by C. M. Murphy
If only he could convince Alma to quit her plan to kill that vampire. They should be on the run right now.
Taylor entered the kitchen with his mug. "I think I'm beginning to like coffee," he said, reaching for the pot and pouring himself a cup. "I'm usually a tea drinker, but this stuff isn't so bad."
Doug smiled. He'd always thought of his boss as a hard ass, but seeing him with Win Win changed his perception. It humanized Taylor.
"What makes it hard to tell the truth is that you're trying to control her response," Taylor said. "You can't do that. She gets to have all of her feelings and thoughts about the betrayal. The more you try to control how she sees it, the harder it is to do, and the worse off you'll be."
Before Doug could respond, his boss left. The man was giving up The Observatory for Win Win. Doug wondered if he, himself, would do that for Alma. And within a second the answer was a resounding yes. The place wasn't what he thought it was. Almost losing Alma to that James character had altered Doug's outlook. Doug remembered how betrayed Alma felt when she thought that guy Haniel was her Witness and how mad she'd been upon hearing that Taylor had been Win's Witness. She still didn't know that her father, Stu, had been her mom's Witness. He wondered how Alma would take that news.
His boss was right. He needed to come clean and deal with the consequences. He took a gulp of his coffee and headed for the living room to talk to Alma.
Alma was seated on the couch talking to Win Win, Leo, and Professor Cassidy. She still hadn't fully let go of the idea that nothing had changed. Alma picked up Irene Polk's book and looked at the signature page again.
"Alma, can I talk to you for a minute?" Doug said, trying to sound casual.
Win, Cassidy, and Leo all stopped and looked at him.
"Sure," Alma said. "What's up?"
"You want some coffee?" Doug asked, wanting to talk somewhere private.
"Good idea," Alma said as she stood up still holding onto the book. "Maybe you can help me figure out why my mom thought this useless book was so important."
"Yeah," Doug said, hoping she'd forgive him when he told her the truth. No one knew that Alma wasn't entirely "here" in the present. She'd be able to remember this moment when she returned, but in this moment, in the way humanity perceived time, Alma was with Kayli.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Haniel stood under the scalding water of the shower. He'd returned home to the shoe repair shop. The water failed to seer away his guilt, and now it threatened to turn cold. Haniel's heightened senses picked up on the slight wane in water temperature. Rather than wait, Haniel shut off the hot water and turned the unused cold water dial sharply to the right.
His red skin jumped at the shock of cold water pouring down on him. The muscles in his body clenched, and an uncontrollable shiver shuddered through his body. He hadn't been burned by the water despite its obvious heat. No blisters appeared on his arms or chest. He wondered if his body was more resilient now, but that thought passed.
His guilt remained.
He'd "acquired" the waitress and his father.
Haniel realized he held the knowledge of his father, the waitress, and all the people his father acquired.
But the knowledge about Alma called to him the most. Did she know that her real father was a paramortal? James had been in love with Alma's mother, but she'd run off with another paramortal.
Together they'd made Alma, one of the rare few who could conquer time. James had craved that power, but Haniel didn't want it. He wanted Alma. James wasn't worthy of Alma's mother, Bernadette, but that wasn't because he didn't have power. It was because he'd been married. James had killed Haniel's mother to make room for Bernadette. But reaching into his father's memory, Haniel could see that he hadn't intended to kill his first wife. He'd just wanted to leave her, but—
It was the same as what happened this afternoon for Haniel.
Haniel steered his thoughts away from that painful train of thought. He wasn't married, and now he had power. Alma would most certainly love him. He'd win her over. They'd raise a family. Their child would be like no paramortal before. This was his destiny. He'd been drawn to that waitress, because she was smart and looked like Alma. But she was just a mortal. Alma was different—better.
Haniel rifled though his mind to get more information about Alma from the memories his father acquired from Bernadette. There were holes in Bernadette's memory, self-inflicted gaps in her memory. She'd known about James somehow. She knew Alma was in danger and must've warned her. That's why his father's psychic abilities had been week. Bernadette had managed to diminish her abilities before he killed her. She'd done it to save Alma and keep her from danger.
And now Alma wasn't in danger anymore. He'd taken care of that. Her mother would be happy to know that. Alma would be happy to know these things about her mother. He could share these memories with Alma, and she'd love him for it.
Alma.
Alma was his answer. His redemption. His destiny.
And he knew exactly where she was.
Alma didn't like having Kayli inside her mind. It seemed invasive. Guilt gnawed in Alma's gut. She'd jumped into the mind of Irene Polk and forced the woman to commit murder.
"You did, or I should say, we did do that," Kayli answered. "It's why I didn't force you to walk into this room."
"But then why didn't James die?" Alma asked.
"He did in that reality," Kayli said. "I'll show you."
Kayli stepped into the abyss of space, but didn't fall. She waved to Alma to follow her. Alma stepped into the darkness, relieved to find what felt like solid ground beneath her, her favorite kind of solid ground—the soft cushion of grass over the top of solid dirt. It struck her that Kayli had known that and created that part of the construct to help Alma feel more secure.
"And because I like it, too," Kayli said, weaving her way through the stars. "I'm you, after all."
