WisteriaWolverine

Kodi ran through the park toward her sister, “Marli wait for me, you said we’d go and see the ducks.”
“We’re going to see the ducks,” snapped Marli.
But Marli was running way ahead of her; she always ran way ahead of Kodi because she always had to be first.
The dark haired man watched the two girls running through the park and he asked himself, “What are you up to this time?”
They’d been watching Kodi from the moment she’d emerged from her mother’s body; he’d been watching both girls from time to time. At first he’d had no idea what it was all about, and all he saw was a normal mother giving birth to identical twin girls, so what was the problem? He’d been instructed just to keep an eye out because one was going to try and hurt the other, one-day seriously, and that one would be cast aside. Both girls would require intense monitoring. Every time something happened the dark haired man had wondered if this was the time he’d be walking her home?
He’d watched the mother when she’d been left on her own with the babies, the first time in the hospital, she’d ‘accidentally’ let the pillow slip over little one’s face, and every time he’d removed it, she’d placed it back there again. The worst of it was that as she did that to little one, she held the other as she cooed at it allowing it to feed from her.
He’d asked himself, “How could a mother be allowed a baby she didn’t want, how could that be allowed to happen?” And that’s when he’d learned that free will is in the domain of control of no one but the person who possessed it. They couldn’t interfere in it, they couldn’t change it, and all they could do was pick up the pieces once it had caused damage.
The two girls ran toward the pond out in the park at the back of their house. Marli ran up to the edge of the pond and then balanced on the concrete ledge. “Come on Kodi, get up here with me.”
“No I might fall in and mama said not to get wet.”
“You won’t fall in Kodi, I promise,” Marli smiled sweetly at her sister.
“Mama will be very angry if we get wet or dirty Marli, I don’t want mama to get mad at me again.”
Marli smiled and said, “It’s okay Kodi, we’re not going to get wet.”
At that point the man watching knew exactly what Marli had planned to do to her sister, and he was ready for it.
Kodi got up on the ledge beside her twin. Marli laughed at Kodi and so Kodi, thinking her twin was going to be nice for once, smiled back at her. All of a sudden Marli launched herself at Kodi knocking her into the pond.
It took Kodi a few seconds to realise what had happened to her, and by the time she surfaced, there was a cacophony of ducks taking off in flight quacking and flapping their wings. Water splashed everywhere as Kodi struggled to keep herself afloat. She screamed out for Marli to help her, but Marli just stood on the ledge staring at her sister watching, even hoping she’d drown. Kodi began swallowing mouthfuls of water and every time she tried to breathe, her lungs started to fill with fluid instead of the air that they craved. Kodi didn’t feel peaceful, she felt scared, and she did not see her life flash past her eyes, all she saw was her sister laughing at her.
Suddenly a stranger leapt into the water, grabbed the young child by the arm and raised her high above the water. As the child coughed and spluttered he gently patted her on the back to help get the water out of her lungs. He carried Kodi over to the park bench well away from the pond and well away from Marli. Kodi looked at the man; he was the tallest man she’d ever seen. He had very dark hair, and as she gazed into his brown eyes, she knew she’d seen him somewhere before. Then the tall man walked away and so Kodi turned to Marli, “I’m gonna get you for this.”
Kodi had never ‘gotten’ Marli back for anything ever, and every time Marli did things to Kodi they were things that were designed to have other consequences. The trouble never stopped with Marli, and the duck pond incident was no different. Once they got home Kodi had received a sound beating from her step father, verbal abuse from her mother and then told she was being sent to bed without dinner…again. The whole time Kodi had gotten punished for ‘jumping into the pond and getting wet’ according to Marli, Marli had stood there smiling. Afterward Kodi had lay in bed vowing that one day she’d get Marli, one day she’d get her so good she’d wish she’d never had a twin.
There were so many incidences of Marli getting Kodi into trouble that by the time Kodi was four, just before she was taken away, she loathed Marli. As for being taken from her family, Kodi was glad to be leaving and pleased she wouldn’t have to be a twin any more, and Marli was as pleased to see Kodi go as Kodi was about going.
Heathcliff had questioned everything once he saw what was happening between the two little girls, and what was happening to the little girls was because effectively the mother was annihilating both of them. He had gotten into trouble on many occasions for interfering in the events that were happening to one of the children. He got into trouble for removing the pillow, for opening the cupboard, for pulling the child from the clutches of death at every turn.
But Heathcliff’s response had been, “Don’t expect me to stand there and watch her die while doing nothing.”
Once the girl had reached her teen years he merely monitored and no longer attempted to thwart what may in fact have been meant to be. As it turned out, Heathcliff had, in the long run, contributed to events the way they had played out in the end because he had interfered. It was only in retrospect that he was able to see that perhaps it would have been kinder to let the child cross over at some earlier stage of her life, but who really knew? Only God.
Chas and Ruby hadn’t liked Marli right from the start, there was something about her that seemed really false, almost malevolent, but they couldn’t really determine what the ‘something’ actually was. Marli would always show up and enter the room like she was the queen and everyone had been waiting just for her. She dominated conversation, and if the conversation ever turned to Kodi, Marli would be sure to jump in over the top of it with another completely different subject.
Kodi was no prize either, they all knew that, she often got into relationships with abusive men, her fashion sense was non existent and her friends often felt she’d be much better off if she spent more time in the real world instead of inside the books she read. She was standoffish with people, tended to make crass jokes; admittedly not all that often, but when she did it was totally the most inappropriate time to do so. She was tomboyish and dreamy, and sometimes very hard work the way she never wanted to go anywhere much or do anything. Often times her friends wondered why they even bothered trying, but there was just something endearing about Kodi, nothing they could put their finger on, but it was there nonetheless.
But Marli was really something else again, something more disturbing, perhaps sinister, some of them had suspected. If someone made a positive comment about something that Kodi had done or had achieved, then Marli brought up conversations of childhood about Kodi, or about naughty things Kodi had done, and Kodi had done her fair share of naughty childhood things. Marli was particularly fond of telling the story about how Kodi had had an imaginary friend; “Yes and of course he was tall, dark and handsome. It got so bad they almost locked her up for good,” Marli would say.
The only person who never laughed at the story was Ruby, and she’d simply touch Kodi lightly on the arm in a comforting manner as her sister’s barbs came at her over and over again full thrust. Everyone else laughed politely at the story, thinking it was just that, a story, but Marli had soon put them straight, “No seriously she had our father wandering around the property for hours trying to find him once. Another time she even dragged this sick old lady, who lived down the road, into it and the poor woman was dying, but Kodi didn’t care about that did you?” she’d said smugly. “But I always loved her, despite the things she put me and my parents through didn’t I Kodi?”
“I was four at the time, so sue me,” Kodi had retorted. But by the looks that some of the people present at the time had shot her, she suspected that they were wondering just what kind of stress and trouble Kodi had subjected her twin to during their brief childhood together? It didn’t help that Kodi never tried to explain it to them, she couldn’t be bothered trying to explain what was incomprehensible. But as time went on the people around the twins began to see some discrepancies in what Marli said and the way she behaved toward Kodi.
For a start, Marli was never content to let Kodi have the light, not even for a split second and all of them noticed it. Whenever Kodi tried to start a conversation, Marli would rubbish it and Kodi would simply shut down even when someone stomped over the top of Marli’s attempts to end the conversation. The girl would never try to defend herself and it just didn’t make sense. For a while there they began to think of Kodi as the weak twin and Marli the strong twin, “Every set of identical twins has one of each you know?” Marli had pointed out at the time. Marli was vain, even though she seemed to be the prettiest of the pair; her vanity made her very unattractive. Everyone hated the way Marli was always primping her hair and adjusting her makeup, or when there were men present, the way Marli played the tease. Whenever Kodi was present at the same time, Marli picked fault with Kodi’s hair, her clothes, her shoes the way she walked, talked and even the way she silently watched everyone else. Sometimes Marli was nothing short of sadistic to Kodi in the way she treated her, and the last straw was finally reached. Kodi had decided she wasn’t going to put up with her any more, she’d show Marli who the strong survivor twin was.
Kodi had no idea what she was going to do to put Marli in her place, but the launch for her book Identical Twins – (Separate Ways And Worlds Apart) was where it came to final blows. It was supposed to be an evening of celebration, not the unmitigated disaster Marli turned it into.
Everyone Kodi knew was there; even George Papadopolis had turned up and quietly asked her to sign his copy of her book for him. Kodi had done so willingly, even though she’d sought not to encourage him. George presented her with a beautiful bunch of orchids and then leaned in toward her, kissed her on the cheek and congratulated her. At the time she had thought, “Orchids, weren’t they the flower of choice if you wanted to bestow a death wish upon someone back in the old days?” she wondered. She’d felt a little creeped out by his choice of flower, “but what did George know about flowers?” she’d asked herself later on that night. If he hadn’t been George Papadopolis ‘bad man extraordinaire’ she may well have fallen for him on some levels because the guy was really quite an intellectual.
What Kodi didn’t know was that the Papadopolis brothers owned the publishing company that had picked up her book, and although George was enamoured with Kodi, he still thought she was very talented and deserved to be published.
He was often guided by his emotions, but business was business, if he’d thought for one second that Kodi’s book was a dead horse, he would never have backed it. He also knew he stood little or no chance with the girl, she was too sensible to get mixed up in what he was born into, but he often wondered what kind of future he may have had with the girl had the situation been different? And he was her type, tall, dark and very handsome.
Then there was the other twin, Marli. She thought she could survive on looks alone and George despised that about her, sure she tended bar well and the customers liked her, but she lacked substance in his opinion. Marli had no class, no aspirations; she simply wanted a good-looking rich man to pamper her for the rest of her life. The fact that she looked like Kodi did not ensure he would fall for her, as she had seemed to think it would. Sure he’d slept with her, she’d even let him call her Kodi during the act, which he found weird, but whatever shook the girl’s tree, to him, sex was sex. Marli would hang around cleaning up his house, surprising him by jumping out at him from nowhere and then the scenes had started. He’d have one of the girls with him and Marli would let loose, like a wild jealous alley cat.
One time he’d been talking to a potential new bar maid and Marli had walked right up to the girl and slapped her in the face. There had been no warning that it was going to happen and the young girl had even smiled at Marli as she approached her. She’d cried a lot of tears once Marli had struck her and in the end George didn’t hire her because she told him to shove his job and walked out.
Marli loved to pull emotional pranks too, like the night she rang him while he was in the middle of something and had told him she’d been in an accident. She told him she was in the emergency room but hung up the phone before George could find out which hospital she was at. So George had rung every hospital in the city only to discover that none of them had a Marli Madison or Marli anything else for that matter on their books. Frank’s advice at the time had gone something like, “For your own sanity, put a bullet in the base of that girl’s skull because she’s nothing but trouble. Before you know it George she’s going to have herself knocked up to you, or worse.”
“Yeah, that’s your answer for every problem isn’t it Frank?” he had said in reply.
Marli rang him constantly, paged him constantly and had succeeded in almost driving George mad, and in the end he had decided it was time to put Marli Madison in her place. He’d screamed at her, called her all the filthy names under the sun, he’ degraded her and maligned her. But even after he’d told her exactly what he thought of her, none of it nice, Marli had put it down as George throwing a minor tantrum from which he’d soon recover. She’d turned up the next day as though George hadn’t even said the most vile things one human could say to another, and she hung all over him like he was her possession.
“How can identical twins be so different?” he’d asked his brother Frank to which, Frank merely shook his head, “You already know what I think.”
Petty pilfering had been another ploy of Marli’s. Taking money from the till and she didn’t even try to hide it because she was of the opinion that George loved her and would put up with anything; what was his was hers. But one night he’d grabbed her hand and threatened to break it if she gave him cause to think she was stealing from him again. But she merely put it down to rough play on his part, and George was almost beside himself, “Short of putting a bullet in the girl how the hell am I supposed to get through?”
Another thing she was fond of doing was bossing the other bar maids around and she used her ‘relationship’ with George as her platform for being a bitch to the other girls. Many times George found himself consoling teary-eyed girls who had bumped up against Marli’s sharp side, and he couldn’t do anything about her without a game plan and he was all played out. But George had to admit that to begin with he had been flattered by her attention. She’d initially come off as sweet and self-sacrificing, an attribute desirable in a girlfriend within his world, and he had initially wondered whether she may be the one. Yet if he had known where it was all going to end up he may have been a lot more careful in having gotten involved with Marli Madison to begin with.
He remembered clearly the first time he had met Kodi Madison. Marli had brought her into the bar one night and introduced her to everyone and she’d implored them to be patient with Kodi. She’d explained to them that Kodi was not used to being around people such as them and that she might act a little weird. All George had thought to himself was “What weird compared to you Marli? Well that’d be a sight and a half to see.”
Frank had raised his eyebrows at George, and George had raised his back and then they’d both laughed, “She’s naïve, a bit of a country bumpkin, I mean even getting the girl to wear shoes can be problematic.” Marli loved that word, ‘problematic’ “Thanks Kodi,” she’d often thought after she’d used it.
“She has no idea about people of our class, you know social etiquette and all that, she’s just always been around working class people all her life.”
George had looked at Frank and Frank had looked at George and it was all they could do not to wet themselves laughing, “Just who the hell does that cheap little broad think she is?” asked Frank in tears from laughing so much when they had discussed it later.
“What in the hell do you think I should do?” asked George laughing.
“Well I have some ideas,” said Frank quite seriously.
“Am I going to like them?” asked George.
“No,” said Frank trying to be serious.
“Why not?” asked George holding his laughter at bay.
“Because they’re based in reality,” said Frank as he slid down the wall laughing harder than he’d laughed in years, and George was not too far behind him.

At first, Frank and George had been floored by the likeness between the twins, to look at them there were no differences, but as soon as either opened their mouth to speak, the differences were as obvious as night is from day.
Marli swore like a sailor. Every second or third word was ‘fuck’ and she thought it was cute. George thought it was vulgar.
Kodi, on the other hand, seemed incapable of letting a crass word pass between her lips.
George had been very taken with Kodi from the beginning, she never tried to dominate the conversation, and George could tell she was an attentive listener by the way she responded to conversation with questions that built upon what the speaker had just said. Kodi Madison never cut across anyone’s conversation and she was even respectfully polite to her rude and arrogant sister. George saw it as politeness. Frank, however, saw it for what it was; the girl didn’t want to talk about anything that would personalise her to George. He’d wondered whether she had something to hide, and due to his brother’s interest in her, he’d had her checked out, but she was just a ‘nobody’ like her sister.
Frank didn’t really like either of the girls any more than he liked anyone else, but he found George’s interest in Kodi, yet his disgust for Marli extremely intriguing.
“They’re identical, how can you hate one and be so interested in the other?”
George had just shook his head because he didn’t understand the reason for his strange reaction to the identical twins any more than Frank
Kodi didn’t drink alcohol at all and in fact spent the night sipping coke, and when the girls all disappeared out to the kitchen to do a line, she’d opted to stay right out of it. Marli explained to everyone that Kodi was a virgin where hard drugs were concerned, but George respected that as well. He might sell the stuff but he never ever touched it either. Frank did respect that about Kodi; at least she had respect for herself unlike most of the other shallow bitches he knew.
Marli teased Kodi about being a cheap date, but George was intrigued by a female who had no interest in spending a date’s money like it was nothing, who held no interest in appearing like a beauty queen 24/7, and whom also resisted doing what was popular. “I bet she doesn’t even wear matching bra and panties?” he’d thought to himself, and unbeknown to him, he was absolutely correct.
Kodi Madison never wore matching anything, but when she hung washing on the line, if she went back inside and looked out only to discover she’d hung an item with two different coloured pegs, well she’d run straight back outside and match it up with the same colour. She couldn’t stand imbalance in colour. Kodi Madison, such a complex creature whom managed to come off as very simple.
It was through speaking to her that night that George had discovered that she was a writer, and he’d asked her if she’d had anything he could read of hers? She’d given him the manuscript to read, and he’d thoroughly enjoyed her take on things. Sure he’d thought she had an interesting way of viewing things, but gosh did she make you think about things in a totally different way, and Kodi Madison, George noticed, was very analytical, she thought things to death. Kodi could easily get the good life from him, and he’d have given it to her too without hesitation, but she was too smart, she thought too broadly to ever invite carnage into her life. That knowledge only served to endear her to George even more, and unwittingly served to make Marli appear more shallow and vulgar.
Finally the day came where Marli had pushed the envelope too far in her obsessive-compulsive behaviour regarding her inability to accept that George merely viewed her as some cheap tramp. The final straw occurred that night in the bar, the night of his brother’s birthday. He’d been standing there talking to a group of beautiful girls and Marli had walked right up to him in the middle of the group, and he’d been expecting a terrible verbal onslaught, but it was much worse than that. Like some dog trying to mark it’s territory, Marli had dropped to her knees, undone his pants and sucked him into her mouth, and the girls around him just stood there staring absolutely shocked. They were bar girls, escorts, hookers, whatever you want to call them, and they were shocked. Then they were filled with disgust and embarrassment and had turned their backs and walked away.
George, who was a little drunk by that time, threw caution to the wind had stood here and let her do her thing. Marli had behaved like a woman possessed in the marking of her territory, sucking and groaning causing George to just stand there feeling heady, totally out of touch with reality and a little afraid. Although embarrassed, George could feel it building up inside him, that release, that fire from heaven that just about every man craves. He was also feeling as though he’d just died and gone to paradise, and as he exploded, emptying himself inside her mouth, he’d grabbed her hair and said her name, “I love you Kodi.”
Marli had jumped up and spat the contents of her mouth onto the floor right beside where George was standing, his eyes watering, his penis still tingling, feeling really light headed and still totally out of touch with reality. Marli raked her nails right down the side of his face and that brought George to pretty quickly. He grabbed her by her throat and said, “Who the hell do you think you are? Coming in here and marking your territory like some unneutered wild rabid dog, you disgust me.”
“I disgust you, I DISGUST YOU? You stand there while I give you probably the best head job you ever had and you call me disgusting? Worse than that, you called me KODI!”
George slapped Marli hard across her face with his free hand and as she fell to the floor he said, “She’s got more class in her little finger than you have in your entire body you disgusting little whore. You tend bar, you do your job then you go home, and you stay away from me Marli Madison or I’ll kill you.”
George was drunk, and when he was drunk the consequences of his actions were never something that entered into his thinking processes at all. Now that she had done what she’d come to do he felt embarrassed. She’d floored him by doing something so bizarre, and he suspected she’d initially made him look weak. By beating her down, telling her what he thought and threatening to kill her (which he’d never do) he’d gained the upper hand again and re-established himself as a force to be reckoned with.
Frank had watched the whole ugly scene from the other side of the room, the way she’d ‘done him’ and it didn’t excite him to watch it, to the contrary he felt sick to his stomach. All he’d thought to himself as he watched his brother stand there and let her do her thing was, “You’re weak little brother, and every day you’re becoming weaker.”
When he saw George knock Marli to the floor and then threaten her he thought, “Well maybe I’m wrong? It’s about time you took control.”
All the girls who had been standing with George before Marli had walked in and caused the vulgar scene, returned to George’s side, but they all treaded lightly around him for the rest of the evening. A riled George Papadopolis was a dangerous man, and Marli was very lucky he hadn’t pulled out a gun there and then and put her out of her misery, so they thought.
Marli knew everyone in the bar heard and saw what had happened to her and she was embarrassed and humiliated by what George had said, and she said to her blonde haired friend as they left the bar, “I’m gonna get that bitch, and I’ll fix that bastard too.”
Her blonde friend had just staggered along behind her laughing
Marli suspected George had developed some kind of affection for Kodi and she didn’t like it, and she was forever telling him all the stupid things she’d done, including getting herself pregnant to, well she didn’t know exactly, but to someone. But that night in the bar Marli had finally realised that it didn’t matter what she said or did, there was no way in hell she could measure up to Kodi in the eyes of George Papadopolis.
She didn’t get it, she didn’t understand what in the world he saw in her, the only thing she did know was that whatever George saw in Kodi, Marli didn’t possess it.
George did not understand how Kodi, who had seemed so sensible, could be so careless as to get herself pregnant, and he had a half thought to have the guy, whoever he was, bumped off. But then again, the guy hadn’t forced Kodi into anything; it had been her own choice.
