Never Born

My knees buckled as I was slammed back to Earth. A splitting headache pierced my skull, and the distant screaming wasn’t helping.

“Jai!” Several voices called my name, but I couldn’t bring myself to look. Too many memories and thoughts were fighting for dominance in my head, and it was too difficult to try sorting them out.

‘Oh god, I can’t believe I dropped the tray, Goldman’s going to where the hell are Lily and Tyler? What’s going on? Where am I? What’s going on? What’s-’

“Jai, calm down!” a male voice cried, pulling my hands away from my head. “Stop screaming!”

Was that screaming mine? I silenced myself, my throat sore, and opened my eyes uneasily.

I found myself on the floor of Jumping Beans, kneeling in a puddle of coffee I’d evidently spilled. A small crowd had gathered, watching me uncertainly; one woman held her sons’ hand tightly, weariness in her eyes as she studied me as though afraid I would bite her.

James was kneeling in front of me, gripping my hands tightly in his own. Tory stood beside him, brown hair pulled up into the same ridiculous pigtails she always wore, an odd worry in her eyes.

I looked around, trembling violently, my headache slowly fading. “W-What’s going on?” I asked hoarsely.

James raised an eyebrow. “You tell me,” he said, confused.

“W-What?”

“Jai, you just collapsed and started screaming,” Tory said, giving me a concerned frown. “Are you hurt? What’s wrong?”

“I-I don’t know…” I didn’t think I was hurt. “How did I get here?”

“You drove, like always,” James told me, feeling my forehead for a fever. “Come on, sit over here. Can you stand?” He helped me to my feet and gently sat me in a chair as Tory cleaned up the mess I’d made. Slowly, the crowd scattered.

“What day is it?” I asked, gripping the table before me as I tried to steady myself. “What time?”

“Four-forty-seven on Sunday,” James told me.

I slowly nodded, then paused when something he said hit me. “Wait… how did I drive? My car was totaled.”

James blinked. “Really? Doesn’t look totaled,” he said, gesturing through the tinted window to the parking lot. Sure enough, there was my blue jeep, in one piece and cleaner than I’d remembered.

“Oh…” I hugged myself, shivering.

Tory returned after a few minutes. “Jai, honey, your mom’s coming to get you,” she said gently, as though I was four. Well, I supposed that was nothing new.

…

Wait.

“What?” I looked at her, eyes wide in disbelief, certain I’d heard her wrong.

“Well, you can’t expect to work, can you?” Tory said with a soft smile, misunderstanding my confusion.

“Who’s coming to get me?” I demanded, trembling again, gripping the edge of the tables in a grip that turned my fingers white. ‘She meant aunt, she meant aunt, she had to…’

Her smile faded, confused. “Your mom, of course,” she said. “Who else?”

I looked down at the table, my entire body quivering.

Something had gone very wrong.

After a few minutes, I went to wait outside, claiming that I needed fresh air. James insisted on joining me, in case I collapsed again. We sat together on the curb, and he held my hand tightly. I was too confused to bother wondering about it.

Soon a yellow car pulled up, and my heart leapt into my throat. I recognized it, but I hadn’t seen it since I was very young, and for a moment I didn’t want to believe that it was stopped in front of me.

I slowly stood, watching as the driver stepped out of the car. She was tall and tan and very pretty, with thick black hair and big brown eyes. The same big eyes, the same dark hair, the same tan skin that Tyler and I shared.

I froze and stared at her, a thousand memories flooding my mind.

‘She started getting sick when she was pregnant. She cried a lot and stopped talking. She killed herself.’

“Oh God.”

“Jai? Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Mom asked, concern etched into her every feature as she approached me, hands outstretched to take mine.

“Don’t touch her!” a voice shouted. Tyler scrambled from the back of the car and rushed to my side, hugging me tightly and glaring at our mother.

Mom blinked, looking confused and hurt. “What’s gotten into you, Tyler?”

“Just leave her alone!” Tyler pulled me to the car and urged me into the backseat before following. I didn’t protest, too dazed to think straight.

“Bye, Jai,” James called, waving gently. “Feel better, okay?”

I could only wave absently in return as Mom got into the drivers’ seat and drove us home.

The ride was silent. Tyler clung to my hand, and I clung to his. I wasn’t sure if he remembered what had happened, but judging by his trembling fingers, I guessed that he did.

“Where’s Lily?” he asked suddenly, startling me out of my stupor.

Mom sighed. “Tyler, I’ve told you twenty times,” she said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. “You don’t have a sister named Lily.”

