Paradox - Progeny Of Innocence (bk2) (Paradox series) (7 page)

Darwin, NT, Australia 

Year: 2009

At sixteen, nearly seventeen, Grace has grown into a beautiful young woman, with just a hint of naivety. You could picture her posing confidently on the cover of any teenage fashion magazine, and none would screw up their nose to complain, only with envy, perhaps.
But as bright and outgoing as Grace appears to the outside world, inwardly her life continues to spiral aimlessly out of control. She constantly feels trapped, exposed - unsafe. She prefers her own private world. There are others, she knows, who are always there, and she knows instinctively that they will eventually seek her out and do her harm.
But she pushes those thoughts as far from her mind as possible. How can she possibly be prepared for someone, something she does not understand? Will she even recognize the enemy when it stands in front of her? From my own experience, I fear not.

For quite some time now, Grace has harbored a secret. She has an unquenchable, urgent desire to write down everything she remembers about the increasing visions and dreams that constantly consume her thoughts. She began doing this on the day that she found the leather-bound journal that Wade had left on her bed when she was just 11 years old.

She has a ritual, when it comes to her writing. Firstly, she closes her bedroom door and pushes a chair up against it, securing it against any interruptions. The living are considered unwelcome distractions in this strange and unexplainable world. They are not permitted to enter this deep dark pit that Grace has burrowed down into to reach this forbidden place. This place, where fantasy and reality contort, shift then fuse into ghostly figures from days long past. Others are not meant to be subjected to this otherworldly place she calls purgatory. This is her curse, her cross to bear, that has her trapped like a fly in a spider’s web, somewhere between heaven and hell. Only during her visions does Grace get a tiny glimpse into these other hellish worlds. Our worlds. Worlds that we have shared together as one over the centuries.

Grace usually begins by writing all about the labyrinth of visions that have constantly manipulated their way into her thoughts and dreams. Sometimes she draws what she has seen, and at other times she just flicks through the pages. Black charcoal drawings depict her harrowing nightmares of monstrous figures with talons tearing at flesh. Evil faces with hollow black eye sockets that glisten with yellow unblinking eyes. And blood, lots of blood. Human blood.

Lately, she has been writing more and more about me. She has begun to remember more of the numerous lifetimes that we have shared together. There are so many lifetimes, deaths, which she is yet to remember. Visions that hover ghostlike on a distant horizon, waiting for her to acknowledge them. Visions of other fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, all of whom reach out to her with pleading eyes. She writes for hours about the harrowing visions, about life and about death. She writes stories about these other people’s lives: about how they lived, loved and ultimately, about how they died. She does this in an attempt to immortalize them, to remember them, these other lives that somehow she knows she is connected to.

Kali, Tareja, Leon, Maria, a beautiful brown-skinned woman, a rakishly thin father clothed in dirty rags who never came home and a scrawny Bengali kitten named Bonga. There are so many others that are tugging and pulling, vying constantly for her undivided attention.
Sometimes she writes about her dreams, depicting the beautiful fair-haired boy she is yet to meet, again
. And the faceless, dark-haired boy who watches her from afar. But never so far away that she cannot feel his presence. His intent is not only to remind her of who she is, but of
what
she is.

Today, Grace is on her own as she waits for Wade. Kate is working another shift at O’Regan's Tavern,
and Joshua has managed to extract Angela’s head out of a book long enough to spend the afternoon at the beach with her and a small group of other students from their school. Angela objected, of course, but she finally gave in when Joshua got down on his knees in math class and pleaded with her to go with him. Grace has declined the trip to the beach, citing a headache, and for once, neither Joshua nor Angela has tried to talk her into joining them. Today, Angela and Joshua both know, Grace has other things on her mind that require her undivided attention.

"Come on Angela, it will be fun…"

"Fun, really, me?" she said, frowning at him. "Are you not well? Are you suffering from some kind of delusion? In which parallel universe do you actually see me frolicking around and having fun at the beach?"

"Please, Angela, do it for me… and you never know, you just might have fun."

She looked at him warily. "I find that highly doubtful, Josh."

"Well, how will you know unless you actually try it?"

"I just know. Do you have to drink a hot fish milkshake to know you aren’t going to like it?" she asked.

Joshua looked at her, sticking out his bottom lip.

"Emotional blackmail, really, you want to play that card? You should be ashamed of yourself, Joshua Deneb," Angela said, shaking her head.

Joshua did not budge.

"Oh alright, I’ll do it for you, Josh, but I won’t like it."

Joshua’s face broke into a wide grin. "Great, come on then," he said, attempting to take the heavy, book-laden backpack out of her arms, "we have a lift waiting for us downstairs in the car park."

Angela wrapped her arms protectively around her bag. "Stop treating me like a fragile little girl. I am quite capable of carrying my own school bag."

"Okay, fine," Joshua said, holding up his arms above his head. "I was just trying to do the right thing, being a gentleman-"

"A gentleman," Angela retorted, "would refrain from using emotional blackmail, or sulking to get his own way." She began to walk away, then she turned back to face Joshua. "Well, are you coming or not?"

He jogged enthusiastically after her. "This is going to be fun, you’ll see," he said, pushing the door open wide for her.

Angela gave him a wry smile. "You won’t think that when it starts to rain…"

"It’s not going to rain," Joshua scoffed. "Look at the sky; it’s a beautiful day, and not a cloud in sight."

