by Al K. Line
"Um, that was quick," said Dale. Amanda didn't even want to think about it, Peter making an impossibly quick cup of coffee was the least of her concerns.
"I've told you about that," admonished Tellan, "it confuses people."
"Sorry, didn't think it mattered now."
"Didn't think what mattered?" asked Amanda, curious even though she didn't really care.
"Time's different for us, we can bend the rules, break them too. It's, er, what got you into this trouble in the first place."
"Got me into this trouble? After I just find out about my father, and a brother who is our friend and... Oh, who cares?" Amanda rested her head back on Dale and watched as Peter put the tray down on the table.
"Look, guys, I tried to help, to avoid all this... hassle, but now you've met Dad I don't suppose it matters. Shall I tell them, Dad?" Tellan nodded. Peter nibbled on a HobNob, face doing the weird scrunch thing he always did when he concentrated, then said, "Look, it's complicated, that goes without saying, but, well, first of all, don't worry about anyone coming to get you, we're sort of in limbo here, in a place with no time. Between the cracks, I suppose you could say."
"Yeah, okay, Peter," said Dale.
"Don't believe me? Look at Wozzy." Peter pointed to Wozzy over by the sideboard where he'd clearly been watching the birds — or the squirrel — through the window.
"Oh, that's just great, anything else we should know?" Amanda surprised herself by not melting down at the sight of Wozzy in mid-air, frozen in time where he'd begun to jump to the ground so he wouldn't get told off.
"Lots," said Peter.
"Just tell me what the hell is happening." Amanda knew she sounded hysterical but was well past caring. Too much had happened for any of it to come as a surprise now.
"I think I better explain this, Peter, but thank you for trying," said Tellan. He took a mug then sat cross-legged on the floor after unbuttoning his jacket.
"If you tell me you could have stopped all this from happening then I am going to kill you," warned Dale.
"There's no need for that, Dale, and besides, I think you'd have a little trouble," said Tellan.
Amanda noted how Peter had changed from the rather dorky guy she knew to an intimidating man stood next to Tellan. He seemed to have grown half a foot as his posture improved. She sighed. "Just tell us."
An Explanation
Present Day (Frozen)
"We've been fighting so long to put a stop to this, but we can't." Tellan paused for a drink. Amanda tried, and failed, to ignore the suspended Wozzy. "Everything we try, it ends up more confused than before we started. It's been happening for what seems like forever, right, Peter?" Peter nodded. "We solve one problem, only to find ourselves deep in another. I've tried showing no interest and leaving you two to get on with it, I've tried interfering, I've tried being aloof, giving you as much help as I can, everything, and nothing works. The Hexads keep coming back, coming back for you, Amanda. I'm sorry, my dear, it breaks my heart, more than you could know, but there you have it, the truth."
"What do you mean coming back for me? Why? Why do they want me? Why this damn spinal fluid thing? It makes no sense at all. None of it." Amanda sat forward and stared hard at Tellan, trying not to think about what it meant now these two men were apparently her family, her blood. "Just how many times have you tried to sort this mess out?"
"Too many," said Peter, before zipping his mouth shut when he got a dirty look from Tellan, his father. Her father.
"Time has little meaning for us, Amanda, but it is a battle we have fought for a long time, a very long time."
"And you got nowhere?"
"Unfortunately, that is correct. We think everything has been put right, then up you get in the morning, or Dale, and you start the whole cycle again. Or something else happens, and whatever we do, whatever we try, Hexads are there and it all falls apart."
"But why, why me?"
"Because you are my daughter, family. You don't belong here, you belong with us."
"There, in that awful place?"
"Yes. It only feels strange because you don't remember, but that is where you belong. I'm sorry, we tried, but we failed. I can't bear to think of you repeating all this for eternity. Awful things happen, Amanda. The things that happen to you, I can't bear it."
