After Image

Viola was already dressed and sipping a cup of tea by the time Eli woke up in the morning. He found her on her balcony, cold air billowing into her room from outside. It was snowing again, covering the world in silence. The Steeples were barely visible, the tops covered in a thick layer of cloud. Eli grabbed a cup of tea for himself and joined her on the balcony. He shivered as the wave of cold air hit him.

“How can you stand to be out here in your night clothes when it’s so cold?” Eli asked, holding the cup closer to himself to absorb more of the heat.

Viola turned and gave him a warm smile. “Helps me wake up. The colder it is out, the better my mind works. Before you woke up I did a little bit of experimenting with Imaging. I hope you aren’t mad.”

“What kind of experimenting?” Eli asked, looking around her room for new additions. He didn’t see anything different.

“I was testing to see if I could affect things already in this reality. Change the color, mend them, or even send things that originated here into a different universe.”

“So what is the prognosis?” Eli asked.

“I can’t affect what is already here. Everything stays the same. I also didn’t get anything from this reality to move into an alternate one, but I think that was more a practice thing. It felt like I was using a lot of Quar energy when I tried, as if it is easier to pull in new things than push out things that were already here.”

“What is Quar energy?” Eli asked, gesturing for Viola to come back into the house. He was shivering from cold.

“I couldn’t sleep last night so I wrote down all the names for multiverse theory. Then I took the first letter from them and tried to make a word that sounded okay to explain the energy transfer I feel when I Image something. Quantum universe, alternative reality or Quar.”

“You were up all night thinking about what to name energy? Why not just call it Image energy.”

“Image energy? Say that fast and you get imaginary. It sounds wrong.”

“What about quantum energy?” Eli was chuckling at Viola and she shoved him in irritation.

“I did mention I didn’t sleep last night right? Yes quantum energy sounds like exactly what it is. Of course you had to come in and ruin all my hard work from last night.”

“When are your friends coming over?” Eli asked, laughing.

“They won’t be here until after lunch. We have the morning to ourselves.”

“I gather you want to do a bit more Image practice?”

“Outside if you don’t mind. We’ve been trying small things the last couple of days. I want to see what the biggest is I can handle. Or if size even makes a difference.”

“I can almost guarantee that size will make a difference. If you are using an actual energy transfer to Image, than the larger the mass the more energy you are going to need to pull it over. I don’t want you to get a hemorrhage like when you pulled me over.”

“I can almost guarantee that that won’t happen again. I can feel the strain when I am getting near depletion. I think we will be okay. There is an abandoned farm just a few miles up from here surrounded by the forest, we should be safe there.”

A few minutes later they were both standing in the middle of a snow covered field watching the flakes of snow drifting to the ground.

“What should I try?” Viola asked, rubbing her hands in anticipation.

“If it’s big, you do realize that people are going to notice it is missing from whichever universe you pull it from.”

Viola quirked her lips sideways in thought. “Well maybe an abandoned building. Something that they might want to think of demolishing.”

“You want to bring a decrepit building into the middle of this field?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“There has to be a better idea,” Eli responded.

“Oh, what about a retired NASA space shuttle,” Viola’s eyes were already growing big at the thought.

“I’m sure that will still cause some sort of uproar,” Eli replied.

“Okay, what about a sunken ship?” Viola finally asked.

Eli went to reply, paused and decided it wasn’t such a bad idea. “That might work.”

“I’m totally Imaging one with a load of treasure,” Viola responded and began concentrating on the image in her mind before Eli could respond. Eli saw her staring blankly into a point of space further into the field they were in. He watched the space in front of them shimmer and a translucent sailing ship starting shimmering into existence in front of him. He looked away from the Image and back at Viola, trying to gauge her state. She had beads of sweat forming on her brow and her breathing was heavier. He stepped closer to her and grabbed her left wrist to check her pulse. It was accelerated but not dangerously so, at least not yet. He felt Viola suddenly jerk her hand away and heard her whisper breathlessly, “I need to touch it.”

