Anomaly Read online

  Kyle’s eyes flickered between his silver name and the torn page, clenched in separate hands. Thoughts and questions wouldn’t even form in his bewildered mind. She had always doodled in notebooks, especially when she had been passing the time in hospital, but he didn’t remember this notebook. His eyes scanned over the message, written on the page: Remember the day we first met. There was also a date written in the top right corner, 18th January, 2009 – Alice’s eighteenth birthday. It was five months exactly, before she had died. The blood drained from his face. Several doors in his mind flew open with such force, their nerve-encrusted frames splintered. Memories forced their way through the cracks in his mind, random and unconnected. He dropped the book and page, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes as he tried to force them back. He let out a moan and began to whisper to himself over and over.

  ‘Just forget, Kyle, just forget. Please just forget.’ He let out a low inaudible moan as he rocked back and forth in his chair. A memory pushed its way to the forefront of his mind and he shook his head, trying desperately hard not to remember. Just forget, just for…

  He had been fifteen years old and it was the summer of 2006. Kyle was lying on his bed at home, listening to his favourite band, Dead Souls through his earphones. It was warm outside and his room was golden in the afternoon sunshine. Posters of various rock bands adorned the pale walls, along with articles cut from his favourite music magazines. He was wearing a black band t-shirt with jeans and a studded belt looped through the belt loops. His skateboard lay on the laminated floor, alongside his school books, CDs and magazines. He had both an acoustic and an electric guitar, propped up in stands, along with a box amp. Physics posters were stuck to his ceiling, but he wasn’t looking at anything, he was just concentrating on the music, tuning into the chords of the guitarist. His bedroom door swung inwards and his father appeared; he looked flustered. He motioned to Kyle to take out his earphones and Kyle reluctantly did as he was told.

  ‘Can we have your help, Kyle? The new neighbours have arrived,’ his father said.

  ‘What?’ Kyle groaned as he sat up.

  ‘The removals van is outside. I expect to see you in five.’ He left Kyle’s door open as he headed back outside. Kyle got to his feet and quickly laced on a pair of Converse before heading down the stairs. They lived on a narrow street called Angel Drove, lined with detached houses, all a couple of metres apart. The houses mostly had four bedrooms, with front and back lawns, and neat little fences or walls to separate their gardens from their neighbours. Kyle opened the front door, immediately blinded by the summer sun as he stepped onto the porch. As his eyes adjusted he saw the van parked up outside the house on the left; the house had been empty for months while the previous owners had tried to sell it. Now there was a blue Jaguar parked in the driveway. He heard someone letting out a huff and the hollow footsteps of someone moving inside the van. Then she appeared and he felt a strange spasm in his chest. His thoughts meshed together into one mighty, congealed mess. He watched her as she walked towards the end of the van and placed the heavy cardboard box she was carrying down on the edge and then jumped down to the ground. She wore a white vest with blue ripped jeans; her bronze-brown hair hung straight to her shoulder blades. Her skin was fresh and fair, her eyes blue and her lips a pale rose; she was beyond beautiful. She looked to be about his age, maybe younger, but he knew without a doubt that he already longed to be near her. She picked up the box again awkwardly with her slender arms, and tried to manoeuvre it and herself towards the house. Her grip began to slip and Kyle ran down the path without a thought, vaulting over their iron gate like an Olympian and catching the box before it could completely slip from her grasp. His arms brushed against hers and they froze there on the pavement.

  Her eyes locked with his; they were a deep, ocean blue and he was already drowning. Her cheeks flushed as she moved her hands into a better position. Kyle knew he had to speak.

  ‘It’s OK, I’ve got it,’ he said, trying to offer her a smile. She gawked at him as though he was an alien life form, then loosened her grip.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, letting go of the box. She lowered her gaze and brushed the hair from her face. He noticed then that the back of her hand was covered in ink. He readjusted his grip; the box was really heavy, he was surprised she’d even managed to lift it.

