Memories from a Different Future: Jump When Ready, Book 2 (16 page)

Their voices rose as if they were arguing, confused and
desperate. She tried to listen but they were already pulling away to somewhere
between her realm and theirs. She waited, thinking he’d come through again but
the connection was lost. They were gone and she’d failed them. And Ian,
especially Ian. Julie told herself she’d never had much of a chance but that
didn’t keep her eyes from filling. She rose from the couch and crossed the room
to the window. Outside, the rain fell hard.

~~~

Mr. Posten looked at the ceiling as the rain continued to
drum at the roof of the school. As much as it rained in Seattle, it rarely
poured like this. A sudden deluge, when in the winter the rain usually came as
a lingering mist, these years turning to snow more often than it had when he’d
been growing up.

He straightened his tie and filled his mug with coffee. A
short break between classes and then he’d get back to it. Another day of being
barely tolerated at best and despised most of the time. Ironic. He’d once been
close to being a lost cause and now his job essentially amounted to the same.
Still, he’d soldier through another day. He always did, hoping—no, knowing—that
every so often his efforts made a difference.

It’s today. You need to help Emilio.

Mr. Posten stopped cold just as he’d been about to leave
the break room. He shivered involuntarily, then shook his head briskly. No, he
told himself, he had not just heard a voice.

Please, I know you can hear me! You care about Emilio,
right?

Without even thinking, Mr. Posten nodded in response.
Realizing what he’d just done, he attempted to rationalize. Of course, he cared
about Emilio. At his core, Emilio was a good kid. He had potential. Sure, he
was worried too. Emilio had been acting strangely. Still, what the hell had
been thinking yesterday when he’d called the police? Based on what?

He picked up his mug and walked toward the door.

You know it’s today. Please listen—Emilio has a gun.
You need to stop him!

Mr. Posten stopped again before opening the door, head
bowed in thought. He needed to see someone, obviously. A therapist might be
able to help him sort things out. God knows, he probably should have made an
appointment years ago. Or found another way to make a living.

Still, Mr. Posten almost reached for his flexlet. Yes, he
wanted to call the police. But why? To have himself investigated by the school
board? Because that’s exactly what was going to happen if he kept acting like
he was losing his freaking mind.

No, he wasn’t going to call anyone. He was going to walk
down the hall and teach his 10:30 class. And when he got there he’d see Emilio
sitting in his usual spot, trying to act bored and indifferent. Still, even as
Mr. Posten left the break room, he couldn’t shake the certain feeling that he
was dead wrong about Emilio being at school today.

A Faint Light

Nikki felt sick with dread as she and Henry followed Emilio
into the mall. This was actually happening now and she could think of no way to
stop it. Her pulse raced, the beating of her heart amplifying time. Minutes
now. Just minutes. And it seemed that Emilio felt the same way. He stopped to
study the store directory, then sat on a bench nearby where he hunched over and
kept taking deep breaths. He stared at the floor for a few moments, then
clenched his eyes shut.

“What’s going on with him?” Henry said. “What are you
getting?”

Nikki only then realized she’d been too overwhelmed by
her own emotions to be tracking Emilio’s. Now, she tried and it wasn’t easy. A
flood of thoughts and feelings came at her. Years of fear, longing and
desperation. All of that along with this burning present moment.

“It’s total chaos inside his mind,” she said. “He’s
stressing out like crazy.”

“That could be good,” Henry said. “Maybe he’ll change his
mind.”

But Nikki didn’t get that from Emilio. What she got was a
nearly overwhelming sense of resignation. But there was also something else.
Something she just now picked up on. A faint light shining through the darkness
of his thoughts. Somehow it involved waiting. And hoping. Emilio wasn’t just
sitting there freaking out. He was waiting to see if something happened.

“What do you think?” Henry said. “Is he backing out of
it?”

Nikki shook her head. “It’s really hard to be sure. There’s
just so much going on inside his mind.”

