“What, and leave you?” She had asked with a bitter laugh, “I shudder to think of it, Brynna Claire.”
But, I digress...
“Have I ever liked hugs? Isn't that the real question here?” I asked her before narrowing my eyes.
In response, she rolled her own and looked up to the heavens for the answer as to how to deal with such crassness. I heard James laughing to himself in the background.
“And who is this?” Maura looked from me to James and back again, “Are you making friends in the city?”
“I guess you could call him that, if by friend you mean,' irritating cling-on with no sensitivity.'”
James was still smiling as he reached his hand to Maura for her to shake.
“You've been dealing with this for twenty two years? You have my greatest sympathy. I'm James Maxwell.”
“Maura Taylor. I suppose you could call me Brynna's nanny. And you're Brynna's...”
“Friend.” He replied simply.
“You better be only her friend, James Maxwell.”
“Okay!” I threw my hands up in the air, “Can we get serious for a moment?”
“I was being very serious.” Maura informed me and I didn't have time to decide whether she truly was or not.
“Look, I know this is all very exciting, given that you haven't seen me in ages and I have this striking fellow following me around. But I have to tell you something. It's serious. It's gravely serious and you might want to sit down...”
“Oh, dear Lord...” Maura closed her eyes and grasped one of the chairs around the kitchen table, “When is it due, Brynna?”
I hadn't utilized a DVD-spewing box in front of a convenience store or even visited my local library in quite a while. If I had, I certainly hadn't told her about it, as both occurrences would be quite unremarkable. Besides, both would not warrant the sudden change in her demeanor and the way she immediately went pale.
Perhaps she believed that I had gotten myself into debt with some loan sharks in a smoke-filled casino, though for the life of me I didn't know what had given her that idea. Even though I was vastly intellectually superior to the neanderthals that frequented such establishments, I had never had an interest in gambling. Plus, the closest casinos were miles away. Someone who had no interest in gambling wouldn't drive hundreds of miles away to gamble.
“Whoa...” James said suddenly as he realized what she was getting at, “Ms. Taylor...”
“Is that who you are, Mr. Maxwell?” She asked sardonically, “Are you the father?”
“Is he the what now?!” I exclaimed, my eyebrows raising in alarm, “Maura, you think I'm pregnant?”
“I told your parents you were not ready to live on your own. With your potential, Brynna Claire, how could you just throw it all away... After everything I've told you! After I told you about what happened to me...”
“Are you serious right now?! Biology, history and anthropology would dictate that in order to conceive a child, one must...”
“Don't even start the rambling, overly intelligent monologues with me!” She snapped furiously. “That might work on your parents who are so thick they don't even realize you're being facetious, but I am well aware of the fact that you try to weasel your way out of conflict with...”
“Would you just let me tell you that I'm not pregnant before you suffer heart failure? I am trying to save your life here, Maura!”
“And you try to use your dry sense of humor to distract me...” She calmed down, my words settling into her mind enough that she could comprehend their meaning, “Oh. Well, you should have said that right off!”
“Well, I apologize for alarming you. I did not realize you thought I was so thick-headed that I wouldn't be able to properly utilize contraception methods.”
“She drives me mad, James.” Maura looked at him wearily as she eased herself down into the chair she had been gripping throughout her tirade. “Absolutely mad...”
“I've only known her for a little under twenty four hours and I can sympathize. Believe me, I can.” He told her with a shake of his head.
“Alright.” I interrupted him before turning my gaze to Maura. “I want to say everything I need to say before you cut in.” I looked back at him after registering exactly what he had said. “Shut up, James!”
“See? I can sympathize.” He repeated coolly and I fought the urge to pick up the nearest heavy object and throw it at his head with all my might.
“What I am about to say is going to sound ridiculous. But I can promise you right now that we are not playing a practical joke nor have we ingested any illegal substances. Okay?”
“Alright.” Her tone conveyed her uncertainty as her eyes looked between the two of us again.
“The world is going to end.” I paused, not realizing that in the moment of silence, I gave her the opportunity to laugh.
“Is marijuana still illegal?” She asked through her hysterical giggles.
“That's random...” I turned my head on the side slightly as I always did when I was confused.
“You said you two hadn't ingested any illegal substance. That was a hot issue a couple of months ago. Legalizing marijuana, I mean. So did they? Is that what's going on here?”
I sighed heavily and muttered, “I told you to let me say what I needed to say before you cut in.”
“You're...”
“I had a dream, almost ten days ago now.” James cut me off to blaze forward with his tale without worrying how she might take it. “I saw the world ending in an explosion. I don't know what caused it but I know that I couldn't shake the awful feeling that I had after seeing it. So, I went online and I did some searching. At that time, over one hundred people reported having the exact same dream. The details were the same, down to the most insignificant thing, Maura. The time between this strange silence and the blast, for instance; we all said it was about a minute and a half.”
