Table of Contents
Prologue • Miller High Life and Pall Malls
Chapter One • Dominion House for Girls
Chapter Two • Battle Grounds
Chapter Three • Alexandria High
Chapter Four • The Storm Trooper
Chapter Five • Changing the Timeline
Chapter Six • I Know What Telekinesis Is
Chapter Seven • The Twilight Zone
Chapter Eight • A Ride to School
Chapter Nine • Dominion Hall Academy
Chapter Ten • The Council
Chapter Eleven • The Old Town Theater
Chapter Twelve • You Can’t Avoid the Inevitable
Chapter Thirteen • One Feisty Girl
Chapter Fourteen • Boundaries
Chapter Fifteen • Alternate Dimension Travel Agents?
Chapter Sixteen • Pool Party
Chapter Seventeen • Travelers
Chapter Eighteen • Painted Ladies
Chapter Nineteen • Beyond the Call of Duty
Chapter Twenty • Spring Fling
Chapter Twenty-One • $1,000 a Plate Dinner
Chapter Twenty-Two • Time Travel
Chapter Twenty-Three • My First Slumber Party
Chapter Twenty-Four • Basement Confessions
Chapter Twenty-Five • Everybody Wants to Rule the World
Chapter Twenty-Six • Mobilize and Strike
Chapter Twenty-Seven • Family
Acknowledgments
About the Author
An excerpt from Glimpse
PARALLEL
by Claudia Lefeve
Sugar Skull Books
Copyright © 2011 by Claudia Lefeve
Excerpt Glimpse Copyright © 2011 by Stacey Wallace Benefiel
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.
eBook formatting by Dellaster Design
PARALLEL is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and events are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
To my high school physics teacher, Juan Ybarra (aka Dad), who always said science and math weren’t my thing.
“listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go”
e.e. cummings
Prologue
Miller High Life and Pall Malls
Like any orphan, I wished that someday my real family would come for me. Only, I knew my parents were dead. They died in a plane crash when I was five. But in my dreams, I always imagined my rescue from foster care, I’d learn I was really a princess, and we’d live happily ever after.
Like most daydreams, they’d quickly dissipate and I’d jump back to reality, remembering who and where I was—an orphan stuck with Lester and Patsy Johnson—along with six other foster kids.
If you asked around town, most folks would consider seven abandoned kids lucky to be under the care of the Johnson’s. There weren’t many couples who were willing to open their home to care for our sorry lot. What they didn’t know was that we kept the Johnson’s finances afloat. To them, being foster parents was easier than applying for food stamps.
But as self-righteous as the other families around town were, nestled in their idealistic homes and raising perfect children of their own, they were blind to what was really going on behind the Johnson’s closed doors. The attention they lavished on their wards wasn’t exactly the type the foster care system approved of, nor the good citizens of Alexandria—had their gaze extended beyond their casual observance around town.
Lester was a sadist. To fulfill his penchant for violence, he exploited the revolving turnover of foster kids to satisfy his warped need to inflict pain. His wife Patsy was no better. She was just that—a patsy. She merely took care of the house and turned a blind eye when it came to Lester’s extracurricular activities. She was all too happy to play Betty Crocker, as long as Lester had his attention focused on anyone other than herself.
“Emily! Get down here!” We heard him call from downstairs.
I watched Emily’s face crumple as Lester called her down to the basement. That’s where he always took us. She was only seven years old and was no match for Lester, even on his bad days. He always came up with some house infraction—like the time he claimed I didn’t take out the trash—and used that as an excuse to beat us until he was satisfied.
“It’ll be okay Emily.” I looked at her sad brown eyes. “I’ll walk down with you.” What I really wanted to do was take Emily and run.
“Etta, I didn’t do anything, I swear,” she said in a whimper.
My heart went out to her. How do you explain to a seven year old that men like Lester didn’t need an excuse?
“I know you didn’t, honey,” I said, unsure of what to do next. Ignoring Lester just made things go from bad to worse. I had taken up residence in the Johnson home only two weeks ago—I was what social services dubbed a ‘repeat customer’—but it didn’t take long to realize that Lester preferred the younger kids who couldn’t fight back. I only had the pleasure of dealing with Lester a couple of times, but I knew that the longer you took to respond the worse off you’d be.
Inside, my body seethed with rage. How could the social workers turn a blind eye to what was going on? Didn’t they notice the bruises and broken spirits when they were thrown back into their custody? Having played the system for years, Lester knew exactly what he was doing and took great care not to send the children back with tell-tale marks, but sometimes it was unavoidable. And yes, when Lester tired of a particular child and the foster kid got a bit older, he’d thrust them right back to the disgruntled, underpaid, and overworked social workers.
So the faster I got Emily to the main floor, the better off her punishment—if you could call it that—would be.
I reluctantly hustled her down the stairs and there stood Lester, standing at the foot of the stairs waiting for her. If I’d had the guts, I would have kept on right past him—out the front door.
