Parallel: The Secret Life of Jordan McKay Read online

  Statement from Dr. Ashcroft,

  Vincent Memorial Hospital, Boston

  August 4, 2009

  05:12 a.m.

  Agent Donnery:

  This is painful. It seems you both wanted to come clean about it, but couldn’t.

  Dr. Ashcroft:

  Well, of course. I guess we both feared we’d think the other was crazy. If anything, though, we both would have understood and things would have been easier. I laugh now because it really was the same man, and my guilt was not needed.

  Agent Donnery:

  Not at all. Perhaps you should trust your judgment. Just think, if you both had simply confessed, then Jordan would have had the companionship he had found with Molly, and that understanding of who he was.

  Dr. Ashcroft:

  Yes, exactly. And I would have had my explanations so that I no longer felt I was burying this part of me that had really lived. (pause) But not just that. We would have been able to avoid all this, too.

  Agent Donnery:

  How did it feel living in that house?

  Dr. Ashcroft:

  I remember the day we first went back there. I was so terrified because as a child, my friends and I always teased that the house was haunted, and here I was waltzing in the front door.

  Agent Donnery:

  Tell me about it.

  Dr. Ashcroft:

  Alright I will, but this is my own story, not Jordan’s.

  Told by Doctor Ashcroft,

  Vincent Memorial Hospital, Boston

  March 22, 2009

  11:24 a.m.

  “Jordan, are you sure about this? It seems weird.” I was waving to my mother over my shoulder, just out of ear shot as we walked down the lane.

  “It’s not weird to me.” He tugged my hand and I walked forward.

  “Well, you never thought of it as a haunted house like I did as child.” I rolled my eyes, feeling the hair on my arms rise the closer we got to those dark, abandoned windows.

  “I think you’ll find it’s quite normal inside,” he reassured.

  It sounded as though he’d been here more times than he led on, as though it were his beach home he went to on the weekends, while all I could think of were dead bodies in the closet and the old man haunting the living room.

  We walked up the path that cut through the front yard, which was in need of some aggressive weeding. “Jordan, if it’s so great, how come you didn’t get a yard crew in here to take care of it?”

  He shrugged. “Makes it look scary, keeps the neighborhood kids away.”

  I rolled my eyes again. “Just what I was trying to tell you,” I murmured.

  He got to the door and jammed a key into the lock. It gave with little effort.

  “How often did you say you come here?” I asked under my breath, lifting one brow.

  “Here we are.” He flipped a switch and the lights flickered to life. “Well, I don’t often turn the lights on, so that may be an issue.”

  The overhead light in the middle of the living room popped and went out as I jumped, nearly fainting. “Okay, and that’s not weird or anything? Are you sure there are no ghosts?”

  He laughed. “Could be, you never know.” He turned around and gave me a wink before spreading his arms before him. “Well, here it is,” he announced with pride. I found it hard to swallow.

  I looked around, my mind finally able to complete the puzzle that had plagued me for so long as a child. “And this seriously doesn’t bother you to come back here, to a place with horrible memories?”

  He tilted his head and gave me a sour face. “They weren’t all horrible, Kenzie. You don’t have to make it seem like the house Hannibal was raised in. Besides, I was hoping that perhaps we could make new memories here.”

  My face shot to his. “What?” My voice sounded shocked, but not in a good way. “I mean,” I paused, feeling bad as I watched his smile fade. “What?” I thought about the question, knowing what it meant to him as I forced a grin to come to my face, hoping it was at least believable.

  The same grin returned to Jordan’s face. “Yes.” He took a step toward me and grabbed my hands with excitement. “Our town home is too small for a family.”

  I swallowed. “A family?” My smile was beginning to hurt my face as the urge to freak out and run away tugged at every bone and muscle in my body.

  “Kenzie, I love you more than anything. Don’t you want to have kids?” His eyes glittered, and I couldn’t resist the endearing way he said it.

  I hadn’t really thought about it. At twenty-five, it hardly seemed a glimmer in my eye at this point. I looked around the room then, envisioning kids as they ran about with noisy toys, envisioning their grandparents nearby to visit. Though I wasn’t ready right this moment, in all reality it was perfect.

  I squeezed his hands. “Yes, Jordan, I can see it.”

  His boyish excitement seemed to ooze from his face. “I just feel so alive today.” He let a contented breath pass his lips as he looked around.

  I looked around as well; knowing what he saw was much different than what I had. Chuckling, I walked into the room and inspected everything in it, pretending to be interested though nothing here held any emotion for me but fear. “Well, if we do come here, we can get new stuff, right? Because some of this is a little dated.” I was looking at the old TV, wondering if it even worked.

  He nodded with enthusiasm. “Oh, of course, whatever you want.”

  I looked up from the living room to the banister that led upstairs. I swallowed, knowing that in time I would learn to get the horrific images of this place out of my mind. Continuing around the corner I found the kitchen, tucked away toward the back, much larger than the kitchen in the town house.

