Rewrite Redemption (57 page)

And nothing disappeared.

“It’s all different,” Lex said to me from her squished position beneath Sam’s arm. “And it’s amazing!”

I pulled back and looked my mom straight in the eyes for the first time in seven years. She was so beautiful! She was healthy and she looked younger than I remembered. And there in that moment, the cold, dark emptiness just faded away.

“How did this happen?” I asked her. “How—”

“It’s complicated,” she said, kissing me on the forehead. “But it was you, Autumn. You changed the timeline…you and your friends.”

“A.J., wait till you…just wait,” Lex blurted, as bubbly as I’d ever seen her. “It’s wild…so insanely wild!” She danced around the room while Sam laughed.

And my mom, my
mom
…she laughed too.

“You rock!” Ipod said as he walked into the room and hugged me. He seemed taller, somehow. He was definitely better dressed.

“So we changed the timeline and my mom is alive again?” I asked him. “How is that even possible?”

“You upped your game with this one, A.J.,” he said, smiling. He looked at Sam. “Everyone’s getting impatient.”

“There are some people waiting to meet you,” Sam said gently. “Are you okay, now?”

“I think so, yeah, I’m…Lex, what’s going on?” I grabbed her arm and stopped her from twirling.

“Come see,” she said, taking my hand.

With my parents and Ipod following, she led me to the landing. At the bottom, a group of people stood, waiting expectantly. When we emerged, they broke into applause. My knees buckled, but my parents held me up. Finally, they had my back.

We went down the stairs slowly, Sam on one side and my Mom on the other, with Lex dancing ahead. I didn’t recognize anyone. They were mostly older, except for a young girl, the one in the picture. She was grinning at me, and when she caught my eye, she gave me a little wave.

As we reached the bottom step, a tall, distinguished man, with white hair, stepped forward. He seemed familiar somehow. He looked at me with twinkling, all-knowing eyes. Then he smiled as he reached out and took my hands.

“Do I know you?” I asked, confused.

“Autumn, this is my grandpa, Charlie,” my mom said softly. She put her arm around him and he smiled down at her.

“Charlie?” I asked. “You mean tree house Charlie?”

“The very one,” he answered. “I’m your great-grandfather. I’m also a Shadow. And I’ve been waiting for this day for almost sixty years.” 

“But, I thought you were dead! When did they find you? Aren’t you…like a hundred years old? You look younger than your son.”

The crowd laughed. “Come on, everyone,” a white-haired woman said, smiling, “let the girl acclimate. Give her a little breathing room. She’s just had a huge rewrite.”

People began moving into the living room, talking and laughing. “It’s a day to remember,” one of them said.

“The turning point,” said another.

“I need to sit down,” I said, overwhelmed.

Sam led me into the living room—which was very different from how it used to look—and I dropped down into a leather chair.

“Where’s Lex?” I asked. I was suddenly frantic at all the changes—too much, too fast. 

“Right here. Scoot over,” she ordered, squishing beside me in the chair. “Relax, Sweetie. It’s all good. I lie—I die. So just go with it, okay?”

I nodded.

My mom stood beside my chair with her hand on my shoulder. I could still smell her lilac perfume—the scent I most linked with things being right with the world. I was confused. But I was okay. Lex was there. And my mom was there too. I took a big breath and looked around.

The crowd stared at me expectantly, as if they were waiting for me to break out into a speech. It was kinda bizarre.

“Who are all these people?” I whispered. “And why are they all looking at me?”

“They’re…
we’re
from the Guild,” Charlie said, smiling. “And they’re looking at you because you did something amazing. You changed Guild history.”

He motioned to an older woman with long, black hair, streaked with white and skin the color of Hosa’s. She was tall, and willowy, and had high cheekbones. She smiled at me and held out her hand.

“This is my wife, Rachael,” Charlie said, beaming at her.

“Hello, Autumn. I’m honored to meet you.” Her voice was husky and her handshake firm. As she leaned forward, her necklace swung out, gleaming in the sun from the picture window. There were beads of lapis, jade, and silver, and there was a silver dove in the middle.

“That necklace,” I said, pointing. “I recognize those beads—”

“Ooooo, me too!” squealed Lex, jumping up and peering in to see it closer. “My beads! A.J., those are my beads, the ones you gave the Indian!”

“Hosa?” I asked in wonder. “How…”

“My many-greats grandfather,” she said proudly. “This necklace has been in my family for almost two hundred years, passed down from generation to generation, along with the story of the great Aaajaay.”

“No shit!” I said. “Whoops, sorry, Sam! I have a story? Look at this one.” I lifted Hosa’s necklace over my head. “Hosa gave this to me…like…a few days ago. It was his.” I held it out to her.

 “Oh, Charlie,” she said, getting tears in her eyes. She took it from my hand and held it against her chest. “Hosa planted your oak tree, you know.”

“My tree-house tree?”

“That very one. The first time he saw you appear; you dropped a handful of acorns. His family was on a hunting trip. That summer, they camped in the valley that is now Boulder. The boy thought the acorns were magic and he planted them. Your tree was the only one that took root. After your second visit, Hosa visited that tree every year until he died, hoping you’d appear again.”

“Hosa saved our lives,” I said. 

“I know the story,” she said, smiling. “He was a great man. In his honor, someone from the family visited the tree every decade until finally the town grew up around it. That’s how I met your grandfather. I wanted to see the tree that Hosa planted.”