"When are you, me?" Alma asked, annoyed that Kayli kept answering her thoughts. She preferred private thoughts.
"I guess about nine lifetimes from now," Kayli answered. "But a lot happens between now and then."
Alma noticed that the stars were actually moving. Looking more closely, it looked like a working model of the universe.
"In two decades they'll be able to get better images of the brain. It looks a lot like this, too," Kayli said. "It's not a coincidence either."
As they approached a particular star, that bit of the universe grew larger. Their surroundings zoomed back in time to the point where Irene Polk shot James Hanker. It was as if it were playing on a tiny television screen in a bubble. The picture froze, and Alma noticed that dozens of little bubbles surrounded it—like a cell multiplying.
"That's the different timelines," Kayli said. "You're in this one," she said, touching the bubble, so it lit up into a beautiful flame of gold. "I'm in it too, but farther down," Kayli said. And with those words a shimmering, golden, spidery web illuminated, connecting a series of bubbles and spinning stars that went on into what looked to be infinity. "The one where he dies exists next to it," Kayli said, touching one of the bubbles. "There might be one where he's injured. One where he knows what you're doing and stops you," she said, pointing to the bubbles around it. "We just can't see them all, but they exist. Everything exists. But the construct that is Alma and Kayli can't always see them."
"So there's no changing your fate?" Alma asked.
"Yes, and no," Kayli said. "Time is just the way we perceive the Nature of What Exists. But the truth is it already exists. So in that way there is no changing your Fate, because we only experience where we are. For the most part, in the timeline, you can control what you experience along the Nature of What Exists."
"Not understanding what you're saying."
Kaylie pointed to the spinning, golden bubble. "You're here. Another version of you is here," she said, pointing to another bubble. "But you can only experience where you're at. Each choice and decision creates a new path for you, but th
e 'you' you regard as yourself only experiences one."
"And when I go back in time?" Alma asked.
"You can travel up and down your own timeline and even jump into another person's reality and do the same for theirs."
"But if I can switch people, why can't I switch versions of me and experience an alternate timeline?" Alma asked.
"You can, but you won't be able to sustain it for long."
"Why?" Alma said.
"I think it has something to do with how all of this works. You see, the truth is reality, even our expanded version of it, is all just a construct. There is no time. There is no you or me. And the more we move amongst it, the closer to that truth we get."
"That sounds like fortune cookie crap," Alma said. Something about this interaction annoyed Alma. In the back of her mind, she felt like this knowledge meant she would have to give up something important to come to this understanding, and even though she didn't know what it was, she didn't want to lose it.
"I'd forgotten how impatient I was in past lives. You learn it later."
"Actually, I don't think that's how that works," Alma said with a smirk. She didn't bother to wait for her future self to ask a question. The woman would just pluck it from her thoughts. And yet, Alma wanted to verbalize it. "I think it's just like when you're a young kid and a week feels like forever. People older than you have no problem waiting, but that's because time goes by faster the longer you've experienced it. You're not more patient than I am. You've just experienced time longer."
Kayli smiled. "Impressive. I'd forgotten I knew that."
Alma didn't like her future self. If the saying "hell was other people" was true, being with an older version of yourself was even worse.
"This isn't how I wanted this to go," Kayli said.
"Shouldn't I get back to my timeline? Because I don't understand the point to all of this," Alma said, ready to leave. The things Kayli spoke about threatened Alma's very existence. If what her future self was telling her was true, Alma didn't exist and even if she couldn't grasp that theory, one other thing struck her.
There truly was no free will if everything already happened and time didn't exist. And Alma didn't want to believe that. She focused on the spinning stars and found the star that held the parallel universe she'd created. The one where Alma killed her mother's killer.
"You won't want to do that," Kayli insisted, reaching out and holding Alma back.
"I need to see," Alma insisted, and Kayli released her grip.
Alma stared closer at the planet that spun around the star of her mother. The star that represented the parallel universes of her life. The more Alma focused the larger that solar system grew, and the gravity of one reality pulled Alma inside of it.
Darkness. Falling.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
From Doug's perspective, time moved as it always had. Alma Davis was in front of him, and he was about to confess that he'd been lying to her his entire life. Even though Alma was traipsing across alternate universes with her future self, a part of her remained back in 1994. She'd come back, if she could, and remember this conversation exactly as she'd been here.
"Remember how you worried about Haniel being your Witness?" Doug blurted out. His tight throat made his voice come out higher than he was comfortable with. He didn't want to sound whiny.
Alma nodded.
Doug, pitching his voice lower, "Well, he's not."
"I know," Alma said.
"I am," Doug answered and waited. His heart pounded in his throat, but he forced himself to look as calm as possible, as if his calm demeanor would influence Alma's thoughts.
"You're what?" Alma said, her voice neutral.
"I'm your Witness," he said.
Alma's face remained blank. Doug's faux calm began to unravel.
"It's not that I wanted to lie to you. I took the job with The Observatory, because I wanted to learn the meaning of life. I didn't have any idea that you would be you."
"You mean it never occurred to you that I'd be a real human being with thoughts and feelings."
