Rift

Rift (Roran Curse #3)

1. Dancing Leaves

Reluctantly, Jenna Forrest stared at the smooth silver surface of the entryway door. She knew that when it opened, chaos would reign, and she wasn’t sure she could face it. Summoning all her courage, she pressed her thumb to the scanner. The door slid open with a grinding screech, and a door chime announced her arrival.

“Mommy!” screamed a delighted, high-pitched voice. A small blur immediately barreled into Jenna’s legs, nearly knocking her backward.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she greeted warmly, leaning down to pick up Erik. His chubby arms clutched her neck, and he pressed a sloppy, wet kiss to her cheek. She readjusted her grip on her son and tried to drag her rolling travel case into the entryway, but she had barely made it a few centimeters before she was accosted again.

“Mommy!” cried another voice. “You were gone for so, so long!”

Jenna looked down and tousled Berry’s hair. Her daughter’s wild curls were tangled, and she wore a frilly costume skirt with a mismatched blouse and Jenna’s own high-heeled boots.

“Where’s Daddy?” Jenna asked, scanning their main living area. The cushions were all pulled off the furniture, clothes and shoes and toys were strewn all over the floor, and the terminal screen was on and streaming a kids’ show made up of exotic alien creatures singing about shapes and colors.

“You’re here!” Jimmy exclaimed as he walked into the room carrying a squiggling black ball of fur. He transferred the animatronic puppy to one side and wrapped his free arm around both Jenna and Erik. Then he leaned over and kissed Jenna warmly.

“Welcome home,” he murmured before kissing her again. Jenna met his lips eagerly, enjoying the thrill that still shot through her at Jimmy’s touch, even after seven years of marriage and three children.

Then their brief moment was over—Erik shoved his head in between them. “My mommy!” he declared angrily.

Jimmy laughed and took the handle to Jenna’s case. “Let’s at least get you in the door, shall we?” he suggested. All four of them made their way into the living area, and the front door finally lumbered shut.

“What’s wrong with the door?” asked Jenna.

“I have no idea,” Jimmy said. “I could call a maintenance guy out, but I figured it’s just as well. It’s as good as an alarm to let us know when Erik is escaping.”

They walked into the kitchen, Jenna still carrying Erik while Berry clung to her leg. Jimmy followed with the case.

“Where’s Kendra?” asked Jenna curiously before coming to a dead halt right inside the kitchen. “What in the world happened here?” she exclaimed.

Every dish they owned covered the countertops and the table. A carton of eggs sat on the floor, surrounded by broken shells and oozing egg yolk. Something liquid dripped steadily from the counter to the floor. A powdered cooking mix of some kind dusted the surface of their table. Play cars coated in thick nut butter were arranged in a line next to the sink.

Jimmy ran a tired hand over his face. “I was distracted. Somebody thought it would be a good idea to shut Zip up in the office, and he chewed his way through the casing of your drafting terminal. Apparently Jax went for extra realistic when he programmed this puppy. I was trying to fix it before you got back.”

“What?” Jenna exclaimed in shock. She looked down at Berry, who stared back at her with wide brown eyes.

“I wanted Zip to stay out of the kitchen,” Berry said in her soft, high voice. “I was going to cook you a surprise for coming home.” The little black offender still squirmed in Jimmy’s arms. He yipped happily.

Jenna sighed. “It’s a good thing you are all so cute.”

“Even me?” added Jimmy with a lopsided grin.

“Especially you,” she responded, kissing him once again.

After the few surviving eggs had been rescued and the various surfaces of the kitchen wiped up enough that it was safe to walk in there, Jenna stopped and looked over at Jimmy, a rag still held aloft in her hand.

“Where is Kendra?” she asked again. Though Kendra was the oldest of their children, she was only six, and it was highly unusual for her not to greet her mother right away when Jenna returned from a business trip to Omphalos.

“I don’t know,” Jimmy frowned, pulling out his flipcom. “She was in her room earlier, but maybe she went over to visit Jax.”

Jax was Jimmy’s reclusive twin brother. Their home in Tarentino Bay technically belonged to Jax, since the property had been purchased with his money. Most of the property was occupied by a large, well-protected lab where Jax, a genius inventor with severe agoraphobia and social anxiety, could hide from the world and tinker with his creations. Jax’s lab was flanked by two adjoining suites—one belonging to him and one belonging to Mrs. Smitz, who was his housekeeper and caretaker. Jimmy and Jenna lived in a small bungalow on the opposite side of the property. It had once been a detached garage not large enough to be a ship’s hanger, but big enough to store a couple of ground transports. Jenna had designed the conversions to turn the garage into a livable house herself.