“She’s still damn cute though, and smart man, she’s so clever Frank,” he’d said to his brother as they were sitting poolside one day.
“So clever and smart she got knocked up?” he asked, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“She did it on purpose Frank, it wasn’t an accident,” he said, defending her.
“You know what I think?” asked Frank, staring over the top of his sunglasses at his younger brother.
“You’re going to tell me anyway, so shoot,” he said staring back at him.
“I think that Kodi Madison could plug everyone you know and love, including me, in the base of the skull with a 44, with a smile on her face, and you’d still find her cute and clever.”
“Don’t forget beautiful, and only if she was wearing that blue top she’s so fond of… and…”
“And wasn’t wearing shoes on those pretty little feet,” added Frank.
“Yeah, she’d definitely have to be bare foot to get away with that, but even if she wasn’t I’d still forgive her eventually,” he said smiling.
“You’re crazy little brother, you’re as crazy as Marli, and you know what?”
“What?” he asked.
“You and Marli are probably a match made in heaven, although God above knows I DO NOT want her as a sister in law, and don’t you forget it.”
“She’s knocked up,” said George quietly.
“Well I know that,” said Frank.
“Not Kodi, Marli…” he said scuffing his foot on the ground.
“You what? She’s knocked up to you?” asked Frank.
“She says so,” said George who was by then sitting on the edge of the deck chair.
“You sure it isn’t to someone else?” said Frank.
“No, she’s too crazy crazy over me to ever sleep with someone else,” said George.
“I’m sorry,” said Frank incredulously, “but you’re telling me that the future of our family is sprouting from the womb of a tramp like Marli Madison? Our father would turn in his grave if he knew. So what are you going to do?” asked Frank.
“I’m going to take it from her once it’s born; there’s no way any child of mine is going to be raised by that…that hell cat.”
“Get Dani onto it ASAP, get him to put someone on her tail, get the dirt take her to court, done deal,” said Frank.
“I don’t think she’ll let it go in a hurry,” said George.
“Then we’ll have her clipped,” said Frank as he stretched out his body, put his hands behind his head and yawned.
“No Frank, can you imagine the conversation years from now, sorry but I had mommy clipped,” said George seriously.
“You don’t tell the kid,” said Frank as he too moved around so that he was sitting on the side of the sun seat.
“No Frank, you don’t touch her, comprende?” said George. “Frank I’m dead serious, don’t you do anything to her okay?”
Frank took his sunglasses off for a moment and stared into his brother’s eyes, “Okay, we’ll do it your way, but she’s going to milk you for all you’re worth and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“You want to know something really odd?” asked George.
“No,” said Frank, as he placed the sunglasses back over his eyes, “but seeing as how you seem to have the monopoly on odd at the moment you might as well hit me with it.”
“I’d far rather father Kodi’s child than Marli’s, isn’t that terrible?”
“You are NEVER bringing a child into this family as an heir who is not of our blood, so don’t you even go getting any ideas about taking up with Kodi Madison and playing daddy to her bastard,” said Frank.
“Would it disturb you that much? You’d rather be tied forever to Marli?” asked George.
“I don’t want to be tied to either of them, but you bring Kodi Madison and her bastard child into this family and she’ll be fish bait along with the kid. I’m serious George, don’t even consider it as an option.”
“What if it WAS my baby Frank?”
“Is it? Don’t tell me you’ve been messing around with both of them? George?” asked Frank.
“No, Kodi has way too much class for the likes of us and I would never be able to play daddy to her child because she’d die before she let someone like me do that.”
“I didn’t mean it about the fish bait, you want the girl then go for it George,” said Frank staring at his brother realising that he was actually in love with Kodi Madison. “You silly ass, you went and fell in love with a girl you can’t ever have.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean I can’t make sure she’s okay and got everything she needs right?” he said softly, “And by keeping Marli around I get to keep Kodi around, kind of the best it’s ever going to be for me in that department.”
“You could always just pretend Marli’s Kodi,” said Frank jokingly.
George just looked at Frank and Frank slapped him playfully on the arm and said, “Was only kidding little brother, I’m sorry things can’t work out the way you want them to.”
Frank had got up from the deck chair and gone inside leaving his little brother to think things through on his own, but unknown to them, Marli had heard every word they had said from mid way through their conversation.
Marli had walked into the house to have things out with George and had stumbled upon them outside the pool, but they could not see her from where she was standing. When Frank had gone back inside she’d pretended she’d just arrived, it was a hard act to pull off considering what she’d just heard, but she did it like a pro. But once she left she was livid because she left there under the impression that George had probably fathered Kodi’s baby too.
The book launch was a few weeks after Marli had overheard the conversation by the pool, and she was still livid, although she’d managed to contain her temper around Kodi up until the launch. Marli did not like the attention George was showering on Kodi either; George was her bad man friend, not her sister’s. Marli sat there drinking, seething and winding up to a huge explosion. Finally she was very drunk and it was time to make an exceptionally ugly scene during Kodi’s speech. She made claims of abuse at the hands of their mother due to Kodi’s manipulation, and she even brought up a time where Kodi had pushed her into the duck pond and sat there smiling while she had nearly drowned.
“But for a kind man passing by, I would not even be here now.”
“Yeah Kodi Madison, you think you’re the only one who ever saw him? Well surprise sister.”
“You want to know about the trials of being a FUCKING TWIN? ASK ME! I spent the first four years of my life at the mercy of the bitch up on the stage that you all seem so fond of, she’s sucked you all in and that book’s full of lies, LIES, EH KODI?”
Gary, Ruby and Faith had grabbed the extremely intoxicated Marli and attempted to drag her from the room, but when they attempted to walk her out of the room, she bolted. Much to the embarrassment of everyone, she slipped and went crashing into a table knocking glasses everywhere. People jumped up from the table, and Gary tried to pull Marli to her feet while he apologised to the people who had been sitting at the table. But Marli wasn’t having it, and George looked up at the stage and thought Kodi looked as though she might burst into tears at any second.
“Take control of this George,” said Frank.
So George whistled to the boys. They came over and he whispered into their ears as they leaned in toward him. Then they politely but firmly escorted Marli from the room, and as she walked through the foyer she heard the cruel quip Kodi made at her expense. She tried to break free from her escorts to go back into the room to claw her sister’s eyes out as she heard the cheering audience, but they forcefully dragged her outside then shoved her in a taxi and ordered the driver to take her home. But the next day she was absolutely livid with Kodi, it was the last time Kodi would ever make a mockery out of her.
Kodi was incredibly embarrassed and felt a little sorry for her sister as she watched her staggering around the room screaming like a banshee, knocking into tables tipping drinks over and generally making a fool out of herself.
“She saw him too? Why did she never tell me? Why did she never back me up? Stupid Kodi, the scene before you should make that obvious.”
She was relieved when she saw Gary, Faith and Ruby grab her, but she could see they were having trouble. Then she heard a man whistle, like a farmer whistles his dogs to him. She watched as the two men walked slowly over to George at his table, and it occurred to her how decent they looked dressed in their tuxes. Then it occurred to her how insane the whole situation was, and just as she thought she couldn’t take the humiliation anymore, she was relieved to observe the two burliest men she’d ever seen walk Marli forcefully from the room.
Kodi saw that George was staring straight at her and she smiled at him nervously trying to convey thanks, but not wanting him to think there was anything more than polite acknowledgment to her smile. She still had to face the audience and she knew she was going to have to dig really deep to find some quip that would ease the tension for everyone. Her future depended upon it, her reputation depended upon it and it had to be tasteful but evoke smiles and so she said, “In order to understand that, I guess you’re just going to have to read the book.” She smiled and the room was filled with the cheering of the people sitting at their tables who had thought there was no way that the evening could be salvaged. Even Frank Papadopolis was absolutely bowled over by the charisma of the girl and he leaned over to his brother amid the clapping and cheering and said, “I think I get it George.”
George simply smiled at his brother and then gazed upon Kodi, his admiration for the girl evident to everyone who saw him. But as Kodi stood there amidst the clapping and cheering she decided then and there that she would sort it with Marli once and for all. Things could not go on the way they had, and she would no longer tolerate Marli’s attitude toward her anymore. It was the last time Marli would make a mockery of Kodi.

She had met him on the Saturday before the funeral; a friend of another shady friend from work, and his name was Peter. A woman who had tended bar with her for a while had mentioned she knew someone who might be interested in making some quick and fast money. She only knew him through another person, but she was certain he’d be exactly what she was looking for. As she walked up to the Chevy she saw him sitting in the driver’s seat smoking a cigarette and flicking the ash out of the window. He had blue eyes and blonde hair, and if the situation had been different, she may have even found him an attractive prospect, but she wasn’t here seeking a date. She looked around her before she opened the car door and said, “Give me your keys.”
“My keys?”
“Yeah, I’m not chancing you driving off with me anywhere, give me the keys or I walk now.”
Peter handed his keys to her and she went and placed them under the rubbish bin beside a bench, and he thought to himself, “This is different.”
Then she walked back over to the car and got in with Peter and the negotiations began. For a split second she thought she had seen the dark haired man from her childhood, he had always been there, always always on her sister’s side, never hers. She looked away from the man standing there leaning against the lamp post, and when she looked back again, he was gone.
“I want it to be as violent as you can possibly make it. I want them to suffer, I want it to be as slow and as painful as you can make it.” She lit a cigarette and as she smoked it she flicked her ash onto the floor of his Chevy. Peter wasn’t happy about it, but hey she’s the customer and the customer is always right, he’d get Manuel to clean the car for him again when he got back.
“You must really hate him,” Peter remarked.
“Not he, she, and yes I hate her, I hate her more than anyone else alive.”
Peter could hear the contempt in her voice. And as he stared at her and listened to her speaking he realised something about her was off, this lady was different, confident, almost cocky in her approach. Usually people were very matter of fact, even nervous, in the least edgy, and some were almost apologetic in their asking, but not this lady. It was almost unnerving for him because usually he felt in complete control, but not this time, not with her. “You have any method in particular you’d prefer I used?”
“A knife, guns can be traced and found way too easily. And there’s a couple of other things, she’s pregnant and I want to watch you do it.”
“What? Are you insane? No, I don’t work with an audience,” Peter felt extremely agitated by then.
“I don’t just want to watch, I want to help, maybe I can hold her down or something.” “Oh yes you’ll pay bitch, you’ll pay big for everything you did to me and I’m going to make sure you know who’s giving it to ya too.”
Peter stared at her as she gazed out the car window obviously lost in thought, and he processed the rest of the information and came to a decision, “Pregnant? No, find someone else, I don’t do kids let alone babies. Who is she to you anyway?”
“My sister and it’s not real yet, no more real than mine and so I don’t know why you’re balking at the idea, I mean how many people have you bumped off anyway?”
Peter ignored the last question and simply said, “Pregnant in any months is real enough for me lady, and you’re gonna have to find someone else.”
She smiled condescendingly at him and said, “No I don’t, you’ll do it.”
Peter knew the game would keep going round and around, almost like a game of chess until he or her made the fatal move, “What makes you think I’m going to do something like that for you or anyone else?”
“A tape and fifty thousand dollars says you’ll do it.”
She held up a receiver and said, “This feeds into a recorder somewhere around here, but you don’t know where. So you WILL do as I ask or else your ass is toast, don’t fuck with me either Peter because you’ll lose.”
Peter realised he had met his match and he had no choice but to do it, he wasn’t going back to prison, not for anyone. Fifty thousand would clear his debt to the Papadopolis brothers as well and finally he would be able to sleep soundly at night instead of the incessant dreams of being shot bound, gagged and then dumped at the bottom of a river weighed down with concrete blocks. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, “Sorry lady, whoever you are, but it’s me or you and it’s not going to be me.”
“Poor bitch,” said Peter under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear.
“She’s not a poor bitch, she’s asked for everything she’s going to get. Now details. We’re getting together tomorrow night at this address, you be there an hour earlier.”
“What’s to stop us being interrupted, what’s to stop her fighting back and making such a racket that the neighbours hear something? I mean wouldn’t YOU fight to protect your baby?” Peter looked at her distended belly, and he tried to think of something he could say to perhaps change her mind.
He wasn’t worried about the woman, she would be easy enough to switch off from, but he didn’t really want to murder a woman who was pregnant. A pregnant woman was going to fight like a wildcat to protect her child, he knew that and he questioned whether the lady in his car had even figured that into her plans?
“My baby’s father is an asshole and I’m getting rid of it anyway, her baby’s father is also an asshole and she doesn’t want it anymore than I want the bastard I’m carrying. I’ll take care of her, you just do what you’re being paid to do, understand?”
Peter nodded his head and she passed him a piece of paper with an address on it and a key, “Let yourself in with this, back door not front, no one ever uses that door. Be there at 5 sharp, don’t be late, and don’t be a no show. The knife will be under the bin in the garage, and you wait in the bedroom second door on the left down the hall. Oh and don’t forget your keys are under the bin over there.”
“What if someone sees me in the garage?”
“There’s no close circuit cameras in the garage and I don’t know, wear a hat?” She stepped out of his car. He watched her step from his car and then walk down the street to catch a cab, he had just under twenty-four hours to decide if he’d go through with it or not. He stuffed the note and the key in his jacket pocket.
Peter drove straight home from there. He parked his Chevy in the parking garage that was for tenants only and he walked the two flights of stairs up to his apartment. He fumbled with the keys and then inserted the correct one into the lock and let himself in. As he turned to shut the door behind him he felt something hit him across the back of the head, and as he fell to the ground, he heard a voice, “Mr. Peter Coleson, Mr. I’ll have Your Fifty G tomorrow.”
Then the man kicked him in the balls and the pain shot up into his stomach making him double up on the floor in excruciating pain.
“Bobby may be dead, but the debt is still alive and you are responsible for your brother’s debt. You WILL make it right with the Papadopolis brothers.” The man then leaned over Peter, grabbed him by his hair and put the Magnum he was holding right up against Peter’s ear. He felt the cold metal of the gun and he truly thought it was time to say his last prayers, and he felt his bladder threatening to let go as he lay there on the floor. “You’ve got until tomorrow night, and don’t run because we WILL find you and when we do, it’ll be bye bye time for you. COMPRENDE?”
“Yes,” said Peter, “yes.”
The man let him go and then turned and walked out of the apartment. Peter lay there for quite some time wondering whether he might just be better to climb to the top of his building and take a leap into the dark forever as opposed to sinking further down into the hole? If he had been aware of what the consequences of his actions were going to be, he would have done just that.
Peter had never killed anyone, well not on purpose. The first time had been an accident in a fight and the second had been while he was serving time for the first. Self-defence. The guy had messed with his girlfriend and he had tried to defend her honour. "Jail, a stupid incident while I'm in there and here I am a supposed hit man, what a joke, I'd never even swat a fly unless it was absolutely necessary!"
Word had gotten around that if you needed a job done, then Peter was your man, but as yet this was the first time he had been ‘called’ on it. Bobby his younger brother, he’d been the crazy one, the one who ran with the wrong crowd, developed an expensive drug habit and left behind a whopping unpaid tab, a combination of drug and gambling debt, when he leapt off a bridge thinking he could fly.
Debt didn’t disappear for drug addicts when they died any more than it did for anyone else, and they were going to go after Ruby, Bobby’s girlfriend. Ruby was a sweet girl, a nice girl, but they knew she didn’t have the means to pay Bobby’s debt being a junkie herself, and besides that, she was a friends of Kodi’s and George had (for reasons unknown to anyone but his brother Frank) deemed her ‘off limits’.
Someone had come up with the idea of trying to milk the brother Chas, but he had too many friends in the wrong places, including his boyfriend Xaan’s brother Damien who was a cop. The excuse given by the brothers Papadopolis was questioned, as few knew that Damien could be counted on in certain situations, so it made no sense to leave Chas alone. But for some reason the brothers declared Chas off limits too along with Ruby, and if anyone was to think about touching either of them, then it was made clear that they would pay with their life. So they waited for Peter to be paroled.
Once he’d been out for a week or two they’d paid him a visit and at first they were nice about it, but after a while they began to tighten the screws, and it wasn’t long before Peter knew he would have to cash in on his reputation. The woman he’d met with that night was the first one who actually still wanted to go through with it. He always gave them an out because he really didn’t want to take the life of anyone cold blooded and without reason. But this woman, she was determined and she’d made sure he couldn’t back out at her end, and Papadop brothers wanted their money, so it was a done deal. Either way the candle was burning at both ends. He was trapped.
The phone rang for the third time that afternoon and Kodi struggled out of bed to answer it, she was so tired.
“Yeah.”
“It’s Marli, so where do you want to meet?”
“Why in the world would I want to meet with you after what happened last night?’
“Oh come on little sister, let’s declare a truce and start again?”
“You? Calling a truce?”
“What is so strange about that? Never mind. Kodi we’re sisters, don’t you think it’s high time we both started acting like it?”
“Marli, I am tired of this, I don’t know if we have anything at all that ties us together other than genetics, but if you insist.”
“So where do you want to meet then?”
“A café?” Kodi rubbed her eyes looking at the clock on the wall.
“No, I don’t want to meet in a café, what about some place more private, you name it, I’ll be there.” Marli didn’t want them to enter into a screaming match in public, and it was going to be a screaming match because she was going to tell Kodi what was what once and for all.
“Okay, what about here?” “At least this way no one’s going to hear anything.”
“Yeah, that’ll be fine, but I can’t be there until around seven.” Marli was always difficult with times and had never agreed yet even to a basic time when making plans with Kodi.
“Why seven?” Kodi was getting miffy already.
“Okay six.”
"All right six, that’ll give me time to pop out and arrange some other stuff before you get here,” said Kodi.
Kodi hung up the phone and said to herself, “I’m going to sort you once and for all Marli.”
He climbed out of the yellow cab just across the road from the apartment and that was when he saw her. He ran over to her as she stood there sort of staring at him from the pavement, “We’re still on for tonight?”
She looked at him kind of funny and said, “What? Um, of course we are silly, why wouldn’t we be?”
At 5 o’clock Peter let himself in the back door of Kodi’s apartment and made his way down the hallway to the second bedroom on the left. He held the knife in his hand, slipped into the wardrobe and just waited. During the wait he looked at the knife, it was lethal, a six-inch blade and the handle was remarkable, some kind of old American Indian markings he supposed.
Kodi walked into the room a few times and glanced at the wardrobe, other than that everything seemed to be in order, and the last time she walked into the room she heard a knock at the front door. “Party time,” she said as she stared in the direction of the wardrobe.
Marli and Kodi got to it straight away, and it wasn’t long before Kodi just wanted the whole thing to be over, so she walked into her bedroom and Peter made his move.
At first he was struck by the likeness between the two girls and it was only then that he realised they were identical, and if not for the more protruding belly of the victim, he may have been unable to tell them apart. “I don’t think I can go through with this insanity.”
But fifty thousand dollars, a bullet and a dirty cold river were enough to make him proceed with the diabolical. “Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten.”
She was taken by surprise as someone grabbed her by her hair from behind and initially she did not struggle, as she was confused as to what was happening to her. Within moments of being grabbed, she knew it was a male because she could smell his cologne, and as she processed that piece of information she caught a glimpse of a dark haired man leaning against the wall, “Are those tears on his face? What is he doing just standing there watching me being attacked? Why isn’t he doing anything to help? Maybe he isn’t really there at all, or perhaps he is an angel, but would an angel just stand there staring, and where’s his wings? Who was the angel I saw on TV that time? Such beautiful wings, oh yes, John Travolta, he had wings, where are yours?”
Then she turned her head and sunk her teeth into the man’s arm and he yelled out in pain, let go of her, walked round to the front of her and struck her several times across the face causing her to fall down upon the bed.
“I bit my sister’s arm when I was small, why did I bite her arm? I didn’t draw blood though and it’s very bad to bite someone, it’s savage, am I a savage?”
Then she felt someone grab her arms and she tired to break free, which she managed to do, but the knife caught her across the forehead and she shrieked out in pain. In her shock she wondered, “Where is my sister and why isn’t she helping me to break free of this blonde haired blue eyed attacker? I hate blonde haired blue eyed men, I have always hated them, typical it has to be one that attacks me, but why is he attacking me?”