"No," Doug said, flustered. "I mean I guess not, but as a Witness my job was to protect you."
"And spy on me," she said.
"For the good of humanity," Doug said.
"At my expense, because I'm somehow less human."
"Not less. You're more. You're special."
"How lucky for me!" Alma said.
Doug sighed. This wasn't going well at all.
"Alma, I've been wanting to tell you since the day after we met. I wish I had. You deserved the truth, but I was dishonest at the start and a coward over time. I didn't want you to hate me and never want to see me."
"Because you'd be out of a cushy job discovering the meaning of life or whatever it is you think you're doing while being a liar and pretending to be my best friend!"
"No!" Doug said. "Not that. I'd quit the job tomorrow if it would make you happy."
"So you don't even care about the job? You just lied to me for fun?" Alma shook her head. "I feel so stupid." Alma turned to leave.
Doug panicked.
"I couldn't because I love you, Alma. I've loved you for so long."
Alma stopped. That wasn't the answer she expected. She'd always had a crush on Doug, but she kept those feelings on a leash, because, "Aren't you gay?" she asked as she turned around.
"I thought you'd trust me more if you knew I wasn't some guy trying to get into your pants," Doug said.
"So you decided to lie like this was Three's Company?" Alma asked, dumbfounded.
"That was so stupid. I was trying to make sure that I kept a distance because from the moment we first talked I just knew that I—" Doug stopped. He didn't have the guts to say it again. It embarrassed him. None of this was going as he hoped.
"Loved me?" Alma asked.
Doug nodded yes.
"But in a platonic way. Like a friend. Like a gay best friend."
Doug's eyes met hers. His heart pounded in his chest. He wondered if she wanted to hear that he loved her like a friend or if she longed to hear that it was something more. Doug didn't want to hope. He was afraid to hope. He'd lied to the woman he loved for the entire time he knew her. He couldn't lie anymore.
Doug noticed that he'd moved closer to her. He'd been drawn to her.
"No. I love you." He paused to catch his breath and think. Blood rushed to his ears and below his waist. "Like a man."
Her lips parted slightly, and she leaned closer to him. Doug didn't think. He took the opportunity and kissed her. His heart leapt when she kissed him back. Alma Davis was kissing him back. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Her arms encircled his body.
Haniel had parked on the street and was on his way to the stairs leading up to Alma's apartment when he spotted Alma through the kitchen window. He could hear their voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying. He stepped closer, wanting to tap on the glass to get Alma's attention. The he saw Doug sweep down and kiss Alma, and she definitely didn't mind.
Haniel's eyes turned a deep shade of violet. She lied! That bitch had lied to him. Gay best friend! She was just like her mother and all the other women. A lying whore! His father was right. She didn't deserve the power she wielded. He had planned to spare Alma. They would have had beautiful, gifted children. But that was over. He'd take the best of her, her power, and the rest of her lying whorish self would be dust.
Alma's eyes opened, and she found herself on a soccer field. "Jenna!" someone shouted, and in a moment Alma acclimated to her life. Except this life didn't have anything familiar in it. Jenna, the version of Alma that existed in this universe, continued to play soccer.
Alma sifted through her memories. Two parents, Michelle and Frank. Both white. Two older brothers, Derek and Easton. An ordinary life in central Florida. Birthdays with cake. Sports. Trophies. More sports.
But there was nothing that even resembled Alma's old life. No Tita Win Win. Her mother might be alive, but he
r life didn't touch Alma's. Neither did her father's. No Doug. Alma's mind lingered on Doug. The pain of not knowing him surprised her.
But all of that didn't matter. If her mother's life was better and happier, Alma could live here in this reality and know it was best. She needed to find her mother.
Dizziness swept over Alma, and darkness overcame her again. She found herself back with Kayli in the universe room.
"Don't do that," Kayli said. "You could get lost for no good reason."
"Mom's life might be better," Alma said.
"Just watch from here," Kayli said, grabbing Alma's hand. "Don't fall in this time."
Kayli zeroed in on the lifetime where Alma had successfully killed James. The one where Alma was Jenna and never knew her mother. Her mother indeed remained alive, but had no children. Alma watched glimpses of her mother's life.
"It looks like a happy one," she said.
"Don't you remember what she told us?" Kayli said.
"Always go forward."
Kayli sped forward into the lives of her mother. Tita Win Win had a baby late in life, and that baby had the power that Alma possessed. Another vampire grew, and the vampire murdered Win Win's baby by just putting his hands on her. The vision stopped.
"No," Alma said. "This can't be."
"It happens over and over again, eventually. Sometimes it takes several lifetimes. In one scenario it takes ten lifetimes."
"But it doesn't happen in mine," Alma answered.
"Sometimes it does, sometimes it's delayed," Kayli said.
"Does it ever not happen?" Alma asked.
"In the timeline I appear in, it doesn't," Kayli said.
"Then I better get back and live my life," Alma said, turning around and beginning to walk away.
"Where do you think you're walking to?" Kayli asked with a laugh in her voice. That laugh angered Alma.
"I'm leaving," Alma said, and walked in a direction she imagined was the way back.