Eli looked back towards the sailing ship Image and saw it looming extremely large overhead. They were so close to it that it was the only thing in his view. The wood looked decayed and barnacles and seaweed were almost entirely covering the wood. He could see that the main mast of the ship was missing, the two smaller ones shattered and broken. Viola was within inches of touching its surface.

“Are you sure about this?” Eli said. “All the energy transfer is going to happen when you touch it. Are you sure you can handle that?”

“Trust me,” Viola said and poked the hull of the ship with her pointer finger. Eli was momentarily blinded by a flash of light followed by a sound like thunder. When he opened his eyes to look at the ship, he heard a rushing sound of water and was engulfed in murky seawater and seaweed. He got to his feet, soaked to the bone, spitting bits of seaweed out of his mouth moments later. Viola was close by doing the same thing. They both looked at each other and Viola was laughing as she tried to get to her feet in the slushy ground that was beneath them. She went to speak only to be interrupted by the sound of the ship creaking under its own weight and toppling with a loud boom onto its side; this split the rotting wood causing another flood of water in their direction.

By the time both of them were standing, they were completely soaked from head to toe with the biting winter weather chilling them almost immediately.

“Forgot about the water,” Viola said, her teeth chattering.

“Thanks for that, Vye. It was just what I needed,” Eli said. He closed the distance between himself and Viola and grabbed her.

“Let’s get back home before we freeze.” She pulled away from him and he saw her run suddenly to the decrepit shipwreck in front of them.

“Not until I get my treasure,” she was yelling as she ran. He watched her disappear into one of the splits that had occurred in the hull of the ship when it had fallen on its side and saw her reappear a few seconds later.

“I can’t carry the chest by myself,” Viola replied. Eli rolled his eyes and jogged up to where Viola was standing. He squeezed himself into the ship and Viola pointed at an old chest that was lying on its side. It was about the size of a footstool. He pushed it onto its side and heard coins clattering inside of it. Viola went to the opposite side and grabbed the handle. It was surprisingly heavy and they ended up working up quite a sweat in the wet clothes as they heaved the chest to the car and loaded it into the backseat. Eli was just glad to be in the car and out of the cold, his clothes already feeling frozen to touch. He turned the heat on full blast and drove back to Viola’s home. When he had parked the car he turned and looked severely at Viola.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t think about the sea water okay. And it was the only way I could think to get money without stealing it from someone.” She looked sheepish as she spoke. “It isn’t stealing is it? To find lost treasure isn’t stealing.”

Eli shook his head. “No, lost treasure isn’t stealing. But how are you feeling? That ship you Imaged was massive. Any headaches, palinopsia, or ice-pick headaches?”

Viola shook her head. “That worries me a little, Eli. I feel like I have hardly done anything other than maybe do a quick sprint. I was out of breath at first, but nothing that wasn’t gone in a few minutes. In fact, I feel like I could do that ten times over and still be okay. The quantum energy build up is increasing and so is my capacity to hold it. It’s going to stop at some point, right? I’m not just going to amass quantum energy exponentially until it pulls me apart am I?”

“I don’t know, Vye. We are in completely new territory. But your lungs stop filling when they reach full capacity right?” Viola nodded. “Then let’s hope the energy build up is like that.” Eli replied and stepped out the car.

Viola followed him. When she was half way up the stairs into her house she stopped. “But what if it’s more like a bladder. Bladders can burst if they get too full.”

Eli turned and walked back down to where Viola stood and took her hands. “Then make sure you empty it on a regular basis.” He took her right hand and molding it into writing form, helping her mime writing.

“Right. Empty it.” She shivered from the wet and cold and ran up the rest of the steps. Eli was right behind her.