In general, Jax loathed visitors. He had a strong bond with Jimmy and was happiest if Jimmy came to visit him frequently. Mrs. Smitz was a sedate introvert, and her quiet, unobtrusive care did not seem to agitate Jax. However, he refused to meet or even speak with strangers. He barely tolerated visits from Jenna or the children. Lately, though, he seemed to be warming up to Kendra. She had started tripping over from their bungalow to her uncle’s lab on a regular basis, and more often than not he would actually let her in. Jimmy reported that Kendra would sit on a stool in Jax’s lab and talk nonstop to Jax without any reply from him. Jax would keep working and did not have any kind of a meltdown in her presence, which was downright astonishing.

There was something different about Kendra. Even Jax could feel it.

Jenna couldn’t put her finger on it, not directly. Kendra had a presence about her, an energy that everyone around her couldn’t help but respond positively to. Sometimes she almost seemed to glow. Not just with a “glowing countenance,” as beauty sites might describe it, but truly like light emanated from her skin. Jenna only noticed it once in a while, but it was not her imagination.

She wondered if it had anything to do with the gate.

Very early in her pregnancy with Kendra, Jenna had been forced to travel by an experimental interdimensional local gate that could transfer people or goods instantaneously around the world. It was similar to the deep-space gates that travelers used to make interstellar jaunts. She was the first local gate traveler, and as far as she knew, the only one who had ever jaunted locally while pregnant. During the pregnancy she had a complete genetic scan of the baby twice, and both came back inconclusive. Both times the doctor reported that somehow the sample had been contaminated by foreign material, though she couldn’t explain how. Jenna and Jimmy had been working off a very tight budget, so they had opted to skip repeating the test a third time and just hoped for the best. For the most part, her pregnancy had gone fine, and Kendra had been born healthy and well without any problems.

However, whenever her daughter did something unusual, Jenna wondered uneasily about those inconclusive genetic scans.

Jimmy looked up from his flipcom. “Mrs. Smitz says that Kendra was there earlier, but she left about an hour ago.”

“Kendra’s in the glen,” piped up Berry from the floor, where she studiously stacked boxes of food from the pantry into a tower. “She’s playing with Dina.”

“Dina?” Jenna asked, exchanging worried glances with Jimmy. “Who’s Dina?”

Berry shrugged. “Kendra says it’s a secret.”

Alarmed, Jenna hurried to the door the led from the kitchen into the backyard. Jax’s property edged up against a large empty tract that locals called the Barrens. Far from being barren, it was thickly forested with prickly broadleaf socorro trees. About a hundred meters from Jax’s property line, it opened up into a small meadow that the girls called the glen. There were a couple of large boulders, but for the most part, it was open and grassy, and the kids loved to run around there. Occasionally Jenna or Jimmy would take them there to play, but the rule was that they weren’t supposed to go alone since it was out of sight of the house. One of their neighbors had children, but they would never be able to get onto the property without one of the adults deactivating the security. Who could Kendra be meeting there? Why was it a secret? And how were they getting onto the property?

Jimmy was about to brush past her and head outside into the yard when they heard a crash from behind, and they both spun around. While they were distracted, the ever-daring Erik had climbed up onto the cabinets and knocked their water purifier off the counter.

“For the love of all the dwarf planets and their stars, Erik!” shouted Jimmy. “Can you just quit climbing things for once?” He hopped over the bent hunk of metal and plucked Erik off the counter. They both stared at the water purifier in dismay. Their water had too much salt to safely drink in Tarentino Bay. Either Jimmy would have to find a way to fix the desalinator quickly, or they were going to have to beg clean water off of Mrs. Smitz or Jax. A new portable purifier would cost far more than they could pull from their meager savings.

Jimmy waved her off. “Go look for Kendra. I’ll try and deal with this.” He sighed heavily and started to lift the desalinator from the floor. Jenna stifled a groan and left him to it. It would probably take him all afternoon to piece the machine back together.

It didn’t take long to cross the empty yard and head into the trees. Immediately she relaxed just a little bit. It didn’t matter that she had come home to a house destroyed by active, curious children. It didn’t matter that she had failed to win the bid for the design project yesterday. It didn’t matter that she was as far away from the dreams of her younger self as it was possible to be. The breeze rustling through the leaves and caressing her cheeks seem to convince her that all was right in the world. She had an amazing, patient, hardworking husband she loved passionately. She had three beautiful children. They had a home in the rugged but lovely Tarentino Bay. What more did she need?