She rolled to her side to protect her belly, to protect the precious cargo inside it, but the other person grabbed her arms again and pulled her over so that her belly was again exposed to danger. The other person grabbed the knife from the blonde haired man and attempted to stab her in the stomach, but she put her hands and arms across her belly and the knife struck her hands and arms repeatedly.
“Not my baby, oh God please not my baby, dark haired man why do you just stand there watching me? Are those tears you cry, are they for me or do you not see me at all? I have seen you, I have seen you somewhere before.”
The struggle lasted several minutes but her strength was fading fast as the knife, clutched in female hands came down toward her from the air and finally pierced through her stomach. “My baby is gone, and I will soon be gone too, well maybe not. No, I WILL NOT DIE!”
That was when she saw the dark haired man walk over to the bed, kneel down and she felt something happening, not pain, but warmth, and she saw him stand up again cradling a small baby in his arms. He looked at her and said, “Everything is going to be okay, be brave, I am coming back for you.”
“Don’t you come back for me. I will not come with you. I’m not ready.”
“I’m coming back for you.”
As the knife pierced her chest the first time, she saw the man slowly walk out of the room carrying her baby, then she tilted her head back and looked up into the face of her twin as she delivered the fatal blow.
Then it was over.
“Right,” said the remaining twin, “you get out of here and I’m going to come in and find the murder scene and phone the cops, okay?”
“She planned this, she meant for this to happen all along, but why? What did I do?”
“The knife, what are you going to do with the knife?” Peter asked feeling very unwell.
“In the garage there is a stack of newspapers, put it under them and I’ll dispose of it later.”
Peter looked at her, “How can I trust you?”
“Trust, TRUST? You just killed my baby with her and you want to talk about TRUST?”
She replied, “It’s got my fingerprints on it and it’s got yours, checkmate, now get out of here.”
“Checkmate? I always hated chess, why do chess moves have to be the last thing I ever hear in this life? That’s as insulting as someone quoting equations, oh what dumb thoughts to be having as I lay here dying.”
The police arrived within minutes of the call being placed, and she’d had to remember to dial 911 not 111, “Americans, they have to be so bloody different, they drive on the wrong side of the road and their emergency number’s bogus too. Oh the irony!”
The first Policeman on the scene took a look at the victim and said, “Oh my gosh, I know this girl.”
“You know her Sarg?”
“Picking flowers, why would I be picking flowers? Oh yeah, I like flowers.”
“Well, no but I caught her picking wildflowers in the grade on the side of the road a few weeks back.”
Then the surviving twin walked into the room and when he looked at her he said, “Oh, or maybe it was her?”
He looked at the victim and then to the remaining twin and he really wasn’t sure which one he had run into that day.
“Damien, forensics are here,” the woman cop put her arm around the surviving twin and led her out of the room, “Come on love.”
“Yes, okay comfort my killer, never mind me laying here dying by myself.”
“Okay so everyone needs to clear out and let these guys do their job.”
Once forensics were almost finished, it had been discovered that the deceased was at least seven months pregnant, “She tried to protect her baby, look at the defensive wounds on her hands and arms.”
“Oh God my baby, my baby, they killed my baby, why didn’t they kill me too? Oh yeah, I don’t want to die.”
She saw him again, but she realised she hadn’t seen him before at all, rather she had seen someone who looked like him before, “It’s time for you to come with me now.”
“No dark haired man I will not come with you, go away leave me alone, I am not ready.”
“You need to come with me now, it’s just the way it’s meant to be and we need to leave now.”
“NO! I WILL NOT COME WITH YOU!”
Then the forensics team leader yelled out, “Are the paramedics still here?”
Damien ran into the room, “WHY?”
“She’s not dead, she’s still breathing, I don’t know how, but she’s still with us.”
“You MUST come with me, you MUST!” he pleaded with her.
“NO, I’m NOT LEAVING!”
The dark haired man leaned against the wall and watched the paramedics attach her to all kinds of machines, and he watched them put tubes into her arms and then they took her from the room. He made his way out of the house to go back to wherever it was he came from.
They rushed her to the hospital and she was placed on life support in Room 1215. The police were filled with disgust for whom ever had attacked her, they hoped she’d regain consciousness and vowed they wouldn’t quit until they found those responsible.

Peter took a taxi to the underground garage in town where he had left his Chevy. As he got into his car to turn the key in the ignition, his hands were shaking. He drove home and he nearly had an accident on his way there because he could barely keep his mind on what he was doing. All he could think about was the girl’s screams and the way she had turned on her side to try and protect her unborn child, “And the sister, a cold hearted bitch, she stood there smiling while she stabbed her.”
Peter felt the tears rolling down his face because in the end he hadn’t been able to do it, but he’d been there and that made him just as culpable. He could have stopped that mad woman, he should have stopped her, but he’d just stood there watching, and who was the dark haired man who had also stood there watching? “Why didn’t HE do something?” he asked the silence.
Peter decided there wasn’t anything he could do now except pay the fifty grand to the Papadopolos brother’s man when he turned up and maybe if he went away and started fresh, maybe he could put this behind him?
The debt collector turned up right on cue and took the money, smiled at Peter and said, “Nice doing business with you.” Peter slammed the door on him and went to go into the bathroom to splash some water on his face; he wasn’t feeling so good. As he walked across the living room he thought he heard someone speak, “Like father like son.”
He stopped momentarily, and then shrugged his concern off, leaned over the basin and filled his hands with cold water and splashed it onto his face. Then he looked up into the mirror, and that was when he saw him, the dark haired man who had been at the apartment, well he looked like him but something was different. This dark haired man seemed taller and his hair was shorter than the other man’s was. He may have even been wearing different clothes too. Peter wondered if he was seeing things?
“No you’re not seeing things son of Charles. You think you have solved your problems, but to the contrary Peter. You actively took the life of a woman and her baby, and you now have an even bigger debt to pay.”
“How do you know my father?”
Peter turned around to face the man, but he was gone. His heart rate was very rapid, his breathing was erratic and he just stood there for a while. He went and poured himself a drink and sat down in the lounge thinking that maybe his guilty conscience was messing with him, and just as he began to relax he looked over at the chair and there he was again. Peter jumped up in fright, “What do you want from me?”
“What do you think I want from you Peter?”
The dark haired man sat there twiddling his fingers and as he did so, it occurred to Peter that the man in the chair had been there too.
“You were there. You saw her do it, you could have stopped her, you didn’t, you just stood there. And I am nothing like my father, he was an animal!” Peter stared at the dark haired man accusingly.
“What separates you from him Peter, really what is it that makes you any different? Must be methods because there’s nothing else to separate you from him.”
“He was an animal who lured little children, he hurt them, he murdered them and I am nothing like him,” he spat at the man.
“Oh Peter, you are exactly the same as him, your hands are dirty with the blood of the innocent because she couldn’t have carried it off without you, you helped her, you helped her kill an innocent woman and her baby. You have a debt to clear and the clock’s ticking Peter.”
“I can’t do anything, it’s done.”
“But, and your father was given this same opportunity, you can bring her to justice Peter, think on it for a few days and I will be back. But Peter?”
“Yes?” asked an anxious and frightened Peter.
“Don’t make the same mistake that your father made, when you see a chance you should take it because it’s a one time offer.” The dark haired man stood up and let himself out of Peter’s apartment.
A few nights later Peter began to have some very vivid dreams and sleep seemed to take a long while getting to him. In the first dream he dreamed he was standing in the driveway of the house where the girl was living and he heard a noise that sounded like a concord taking off in flight. He looked toward the noise and he saw that the trees had caught fire and so he ran to the fence and climbed into the paddock to get away. Then he somehow knew she was behind him and so he turned to face her, “I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry for what I did to you.”
She took one look at him, her black cat under her arm spitting at him, and she turned and ran into the wall of flames and was consumed by them.
Peter got up out of bed and went to get a drink and as he poured it he heard, “And you think you have it so tough Peter, she doesn’t even realise she’s gone. If you don’t make peace with her then things are going to go very badly for you. You do not want to repeat the stubbornness of your father Peter, for it will go very badly for you if you do that, and don’t you think things are bad enough?”
“What do you want me to do? Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Peter looked at the dark haired man imploring him to tell him what to do, but the man just walked out of the door again.
Then he had another dream; he was on a porch by the dark haired girl. He leaned over her as she slept on the swing seat and he said, “I’m sorry.” Her black cat hissed at him and he said, “Hello Harry,” but the cat scratched him on the arm.
The dark haired girl awoke and stared up at him and then she launched herself at him. Just as she knocked him over he awoke, sweat-drenched and his heart racing ninety miles per hour, and upon his arms he saw four cat-like scratches.
A few days went past and Peter began relaxing thinking that maybe the dark haired man was just a figment of his overactive guilty subconscious? “But how could that man know about my father Charles? Our mother changed our names; there’s no way anyone could know about him, unless? No that’s too bizarre to even contemplate. I’m just stressed out and imagining things. AND I AM NOTHING LIKE THAT MONSTER!” he screamed as he threw his glass at the window shattering it. “Why, why did I agree to go there? Why did I agree to be a part of it? But I didn’t do it to her, I DIDN’T DO IT, SHE DID.”
The man sat there listening to Peter trying to console himself, trying to buy himself some peace, “Coleman, Coleson, what’s the difference when his blood flows through your veins as it did Bobby’s? Like father like son. Six of one and half a dozen of the other because regardless, there will be no peace until you put this right Peter.”
The man whispered just loud enough for Peter to be unsure as to whether he had imagined or heard what was said. “More alcohol,” said Peter as he poured himself another drink.
The alcohol was sure helping him to relax, and even though the murder was all over the news and in the newspapers, no one had any clue as to what had happened to the Madison girl. No one had any idea her identical twin sister had had anything to do with it. As Peter read the newspaper articles two names caught his eye, Chas and Ruby, “Bobby’s Ruby?” he asked out loud.
“Yes, the very same Ruby.”
Peter looked up from the table and there he was again, “Do you ever knock?”
“The time for you to do the right thing has nearly run out for you Peter. Your life is coming to an end, and you can make things go easier on yourself or you can make them harder.”
Peter felt his blood run cold, “What do you mean the time is running out, I’m going to die?”
The dark haired man simply nodded his head, and then he said, “Yes you are going to die Peter and it’s going to be a long and painful death, you will suffer greatly. The only thing that will ease your suffering is knowing you have done the right thing.”
Peter threw his glass across the room and it smashed against the wall and he yelled, “I DIDN’T KILL HER!”
The dark man stood up and got right up close to Peter, “You didn’t kill her with your own hands, but you were there and you did nothing to stop it, you did nothing to defend that poor girl. When you die you will be asked for a name, it’s my name and if you don’t give it Peter, you will go to a place that you cannot even begin to imagine. If you give them the name they seek then they will know you did the right thing and then you will go to a place where you will have a chance to redeem yourself. This is your crossroads Peter; this is where you make your choice. But you do need to know that even if you do the right thing now, you will still go through a period of suffering, you cannot escape the earthly consequences of what you’ve done.”
“And what about her, what happens to her?”
The man shook his head at Peter, “Such concern for your partner in crime. She too will face the consequences of what she has done, but if you do not do what is right then she will get away with it, and she WILL do it again to someone else. You will be culpable for anything more she does if you do not do everything possible to stop her. However, the choice is yours, I cannot make you do anything, but time is short Peter, very short, so make haste with your decision.”
“What do I do?”
“You know what to do Peter, the answer is right in front of you.” The dark haired man stared at Peter as he sat back down at the table, and Peter looked at the paper, picked up the phone and rang Ruby.

Ruby heard the phone ringing and went to answer it, funeral preparations were a nightmare and they’d only just sorted everything, “Hello.”
“Is that Ruby, Bobby Coleson’s ex?”
“Yup,” said Ruby wondering why on earth anyone who knew Bobby would be ringing her, it’d been at least ten months since Bobby had died.
“It’s his brother Peter here, I need to speak to Chas.”
“Chas, why do you want to speak to Chas?”
“Ruby just get him please, this is important, it’s about the murder.”
Ruby dropped the phone and went and got Chas, and as she watched Chas pick up the phone, she saw Troy watching her from the open door, she smiled at him, apparition or not, he was kind of cute.
“Hello,” said Chas, as he put the phone to his ear.
“It’s Peter Coleson, Chas.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
“I have information about the Madison murder.”
“So go to the police Peter.”
“I can’t...I…
“Look Peter, or whoever you are, I don’t have time for this and...”
“I was there Chas, I saw the whole thing.”
“What? What the fuck are you saying to me?”
“The twin, she did it, she used an old knife with some kind of Indian carvings on it, I know it sounds weird Chas.”
Chas stood there looking around him totally shocked and he noticed Ruby gazing intently at the open door, and then he called Xaan over, he put his hand over the receiver and said, “Hit the record button on the answer phone for me, NOW.”
Xaan did as Chas asked him, and then he too noticed Ruby’s strange behaviour, “What’s she doing?” he asked Chas.
Chas returned to the conversation with Peter, half thinking it was some kind of sick joke. Maybe he was pulling a fast one to get back at him for beating up Bobby when Bobby had hit Ruby?
“The knife is under a pile of newspapers in the garage, it should still be there.”
“How do you know all this and why the fuck were you there?”
“She asked me to kill her, I agreed and backed out at the last minute. I know this sounds insane, but if you find the knife then you’ll get your girl.”
“I hope you rot in hell for this you sick son of a bitch.”
“I understand that you do Chas.”
Peter went on to give Chas every detail of the murder from start to finish, and then he calmly hung up and just stared at the dark haired man.
There was a sharp knock at Peter’s door, and then two big burly men busted it in. They seized Peter, and the dark haired man stood up staring at them, but they couldn’t see him, only Peter. They put a gun to Peter’s back and made him walk toward the parking garage, pushed him into a car and they began driving. The dark haired man sat in the back of the car with Peter and said to him, “Did you know the money she gave you was marked? She stole it from the Papadopolis brothers. She gave you their money effectively signing your death warrant.”
Peter sat there horrified at what he was hearing, “What’s going to happen to me?”
“Well let’s just say that every second is going to feel like a day for the next little while, but it is nothing compared to what you have done to her.” The dark haired man sat there for the remainder of the drive and said nothing to Peter.
Ten minutes later the car came to a stop by an empty warehouse on the docks and Peter was dragged from the car by the two burly men, “You thought you’d be clever, you and the murdered girl, stealing money from us to pay us? Then you murder the girl to cover your tracks, but she had a twin and the twin told us everything.”
Peter realised he’d been completely played, both he and the girl had been dealt with in one foul swoop by obviously the cleverer of the two twins, “Do something,” Peter pleaded with the dark haired man, but he replied, “I can no more interfere with their freewill as I could interfere with yours the night you did what you chose to do.”
Peter was dragged into the warehouse where he came face to face with George Papadopolis, “Those twins, they were both attached to my family, did you know that? One worked for me, the other I cared for deeply, if it had just been the money, I’d have had you shot, but you tormented the poor girl and you killed her baby you fucking animal. Shooting is too good for you, far too good for you; did you know that the baby was mine? Did you know that fucknuts? Yeah you killed my family.”
Peter was filled with horror, and then he saw a red petrol can brought toward him. The two men doused him in petrol and George was the one who lit and threw a match at him. Just as he burst into flames the dark haired man said, “The name you’ll be needing six agonising weeks from now is Heathcliff,” then he turned and walked out of the warehouse leaving Peter to his fate.
Normally Heathcliff would have felt pity for any person who was going to have to endure such consequences, but the crime? The crime he had committed against another human being was immeasurably worse than anything Peter could possibly suffer in Heathcliff’s book. It wasn’t a punishment of God being exacted against Peter, it was merely the consequences of the actions he chose to take, human consequences exacted on him by humans. Pure and simple, and nothing more than that. Just as the girl was suffering the human consequences of what he’d done to her, he was now suffering too, seemed a reasonably fair trade off to Heathcliff, except Peter chose this, the girl had not been given a choice.
Peter was found ten minutes later alive and unmercifully still conscious and those ten minutes had seemed like an eternity, “I have six weeks of this.” Peter knew that he was only enduring what he deserved, and it would be horrific, but at the end of it he would enter into something better. He just kept telling himself, “Everything we do has consequences.”
Those who found him did not know what to do because he was burned so badly his skin had melted through to the bone and muscles. There was nothing they could do except call an ambulance. Peter was rushed to the hospital and he was in so much pain that all the way there he was begging them to kill him.
The ambulance sped into the hospital car-park sirens blaring, and as they unloaded him from the vehicle Peter glanced to his left and he would have sworn he saw the Madison twin, and she looked just as she had the last time he saw her. Blood all over her face from the deep cut on her forehead, and on her front he could see the mortal wounds bleeding out. Every movement no matter how slight was like a hot searing torment that caused him to scream, but still he inflicted the pain on himself to turn his head further to see if it was really her, and sure enough, it was.
Chas told Xaan what Peter had told him and they decided to go to the apartment straight away, but Xaan cautioned Chas and said that maybe they should phone Damien first?
Damien and his colleague came to Chas and Ruby’s house to take Chas statement, and to take the recorded conversation he’d had with Peter. Ruby stood there the whole time just staring at the open door, and Damien asked Xaan, “What’s up with her?”
“Oh, grief’s a strange thing, we all cope with it differently.” If she hadn’t been grieving then Damien would have sworn the girl was chalked up.
“Funeral’s tomorrow huh?”
“Yes,” said Xaan, “and if you can, could you sit on this for a while longer? Just let us get through the funeral, and then we can all deal with the next bit.”
“I’ll slow it down as much as I can, but I can’t make any promises to you Xaan.”
The police stormed the apartment and found the knife where Peter had said it could be found, and when they went to arrest Peter they discovered that life had, in a round about way, meted out its own kind of justice. Damien saw him in the burns unit and asked him, “The twin was in on it?”
As much as it pained Peter, he nodded his head; the morphine wasn’t even working at all. Damien looked down at Peter and accidentally gave the bed a jolt with his leg, “I hope you’re suffering, greatly. That you took the life of a helpless little baby and it’s mother, even this is not punishment enough in my book,” then Damien left the room.
The flowers arrived for Kodi from the Papadopolis brothers, Chas took one look at the flowers and said, “That’s it, she’s milking this thing for all it’s worth, well no more.” Chas went off to do something he never thought he’d do, actively seek out George Papadopolis. All the way there Chas conversed with himself, he liked to think of it as some kind of metacognition, but really he was simply babbling the babble of a frightened man.
“The guy’s a bloody gangster, a real live living breathing Tony Soprano, but nothing about him is funny. He might just shoot me for even breathing in his direction, but I have to talk to him. Oh well, if he kills me he’ll probably be doing me a favour in the long run anyway. But maybe he won’t kill me? He cared for both Marli and Kodi in his own way, I wonder if someone like him can love anyone? Tony Soprano does, a real family man, but hey, Tony Soprano’s not real. However, he DID kill Pussy all because of a talking fish, now that was wild, really wild, but Tony was right, Pussy was a rat, but what if he’d been wrong? I mean a talking fish is hardly a reliable source of information now is it? And who calls their kid Meadow? Okay Chas it’s just a TV show, this is REAL life, this man COULD kill you, are you prepared to take that risk? I wonder if George is like the proverbial shark, has to keep moving otherwise he’ll drown? What do I care? He’s a low life, but I need him, we need him on our side. He probably thinks I’m a lowlife too, he’s man’s man, I doubt he has much time for fags, ponces and all those other nasty names they have for men like me. Oh well, never mind what he thinks, I have to do this, I have to do it for her, so it’s onwards and upwards tallyho let’s go.”

He found the bar right on the main strip of town and walked straight into the building past the two guerrillas guarding the door. Chas thought if he oozed confidence walking in there in the first place that the guerrillas just might let him get buy them unchallenged, he was wrong, “Hey you, hey, you can’t just come in here.”
Chas kept walking across the floor and as he neared the bar he could see a group of people sitting at a table, and by that time the gorillas had caught up with him and grabbed him by both arms. Chas began to struggle and yell at the people sitting at the table, and George looked up and recognised Chas, “Let him go,” ordered George. The gorillas retained their hold on Chas, “LET HIM GO!” George boomed at them.
They released him and George told them to get back to the door and George approached Chas and said, “You’re either here to pay your sister’s tab, a very brave man or you simply have a death wish, so which is it my friend?”
