Stepping into the Sky: Jump When Ready, Book 3

by David Pandolfe

  An old woman Rose remembered from her childhood stood at the edge of her lawn, just a few feet away. Ellen Humphrey. Rose felt sure she’d died years ago, at some distant point in time she barely remembered. Still, there she stood. “Rose? Where are you going so fast? Can I help you?”

  Rose shook her head, picking up her pace again. “I’m fine,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

  She told herself not to look over her shoulder, that she knew what she’d see. But she turned to look anyway. Olivia and Linda watched from the front lawn as behind them more people gathered in the street.

  Rose jumped when someone touched her shoulder. An old man looked into her eyes, the same man who’d been at the cemetery. “Sometimes it’s better not to look too close,” he said. “You might see things you’d rather not see.”

  “It’s true, Rose,” Ellen Humphrey said. “If I were you, I’d go back home now.”

  “Rose?” Olivia called out. “Think about your wedding!”

  Rose started running and she kept running. There were only two people she wanted to talk to—two people who had to exist since they were the only people she could trust.

  13

  Living the Dream

  Henry felt sunlight against his eyes and at first just thought it was morning. But light held so much more meaning in this dark world. Henry knew what that light really meant, of course.

  As if reading his thoughts, Nikki lifted her head from his shoulder from where she’d slept nestled against him. “I think we’re back in the dream.”

  “I bet you’re right.”

  Even as Henry said it, part of him wished they could remain where they’d just been together—taking refuge, isolated in a place only they shared. Together, they’d just created light in a place formed of darkness. Henry wanted nothing more than to keep Nikki safe, but it was their mission to take Rose toward the light again too. And Nikki had signed on for that, of course. She’d never once backed down from anything since Henry had known her. Each time, she’d shown him how truly strong and selfless she was even when she liked to pretend otherwise. How was it possible that he’d met her in this in-between world? He’d never known anyone like her before. Would he be able to find her again in another life when they chose to start over?

  Someone knocked on the front door, reminding Henry that this wasn’t the time to think about those other issues yet. Thankfully, the light outside the windows told him who was out there this time. Nikki’ s expression, curious this time rather than fearful, showed that she knew the same.

  As soon as Henry opened the door, Rose rushed past him toward Nikki, her eyes full of tears. “I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t know where else to go.” She turned to Henry. “I probably shouldn’t have just barged in like this. I’m just…”

  Nikki placed her hand on Rose’s shoulder. “It’s okay. What’s going on?”

  Rose opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head, obviously confused. She tried again. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

  Nikki stared into Rose’s eyes. “You’re not crazy. We’re your friends. Please, tell us.” Gently, she steered Rose toward the living room where Nikki sat next to her on one of the sofas.

  Henry took a seat across from them, thinking this had to be the moment. Rose would either trust them now or surrender to the dream again.

  Rose wiped tears from her eyes. “Things have been happening. Strange things. I just want to know the truth.”

  Nikki and Henry exchanged glances, then Henry hunched forward. “What kind of things?”

  “They tried to convince me that I’d never met you.” Rose looked back and forth between them. “They told me you weren’t real.”

  Nikki smiled. She took hold of Rose’s hand. “We’re real. Henry, are we real?”

  “I like to think of myself as being totally real,” Henry said.

  Rose laughed even as more tears ran down her face. “I have this memory. At least, I think it’s a memory. That we went to the beach together. Did that happen?”

  “Yes,” Nikki said.

  “It really did? The three of us?” Rose’s eyes searched theirs. “And Joseph. Was Joseph there too?”

  Again, Henry and Nikki made eye contact. After all, Joseph hadn’t really been there.

  “He was with us,” Nikki said, obviously deciding Rose wasn’t yet ready to process that part of her situation. Still, Henry knew that’s where they’d soon be going.

  “Why would they want me to think that never happened?” Rose said. “It’s like…it’s like they want me to think I’m going crazy. How can I be sure I’m not?”

  “Rose, you’re not going crazy,” Henry said. “That’s not what’s happening here. Let me ask you something and I need you to go with your gut instinct. Don’t think about it too long. Can you do that for me?”

  Rose hesitated, then she nodded.

  Henry kept his eyes on hers. “Good. Here’s the question. Do you trust us?”

  Rose looked back and forth between them again. “Yes, I trust you.”

  Henry perched forward on the sofa. “I’m going to ask you another question. How long have you been engaged to Joseph?”

  Rose glanced at the ceiling. “Since November.”

  “Of this year?” Nikki said.

  “Yes.”

  “What month is it now?” Nikki said.

  Rose frowned. “It’s May. I don’t under—”

  “Please, you have to trust us,” Henry said. “This is May, 1964, right?”

  Rose tried to smile. “Are you guys messing around? Yes, it’s May, 1964.”

  Nikki smiled at Rose. “What were you planning to do today? I mean, before you got upset and came over here. Did you have plans?”

  Rose nodded. “We were going to the florist. Joseph and I were—” Rose checked her watch. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Joseph and I are supposed to—” Rose stopped speaking. She tapped on her watch. She frowned and Henry knew that the truth was starting to sink in. A small fracture had just developed in Rose’s dream—a fracture she could now see.