Once they were both showered and dry Viola had once again headed back out to the field and made the mysterious shipwreck vanish before someone else found it and started to ask questions. When she came back into her house, she was carrying a few of the coins and gems from the treasure chest in the backseat of her car.

“What are you going to do with those?” Eli asked as she wandered into her room and booted up her computer. Eli was quite fond of her computer, she had taken the time to panel it in wood and paint the metal parts a nice bronze color. It was all buckled down with leather straps and even had an old nautical weather device on the side that moved with the internal temperature of her computer, currently reading ‘very dry.’

“Well it’s just an idea. But I thought that I could find the list price of some of the coins that I have from the chest. It’s going to be kind of hard to explain where I got them from. I am sure there are collectors out there willing to pay for them. Instead of all the hassle from questions I thought I could use Imaging to you know, give them to the buyers. I was going to find out the price of them and give two for the price of one. I send over the coins and take the money that they are worth.”

“That sounds a lot like money laundering.”

“Well it’s not illegal. Besides, we all get what we want. The collector gets their coins and I get money and they get a strange story about how it all happened. I kind of thought it was pretty well thought out.”

Before Eli had time to reply there was a knock at the door. Viola looked at the clock on her computer. “Oh, that late already.” It was nearly one o’clock in the afternoon. She quickly password locked her computer, shoved the coins into a desk drawer and went to the front door. When she opened it, Will Czernicki was at the door looking around kind of lost. When he saw Viola at the door he smiled in relief.

“I wasn’t sure if I had the right place. You are really secluded out here.”

“Hi, Will. The others haven’t come yet. Come in and make yourself comfortable. You know Eli?”

Will shook Eli’s hand. “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

“I’m Eli Lavallee, Viola’s cousin,” Eli supplied.

“Oh right, you were always off doing something when I met Will,” Viola said laughing nervously. She was desperately hoping her friends Mesa and Alice would show up soon and was relieved when the front door flew open to laughing and joking from her two oldest friends.

“Is that a new car I see outside, Vye?” Alice asked, stumbling inside as she pushed passed Mesa to be the first one to enter. Alice was a tall red head with pale white skin and big beautiful blue eyes. Mesa was right behind Alice, his tall and broad frame filling the doorframe. He had thick glasses and a shaved head.

“Oh, yeah, just leased it recently,” Vye replied. Alice came into the living room and noticed the two other men present in the room and gave Viola a casual “and who are these people?” look.

“Right, Mesa, Alice this is my cousin, Eli Lavallee and my new friend Will Czernicki.”

“Yay, more people for games day! Oh, we have enough for a pen and paper RPG campaign,” Mesa said, waving to the room’s inhabitants.

Alice’s eyes opened wider as the mention of a pen and paper RPG. “You have all those campaigns that you have been working on too!” She said clasping her hands together giddily. “Not to mention it means we get to play dress up. Alice left the living room making a B line for Viola’s bed room. A few minutes later Viola heard scrapping as a giant chest that was at the bottom of her bed was pushed unceremoniously into the living room by Alice.

Viola looked around the room, suddenly completely uncomfortable. Eli and Will were both standing awkwardly in the living room watching as Mesa puttered around Viola’s kitchen getting snacks and drinks together. A few minutes later Alice came in to view pushing the heavy trunk and nearly bowling over Mesa as she went.

“So, Game Master,” Alice said opening the trunk once it was positioned in the middle of the living room, “are we going to be doing Star Wars, Middle Earth, or Dragon Age?”

“Are you two okay with doing a pen and paper RPG?” Viola asked. She was kind of nervous about the whole thing. She had made many campaigns up but as there were usually just the three of them - her, Alice and Mesa - they had never actually played a pen and paper RPG.

“Star Wars has my vote!” Mesa yelled from the kitchen. Eli just shrugged and when Viola looked at Will trying to hide her sudden embarrassment she noticed that he seemed to be enjoying everything that was going on.