I could feel my blood run cold. I shuddered and tightened my hold on Tyler’s hand.

We quickly reached the house, and Tyler pulled me out of the car as soon as it stopped. He dragged me into the house, a dark look in his eyes.

It was the same house, but there was something different about it. Pictures of our family hung in the hall, and I had to stop to look.

Mom and Dads’ wedding picture; I remembered putting that away years ago. A portrait of Tyler and I as children, the four of us on a picnic with Aunt Chloe, my graduation from high school, me in a softball uniform, Tyler and a girl I didn’t recognize ready for a dance. Each picture was happier than the last.

They were the most disturbing images I’d ever seen.

“It’s like Lily was never born,” I breathed, hugging myself tightly.

“But why?” Tyler asked, pained. He dug his hands through his hair, gazing at the pictures in dismay. “Why is she alive?”

I didn’t have to ask who ‘she’ was. I glanced toward the kitchen, then grabbed his hand and went to my room, shutting the door behind us. I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach when I saw that all of Lily’s things, her clothes, her bed, her puzzles, were gone.

“It must have something to do with that book,” I muttered, noticing that I was still wearing my work uniform. I untied the apron and threw it onto my bed. “Lily made the wish to… to go home, and Damaen said if she left then it would be like she never existed.” A sick feeling settled in my chest.

‘Mom really killed herself because of Lily.’

I’d always known this, but a small part of me had hoped that there had been another reason. That she’d gotten sick, or had gone insane, or something that wouldn’t make it Lily’s fault.

But what could Lily have possibly done that would push our mother to suicide?

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Tyler protested. “This is home. If she wished to go home, and she’s not here, then where is she? And why can we remember her?”

“I don’t know!” I sat in my desk chair and rubbed my eyes roughly. “I don’t know.”

Silence reigned for several moments. Tyler leaned against the wall, failing to hide the fear and distress I knew he was feeling.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly before sitting up straight. “We have to get that book.”

Tyler looked at me and hesitated. “Do you think that’ll work?”

“We have to try. I don’t know, maybe we’re different this time… without Lily. Maybe we never went down to the basement, and Damaen’s still trapped in the book. If we free him, we can wish to have Lily back.”

Tyler nodded slowly. “Okay,” he agreed. “Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ll skip school and we can go in the morning.”

The part of me that had raised Tyler for most of our lives was reluctant to let him skip school, but the rest of me knew this was more important, and I nodded my consent.

Dinner was horribly awkward; I’d completely forgotten what Mom’s cooking was like, and was feeling to sick to really eat. Mom and Dad tried to make conversation, but Tyler ignored them, and I couldn’t bring myself to meet their eyes. Though the wound was gone, I could still feel the spot on my cheek where Dad had slapped me.

Tyler wanted to sleep in the same room as me, but I insisted on going to bed as we normally would. I didn’t want to make Mom and Dad suspicious. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night, tossing and turning as I tried to figure everything out.

In the morning, I found Dad and Tyler gone. Mom was in the kitchen, fixing two bowls of cereal.

I hesitated in the doorway. “Where’s Tyler?” I asked warily.

Mom looked at me, an eyebrow raised. “School, where else?” she asked, bringing the cereal to the table. “He tried to play sick. He hasn’t done that since he was twelve. Do you have any idea what’s wrong with him?”

I shrugged.

“Oh.” She observed me, then smiled. “Come eat breakfast with me. I’ve got Cheerios‘, your favorite.”

I wanted to ask how in hell she knew that Cheerios’ were my favorite, before remembering that she was my mother. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m going to go see Aunt Chloe.” I left the room without waiting for an answer, not wanting to see the hurt in her eyes. I felt guilty, but didn’t want to spend time with her. I was afraid I would like her, and strangely, that felt like it would be betraying Lily.

I showered and got dressed, uncomfortable wearing clothes from my closet that I didn’t recognize. I found my car in the driveway, with a note from James and Tory. Ignoring it, I drove to Aunt Chloes’ house, eyeing the Sassafras tree in her front yard as I parked in the driveway. I rang the doorbell and waited.

It was a few minutes before Aunt Chloe came to the door, dressed in a robe, her hair swept up into a towel turban on top of her head. “Jai?” she questioned, looking confused.

“Hi, Aunt Chloe,” I said with a smile.

“Honey, what’re you doing here? It’s…” She paused, then took my wrist and looked at my watch. “It’s eight in the morning.”

“Oh.” I grimaced. “Sorry. I’m not bothering you, am I?”

