Free Jump When Ready by David Pandolfe Page A

opposite of waking up—like what I’d just experienced
with Bethany was real but now I was inside a dream.
    I jumped to my feet. “Listen, my sister’s been kidnapped!
By two people—they took her someplace, to this cabin somewhere. I don’t know
what to do!” I was back in that reality, my pulse racing.
    I expected Nikki’s eyes to widen, for her to gasp or act
alarmed. Instead, she nodded calmly. “What do you mean ‘do’?” she said. “Don’t
get me wrong. I feel terrible about what’s happened. But there isn’t anything
you can do.”
    “What are you talking about? I’ve got to help her
somehow!”
    Nikki looked me in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
    I stared back at her. “That’s it? You’re sorry ?”
    Nikki turned away and looked out at the pond. “This is a
nice place. I guess it must make you feel happy or something.”
    How could she possibly change the subject like that?
“Yeah, sure. It’s a happy memory, I guess.”
    Nikki’s eyes grew sad and suddenly she seemed far away. A
few moments passed before she spoke again. “That’s what I thought. And, really,
that’s all anyone back on Earth is too now. Like you are to them. I’m sorry,
Henry, but we’re all just memories now. That’s why we’re not supposed to keep
going back. Believe me, I’ve been down this road and it only gets worse.”
    I waited for Nikki to say more, but she picked up a stone
and flung it out at the water. It skipped a few times, then splashed, leaving
ripples. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about that road she’d been down but I
wasn’t about to accept that I was nothing more than a memory. At least not yet,
not now.
    I bent down and plucked a stone from the ground. It felt
cold and real. “There’s got to be some way to help,” I said. “Bethany heard me
before, so maybe my parents can too. Or my brother. I don’t know.”
    Nikki turned to face me. “What do you mean, she heard
you? She couldn’t have.”
    “She did! I know she heard me talking to her just before
it happened. I even made her laugh with some old family stuff only she’d know
about. She tried talking back to me too. She asked if I was there with her.”
    Nikki stared at me strangely. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t
believe me or what the deal was. “You’re not joking, are you? Are you lying to
yourself?”
    “No! It really happened, I swear.”
    A few seconds passed while Nikki seemed to be thinking
about things. Then she said, “Have you tried this with any other living people?
Can anyone else hear you?”
    I thought back to when I’d been with my family. “Not
really. I just figured no one could. Then I started talking to Bethany when she
was driving and she totally heard me.”
    Again, a few moments passed before Nikki spoke. “Hard to
be sure what this means,” she said. “Sure, sometimes there are people on the
other side who can sense us. But it’s really rare. The odds of it being your
own sister is like one in a million. I suppose it could possibly mean…” She let
her words trail off.
    “What?” I tossed my stone into the pond. Maybe the pond
was just a memory but the stone still splashed. It was as real here as we were.
Here, thoughts became real. If we could shape this reality, I wasn’t about to
give up hoping that I could somehow affect the other.
    Nikki didn’t answer my question. Instead, she watched the
ripples spread across the water and I got the feeling she was lost in a memory
of her own. I reached out and touched her arm. “Hey, are you okay?”
    It took a moment before Nikki answered. “Sure, yeah. I’m
fine. But, listen, I think we should talk to Martha.”
    ~~~
    “How do we know she’s even here?” I asked, when Nikki
knocked on Martha’s door.
    “She’s always here, if you need her.”
    “What if you don’t?”
    “Then she’s not here, idiot. Aren’t some things obvious
to you yet?”
    For some strange reason, it felt comforting to see Nikki
back to being her usual sarcastic self.