Henry locked his eyes on hers. “But Ian’s already on his
way!”

Nikki already knew this, of course. They’d left his house
just minutes before, after all their futile attempts at making some sort of
meaningful contact this morning. The only thing they hadn’t tried was having
Jamie emerge. They’d considered it, definitely, but once again they’d  been too
afraid of the consequences. With all they didn’t know, they knew this
much—people in this realm never reacted predictably when coming literally
face-to-face with someone from theirs.

“Unless the others somehow convince him to stay away,”
Nikki said.

That had been the only thing they could think of
trying—leaving them with Ian while she and Henry tried to intervene with
Emilio.

“Not likely,” Henry said. “Ian seems almost determined to
block us out. I don’t understand. I mean, he
knows
us. You’d think it
would be the opposite—that we’d be able to get through to him.”

Nikki had expected the same before but obviously it didn’t
work that way. In fact, she’d started to wonder if Ian’s familiarity with them
was exactly what caused him not to react. She’d like to ask Martha about it but
there was no time left.

Suddenly, something shifted inside Emilio’s mind—that ray
of light brightening just a bit as he looked up. Nikki turned, terrified,
wondering if she’d see Ian come through the doors just as Emilio made some sort
of decision. Instead, she saw Diego striding into the mall, his eyes slits of
concentration even as, for some reason, his mouth broadened into a grin. Each
time she saw that grin, it reminded her of a carnivorous animal hunting prey.

Diego approached Emilio. “Let’s do this.”

Nikki could almost feel Emilio’s heart pounding as his
thoughts raced. Still, somehow Emilio offered Diego a calm demeanor. “So,
homes, you decided you wanted in.”

Diego smirked. “I’m here, right?”

Henry moved toward them but Nikki held her hand up.
“Wait.”

Henry’s eyes bored into hers. “This might be my last
chance.”

“I know. But I have a feeling about this. I think
something’s shifted. Give it a minute.”

Nikki saw the doubt in Henry’s eyes along with the fear
that they were making a huge mistake. But he stepped back and stood next to
her.

Emilio and Diego started walking.

“So, we’re a team. Is that it?” Emilio said. “Because
this is supposed to be my deal.”

“Yeah, well, you might have to think of a smaller deal to
pull off on your own later. Like some baby steps—know what I mean, homes?”
Again, the wide grin as he looked over at Emilio. “Is that the place?”

Nikki looked past them to see the brightly lit jewelry
store just a few yards away. Two well-dressed women stood behind glass
counters. Emilio appeared to be right—Nikki saw no sign of additional security.

“To hell with that,” Emilio said. “I decided to let you
be a part of things.”

Both of them stopped and stared at each other, the
tension between them literally visible to Nikki as their auras flared.

Diego dropped his voice to a growl while still somehow
continuing to bare his teeth in a sick smile. “I make the fucking decisions,
homes. Don’t forget that like your big bro did. You saw what happened to him.
And guess what,  Mealy—I just made another decision. Give me the gun. You can
celebrate your birthday next week or something.”

Emilio hesitated, glaring at Diego. A moment later, he
reached into his jacket pocket and quickly passed the gun.

“What’s going on?” Henry said.

“Possibly something huge,” Nikki said. That light inside
Emilio’s darkness kept spreading even as his thoughts remained a cacophony.

Maybe it happened exactly as Emilio hoped but Nikki
couldn’t say. Diego took the gun and strode into the store without looking
back. It happened fast. But not so fast that Emilio didn’t have time to make a
decision, since clearly he made one. He remained outside the store’s entrance.
He watched as Diego reached the counter and thrust the gun out at woman
standing closest to the register.

“Open it, bitch.” Diego hissed. “Now.”

“Look,” Henry said.

Nikki followed his gaze just as the other saleswoman
reached beneath the counter and then stepped back again. Suddenly, the alarm
cut through the air, shrieking both inside the store and throughout the mall,
echoing off tiled floors and concrete walls.

