Chapter 3: The Diary Story
Samantha hung up the phone and tried to forget everything her grandfather had told her. When they first returned to the house both of Samantha’s parents were in the kitchen and she had to fight hard to control her initial instinct, which had been to tell them everything. Her grandfather started talking before she could, however, telling her parents he had gone for a walk and Samantha was kind enough to go with him.
So she had waited in her room, trying to ignore everything that had happened. At the same time she wanted to try to do other things with her talent. After an hour of sitting on the edge of her bed, fidgeting, she got up and called Becky and Marissa. To her relief both of them were home and said they would be over as soon as they could. Samantha asked them to meet her in the clubhouse.
After a quick breakfast Samantha walked into the backyard, across the porch, and under her mother’s hammock. She followed the main path towards the eucalyptus grove when her mother called to her from the house.
“Hey Samantha. We’re all going to the mall. Do you need anything?”
“No.”
“Are Becky and Marissa coming over?”
“Yeah. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Samantha retreated into the grove until she was almost to the end of the trail. She looked around, listening, and assumed she was alone. Samantha picked out a tree branch and closed her eyes.
I know I didn’t really do anything this morning, she thought. I was still asleep and dreaming everything.
Her legs started to tingle so she opened her eyes and tried to jump. Nothing happened. Satisfied, she walked towards the bamboo.
You really didn’t try too hard, she thought to herself. Almost like you didn’t want to test anything. If you really want to prove you don’t have the talent you should try as hard as you can.
Samantha walked back into the grove and again stood beneath the tree limb. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine making the jump, as if she were dandelion seed floating on a breeze. Her legs tingled strongly and she jumped as hard as she could. It almost felt like she was going to make it, but she didn’t go more than a couple of inches off the ground and landed on the soft eucalyptus leaves again. Feeling a little disappointed, Samantha decided to try one last time. She readied herself, felt her legs tingling, and was just starting her jump when she heard Becky and Marissa’s voices. They sounded no further than the edge of the eucalyptus grove. She felt a wave of panic go through her, which must have energized her body because she leapt fifteen feet and was holding onto the tree branch.
Samantha looked around wildly, not really believing what had happened. She gave a hard pull with her arms and got onto the tree branch. Fifteen feet had never seemed so high. It was too late to get down because Becky and Marissa were almost underneath her and Samantha could hear every word they were saying.
“So I told Brian again that I wouldn’t go with him to the dance,” Marissa said.
“What did he say,” Becky asked.
Samantha stood on the tree limb, pressing against the trunk. She was staying as quiet as possible. She grimaced as Becky and Marissa passed by on the trail. Becky sneezed and the sudden noise startled birds out of a tree across the trail from Samantha. They flew into the grove, passing by her closely. Marissa watched them and saw Samantha in the tree.
“Samantha! What are you doing up there?”
Samantha had many thoughts race through her head and she was tempted to tell them what she had done. She knew she shouldn’t but what kind of excuse could she make?
Nervous, she said. “Hi guys. I was, um, trying to see if we could build a tree house up here too.”
Becky walked over to the base of the tree and put her hand on the flaky bark of the trunk.
“How did you get up there,” she asked.
“I climbed.”
“But how?”
Becky tried wrapping her arms around the tree but the trunk was much too thick. Marissa was looking up at Samantha closely, like she often did if she felt there was something going on she couldn’t understand. Marissa’s eyes were so clear it was difficult to maintain eye contact. Samantha felt sweat trickle down her neck and under her t-shirt collar. For a moment she thought she was going to have to tell them what she had done because there was no other explanation. Then she noticed a smaller eucalyptus tree growing on the other side of the trunk from her. It had much lower branches.
“I climbed that one,” Samantha said finally, “and then climbed over here.”
“Oh,” Becky said.
Becky walked over to the smaller tree, jumped up, and caught a branch about six feet off the ground. She then rocked back and forth and somersaulted around the branch like it was a gymnastics bar. Within seconds she was standing on the branch and bouncing up and down on it, lightly.
“Cool huh,” Becky said.
“Yes, yes. We all know you’re gymnastics champion,” Marissa said.
Marissa hadn’t moved from her spot on the trail. Samantha got the hint and swung herself around the tree trunk, trying not to look down. She leaned out from the tree with her left hand flailing into the air and thought she would be unable to reach the smaller tree without jumping. She stretched a little further and got a grasp on a small branch. She then swung over to the branch Becky was bouncing on, landing on it squarely with both feet.
