“Well, after a while we were doing really well. He started branching out, building all sorts of advanced equipment for things like airplanes, the space shuttles – pretty much anything that had an engine or any kind of moving parts, Dad got into as an investor, and then as we grew and became engineers, pilots, you name it, well, we started getting more involved in those ends as a family. Now, of course, we do a lot with rescue and emergency gear for every conceivable need. Dad wasn’t around much when we were growing up. Steve did most of the fathering.”
Vincent rose and began to pace around the bedroom again.
“Anyway, there was a point at which he crossed paths with Ibrahim. We didn’t know it then, but Ibrahim was on the run from his cousin.”
“Vasan,” Jane breathed.
Vincent nodded. “He’d almost killed him; he’d been after him for years and had gotten really close. Stumbled onto our property, it was down south of where we live now, and not nearly as big. A few hundred acres, where now we have a few thousand. Anyway, Dad found him sleeping out in one of the barns one day with our horses.”
“And that’s how he came to stay with you?”
“Yeah. What Dad didn’t know at the time was that Ibrahim had a pregnant wife he’d hidden over in Oklahoma. They’d made their way to the Midwest from New York, running for their lives.”
“Why does Vasan want him dead so badly? I never had Ibrahim in my books, I know nothing about this.”
“They hated each other growing up. Well, not Ibrahim, he doesn’t hate anybody. He’s almost like a hippie; he’s always so calm and cool, so quiet and never speaks a bad word about anything or anyone. But Ibrahim was favored by the family matriarch, who was actually Vasan’s mother, as the eldest twin. On top of that, Vasan took the brunt of his father’s beatings and wound up killing him after he had killed Ibrahim’s mother thinking it was his own wife, and then his wife once he’d realized his mistake.”
“You mean his father killed his cousin’s mother, then Vasan’s mother who was her twin sister, and then Vasan killed his own father for having killed his mother and his aunt?”
Vincent nodded, perching on the edge of the chair again. “We don’t know much more than that. Ibrahim doesn’t talk about himself much. So anyway, once Dad found out about her, he went and picked her up himself. Ibrahim’s wife, that is. They just moved in with us, it wasn’t like there was ever any question about it. Three months later, she had her baby. It was a girl.”
Jane’s jaw was hanging open, mirroring the fact that she was hanging on Vincent’s every word. He got up and started pacing again, hands waving in the air like an Italian maestro as the words came tumbling out of his mouth.
“Vasan caught up to him, I will never know how he found Ibrahim and his family on our ranch, but he did and he attacked. I was only seven at the time, but I remember it clearly, like it was only yesterday. Vasan attacked Dad, knocked him out cold. Steve had put Johnny and me in Dad’s bedroom closet with the baby, told us to keep her quiet until he came back for us. I remember holding that little girl against me, talking to her. To you.”
Their eyes met across the room. Jane’s lower lip trembled. “Me?”
“Yeah,” he said softly, moving to sit down on the near side of the bed. He half-turned so he was facing her. “I didn’t know what happened out in the living room that night. Steve wouldn’t say Word One about it and Dad was out cold. But what came of it was that you and Katherine, Mrs. Katie, we used to call her, you were gone and Ibrahim was…well, he was a broken man.”
“Wait, but you said you were holding me.”
“I was up until Steve came and got you. He took you and told me and Johnny to stay put, so we did. It seemed like forever until he came back. I asked where you were, and he said you had to leave. For the longest time I thought you’d died. Vasan was nowhere, and you and Mrs. Katie were just plain gone. I guess Dad knew all along, Steve told him, or maybe Ibrahim, I don’t know. It wasn’t until I turned eighteen that I asked Steve again what had happened.”
“And that’s when he told you.”
Vincent nodded.
“Ibrahim knew the moment Dad got knocked out that he had a choice to make. Vasan already had Katie and was threatening to kill her and you if Ibrahim didn’t come with him. So somehow he opened up a portal. I never did know how he did it until about a year ago. It’s some sort of way he has, some kind of power or something. He raises his hands and does this chanting sort of thing, and a doorway appears. Of course, now we’ve got stable ones that our scientists built for us based on what we know about inter-dimensional travel, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.”
Jane yawned in spite of herself. Vincent scooted up to the head of the bed, patting the mattress next to him. Jane crawled up and straight into his arms, settling her head just under his shoulder. He held her close, his husky voice vibrating straight through to her marrow.
“Steve said Ibrahim told him to go get baby Janie so he could say good-bye. That’s when he came and got you from me. He ran back out to the living room and found Katie kneeling on the floor next to a door in the wall that hadn’t been there before. She was holding her neck and coughing like she’d been choked, and Vasan had his hands around Ibrahim’s neck and was choking him. He gave you to Katie and ran for Vasan, jumping onto his back and pummeling him.”
“My God, how old was he?”