  “What about yesterday?” Nikki said. “You said we went to the beach. Do you remember what you had planned when you first woke up?”

  “Joseph and I were…” Rose checked her watch again, automatically, both out of habit and confusion. She shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. We were supposed to…”

  “And the day before that,” Henry said. “What were you supposed to do?”

  Rose’s eyes continued to widen. “I don’t remember.”

  “What don’t you remember?” Henry said, suspecting the fracture had just split wider.

  “I don’t remember the day before yesterday,” Rose said. “I mean…it’s like…it’s almost like... it’s not possible.”

  “Exactly. It’s not possible that each day is the same.” Nikki looked into Rose’s eyes. “Just like it’s not possible that we don’t exist.”

  Henry went on a hunch, based on what he’d observed in this realm. “When was the last time it rained?”

  Rose hesitated, then said, “I don’t remember.”

  “What else has happened that doesn’t seem possible?” Henry said. “Can you think of anything recent?”

  Suddenly, Rose’s expression darkened. She shook her head almost imperceptibly as she stared into space.

  “Please trust us,” Nikki said. “We can help you. What happened?”

  Rose spoke in a whisper. “There were graves. I thought I saw…no, it’s not possible. It doesn’t make sense!”

  Rose jumped up from the sofa and crossed the room. She kept her back turned as she stared out the window.

  Nikki looked at Henry before getting to her feet. She went and stood behind Rose. “What did you see? Please tell us.”

  Rose turned to face her, wiping tears from her cheeks. “There were gravestones. I hadn’t seen them before. Next to my parents’ graves. I saw my grandmother’s name. I saw my name! But then they were gone aga
in. That couldn’t have happened, right? How would that even be possible?”

  Henry watched as Nikki closed her eyes. Just briefly, but long enough that Henry suspected what she was doing. Nikki had always maintained she couldn’t read people on their side to the same degree she could those still in the physical realm. Still, she got definite impressions. That much he knew. She’d been the one to discover him alone and confused after his sister’s abduction. Somehow, Nikki had known both where to find him and that he’d needed help.

  Nikki opened her eyes again. “What about dreams?”

  “Dreams?”

  Rose hadn’t been prepared for the question, her mind apparently still fixed on the graves she’d seen. Henry hadn’t anticipated it either and wasn’t sure where Nikki was going.

  “Have you been having any dreams?” Nikki said. “Dreams that repeat themselves.”

  “Yes.” Rose’s gaze shot from Nikki to Henry, then back to Nikki again. “I had one this morning. About being in my house. There were other people there. It was terrible. It felt so…”

  Rose’s words trailed off. Unconsciously, she started tugging at her hair, her finger intertwined in a curl.

  “Any others?” Nikki said.

  Rose started pacing back and forth, her finger still tugging at her hair. “I can’t talk about that,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

  The fracture kept widening and Henry felt sure Rose could see it happening.

  “Were you falling?” Nikki asked. “In the dream, are you always falling?”

  Rose stopped pacing and gripped her head with both hands, her fingers digging into her scalp. “Please don’t make me remember that!”

  “It’s a cliff, isn’t it?” Nikki said.

  Rose kept shaking her head. “I don’t want to think about that dream.”

  “What’s at the bottom?” Nikki said. “What do you see?”

  Rose clenched her eyes clenched shut. “I see a car. I don’t want—”

  “Whose car?” Nikki said.

  “How do you know about all—”

  “You see Joseph’s car, don’t you?” Nikki said. “You see where it crashed after you—”

  “Stop making me remember!” Rose’s voice came out a strangled scream. “I make myself forget about that dream. Every day, I make myself forget!” Rose’s eyes shot open again. She stared at Nikki.

  Nikki stared back at her, her eyes full of compassion as she fought off tears herself. “How long have you been doing that? Rose, how many days have you made yourself forget that dream?”

  A moan escaped Rose’s lips as she bent over, still tugging on her hair. The moan escalated to a wail that sent shivers up Henry’s spine. She gasped for breath as saliva dripped from her open mouth onto the floor. Slowly, she straightened up again. She stared at Nikki, then at Henry.

  “Who are you?” she said. “Where did Henry and Nikki go?”

  “We’re right here,” Henry said.

  Rose shook her head vehemently. “No, you’re too young. You’re…you’re…what happened to Henry and Nikki?”

  Suddenly, Henry understood. The fracture had grown so wide now that Rose saw them as who they actually were. She no longer saw the couple she’d imagined in her dream.

  When Rose spoke again, she looked inward rather than at them. “That was real,” she said. “That wasn’t a dream. It was real and I’ll go to hell for what I did.”

  Nikki stepped toward her, trying to gain back her trust. “Rose, I know you saw me differently before, but I’m still Nikki. That’s still Henry. Please try to believe me. We can help you!”

  Rose turned in Nikki’s direction but her eyes were vacant. “I killed them both. That’s what happened. I’ll go to hell for what I did.”

  Henry walked toward Rose as well. “Rose, listen. That’s not going to happen. We’re here to help you. We came to guide you back—”

  Rose doubled over again. She closed her eyes. “I’m a murderer. Oh, my God, I’m a murderer!”

