from side to side in an attempt to shake it off.