“Only ten. Johnny was just four. Steve’s always been like that, he was used to defending us, I guess, and he never backed down from a fight. He distracted Vasan long enough for Ibrahim to get free. Steve said he only caught a glimpse, but what Ibrahim did was pick Katie up off the floor and throw her through the portal. He then did some sort of incantation and the door closed. By that time, Vasan was almost killing Steve and Dad was starting to come to. Ibrahim got his cousin off Steve, but Vasan’s just bigger and stronger. If it wasn’t for Dad and his old Winchester, Ibrahim might’ve died that day.”
“You mean your father shot Vasan?”
“Sure did, right through the shoulder. Vasan went running out into the night and we never saw or heard from him again until two years ago.”
“Two years. I started publishing two years ago.”
Vincent nodded, his thumb making small circles on Jane’s back. “But I’m getting ahead of myself again. You see, what Ibrahim had done to protect his wife and daughter, was send them into another dimension. He figured it was the only way to keep them safe from Vasan. He thought he was going to die that night, and if you two weren’t where Vasan could get you, at least he’d die knowing you were safe.”
Tears came to Jane’s eyes again, falling and wetting Vincent’s shirt.
“But he was devastated. I don’t think he ever stopped loving Katie, and I know he’s pined after you every day for thirty of your years. You were only two when that happened, I guess, but as I said, time moves differently, and the best we can tell is that this dimension’s time aged you a bit or something. We haven’t quite figured it out.” Vincent sighed softly. “What was interesting was that Dad and Ibrahim became inseparable. It’s like they’re more than best friends.”
“How can you be more than best friends?”
“We’ve long suspected they’re together as a couple, though they’ve never said so and we don’t really ask.”
She raised her head and looked into his eyes. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I mean, I can’t fathom either of them being gay given their histories, but maybe they’re bisexual or maybe they just have that kind of bromance thing going on.”
“That involved, huh?”
“More than involved. They’re each other’s oxygen, Steve once said. Someday maybe you’ll find out for sure.”
She settled back down into his arms. “Maybe I will.” She wiped at her eyes. “So you said when you were eighteen, Steve finally told you what happened that night.”
“Yep. And no sooner had he finished the story than I was in Dad’s stu
dy busting his ass about trying to find you. One of the things he’d started dabbling in, due to Ibrahim’s influence, no doubt, was the idea of traveling to other dimensions, and traveling through time. He started a sixth company under the Lightning Enterprises umbrella specifically to deal with research into it. That was about a year after I approached him. I was nineteen and already attending engineering school in Minnesota.”
“So you are an engineer.”
“Sure am. Steve’s the one that went into the Air Force, but you already know that, and Johnny’s been dabbling in a bit of everything, I think, from space travel to discovering planets and stars to inventions. We all work for one or more of the companies directly now, though. Can’t get enough of it. Where else can you spend all your time dreaming up new ways of doing things, new ways of flying, of going higher in the sky, deeper into the oceans? Of helping save lives by creating equipment so badly needed around the world?” He laughed self-consciously. “Sorry, I don’t usually talk this much.”
“I don’t mind,” she grinned. “Your dad, he started the company and had them researching dimension traveling?”
“Yes. And secretly I think Ibrahim was trying to find out all those years which dimension you and Katie had gone to. He hadn’t known himself because he figured if he didn’t know, Vasan couldn’t get it out of him. Dad combined whatever Ibrahim was doing with the technology and scientific minds at his disposal and finally a couple of years ago, Ibrahim stumbled upon you. Unfortunately, Vasan had gotten to you first.”
“A couple years ago? But Vasan first came to me when I was a young child, and so did Ibrahim!”
“I told you, time runs differently between our dimensions. Over here it’s been more than thirty years for you. For us, it’s been roughly twenty. Don’t ask me to explain; we don’t really understand how it works, either.”
“You mean it isn’t the same year for you?”
“No. We’re at 2044 right now.”
“But it’s only 2018 here.”
“Exactly.”
“Whoa.”
They were silent for a time as each worked to process everything. Jane was in shock. “I don’t understand, Vincent. If my mother and I came over here, and she didn’t die when I was four days old, then what happened to her? And if Ibrahim is my father, who the hell is Tom Marsh?”
“I can’t say exactly what happened, but we spent the better part of a year after Ibrahim found you trying to figure it out. We were able to see you, watch you. We were even able to bend things, go back and see your childhood at certain points. What we pieced together was that when you and Katie snapped into this dimension, it snapped someone else out of here. It turns out Tom did marry a Katherine, and to everyone over here, Katie looked like Katherine Marsh. They also had a baby girl named Jane, and to Tom, you looked like his baby girl.”
Jane sat up straight and looked over at Vincent. “But my mother. What happened to her?”
“Best we can figure is she couldn’t survive over here. Not after the trauma on our side, then getting slammed into an unknown dimension.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Just like time is different here, the energy is different, too. It’s all very complicated. I mean, I’m a good engineer, but half the stuff those scientists spout is clean over my head. It has to do with your chemical composition. It’s going to reflect, or be equal to, whatever dimension you’re from. So if you spend too much time in another dimension, you’ll slowly deteriorate until you die altogether.”
“But what about me? I didn’t die.”