“I want to be a smuggler!” Alice said. Viola felt a piece of cloth land on the back of her head, tossed at her by Alice. When she pulled it into her view she realized it was a Jedi robe.

“Right, well I guess that means we have character profiles to build,” Viola said and wandered into her library. She pulled out the core book and all her notes and wandered back into the living room. She noticed that Alice and Will were both digging around in her costume chest getting along well. Eli was in the kitchen helping Mesa with drinks and snacks. She smiled, relieved that everything felt so normal. A normal moment was just what she needed.

A couple of hours later and quite a few drinks later, the Star Wars pen and paper RPG campaign was ready to begin. Alice had pulled out no stops on her outfit. She looked more like a space cowboy from Firefly than a smuggler from Star Wars, but she looked like she was having far more fun than the rest of them. Eli and Mesa had both chosen to be Jedi and were both competing to see who could be the most stoic, which was making Alice and Viola both laugh uncontrollably. Will had chosen to be a slicer and out of all of them had the most normal outfit on.

“Okay let’s start this,” Viola finally said through laughter. She was the only one who had yet to have an alcoholic beverage, afraid of what the combination of her Imaging power and loss of inhibition would have on her. The others all cheered, clinked their glasses and the campaign began.

Viola began to weave her story, the plot flowing from her mouth in smooth detail. She could almost see the room transforming into the scene she was playing out and suddenly she realized that she could see the world she was creating. Palinopsia covered her vision and she suddenly felt a lancing pain in her head from an ice-pick headache. She stopped her words and instead held her head in her right hand. Eli noticed what was happening right away and his joking attitude went completely serious.

“Viola are you all right?” He got up from his position at the coffee table and walked up behind Viola.

“You having one of your ice-pick headaches?” Mesa asked.

Viola grimaced. “Yeah, just give me a minute.” She let Eli help her to her feet and take her into the bedroom. He closed the door tightly behind them.

“Maybe you being the GM is not such a good idea,” Eli said, sitting Viola down on her bed.

“It’s fine. I just need to write a bit.” Eli grabbed her bedside notebook and pen and shoved it into Viola’s hands. She flipped open to the first blank page she found and began scribbling words down. Eli glanced at what she was writing. Long descriptive passages filled the pages with incredible scenes. She was writing incredibly fast.

“That’s the first time you have had an ice-pick headache while Imaging,” Eli said softly.

“It wasn’t from Imaging,” Viola replied, her eyes still unfocused as she wrote and wrote on the pages before her. “It was because I stopped the Image. I think I got some feedback when I didn’t channel the energy all the way.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

Viola stopped writing, put the pen down, and closed the notebook over top of it. “I’m fine. It should be all right. I’ll just stick closely to what I already wrote. If I do that I don’t think there should be a problem. Eli grabbed the notebook that Viola had put down and shoved it back into her hands.

“Just in case you need to relieve a bit of pressure,” he said. They walked out of the room together, coming back to a living room full of concerned faces. Alice stood up and cradled Viola in her arms when she came back into the room.

“Everything okay?” Alice asked. The subtext behind her question was not lost on Viola. Alice was Viola’s only girlfriend and so they were closer than just friends, more a family. Alice was asking if there was something that Viola needed to talk about later when all the boys had left. Viola smiled. Should she tell Alice about her ability to Image? She had no secrets at all from Alice, not one. Alice knew everything there was to know about Viola. Viola looked at Alice and nodded.

“Another time,” Viola replied returning to the game.

The rest of the day went by quickly, first Mesa and then Alice leaving later in the evening. Alice gave Viola the let’s talk when you have time look. When it was just Will, Eli and Viola, Eli kindly offered to make dinner and wandered into the kitchen to prepare.

“Want to take a walk?” Viola asked Will. “We’ve been cooped up in here all day, after all.”

“That sounds smashing,” Will replied.

Viola went over to the coat rack and remembered that her winter coat was hanging in the shower drying from the sea water soaking it had gotten that morning. She looked through her other jackets, found her fall jacket and slipped it on instead.