“I’m not your friend, but I have information you need.”
“What could you possibly know that has any relevance to my life at all?” asked George sarcastically.
“It’s about Kodi and Marli Madison.”
“Kodi and Marli Madison, well I had a visit and I already know what happened, so there’s nothing you can really add to it now is there?”
“Yes George, there is plenty I can add to it.”
George ordered everyone from the table, kicked out a chair for Chas and ordered him a drink, “Sit down. So, what have you got to tell me that could possibly be anything more than I already know? And this better be good!”
Chas lowered his head and his eyes misted up, and then he looked back at George and quietly said, “Wrong twin, wrong baby.”
George processed that piece of information, stubbed his cigarette out and within two seconds of that, he was leaning across the table and had Chas around the throat, “You better not be fucking lying to me boy, how do you know that?”
Chas felt his windpipe constricting and couldn’t speak, so George loosened his grip a little, knowing full well that a little more pressure would snap the little bastard’s neck like a chicken. “The surviving one had an abortion yesterday, you know the other would never do that, and at the hospital they discovered that the dates didn’t match.”
George released his grip on Chas, sat back down and just stared at Chas, “You’re telling me she passed herself off as the other?”
“Only to you, she stole your money, she knew you’d have her killed, she knew you’d not come to the funeral, by the time you found out, she’d probably be long gone.”
“She told me she was the other, she convinced me she was the other.” Chas had tears pouring down his face and just nodded his head, he didn’t care if George the ‘maybe shark’ saw him cry, and George added, “I’ll fucking kill her, where is she?”
“She ran.”
“What, when?”
“Maybe last night or first thing this morning, we’re not sure, but the guy who was with her, Peter, he made a call and told us where the weapon was. She found out and she lit out of town.”
“We’ll find her, I’ll have her taken care of,” George slammed his fist down on the table causing glasses to jump as well as Chas.
“I don’t want you to do that, I have come here to ask you a favour.”
“No, no don’t you try to tell me how to handle things.”
“Listen to me George, do you really think she would have any respect for you doing that? Think about it, she would want her brought to justice, if you go out and shoot her you make it an easy out. She’ll get the death penalty, there’s no doubt in my mind, Damien has assured me that that’s what the DA will ask for.”
“What about deals?”
“She’s got nothing to deal with, you made sure of that George, what you think I didn’t work it out? But I don’t care about that sick sonofabitch, hell I’d shake your hand if I thought you’d let me. And you know as well as I do what happens to baby killers in prison, they won’t be able to kill her, but every day she waits for that injection she’s going to be suffering, and I want her to suffer George. We’re talking glass in her food, beatings, shaved head and god only knows what else they do to them in there. Every day that she has to wait for the appointment with doctor Death will be an unending hell all its own.”
George always believed justice should be swift and lethal, but in this instance he began to think differently. Yeah, why shouldn’t she suffer? The young camp man sitting at his table had balls all right, who else would be brave enough to barge in here and search for George Papadopolis, finding out his sister had a tab and then still ask for a favour? “I’m going to make a deal with you Chas, we’ll do things your way, but if she doesn’t get the needle, if she gets life, then I will have her killed, but first I’ll have her ovaries ripped out. Do we understand each other?”
“You’ll get no argument from me George, I’m on your side, if she doesn’t get the needle I’ll be the first one lining up to help her kick off.”
“I have no doubt you would.” George extended his hand to Chas, and Chas shook it, and George said, “Not for nothing, but you’re all right. Not that I’d ever be seen dead with a fag in public, but you ever need anything Chas, and I mean anything, you just ask and I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Thanks George,” said Chas, knowing full well he’d die before he ever asked for something from the likes of George Papadopolis for himself. “How much does my sister owe you?” a
“What?”
“The tab, my sister Ruby, how much debt does she have with you George because I’ll pay it now,” Chas reached into his pocket for his wallet.
George knew Chas, although a screaming fag, was in fact a man of his word and that if he’d told him the amount, he’d have squared it as much as he could right there and then, “What debt Chas?” George stared at Chas, and with a click of his tongue Ruby’s five- thousand-dollar tab disappeared into thin air.

Troy walked in the door with Ruby and Ed asked, “What happened?”
“They ran into each other just as we feared.”
Ruby looked to Troy and Ed and asked, “What’s going on here Troy, I don’t understand, you told me Kodi wasn’t here yet and that Marli would never come here, so what’s Marli doing here?”
“She’s not, Ruby, not yet she’s…
Ruby cut in over Troy, “I don’t understand, I saw her this morning here, yet when I collapsed outside the hospital after running into…I’m so confused…Kodi was still there and that was only yesterday.”
“Ruby, try really hard to understand, Kodi thinks you saw her, she thinks she killed Marli.”
“But Marli’s…and Kodi, she’s still...
“I know none of this makes any sense but…you did not see Marli this morning, you saw Kodi.”
“TROY, TROY!” yelled Ems as she came racing into the house, “she’s gone back, Heathcliff’s meeting you at the gate in five minutes, hurry Troy.”
Kodi awoke to the sound of Albion whining to go outside and that was when she realised she was in bed with Heathcliff naked. She was aware that she was dreaming, but seeing as it didn’t appear to be a nightmare, she decided to go along with it. She lifted his arm from on top of her and began to edge her way carefully out of the bed, “And you told me all you wanted was my throat.”
Just as she was making headway, Heathcliff wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back to him, made her turn around to face him and he asked, “Where are you going to my love?”
“I was just going to let Albion out, and um…I…
“Albion can get himself out.”
He stared deeply into her eyes, “Misty blue.”
“What?”
“Your eyes, they’re misty blue, they’re beautiful.” Heathcliff kissed her on the neck and she felt that tingling sensation run up her spine.
“Heathcliff, I’m naked, did we?”
“No we didn’t, but I wanted to.”
“And we didn’t because?”
“You passed out on me.”
“What, why?”
“Because I said something really stupid and gave you a huge fright, you had a panic attack and passed out, but I caught you before you hit the concrete.”
“Why my brave knight to the rescue…again,” she smiled at Heathcliff and she leaned into him, “do you love me Heathcliff?”
“Of course I love you, you’re a pain sometimes, but I love you Kodi, I will always love you, I have always loved you, right from the first time I ever saw you.”
“What, even that day out in the paddock, you’ve loved me since then?”
“No, since the day you were born.”
“Ha, Heathcliff you are a very funny man.”
“Do you love me Kodi Madison?”
Kodi thought about it and she knew she did, she felt like she’d known Heathcliff forever, yet the excitement of it all being new was there. “Yes I love you Heathcliff, I don’t know how I came to love such a grouch so quickly, but yes I love you.”
“I’m not a grouch.”
“Yes you are.”
Kodi then awoke to find that she really was in bed with Heathcliff, but for some reason she did not feel embarrassed nor in danger. Heathcliff pulled her over so that she was laying flat and he positioned himself so that he was half on top of her and began kissing her. She ran her hands through his dark hair and tickled his back with her nails, “Oh my gosh you found my weakness, that was very quick Miss. Madison.”
Heathcliff was consumed with a deep desire to take her then and there, but he resisted and instead kissed her mouth, her neck and then gently her breasts. Kodi ran her fingernails gently up and down his back, teasing him, almost daring him he thought, and so he gently parted her legs with his, moved completely on top of her, and he looked deep into her eyes as he penetrated her.
For the first time in her life Kodi felt that sense of oneness as Heathcliff lay on top of her, and the passion induced fire when his tongue wrapped around hers. She discovered the thrill of wrapping her legs tightly around her naked lover, the sensation of his skin against her thighs, feeling him moving inside her as he took her places she didn’t even know existed. Kodi had never dreamed it could feel so good, to be in love and making love, and Heathcliff knew for certain that she was the one he’d waited for all his life."Emily Bronte, you don’t know what you have missed," she thought to herself.
After they were done Heathcliff held her in his arms, showered her face with kisses and sweetly said, “So misty blue is pleased?”
“Misty blue is VERY pleased, how about Heathcliff? Is Heathcliff pleased?”
“Oh Heathcliff is very VERY pleased.”
Then they both laughed, and then Kodi lifted her head from Heathcliff’s chest and said, “I have a confession to make.”
“What?” asked Heathcliff smiling.
“You know that day Harry came over and ate your yellow bird?”
“Aha.”
“Well I was…sort of…well here.”
“Aha.” Heathcliff continued to smile because he knew what was coming next.
“I was hiding in the sunflower garden and I saw you when you…um…came outside naked and ah dived into the pool.” Kodi blushed.
“I know.”
“You knew I was there?”
“Aha, and I have a little confession of my own…I...
“Oh I’m so embarrassed.” Kodi blushed even more.
“You might want to save some of that blushing until you hear my confession.”
“Am I going to be embarrassed even more?”
“Oh yes that is a certainty,” he lifted her hair from her face, “so you want to hear it?” he asked smiling at Kodi.
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll tell you anyway, you know that night you snuck into my pool?”
“Oh no!”
“Oh yes, and you looked stunning, beautiful, sensual, oh my gosh did you get a rise out of me for that.”
Heathcliff laughed as she playfully slapped him. Then Kodi became serious, “Heathcliff I dreamed that something happened to Harry, did something happen to Harry… Heathcliff?”
Heathcliff tightened his hold on Kodi and said, “Yes Harry ran out onto the road and…
“You ran him over,” Kodi started to cry, but she said, “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”
“I’m so sorry Kodi.”
“Can we bury him in the sunflower garden?”
“Yeah we can do that.”
Heathcliff just held her until she had finished crying and he knew she’d only stopped temporarily, and that she would cry more tears over that cat as the days progressed; he would hold her then too. The phone rang and Heathcliff said, “I need to go and get that, back in a minute, you just stay there.”
Kodi lay back down in the bed and watched Heathcliff put on some clothes and then go out to answer the phone. She lay in the bed and thought about previous lovers, “What was his name? Leon, that was it,” she said to herself, “He used to make me rate him out of ten very time, and I always had to give him at least an eight, even when he hardly rated a three, what a wanker.”
“Who’s a wanker?” Heathcliff walked into the room at the tail end of her little chat with herself and he thought it was quite cute.
“Oh just this guy I was thinking about that I used to know.”
Heathcliff lay across the bed and said, “Want to tell me about him?”
“You want to hear about some dumb guy I used to know?”
“If you want to talk about him.”
“But I thought guys hate that kind of thing?”
“I’m not ‘guys’ I’m me, so tell me about him.”
“Well I thought he was a nice guy to start with, but after a while I discovered…well whatever…but I just remembered him because he used to get me to rate him on performance, you know out of ten.”
Heathcliff laughed and said, “You serious? What you’d give him a score out of ten, so what did he rate on average?”
“Around an eight.”
“And I score?” he laughed as Kodi playfully hit him, “that’s kind of funny though, that a man would ask a lady to do that.”
“No, what’s funny is I did it, but just so you know, I lied to him.”
“You lied to him?”
“I sort of had to, I mean who wants to get into a fight about that right? He used to go off and get really mad about things and well I got hurt. Sometimes it was my fault because I never learned when to keep my mouth shut, you know?” she stared up into Heathcliff’s face as he leaned over her again.
“It was never your fault Kodi, no man should ever hit a woman, not for any reason whatsoever.”
“Yeah but…
“No yeah buts, there’s no excuse for a man to hit a woman…ever.”
“Everyone says that, but you know…sometimes…” Kodi began to cry again.
Heathcliff looked at Kodi and very seriously said, “I will always be good to you Kodi, I will never hurt you, I will always be gentle, tender and loving toward you, I promise you that.”
As she stared into his eyes she just somehow knew he was telling the truth and so she said, “I will always be good to you too.”
“Yeah but see I already know that, Kodi.”
Kodi sat up leaning her head on her arm with her elbow dug deeply into the pillow, “Hey um who is Alexi’s mother, I mean was she some old girlfriend of yours?”
“Something like that, but ah I would rather not talk about her if you don’t mind.”
“You don’t want to talk about Alexi?”
“Oh, no I don’t mind talking about Alexi, what do you want to know?”
“How old is she?”
“Well she’s three months old, and she almost has her first tooth. She’s a lovely little girl, she sleeps all night and she smiles all the time. She hates Mozart though, far prefers the contemporary stuff.”
“I didn’t know babies had preferences for music.”
“Oh yeah they have preferences for music, food, even people.”
“I always wanted to have a baby, you know one day.” Kodi put her hand on her tummy and she suddenly felt a little sad, like something was missing but she didn’t quite know what. Heathcliff sensed her sadness immediately and placed his hand on top of hers and said, “You will have a baby one day Kodi, lots of them if you must know.”
“How do you know that?” she asked with tears in her eyes.
“I just know Kodi that everything is going to work out just fine.” Then he held her again, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door, “I’ll get the door and you go have a shower.”
Heathcliff headed to answer the door and it was Troy who’d come over to see him, “Morning big brother.”
“Morning Troy, what’s up?”
“Where’s Kodi?” he asked nervously looking around past Heathcliff.
“She’s in the shower, why, what’s happened?”
“The police found the knife in the garage and it looks as though she may have been implicated, but so far they’ve not arrested her, and Heathcliff, she’s trying to get a court order to switch off the machine.”
“Any idea how soon she might get it?”
“No from what I know Chas is fighting it and she’s responding to the court in absentia, but he doesn’t really stand a chance against her, she’s family and he’s only a friend. Heathcliff, you’re going to have to make a move soon on this, we’re going to have to do something.”
“I know, just get one of the others to monitor what’s happening over there and in the mean time I’ve got to bury Harry with her, she remembered about him this morning.”
“Has she remembered anything else, you know, Ruby, the hospital, any of it?”
“No, not yet, but I think she will eventually. Anyway, go home to your lady and your child, it’s a beautiful day so go do something fun with them. I’m going to get on with things here. Mother and father are coming for dinner tonight and returning Alexi to me at the same time.”
Heathcliff and Kodi buried Harry in the sunflower garden later that day and then Heathcliff walked Kodi home to her house.
“So am I going to see you later?” she asked as she stood on the porch with her arms around Heathcliff’s neck.
“No I have things I have to do tonight, but what about tomorrow I come get you and I’ll take you some place away from here, some place you haven’t been, kind of a surprise?” he said as he held her around her midriff and lightly kissed her face.
“Like where?”
“Well if I told you then it wouldn’t be a surprise now would it?”
“Promise you’ll come and get me tomorrow?” she asked staring deeply into his eyes attempting to gauge if he was telling her the truth or not.
“Yes Kodi, I promise I will,” Heathcliff gave her a kiss and left to walk back across the paddock to his house.

Kodi went inside feeling happier than she had felt in a long time, she had Heathcliff, someone who loved her, but she felt like something was still missing. She saw Harry’s bowl on the kitchen floor and she picked it up and held it in her hands, “Poor Harry.”
Kodi went and sat out on the swing and lay there thinking about the future and then before she knew it she had fallen asleep.
Kodi was in a hallway in some kind of hospital, she didn’t know what it was called but she had been there before. As she walked down the hallway she was aware that she needed to go to room 1218, she didn’t know why, just that she needed to go there.
Everyone she walked past were moving in slow motion and their voices sounded like 45s being play at 33 rpms and she couldn’t understand what they were saying. As she was walking down the hallway she looked down on her dress and she could see that she had blood all down the front of her, but she wasn’t frightened. Each room she walked past had the door open and she could see who was in each room.
Room 1213 had a little boy in the bed and he had no hair, and Kodi knew that he was dying, and she saw the man sitting by her bed and he had red hair. He smiled at Kodi as she walked past and she smiled back. Room 1214 had an elderly lady in it and she was just in the process of sitting up in bed and pulling all the tubes out of her arms and Kodi saw her pull a thick tube from out of her throat. Seeing the woman doing that didn’t scare Kodi, it seemed normal to her.
Room 1214, 1216 and 1217 had similar scenes in them, “But where is room 1215?” Kodi thought it was odd that room 1215 was missing and she back tracked just in case she had missed it, but the rooms numbered 1214 and then 1216 and there was no 1215 to be found. For some reason the number seemed familiar to her, but she didn’t know why. As she walked past room 1214 again she saw the elderly woman being led by the hand of the person who was with her, a woman, and the old lady looked to Kodi and said, “Goodbye dear, I’m crossing the mist now.”
The lady seemed happy and the whole scene should have appeared very strange to Kodi, but it did not and she smiled and said to the lady, “Goodbye.”
As she walked further down the hallway she turned back and saw the little boy from room 1213 holding the hand of the red haired man and the little boy was laughing and smiling. The sight of the little boy laughing and smiling filled Kodi with joy because she somehow knew that the little boy’s suffering had come to an end. Just as she was looking back, the little boy turned around to stare back at her and he said, “Goodbye…”
He said a name but she didn’t quite hear it. She knew he was going to some place new, some place good, “Perhaps somewhere past Chas’ Sandanizta Mist,” she thought to herself and she smiled. Then she turned back to where she was heading, searching for room 1218 and it seemed to Kodi to have taken the longest time to find it. Finally Kodi found the door with the number on it that she had been looking for, 1218.
As she grabbed the handle and began to turn it she heard a voice beside her, “Are you sure you want to go in there?”
Kodi looked to her left and there stood Doctor Logie, “What are you doing here Doctor Logie?”
“Kodi, call me Taite.”
“Taite, okay, but why are you here? This is a dream, why would I be dreaming of you?”
“You know that you are dreaming Kodi?”
“I think I’m dreaming, I fell asleep on the porch swing and I always dream when I fall asleep there. Harry died and Heathcliff and I buried him beside the sunflower garden. I love sun flowers.” “Why am I telling him that I love sun flowers? This is a dream right? So I shouldn’t even be thinking about whether what I say to someone is sensible or not, yet I’m aware. This is so strange and I know he’s going to ask me whether I want to go into this room, why would he ask me that? How do I know he’s going to ask me that?”
“I know that Harry died and I am so sorry for you Kodi. But are you sure you want to go into this room?”
“I feel like I have to go inside this room, I don’t know why, just that I need to.”
“You may not like what you are going to hear Kodi.”
“I think I know that, but I have to face what I have done, it’s why I’m going crazy isn’t it?”
“You’re not crazy Kodi, you never were, but yes whatever you find in that room is the key to why you are confused and stuck,” said Taite truthfully.
“Where am I stuck Taite?”
“You are stuck in the Sandanizta Mist.”
“It’s real?”
“Yes Kodi, Chas did not lie to you, the mist is real.”
“But how could Chas know about something like that?”
“Because he was supposed to cross it years ago,” Taite stared at Kodi and Kodi looked from Taite back to the room 1218. Kodi turned the handle and slowly opened the door and at first she couldn’t see much as the light was dim, but once her eyes adjusted to the light she saw a horrific sight.
A man, he had no hair, and no skin. Just like Ruby he had tubes coming in and out of him all over the place and machines were keeping his body alive, yet he was conscious.
She walked right up to the side of his bed and looked down upon him and he began to make a noise in his throat and she leaned down closer to the man. “He’s trying to tell me something.” Kodi leaned in closer to the man and he spat in her face. Kodi lifted her head from near his face and wiped her own face with her hand and saw that what he had spat at her was red, he was bleeding inside. He was being tormented by a slow miserable death, that much she knew, but why?
She looked around the room and saw Taite leaning up against the door and then she saw Heathcliff standing on the other side of the man’s bed. Kodi said nothing to Heathcliff and instead looked down at the man, he had blue eyes and she knew she’d seen those eyes somewhere before but she couldn’t dredge the memory up out of her brain, so instead she asked, “What’s your name?”
“You know my name,” he said with as much strength as he could muster.
“I have never seen you before, at least I don’t think I have,” yet the familiarity of the man’s eyes unnerved her.
“Does fifty thousand dollars ring a bell?”
“No, why would it?” Kodi was confused and looked across at Heathcliff.
“That’s what you paid me you bitch, that’s what you paid me to murder your sister and her baby, fifty thousand dollars.”
Kodi was shocked and stepped back, “No, I…I…did I do that? I would never do that. Did I really do that?” tears poured down Kodi’s face and then she looked to Heathcliff, “This is who you love, someone who murdered her own sister and unborn baby?” Heathcliff still stood there saying nothing and so she looked to Taite, “Why would I do that? Taite, why would I do something so evil?”
