Return to Darkness

by Rebecca Royce

  It was like I floated through time, looking at things. Eventually, presumably because I was no expert, I’d land with Mr. Chee.

  But for a second, I floated, staring at a scene in front of me. It was Aaron and Oliver with their mom and dad. Their sister, who I hadn’t seen since she was little, must have been about two. Oliver and Aaron were younger than I’d ever known them. They were wearing overalls that matched, except that Aaron’s had train cars on the sleeves of the white shirt he wore underneath, and Oliver had no shirt at all.

  “We’re moving,” Mr. Chee announced, kissing his wife’s cheek. “To Vermont. There is a legitimate sighting of Champy in Lake Champlain. I need to see it for myself. You know how I love the lake monsters.”

  Their mother turned to them. “Who can tell me what Champy is?”

  Aaron looked down at his hands, and Oliver threw his head back on the chair. “I like it here.”

  Their mother patted him gently on the shoulder. “I know. We’ve had a long stay in Maryland. It’s very pretty here. The people have been nice. But you know what our lives are like, sweetheart. Dad has a job to do and this is our life. The whole family is involved.”

  Tears streamed down Aaron’s cheeks, but he stayed silent. Oliver, however, noticed them. His gaze flared with anger. Funny. I knew it well. It hadn’t changed at all into adulthood.

  I floated away, this time hovering over Thorn and Colton. They sat on a beach, jeans rolled up above their ankles as they stared at the ocean.

  “What do we do?” Thorn asked.

  “We need jobs,” Colton replied. “Get some money, and then we try again.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to call.”

  Seagulls shrieked over their heads. The sun was starting to go down over the ocean. I wondered if this was while they were in California.

  “It’ll make you sick,” Thorn said.

  “Don’t care.” Colton’s thumb hovered over the keys. Sweat broke out along his forehead and upper lip. He swallowed hard and his hand shook. “Fuck.”

  He took deep breaths that made his nostrils flare. I watched him struggle to move his hand, and finally, he gave up. Flinging the phone next to him, he buried his head in his hands. “She’s going to think we ran away from her.”

  “We’ll explain,” Thorn replied. “She’ll understand.”

  Around me, colors swirled and my head spun. I had to shut my eyes as dizziness overwhelmed me, but it didn’t stop the pitch and roll of my body through space.

  All at once, it stopped and I hit the ground hard. The stones I’d clutched in my hands tumbled away, and I snatched them quickly and shoved them into my pocket.

  “I’m ready.”

  Mr. Chee knelt next to me. His hair, usually dark and smooth like his sons’, was messy and greasy. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he looked thinner. I’d just seen him today, but from his appearance, I had the sense he’d been alone much longer.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Ready to get home,” he replied, shaking his head. “I don’t know how you did it, Lacey. You lined up one timeline after another like it was nothing.”

  “And you?” What had he done while I was gone?

  “It’s done.” He sighed. “I don’t know if it worked, but it’s done.”

  Fuck. I didn’t say it out loud, because there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Whatever he’d done with Erdirg, I’d have to deal with it when I got back. He reached his hand toward mine, so I took it.

  And ripped it away again. There was something strange about his skin. It was paper-thin. Beneath it, his bones were fragile, like if I held too hard, I’d break them. “Mr. Chee?”

  “You can do this,” he said. He took my hand and stood, pulling me up with him. The sun was hot and revealed fine lines all over his face. An urgency I didn’t understand possessed me. This place wasn’t good for him. It was taking something away from him.

  We were pulled from the desert, lifted into the air, and flung across the sky. I wasn’t sure if I was controlling this. I was the fish on the end of a hook that was being reeled in. Clinging to Mr. Chee, I shut my eyes. The wind burned my skin and stung my eyes.

  As fast as we flew forward, we stopped. And dropped.

  Mr. Chee yelled, trying to pull his hand from mine, but I held on tighter. We had to stay together. If I was the only thing that would bring him back, then he had to stay connected to me.

  My hair flew around my head as we plummeted. I mashed my lips together to keep from screaming. All I could picture was the earth coming up to meet me and my body smashing into it.

