Traveler

by L. E. DeLano

  As Ben leads me toward the stairs, the lady from the historical society reaches out, grasping my hand.

  “Oh, honey,” she says, shaking her head. “You have the worst luck.”

  I stare at the edge of the roof, three stories off the ground. I can’t go on like this. I’m not going to let someone kill me in front of Ben, or Finn, or my parents … or Danny. I’m not going to let someone kill me, period. Something has got to be done.

  And something tells me it’s going to have to be me doing it.

  31

  Side by Side

  “Jessa! It’s time for you to go to bed!” Danny says.

  I am lying on my dad’s couch, and it’s nearly midnight. Ben brought me here over two hours ago, and my mind is still whirring between my memories of the ball and my other memories of nearly dying on a rooftop.

  “What are you doing up?” I ask Danny. “You have work tomorrow. You should be in bed.”

  “I heard a noise and saw Finn,” he tells me. “I was going to let him inside. It’s cold.”

  “Finn is outside?” I sit up. “Where?”

  “By the shed,” Danny says. “I think he likes it there.”

  I move across to the sliding glass door that leads out to the patio and open it slowly, shivering a little in the cold night air. The shed is off the patio, but there’s a four-foot gap between the back of it and the house.

  “Finn!” I call in a loud whisper.

  I see the shadows shift, and Finn emerges from behind the shed. He glances around to make sure he’s not being seen and walks quietly up to the door.

  “What are you doing up?” he whispers. “You should be in bed.”

  “Danny saw you.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, and I smile.

  “Why are you behind my dad’s shed?” I ask.

  He rocks back and forth on his heels, but he doesn’t say anything. It finally dawns on me.

  “You don’t have anywhere to stay,” I realize. “Because you don’t have a counterpart here.”

  “No.”

  “But when Rudy brought you here—didn’t he give you money or anything?”

  “He did. He had money and clothing and a room at the YMCA waiting for me, but I wanted to stay close tonight. To keep an eye on you.” His eyes slink away, and I wonder if he’s still worried about Ben.

  “Hi, Finn!” Danny says from right behind me.

  “Danny, go to bed,” I say, without looking at him. “It’s late.”

  “Okay. Bye, Finn.” He waves.

  “Good night, Danny,” Finn replies. “See you tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow!” Danny echoes, as he walks down the hall to his room.

  I turn back to Finn. “Come on,” I say, keeping my voice low so my father doesn’t wake up. “You can hang in my room for the night.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

  “Finn, it’s freezing out here.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he says, but I can see his breath when he says it.

  “Yes, it is,” I say. He stares at me a minute, deciding.

  “Yes, it is,” he agrees, stepping inside. “It’s really cold. And you’ve got a giant spiderweb behind that shed, did you know that? It’s like a miniature spider city. It’s really spectacular.”

  I lead him carefully down the hall and into my room, shutting the door as quietly as possible and locking it to be safe. I stand and listen for a moment, but all I hear is Danny’s TV because he sleeps with it on all night. It should provide sound cover, since he’s right next door to my father’s room and I’m down the hall from both of them.

  “I’ve locked the door, but my dad won’t come in anyway. He has to be up early to drive Danny to the retirement home. He works there three days a week, with my mom,” I explain.

  “He’s a busy guy,” Finn says. “He told me he made Volunteer of the Year at the library.”

  “He volunteers there on Monday and Friday afternoons. Mom tries to keep him busy. And he loves meeting people, even if he doesn’t always know what to say.”

  I turn back to Finn, who’s still standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking mildly uncomfortable. It’s quite a change, considering the Finn I spent part of my evening with earlier.

  “You’re staring,” he points out.

  “Sorry. I’m still trying to sort out reality here.”

  He gives me a look as it dawns on him. “You traveled?”

  “Uh-huh. And when I came back, the other me had almost died.”

  “What?”

  “I was with Ben—I mean, another Jessa was—at the ghost tour. I traveled back just as the drama was done. Apparently, my counterpart went a little crazy when she saw Ben take pictures with his phone. She borrowed it and was snapping pictures all over the place. Somebody asked her to take a picture of them, and somehow she tripped over a purse. Then she almost fell off the roof.”

  “The roof?”

  “We were on the roof of city hall, hearing about the Ghost of the Clock Tower.”

  “So somebody planted the purse there,” he says grimly. “Do you have any idea who?”

  “No, she—I—was pretty overwrought.” I remember her fear—my fear—and it’s still so very real.

  “I don’t like when you travel without me.”

  “I wasn’t without you. Technically.”

  He rocks back and forth on his heels some more, and I stare at a spot on the wall. The silence is awkward.

  “Well…,” he finally says, “at least this time it wasn’t my fault.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “Not really. It means our Traveler has stepped up his game. He’s getting desperate.”

  “So now what? I can’t have you sleeping in my backyard every night.”

  “If you’ve got an extra blanket,” Finn suggests, “I can sleep on the floor. I’ll leave before anyone wakes up.”

  “Yeah … sure, I think there’s one up here.” I walk over to the closet, reaching up to the top shelf. I’m too short and the blanket is pushed too far back—I can’t get to it. I’m just about to ask him for help when I feel his chest press into my back, and his arm reaches around me to pull the blanket down.