  “I knew you’d like this.” He looked toward the ceiling where the room was lined with cookbooks, all sitting untouched on the top of the cabinets, as though a part of the architecture.

  My jaw dropped. “Your mother must have been quite the cook.”

  Jordan tucked his hands in his pockets as he entered the room, as though reminding himself not to touch. Every other room in the house looked like it had been visited except this one. A layer of dust coated every surface. I understood why as soon as I saw the look on his face. It had been her sanctuary, her haven.

  “It’s yours now, all of it. There’s nothing I’d love to see more than for you to make yourself at home and bring back the life.”

  I took his words to heart as I pulled a chair from the breakfast table that was tucked in the corner, bringing it to the counter and crawling on top. I ran my hand along a row of cookbooks to look at the names. She had everything from French to Greek, and in languages that looked both ancient and new.

  “Could your mother read and understand all this?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose, I never really knew much about her cookbooks, just assumed she knew because the food always made it to the table. I just liked to watch her.”

  There was a large book toward the middle with no name, so I hooked my finger in the spine and pulled it back from the stack. It was then that a fat spider fell from the top and landed on my shoulder. I screamed, toppling backwards off the chair as the book fell from my hands and onto the floor.

  There was a commotion as Jordan lunged toward me, his hands grasping my waist. I let out a relieved breath and looked at him, his face solemn and scared.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  A short laugh passed my lips. “I’m fine, Jordan. Don’t look at me as though I’ve died. It’s okay.” Jordan was always like this, so protective. In fact, I had been surprised he’d even let me stand on the stool to begin with.

  “Well, we will have to move those, that’s for sure.” Jordan walked over to the book that had fallen to the ground, the crash causing it to sprawl papers all across the kitchen floor.

  I picked one up that was at my feet, reading it with a curious eye,

  April 3, 1963

  Something happened today that is hard to exp
lain. I always thought my life was sealed in a horrible fate of sadness, but it seems I found a way to change my luck…

  Jordan ripped the page from my hand then.

  “Jordan, I was reading that…” I stopped talking as I saw the look on his face.

  “I just…” He looked away from me as he hastily picked up a few more papers from the ground.

  As I tried to look at more, I saw that they all began the same, with a date. I gasped, seeing now that the book I had pulled was not a cookbook at all, but a journal she had kept hidden among them. My initial anger fell to sympathy as I watched him ruefully stack each page.

  “Is that her journal?”

  He was kneeling on the floor, stuffing the pages back inside the dusty cover. “I suppose.” His voice sounded grumpy.

  “Did you ever know?” I pressed.

  He shut the book and stood with it tucked under his arm. “No.” His voice now sounded jealous, as though he was angry that I had found it first.

  I looked down at my feet, stung by his suddenly cold demeanor. “Perhaps we should leave.”

  He took a deep breath as he brought the book to the table and set it down, causing dust to fly out from under it. He stared at it for a moment as his hands rested on the cover. I was frozen, afraid of what he would do or say. He then slowly lifted his hands and shuffled toward me. I looked up at him, seeing his arms were welcoming me into a hug; relief washed over me.

  “Kenzie, I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect that. It was as though the whole world fell away around me and I couldn’t control my actions. First, you fell from the chair, then that. It was too much.” He engulfed me in a hug as I fell into his arms.

  “I understand, Jordan.” I closed my eyes. “I didn’t mean to pry. I just had no clue what it was until I read it.”

  He put his chin on the top of my head. “I don’t want this to ruin the day though; got it?”

  I nodded against his chest.

  “Come on; let’s go back to your parents.” He stepped away and released his hold on my arms, his warmth dissipating into the air around us.

  “Okay.” I wiped a tear from my eye.

  He grabbed the book as we left, tucking it under his arm as though it were a suitcase filled with gold. I felt my heart sink, and it was then that I knew it was going to be another bad week.

  Statement from Dr. Ashcroft,

  Vincent Memorial Hospital, Boston

  August 4, 2009

  05:21 a.m.

  Agent Donnery:

  Ah, a journal much like his.

  Dr. Ashcroft:

  Yes, exactly. See here, all her entries are in Jordan’s journal now, right here in the back.

  Agent Donnery:

  Are you telling me…

  Dr. Ashcroft:

  Yes, I am. I’m sorry to keep that from you, but I wanted you to find out the way I did. See here, Jordan talks about it. Let me read.

  Formulated from the journals

  of Patient #32185

  March 22, 2009

  1:32 p.m.

  I cracked the journal and looked at the first page. It was dated 1959, when my mother was just a child, though the handwriting did not reflect that. I flipped the page and inspected her drawings which were scattered throughout the margins, not yet convinced that reading the entries was a good idea.