  ‘This is heavy, what have you got in here?’ he asked.

  ‘Books and dreams,’ she said. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. ‘I mean pennies! Books and pennies.’

  ‘I see you’ve met Alice, Kyle,’ his father said as he walked over and placed a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. ‘She’s going to be in your year at Queen’s.’ Matthew made his way to the back of the van and helped another man with some of the furniture – Alice’s father, Kyle presumed.

  ‘Where would you like this?’ Kyle asked, glancing down at the box.

  ‘Upstairs, third door on your right,’ she said, lowering her hand and letting her hair cascade back over her pink cheeks.

  ‘OK,’ Kyle said, turning towards the house.

  ‘Be…’ She faltered as he glanced back at her. She was looking directly at him, her right hand outstretched. ‘Careful,’ she said, dropping her hand.

  ‘It’s OK, Alice.’ He savoured the feeling of her name rolling gently off his tongue. ‘I’ll look after your dreams,’ he added, suddenly feeling bold. He headed off before she could reply, but not before he caught the look of surprise that had danced across her face.

  Tears leaked from behind his palms and flowed over his cheeks as he forced the memory back to the past. He felt the breath had been stolen from his lungs, the heavy beat of his heart hammered around his skull, and his veins were pinched. Each muscle was aching for sustenance, as his organs cried out for more oxygen. He inhaled unsteadily. No matter how hard he crammed his hands into his eyes, he could not stop the tears. He gave up, his eye sockets aching and tender. Her book and page still lay on the floor where he had dropped them, but he couldn’t muster the energy to care. He stood up, flicking off all the lights, and then he got into bed and brought the duvet over his head. The darkness wasn’t comforting, it was hot and suffocating, but he focussed on it anyway. His mind was fragile. It had been too long since he had opened his little box of memories, too long since he had confronted his emotions, those angry demons. They had grown vicious in their waiting and were now revelling in his moment of weakness, rearing their little ugly heads and squeezing their way through the cracks in his resolve.

  Just forget Kyle, just forget. Just forget Kyle, just forget, he chanted silently in his mind. He curled up tighter and squeezed his eyes shut, he didn’t want to remember, remembering was cruel, and above all else, he hated feeling weak, emotional. He thought he was stronger than this, but nothing, nothing, could block out Alice. He cried silently for hours, his head aching as he closed the doors on his past one by one. Eventually he succumbed to pure exhaustion; his body and mind could no longer function, and he fell willingly into a deep, dreamless sleep, hoping and praying that this time, he might not wake up again.

  Ten

  ‘A writer?’ Hailey heard her father as she sat at the top of the stairs listening in on her parents’ conversation as though she were a small child again. They had just returned from her last ever parents’ evening at school and her father wasn’t happy.

  ‘Well, she is predicted an A in English,’ her mother replied.

  ‘Yes, an A in English, a C in maths and a C in business! Even the English teacher said she would have to get B’s in her other subjects if she wants to be considered for an English degree at a good university.’ Hailey winced. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to go to university and she had told her father as much.

  ‘Perhaps she doesn’t have to go to university,’ her mother said.

  ‘She’s going to university. I haven’t worked hard all these years so she can flush he
r education down the drain and be a writer! How is she going to support herself as a writer?’

  ‘Matthew, keep your voice down. There are other options besides university you know. I didn’t go.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ her father said. ‘It’s just,’ he paused. ‘I want the best for our children. I want them to do well and be successful. I want them to have a better life than the one I had. We couldn’t even afford to feed ourselves sometimes, and Christmas never happened. I don’t want Hailey, or Kyle, to struggle like that…’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘Writing isn’t a sensible career, Stacy, only the lucky ones make it.’

  ‘You could say that about being a musician too,’ her mother argued. ‘I’ve done ok.’

  ‘I know and we were lucky. And you were lucky that you managed to make a career doing what you love. I had to work hard to put food on the table.’