“Hate,” he said sadly, “hate, jealousy, betrayal.”
“You stole the money to pay me, you stole it knowing it was marked, knowing I’d be killed too,” whispered Peter.
Kodi nodded her head and didn’t know what to say to him. “Do you know what this is like for me? Do you have any idea?”
Kodi shook her head as fresh tears poured down her face. “I have been here three days, it has felt like three months, every second is an unending agony you cannot even begin to imagine, and I didn’t kill them. I helped you to kill them, but I didn’t actually do it and this is my punishment. How much worse do you think yours will be you murdering bitch?”
“I don’t know,” said Kodi through her tears, “but I deserve it for what I did. Do you know why I did it?”
“Because you’re a cold hearted bitch, the evil twin, it would seem every set has one. But you hated her, you hated her enough to laugh as you pushed that knife through her stomach into her baby.” The man in the bed was consumed by the need to cough and every time he coughed blood came out of his mouth and his body jerked causing him the most unbelievable torture and he was shedding tears and groaning because he was in so much pain. Kodi backed up against the wall crying and filled with horror at the truth of what she’d done, everything she’d touched she’d meticulously poisoned. She’d seen it in her dreams, just as she was seeing this, she’d murdered her sister Marli, and she was afraid of what was going to happen to her. She looked to Heathcliff and said, “I’m sorry Heathcliff, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t look to me for pity, I have no such feelings for you, you took the life of a defenceless woman and her little baby, do you think you deserve any pity? Do you think that I should weep for you for your pain? What about hers? WHAT ABOUT WHAT YOU PUT HER THROUGH?”
Kodi looked to the floor and then looked up again just in time to see Heathcliff’s back as he walked out the door and Taite had gone with him. Kodi looked down at the suffering man; “Can I do anything to help you?” She was crying so much she could barely speak coherently, but the man understood exactly what she’d said to him.
“You can no more help me now than anyone will be able to help you when it is your turn, but when it is your turn, I hope you think of me. Now get out of my room, I rue the day I ever met you.” The man returned to his coughing fits, spitting up blood, groaning and crying, and that was to be his life until such time as his debt had been squared with this life.
Kodi awoke with a start, and she sat up on the swing only to discover her face was wet with tears. She looked around her and saw Troy sitting on the steps, “You okay there Kodi?”
Kodi shook her head, “No, I just had an awful dream Troy and I think maybe I might have done something terrible to someone else.” Kodi began to cry again just as he had seen her doing during her ‘dream’ and so he got up and went to her. Troy wrapped his arms around her and held her for a while, and he said, “Maybe you should just tell Heathcliff Kodi, just tell him what you did, he loves you, he’ll forgive you.”
“He won’t forgive me this Troy, there’s no way anyone could forgive this.”
“Don’t be so sure Kodi, I mean whatever it is that you’ve done, if you were the person it had been done to, could you forgive it?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know if I could forgive something like that Troy, I just don’t know.”
“Do you accept that hate and jealousy can be like diseases that eat people alive and make them behave in ways they wouldn’t normally behave?”
“Maybe.”
“Hate and jealousy can twist a person into unrecognisable form Kodi, it twists their heart and their mind first and then that gets outworked in their behaviour. It’s not acceptable, but they’re a disease like cancer.”
“Is that an excuse to be mean, to cause cruel meticulously thought out grievous harm to someone else?”
“No Kodi, no it’s not, I’m merely attempting to help you understand why those things may have happened, I mean you don’t know for certain that they did, it was after all just a dream, right?”
“I don’t know Troy, I don’t know what’s real and what’s dreams anymore.”
“Well what’s the most real thing you’ve done lately Kodi, the most real tangible thing you’ve done?”
Kodi thought about it and said, “Made love with Heathcliff.”
Troy was slightly taken aback, ‘Oh, okay so you know that was real, how?”
“Physically I can tell it happened Troy.”
“But what physical attributes do you have to prove that what you saw in your dream was real?”
“None, does that make it not real?”
“No, it doesn’t make it real or unreal, but sometimes we dream in opposites too.”
“What do you mean we dream in opposites?” she asked as he let her go.
“I don’t really mean anything but humans dream in metaphors, opposites all kinds of different ways and sometimes things aren’t quite the way we think.”
“So what are you saying to me Troy?”
“I’m not really saying anything to you Kodi, I’m just giving you something else to think about, maybe another way of looking at things.”
Kodi sat there thinking about that for a minute, “So for all I know I could actually be Marli dreaming that I’m Kodi, is that what you’re saying to me Troy? That I’m Marli dreaming about what Kodi did to me? But if that was the case, Marli was pregnant and I don’t remember being pregnant. And if I am Marli, then where’s my baby?”
Troy wrapped his arms around Kodi and said, “I think you’re looking at it too broadly there Kodi.”
“Heathcliff’s baby, Alexi, she’s my baby isn’t she, I mean she’s Marli’s baby, but I’m Marli so she’s my baby, Troy?”
“Kodi, Alexi is not Marli’s baby.”
“Well maybe…um…see…when I went to Mrs. Willis’ house to pick up the keys I fell over a little bike, it was a kid’s little bike, and when I told her she denied it, and when I pointed to it to show her, it wasn’t there anymore. Yet when I left, the little red bike was back where I first tripped over it. I know I didn’t imagine that, that was real. Is there another kid here somewhere?”
“I have a son.”
“Is your son Marli’s baby, my baby?”
“No he’s not, he’s too old to be Marli’s child.”
Kodi grabbed her hair and shook her head and said, “Arrrrrrgh. Am I Marli?”
“No you are not Marli, you are Kodi.”
“So I did what I dreamed, I murdered Marli?”
“Tell Heathcliff Kodi, tell him what you’re dreaming. No one knows whether you did what you think except for you, but if you think you’re Marli, then that would mean that you are dead, so where would that leave you Kodi?”
“Am I dead Troy?”
“No Kodi, you are not dead.”
“So that means I can’t be Marli right, because if I was Marli, then I’d be dead.”
“Only if what you are dreaming is real, and you still don’t know for sure if you are Kodi dreaming about what she did to Marli, or Marli dreaming about what Kodi did to her. Maybe even then you could still have it all screwed up.”
“You’re not helping me Troy, I’m more confused than ever.”
“Yeah, but at least you have more angles to come at this from.”
“Do you know exactly what’s going on with me?”
“Yes I do.”
“Does Heathcliff?”
“Yes he does.”
“So why won’t you just tell me what is going on because I feel like I’m going crazy. I think I’m definitely Kodi dreaming about what I did to my sister and her baby, I know I did those things to her and that’s why I’m being tormented.” Kodi looked to Troy again, but suddenly he wasn’t there. Kodi jumped up and called his name, she looked around for him but she couldn’t find him. She decided to go over to Heathcliff’s place immediately even though he’d said not to.
Within minutes she was walking under his trees and she saw where the glass had been that she’d cut her foot on but someone had removed it and there was just a patch of new grass beginning to show through the dirt. She emerged from under the trees and walked past the birdbath and onto the porch, and as she stared through the glass windowpanes on the door she could see Heathcliff with a baby on his lap.
Kodi went to knock but her hand just froze in mid-air, as she was mesmerised by the little baby on his lap, she was beautiful. Then the little boy playing with the red truck on the floor noticed her and said, “Heafkiff there’s monsta at the door.”
Heathcliff turned around and saw Kodi and quickly he handed the baby to his mother and Ems ran into the other room with her. Troy also looked up and saw Kodi at the door and grabbed Tay and took him out of view too. There was a blonde haired woman, but she turned away too fast for Kodi to get a look at her. Kodi was really confused and when Heathcliff came to the door he did not invite her inside, instead he gently took her by the arm and led her away from the house, “I told you not to come here tonight, that I couldn’t see you tonight. Kodi what were you thinking?”
“What?”
“Kodi if I say I can’t see you tonight then I can’t see you tonight, a lady would just stay away and wait until the man comes back when he said he would.”
“Well we’re not living in the dark ages Heathcliff!”
“Kodi, there are very good reasons why you shouldn’t be here right now.” Kodi went to walk away from him toward the tree line, but Heathcliff followed her and grabbed her by her arm, “Kodi don’t just walk away from me, talk to me.”
Kodi turned to face him and she had tears sliding down her face, “You made yourself really clear Heathcliff, good enough to sleep with but not good enough for your family.”
“Oh Kodes, that’s not it at all.”
“Well you tell me what the hell it is Heathcliff, you tell me what it is?” Kodi stood there staring into his eyes and he was having trouble meeting them as he struggled to find words to say that wouldn’t be hurtful.
“We just have some things going on rig… Kodi sighed loudly and Heathcliff thought, “I just KNEW you wouldn’t listen, so blinded Kodi, blinded by the past.”
“Well that’s the usual story Heathcliff, there’s always some reason why I’m not able to be involved in anyone’s life beyond being convenient to sleep with.” Heathcliff stood there patiently as she continued on with her tirade which was birthed out of misunderstandings and not knowing the whole story. “I’m not good enough to come over here to be around your family and your daughter, but that blonde woman in there, she is? And anyway Heathcliff who is she, your wife?” Kodi was gesticulating toward the door quite violently and getting more wound up by the second.
“Kodi I don’t have a wife, you know that.”
“What then she’s some girlfriend or some fuck on the side, well what is she?”
“What is she thinking? I’d have a wife and try to hide that little detail from her?” Heathcliff put his hands behind his head and threaded his fingers through each other, but then realise it was probably a threateningly nonchalant stance to take, so he put his hands back down at his sides.
“She’s Troy’s girlfriend.”
“Since when did Troy have a girlfriend, well?”
“Kill this line of questioning Heathcliff, its dangerous ground, don’t entertain it, not now, not for a second.”
“Actually Kodi, it’s none of your business. The point here is that I… “Here she goes again.”
“Oh go to hell Heathcliff.” Kodi began to walk away from him, she was going to go home pack up and go back to the city, “Maybe I should just take up with George,” she suggested to herself quietly, but Heathcliff heard her and said, “Kodi…
She responded with, “No, fuck you!” Kodi shot under the tree line, climbed the fence and set off across the paddock, but Heathcliff decided he wasn’t having any of it, “Start out as you mean to continue.” So he jumped the fence and gave chase, but Kodi didn’t even know she was being followed, and he walked behind her listening to her rant and rave at the sky. “Just let her get it out of her system.”
“Yeah I'm having one of them days, tears tantrums but no tiaras because desirable princess I am not. As it turns out, I'm not desirable anything. I hate movies like Pretty Woman and Ever After, yet I subject myself to the shit drivelling stuff because I know those two girls are going to get a happy ending. Bad girl, undesirable girl is suddenly recognised by Mr. Right as the true deep sincere beauty God always intended she'd be. Then I want to vomit because life just ain't that way; true beauty is never recognised, ever. In the real world? Those two girls would be left to rot, just like me and girls like me, and the nice boys would see them as low life skanks they'd screw for sure but never take home to meet mummy. Never mind fighting the odds to love them, against all social pressures and etiquette and all that other shit that...whatever, it's total fucking crap!
It's times like these that moments of levity actually cause me pain. Hey I can say what the fuck I like. Am I pissed off? You bet. Am I sad? Always! The nice girls, the ladida girls, the ‘butter wouldn't melt in my mouth girls’, the materialistic girls who dolly themselves up to the nines and pretend to be what we truly are are the ones who have happy endings because sad truth is that men haven't got a clue. They pick up a diamond, mistake it for a rock and throw it away, then they immediately pick up a rock, mistake it for a diamond and they keep it. And then they wonder why they are miserable. Am I being ugly right now? You bet I'm being fucking ugly because I'm sick and tired of being nice and always saying it's okay that men mistook me for a rock and threw me away, repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over again!
I'm just looking back on the past and being a total bitch about it, because it's my right to be a bitch about it, and I'll be a bitch any time I jolly well feel like it. Hey nice or not, it doesn't fucking matter which one, minds are already made up and there’s no point in trying to preach to the converted. Sometimes I feel like I'm the rat in a cage that life pokes with a stick because it can't stand the thought that I might actually be happy, just once. I sometimes think fate has spent my entire life conspiring against me. But do I get mad at life? NO because I love abuse, I really dig being abused. HELL BRING IT ON! So that's a dose of the real me, ANYONE HAVING FUN YET? Oh yeah who's going to ride YOUR wild horses?” Then she began to really cry her heart out, and she sat down in the grass looking to the sky and cried out, “It’s not fair, I’m so sick of being the one that isn’t good enough. When will it be my turn, will it ever be my turn?”
Heathcliff had heard enough and he crouched down, grabbed her arm, made her stand up and gently spun her around to face him and thought to himself, “Steady as she goes Heathcliff, don’t hurt her any more than you already have tonight.”
Kodi was mortified he’d heard what she’d said, she was so embarrassed her face was glowing and she felt ashamed, yet her tears continued to fall. She remembered another time being caught murmuring vague obscenities, and the person had thought her quite mad, but that was because they didn’t understand Kodi.
She’d really liked the guy, he was what she thought was her dream romance, but it’d turned out pretty much like the rest. Initially he had pursued her, she’d noticed him but ignored him thinking he’d never look twice at her, but he did. Dani was his name, Dani the lawyer. He was very good at what he did, and he was often sought after. It had been rumoured that he had involved himself in the legal affairs of certain hardened criminals, but that’s all it seemed to be, innuendo and rumour. He’d followed her home that evening, waited a few minutes and then brazenly knocked on her door. When she’d seen him standing on the porch she’d simply asked, “What the hell do YOU want?” Mostly because she was so shocked to see HIM of all people standing there.
Dani explained he’d just wanted to meet her, to get to know her, and she was flattered. She began thinking that maybe she did have something special about her, and Dani seemed like a nice guy.
It wasn’t long before Kodi began to fall crazy crazy for the guy, he was attentive, respectful, constantly ensuring she was okay, and it had been such a long time since a guy had treated her like that. Dani invited her to his place about three or four weeks after they had met and she had not slept with Dani at all, she’d opted to make him wait as long as she could get away with, but this weekend was crunch time.
For all intents and purposes, Kodi thought the weekend had gone really well, however Dani’s perspective on the weekend was an entirely different story. The day he was due to take her home he said to her that they needed to talk, and Kodi truly hadn’t seen it coming, what he said completely blind sided her. “I don’t think we’re very well matched Kodi.”
He’d gone on to tell her that basically, sexually, she was inexperienced, boring, just didn’t really do it for him, and he didn’t have the patience to ‘bring her up to speed’. Kodi had sat there feeling embarrassed and it hurt her to hear Dani say what he said about her, but there was no point to arguing with him, he’d made his mind up. During the drive on the way back to Kodi’s place she had started crying and Dani got angry and yelled at her, “Crying is NOT going to make me change my mind, so CUT IT OUT!”
Dani didn’t understand that she wasn’t trying to change his mind, she was crying because he had really hurt her. He dumped her near her place and took off like a bank robber escaping the scene of the crime. Kodi felt ripped off, used, stupid and not so special after all.
For days she didn’t sleep or eat, she just cried as she tried to work out what it was that she had done wrong. Ruby and Chas tried getting her to go out with them, but that was pretty much the start of Kodi’s social shutting off. They tried and tried to get her to go to the movies with them, out to dinner, anything to get her out of the apartment and her mind off Dani. But it was truly hopeless, and Chas and Ruby realised they were flogging the proverbial dead horse, so opted to just to gate crash her place evening on end. They dosed her up with Chinese take out, funny videos and lots of positive reinforcement.
Within three weeks of the split with Dani she was just beginning to get her act together, and Ruby and Chas thought she was finally over the hump. But much to their chagrin, he turned up on her porch one night out of the blue. Instead of sending the rat packing back to the rock he’d crawled out from under, she stupidly let him in the door. He’d immediately taken her into his arms and began kissing her, and never to be disheartened and ever hopeful, Kodi let him. She somehow got it into her head that perhaps he had missed her, that maybe he had had time to think about her and realised she was something special. He had come to her, she had not sought him out, and that to Kodi was a positive sign. She’d been so over the moon to see him again that it never even entered her head to tread with caution.
Dani took her to her bed and made love to her, if you could call it that, and once he was done, he got up out of the bed, got dressed, looked at Kodi and said, “This doesn’t change anything.” Then he’d let himself out of the apartment and escaped into the night leaving Kodi feeling like she’d just been run over by an emotional steamroller. She’d gone and run a bath, sat in there and cried for hours as the water went cold and she felt as low as she had ever felt in her life. Used, again, used as always, never good for anything beyond a fuck. But the kicker had come the next day when Marli paid a visit with a girl from work and told her that Dani had been in the bar earlier the night before and Kodi had come up in conversation. Marli had bet Dani one-hundred dollars that he couldn’t get Kodi into bed at the drop of a hat, Dani reckoned he could, Dani won the money…that Marli stole out of the till in the first place.
Marli had laughed at Kodi and said, “You’re so easy Kodi, I thought maybe you’d be made of a bit more chop than that, but you’re not. Dani came back to the bar and oh man did we all have a good laugh about that.”
Kodi had tried to make out that she didn’t care. But deep down, she was mortified by several aspects of what had happened to her at the hands of Dani and her twin. That Dani could be so callous, that Marli could be so bitchy, that everyone at Marli’s work knew she was a joke, and mostly that she had been so stupid. When Chas had found out he’d said, “Kodi, what were you thinking, didn’t you see him coming?”
Ruby had slapped his arm and said, “Shut up Chas, she feels bad enough.” The incident had done the rounds at work too and she’d had to put up with Duncan smirking at her and Marcia tisk tisking. She’d run out to the bathroom and stood there staring at her reflection in the mirror telling herself how stupid and useless she was. Ruby had walked in behind her and watched Kodi swearing at herself, and when Kodi turned around and saw Ruby she’d pretended she’d just walked in. Kodi had been exceedingly embarrassed, but she played along with Ruby, even though they both knew that the other knew the truth, Kodi had temporarily wigged out and Ruby had witnessed it. It was pretty much from then on that Kodi had sworn she’d never be involved with another man, she wouldn’t allow any man to treat her that way again, to hurt her like that. Now here she was again, with Heathcliff this time, treating her like she was good enough to sleep with but not good enough to be seen with in the light of day. Not good enough to be around his family, “Well FUCK YOU!” she thought to herself as she stood there facing him in the paddock.
He could see that she was fuming at him and so Heathcliff adopted a quiet but firm tone with her, “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again Kodi Madison, I don’t speak to you that way and I never would. And don’t you walk off when I’m speaking to you either, it’s rude and unacceptable, you start something with me, you finish it. Now I didn’t mean to upset you and I never meant for you to feel left out okay, it’s just that things aren’t quite the way you think they are right now.”
“I’M NOT EVEN GOOD ENOUGH TO MEET YOUR BABY! What? Are you scared my craziness will rub off onto her? Are you afraid I’ll hurt her Heathcliff, is that it?” “Say it Heathcliff, come on say it I know you’re going to, you want to be sure we’re a sure thing before I meet her.”
Heathcliff was trying to choose his words carefully because he could see her eyes glaring at him and she was just waiting for a reason to blow up big time. “I just want to be certain that we’re a sure thing before I let Alexi form an attachment to you, that’s all.” As soon as he said it Heathcliff thought to himself, “Wrong thing to say to her Heathcliff, way wrong thing.”
“Well you seemed pretty sure when you slept with me. So what is it Heathcliff, I’m a sure enough thing to sleep with but not sure enough to meet your baby?”
“That is not what I meant, and you know that’s not what I meant.”
“You know what, you’re all just like my friends back in the city, I’m alright just so long as I’m what you want me to be, but I’m not allowed to be me am I Heathcliff? Kodi is not good enough for Ems, Joe, Troy his girlfriend, those kids or whoever else you have hidden away in there. I mean you all run around pretending I’m okay and that you like me, but really I’m not am I Heathcliff? I’m just a fucking idiot, AGAIN!”
Heathcliff noticed that her leg was jigging wildly and he thought to himself, “Fix this Heathcliff, fix this and fix it fast. No more words Heathcliff, neutralise this situation, but don’t SAY anything more.”
Heathcliff took her by the arm and led her to the fence by her house and he lifted her over the fence, then he jumped it himself. Then he took her by the hand, led her into her house where he took her into his arms and he kissed her. At first she fought him, refusing to respond, and then making it difficult for him to get at her mouth again, typical female behaviour, but he persevered. He spent five or ten minutes just quietly kissing her, calming her, getting her to settle so that he could rationalise with her coherently because she was not in any frame of mind to hear logic in anything he said.