“And this source is credible, why?”
“God, I don't know...” I chimed in sarcastically after exhaling my cigarette smoke out of the back door, “Because over one hundred people described the same thing down to minute details?”
“Was it a message board or was it instant messaging? Unless you were talking to someone and you both recanted the details at exactly the same time, what was to stop these other individuals from just reciting your dream back to you? Perhaps they were pulling some kind of cruel practical joke on you.” Maura said reasonably.
“One hundred people were pulling a practical joke on me? People from England, Iran, France, not to mention a variety of different states here? That doesn't sound very logical, does it?”
“And the world ending soon sounds logical?”
“Look, I don't care if you believe us completely. I just need you to believe me a little bit. I need you to allow yourself to feel however much belief will convince you to go, pack a bag, and come with us, Maura.” I implored and for good measure, I reached out and grasped her hand in both of mine. She looked down at our joined hands in surprise and then looked back at me.
“Come with you where, Brynna?”
“We're leaving.”
“Where exactly are you planning to run? Where can you go to escape the end of the world?” The conviction I needed to hear in her voice was non-existent, at least not yet. She was merely curious to hear what I would respond with.
“We're leaving Earth. No, do not even laugh right now!” I snapped at her as my anger bubbled over its steaming pot abruptly. I stopped, took a breath, and spoke again, this time with my usual air of cavalier, logical, and arrogant calm. “The people in power have known that this was coming. Something has been going on behind closed doors that would cause this. So they were proactive and built an escape. I'm sure you've heard about the other planet that they found.”
“Yes. They're calling it Pangea, aren't they? Don't tell me that's where we're going.”
“That's where we're going. It's fit to support human life. All life, actually. It's our b
est chance. It's our only chance, Maura. I am going to say something now that will convince you. If it doesn't, then you do not know me as well as I think you do. Okay?”
“Alright.”
“I want you to look at me and look at Penny.” Penny had climbed into my lap at the beginning of the conversation and was grasping my arm in both hands, looking terrified despite not understanding the magnitude of the situation. Our tones and my own shameless beseeching for Maura's belief were enough to convey that whatever was happening was serious enough to be worried about, though. Plus, children are the most instinctual of us all. They can sense the worst before it happens.
“I want you to think about Violet and Elijah.” My brother, Elijah was away at college. We were stopping to get him on the way to the launch site. He would need no convincing.
“You have been with us all since the days that we were born. I have this one chance to convince you that what I am saying is true. I have this one chance to tell you...” I stopped, unable to continue. To say what I was going to say next would be the greatest showing of weakness I had ever allowed myself to succumb to without a fight.
“What, darling?” She pressed me gently.
I heaved a great, reluctant sigh and looked at her.
“I need you to come with me. I need you.”
I looked away from her eyes when I saw tears rush into them suddenly. Everything I had ever learned about suppressing my emotions had been learned from Maura and now she was outwardly showing that I had moved her with what I had said. I hated myself for admitting it out loud. Maura hadn't needed to hear that just to convince her to come with us. She had needed to hear those words from me for many, many years. When I went to let go of her hands, she squeezed mine even tighter.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head ever so slightly, my eyes darting around for something to focus on.
“Calm down,” She whispered, “I'm not going to cry.”
My eyes raised to look at her and sure enough, she was telling the truth. She had swiped her tears away before they had a chance to fall.
“Are you packed? Are you ready?” She asked me and I nodded. “Did you bring your spare glasses?” I nodded again. “Good girl. Give me ten minutes to get your sisters ready and to grab some of Elijah’s things.”
“Okay. I'm sorry to scare you so randomly.” I replied, my voice steady. I didn't want to embarrass myself by showing anything that even remotely resembled fear. It wasn't enough to convince Maura, in her infinite wisdom of all of my quirks and flaws; she saw right through my steely exterior into my fearful heart the way she always had, from my birth until the very moment we found ourselves at currently.
“Darling, if this all comes down to you being the one who will save us,” She put both of her hands on my face and smiled slightly, “then I'm not scared at all.”
XXX
We were packed and ready to make our mad dash for Elijah's school and then, the launch site. Not one of us, not even Penny or Violet, spoke of my parents again. My sisters didn't because they knew we had no time. They assumed that our mother and father would be meeting us there. I didn't speak of them because there were no words to explain the complex emotions I felt upon picturing their faces. After allowing the violent to-and-fro of that complication to continue for as long as I could stand, I forced myself to picture one word. I allowed just one simple word to determine my actions: Overrule. My mission was to ensure the survival of my siblings, Maura and myself. That survival would overrule whatever semblance of love I felt towards the two people I was meant to call my parents.
I will hate myself for that until the day I pass from this realm to whatever comes after.
My eyes traveled slowly around the room I was standing in; it was the spacious formal living room where my mother and father would entertain their high-powered guests. A memory I had long suppressed bloomed inside my head like a dehydrated flower that had suddenly become drunk on rainwater. I closed my eyes and shook my head back and forth.