"You’ll see," Angela said, shaking her head.

When Angela had eventually been coaxed into actually going for a swim, sand had inevitably become lodged in various crevices on which Angela did not care to elaborate. Shortly after this, Joshua had found her fully clothed and sitting on a beach towel with her head hidden back in one of her books. Champsie sat obediently by her side and gave Joshua a sad, apologetic look before depositing his head back in Angela’s lap. Moments later, a brisk breeze picked up and the sky began to grow dark.

Angela tilted her head, raised her eyebrows, and gave Joshua a smug look. Then she promptly began to pack her books into her bag. "Come on, Champsie, up you get," she said, shaking the sand off her towel before folding it up. "I believe our fun time at the beach has reached its conclusion."

Joshua scowled at her and tugged a t-shirt over his head. "I don’t know how you did this," he said, looking up at the clouds forming menacingly in the sky. "But I know you had
something
to do with it."

"Don’t be ridiculous, Josh. I have absolutely nothing to do with the weather..."

Joshua gave her a questioning look. "You say that like you know something that I don’t."

"Please, Josh; we both know that I know many things that you couldn’t possibly begin to comprehend. And you really shouldn’t fret about that. That’s just the way it is." She left Joshua standing there with a confounded look on his face as she trudged up the beach toward the car park, Champsie almost skipping joyfully beside her. "Careful, Josh," she said. "I’ve heard that if the wind changes, your face will stay like that."

One of Joshua’s friends called out, jolting him out of his statue-like stance. "Hurry up, Josh, it’s about to piss down."

"Thanks Wade," Grace said sliding out of the front seat of Wade’s four-wheel drive. Wade nodded in response.

She pulled her backpack over her shoulder and closed the door. "I’ll call you in about an hour, if that’s okay?"

"Take as long as you like, Grace. I don’t have any other plans."

Grace stepped slowly away from the car and watched Wade drive away. She turned and took the familiar path that she always took from the car park. Above, an alliance of dark clouds began to gather.

An old groundskeeper with a stained canvas fishing cap on his head was raking leaves into a neat pile; he paused for a moment when he saw her. "Grace," he said, nodding as she passed him.

She gave the old man a quick smile and a nod in return before lowering her head and continuing on her way. Seconds later, a chilly breeze picked up and swirled the leaves high in the air, twirling them all around her.

She turned her head back to look at the old man regretfully. "Sorry," she murmured as the leaves began to drift gracefully toward the earth, settling all around her.

The old man pulled the cap off his head and wiped it across his sweaty brow. "Not to worry, Grace, it’s only a few leaves, absolutely nothing to worry about, my girl." He looked up at the coagulating clouds as they drifted ghostlike across the warm glow of the sun, painting the sky an ominous grey color. "But if you wouldn’t mind holding off the rain for just a little longer, until I have time to get these leaves raked up again, that would be greatly appreciated," he said, smiling at her. He pulled his old cap back onto his slightly balding head. "You take care now, you hear." He began raking the leaves into another neat pile.

Grace nodded and offered him a sad smile. The poor old thing, she thought. What on earth had given him the ridiculous notion that she was capable of holding off the rain? She had just felt sorry that he would have to rake up the scattered leaves again. Not apologetic for anything that she had done to cause it. For five years, she had watched this old man tend lovingly to the grounds. But not once could she remember ever having a conversation with him, or telling him her name. She let the thoughts go. She had far more important things on her mind today.

Grace knew that it would take her less than two minutes to reach her destination. She could have been blindfolded on a moonless night, and still she would not have lost her way. She had walked this path so many times in the past few years alone, and at other times with her mother. The manicured lawn felt like a plush carpet beneath her feet as she walked. She breathed in and smelt the earthy smell of freshly cut lawn. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear a lawnmower as it coughed, then spluttered into a gradual silence. The ear-piercing squawk of a bird overhead had her looking skyward. Although he was camouflaged in the rolling grey clouds, it still only took her a moment to spot him. She could feel his beady, black eyes boring into her in a strange, yet comforting, way. After five years, she had grown completely accustomed to his being there, drifting above her from his vantage point, and watching over her protectively.

For a moment, she just stood there and stared at the white marble headstone. Then she dropped her shoulder a little to let her backpack fall to the ground by her feet. She sat down on the grass, picked up a bunch of roses and white lilies, and placed them in her lap. She leaned back and pressed her shoulder up against the icy stone surface. Her finger traced the grooves of the engraved letters.

Brian Connors.

Beloved Husband and Father.

Forever Missed.

R.I.P.

"Hello, Dad," she murmured softly. "I see that Mom has already visited you today," Grace said, lifting the flowers to her nose to inhale their sweet scent. "The flowers are lovely Dad, your favorites."

A bright ray of sunlight sliced through the dispersing clouds above, illuminating her face. "Skies from heaven, Dad," she whispered, closing her eyes and laying her cheek against the cold marble surface. Sitting there like this reminded Grace of the times she had sat on her father’s lap as a child, her face pressed hard against the warmth of his chest. The memories of that little girl sitting on her father’s lap curled her lips into a smile. Then suddenly the smile slipped away, dragging her back to a darker time, a darker place. Back to that horrible day when she had watched her father’s coffin disappearing slowly into the gaping muddy hole in the earth. The tears came effortlessly then; she did not try to stop them. Grace thought about the old man. She hoped he had finished raking up his leaves, because at any moment, it was about to rain.