  In the end, there was no smashing, no hitting. Nothing. I was simply back where I had left. In the room where I’d left the guys. This time, Mr. Chee was next to me. He looked over, nodding at me for a long second before he drifted away. Dust in the wind. I reached for him, but he disappeared.

  As though he’d never been there at all.

  I cried out. What had happened? Mr. Chee…

  I looked around. Aaron. Oliver. Colton. Thorn. Where were they? I was alone. I got to my feet. They would never have left here, left me here. And now their father was dead.

  “Who’s there?” A female voice shouted as two half-dressed people rushed into the room. They stared at me before the man, who stood on the left, advanced fast. “Who the fuck are you? Get out of here or I’m calling the cops.”

  The woman grabbed a poker from the fireplace and advanced on me like she was going to hit me with the fucking thing.

  I gasped. “Stop. I don’t mean any harm. I… I don’t know what’s going on. I’ll go. Now.” I turned and ran out the door, skidding to a stop only when I’d gotten a distance from the house. No, this was wrong. Looking left and right, I stared around. The house we’d rented—that now had two strangers in it—was in a development that had large, though run-down houses everywhere. While that one remained the same, the street was busy now. Bigger apartment buildings marred the landscape and several commercial buildings were visible in the distance.

  What in the hell?

  My hands shook. What had happened? How long had I been gone? This was like some fucked up Back to the Future thing. Smoke billowed in the distance, lights lit my surroundings up like it was daytime, even though the sky was black.

  This was a smallish town. It was never so bright at night that we couldn’t see the stars.

  I needed help. While I’d been with Mr. Chee, something had shifted. I had to find the guys. Only they’d be able to tell me what occurred and how we were going to fix it.

  I patted my jeans, hugely relieved to see my phone was right where it had been. Pulling it out, I dialed the first number I saw in my contacts.

  Aaron picked up on the first ring. “This is Aaron Chee. How can I help?”

  That seemed like a pretty odd way for him to pick up the phone. “Aaron? It’s Lacey. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  There was a long pause before he spoke again. “I’m sorry. Who did you say this was?”

  “Lacey.” A thought dawned on me as I answered him. What the fuck else had changed?

  He hung up.

  I stared at it, watching the screen fade to black. What the hell just happened? Okay. Time to take stock. I’d traveled through time to get Mr. Chee. As I traveled, I’d happened upon the past. When I arrived here, Mr. Chee disappeared. I returned to a house where I was clearly not the occupant, and not just because I’d arrived a few hours after I’d left the first time.

  Aaron had just hung up on me.

  I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  Chapter 7

  Rather than risk getting arrested for hanging out in front of someone’s house, I started walking toward the bright lights.

  I was home. That much I knew, but everything was different. My first instinct that I’d Back to the Future’d was actually right on.

  Shit.

  And not even a good Back to the Future. Like the first or the third movie. This was definitely the second and
my least favorite version of the film. I’d come back through time and landed in an alternate reality.

  Police sirens wailed through the night, the sound so loud I covered my ears with my hands. Four cruisers whipped by me and kept on going.

  As they got further away, I became aware of my phone going off. I took it out of my pocket. Aaron. “Hello?” My voice shook.

  “Who is this?” he asked. “Really? Did Kelly put you up to this? Because it’s not fucking funny.”

  I’d never heard Aaron use that tone of voice before. It was hard. Bitter. Nothing like the compassionate guy I knew.

  “Aaron.” My throat tightened, and I shut my eyes. “It’s Lacey. I need your help.”

  “Prove it.”

  “One night, my grandmother slapped me. You would have stopped her, but you got stuck under the bed.” Silence filled the other end of the line. It went on so long I was afraid we’d been disconnected. “Hello?”

  “I’m here.” He cleared his throat. “Jesus, Lacey. Where are you?”

  I rattled off the address of the house we’d rented. “But I’m down the street a ways. On the sidewalk, headed toward town. I think.”