  ‘Perhaps you could have done what you loved too.’

  ‘I needed stability. We needed stability. I needed a job I knew would pay me every month. We couldn’t afford a drum kit back then anyway.’

  ‘You don’t know that; it might have worked out OK.’

  ‘Might have, those are uncertain words.’

  ‘You could buy one now.’

  ‘I don’t have the time to play; I’ve got a business to run.’

  ‘Yes and you work yourself ragged every evening. Even the doctor said you need to take a break. You’ll end up ill if you don’t.’

  ‘The doctor fusses. I’m fine,’ her father insisted. ‘We’re supposed to be talking about our kids here, not me. I want them to be safe, secure and happy.’

  ‘Well, I’m not so sure Kyle is happy at the moment.’

  ‘He’s OK. He’s on track for an upper second class degree in business studies, and he’s got a plan.’

  ‘That’s only part of it, Matthew.’

  ‘He’s had a little hiccup in his life…’

  ‘It was more than a hiccup. Alice’s death has scarred him in more ways than you know. Matthew, he’s miserable; it’s not study that stopped him coming back for his birthday. He struggles all the time with his memories and reminders of Alice. He doesn’t like coming home.’

  ‘No I don’t believe that, he’s smart. He knew it was sensible to stay. You know, Hailey and Kyle could both take over the family business; they have the brains for it and it’s all here waiting for them.’ Hailey could almost feel the pride radiating from his voice. ‘I would love nothing more than to see my children carry on my hard work and then pass it along to their children.’

  ‘If they even have children. I’m not so sure we’ll get any from Kyle.’

  ‘He has to move on Stacy, time moves forwards not backwards. It’s sad and it’s horrible, but he’ll have to move on eventually.’

  Hailey had heard enough. She tiptoed back to her room and shut her door quietly behind her. She felt for her father; he had lost his own father at fourteen and had had to help provide for his family. He had worked hard and deserved his success but he wasn’t Kyle and he wasn’t her. She loved him, and she didn’t want to let him down, but she knew she wasn’t a business woman, and she didn’t want to run the business. Her brother had done a good job at putting up walls and distancing himself from everything and everyone, but she wondered if, behind those layers, he felt the same way too.

  Eleven

  Alice was sat on Kyle’s desk in his university bedroom, her feet hovering over the seat of his chair. Now that she no longer had a biological body and had both lost and gained certain senses, she was much more aware of the elaborate layout inside her mind. The living paid little attention to the grand map inside their own heads; they were naturally concerned about their bodies, the people around them, and the materialistic objects that defined them. They lived life on autopilot allowing their minds to take the shortest routes, not bothering to understand, just following blindly and avoiding the scenery while society guided their opinions. Alice’s mind was more powerful than a supercomputer and she was aware of it in its complete entirety; she knew about the routes less travelled and she understood them. There were no shortcuts in the afterlife; eternity was a long time to become familiar with one’s mind.

  Even now, as she sat on the desk, a small part of her mind was devoting itself to keeping her on Kyle’s physical plane. Her thoughts had branched down hundreds of different avenues. Some of them were quite terrifying; others were too beautiful for the living to comprehend. She was thinking about Positive, Negative, forces, energy, the world, Kyle, her notebook, The Thirteen, maths, physics, education, politics, cultures, religions and so on; the list was long.

  She glanced briefly at Kyle as he slept, and then she turned to look over her shoulder; the campus had aged overnight and the sports fields were now white with frost. She reached out her right hand through the gap in Kyle’s curtains and touched the window. Frost had claimed all four corners and she tilted her head upwards at the sky. The night was fading but grey clouds loomed ominously above. She shivered; the temperatures had dropped quickly through October, a cold winter was on its way.