  “I’ve got it.” He doesn’t move away, and we’re still pressed against each other. I close my eyes, remembering the feeling of his lips on my neck.

  “Do you have a pillow?” he asks. He still hasn’t moved. I turn, gesturing toward the bed. “You can have the other one,” I say. Then my mouth opens and my voice speaks and from a far-off distance, I hear myself tell him that he can have the other side of the bed.

  “You mean that?” he asks.

  Do I? I think I do.

  “I’ve got a full-sized bed—you can fit.” I realize just how this must sound, so I add, “You just stay on top of the covers with the blanket, okay?”

  “I’m okay with it if you are,” he says carefully.

  I slide into bed, straightening the blankets, and he takes his jacket and shoes off and climbs on top, spreading the other blanket over himself.

  “Mmm.” He makes an appreciative sound. “Much better than a spider-infested dirt mattress.”

  “I would imagine so.”

  He stacks his hands behind his head. “Hope I didn’t bring any with me.”

  “Finn!”

  “I’m teasing. I think.”

  We lie in silence for several long minutes, and I wonder if he might be asleep until he proves me wrong.

  “So, where did you go? Anywhere I know?”

  I consider that. It’s not an outright lie if I say no. He’s never been there, after all. He’s too clever, though. He picks up on my hesitation.

  “Anywhere I’ve heard of?” he clarifies.

  I sigh. “Yes.”

  “You went back to see the pirate!” he says accusingly.

  “Shhhh! Don’t wake my dad up!” I whisper.

  “Did you?”

  “I saw hi
m for all of ten minutes, Finn. Mostly I was at a party with my fiancé.”

  “You have a fiancé!”

  “Shhhh!”

  “Sorry. Just wasn’t expecting that.”

  “It’s not a love match or anything,” I reassure him. “More of an arranged marriage. I’m an heiress over there. Anyway, the ball was hot, my shoes hurt my feet, my corset was worse than a medieval torture device, and I’m glad to be home.”

  “So this is better than hanging out with a pirate?”

  “I wasn’t with him very long,” I say. “And mostly we just talked.” Mostly.

  He mulls that over. “Interesting.”

  I turn over on my side to look at him. “What do you care what I do in another reality, anyway?” I have no idea where I got the nerve to say that, but I did.

  He turns to face me, too.

  “I care about you, Jessa. No matter where you are.”

  My hand slides down to play with the covers, my fingers tracing the design on the comforter.

  “Were we good friends—back in your world?”

  “Yes. Best friends,” he adds. “We went everywhere together.”

  “And my family?”

  He sucks in a slow breath. “You didn’t have one anymore by the time we met. You never talked about them, and I never asked. I didn’t have one either by then. I think that’s why we latched on to each other. You used to call us ‘two lost souls.’”

  He smiles a little at the memory, while I let the pure awfulness of what he’s told me sink in. Both of our families? Both of us alone? And then something happened to me over there and he was even more alone. My chest feels tight and I feel tears prick my eyes. The words tumble from my lips.

  “Was it an accident? The way I died?”

  I can feel his body stiffen from across the bed.

  “No.”

  “Sorry. I know it’s probably hard to talk about.”

  “It’s okay. You’re curious. I would be, too.” He’s keeping his voice neutral, but something tells me it’s really not okay.

  “I’m sorry, Finn.”

  I can hear him breathing in the darkness. “It’s not your fault,” he says.

  “I know. But I’m still sorry it happened to you. I wish it hadn’t.” I feel a lump growing in my throat at the thought of what he’s had to live through. “I’m sorry I left you there alone.”

  I feel his hand slide across the covers, and he threads his fingers through mine.

  “You’re here now,” he says softly. “Get some sleep, Jessa. We need to rest.”

  I wonder if I’ll be able to, after a conversation like this, but the warmth of his hand in mine is soothing, and my eyes grow heavy as I hear the sound of his breathing lulling my senses.

  32

  The Prophecy

  Eventually, sleep claims me. Finn wasn’t far behind, because as I slide into my desk in the white classroom, Finn takes the desk next to me.

  Mario is already there waiting for us, along with Rudy, who is tapping his fingers impatiently, glaring at the both of us.

  “Another near miss,” he snaps. He turns to look pointedly at Finn. “Where were you?”

  “Jessa was with Ben, and since he’d kept her from harm a few days ago, I assumed he’d be watching out for her,” Finn explains. “He was.”

  I turn to stare at Finn, because that’s the closest thing to an endorsement he’s ever given Ben.

  “And you have no idea who set you up?” Mario asks.

  “No. The other me was too busy falling,” I say. “It was cold out—people were wearing hats and scarves. By the time I thought to look around, half the crowd had already left.”

  “Two attempts in one week.” Mario shakes his head. “This is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Perhaps it’s time to pull in some reinforcements.”

  “Out of the question,” Rudy says. “We’re diverting entirely too many resources to this. We need this resolved.”

  His attitude is really rubbing me the wrong way. I’m the one who’s getting run over and thrown off buildings, for Pete’s sake. I guess that’s a real imposition to him. I’ve had it—with him, and with this whole situation.