  “Stay where you are,” he demanded. “Don’t talk to anyone until I get there. In fact, get away from the road. Find a tree or some bushes. Got it?”

  The urgency in his voice only built up the anxiety in my stomach. “Okay,” I answered as I backed off the sidewalk toward a bus stop. I could lean against it while still watching the road. And bonus, the streetlight was out above it, so no one would be able to see me. The wind blew and I shivered. Wrapping my arms around my middle, I watched the road. If I could hang on until Aaron got here, everything would be all right.

  I just needed the guys. Together, we could figure this out.

  It wasn’t long before headlights illuminated the road. An SUV went by, stopped, and turned around in a driveway. I stepped toward the sidewalk as it pulled to a stop in front of the bus stop.

  A motor whirred as the window rolled down, revealing a familiar—and very loved—profile. “Lacey?”

  “Thank god.” I ran to the car, even knowing everything was messed up, and that Aaron would never stare at me with this combination of horror and disbelief as he slowly exited the vehicle. I threw my arms around his neck. He didn’t hug me back. That was a huge change. Instead, he sort of took my body and placed me an arm’s length away from him.

  “How is this possible?” His voice shook. “Lacey Madison? I’m… I mean I’ve had encounters with ghosts. You can’t spend your life in my parents’ world and not, but not like this. How are you solid?”

  My mind had a hard time digesting what he said. How was I solid? “Aaron.” I finally had to say something because if I didn’t, he might leave, and I needed him to stay here. If that made me needy, then so fucking be it. “Am I dead in this reality?”

  His mouth fell open. “In this reality? What other reality is there?”

  My whole body shook. “Oh, a completely different one. A big, big different one, and when I woke up this morning, I promise you I was living in a reality where I wasn’t dead.” My voice squeaked, and I forced myself to swallow. “Okay. Okay. How did I die?”

  “How did you die?” He ran a hand through his hair. It was so much shorter. His hair was as short as Oliver’s. Funny, stupid detail to get fixated on, but that was what I did. I could never stay on the subject.

  “You were killed by a demon, Erdirg,” he finally said. “He blew up your house with you inside of it.”

  I could have laughed. Only this wasn’t funny. “The house. Right? Okay. Only I didn’t die in it. I used that money to buy bus and maybe ferry tickets, because I can’t remember how I got through Canada. I went to Alaska. In this reality, I died in it. Got it. And that means your father killed Erdirg, right?”

  He opened and closed his mouth. “Yes. A few weeks later. He killed Erdirg.”

  I rubbed at my eyes. My whole body was cold. This was… this was too much. Mr. Chee had wanted to kill Erdirg so I didn’t have to, and so he instead created a reality in which I was dead and he killed the demon. This was so fucked up. This wasn’t helping me. And maybe that was why I was here and he’d vanished into dust. Because there couldn’t be two of us here. I didn’t exist here at all, but he did, so the version of him disappeared.

  “Aaron, this isn’t going to make any sense to you. But is it possible that somewhere inside of you, you could accept that there is another existence, an existence your father screwed with because of some legend he’s preoccupied with, that I killed Erdirg? That I didn’t die in that house? That… you and I are…” I let my voice fade off. “And that he screwed all of that up? Do you think you could accept that as even the smallest possibility?”

  He turned away from me. This is it. He’s leaving. But he didn’t. He turned back around, fast.

  And then he enfolded me in his arms.

  “Aaron.” I wrapped my arms around his waist as tight as I could. “I went to bed with you last night. You kissed me. Held me.”

  “It seems too good to be true.” His voice was choked, and he buried his face against my neck. “God. You smell the same. I’d forgotten what you smelled like.” He pushed me away, holding me out so he could study me. “You’re my age, right?” He touched his thumbs next to my eyes. “I can tell you smile a lot. And you’re just as beautiful. More so.”

  He was handsome, too. But there was a tiredness to his eyes that the Aaron I’d left hadn’t had. It was like he’d been worn down. “How is your brother?” I asked. “And Thorn and Colton? Are you all still working together?” Taking care of each other?