"It's okay, Dad, don't get upset." Peter put an arm on his father's shoulder as Tellan bowed his head and the tears fell again. It was wrong seeing him cry, as if they weren't normal tears but held immense responsibility in the salty saline that drained the world of something, never to be returned. It didn't stop the anger and the pain that Amanda felt.
"Don't get upset! What about us? What could be worse than what I've just been through? Locked in that cell, drugged and made to think I'd lost my mind. Strapped down every week like all the other Amandas, and drained. Drained like a cow!"
"Much worse than that has happened, my dear, I'm sorry to say. Much worse."
Amanda couldn't imagine what could be worse and didn't want to know. She just wanted to stop it, find peace. "What about all those women still there in the future, in The Ward? What about Hector and Laffer and the Hexads? How do we stop this all repeating? There were more, more women in a large room, and Dale took me to a Factory or something, right, Dale?" Amanda turned to him, eyes pleading for him to help; all he did was look sad.
"I don't know. Whatever you do, something else will happen and we can't stop it, but we keep trying. We try to give you peace, give you what you want, but it will not work."
"What did I want? Explain it to me."
"This, you wanted this," said Tellan, voice like a child's, infinitely small and sad. "You wanted a normal life and you wanted to live in the world. You abandoned us."
"I don't remember any of this. Is it a trick? Are you trying to send me mad again? Put me back in The Ward and let me drift into insanity?"
"I want the opposite. I want you to come home more than anything in the world, but you wanted to leave, and this is what happened."
"Why?" It was a simple question, but there had to be an explanation.
"Why is it happening? Because you aren't where you are supposed to be. It got worse when you met Dale. He's your soul mate, I know this. Nothing will break you two up. You are always together, or if not then you are broken people in the worlds where something went wrong. It breaks my heart to see you like that. I've seen you in every possible outcome there could ever be, Amanda, and it tears me and your brother apart to watch as you lead all these lives, cling to each other and try to understand this mess."
"Why? Why Hexads?"
"Don't you see? It's the Universe, it wants you back with us. It does all it can to get you back. The Hexads, the whole reason they exist, it's to get you to jump back home, to stay with us."
"And what if I don't want to? What if I don't believe you? I want to stay with Dale."
"We know, and that's why we have tried to help, but it's impossible." Tellan deflated and his shoulders slumped, the proud man replaced by a frail old gentleman beaten by life, by the Universe.
"That's enough, Dad, come on, we have to go."
"Wait, you can't go. What will happen if you go?" Dale stood and turned to Amanda. "What will happen to her if you leave?"
"Exactly what has been happening already. Hector, or Laffer, or something else, it will catch up with you, take you again, and on it goes," said Peter. "I tried to help, played the part of the Peter you know, to assist if I could, and I've done it endless times with different scenarios, different 'bad guys' too." Peter made bunny ears; it wasn't as comical as it usually was. "If we leave you to it then in the future Amanda is in The Ward, this Amanda anyway, and a lot of others too, and there will be Hexads, and then it gets too much and it all sort of implodes on itself, but there will always be you, you will find a way, to be together."
"But the madness never ends?" asked Dale.
"No, never. Come on, Dad, we have to go." Peter helped Tellan to his feet, a frail
old man who had no fight left. It suddenly felt very hard to imagine him as The Caretaker.
"Wait." Amanda tried to stand but her legs felt too weak. Her whole life was exposed as a lie and she couldn't believe it. "What happens if I come, and I stay with you, wherever that place is?"
"Then you are out of the loop. We are outside of time there, it will all unravel without you. No future as you have seen it, no past either, just us, and no Hexads. No pain."
"And no Dale?" Amanda turned to the man she loved, looked into his eyes and saw the pleading, the confused thoughts. He wanted her to go, be safe, but he wanted her with him too.
"Correct. No Dale, not with you."
"I can't do that, I could never leave him. Can he come too?"
"It doesn't work like that, Amanda, that's not part of how it is."
"Then I stay."
"We know this. Why do you think we have been trying to help?"
"So what's the alternative?" asked Dale. "There's always an alternative, right?"