  “We need to go on the offensive.”

  Mario’s head starts shaking even before I finish the sentence, and I push out of my desk to stand up.

  “Look—I’m the one getting slammed around here. I’m the one with a target on my back.”

  “We’re doing all we can, Jessa,” Finn says.

  “I know. And it’s not enough. This … Traveler, whoever he or she is, is still getting through to me. And they’ll keep on doing it until they get the job done.” I clench my hand into a fist out of sheer frustration. “Whatever I did to piss this Traveler off, it must have been big.”

  “Jessa, sit down,” Mario says.

  “No! I’m done sitting around! We need to do something!”

  “You need all the facts first,” Mario says. “We all do. So sit down, and let me tell you what I’ve learned.”

  Rudy’s eyes narrow. “You’ve discovered something? Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “I’m informing you now,” Mario replies smoothly. “I know why Jessa has been targeted.”

  Finn reaches out for my hand and pulls me gently into my seat again. “Let’s listen,” he says. “If Mario knows the motivation, it’ll give us somewhere to look.”

  “All right,” I say, taking my seat again. “What did one of me do to piss this person off?”

  Mario steps back, and the whiteboard behind him lights up.

  “We’re going to have a bit of a history lesson first,” he says. “We’re going back a few thousand years, before we began using Travelers.”

  “You haven’t always had Travelers?”

  “We didn’t need them early on,” Rudy says. “We used the dreamscape to communicate directly, through oracles, priests, and shamans. People were much simpler then, much more inclined to primitive beliefs. We directed the oracles, and they directed the people.”

  “And then mankind began innovating,” Mario continues, as the whiteboard behind him lights up with civilizations and history progressing. “Science and industry ushered in higher levels of conscious thought and an endless curiosity about the world they lived in. People began moving away from their more primitive beliefs, and we needed to find a way to keep the reality streams in check.”

  “So you created Travelers?” I ask.

  Mario’s mouth tilts up at one corner. “No. You created yourself. We just realized your potential.”

  “Travelers just suddenly began appearing?” Finn asks. “What started that?”

  “There was only one, to begin with,” Mario says. “Think of her as a mutation of sorts. But she was born with the ability, and we learned a lot from her.”

  “Eventually, other Travelers began spontaneously emerging, and we realized the full potential we could draw from them,” Rudy says.

  “But the first Traveler was especially important. Her name was Viatrix,” Mario says, and a woman’s face appears behind him. She looks like she may be Greek or Roman from the hairstyle. “This is where you come in, Jessa, because you are her direct descendant, and the only living Traveler who can make that claim.”

  “So … another Traveler wants me dead because of my heritage?” I’m confused. Is this some kind of weird Traveler racism?

  “Viatrix was the only one of her kind for many years—decades, actually,” Mario continues.

  “And in the course of our study of her phenomenon and its far-reaching repercussions, a prophecy was made,” Rudy adds.

  “What sort of prophecy?” Finn asks—and he’s looking as uneasy about that word as I am.

  “First, you have to understand that ‘prophecy’ is an archaic word,” Mario says, giving Rudy a stern look. “Think of it as more of a … forecast. We cannot absolutely predict the future, not while mankind has free will. There are too many variables.”

  “And there’s a forecas
t involving a descendant of this … Viatrix?” Finn asks.

  “A time was foretold when the multitude of realities would become too great and too complicated to control as we’ve been doing,” Rudy says. “When that occurs, a convergence can take place.”

  “And a convergence would be catastrophic,” Mario says, “erasing all the reality streams, with the exception of the original stream.”

  “Which, unfortunately, we’ve been unable to locate,” Rudy says. “The streams are too vast and variable. The time to trace it all back would be incalculable and take far more resources than we as Dreamers have to commit to it.”

  I feel sick to my stomach. Thousands of realities—millions of them, all wiped out. It’s almost beyond comprehension.

  “So where do I come into play?” I ask warily.

  “You’re the only one who can stop it.” Mario walks back over to his desk and leans against it.

  “Potentially,” Rudy amends. “The prophecy was made that a Traveler descendant of Viatrix prime would have the ability to defeat the convergence.”

  “Viatrix prime?” Finn asks. “As in … she was in the original reality stream?”

  “Exactly,” Mario said. “And once the forecast was made, I began researching back, to find the origin stream. It’s taken millennia, but I’ve put the final effort into it recently, in light of certain events. I now know that this Jessa is not only the descendant of Viatrix, but she’s the descendant of Viatrix prime.”

  Rudy looks as startled as we are by the news.

  “You’re certain of this?” he asks. “Jessa’s reality is the origin?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in light of certain events’?” I ask.

  “The reality streams are beginning to splinter,” Rudy says. “You haven’t noticed the effect yet, and may not for some time if you are indeed within the origin. But in some of the later streams, the more recently created, we’ve seen fragmenting. Realities crossing or becoming skewed.”

  “None of it is catastrophic,” Mario says. “We are able to contain it with some judiciously placed corrections. But it’s there all the same and it’s a constant battle to stay ahead of it.”

  Finn looks up at Rudy. “What happens if that continues?”