“Not at all. I was just surprised, you’re not usually even out of bed until noon.” She smiled and stepped aside. “Please, come in.”

I relaxed a little, glad to see that my relationship with my aunt was still good in this reality. “Thanks.” I entered, and she closed the door behind me.

“Let me go finish washing my hair, okay?” Aunt Chloe said with a smile. “Ten minutes.”

“No problem,” I replied, relieved. This would make searching for the key to the basement so much easier. As soon as she was up the stairs, I bolted to her office, where Tyler had found the key the first time.

It was a simple room, a desk with a computer, a full bookshelf, and a large window with the thick drapes pulled shut. I sat behind the desk and began searching through the drawers. I found packages of loose leaf paper, books of names and their meanings, an atlas, travel brochures, a checkbook, and a pack of gum, but no key.

“Damn.” Making sure everything was in the right place, I left the office and headed for the kitchen, where I hoped to find the key in a drawer or something. When I reached the hall, however, I found the basement door hanging open.

I stiffened, staring at the door uncertainly. The water was still running in the shower upstairs. I had time.

I moved carefully to the door and peered down the stairs, but couldn’t see anything. Licking my lips, I descended the steps, my heart racing in my chest. I was going to find the book, go home, wait for Tyler, and then save Lily.

That was the master plan, anyway. Instead of finding the book, however, I found a pool table in the middle of the room, and nothing else. Disbelief and disappointment flooded me.

“S**t.”

 

When I told Tyler about the missing book, he was oddly unfazed. A thoughtful look crossed his face, and he went into his room and shut the door.

I went to work as usual, despite the fact that I could hardly focus. Beyond thanking them for bringing my car home, I couldn’t hold up a conversation with James or Tory, and eventually they stopped trying. I could see the hurt in James’ eyes at the neglect, but I had bigger things to worry about.

Where was that damned book? It had to be somewhere in Aunt Chloes’ house; I would have to go back at some point and search. Without that book, we would have no hope of finding Lily.

I was determined to find that book.

 

I crept into my house at eleven-thirty that night after work, doing my best to avoid waking anyone. Still thinking of a plan to search Aunt Chloes’ house, I went into my room and started in surprise.

Tyler sat on my bed, fully dressed, the book on his lap. He glanced up at me, then stared down at the leather cover.

I quickly shut my door. “Where did you-”

“I’m a goddamn thief,” he muttered, glaring at the book. “I found it under my bed, along with your diary and three hundred dollars.” He paused. “I don’t have a job.”

“I don’t keep a diary.”

“You do in this reality.”

I sighed and sat beside him. “Nevermind. Have you read this?”

“No. I wanted to wait for you.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “In the basement, we both touched the book before it closed. I guess that’s why we’re the only ones who remember what happened.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense.” I crossed my legs and tapped my fingers against my knee. “All right. Let’s see if we can make sense of this.”

“It’s written in some other language,” Tyler pointed out, running his finger over the odd symbols. “Will we be able to read it?”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “A demon came out of it and completely changed reality. Knowing the language is probably the least of our worries.”

He smirked. “True.” He set the book between us on the bed. “All right.” He glanced at me. “Open it.”

I hesitated, staring at the book. My heart thudding almost violently against my ribs, I wiped my sweating palms on my jeans before reaching for the strange volume. What if Damaen appeared and refused to return Lily? Or if he didn’t remember the event, either? What if we couldn’t get Lily back and were stuck in this alternate reality for the rest of our lives?

I opened the book.

Tyler grabbed my hand and we stared silently at the first page, laying innocently before us, offering whatever information we could make out of the foreign symbols. As we waited, I studied the red, hand-drawn lettering, expecting them to burn gold at any moment.

Nothing happened.

“What the hell?” Tyler muttered, turning a few pages. “Why isn’t anything happening?” He flipped through several pages full of the odd text, broken up by occasional drawings that we couldn’t decipher.

“How should I-”

A bright light suddenly flashed, accompanied by a brief, but intense heat that spilled over us in a wave. I swore, and Tyler’s hand tightened around mine as we shivered in the chill that resulted from the passing heat and looked to the source of the light, expecting to find Damaen.

Instead, three people stood a foot or so away from us, looking as surprised as we were, but considerably calmer.

“Well,” the man at the forefront said, eyebrows raised, a bemused smile on his face. “This wasn’t what I was expecting.”

“Same here,” I said, confused and frightened, though I tried to hide it from Tyler.

Three strangers were in my room, and Damaen and Lily were nowhere in sight.

S**t.