“We are just going for a walk, Eli,” Viola called out as she headed out the door. Eli just gave her a small wave, absorbed in his meal preparations.

There were no clouds out that night. Dark had already descended earlier that afternoon and so the stars and the small sliver of the moon where all the light that they had. The moonlight reflecting on the snow made the whole winter world look like a permanent twilight hour. She took Will deeper into the campground where the shadows of the trees bathed them in inky black. They were both silent for the first few moments. Viola was trying not to be awkward about the sudden proximity between them and the fact that they were alone in the middle of the night. This was a stupid idea, she suddenly thought.

“Hope you had fun today,” Viola finally said, breaking the silence.

“Your mates are wonderful. All of you are so full of life. I love that you don’t hide yourself,” Will replied. Viola could feel herself being lulled by his deep resonating voice.

“You mean, you think it’s great that we all act like little children?” Viola said, laughing.

“It just means that you haven’t allowed life to jade you. That’s a jammy thing.”

“Also must be infectious,” Viola said recalling Will’s own behavior while they had been doing her campaign.

“Of course! Who wouldn’t want to participate in something like that?”

“Thanks,” Viola said becoming quite again. “So, I don’t know much about you, Will Czernicki. You obviously haven’t lived in Canada your whole life.”

“Oh the accent?” Will replied. “I’m from Great Britain originally. My family didn’t move to Canada until I was nineteen.”

“I have always wanted to go to England,” Viola said dreamily. “Actually Scotland. I really want to go to Scotland. It looks like an amazing place. You’re not from Scotland are you?”

“Wrong accent. I have been there though. I am from Cardiff actually.”

“I haven’t a clue where that is,” Viola replied.

“It’s in Wales; Southwestern part of Britain between England and Ireland.”

“Do you miss it there?” Viola asked.

“Not really. Too much rain.”

“I love rain,” Viola replied. “I love the sound of it falling on an umbrella, each drop that hits the cloth a soothing sound. Everything is so fresh and clean. It always feels as if each drop is helping to wash away the hurt, the pain, the dirt that life leaves behind. As if the mere act of it falling can give life a rebirth, a second chance.”

“I’ve never heard anyone describe rain like that before,” Will said.

Viola stopped in the clearing of one of the campsites and stared up at the sky, taking in a deep breath. “I learned a long time ago that I don’t quite think about things in the same way that other people do.”

Viola felt Will’s warm hands on her face as he stood over her. She was looking into his beautiful face hidden in shadow, lost in her own thoughts.

“I think your mind is brilliant.” He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers. The spell she had been under before suddenly broke and she pushed him away. She was wiping her mouth and grimacing.

“Sorry. I didn’t –“ Will looked away from Viola embarrassed.

“I thought we had already had the no kissing discussion,” Viola replied trying not to look as disgusted as she felt.

“I just got a little caught up in the moment. I forgot. I’m so sorry.” Will stammered.

“I did explain –” Viola hesitated thinking about the kiss. It hadn’t felt completely repulsing. In fact, it had been far more pleasant than any kissing she had ever done before. “I did explain the no kissing rule. No boyfriends. Maybe you should go.” Viola had her back turned to Will as she said this. She was pressing her fingers to her lips trying to figure out what she was feeling.

“Yeah, I think that is probably best. Viola, really I am sorry.” Will retreated into the night leaving Viola alone with her thoughts. She felt far warmer than she thought possible in the chill night air. I don’t even know anything about him. Too much change. Way too much change. She turned and fled back to the comfort of her home. She closed the door far too firmly behind her when she got in and Eli looked up from his preparations, concerned.

“Did Will go home?” He asked. Viola found herself unable to speak and instead she just nodded.

“I just need to be alone for a while,” she whispered, fleeing to the solace of her room. The thought of food made her stomach turn. Too much change.