“Well, well. What do we have here, huh? Looks like someone’s meddling in other people’s business again.” Lester was not only nasty on the inside, but on the outside as well. His beer belly did nothing to help his already oafish build. Every time he managed to get close to me, I could smell his rotten breath mixed with a hint of Miller High Life and stale Pall Malls.
As we reached the foot of the stairs, he pulled Emily from my protective hold, forcing her to release my hand, and led her toward the side of the stairwell towards the basement door. It tore me up, watching Emily being dragged down the basement stairs, to the point where I felt numb. There was nothing I could do for her.
“You’re next girl,” he sneered back at me.
It was as if I were frozen, knowing what was about to happen, and being powerless to stop him. I couldn’t tear myself away from the open doorway, continuing to watch as Lester and Emily descended down the stairs, with his oil stained mechanic’s hand cupping Emily’s back, ushering her ahead of him.
That’s when I finally snapped.
“Let go of her,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop!
“What did you say girl?” Lester stopped mid-stair and released his hold on Emily. He walked back up the staircase and glared up at me with his beady little eyes. He really did look like an oversized troll. “What did you say?”
“I said, let her go you fat ogre.” I couldn’t control myself.
STOP, STOP, STOP! This time the voice was in my head, getting louder, and louder.
“Why you little—” Lester started to say
. He tried to reach for me and then, just as quickly as he had climbed up the stairs, he began to clutch his heart and fell backwards down the stairs.
“Emily! Watch out!” I yelled.
Chapter One
Dominion House for Girls
I’m standing in the middle of my new room and can’t help but wonder for the millionth time how I ended up here. The walls are constructed out of cinderblocks, coated with glossy white paint, waiting for its new occupants to mar them up with tacky celebrity posters and bulletin boards. A pair of twin beds line up against two of the walls that lie parallel to each other. With a set of desks and an adjoining bathroom connecting to the suite next door, this place isn’t too shabby as far as dorm rooms go. Only, it isn’t really a dorm. That’s just what the administrators prefer to call the small twelve by twelve rooms. Still, my last foster home was with the Johnson’s, so this is a definite improvement.
Dominion House for Girls is considered the last resort when it comes to foster kids that nobody wants to deal with. The institution-like structure is meant to give the impression of a boarding school, when in fact it’s more akin to a correctional facility for troublemakers. My only concern is my new roommate. I just hope I don’t get stuck with someone with a worse temperament than me.
• • •
When I was about ten, I’d been dumped with the Clark family. Their daughter Maxine was thirteen and she had taken a special interest in me. And not in a sisterly way either; the girl couldn’t stop bullying me. If there was anyone spoiled and screwed up in that house, it was Maxine.
Once a month, the Clarks met with several of the neighbors for a potluck dinner. Normally, they hired a sitter to watch over me and Maxine, but on that particular night they decided Maxine was old enough to babysit. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for and the moment I dreaded. When I stubbornly decided not to go to bed—a decision I now regret—she began to chase me around the living room and had me cornered up against the wall.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I swear.” Her eyes twinkled. “I just want to play.”
“Leave me alone.” I’d already had the pleasure of playing with her before and the only one it was ever fun for was Maxine.
“Come on Etta. If you don’t, I’ll tell mom and dad,” she said. Any time I refused to play one of her little games, she would vandalize something in the house and blame it on me.
“If you come near me, I’ll tell them that you were the one that cut my hair!” The week prior, she’d snuck into my room when I was sleeping and cut a big chunk of my hair off. I knew Mrs. Clark wouldn’t believe that her precious daughter was the one responsible, so I lied and told her I got gum stuck in hair and decided to cut it out myself.
“Yeah right dork, like they’re really gonna believe you over me,” she said.
Maxine had a point.
She had me backed up against the corner, leaving me without a means to escape. That’s when I realized I had been holding my breath and I let it all out in one big whoosh. Just leave me alone!
Maxine slowly crept her way towards me as I kept chanting in my head, just go away, leave me alone!
With every step she took, I increased my chant. Over and over I wished for her to stop. And as quickly as she began her hunt, she suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her legs gave out and she tripped over the living room rug, hitting her head on the corner of the coffee table.
As hurt as she was, she didn’t waste any time running next door to snitch on me, leaving behind a bloody trail that ran from the coffee table in the living room out the front door. According to Maxine’s version of events, I had pushed her up against the coffee table for not allowing me to stay up past bedtime. The following day, the social worker had been contacted and I had been farmed out to yet another foster home.
At ten years old, I didn’t know if I was lucky or cursed.
• • •
Unlike a lot of foster kids, I’m not what most people would consider a head case. With Alexandria located only a couple of minutes away from Washington, D.C., the sins of the city overflow into the Commonwealth of Virginia, resulting in a ton of neglected children due to crackhead moms, parents slain in drive-by shootings, or dads taking up residence at the county jail. Sometimes, they end up in foster care simply because they’re too much for their folks to handle. Things like that can really screw-up a kid.