“This is fun,” Becky said, “Maybe we should have a tree house up here too.”
“No way,” Marissa said. “It’d take a lot of wood and Cliff and Mark would be able to see it.”
Samantha bent over, grabbed the branch in both hands, and swung to the ground. Becky followed her and they walked over to Marissa.
"Did you see those guys at all when you were walking in,” Samantha asked.
“No. And I think their car was gone too,” Marissa replied. “We should be safe.” She paused for a moment and laughed sarcastically. “Did you see them from up in the tree?”
“No,” Samantha said.
“Are you sure? I bet you could see into their backyard from up there. I bet you could even see into their bedroom.”
“I couldn’t see anything,” Samantha said.
“Sure, I believe you,” Marissa said and laughed again.
Becky was looking up at the tree.
“I’ll go up and look,” she said.
“No, let’s get into the clubhouse before Cliff and Mark get home,” Samantha said.
The following day Thomas and Sandra went out for dinner with a couple of old friends, leaving Neil and Samantha at home. Samantha had been trying her abilities every chance she got. She practiced in the eucalyptus grove after Marissa and Becky had gone home the day before. She was improving and could now jump almost every time she tried. After a few successful jumps she remembered her Grandpa had shattered a table with his talent. To see if she could, Samantha got a piece of wood and set it between two of the eucalyptus trees. She stood in front of it for a while, trying to figure out what to do. Finally, she just closed her eyes and tried to imagine breaking the wood. She felt her arm get tingly, opened her eyes, and struck the wood. The palm of her hand thumped into the board but nothing happened except for a shooting pain through her wrist and hand. She cried out, ran back into the house, and put her arm under cold water from the faucet.
After her parents left for dinner Samantha walked into the living room, where her Grandpa was sipping iced tea and watching television. She sat on the couch and looked at him. He didn’t seem to notice her walk in.
“Grandpa?”
“Oh. Hi Sam.”
“Were you sleeping with your eyes open again?”
Neil laughed. “Not this time.”
He took a sip from his iced tea and looked at Samantha carefully.
“How is your wrist?”
“Huh, how did you know about that?”
“I saw you flexing it at dinner last night and breakfast this morning. Did you try to break something?
S
amantha nodded, almost embarrassed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Neil said, “It took me another month to break something after the first time. I turned myself all sorts of colors trying though. For some reason breaking an object is a difficult skill to master. It takes more time and practice than anything else. How’s the jumping?”
“Good. Watch.”
Samantha got up from the couch, poised her legs, closed her eyes, and jumped up to the ceiling. Neil started clapping.
“Wow! I say Sam, you’re better at this faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“What do you mean,” Samantha asked, excited, “you know other people like us? I thought we’re the only ones.”
“I’ve met a couple of others,” Neil said slowly.
“Like who?”
“Let’s wait a little bit before we go into that Samantha. How do you feel about it?”
“What do you mean? I feel great.”
“I mean what you said at the park. You said that you’re different now and you were frustrated that you can’t tell anyone about it. Don’t you still think it is hard to take?”
“Well, yeah. It’s hard I guess. I really wanted to tell Becky and Marissa yesterday. They almost caught me too. I had jumped up into a tree without realizing I could do it and they saw me up there. I had to make up a lie about how I got there.”
“Lots of lies the past couple of days,” Neil said, winking at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. I’m just glad to see that you feel so good about it. I knew this would be hard for you.”
“I kind of felt bad about everything yesterday,” Samantha said, “but after all the practicing I did in the afternoon I actually started to like it. But I keep having questions.”
“Like what,” Neil asked.
“Why are we this way?”
“I don’t think anyone knows Sam,” Neil said. “In time I’ll have you meet someone I know. We are rare and it’s hard to tell who is who because everyone tries to keep it a secret. But after enough time you might meet other people with the talent.”
“So your whole family has it,” Samantha asked, thinking of her Great Uncle Michael and Great Aunt Margaret. But Neil shook his head.
“Usually only one person in a generation gets the talent. It’s extremely rare for siblings to get it and when they do it’s usually so watered down that it has no effect. I got it in my generation, from my Dad. And he got it from his mother. She got it from her mother. Before that it apparently skipped a generation from my great-great-great-great grandfather. The rest gets lost in time, which is fine because it’s the previous generation that really matters.”