  Aaron reached past me, going back to his car door and opening it. “Get in. It’s not safe out here.” He hit the lock on the door and gestured toward the passenger side. “I’d open your door for you, but I’m afraid someone will jump in and take off with it while I do.”

  Oh. That was a depressing thought. “Okay.” I hurried around to the passenger side door and got in. As I shut the door, I was hit by the scent of cigarette smoke. Did he smoke?

  I clicked my seatbelt into place and examined the car. In the window was a little sign identifying Aaron as a rideshare driver. “You’re not writing?” I asked.

  He glanced at me sharply as he put the SUV in drive. “No. I’ve never been a writer.” He let out a breath. “That last year of homeschooling was just a mess. I feel like I’ve forgotten more than I ever learned. I never could have been a writer.”

  “Well, at least you’re not dead, right?” I dropped my head. What the fuck was wrong with me?

  I could feel Aaron’s eyes on me. I glanced toward him and he was studying me, a weird look on his face. “That’s exactly the sort of thing I’d expect you to say. You’re really you.”

  “I am. Bad jokes, awkward timing, and everything.” He hadn’t answered my question about the others though, and I had the feeling he was ignoring that on purpose. “So you still live here?”

  “I do,” he replied. Blue lights flashed, reflecting off the windshield, and he pulled to the side. But like the cruiser earlier, it flew by us. “Not that I want to stay. It’s just—I can’t leave.”

  That didn’t seem to make much sense. “Why can’t you leave?”

  Their family lived everywhere. They could go ahead and go anywhere they wanted, anytime they wanted. He probably had a list of better places than this.

  His sigh was long. “Someone has to be here to keep Oliver in line. If I don’t have lunch with him at least once a week, I’m convinced that he’ll fly off the handle and screw up the terms of his parole. He can’t leave here. Until he can, I can’t either.”

  There was bitterness in his voice that I wasn’t used to from him. Between that and the cigarette smoke, I was surprised he wasn’t choking. This was awful. What had happened? “What did he do to land in jail?”

  He winced. “He beat the shit out of your cousin a year after you died. Erdirg had just been dealt with and your c
ousin was being a jackass at a memorial my mom had set up. They got into it, and your cousin died. They tried Oliver as an adult. We were strangers in town versus your cousin, who was a local boy.”

  I shook my head. “Yeah, but they hated us. My cousin wouldn’t have anyone wanting to help him. Trust me on that. Erdirg turning everyone against me aside, my cousin got into all kinds of shit.”

  “Well, the devil you know, as they say. When it came down to it, my brother spent most of the last decade in jail. Now, he’s raving, on drugs, and can barely keep his job at the grocery store. It isn’t pretty.”

  My heart fell into my stomach and tears came to my eyes. “Your father did this because he wanted you guys to have a better life, one where he put you guys first and things went better for you. A stable family. I don’t understand how this all got so screwed up.”

  Aaron’s jawline was tight when he spoke. “My father wants all kinds of things.”

  I sat forward. “What about Colton and Thorn? Are they okay?”

  “Ah… yeah, I think so. I don’t really see them much. Colton went into business with his father, and I think Thorn is coaching football at the high school. He does odd jobs around town. After his parents split up and his dad lost all their money, he’s been a little bit lost. But Colton is the one I avoid.”

  I side-eyed him. “Why’s that?”

  “I never see him that he’s not doing something ugly.” He shook his head. “He’s not a good guy.”

  We pulled into a driveway that must have been the apartment building where Aaron lived. This was awful. Every single second of it and I couldn’t leave it like this. No, if this was how things were. In this world, I hadn’t been the one to get rid of Erdirg. And that had fucked everything up. I let out a breath. Okay, then. I was going to figure out how to fix that.

  Inside Aaron’s apartment, I could see little flashes of the guy I knew. There was a bookcase full of books, the bindings torn and worn so much I couldn’t even make out the titles. There was a picture of him and Oliver standing in front of the ocean, Oliver must have been about fourteen and Aaron younger. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders, and they wore matching smiles. This was before I’d ever met them.