  Kyle moaned and shifted and Alice spun back to face him, ready to leap off the desk. The springs in his mattress creaked as he turned over onto his side and resettled under his duvet. Alice frowned; she was troubled by the arrival of her notebook. Her grandmother, Paula, had given Alice the notebook when she had been in hospital as a means to pass the time and to stop her from drawing all over her hands; the doctors had frowned at that. She remembered the day clearly though and Paula’s words, ‘Don’t worry about university and grades just now; you need to get better first. Do what you enjoy, we encourage children to play not work. But we tell adults to work and we don’t encourage them to play. However, if you enjoy your work, is it really work? Or is it play?’ Alice smiled fondly at the memory, old people always seemed to be able to baffle the younger generations with their words of wisdom. Kyle had shut her notebook and the page in a drawer beneath his desk without reading it, as though the mere sight of it sickened him, and his soul colours were unsettled. She didn’t know why the notebook had arrived now, or even how the page had been torn; she couldn’t remember tearing it out herself. It was a mystery, and it had upset Kyle. She didn’t like that; she had never wanted to cause Kyle more misery and pain.

  She knew the notebook had a role in the disturbance she had felt now, but not why. This was going to be hard for them both. Her notebook was somewhere between a journal and a scrapbook. She had meant to give it to Kyle for his nineteenth birthday, but she hadn’t survived that long. Inside were photos, drawings, quotes, everything that she thought related to the pair of them. It was supposed to have been a nice reminder, a thank you of sorts, a look what we’ve done already and look how much we can do in the future, sort of thing. Alice hadn’t banked on her crappy heart spontaneously combusting.

  Kyle’s breathing suddenly shifted from its usual pattern and Alice sat up straighter. She listened intently and then he groaned and she leapt off the desk gracefully. Her silent footfalls reached him within a second and she leant over him, seating herself on the edge of his bed.

  ‘Alice,’ he groaned, even though his eyes were clamped tightly shut. She saw the tell-tale lines deepening in his face. He twisted sharply, almost knocking her senses sideways as she placed a hand on top of his forehead. A bright orange flare illuminated his soul and then rolled over into a dark cloud of Negativity. She cursed and unhooked her mind, like a fisherman unhooking a net. She felt her thoughts slip through the gaps and into her body form. She directed her mind towards her soul and felt the Positive energy pulsing from her core as it rippled outwards. She guided her mind towards Kyle and willed her energy to curve around his soul. Kyle’s soul bristled and unknowingly knocked her away; it attacked her as though she were a foreign antibody invading his immune system. She felt her energy stutter
and her body trembled as she continued to will her energy around his. It was like a great cosmic hug, a blanket of Positive thoughts.

  Alice willed him to be calm, she willed the nightmares away, and she willed the pain to stop. Kyle’s body tossed and turned violently, and a thin layer of sweat coated his skin. The subconscious existed closer to Alice’s current state, even her suggestions were placed within the subconscious mind. When Kyle was asleep his consciousness was temporarily silent, and his subconscious took over, giving him, beautiful, weird, and sometimes distressing dreams. Sometimes, when the emotions were extreme, Alice could tune in and see Kyle’s dreams. Negative emotions and their colours flashed within his soul and Alice gave one last shove with her mind and dove straight in…

  There was a doorway with a closed door, but the door was constantly changing. One minute it was a wooden, double door with slender, glass panes, the next it was a single, white door with a large glass window. The doorway switched back and forth between the two and a younger Kyle stood next to it with a younger version of Cameron, both of them dressed in grey suits, the Queen’s sixth form’s uniform. Alice peered curiously at the doors but even Kyle’s dream self did not appear to register her. There were other people waiting outside this doorway but their faces were fuzzy and held no details. They were just bodies, figures that were there but not there. She recognised the double doors with the glass panes immediately; it was the doorway to the Queen’s school hall, where the assemblies, drama productions and examinations had taken place. She could see rows of single desks lined up through the glass, and she could see the big stage at the back with its green velvet curtains.