Bitterness, Brynna. I reminded myself, Nothing can touch bitterness.
The parties my parents used to hold in that room were the stage on which our family put on our greatest performances. Unity, love and normalcy were the key points of our act and we succeeded in conveying all three. They expected award-worthy performances from all of us by the time we were old enough to talk. For a while, I went along with the dubious charade. My siblings were still towing the proverbial line long after I had marched far from it.
“I wish I could understand you, Brynna.” My mother had said to me once after a performance of mine fell short of her high expectations. “I will never understand you.”
A gasp resulting from the sight of her face appearing in my mind drew an unwelcome and pinpoint-sharp entry of air into my chest.
“Brynna, we have to go.” James told me softly from the doorway. Upon seeing the look on my face, though, he stepped into the room further. “I tried to convince them to let your parents come for your sake. They wouldn't budge on it.”
“No. They caused this, in their own way. Do you want to know something that I find rather odd?”
He nodded, gazing at me intently.
“I never knew I had affection for them until this moment. It's not enough to convince me even to call. It's not enough to make me want to say goodbye. But James, it exists.”
He reached out and grasped my hand before saying softly and so gently, it would have brought tears to my eyes if I was capable of crying, “I know it does, sweetheart.”
“And there's someone genuinely good that I have known for a long time. I hate to leave him behind.” I looked at the pad of paper that was on the coffee table with the expensive fountain pen sitting on top. On that pad, my mother would scribble notes in the morning, telling us what chores to complete when we got home from school.
I picked up the pen and wrote three words on the clean piece of paper. They were the last three words my parents would see before they were consumed by the flames. In their last moments, I doubted they would care about my final message. But just in case it meant something to them, just in case it would bring them some infinitesimal amount of solace at the end of their lives, I wrote them.
James watched me write and then raised his eyes to look at me.
“That is the best I can do.” I stood to leave the room, avoiding his eyes now. As I passed him, he reached out and grasped my wrist. Then, he turned me towards him and wrapped his arms around me, squeezing me for a moment of comfort I did not realize I needed. My own arms, by their own will, threw themselves around his neck and grasped him desperately for every last moment of life I had left on that world and the one we were escaping to. I turned my face to his, burrowed it in his neck, and allowed myself to feel whatever I had to in order to keep moving. The complex storm of emotions raged in a valiant last effort to stay alive but I swiped them all away like God erasing evil from the world in a fabled great flood. I pulled away from James and nodded.
We turned without a word, hearing the car horn blaring as Maura grew impatient waiting for us. Once we were inside the car, she eyed us both suspiciously and I gave her an almost imperceptible shake of my head to assure her that nothing she had so unwillingly imagined had occurred between James and I while we were in the house for a minute and a half longer than she and my sisters had been. I wanted to add that if something had occurred in that short space of time, something was physically wrong with either one or both of us, but I thought better of it. It was not exactly the time for plucking her nerves, as they were frazzled and dangerously high voltage as result. I knew all too well not to jest with her when she was in such a state.
Maura kept her arms around Violet and Penny in the backseat but they still jumped up to watch our house shrink further and further away until it was out of sight.
I kept my eyes trained forward. In those three words, I had said all that I needed to say. I had my closure. I had left behind something for them to see, to take comfort in.
I took care of things and said that which my sisters couldn't say, as I had since the day I understood that my role as their old sister meant that I had to be their most indestructible force of protection.
My last words to my parents were different from what theirs would have been. They surely would have said, “I love you” as they had not been so embittered by the two as I had been. But my choice of words was more important than any proclamation of love, in both meaning and significance.
They were the first, last, and only favor I would ever grant my parents.
XXX
We made no haste in our journey from then on. James sped down back roads, his eyes constantly darting to the shadows in the land surrounding us for hidden policemen. The last thing we needed was to be pulled over. The time it would take to be given our ticket was time that was wasted.
“Did I ever tell you how I found out that the Reapers could change form?” James asked me quietly at one point in our journey. I had been turned around, looking at Maura, Violet, and Penny as they slept. My own tired eyes stopped moving to focus in on the luminescent green digital clock on the dashboard: 1:17 AM. I was honing in on two days with no sleep.
“Are you going to try to scare me into staying awake right now?” I asked, turning sideways and laying my head against the headrest so I could look at him while he spoke.
“No. It just popped into my mind. Or I guess I should say, 'They just popped into my mind.'”
“Who?”
“Two of the kids I met. I had only ever encountered one Reaper and besides knowing that it was a female, I was too afraid to really study it. It followed me while I was out in the fields one night.”
“What fields?”
“My ex and I lived on a farm.”
“Oh.”
“I just turned around and there she was. No tricks. No ruses. Just some hideous, demonic thing following me home.”
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 10