“What do you mean Grandpa?”
“It has to do with why we all keep detailed diaries in the first place. What I tell you may be hard to believe Sam but you’ll have to listen very carefully to everything. If you find yourself thinking that what I am telling you is impossible, just remember what you would have said to someone who told you that you could jump amazingly high or crush trash cans with your bare hands.”
“Ok”
“There is still a lot for you to learn,” Neil said, “and we can discuss all your talents later. But I’m completely serious when I ask you to listen carefully.”
Samantha started to look a little fearful again.
“Why do you think we keep diaries? Do you have any idea?”
“Um, no.”
“Take a guess,” Neil said.
“Because you want the next person in line to see what you had to go through?”
“That’s an excellent guess Sam! We record our lives so that the next person to inherit the talent knows the difficulties we faced. But it’s not only for education, it’s for safety.”
“How could writing a diary make us safer?”
“I know you won’t know the answer but think about this. Where would this power come from? How can ordinary muscles suddenly do a hundred times their normal capacity?”
Samantha didn’t answer and looked down at her hands, deep in thought. Then she shook her head.
“It can’t come from an internal source,” Neil continued, “or else everybody could learn to do it. What we can do that makes us different, it seems, is to tap into energy from other people.”
Samantha still didn’t say anything but her eyes were wide and startled.
“And it isn’t just any person that we get this energy from. We get it from the person in our own family who had the talent before.”
Samantha frowned. “So that means I get it from you?”
“Precisely.”
“But don’t you feel it,” Samantha asked. “Does it hurt? Can you stop it?”
“Well, this is hard to explain Samantha. I do feel it when you use your talent but I don’t feel it now. When you take energy from me to do something, I feel it back when I was the same age as you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Remember I told you about the time I broke the table?”
“Yeah, you were mad because of the attack on Pearl Harbor.”
“See, I knew the talent was in me even before I smashed the table. Two weeks before that day I was struck by horrible dizziness and fatigue. I couldn’t even walk to school. My Dad was concerned because it lasted so long. Usually it only lasts a few minutes. Do you know what it was, Sam?”
“No. Were you sick?”
“It was you. The day after I turned twelve I was hit with the symptoms, in the morning. Right about the time you jumped up to the tree for the first time.”
“You mean that was when I tapped your energy, or however you say it?”
“Yes.”
“How long did it last?”
“Two days.”
“So the stuff I did made you sick for two days?”
Samantha started to look both sad and guilty.
“It’s fine Sam. How could you know? And remember, I was the one who tried to get you to jump in the first place. I had a feeling that you would succeed.”
“But I feel bad I did that to you.”
“It’s the way it is. And remember that you will most likely feel it too, when one of your children succeeds for the first time.”
“So I could start feeling bad at any time? I don’t like that!”
“I’m sorry Sam. But there really is no way around it.”
“What if I don’t have kids? Then I would never be sick. Nobody would inherit anything from me, right?”
“That is true. Time will tell.”
Samantha shook her head, as if too clear it, and walked into the kitchen. She grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard and poured some water from the filter tap. She drank it slowly, looking out the window. Then she came back and sat on the sofa. She looked unhappy but more determined than she did before.
This is a brave kid, Neil thought to himself.
“You said you write the diary for safety. I still don’t understand why you do that. I guess you could write down what happened to you and….” Samantha stopped and looked up at him. “That’s why you do it! You write down what has happened and what you are planning to do. That way I can read about it and not do anything special. That way you don’t get sick, right?”
“Very good Sam. I don’t think I could have said it better myself.”
“So I only need to read your diary every day.”
“One question for you though,” Neil said. “Why would it matter if I got sick back then? What if I didn’t write about the days I felt bad?”
“I don’t want you to feel bad. That’s why it matters.”
“That’s all in the past and I survived it. Why would you feel bad about it now?”
“I just would,” Samantha said. “That’s why.”
“But I never wrote down any of the days that I felt sick. I never said a single thing about it. Why would I leave that out of my diary?”
“I don’t know. It seems like you should’ve, because then I would know when I had….Wai
t. You left it out so I wouldn’t know when I used my talent, right?”
“Exactly.”
“But why wouldn’t you,” Samantha said. “Then I could know when I was going to do something.”