Charlie smiled and put his arm around her. He looked down at me. “We have a lot to discuss, young lady. But first, someone’s really anxious to talk to you.” He nodded at Lex. “Do you—”

“I’m so on it,” Lex said, grabbing my hand.

She grinned at my grandfather and pulled me through the crowded living room and then the yellow kitchen. People scattered to let us pass. We walked through the kitchen slider. The sun hit my eyes and I shaded them with my hand. At that point, I was just going with the flow. Sam was good. My mom was back. Charlie was alive and—”

I
felt
him before I saw him.

I felt him strong, and firm, and all encompassing. His power wrapped around me in a welcoming embrace. I turned to the left, hardly daring to hope.

He was leaning against my oak, his beautiful, blue eyes staring straight into mine.
A.J.,
he whispered…
inside
my head. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. He smiled and ran his hand through his hair.
That was some first kiss!
  

My knees got weak and wobbly and I could hardly breathe.
You remember!
I whispered back.

And I didn’t hide my eyes. I didn’t look down. I didn’t stay silent or just stand there, waiting for someone else to make the move. I didn’t even hesitate. I ran full bore and jumped into his waiting arms. The rest of the world disappeared.

But Constantine didn’t.

Slowly, over the next few days, I began the task of acclimating to all the changes. Sam told us the story of what went down when Lex and I launched into the vortex. When Sam walked in, and Constantine grabbed my shoulder…well, everything went wild.

Constantine got knocked almost sixty years into the past, straight to Charlie at the oak tree. I’d been concentrating so hard on Charlie and the tree when I connected to the matrix, that I just flung him there. Apparently, my power is pretty strong. Go figure.

Constantine spent almost a week there, filling Charlie in on everything. Charlie is like Ipod, perpetually curious. He grilled Constantine nonstop. Con taught him to handle his power, to shade, to use reflexive gravity, to find the Guild—he taught him everything he knew.

Charlie’s had over sixty years since then to innovate. He completely remade the Guild. Charlie’s timeline changed the moment Constantine told him he wasn’t crazy. So it was all in motion before we even rang the doorbell at the house in Seattle. I’m still trying to get a handle on it.

When Sam walked in and tried to grab me, he hit the tree instead because I was already gone. But he was linked with the jump so he kept the memories of both timelines. It turns out that there were things going on in my family that I knew nothing about. Both my parents felt the energy—the static and the creepy-crawlies—just not as intensely as me. They thought it was nerves or something. That’s why Sam drank so much, trying to calm it down.

Charlie said my Shadow energy was the only thing keeping Sam from going off the deep end all those years. That’s why he’d be in such bad shape whenever I was away. We don’t know why Guild technology didn’t pick up on Sam when he was born—his whole adoption is a mystery. Maybe we’ll find out someday. We have time.

As for my mom, she’s a Shadow like me. She just didn’t spontaneously jump. I guess that’s one reason she was so fond of her grandpa Charlie. She didn’t understand it, but she felt better when she was around him. He balanced out her vibrations. The same for when she met my dad. When they were together, everything was better. It sure explains their love for trees.

That girl in the photo? I have a sister—yeah, Summer Aspen Jones. What didn’t change was my mom’s tendency to pick weird names. Summer’s sweet. Apparently, she and the other me got along okay; but I can’t remember yet. As I said, I’m still integrating. But I think I’m going to like having a sister…besides Lex, of course.

The other A.J., Lex, and Ipod knew for years that the big day was coming. Charlie had them prepared to merge with the broken us when the time came. They’d merged before, so they weren’t afraid or anything. But still, I thought it was pretty brave of them to take on our baggage. They just stood there waiting for the appropriate moment, and poof, they integrated into us.

I mean, once everything balances out, they’ll /we’ll still be them/us, just with some additional memories. I don’t know what it will be like yet to have the other A.J.’s memories, but I’m ready to find out.

Lex and Ipod seem to be integrating faster than I am. That worries me a little. But Charlie says it will all sort out, and I’ll be even more powerful, once the other A.J.’s memories surface. It sounds strange, but Lex and Ipod think it’s really cool having both sets of memories. Ipod says it rocks because the other him learned all kinds of stuff he didn’t have a chance to. Now that walking-Wikipedia brain of his is filled with even more data.  

Ipod lives right next door with Charlie and Rachael. They adopted him. That kinda makes him my grandfather. We get a kick out of that. Constantine told Charlie how Lex and I found Ipod and made sure that he knew the time and place. So this time, Charlie found Ipod in the ditch. And the Hammer never beat him up again.

That’s a story, boy. The Hammer, he’s in a cage. Ipod’s mom? Well, she didn’t run back to Japan, deserting Ipod, after all. That was just a Hammer cover-up. The Hammer whacked her and buried her in the back yard. He got a little carried away one night when the hedge funds were crashing.

It was a tragedy, but leave it to Ipod to be logical about it
.
He was so young when he lost his mom, he barely remembers her. Ironically, it makes him feel better that she didn’t just abandon him. He’s merging two timelines and loving the part of him that spent the last eight years with stepparents who care about him. Plus, the Hammer will never lay hands on him again.

Ipod handles a lot of the tech stuff up at headquarters. He’s totally in geek heaven, having access to technology from another planet. Him and Charlie, boy, are they a pair. I couldn’t have imagined a better father for Ipod.

Lex, well, she’s still got my back. She lives with us like before. This time, those twin beds are ours. We still hang out in the tree house, but it’s nice being closer to the bathroom. Lex still thinks she’s boss but that’s okay. I guess she was boss in both timelines.