Peter and Tellan exchanged worried looks, neither of them willing to speak.
"Just tell us," whispered Amanda, trying to maintain her tenuous grip on reality and not look at Wozzy. "TELL US!"
"You give in," said Peter.
"Give in?" asked Dale.
"What do you mean?" Amanda was bone-weary, she didn't know if she had any fight left in her, yet maybe giving in wouldn't be so bad after all?
"Yeah, just accept it and give in." Peter bent and whispered to Tellan, looking concerned for the frail old man.
"Well, come on then, what do you mean? Bloody hell, Peter, you're as bad as him." Dale pointed at Tellan, in no mood to start treating him gently after what they had just been through.
"You are my daughter, Amanda, and I love you as much as your brother, and it saddens me no end to know that you don't remember, but that is the price you paid for leaving us, for wanting a life here. We have done all we can, have tried to help you more times than you could imagine, but it keeps getting worse. There is always some slip, some little thing that wasn't done right that means time is warped once more and the Hexads come back. This, this latest episode, it's mild compared to some of them. Not that it means it isn't terrible for you to endure, I know it is, but the Universe has rules, and you broke them. This is the consequence. In case you haven't noticed, we are not just ordinary people, and that means extraordinary things happen to us. If you want to stay here then the only thing we can recommend is that you give in."
"What does that mean? I'm getting seriously pissed off with you guys now," said Dale, anger bubbling over.
"Watch it, Dale, remember who you are talking to." Peter stood and frowned at Dale, the jovial geek personality gone, replaced with something Amanda would never have thought Peter possible of: menace, the threat of terrible things.
"Fine," said Dale, deflated, as close to the edge of nervous exhaustion as Amanda. "Just tell us. What can we do to stop this? You said give up?"
"Exactly. I don't mean give up as in let yourself be used and abused, I mean give up as in accept that it will happen and keep on fighting to try to stop it. You've done it before, many times, so you can do it again. What Dad means is give up trying to stop it for good, because you can't. What's more important, staying together, or finding peace? You will never have both."
"Why not? Why can't we beat Hector and get rid of the Hexads and just wake up and for it to all be over?"
"Because it's already happened, hasn't it? You let him get a Hexad and it all started from there. That's done now, you can't go back. There's always something like that to trip you up. Something you forget, something you do that you shouldn't, and off we go again on the time travel merry-go-round. This is your life, your future... If Amanda stays. Did you put the Hexad on the swing? No. There you go, always something."
"So, um, if we can put right what we've screwed up this time then we have a chance? If Hector never gets a Hexad, if we could change that, then everything that has happened will be wiped out, poof and we are back to normal?" Dale edged forward on the sofa where he'd half collapsed, eyes shining as if pleading for the answer he so desperately wanted, what they both wanted.
"Well, um, yeah, I suppose."
"Yes, it would set things right, for now, but the chances of it working for good are slim. You may have some time, but it's doubtful it will be much." Tellan brushed at invisible dirt on his clothes and stared out the window. "Such a beautiful world, I can see why you chose to stay."
"I stayed for Dale, not the world. At least I assume I did?"
"Yes, you did. And Dale, yes, if you can stop Hector getting the Hexad then there will be no Ward, why would there be? But be warned, it has already happened, will happen, and that is the course you are set on. Those events have happened, you did them, and although you have undone certain things before, it is nothing compared to what you are talking about. It won't work, can't work, that series of futures is yours."
"Well, it can't be, can it? I don't care what you say about this whole business, if we stopped it before then we can stop it again. And anyway, it's all your fault, Tellan. You started this whole thing. You came to us, you brought the Hexads to us."
"Dale, my dear boy, only because you left things unfinished. Do you think if I hadn't arrived that one of you wouldn't have been out in the garden getting your knees muddy, digging under the apple tree?" There was no answer. "Exactly."