Emilio started walking, blending in alongside other
shoppers heading away from the store. Diego’s head swiveled, left and then
right, his eyes wide as he realized his situation. “Who did that!?” he
screamed. “Which one of you bitches did that?”

They stared back mutely, eyes full of fear. Diego kept
the gun pointed at them until he cleared the entrance.

“Stop!” The security guard ran toward Diego, hand on the
button of his shoulder radio. “Robbery in progress! Suspect is a teenager,
Latino, possibly sixteen or seventeen, wearing jeans and a gray t-shirt.”

The man was armed, Nikki realized. Something she hadn’t
noticed before, maybe because it wouldn’t have happened in her last life. Diego
bolted and the guard raised his gun, struggling to keep up as people scurried
for safety. He didn’t fire—he couldn’t with any degree of certainty—and Diego
closed in on the mall entrance just as the cop ran inside.

Ian stood looking around, this time flanked by Jamie,
Simon and Naomi. The little girl broke free from her mother and ran. The mother
froze in confusion. Everything the same but this time Diego had taken Emilio’s
place.

“Drop your weapon!”

Diego skidded to a halt, nearly tripping before regaining
his balance. He turned to run in the opposite direction but the security guard
closed the gap.

The cop pointed his gun at Diego’s back. “Drop your
weapon, now!”

For Nikki, the moments played out in slow motion. She
watched as Diego turned to face the cop again. Before, Emilio’s eyes had
displayed a gamut of emotions ranging from terror to confusion to hopelessness.
Now, only one emotion blazed in Diego’s eyes—pure rage. He raised his gun just
as the woman ran into the line of fire. Ian dashed forward and pushed her out
of the way, leaving himself exposed. The police officer kept his gun locked on
Diego, waiting with narrowed eyes. Diego stared at the cop—seeing nothing else,
all of his anger focused on him alone. He pulled the trigger, the blast
deafening. Ian lurched back, blood spreading at his chest. He dropped to his
knees. The cop fired his gun, once, twice, a third time—deafening explosions
against hard surfaces as the rounds kept coming and Diego spun back, then back
again, each bullet tearing into him.

Nikki closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her ears.
She waited to get sucked through time and space back to her garden. But that
didn’t happen. She opened her eyes as her friends gathered around Ian. Wrapped
in shock, she walked toward them. To everyone else, Ian remained alone, dead on
the floor with no one to rush toward him or cry out or bend weeping over his
body. More police officers rushed in, surrounding the crowd, acting on orders
that no longer mattered, the threat gone. People stared from within stores
where they’d run for cover. None of them saw Nikki, as she knelt and cried next
to Ian’s body. None of them saw Henry, when he placed his hand on her shoulder.
He waited and she finally looked up at him to see tears streaking his face too.

“We should go back now,” Henry said, his voice just above
a whisper. “I’m sorry, Nikki. But we should go back now.”

A Door Left Open

A moment later, they touched down
outside Halfway House and it was like nothing had happened. Everything remained
the same—the sun shining down, the air mild, the peaceful sounds of their
neighborhood the same as always. Still, she waited for some sign showing the
gravity of what had just transpired—the sound of a siren keening against the
sky, the muffled sobs of someone grieving within a nearby house—but no such
sounds came, of course. Even though she knew it made no sense to hope so, just
this once Nikki wished this painless realm she lived in could reflect at least
a recognition of the brutality of the other realm they’d just left. But that
wasn’t how it worked. That reality didn’t exist here, nor could it be created.
She’d been in this realm long enough to know that too. Anger could be
experienced here but not manifest physically. Maybe there was a place in the
afterlife for that—Nikki supposed there had to be—but this wasn’t that place.