“No. Dad thinks it’s because you were so young when it happened. He thinks your body was able to adjust to this dimension’s energy, but the truth is that your energy pattern is so different over here, so unique, that it’s easy to find you once you find the right dimension. We think that’s how Vasan located you, was through an energy pattern search. It’s something Ibrahim didn’t even know about until we started applying science to it, for him it had always been something more mystical that he’d learned from his mother and grandmother.”
Jane leaned back on the headboard. “My head hurts.”
“So does mine.”
“Oh, my God, are you okay? Are you dying over here?” she shrieked, immediately looking into his eyes, her hands on either side of his face.
He chuckled. “No, no, I’m fine. Of my brothers, my father and Ibrahim, I’m the one that does the best over here for the longest period of time before I start feeling weak. When that happens, I just go back over to my side and it sort of recharges my batteries or something. It takes a couple days, but then I’m back to normal.”
“God, don’t scare me like that.” Jane moved closer and lay across his chest, arms winding tightly around him. “This is almost too much, you know?”
“I know. And I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she yawned. “I just…I’m so…” She yawned again.
“Listen, why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll stay here; make sure Vasan doesn’t come back.”
She nodded and thought to say something in the affirmative, but the words died on her lips as her eyes closed and she drifted away.
Vincent kissed the top of Jane’s head, arms wrapping protectively around her body. “Oh, Janie,” he sighed. “Please believe me this time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was light when she awoke. The first thing Jane noticed was that she was alone in her bedroom. “Vincent!” she called out, sitting bolt upright as fear gripped her heart. “Vincent!”
He came tearing into the room, looking around wildly. “What? Are you okay?”
She jumped off the bed and into his arms. “I thought you left me.”
“No, not yet, but I’ve got to be getting back to my side pretty soon.”
“Are you getting weak?”
“A little, yeah. I don’t know how much good I’d be against a fully-charged Vasan right at this moment.”
Jane backed away a step and looked into his eyes. “Then let’s go.”
He reached out and cupped her cheek. “Are you sure?”
“From what you’ve told me, I’ve got some apologizing to do. And…” She looked away for a moment. “A father to get to know.”
“So you’re saying you believe me now?”
“I don’t think I have a choice. While I was asleep, I had a dream that matched damn near everything you said.”
“Yeah, you were kind of mumbling a little.”
“It was so real.” She eyed him for a moment. “I just want to know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Why did you tell me you’d loved me as long as you can remember? You were only seven when I was taken, and I was around two, you said.”
“I don’t know how to explain it. From the second you were born, you were mine. I’d hold you, rock you to sleep, play with you for hours on end. When I saw you again for the first time two years ago, it just hit me.”
“How old are you right now?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“So you’re only one year older than me? That doesn’t make any sense; you were five years older than me.”
“That time thing, remember?”
Jane nodded. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I started falling in love with you when I thought you were Trevor. I don’t sleep with just anyone, you know.”
Vincent looked down at the floor. “That was my first time.”
“What? You were a…no way.”
“I told you, you were always in my heart.” He smiled a watery smile. “There’s never been anyone else for me, Jane, and there never will be.”
The impossibility of his convictions weighed heavily on her mind. How could people living in two different dimensions get involved like that? Knowing as little as she did about it all, however, she decided to just leave it as it was and worry about that particular aspect of all this later.
“Vincent, before we go over there’s something else I need to know.�
�
“Name it.”
“What is it you and your family need from me? Why all the work at making Darvon look like it was still alive? Why the charade as Trevor?”
Vincent turned and, as was his way, began to pace as he spoke. “Once we got the permanent portal built, there were still some glitches. As I said, we discovered I was the one who could last over here the longest, just through pure trial and error. Not to mention the fact that I was up Dad’s ass about being the one to make contact. But we realized you weren’t at a point yet where you could really open up and accept all this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your childhood, the way you grew up. When Ibrahim found out what had happened to you, what you’d had to endure, I thought he was going to go stark raving mad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that upset or angry before or since, it just isn’t in his makeup. But he blames himself for the whole thing since he pushed you and Katie into this dimension.”
“He couldn’t have known.”
“No, but that doesn’t seem to assuage his guilt. Anyway, we consulted with a renowned psychologist and presented it to him as a theoretical case, wanting to know how he would handle it. He helped us come up with a plan, and that was for you to come back to Darvon, which we knew to be a ghost town, in order to sift through your life and come to terms with it. The doctor said otherwise you’d be kind of like a champagne bottle that had been shook up too much, and if we just approached you and said, “Hi, Jane, we’re real,” you would have blown your top and gone crazy.”
“That’s comforting.”
“I know. And we definitely didn’t want you losing your mind. But we also didn’t have a lot of time. So we got the help of Xyza, the woman who pretended to be Trevor’s mother for your benefit. She’s a powerful psychic and healer here in your dimension. She managed to get those people for the café so you’d think everything was normal. She even got people out there at the school for you to think there was a track meet going on.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of work. Why would a stranger do that for you?”
Dimensions Page 13