"Okay, okay, I get it. It's all impossible and it will all come back and bite us on the arse. But maybe this time it will be different, or maybe it won't. Maybe if we stop this then that's it, we stay together and we never touch a damn Hexad again. No Hexad for Hector, no Ward, no crazed timelines and parallel universes and it will just be us."
"Go for it, buddy," said Peter, smiling his cheesy grin like the old Peter they knew.
"How are you my dad?" whispered Amanda, unable to stop herself. How could he be? What about her parents? Was her whole life a lie?
"I know it's a lot to take in, Amanda, and I'm sorry, but it's true. An explanation would take longer than you would care to listen at the moment, but maybe, once all this is over, and things work out how I know they will, then maybe we can talk, I can tell you everything. Okay?"
"Okay."
Tellan put his hat on and frowned at mid-air Wozzy. "I think we will be all right for a few moments, Peter, don't you?"
"Sure, Dad, and I'd like to say goodbye to the little guy. He's been a real pal."
"Wait, answer me one thing first." Amanda took a deep breath. She had to calm herself, try to find a balance so she could continue. "Has all this been a lie, Peter? You being our friend, acting like you didn't know we were mixed up in different universes, pretending you had no idea what was going on all this time?"
"Amanda, and you too, Dale, I'm sorry for any deception, but no, I love you guys. You are my friends, and more. Heck, you're family. I may have acted a little daft to try to steer you on the right path, not that it worked anyway, but I wasn't pretending to like you, I love you both."
"And he really is very messy," added Tellan, smiling at his son. His son! It was too much to take.
"Okay. Love you too, Peter. Brother. Gosh, that sounds weird."
"Now, it's time for us to go," said Tellan.
"Wait, what about jumping? We don't have a Hexad here, not one that works, anyway," said Dale.
"Dale, they work because of Amanda, you don't even need one.... Oh, never mind, will this help?" Tellan nodded toward the coffee table, still covered with rings from Peter's sleepover. As they watched, a Hexad appeared and rattled slightly as it settled from where it appeared a millimeter above the wood.
"Thanks."
They were gone. Peter never did say goodbye to Wozzy.
Wozzy landed on the floor and padded over to Amanda, jumped in her lap and clawed at her arm. "Hey, Wozzy, nice to see you, dude."
Amanda was so exhausted she didn't even yelp as Wozzy dug his claws in by way of greeting.
/> "Well, some things never change," said Dale.
"So, what's the plan?" asked Amanda, half asleep.
"Rest."
"No, Dale, no rest. We do this now or who knows what the hell will happen?"
"Okay then. So, here is what I was thinking..."
Looks Familiar
Present Day
The only thing worse than losing your parents was finding out they were never your parents at all. Amanda had a million and one questions to ask Tellan, and Peter, her brother, but had frozen when they revealed who they were, who she was. She couldn't think straight, failed to accept what she was being told as fact. How could she? She had grown up as a normal girl, had a ballerina's costume, stole makeup, grew ever more obsessed with her hair and making it shine, and became interested in boys — all the usual stuff. How could that be a lie?
It couldn't be, could it? How? If that wasn't her then whose memories were they, and how had she really been raised? It made no sense, and now she doubted she would ever find out the truth. If Dale's plan worked then all of this would be forgotten, like it never happened. But what then? Would it happen all over again, on and on in an infinite loop of jumps and new universes created, layer upon layer upon layer of confusion and contradiction just to support the ability to jump through time? And all because she wasn't where she was supposed to be?
Such a revelation was too much to deal with, to accept. Could it really all be her fault, all that misery and suffering, just because she wanted a normal life and to be with Dale? Surely not? Was it selfish, to want to be happy, have a life with him? Wasn't that what everyone wanted? Wasn't that what she had? How much was real and how much was made up, and how did she have these memories? There were too many questions and no answers.
Nothing made sense, nothing felt real, her whole life a lie, some kind of fake existence to mask her true identity. How did it even work? Had none of it been real, her childhood, growing up, any of it? No, it couldn't be. She must have come as an adult and everything else was a fabrication.