“I said exactly the same thing to my Dad when I was your age. And he said this to me. We can’t let you know what you might do because that would affect how you would decide to do things. It is your choice how to act, you know, not mine.”
“That is weird. This whole thing is weird.”
“Do you understand everything so far?”
“I think so,” Samantha said, “but I don’t like it.”
“What about this then? Say, for example, that I climbed a mountain when I was younger. I climbed for about a day and made it to the top and was very happy with myself. I went home and celebrated with all my friends. Does that sound good?”
“Everything except for climbing a mountain,” Samantha said.
Neil laughed. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot you were scared of heights.”
“Only big heights. I can climb a tree.”
“I know. I saw you yesterday morning. But back to the mountain. Let’s say I climbed the mountain on my twentieth birthday. One day in the future you turn twenty and need to use your talent. You draw the energy from me at the same moment I’m clinging to a cliff. My strength gives out and I fall.”
Samantha looked horrified. “You would die.”
For a moment Neil looked sad as well. Then he said softly, “Yes, I would.”
“But how?”
“What do you mean?”
“You are here now,” Samantha said. “You are sixty one years old, right? That means you didn’t die when you were twenty. So it doesn’t matter what I do because you are here right now.”
“I wish that were true, honey. But it isn’t. This is why we keep the diary. In it I record all the big events of my life. Anytime I was knowingly near danger I explained what happened in great detail. And that is why you need to read my diary every day. For example, you will see that the day before I broke the table, the day before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, I wrote that I climbed to the top of the tree behind Mrs. Douglas’s house with my best friend Adam. We were quite proud of ourselves and we had a great view. But when I told my Dad about it the first thing he did was make me go and write it down. Because that day you could use your talent, whether you wanted to or not, right as I was climbing that tree.”
“That can’t be right Grandpa,” Samantha said. “You are here now. You didn’t fall because you remember doing it.”
“Sam, I know it seems like the past can’t be affected but why should the past be any different than the future? The only difference between them is that you can remember the past. If you couldn’t remember the past, would it seem any different than the future? I don’t know. Why do you think that we affect the future with the decisions we make? We don’t know what will happen so we can’t know whether things we decide to do will have any effect on our future at all. It may seem like the past is dead but it isn’t. What I’m telling you now is that things you do can change the past, which means they could change the future. If I died that day in the tree that means your father would never be born.”
“What!”
“Because I would be dead long before I met your Grandma. You can change the present any time you use your ability. I know it doesn’t seem possible but it is. I know.”
“How do you know, Grandpa? Have you done that?”
“Yes.”
“When? What happened?”
Neil looked at the window. The black night outside turned the window into a mirror. Neil could see his own face, wrinkled a little by age, staring back. After a moment he shook his head.
“We can talk about all that some other time, Sam. What’s important tonight is to make sure you understand everything. It’s very important that you do because I don’t live here. I always had my Dad to turn too and you will have me, but I’m not in the same house.”
“I think I understand Grandpa. But I’m scared. What if I mess up? What then?”
“You won’t Samantha. It hardly ever happens, I figure. How else could we have survived this long, unless everyone else before you did well? Just make sure you read my diary each day and write in yours each night.”
“Oh no!”
“What?”
“I forgot to write in my diary last night. What if something happens?”
“Did you do anything dangerous yesterday?”
Samantha thought back to the day before. She remembered jumping into the tree and climbing down. She could have slipped and fallen, breaking her neck. She remembered running through the bamboo tunnels and climbing the oak tree when she heard the firecrackers on her birthday. She could have fallen then too. She thought about the firecrackers and if they had ignited the bamboo. She thought of eating dinner and what would happen if she were swallowing when weakness hit her. Would she choke? There must be a million times a day she could be in danger. How would she ever remember it all?
Neil perhaps saw this on her face, because he smiled and held her hand.
“Don’t worry too much Sam. Your life will be great, I know it. Read my diary. You won’t have to put in everything. Once you get the hang of it won’t take you much time at all. You may even find that you love to write, as I have. I look forward to it every day. All you need to remember is to write the important things and never write about a feeling of weakness, if you get it. And I’m only going to be a phone call away. I want you to call any time you are worried. Any time at all.”
“Alright Grandpa.”
He let go of her hand. She grabbed him and gave him a hug. She let go after a moment and stood up.
“I’m going to bed. And I need to write in my diary.”
“Right. Goodnight Sam.”