As soon as her leg stopped jigging he knew he was making progress and about five minutes after that he stopped and said, “How about I make coffee and we can sit on the porch swing and just talk for a little while, would you like that Kodi?”
She nodded her head while fresh tears rolled down her face and as he watched her crying he felt so sorry for her, and he couldn’t wait for this whole episode to be over. That way she could start having happiness instead of confused sadness. Once the confusion was gone so too would the mood swings disappear, once she had certainty, she would truly relax and trust instead of being suspicious and fearful. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with, “Bloody other men, they mess them up but they never stop to think about the long term consequences of what they do. Why don’t people stop and think for a moment before they do things to others?”
Kodi went outside and sat on the swing. Heathcliff followed her and put their coffee on the table, sat down beside her and pulled her into his embrace, “Do you trust me Kodi?”
“A little bit,” Kodi sobbed.
“Well at least you don’t lie to me,” he kissed the top of her head, “I love you Kodi, I really really love you, but things just aren’t straight forward right now and it really has nothing to do with you. You’re not the reason things aren’t straightforward. I can’t explain to you what I mean by what I’m going to say, so I’m just going to say it and I don’t want you to ask me any questions, okay?”
Kodi just nodded her head slightly.
“Not good enough Kodi, I need your word you won’t ask me to explain what I’m about to say, okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not keeping you away from Alexi, I’m keeping Alexi away from you, and the reason I’m doing that is I think contact with Alexi could be harmful to you.”
“Why?”
“I told you not to ask me why, I will tell you, but not yet Kodi, you need time to work through whatever it is you’re going through right now. Tomorrow she’s going back to my mother’s place for a few days again and I’m still planning to take you out for that surprise just as I promised I would. Then I thought maybe you could come and stay at my house for the night again, what do you think?”
“Even though I was a bitch?”
“Yes, even though you were a bitch.”
“I’d like that. I’m sorry I swore at you Heathcliff I have no excuse for it.”
“That’s okay Kodes.” “You have every reason to be swearing your head off at everything and everybody, and I don’t know how you have kept it together so well for this long,” he thought to himself as he held her and gently kissed her hair.
“Do you need to get back over there?” she asked between sobs.
“Not until you’re okay.”
“I’m fine now.”
“Yeah well you’re looking and sounding pretty good,” Heathcliff said laughing and causing Kodi to laugh too.
“I look like such crap when I cry, always looks worse than it is.”
Heathcliff grabbed her so she was sitting upright across his legs in front of him, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “Hey, you ARE good enough for my family, they all adore you, don’t you ever forget it, okay?”
“Okay.”
Heathcliff kissed her, and said, “And you’re a diamond to me Kodi,” and then he moved her, got up and set off over the paddocks to go home.

“What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?”
“I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING TO HER!”
“Okay, I’m not getting into a screaming match with you, did you do it or not?” Dani suspected she had done it, but he had nothing to go on.
“What do you care, it was all a big joke to you anyway.”
“Sleeping with someone as a joke and killing them are a little too far apart to be strung together on the same piece of string Marli.”
“Why are you calling me Marli? My name is Kodi!”
“YOU are MARLI!”
"NO I AM NOT! I AM KODI.”
“Fine, Kodi, Marli, Marli, Kodi, whatever, did you have anything to do with your twin’s attack?”
“No, but I want the machine switched off, I don’t want her wasting away like that.”
Dani scratched his head, “Well why are the police so interested in speaking to you and why are they saying they want your finger prints? And if you are so innocent, then why didn’t you go to the funeral?”
“The guy who did it might still be out there.”
“The guy who did it is in the burns unit and not expected to live out the week. The brothers had him dealt with.”
“What?”
“Yeah, they doused him in petrol and set him alight. I’m telling you if you had anything to do with this, you’re a dead man walking, well woman.”
“I had NOTHING to do with it.”
“I know you had something to do with this, I have pretty much made the connection between you and Peter Coleson, and if you think it’s going to go undetected by the Police Marli, you are mistaken.”
“I had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT!” she screamed at Dani.
Dani was only half convinced of her innocence, but still, he had no proof and he was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. If she were Kodi, then he owed her that much, if she were Marli then her presence in his life may very well be able to make his things very awkward, so he decided to just try and do what she asked. Either way he’d be shot of her soon enough. Regardless of which twin she was, the brothers were after her. There was no way he was going to be an accomplice to murder by handing her over to them, he’d be disbarred if anyone found out he’d had anything to do with a mob hit. But some way somehow he would ensure she got what was coming to her.
If she did have anything to do with it, then how had she managed to sleep like a baby the night just gone? He stood there staring at her remembering how he had watched her sleeping; she had looked so beautiful, her long dark hair spilling over the couch. Dani had been so struck by her beauty that he had, in a moment of sheer weakness, leaned over her and kissed her forehead, and the smell of her hair…it had been…
“Are you even listening to me Dani?”
“Okay, so you want me to petition the court to have the machine shut off?”
“Yeah, Marli wouldn’t want to linger like this and if it wasn’t for the machines she wouldn’t still be here.”
“I’ll do it, but if I find out there is any substance to the rumours, I’ll feed you up to the Papadopolis brothers myself. Are we clear?”
Dani was walking out of the courthouse with the legal documents to have life support withdrawn when he felt something jab him in the back, “Just keep walking Dani, someone wants to speak with you.”
Dani walked beside the man but said, “There’s no need for the gun, I’ll come with you willingly because I know what this is about.”
The man removed the gun from the small of Dani’s back and they walked to a car that was parked just around the corner, and then he was driven across town to the bar. The gorillas on the door just stepped aside as he and his caretaker walked through the glass doors, and there Dani saw George sitting at a table near the back of the establishment. The man with the gun left him standing beside the table where George was sitting and George said, “You had better sit down Dani.”
Dani pulled out a chair and sat, waiting for what was going to happen next.
“You have a house guest I believe?”
“Yes I do.”
“Why are you protecting her?”
“She says she didn’t do it.”
“We have heard it from the horse’s mouth that she did.”
Dani lowered his head and quietly said, “Shit.”
“Shit is a good place to start, I’m willing to accept you didn’t know, but I want you to hand her over tomorrow.”
“I can’t hand her over to you knowing you intend to murder her George, and I won’t.”
“Chas, do you remember Chas?”
“Yeah.”
“He came to see me this morning and he told me exactly what happened and he’s also informed me that the DA will seek the death penalty. As much as I would love nothing more than to put a bullet in the base of the skull of that bitch, I struck a deal with Chas. I gave him my word I wouldn’t touch her.”
Dani gave a little laugh, “You expect me to believe you struck a deal with Chas?”
“Call him, ask him.”
Dani could see that George Papadopolis was deadly serious, “Oh my gosh you did. Well why not hand Kodi over today?”
“Kodi? What makes you think she’s Kodi?”
“She said she’s Kodi, don’t tell me she’s Marli?”
“Does she have a scar on her forehead, starts just before the hairline and disappears into it?” asked George cautiously.
Dani thought back to the previous night, there had been no scar, not that he had seen,“Um, you know what, I don’t think there is, but I can’t be certain…”
“Either either, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other, all you need to know is what to do. You hand her over tomorrow.”
“Again, why tomorrow, why not today?”
“I have my reasons, and I do not need to explain them to you. Point is, I want that life support turned off too, and she is the only one who has the power to present the documents to the hospital.”
“You want both dead?”
“She’s brain dead Dani, nothing can bring her back and I won’t allow her to be made to exist in a vegetative state forever, and that’s what will happen if that machine isn’t switched off. As for the other, there’s no hope there either, I made sure of it.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Just a moment,” George called one of his goons over and whispered something into his ear and then the goon disappeared out to the back of the bar. Within a moment he came back with a police officer. “This is Damien, brother to Xaan, I take it you know Xaan?” George stared hard at Dani, he didn’t like Dani too much, but Dani’s cooperation was central to the plan succeeding.
Damien extended his hand to Dani, and Dani shook it. “No I never actually met Xaan, but I heard of him from, well…
“Don’t mention that name in my bar boy,” hissed George.
“Take her to the hospital tomorrow afternoon around 3.00, present the papers and by 4.00 they should pull the plug, as soon as that has happened we will enter the room and arrest her,” Damien was emotionless.
“What about you George, where are you going to be?”
“I’m going to be right here listening to the news, waiting to hear about the break in the case.”
“So you won’t be anywhere near either of them?”
“I told you boy, I’ll be here. I don’t like you Dani, in fact I’d rather walk through town at lunchtime with my hand on Chas the nancy boy’s ass than be seen with you, because fag or not, that boy has balls, courage and conviction. You on the other hand Dani are a schmuck! BUT, we both want the same thing, I need you to get HER taken care of and there’s no way I’m going to jeopardise it falling apart.”
“You could just have her killed plain and simple, you could have done it already, why the sudden respect for the law, why the sudden complicated scenario?”
“She’ll suffer more this way Dani, and let’s face it I’m essentially a mean sadistic prick who enjoys nothing better than watching someone suffer and it fills me with intense pleasure just to think of her lying there afraid. Afraid and waiting for that poison to shoot coldly into her arm, of her screaming for the mercy she never gave that defenceless girl and her baby. In fact it fills me with such intense eroticism that I masturbate to the picture in my head.”
George had gotten right up in Dani’s face, his breath smelled of whiskey and cigarettes, and Dani believed the man to be truly demented. No way was he going to argue with a madman, and no way was he going to enable the girl to get away with what she had done.
“Okay George, Damien,” Dani said quietly.
“Good because I would consider it a personal favour.”
George winked at Dani, clicked his tongue and exited the door at the back of the bar.
Once George was gone Dani asked Damien, “Is he all there?”
“He’s never had a psyche evaluation, but I’m picking no.”
“God what have I gotten into?” he stared hard at Damien.
“Nothing if you follow the game plan, this is all above board and legal, we just don’t want to lose her, so you have to keep her safe for us. She runs and makes it to Mexico or something; it’ll be US with bullets in the back of our skull. Us, our families and our friends, so you tread real careful for the next twenty-four hours or so Dani, real careful.”
Dani nodded his head and Damien walked out of the bar leaving Dani standing there wondering how he was going to be able to keep calm around the woman and not let the cat out of the bag? She was pretty perceptive and might figure something’s up, “Get drunk, get horrible rotten drunk and pass out in a motel, stagger in at some ungodly hour and sleep until lunch. Once I hand her these papers she’s not going to have time to suspect a thing.” Dani sat down at the bar and drank Jack Daniels on the house for the rest of the afternoon.
Heathcliff parked the car in the drive and then headed up past the swing to the door and he let himself in and went down to her room. He gently lay down on the bed to rouse her from sleep, “Morning sleepy head, are you ready for the surprise?”
“Oh Heathcliff, what time is it?” Kodi raised her head up from the pillow to look at him.
“It’s nine, time for you to rise and shine.”
“Or time for you to get in here with me, is sir interested?” she asked as she pulled the blankets back.
“Sir is very interested, but we have all day for this, so get up already so we can get going.” Heathcliff went into the kitchen and spied Harry’s bowl on the kitchen bench and then he called out, “Can I please use your phone Kodes?”
“Yup.”
Heathcliff phoned Troy, “Morning brother, you got any more of those furry little critters living out in the barn over there?"
“I thought you’d never ask, bring her over on your way back and I’ll make sure Ruby knows to keep out of sight.”
“Thanks Troy.”
“Have a good day with her.”
“Oh I intend to.” Heathcliff hung up the phone and Kodi came out to the kitchen and Heathcliff said, “No shoes, you won’t be needing shoes.”
Kodi thought it was strange, “Okay,” she said as she slipped her sneakers off her feet and kicked them under the couch. Heathcliff watched her and said, “Smooth move, come on then let’s go.” He led her to the car and they were off and they drove for about half an hour until they came to a beach.
Heathcliff led Kodi down to the beach where a man was waiting with a horse, and the horse was magnificent, a black stallion and his coat was gleaming under the warm sun. He looked like he’d been polished, and Kodi immediately went up to the horse and patted him on his muzzle and the horse nudged her. The man who’d been holding onto the horse’s reigns walked slowly up the beach back to where Heathcliff had parked the car.
Heathcliff helped Kodi onto the back of the horse and then he jumped on behind her. He slipped his arms around her waist while holding the reigns and they set off slowly down the beach. Initially Heathcliff remained silent and just let Kodi enjoy the horse, the beach and the solitary, and he just held her gently and nuzzled his face into her hair against her neck. Kodi could feel the warmth of Heathcliff’s body against her back and she felt secure just being held by him.
“The beach is beautiful, I like looking out to sea as far as the eye can see and thinking about people and other places.”
“I like the smell of the beach and the sounds,” said Heathcliff.
“I like those things too and I’ve always had this thing about love making and the beach.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know I just….” Kodi fumbled for words but couldn’t find any.
“Just describe it the way you’re thinking it,” Heathcliff coaxed.
“I just always thought it would be really romantic to be made love to on the beach, but then I think about the sand, even the way it gets into your food before you even get to eat it. If that’s what happens to food then what happens to people?”
“Hmmm.” Heathcliff was non-committal with any kind of comment.
“So what do you think?”
“I think there is a very good reason why we have beds.”
“You think you should only make love in a bed,” Kodi was surprised by Heathcliff’s lack of adventure.
“No that’s why we have, kitchen tables, benches, showers, baths, moonlit paddocks, back seats of cars and…”
“Is there anywhere you haven’t had sex Heathcliff?”
“Kitchen tables, showers, benches, moonlit paddocks…” then he laughed, and Kodi wasn’t sure what to make of what he said.
As they rode further down the beach Heathcliff was relieved Kodi had not plied him with any questions about the baby Alexi. The situation was awkward enough the night before without that, and fortunately she had forgotten why she had run over to Heathcliff’s place to begin with. “Sometimes a memory like a ball of Swiss cheese is not such a bad thing.”
Saul knocked on Troy’s door and waited for a few moments for someone to answer but it was taking too long, this was urgent business. He knocked again and yelled, “TROY!” Saul lifted the huge latch on the front door and pushed it open, and he felt very uncomfortable gaining admittance to someone else’s house uninvited and unmet, but the situation was urgent. Saul crossed the foyer and headed up toward the kitchen where he ran into Troy’s housekeeper Jenny who informed him that Troy was down at the barn doing something with Ruby.
Saul headed down the path at the side of the huge twelve bed roomed house around past the roses and on through the gate at the back of the property. Troy saw Saul before Saul saw him and he thought to himself, “What’s Saul doing here?”
He left Ruby in the stable with Tay patting the horses while he walked over to greet Saul and when he met up with him he shook his hand.
Saul was ‘old school’ very ‘old school’ to be sure and he often didn’t understand the ways of the younger folk, but he loved them all. Especially Emily’s boys, he’d been like a grandfather to them, but business was business, and both boys knew how to tell the difference between a social visit and serious business. Troy knew just from the expression on Saul’s face that things were about to get way more urgent in regard to Kodi, “Hey Saul.”
“Troy,” Saul said as he shook Troy’s hand and leaned into him for a hug from his youngest grandson.
“What brings you here today?”
“I think you know Troy,” Saul nodded his head as he spoke.
“Did she get it?”
“It was granted this morning, and I haven’t had a time or a date yet, but it will be soon. You need to tell Ruby tonight, because sometime in the next few days, maybe sooner, Kodi is going to know.”
“We have any way of finding out exactly when?”
“Taite’s on it, but we could get word at any time, so where’s Heathcliff and Kodi now?”
“I think he took her to the beach for a surprise horse ride, she has a thing for beaches and horses, Heathcliff thought it would be nice for her to have a change of scenery for the day.”
“I guess Kaleb is keeping an eye on things there?” said Saul
“Yeah, has he ever left the beach, you know, ever since, well…you know?” asked Troy
“Other than the picnic? Only to do his job when required, the odd closed social event, otherwise he’s there enjoying the beach.”
“He’s very much happy on his own out there isn’t he?” Troy commented.
“Yes Troy he is, but it won’t be too much longer and his soul mate will be with him too.”
“Oh good, that’s so good, does he know?”
“No, we’re keeping it a surprise,” said Saul winking.
“Anyone he knew?”
“Maybe,” There was a twinkle in his eye and that assured Troy that whoever she was, she was going to bowl Kaleb over. “And how are things with you and Miss. Ruby?”
“They’re going really well, she’s happy, bright, clear eyed really experiencing life Saul, for the first time, she’s really enjoying life, loves the horses, Tay and…
“You,” Saul laid a hand on Troy’s arm, “she was worth the wait?”
“Yeah Saul, she was very definitely worth the wait.”
“I know you thought Ruby was your last job and that now you’re trying to get on with things here, but we’re going to need you one last time.”
“Kodi?”
“Yes, and it could be very short notice because we don’t know exactly when we’re going to hear from Taite or how much time we’ll have between hearing from him and getting everything on our side in place.”
“You think I should go to the beach and bring them back?” asked Troy.
“No I’m going to go there now and I’ll let Heathcliff know, if you go Kodi might panic seeing you, and we don’t want her to find out too soon. I’m hoping we’ll have tonight and Heathcliff can make one more approach with her during the night.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Troy.
“We’re going to let her see the murder from her perspective, she thinks she killed her sister, we’re going to put it right in her face. I heard what happened yesterday, Heathcliff went in and then you went in after him?”
“Yeah, she came racing over to the house, Heathcliff took her back, there was an ugly scene, but he got it sorted in the end.”
“Did she confront you?” asked Saul.
“No, not that time, she completely forgot what she came over for when she saw Alexi, and Heathcliff threw her off by making some fuss about her coming over when he’d said he’d see her today.”
“It’s a complicated business Troy, I’ll sure be happier when I know it’s all worked out okay.”
“It is going to be okay though?”
“We still don’t know that yet Troy, but it’s certainly looking better than it did a few weeks ago. Well I had better get to the beach and round them up.”
“Okay take care,” said Troy as he gently patted Saul’s shoulder.
“You just don’t go disappearing anywhere lad, you’ll need to be as ready as Heathcliff.”
“Will you be there Saul?”
“I have an appointment tomorrow at around 3.30pm.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Oh yes Troy, you know him very well.”

Heathcliff and Kodi were almost back near where the car was parked by the time Saul showed up to speak to Heathcliff. Saul gazed intently at Kodi, and as soon as Heathcliff saw Saul, he called out to Kaleb, “Take Kodi up the other way for a bit of a walk while I talk to Saul?”
“Sure,” said Kaleb smiling up at Kodi as Heathcliff jumped down from the horse.
“You’ll be okay with Kaleb,” he said to Kodi attempting to reassure her.
Kodi watched Heathcliff walk over to Saul as Kaleb began to lead the horse up the beach away from the two men.
“What’s happened?” asked Heathcliff.
“We’ve had word that it will be happening soon, no definite time but within the next few days for certain.”
“That leaves me just tonight, maybe tomorrow, I don’t know if it’s enough time Saul.”
“You have had time enough Heathcliff, but tonight you go into her dreams, show her everything you can, because it will be your last chance to reach her.”
“Ok, well…
“Don’t forget to go to Troy’s to pick up that bundle of fluff you ordered, it just might help,” said Saul.
“Luckily you reminded me, I had almost forgotten.”
Saul made his way to his vehicle and left, which was a sure sign for Kaleb to head back with Kodi.
“So you enjoyed that?” asked Heathcliff as he helped Kodi down from the horse.
“I loved it Heathcliff, thank you.”
“Ah but the day is not over yet, we have to go to Troy’s, I have another surprise for you.”
“What?”
“Well if I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
Kodi and Heathcliff arrived at Troy’s just after lunch and it was then that Kodi was given a little black kitten, a gift from Heathcliff to her. She named him Ebony, which Heathcliff thought was a strange name for a cat, “Why not call him Sooty?”
“That’s a dumb name for a black cat,” said Kodi laughing. Ruby watched the exchange between the brothers and Kodi from behind the net curtains in the house. She dearly wanted to go outside to see her friend, to comfort her friend, but she knew that it was not yet time.