As soon as she broke through the trees and into the glen, she stopped short. Kendra was running and skipping about, her long blonde hair (so similar to Jenna’s own) streaming out behind her. She was laughing and panting, looking like any other six-year-old child playing a game of tag.

But she was darting away from a gust of leaves.

As Jenna watched, the leaves swirled and formed a shifting but distinct figure just about the same height as Kendra. Kendra poked at the “arm” of the leafy figure and then bolted in the opposite direction. The leaves gathered themselves together and pursued her. Kendra shrieked and then tripped, sprawling right at Jenna’s feet.

“Mommy!” she cried happily. Then she looked back guiltily over her shoulder. The figure of leaves instantly collapsed. Jenna stared at the pile of innocuous-looking leaves on the ground.

“Kendra,” she whispered, “what in the name of the stars was that?” She took her daughter by the arms and hoisted her off the ground, pulling her protectively close and edging back from the leaves. Her logical brain processed through alternatives. The wind? Not a chance. The trees were actually some kind of aliens with self-aware leaves? Not when they were bioengineered on Terra specifically for introduction on Zenith. Ghosts? The thought made Jenna shiver. She had always scoffed at reports of anything paranormal, but what else could explain this?

“It’s just a game Dina and I were playing,” Kendra said, her tone innocent. “Dina says I shouldn’t tell you, that you will just be scared and angry, but you aren’t, are you, Mommy?”

“Dina?” repeated Jenna warily. “Is that the leaves?”

“No.” Kendra bit her lip. “She was just doing that so I could play.”

“She?” repeated Jenna again. She looked around wildly. Who was this mysterious being that could make leaves float around in the shape of a person and pretend to play tag?

“You can’t see her, Mommy,” Kendra explained with a shake of her head. “Nobody can.”

“Can you?” asked Jenna in a hoarse whisper, her arms tightening around her daughter.

“No, but I can talk to her. Nobody else seems to hear her. Not Berry and not Erik either.”

A voice that only Kendra could hear. Was it a real voice? Or was it only in her head? Jenna would have thought that Kendra was making up a story, but she had seen the leaves. There was something very strange going on, and it scared her.

She needed Jimmy.

“OK, Kendra,” Jenna said, pulling herself together and looking nervously around the glen one last time. “Let’s go back to the house, and you can tell your dad about Dina.” She took her daughter’s hand and started picking her way back through the trees. It took all her willpower not to pick Kendra up and run away from the glen.

That night after the kids were asleep, Jenna crawled into bed next to Jimmy and flung an arm over him, burrowing her face in his chest.

“What a day,” Jimmy said, stroking her hair.

“Can we go back a couple of days and try again? Maybe I should have never taken that trip to Omphalos. It was just a waste of time anyway,” Jenna moaned into his chest.

“I’ll ask Jax to invent a time machine,” suggested Jimmy, grinning.

“What do you think about Kendra and this Dina she was talking about?” Jenna absently picked at his shirt and looked up into his face.

Jimmy shrugged. “She’s six, Jenna. Little kids invent imaginary friends.”

“Imaginary friends who can levitate leaves?”

Jimmy’s mouth quirked. “The wind can levitate leaves, Jenna.”

“I’m not imagining what I saw,” Jenna protested, raising her head and staring him in the face.

“Are you sure?” Jimmy asked gently. “You’ve had a long couple of days, with a long shuttle trip across the planet and back. Between the wind and the shadows and Kendra kicking everything up, maybe your brain just turned it all into something sinister.”

“I wish I could explain it away that way,” Jenna said with a shudder, “but it was all too real.” She hesitated for a moment. “Do you think it could have been something Kendra was doing herself?”

“Making spooky figures out of leaves that could follow her around?” Jimmy clarified incredulously.

Jenna nodded. “Like some kind of telekinetic ability,” she said.

Jimmy considered this silently for a second. “Anything’s possible, I guess,” he conceded reluctantly. “But is it something we need to worry about? Let’s assume that Kendra really can make leaves move with her mind, and she talks to someone named Dina, someone only she can hear. Was anything dangerous happening? Was she threatened at all?”

“No,” admitted Jenna. “She didn’t even seem scared. More guilty than anything, like she knew she’d been doing something wrong and she’d get in trouble for it.”

Jimmy hugged her tightly. “Then don’t worry about it tonight, and let’s just keep an eye on her. Maybe it will never happen again.” Jenna started to protest again, but Jimmy silenced her with a kiss. He pulled her closer, and soon she was distracted by his hands lightly caressing her back. “Welcome home, tigress,” he whispered, and then she shoved all her concerns aside. There was time enough to worry about it in the morning.