Still, this realm wasn’t exempt from sadness and that was
evident from the stricken faces and tears of those surrounding her. In this
moment, there was only one thing for her to do and that was to lend comfort
where she could. Nikki started where it was most clearly needed. She wrapped
her arms around Naomi and drew her close. Naomi pressed her face into Nikki’s
shoulder as she continued to convulse with sadness. Simon and Jamie stared at
the ground, their eyes vacant, while Henry stared into the distance.

Jamie was the first to speak. “I’m really sorry guys, but
at least we tried.”

Simon nodded and, after a moment, Naomi did too while
remaining nestled against Nikki. Henry kept his gaze on the horizon, a muscle
working at his jaw as he thought.

Nikki wondered if he might again be thinking about
whether all of it was in the end random. Whether their efforts mattered or if,
instead, what was meant to be couldn’t be changed regardless of how much they
cared or how hard they tried. She felt herself sinking at the thought of Henry
losing the quality that had drawn her to him in the first place—his steadfast
belief that, even in the afterlife, they could make a difference in the lives
of those they loved. There was so much she wanted to say to him but this wasn’t
the time or place.

Instead, Nikki spoke softly to the group. “Maybe we
should go inside.”

As if they’d all been waiting for that simple prompt,
they shuffled toward the door. Nikki wasn’t sure if they’d split off from one
another once inside but it seemed that none of them were ready for that yet.

Thankfully, Naomi knew exactly what to say. “Let’s go
into the kitchen.”

She probably couldn’t have suggested anything better. If
they could take comfort anywhere, it would be in that smaller space where they
could gather around a table.

In this instance, more like a mother than someone nearly
perpetually a young girl, Naomi automatically went about her task. She turned
on her oven and gathered her bowls and mixes. For once, no one asked what she
was going to bake. After all, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d
offered this moment when they’d been unsure of which step to take next. They
took their seats and when Henry’s eyes finally met hers, Nikki tried to
silently assure him they’d done the best they could. What more could they have
done?

As if reading her mind, Simon said, “I’m sorry, guys, but
we tried everything we could think of. Don’t get me wrong, I feel horrible
about what just happened. But at least we know Curtis is going to be okay.”

When so often Simon’s words were met with rolling eyes,
this time Jamie nodded, albeit half-heartedly. “You mean Ian.”

“Well, that’s kind of my point,” Simon said. “No one
knows better than us, right? As bad as it can get—and take it from a kid who
got smashed by a double-decker—dying is basically just a bad day.”

Nikki waited for at least the corner of Henry’s mouth to
lift in a smile. After all, if anyone deserved license for graveyard humor, it
was definitely them.

Still, the sadness didn’t leave his eyes. That part Nikki
understood, but the distance remained as well, as if Henry had lost part of himself.

Naomi picked up on it too. She stopped mixing batter and
looked over at him. “Henry, are you okay?”

Henry spoke softly. “I’ll be okay, Naomi. Don’t worry
about me.”

When he didn’t add more, Naomi went back to baking,
leaving them sitting in silence. Nikki stared at her clasped hands, still
fighting back tears. When she looked up again, she expected to still see a
collection of downcast expressions but everyone stared across the room. Naomi
too remained frozen in place, her mixing bowl cradled in the crook of her arm,
mouth open and eyes wide. Nikki tracked their gazes to the doorway, where Ian
stood looking back at them.

Henry’s chair screeched against the floor as he jumped to
his feet. “Ian? Do you know where you are? Do you remember us, we’re—”

In that same instant, Ian flickered and faded. For one
moment, the doorway remained empty, then Curtis flickered into view.

Nikki got up and walked toward him. “Are you okay? We
know what happened. We tried to stop it.”

Curtis locked his eyes on hers and opened his mouth to
speak. He stepped toward her, then faded.

Nikki looked around at the others. “Please, someone tell
me what’s going—”

“
Look,” Henry said.