According to my file, I’m saddled with the labels of both orphan and difficult. It isn’t intentional. I just have the unfortunate pleasure of being present whenever people get hurt—like little Maxine. Incidents are either chalked up to accidents or blamed on me. Either way, I always get passed off to another family within the system.
After the episode with Lester, I learned from one of the social workers that he’d suffered a heart attack and ultimately broke his neck when he went barreling down the stairs. The police would later say Lester got off easy, which left Patsy facing seven counts of child abuse and some serious jail time. But at fifteen, no one was eager to take on a girl with ‘violent tendencies’, so I ended up at Dominion House.
When I first arrived at Dominion two years ago, I had to share a room with three other girls in tiny bunk style quarters, not much larger than a shoebox. Now that I’m seventeen, I’m considered a last year resident. The only perks that come with this distinction is a new dorm assignment, which means a bigger room (but not by much), and a new roommate. For her sake, I hope she’s easy to get along with. I managed to spend the last two years without any major mishaps. Sure, I got into some scuffles—just like prison, there’s a hierarchy to maintain here—but nothing near as bad as what I did to Lester.
Being the first to occupy the room, I settled in with high expectations for a fresh start. I only pray my roommate won’t mind that I already staked my claim on the bed by the window. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I like to look out the window and gaze up at the stars. But I imagine it will be a small concession on her part, as I left her plenty of closet space. Despite what others might think about foster kids and our proximity to the nation’s capital, Northern Virginia is still one of the wealthiest areas in the country, rivaled only by the suburbs of New York City. So it’s not unusual for many of the girls that enter Dominion to have a lot of personal effects, handed down by previous foster families.
As I lay on my bed, imagining for the nth time all the possible scenarios in which my parents could have survived that plane crash, I hear a soft knock on the door. Almost immediately, I recognize the glorious platinum blonde hair as my new roommate strolls in. She’s even more gorgeous now than when I last laid eyes on her. Not that I’m jealous—just stating the facts.
“Jaime?” I can’t believe my luck. The odds of her walking through that door were pretty slim. Not only do I have a new room assignment that doesn’t involve a power play for the top bunk, but I actually get paired up with a friend. Looks like my last year here is going to be much more tolerable than I first imagined.
“Etta, I can’t believe it!” Jaime drops her worn hand-me-down bag at the door and runs towards me. Her bear hug gives me a chance to fully breathe in her scent. It reminds me of cotton candy.
“What are you doing here?” I hold my old friend at arm’s length, giving her the once over. “I can’t believe it either.”
Jaime smiles and proceeds to hug me all over again. “I’ve always wondered what happened to you. I missed you so much after you left. I’m glad you haven’t forgotten about me.”
It’s hard to forget a girl like Jaime. “It’s been like what, four years?” I’m almost eighteen, so if you want to get technical, it was more like three and a half years ago. “What happened to the Thornberry’s?” From what I remember, the family that fostered us several years ago had been stuffy and boring. “I thought you’d have been adopted by now.”
Oliver and Melissa Thornberry were an affluent family that couldn’t have children of their own. Because Mr. Thornberry was a major political player in Washington, they figured
fostering a couple of kids would boost their public image and appeal to voters by appearing more family oriented. Once it became clear I was a potential liability, they sent me packing and kept Jaime.
Jaime snickers. “Oh, Melissa pulled a Martha Stewart and got busted for insider trading. Oliver was only too happy to send me back once he realized his own wife would be housed by the state. When his personal life became tarnished, I wasn’t such a political asset anymore.”
Yup, this is the same Jaime I so envied and loved.
Jaime’s giggle is infectious and I can’t help but laugh right along with her. “I guess I shouldn’t feel guilty about planting stink bombs in their toilet then.” Not only did that period mark the beginning of my teen years, it was also around the time I had a fascination with pranks—explosives to be more exact. And that my friends, is how I got kicked out of the Thornberry house after just two months.
“Well, you certainly made an impression, that’s for sure.” Jaime hops on the bed I’d already appropriated for myself. “This is great! We have so much to catch up on.”
Great, just when I thought I wouldn’t have to fight for a bed. Please don’t be claiming that bed as your own.
But in the end I was right. Jaime is so ecstatic about having a closet almost entirely to herself that she doesn’t even complain about my claiming the bed by the window. After arranging all her clothes, she plops herself onto the bed (her own this time), and we end up sitting across the room from each other, trying to come up with something to say.
I’m relieved that Jaime turned out to be my roommate, but we’d only really known each other for a couple of months before the Thornberry’s kicked me out. God, it seemed like ages ago. It’s doubtful we have very much to catch up on, but if I want to survive my last year here, I have to remember that she’s not only an old friend, but an ally. It’s us against the system.
Three and a half years is a long time between friends, so I don’t know just how much she’s actually changed, but Jaime seems harmless enough. There doesn’t seem to be any indications of any harmful side effects from living with a highly influential family like the Thornberry’s. She could have turned out differently—like a spoiled rich bitch. But instead, she’s the same old beautiful bubbly girl I remember from when I was fourteen.