Later in the evening on that same day, Kodi fell asleep in Heathcliff’s arms and eased into gentle peaceful dreams for the first time in a long time.
“Hey wake up sleepy head,” Heathcliff gently roused a sleeping Kodi, “Ruby’s here waiting for you.”
Kodi sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes and then she made for the side of the bed, which was awkward for her on account of her protruding belly.
“Give me your hand and I’ll help you,” Heathcliff took her hand and gently pulled his heavily pregnant wife from their bed.
“What shirt of mine do you want to abscond with today?” he asked laughingly.
“The white one.”
“Oh yeah, you look incredibly sexy in the white one.”
“Even though I have the belly of a whale on the front of me?”
“Especially,” he replied teasingly.
Kodi knew that she was dreaming and yet there was something about the dream that seemed as though it was real, like a glimpse into the future. Kodi got dressed and went and met Ruby in the lounge, “So are we ready to go welcome our new neighbour?”
Ruby smiled and said, “I was born ready.”
The pair of them set off toward the fence beneath the trees with Heathcliff and Troy following closely behind. When they got to the fence Ruby attempted to help Kodi climb it, but she was having difficulty and so Heathcliff lifted her over. She had just set her feet upon the ground when a blonde haired man climbed the fence on the other side and began running toward them. Ruby screamed out his name in pure joy and set off toward him, but then she realised she’d left Kodi behind and went back.
“Just go to him already, I’ll catch up…eventually.”
“She’s waddling badly Heathcliff, she can’t have too much longer to go,” said Troy as he held his baby daughter close to him and watched Heathcliff lift Tay and Alexi over the fence so that they too could run to meet their new neighbour.
“Twins will do that to a woman, but she does look pretty damn cute though kind of like a duck don’t you think?”
“Oh absolutely,” said Troy laughingly.
Kodi awoke and went to get out of bed but as she went to move she accidentally bumped and woke Heathcliff.
“Where are you going?” asked Heathcliff sleepily.
“I need a drink of water, I’m thirsty.”
“Well you stay there and I’ll go get it for you.”
Kodi began to climb out of bed as she told him, “You’re not my slave Heathcliff.”
He reached out to her and pulled her back into the bed and replied, “Well gee Kodi I know that, but this is what a man does, he takes care of his partner, and besides that, I need a drink too so I’ll fetch us both one. You lay back down because you need your rest.” Heathcliff soon returned with the water which Kodi drank and then she lay down again and drifted back to sleep, and that’s when Heathcliff joined her again.
“Kodi?”
Kodi began to awake and saw Heathcliff leaning over her, “Your water just broke.”
“What?”
“Your water around the babies, it just came away from you. Come on sweetheart we have to get you cleaned up a bit and…
Kodi was suddenly gripped by the most ferocious pain, “Oh good grief, Heathcliff, it hurts like…I don’t even know.”
Heathcliff helped her from the bed, “I’ll run you a bath, you get in there while I get the bed cleaned up and ready for you.”
“No,” said Ems who walked into the room unannounced, “you stay with her and I’ll get things ready in here.’
Within ten minutes (having written the bath off as a bad joke) Kodi was back in bed and writhing in pain, “I thought things were different here Heathcliff?”
“What you thought you could have babies without all the pain and drama? No Kodi, it is pretty much the same deal as it is anywhere, just things can’t go wrong.”
“So how long am I going to be like this?”
“For as long as it takes for those babies to decide they’re ready to come out and meet their mother.”
Kodi looked at the clock, it was 2.00am. The next time Kodi looked at the clock it was 6.00am and she was naked from the waste down, legs spread wide apart and she was pushing for all she was worth. Heathcliff had chosen to do what had seldom been done before, he stayed with Kodi while she was giving birth to his babies. It was still considered the domain of women, and men, it was thought, were to be kept well out of it, but Heathcliff was never really one to follow unwritten rules and so he stayed. Kodi couldn’t believe the level of pain she was experiencing, but the pushing urge was stronger than her desire to avoid the pain. Then she felt the head of the first baby sitting there just waiting to emerge, “This is going to hurt,” she said to Heathcliff through gritted teeth.”
Heathcliff was sitting behind her staring down at her face in complete awe at how well she was coping, and he was also in awe of the fact that she was pushing new life from her body, “so talented misty blue,” he softly said as he gazed at her. He was supporting her back and she had her head leaned against his shoulder and then she gave another huge push and the baby’s head began to emerge. Heathcliff felt every muscle in her upper body go rigid and he knew she was giving this her all. His eyes misted up as he looked at Kodi and said, “Look at our baby coming out Kodi.”
“I don’t want to see that.”
“No Kodi it is beautiful, look.”
Kodi looked down and she could see the head partially out and then the pushing sensation gripped her again and the baby’s whole head was out. With one more push the whole body slid out from her. Within five minutes she’d done it all over again and the second baby had emerged. "What are they Heathcliff? What did we have?”
“Twins.”
“I know that, but are they girls or boys or one of each?”
“I can’t tell you because you can’t know that yet, you’ll have to wait Kodi.”
Kodi awoke and sat up in bed, felt her stomach and then looked to see if Heathcliff was awake. “I just had the strangest dream Heathcliff.”
“I know you did,” he said, “now go back to sleep my love.” He wrapped his arms around Kodi as she drifted off back to sleep. Heathcliff waited until he could hear the pattern of breathing that is indicative of sleep and he approached Kodi as she returned to the scene of the crime.
Half an hour later he was awake again and watching Kodi trying to awake from the nightmare she was seeing in her sleep. Then she was awake and she sat up in bed, her heart pounding, her senses reeling, she looked to Heathcliff and she began to talk.
“They murdered my sister, they waited for her in her apartment. A man and some woman.”
“Are you sure you want to talk about this?” Heathcliff asked very gently.
“I have to, maybe if I speak about it I’ll stop seeing it you know, because this time I dreamed about it so vividly Heathcliff, and it’s just like I was there. I don’t remember anything much, but at the graveyard I heard a guy talking about when the police came. They said I seemed cold, like I wasn’t that affected by the fact that something really awful had happened to Marli. All this time I thought it was like Marli was trying to let me know what happened to her. Maybe it’s a twin thing, maybe it’s important to her, you know she’s trying to make peace or something because we didn’t get on so good, well not like we should have. I tried so hard with Marli, I really did, but I always managed to blow it somehow. Anyway the guy grabbed her by her hair and she bit him to make him let go, I know because in my dream I tasted his blood in my mouth. Then he somehow got around to the front of her and he punched her in the face a couple of times, and then he pushed her down onto the bed. But the whole time although I was just watching it, I could feel everything that was happening, everything. When I first moved into the house, I had a dream about a blue eyed blond haired man, well it was him who was at the murder scene, he was right there. His girlfriend, whoever she was, well she grabbed Marli’s hands and held them above her head so that she couldn’t do anything. He got a knife and he…he um…he couldn’t do it, he just stood there while she screamed at him that he had to do it, or maybe she didn’t scream, I don’t know.”
Kodi started to cry and Heathcliff wrapped his arms around her, “Enough, maybe we should leave this for now?”
Kodi climbed out of the bed and sat on the chair, “No, I want to get it all out Heathcliff. He was supposed to do it, but he couldn’t and she screamed at him. The girlfriend laughed some of the time and sometimes she was screaming obscenities at Marli, telling her that that would teach her to get involved in things she had no business being involved in. But Heathcliff, suddenly it was me, it was me begging, I screamed, and I was begging them to stop because the pain was unbelievable, I was pregnant in the dream. I was trying to protect my baby. I kept rolling on my side and I tried to keep my hands over my stomach. I was petrified Heathcliff, just the most wild terror you could ever imagine. It was a hideously painful and frightening way to die Heathcliff, I know because I felt it. The pain was like fire, but worse, and it just went on and on. Then I was stabbed through the chest; that’s how I died in the dream.
Dr Logie thought my panic attacks are because I keep thinking about her, being stabbed, you know, I think about it, panic and then feel like I can’t breathe? The most horrible part of the dream Heathcliff, the most horrible part of all was when I saw the other person’s face, it was not a stranger Heathcliff, it was me, it’s my face, yet somehow I knew it wasn’t me, it was her. She was the one stabbing me and holding my hands, laughing at me, screaming at me.” Kodi began to shake, and Heathcliff moved to get out of the bed and to go to her, “No,” said Kodi as she stood up and undid the latch on the French doors, “just leave me, I need to be alone.” Kodi walked across the deck and sat down on the steps. Albion followed her out across the deck and nudged her arm with his nose in order to comfort the crying human. Just as Albion settled beside her, Heathcliff walked out onto the deck and sat down beside her too.
“I know you said you want to be alone, but this is not a good time for you to be alone Kodi.”
“You know what the worst part of it is Heathcliff?” Kodi said as she turned to face him.
“What?”
“Well I remembered she was pregnant, about six months when she died and I don’t get it. I remembered she was pregnant, but I dreamed I was pregnant, but I can’t have been because I would remember something like that. If I did this Heathcliff, if I had anything to do with it, and I suspect I did, then I killed her baby too.”
“Did you remember she was pregnant because of a dream or because you just remembered it?”
“I don’t know, I think I remembered yesterday because I had this weird dream where I saw a guy in a hospital bed, but he was all burned up. I think I remembered it from there, but I can’t be sure, I can’t rely on memories because I don’t know what’s dreams and what’s real. But she was pregnant Heathcliff, she was definitely pregnant.”
“It’s stress,” soothed Heathcliff.
“I know, I’m surprised you even want to be anywhere near me knowing I’m so kooky and all.”
“I’ve seen weirder…trust me. Hey I hate to go off topic, but while I remember, I have to go out in the morning, but have you got anything planned for tomorrow?”
“No, I was just going to hang around home with my new ball of fluff, get him used to the house and that.”
“Ok, well I’ll come over and see you tomorrow evening and maybe we’ll spend the night at your house?”
“No come get me and we’ll come back here, I don’t like that house, it always reminds me of the bad dreams I have. Do you mind?”
“No, I don’t mind, but can you wait for me to come and get you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
After another few minutes of sitting outside under the stars, Heathcliff and Kodi went back inside and the rest of the night passed by peacefully.

They decided that Ruby was best told somewhere away from the house where she lived with Troy so they all met at Ems. There was little chance of Kodi turning up there unannounced and undetected.
They all sat around the table ready to take a journey back in time, a journey that would show Ruby what she had done, and while they embarked on their journey, Alexi and Tay were spending time with Martha at her little farm.
“You need to understand Ruby that no one’s here to judge you okay?” said Ems.
Heathcliff looked down at the floor, this was going to be very hard for him to go through, but he had to walk through it with Ruby as much as Troy. “Ruby, you need to tell Troy what happened, he needs to know what you did,” said Saul.
Troy looked at Ruby and said, “I will love you just the same no matter what.”
“You need to remember Troy,” said Saul, “that Ruby was not in her right mind, if she had been, she would never have done what she did.”
Ruby looked at Troy and said, “I helped set up the hit against Marli, I helped Kodi find someone to do it.”
Troy looked at her and said, “What?” He looked around the table at the others, and he kept the ruse up by asking, “How long have you known this Heathcliff?”
“I have known from the start, that’s why I followed you over when you went to the funeral. I wanted to be there just in case Ruby told you. While you were busy with Kodi at the hospital that day, I went and I talked to Ruby and I asked her not to tell you yet.”
“You spoke to Heathcliff?” Troy stared at Ruby attempting to appear as though he felt betrayed by her and everyone else.
“Troy,” said Saul, “please try to remember how we work here. It’s not about being dishonest and it’s not about anyone betraying you. It was about keeping things moving along calmly and without incident. We had enough troubles with Kodi without adding you and Ruby to the mix. You love Ruby Troy, and she DIDN’T kill her, she inadvertently helped the process along while she was high.”
“Oh, and that makes it okay?” Troy asked staring directly at Ruby, hoping the ruse was having the desired effect. “You need to talk about this Ruby.”
“No, it just explains why she did what she did,” said Saul. Heathcliff sat there looking down and saying nothing.
“She came to me Troy when I was strung out. I needed something and I had no money. Chas and Xaan wouldn’t give me money because they knew what I’d use it for, so she offered to help me. Kodi said she knew George really well and that she could get the stuff for me, and so she did. I didn’t want to go and ask him anymore because I owed him thousands.
Kodi told me she was scared Marli was going to do something to her and she said she needed to have Marli scared, you know scared off? So I told her about Peter Coleson, and I knew Peter because I used to date his brother Bobby. I jacked up a meeting between them, and while Kodi was talking to him I recorded the whole thing from a café near by so that he couldn’t back out. He was only supposed to scare Marli, he was never supposed to murder her, and the baby was never supposed to be harmed. For some reason the whole thing got out of control. When the baby died, I couldn’t deal with it and George somehow found out that I’d put Kodi onto Peter. He got Peter and then he was going to come after me, and then Kodi. I’m sorry Heathcliff, Troy, but I never intended for Marli and her baby to be killed like that.”
“Now, here’s the information you need to know Ruby, “ said Heathcliff, “It wasn’t Kodi that came to you and asked for help, it was Marli.”
“What? No, no it was Kodi,” said Ruby disbelieving.
“It was Marli,” said Saul staring straight at Ruby.
“So I helped to murder my friend?”
“Inadvertently, but yes,” said Heathcliff, “what’s more is that George never knew you had anything to do with it. No one did except Marli, not even Chas knows.”
“Then how come I died?” Ruby asked through her tears and feeling totally confused.
“It was just your time Ruby, admittedly you hastened it some by taking the drugs you took, but still, it was totally unconnected with anything you did. The trouble is that at the hospital that day, you screamed at Kodi that she murdered her sister, and she truly believes she did. We have been working very hard to show her that she didn’t.”
“But it’s not working,” said Ems.
“Your verbal assault on her at the hospital convinced her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she did something so terrible that she can’t move forward,” Heathcliff said as he stared at Ruby.
“How can we fix it?” asked Ruby.
“We’re going to take her back to the murder scene tonight and we’re going to have her watch it. Troy and I will both go there; walk her through it, maybe that will be enough to make her understand what really happened.”
“So I’m responsible for murder?” asked Ruby.
“You’re culpable to a certain extent yes, but responsible for murder? No Ruby you are not responsible for that. You were taken advantage of by someone who was callous and cruel, someone who knew you were not in your right mind. If you had been in your right mind Ruby, you would have been able to immediately pick it was Marli because you know, as well as I do, that Kodi would never do something like that in the first place. That person knew that if you had understood what was going to happen that you would have stopped it, but she knew you’d do anything for Kodi, and that’s why she pretended to be her. I am not angry with you Ruby, and Kodi should not be either.”
“Truth of the matter is Ruby,” said Troy, “that I have known all along what you did, I just needed to know that you knew what you had done. I needed you to see that what you had done was forgivable, and I needed to know that you would forgive yourself.”
“You chose to love me anyway, despite what I did?” Ruby was shocked.
“You made mistakes Ruby but you didn’t intend for anyone to be hurt,” said Troy, “I have always known that too.”
“Who is going to tell Kodi?” asked Ruby though her tears.
“We will tell her Ruby, but you know Kodi, she doesn’t hold a grudge against anyone, given time, she will even forgive Marli for what she did, and she will forgive you too,” said Ems.
Heathcliff stared at Troy who was relieved that everything was now out in the open, now they could concentrate on Kodi.
“We need to get the children from Martha’s and head home,” said Heathcliff, “Taite could call at any time.”
Kodi spent the morning showing her kitten around the house and trying to keep her mind off Heathcliff’s house and off his little girl. It was a battle to keep her mind away from straying to the place where she started to think negative things about her relationship with Heathcliff. “He said I am good enough for him and his family, I just have to wait for him to be ready to involve me with them.”
But by the afternoon it was all getting too much so she walked across the paddock toward the tree line that surrounded his house. It was early afternoon and Heathcliff had been gone all morning. “I know Heathcliff might be a little cross with me, but surely it’s okay for me to meet everyone now? Well there may not even be anyone there but him and Alexi anyway.”
Kodi carefully climbed the fence and cautiously made her way through the trees out onto the lawn by the birdbath, and from there she could hear them playing. She made her way around the side of the house near to the French doors and there they were the little baby girl and a little boy playing with balloons.
Heathcliff saw her first, but not in time to avoid the children seeing her, and the little boy said, “Heafkiff look, monsta back.” Then the baby girl began to scream her lungs out, and Kodi didn’t know what was wrong. Heathcliff walked up to her and grabbed her by her arm, and abruptly said, “I told you NOT to come here Kodi, you shouldn’t be here.”
Kodi tried to prize his fingers off her arm, but his grip was steel-like, “Let me go Heathcliff, you’re hurting me.”
Heathcliff dragged her near to the tree line and shoved her onto the ground and he was angrier than she had ever seen him, “I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY!” he boomed at her, “when are you going to start listening to me Kodi?"
“What’s wrong with you?” Kodi was crying because she just didn’t understand.
“I asked you if you trusted me and you said you did, so if you trusted me you would have done exactly what I asked. But you don’t trust me do you Kodi, you don’t trust anybody and you never have. Go home Kodi, and I’m coming for you when I’m finished sorting this mess out,” he said pointing toward the sound of the baby screaming, “I mean it Kodi, we’re going to do this once and for all.”
“Heathcliff… she didn’t get a chance to say another word because he picked her up and practically threw her over the fence into the paddock and he yelled at her, “GO HOME, NOW!”
Kodi could see that he was very angry, his eyes were practically blazing, no it wasn’t anger he was feeling, it was pure hot rage.
Once Kodi was gone Ems approached Heathcliff, “Don’t be angry at her son, she doesn’t know, she hasn’t got a clue. She thinks everything is normal, she has no understanding of what she exists in now.”
“Well Mother, we have got to tell her and we’re doing it tonight.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea son.”
“Oh what you want me to wait until she’s ready, so she can find out the same way Annie did, and what happened to Annie? Huh mother, WHAT HAPPENED TO ANNIE?”
“It wasn’t meant to happen that way.”
“Hell I know that, but Kodi has been going through hell since she got here, looking out of windows and things that should be there have disappeared, she thinks she’s having panic attacks, hell she thinks she murdered her sister. It’s the same, it’s the same thing and I’m NOT in the market for another Ash tree; she doesn’t know she’s on borrowed time.”
“That’s not funny Heathcliff, using my book as a vehicle for ridicule. Kodi hasn’t accepted it is all, she’s going to be fine just give her some space.”
“Mother, SHE DOESN’T KNOW”!”
“Don’t you raise you voice to your mother EVER!” said Joe to Heathcliff.
Heathcliff lowered his voice, “Did you not hear what I just said? She thinks she killed Marli, she thinks Marli’s dead. I was there at the house the day of the funeral, she was talking to everyone like it was normal, like nothing had changed. She didn’t know then and she doesn’t know now.”
“What have you been doing for the past few weeks Heathcliff?” Ems asked.
“Yes, but it’s NOT WORKING!”
“HEATHCLIFF!” Joe yelled.
“I’m sorry father, mother I’m sorry for raising my voice. I’m scared we’re going to lose her.” Heathcliff was slightly embarrassed.
Ems shook her head at her son and then said, “Maybe we can make it easier by telling her about Alexi?”
“You can’t tell her about Alexi, not yet, she’s not ready to hear it and Alexi is in there right now scared, crying her heart out because some demented looking woman wandered in here and gave her a fright. I have to go in there and I can’t even explain to that little girl what was going on. We need to get this sorted.”
“Son it’s not…
“No, you know what? This is the biggest cock up there ever was, she should have been told the day she got here because she would have crossed by now. Anyway, has Voh flown in yet?”
“Yes he arrived last night,” said Joe.
“Good, get someone to keep an eye on him and make sure our people get him there on time, I don’t want Kodi missing him. You go over to Kodi, I have got a little girl to tend to, you get everything else ready.”
Ems and Joe headed off to be with Kodi. Heathcliff went back inside the house to deal with his daughter.
He had been inside with Alexi only five minutes when he saw Saul running down the path past the birdbath toward him, “Oh what now?” Heathcliff asked exasperated beyond anything he’d ever felt before.
“Heathcliff, Heathcliff, is Troy here?” called Saul.
Heathcliff called out to Troy who came out onto the porch to see what was going on.
“Taite called, we’ve got a time,” said Saul as he stood there trying to catch his breath.