Ian stood in the doorway again, this time with Curtis
next to him, both gazing back at them. Nikki expected to see confusion, fear,
disorientation in their eyes. What she saw, instead, was recognition. A smile
spread across both faces—and Nikki realized only then that Ian and Curtis
shared the exact same smile. Then, both of them faded. Nikki waited to see if
either, or both, would reappear. The doorway remained empty—that simple space,
hallway to kitchen, that had just transformed into a portal between their world
and another.

Suddenly, the room lit up, blindingly white. Nikki
clenched her eyes shut as a blast of heat engulfed her. All of her senses fired
at the same time, skin tingling, ears ringing, hair lifting into the air.
No,
not heat
, she thought.
Electricity. Lightning. We’ve just been struck by
lightning.
But that wasn’t possible and she couldn’t process it. She waited
for pain but instead a nearly overwhelming sensation of peace washed over her,
replacing that sudden charge with a comfort she couldn’t comprehend. The light
started to fade and Nikki opened her eyes again.

A figure stood next to Martha for a second or two at
best, even though—like Ian and Curtis before—this figure was already fading
from view. Even for that short a time, Nikki still had to squint against the
light coming off of him. Or was it her? Nikki couldn’t be sure. All she had time
to make out was the person’s long white hair, piercing golden eyes unlike any
she’d ever seen and a blur of motion that Nikki could have sworn momentarily
took the shape of wings.

“Who was that?” Nikki pointed to the empty space beside
Martha.

Martha hesitated for a moment. “That was Lysrus. I’m
sorry—normally, I’m careful to shift levels completely when coming here but
there wasn’t time, given what happened. I realize that must have been
disorienting.”

“What
did
just happen?” Henry said. “We saw both Ian
and Curtis. How is that even possible?”

Nikki absolutely wanted the answer to that question too.
At the same time, she felt curious about the presence who’d nearly overwhelmed
them by being in the room for just seconds.

“And where did they go?” Jamie said.

At any other time, Nikki would have laughed. Jamie’s head
had whipped back and forth so many times that his mohawk splayed out at bent
angles. Nikki reached up and smoothed her own hair, realizing that the charge
from Lysrus being in their space had left strands still floating in the air.

Naomi knelt on the floor, gathering pieces of her
shattered crockery. Nikki hadn’t noticed her dropping the bowl—hadn’t heard it
either—but that didn’t surprise her.

“Naomi, we can get that later.” Martha spoke softly, her
expression kind as she waited for Naomi to look up at her. “Right now, I’d like
to take you all somewhere.”

Naomi set the shards back on the floor and rose to her
feet.

Martha waited just long enough for all eyes to be on her.
A moment later, they stood on a plateau overlooking a canyon. Across the
divide, a waterfall cascaded into the river below, the powerful crash of water
against stone muffled by distance. Birds swooped through the cloudless sky
above, calling out to each other. Nikki followed Henry’s gaze, wondering what
had caught his attention. She saw it too—on the other side of the chasm, a lone
and ancient fir tree reaching toward the sky, towering on the bluff like a
sentinel. Nikki recognized it immediately—the same tree Henry had chosen to
manifest on his first day among them and in which they’d all met him that first
time.

Naomi said it first, “That’s Henry’s tree!”

“Yes, it is.” Martha waited a moment and turned to Henry.

Henry already seemed to know what she wanted him to say.
“Curtis also jumped into his new life from a tree like that.”

“Exactly,” Martha said. “It seemed fitting. A place for
both endings and new beginnings. Why don’t we sit?”

Martha lowered herself to the ground and the others did
too, arranging themselves in a circle on the soft grass. Nikki suspected such
soft grass would never be at this elevation on Earth—where most likely they’d
be sitting on dry soil and rock—but this wasn’t Earth.

“I wonder if we should start with Lysrus,” Martha said,
surprising Nikki but definitely getting her attention. “I was with Lysrus,
watching, when it happened. The same as you, we weren’t sure of the outcome.