  The room around them darkened. Henry’s eyes went to the window as, within seconds, all sunlight was sucked from the sky. Beyond those panes of glass, he saw nothing but total darkness, a void where now even night wasn’t simulated. No wind shook the house. No thunder rumbled. Only a moment passed before a black fissure cracked one of the walls. Soon, another black vein wound its way up an adjacent wall. Then another and another as the walls silently cracked, letting more and more darkness in. Rose remained doubled over, moaning, unaware now as the house around them disintegrated. Together, they watched as Rose faded from view, swallowed by the flood of darkness that flowed in and surrounded them once more.

  14

  Nostalgia

  They couldn’t see to run and no horizon presented itself for them to run toward. If Rose was still there somehow, remaining in this void after her dream had been obliterated, there was no way to help her now.

  “We need to go,” Nikki said, reaching for Henry’s hand.

  Henry’s hand found hers in the darkness. “What about Rose?”

  Nikki shook her head, even though he couldn’t see her. “We’re out of time. There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “You’re right. We’ll have to figure something out after we get back.”

  Nikki waited for the darkness around them to dissolve, for some sort of opening allowing passage to their realm to present itself, but that didn’t happen. Instead, her body tingled against energy as it pulsed toward them, somehow knowing where they stood blindly exposed. She didn’t have to try reading anyone’s thoughts to know where that energy came from.

  “Henry, it’s not working? What do we do?”

  Henry’s voice came back to her, close to her ear, the only thing to ground her in this place without light. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Me too. Just try not to let them fool you. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Nikki tried not to think about how powerful the creatures of this realm were at spinning their webs of delusion.

  “No matter what they show you. No matter what they do. Just think of me. I’m right next to you.”

  Nikki tightened her grasp on his hand. “You too, right? No matter what they try, you’ll remember that I’m with you?”

  “I’ll remember,” Henry said.

  Nikki closed her eyes and waited. It was upon them now, the energy that created the darkness surrounding them. It circled, pulsing closer, about to close around them like a constricting snake.

  “Nikki? There’s something you should know,” Henry said. “Something I probably should have told you before.”

  Nikki turned toward him again, instinctively, hoping to see him next to her. “What is it, Henry?”

  Suddenly, the world around them exploded with light. Every particle of darkness vaporized instantly. Nikki clenched her eyes against the intensity, squinting as a familiar sense of electricity coursed through her body, her hair rising into the air. She looked over at Henry, finding it nearly impossible to keep her eyes open. Her heart lifted at the sight of him standing next to her, his hand still grasping hers, even though she wanted to laugh at the sight of his hair rising too. She looked past him to see the curved surface of the light around them, the same above and below, as if somehow they’d become instantly encased in a giant orb. That’s exactly what had happened, she realized. They stood suspended and protected inside this sphere now shielding them from the darkness. Nikki had no doubt who’d created this sudden haven.

  Even as Nikki thought it, she felt a surge of velocity. Somehow, amazingly, neither she nor Henry lost their balance or even stepped back as the orb shot off through the darkness and then broke through it as if puncturing a membrane. She could see through the light of the sphere now, beyond it darkness again, but a benign darkness filled with billions of stars. She stared, eyes wide, her mouth dropping open as they raced past what could only be distant clusters of galaxies and nebulae. She heard Henry whoop in astonishment. Nikki burst int
o uncontrollable, excited laughter. Soon, everything around them became a blur as the orb gained even more speed. She wasn’t sure how long it took—seconds, minutes?—before they barreled toward another source of light. For one terrifying moment, Nikki thought they were about to dive directly into a star but then realized this light was a tunnel that had suddenly opened to them. Her mind reeled at the counterintuitive experience of a tunnel of light obliterating the darkness of space. The sense of motion fell away as they became engulfed, the dimensions of the sphere expanding until any sense of being enclosed also disappeared. Despite all she’d experienced between lives, it still seemed nearly impossible that soon she and Henry stood in a place they knew, one seemingly without boundaries, part of the light coalescing from something formless into someone they recognized.

  Lysrus stared back at them, his expression at first grave, then softening. After a moment, that now familiar hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “I trust both of you are okay.”

  Henry’s head swiveled as his gaze shot to the left, then right, then up and down. “What just happened?”

  Nikki still couldn’t slow the beating of her heart. “How did we get here?”

  Behind Lysrus, Martha strode toward them. Nikki could tell from the flush of her cheeks that she’d rushed to them from wherever she’d been.

  “My apologies if that was somewhat overwhelming,” Lysrus said. “Before, we created a connection between realms, a portal through which you were able to pass. That was no longer possible.”

  Nikki thought about telling him that neither of them had minded the “overwhelming” part one bit. Still, she knew what he meant. Maybe for others, shooting through space like that might have induced a heart attack—or whatever the equivalent was for those who technically couldn’t suffer one. She also felt guilty for having felt so exhilarated at the experience. After all, they’d just watched Rose fade before their eyes in a state of utter despair.

  “I don’t understand,” Henry said. “What happened to the portal? Why didn’t we see it this time?”