  By now we had gone back to the town home, and Kenzie was at the market with her mother getting dinner. They had wanted me to go, but I declined, the itch to read about my mother’s life too intense not to scratch.

  A part of me was afraid of what was written here, especially after the bit I had seen as the pages lay across the floor of the kitchen like dead memories. It had caught my eye almost immediately, something so familiar to me: a time bracket, just like mine. My first instinct was to snatch the page from Kenzie, afraid of what it said though I knew I had terrified her by doing so.

  I took a deep breath and rubbed my brow with my hand, delving in.

  June 15, 1982

  Jordan was born today. I was afraid to see him, afraid he would be deformed because of me, but he was perfect. I’m stuck here now, with him, but I want nothing else. I am tired of running away and trying to find happiness when perhaps it is right in front of me, staring at me as Jordan is now.

  I need to be responsible. I need to live so that he can as well. For as much as I’d love to leave and get away, I will never go without him. I just hope he hasn’t inherited my nightmare or my addictions. I will not tell him about me because I do not want to encourage him to dream the way I did. I just want him to know how much I care, and how important it is to have a normal life from beginning to end.

  I drew in one shaky breath, realizing all to well what it was she had meant by addiction. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. She had been like me, and though she tried, she could not prevent giving me the same fate.

  I flipped past a few pages, finding one of the last she kept.

  August 18, 1986

  I know I’m growing ill. I can feel it. Though my life is anything but glamorous and happy, as I had always dreamed, I found today that it still has its surprises. The only reason I was staying here in this nightmare life was for Jordan, so that he could grow up in a world that functions from beginning to end as God intended, though now it seems it no longer matters.

  Today was the day the neighbor dog was meant to die, but he didn’t. When I found Jordan I knew right away what he had done, and that he was different. His eyes no longer held the childish wonder they should, and above all things, he himself was able to recognize that I deserved better than the life I’ve led for the past four years since he was born.

  He has my gift, or curse, whichever lends him the better explanation. I believe he is stronger though, evolved to handle it in a way I simply couldn’t. When I saw him today, I knew he was from somewhere in the future but he seemed healthy, happy; perhaps a little lost but that was all. I feel better now knowing that if he is out there somewhere, I know he’s still alive and can perhaps make better of his inherited bad luck.

  Though I longed to ask him what it was like in the future, about my death, about our lives, I didn’t. I do not want him to know that the illness inside me was my own fault and that the fact I am abandoning him in death is because of my own selfish needs. I see now that all I needed in life was Jordan. That it didn’t matter what happened, or where I was, or what I had.

  I will take him away from this house in the hopes that he will feel more at home with me, so that he will come visit as often as his body will allow. Jordan, I’m sorry.

  The words stung, as though written for me because she knew one day I’d find this. When we left the green house at the end of the lane, we had left everything behind in the hopes of starting over. After that, the kitchen rarely saw a visitor other than the path to and from the refrigerator that had been made by my father, for his beer.

  I exhaled, realizing now that the cancer was much more than just that. Her death was the result of her Shifts through time and her indulgence in the same life I had. She had ended up in the same fate as I, only a fate that she could not simply rest away. Guilt washed over me as I thought about how my birth had changed everything for her. Though I had gotten stuck in a world that was sweet, my mother did not receive the same fate with the hell in which she was left.

  I sighed and flipped through the rest of the pages, finding pictures I had all but forgotten, and drawings I had done for her as a child. I was afraid now of what the future was like for me and if I were also doomed for the same fate as my mother, or if I could somehow overcome it and live.

  I thought about Molly then, wondering what her family had been like and if her mother had also been like mine. I wished she were here so that she could explain it to me, but she was smart to choose the life she was living, and I did not wish for her to waste the Shift just to calm my worries.

  It was then that I began to wonder how many Shifters there were and if anyone other than our kind had found ou
t that we exist. Even so, there is no way anyone would ever believe us anyway, and if they did, it would only end in war. Someone like me would never be accepted by the human race. As a nation we fear the unknown, content in dwelling in the lies that nothing bad will ever happen. Perhaps there is some secret world out there where our kind lives free, as you see on TV, a cult town of sorts. In the end I suppose I wouldn’t want people to know about me and expose all my trickery, but at the same time, what better way is there to abolish my sins but to confess?

  I let a laugh escape my lips as I felt the guilt inside me grow thick. Even after all the life I’ve seen, I still believed there would be a day of reckoning in the end. I was not a particularly religious person, not at all really, but what if there really was this world of Heaven, and what if I had ruined that dream for myself?

  I heard the front door click and I quickly shut the book on my lap, looking toward the entry as I saw Kenzie and her mother peek around the corner and through the door, both huffing as they held heavy bags of groceries in their hands.

  “Hey, honey.” Kenzie dropped a heavy bag with a distressed face. “You want to lend a hand?”

  I smiled and pulled myself out of my chair, placing the book on the side table.