Which is why I showed up rather abruptly. You might say that I didn’t close
that door quickly enough. The only reason you even caught a glimpse of Lysrus
was because of my haste in getting to you.”

“Nearly blinding us,” Simon said.

Martha smiled. “My bad. Isn’t that what you guys say?”

“I don’t,” Simon said.

“Me neither,” Naomi said.

“Yeah, no one says that anymore,” Jamie said.

Martha blushed, something Nikki had seen rarely. “Well,
then. In my day, we would have said, ‘A thousand pardons,’ but I suspect that
might seem a little antiquated.”

“Maybe just a little,” Nikki said. “Unless you’re living
in Camelot or something. Can we get back to Lysrus and what happened with Ian
and Curtis? That may have been the freakiest thing ever.”

The blush faded from Martha’s cheeks as she collected
herself. “As I was saying, I was with Lysrus when it happened. I was asked to
be on the Mentor level for what we imagined to be Ian’s moment of Transition.”

“Is Lysrus a man or a woman?” Nikki knew it didn’t really
matter, especially under the circumstances. Still, she remained curious.

“Neither,” Martha said. “Or both, depending on how you
look at it. To keep things simple, unlike us, Mentors
manifest
all
lifetimes simultaneously whereas we manifest only one a time.” She looked
around at the blank stares facing her. “It’s complicated, so let’s leave any
more about that for another time.”

Nikki thought back to that blinding moment, realizing now
that the light hadn’t come from Lysrus’s presence. It came from the
intersection of their realm with the one Martha visited to be with her Mentor.

“While on Lysrus’s level the perspective is broader than
this one,” Martha said, “some things still remain unknown until the Universe
makes its determination. Even in the simplest of events, the variables are
immense. One action, in one moment of time, can change many things. The reason
I was with Lysrus was to prepare for the likelihood of Ian’s arrival to this
realm. However, Lysrus knew that, in the event of Ian’s death on Earth, he
would have been joining your group here again.”

“But Ian died,” Henry said. “We saw it happen. Just like
we saw it before.”

Martha took a breath and nodded, momentarily closing her
eyes. “You did see Ian die those other times, that’s true. But what you saw
hadn’t happened yet.”

“I don’t understand,” Jamie said.

“Same here,” Simon said. “I don’t get it.”

Martha looked around the circle, no doubt seeing
confusion in each of their faces. “The fact is, it’s not easy to understand.
What you saw was the future as it existed at that time.” She held a hand up to
ward off questions. “You really did see what was going to happen. Right up
until a few moments ago, I also thought that was going to happen. But, clearly,
something changed.”

Nikki made brief eye contact with Henry before asking,
“Was it us? It didn’t seem like we made any difference. I mean, the whole thing
at the mall—” She stopped, realization dawning on her. The shooting at the mall
had still taken place but not as before. It was a similar event—an unbelievably
similar event, still horrible, senseless and vicious—but it wasn’t the same
event. After all, one of the key elements had entirely shifted when Emilio
passed that gun to Diego.

Nikki saw the cloud lift from Henry’s eyes as he too
realized the same thing. In the shock of the moment itself, and in the brief
time that followed, there hadn’t been time to process anything more than
thinking they’d witnessed Ian’s death.

Henry frowned. “We also saw the other version. That time,
the woman got shot instead of Ian.”

“I know,” Martha said, “I’m so happy to learn that other
future didn’t manifest.”

“I still don’t understand,” Naomi said. “How can there be
several different futures?”

Martha glanced briefly at the fir tree in the distance.
“Originally, at least for Ian, there was just the one. He was to have
Transitioned again today. As it turned out, what all of you did resulted in new
possible outcomes. Evidently, in one of those outcomes, a young mother died. In
at least one other—the one you just witnessed—that woman didn’t die and neither
did Ian. As you saw, he got shot and was evidently quite close to dying. Close
enough, in fact, that his spirit appeared here in front you.”