“When?” asked Troy.
“4.00 o’clock, they’re switching off life support at 4.00. The lawyer is taking the sister to the hospital at 3.45pm, so you need to be there by then.”
“That’s only an hour and a half away, can we even make the city by then?” asked Troy.
“It’ll be tight, but we can make it. Is everything set up with Voh?” asked Heathcliff.
“Ed’s over there with him now, but you can’t let Voh see any of you, not Ems, Joe, you, or you either Troy,” said Saul, “I can’t stress it enough. He can’t be allowed to see any of you. Are we all really clear on this?” Saul looked from Heathcliff to Troy who both nodded.
“So you need to get over there now Heathcliff and grab Kodi. I’ll head to the hospital now and I’ll see you when you get there,” said Troy.
“Saul we were going to show her everything tonight, what are we going to do now?” Heathcliff said.
“Wing it. I have to go or else I’m not going to make it where I have to be.”
"Do you think she’s ready to hear it yet Ems, because if she’s not ready…
“She doesn’t have a choice, Heathcliff’s taking her there tonight and Voh’s going to be there, and he’s going to be pretty shocked too I’d say.”
Joe parked the car near the shed to block any escape Kodi might attempt to make; they couldn’t risk her trying to go back again. As Joe got out of the car he saw Heathcliff heading across the paddock, and so he waited to see why he was early. Heathcliff jumped the fence and Joe said, “You’re early.”
“Game on, she’s headed to the hospital and expected to present the papers at 3.45 and they’re switching everything off at around 4.00, Taite called Saul half an hour ago.”
The next thing they knew Kodi came running out of the house like a mad woman and she ran straight for the shed, and Heathcliff sprang into action, “Come on, we can’t let her take off now.”
But before they could get to the shed Kodi had the car started and was trying to back out of the shed, and even though Joe’s car was right behind hers, she just rammed it. Heathcliff got up beside the driver’s window and yelled, “Kodi turn the engine off.”
“Get away from me you evil piece of shit,” she screamed and she put the car into drive to move forward and then reverse again and the sickening sound of metal against metal sounded from the driveway. Heathcliff knew he had to do something and fast, so he grabbed a brick and smashed it into the driver window and the glass shattered everywhere giving Kodi a hell of a fright. Her foot slipped off the brake and the car lurched forward taking the car through the far wall of the garage. But it bought Heathcliff the precious seconds he needed to open the door and get a hold of Kodi, and so when the car lurched through the far wall, Heathcliff went with it.
Ems came running from off the porch to see if the two of them were okay and Heathcliff came out from the debris carrying a struggling Kodi in his arms. Kodi was slapping his face, pulling his hair and even biting to get him to release her, she was fighting the battle of her life again. Heathcliff stuffed her into the back seat of Joe’s car and ordered Joe to get in and drive, “NOW!” he said.
Joe got into the car and Ems jumped into the front and they set off to their destination.
Kodi began to calm down a little and asked, “What are you, what are you three, are you demons? Ghosts, figments of my imagination or what because I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore.”
“It’s going to be okay Kodi, everything’s going to make sense soon enough, just hang in there.”
“You said you loved me, that you’d never hurt me, do you know how many people said that to me in my life just to turn out to be the biggest liars? Yeah, Kodi, she’s a sucker for a good line eh Heathcliff?”
“I never lied when I said I loved you Kodi, I’ve waited for you for years.”
“Waited years for me, what do you mean?”
“Do you remember the man by the cupboard when you were small Kodi, or the man who rescued you from drowning? Do you remember any of those things?”
“What? What has that got to do with this?” Kodi stared at him and then she said, “YOU? You were that man? But…that doesn’t make any sense.” Kodi sat in the back of the car watching the scenery as they passed it by.”
Heathcliff looked straight at her. “Nothing about any of this makes sense to you right now because you’re missing a piece of the puzzle, but you’re about to get that piece back, and it’s not going to be easy Kodi, but we have to do this because your life depends on it.”
“You want to go straight there?” Joe asked.
“Yeah Father, go straight… Heathcliff was interrupted by a ringing cell phone, “Yeah,” he said into the mouthpiece, “Aha…yup…and he’s going to be there, but if we’re not finished then you detain it…don’t mess this up.” Heathcliff pressed the end button.
They pulled into the cemetery and drove to the far end where nobody was around, luckily the grave was tucked away in a solitary little corner.
“What are we doing here Heathcliff?”
“We’re going to fix your sister’s headstone, maybe it might bring you some answers if we do that.”
“It can’t be fixed Heathcliff, there’s pieces everywhere, and that’s only if the groundsmen haven’t cleared them away already.”
“No one’s touched it Kodi, no one.”
The car came to a stop and Heathcliff got out and pulled Kodi out by her arm, “I’m not doing this, what are we doing here Heathcliff…?”
“Kodi, look at me, you have to do this, you just got to hang on in here with me, Kodi, KODI!”
Kodi began to get hysterical refusing to approach the grave, trying to drop to the ground in an effort to not cooperate, and so Heathcliff slapped her face really hard. Much harder than he had meant to, but it had the desired effect. Kodi was wide eyed again, but still hesitating slightly, so Heathcliff dragged her by the arm over to the pile of rubble that had once been her sister’s headstone, and Heathcliff pushed her down onto her knees. “Start picking up the pieces Kodi.”
Kodi stared down at the four-foot hole that was still there and it appeared that it had been freshly dug at again, “Who’s been digging this Heathcliff? Why has the hole been dug deeper, are they exhuming her body?”
“Pieces Kodi, pick up the pieces.’
“But...
Heathcliff got right up in Kodi’s face, “PICK UP THE PIECES KODI!”
Kodi sat on the ground beside the pieces of headstone and they were many, “It’s like a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle Heathcliff, we’ll be here forever.”
“Trust me Kodi, that’s not a problem, now start picking them up and we’ll put them together as best we can.”
Joe and Ems sat in the car watching the two of them crawling around on the ground picking up the pieces. Kodi had picked up many pieces of the tomb stone and they had barely managed to piece together the date, “Heathcliff this is hopeless, it’s just hopeless.”
“No it’s not, just keep going, see I have the I off the end of the name. We don’t have too many more pieces to find Kodi.”
After ten minutes they had pieced it all together except for the first name on the headstone.
“I can’t find the M, have you got the M? I have the A though,” she said as she stared over at Heathcliff, “Oh and I’ve found the circle off the other a, have you found the l?”
Heathcliff was crouching and then just leaned forward and fell onto his knees and very quietly said, “Kodi come to me.”
“We have to find the M, Heathcliff, I have to find the M,” she said as she continued to crawl around and at the same time burst into tears.
“Kodi, come to me, come to me now, please.”
Kodi looked at Heathcliff and she could see the tears sliding down his face, and he held his arms out toward her, “Kodi just come to me.”
Kodi crawled over to Heathcliff and looked into his eyes, “What’s the matter, what’s wrong?”
Heathcliff held her as Joe and Ems began to walk toward them from the car, “What’s going on, Heathcliff?” she was confused and almost begging Heathcliff to make the fear inside her heart dissipate with words of comfort that she just sensed weren’t going to be said.
Joe crouched down before them beside the headstone jigsaw puzzle and Ems knelt down beside Kodi and nodded to the two men. Heathcliff passed the pieces to Joe, and then he wrapped his arms tightly around Kodi. Joe began to put the pieces of the tombstone into place, and Heathcliff whispered into her ear, “I’m sorry.”
Joe moved out of the way so that Kodi could see the finished product. Initially it did not register to her that the name was wrong, but then she slowly began to truly see, and she realised with horror that the tombstone did not bear the name Marli Madison. The name on the tombstone was Baby Madison!
Kodi stared at the tombstone in utter disbelief, she shook her head and struggled to break free from Heathcliff, and then it started, she could not breathe and Heathcliff pleaded with her to fight it. The graveyard was warping, her heart was racing and she believed in that moment she would die.
Ems knelt in front of her, “Kodi look at me. Kodi I know this is a terrible shock for you, I know you don’t understand and I know you’re scared, I was too when it happened to me, but everything will be okay. Look at me Kodi, look at me. Ems, short for Emily, before I was Willis, on the other side, well I was a Bronte. The book you love, the book you know like the back of your hand, I wrote that Kodi. Kodi, I’m just like you, I crossed over just like you NEED to do.” Emily pleaded with Kodi to accept the truth that she was speaking.
“Kodi, your baby was murdered while she was still inside you, and they tried to kill you too, but you didn’t cross Kodi, remember Troy telling you he was coming back for you? Remember that Kodi? But you told him no, and you went with them.” Joe touched her arm and Kodi snapped her arm away from him as though his touch was like fire.
“It’s okay Kodi, it’s okay, you’re okay,” whispered Heathcliff.
“I MURDERED MY SISTER, I KNOW I DID!”
“No my love, you never murdered her, she tried to murder you, she effectively did.”
“No, but that can’t be, why would she do that? NO, I don’t believe it, I’m not dead, I’m not…I can’t be… Kodi began crying hysterically.
“Why would you do it to her Kodi? Think about it Kodi, why?” asked Heathcliff.
“I hated her Heathcliff, that’s why I would have done something like that. Oh no, no, the dream, the dreams, all of them, they were me, not her?”
“Yes Kodi, it was you, not her,” said Heathcliff.
Kodi began to wail loudly, the realisation of the loss of her child she remembered all too clearly, the pain of the attack, Troy trying to get her to leave with him, and Heathcliff, she remembered him being there too. She had seen him in her peripheral vision when Marli had stabbed her that one last time, the seemingly fatal blow. “I remember it, I remember it all, she sobbed as she placed her hands on her stomach and cried for her baby, but as sad as she was, as grief stricken as she was, she did not feel any anger.
“Kodi, you’re supposed to be dead to that world,” said Joe, “but you’re not dead to that one, you’re still living there, just not...when Troy asked you to go with him you refused. You didn’t die properly because you went with them and they put you on life support.”
“I’M NOT DEAD, I AM DEAD? WHICH ONE IS IT?” she screamed as she began clawing at the ground. “If I’m dead or nearly dead, then why did everyone speak to me at the funeral, why would they speak to me if I was not there?”
“Kodi, do you remember when you were standing by the bench?” asked Heathcliff.
“What’s that got to do with it?” Kodi asked almost incoherently.
“There was a picture on the bench of you Kodi, your friends put it there so that you would be there at your baby’s funeral. When they spoke, they were speaking to a memory, out of respect, in a way that brought them comfort. They couldn’t see you except for Ruby, and even then she couldn’t see you the whole time.”
“But they looked straight at me,” sobbed Kodi.
“It was a coincidence that they appeared to be looking at you Kodi, trust me, they couldn’t see you at all,” said Heathcliff as he held her.
“So who smashed my baby’s grave?”
“Marli is the one who smashed this Kodi, she came here after the funeral and she smashed it. Remember when you saw the wound on your forehead and the other marks you saw? Do you remember that Kodi? Remember that night in my bathroom?”
“What…your bathroom, the night I fell? You told me it wasn’t real, that it never happened.”
“I had to tell you that, you weren’t ready Kodi, you were still hanging on in the other world…you weren’t going to…
Kodi cut him off, “IF I’M NOT DEAD THEN WHAT AM I?”
“You’re stuck,” said Heathcliff.
“Joe, go get a mirror from the car,” said Emily.
“We don’t have a mirror in the car,’ said Joe.
“Father, snap off one of the wing mirrors if you have to, just get it,” Heathcliff urged his father. Joe went to the car and snapped the mirror off the side, he came back and he handed it to Ems.
“Look in the mirror Kodi,” said Emily. Kodi refused to do so, “KODI look into the mirror,” demanded Heathcliff.
Kodi looked into the mirror and staring back at her was the ugly reflection she’d seen in her dreams so many times before, the gash to her head, black eyes, split lip, fatal wounds to the front of her body.
Ems looked at Heathcliff and Joe and the three of them waited nervously for her reaction as Heathcliff scanned the mirror down the front of her again. “If it was me that’s supposed to die or has died, and I believe you that it is, then where’s my baby? Heathcliff where’s my baby now?”
“Oh no,” thought Heathcliff, “she’s not connecting the dots!”
“Your baby crossed over as soon as it happened, one of the helpers came and got it,” said Emily.
“Do you remember a helper taking your baby Kodi?” asked Heathcliff.
“Sort of, but where did he take it, what was it, what happened…
“You have to let that go for now Kodi and as hard as it is for you to do, you need to let it go.”
“And what, I’m supposed to just let it go? I didn’t even know what it was… Voh? Does Voh know what has happened, to me? To his baby? I mean, what…what…is that it Heathcliff?” sobbed Kodi. “Emily, is that all there is to it? Is my letting go of it, is that…is that supposed to MAKE IT OKAY?”
Heathcliff shook his head at his mother as if to say, “Don’t even try to explain it to her.” Ems saw the look Heathcliff gave her and read what he meant.
“No Kodi, nothing makes what happened to you okay, but we have to somehow find a way to go forward from here, if you could just trust us Kodi, just trust us and know that everything is going to work out okay,” said Ems.
Heathcliff looked to his mother, and she went to say something to Kodi, something more to comfort her, but Kodi looked into the mirror and asked, “Is this what you see every time I appear in front of you, well is it Heathcliff?”
“Yes at first that is what I saw, but I have been able to see beyond that Kodi.”
“Has it always been like this?” asked Kodi, the loss of her baby pushed aside in her mind. As new awareness set in, and for every new realisation, there were more overwhelming emotions to face head on too. Heathcliff had hoped to have twelve to twenty four more hours to explain to Kodi what had happened to her, not the one hour he was blundering his way through. But Heathcliff gently steered Kodi as quickly as he could through the process, as there wasn’t much time to spare. “I’ve have always been able to see the wounds on you, even in the pool I could see the marks very faintly.”
“How can you stand to look at me, look at my hair, it’s caked in blood, and you, you made love to me when I looked like this?”
Kodi cried even more while Heathcliff held her, “That is what you see, but I now see something much different, I think you’re beautiful Kodi, I have always thought you looked beautiful. These wounds, you are not responsible for them. The one person in the world who you should have been able to trust implicitly betray and hurt you wickedly.”
“So what happens to her now?” asked Kodi suddenly worried for her twin.
“Marli will have her own conscience and consequences to deal with for the rest of her life, however long that may be, to reflect on what she’s done, but she will pay the ultimate price Kodi. The State will make her pay with her life for what she did to you and your baby. And it wasn’t just you she hurt, she hurt Ruby too. She used Ruby by pretending to be you.”
“Ruby? What did she do to Ruby?” Kodi looked from Ems and then turned her head to look up at Heathcliff, “Is Marli going to go to some kind of hell Heathcliff? And what will happen to her baby?”
“Kodi, her baby has already crossed over,” said Ems.
“What happened to her baby? What did she do to Ruby?” Kodi had so many questions and she was emotionally exhausted, yet still from somewhere came the energy for more grief and more tears.
“She conned Ruby into aiding her setting up the attack on you, Ruby thought you were her, she thought Marli was you. Marli passed herself off as you, it wasn’t Ruby’s fault and she’s devastated by what happened to you Kodi, you know that. You saw her at the funeral.”
Kodi nodded her head, “And what about her baby, what happened to Marli’s baby?” Kodi asked Heathcliff.
“She killed it,” said Heathcliff softly.
Kodi burst into a fresh bout of tears, “What? No, her baby was…why…she loved George…she…wanted that baby…why…why would she do…she…”
“Why did she do any of it Kodi? No one really knows why but God. But her baby is safe now, safe with Kaleb. And do you know what the best part of that is Kodi?” said Heathcliff.
“What?” asked Kodi through her tears and confusion.
“You will see that child from time to time because as you know, Kaleb lives at the beach.”
“What’s going to happen to Marli right now?”
“This afternoon she will be arrested, there will be a trial and while on earth here, the consequences of what she’s done will become very plain to her, just as the man you saw in room 1218 is realising as we speak. Once those consequences have been faced and worked through, they pass through to somewhere else as well. Anyway Kodi, it doesn’t matter anymore, she will live in your memory forever, but eventually your memories will be kind to you, I promise, and then of course we’ll make new ones together.”
“But it doesn’t feel like it’s all going to be okay and look at me, I look like a monster, like a zombie. Heathcliff I look like I was put through a meat grinder, am I going to look like this forever?”
“Look in the mirror Kodi,” said Heathcliff gently.
Kodi did as Heathcliff said, and when she looked into the mirror the marks were gone, no black eyes no nothing, and she grabbed the mirror off Ems to look at her front. The wounds were gone, “What does this mean?”
“It means you’re getting ready to cross over, it means you’re almost home Kodi and nothing will ever hurt you again.” Heathcliff smiled at her.
Ems grabbed Joe’s hand and held it in hers, happy and relieved that this time things had almost worked out the way they were suppose to for their eldest son. Heathcliff shook his head, “Well no mother, there’s someone she needs to see first, can you and Joe give her some space?”
“Who?” Kodi asked.
“Sure, we’ll take a drive and come back soon.” Joe and Ems went to the car and exited the cemetery
Within about five minutes Heathcliff pointed to a man who was walking toward them. He was wearing a long black coat and blue jeans with a white sweater. He stood around 6 feet and 2 inches in height and he had jet-black hair. And as he got closer she recognised him as the man in the photographs sent to her from her friend.
“Voh?” Kodi got up and began to step tentatively toward her dear friend, “VOH, is it him, Heathcliff?”
Heathcliff nodded to Kodi; “You need to say your goodbyes Kodi. I cannot look at him and he must not see me, so I’m going to turn my back.”
“But when he dies, will I see him again?” Kodi asked speaking to Heathcliff’s back.
“It’s not for me to say Kodi, but you need to think of this as your first and last time with him because you have to let him go Kodi.”
“He’s the dearest friend I ever had Heathcliff, I never knew anyone like him ever.”
“And you’ll have him with you forever Kodi, the memories of the life you had here don’t just melt away, you get to keep your memories.”
As Voh neared the grave Kodi attempted to speak to him. Heathcliff said to her quietly, “He can’t hear you Kodi.”
“Is there any way I can make him hear me?”
“Not here, not right now, but he doesn’t need to hear you, you need to hear him.”
Voh walked up to the grave and saw the headstone on the ground in puzzle like fashion. “Having a jigsaw puzzle day here I see, why I otta!” Voh forced a laugh. “Oh, I thought your mother had dumped me, I thought I’d hurt her and I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t answer my e-mail.”
Voh smiled a sad smile. “I thought maybe I had said something wrong, and now I wish I had been right. You didn’t deserve this, your mother didn’t deserve this either, no one does, and I wish to God this hadn’t happened.”
Voh softly ran his hand over the tombstone laying in pieces on the ground, and then he gently traced around the name with his finger. “My book’s a hit, you know the third one your mother ever read? I’m sure she read it to you even though you wouldn’t have understood. They love it, just as she said they would, I get recognised out on the street, I can’t even go shopping any more without being asked for an autograph.”
Voh stood there for a minute just staring around him, and Kodi saw that he was wearing the pendant that she had sent him. “It’s not easy to say goodbye to a dear friend, and I have to go to the hospital and say goodbye to your mother. You were dear to me, she was dear to me, and I hate that I never got the chance to tell either of you, I just never got the chance. I hope that wherever you are that the sunrises are beautiful, the sunsets stunning. Every time I hear thunder I think of your mother, and every time there’s a full moon I sit outside and enjoy it for her and for you. In memory of you. I just know that wherever you are, that you may very well be looking at the moon thinking about me, and wondering if I’m looking at the moon thinking of you. See your mother finally managed to drag me into her kooky thinking habits. I know I never met you or your mother in person, but your mother was a woman of substance, I meant it, I hope she knew that. Anyway, so you be a good girl.”
Voh placed a bunch of wild flowers on her grave because he just knew that Kodi would never have approved of store bought flowers; they just didn’t hold the same meaning for her as ones someone picked. Then he just stood there for a while, maybe lost in thought, maybe thinking about nothing at all.

Kodi stood there crying, knowing she couldn’t comfort him, she couldn’t do anything but listen. But she stepped up beside him and whispered something into his ear, and although she knew he couldn’t hear it, she still needed to say it. “I loved you, I shall always love you Voh, always.”
Voh turned from the grave teary eyed, and Kodi walked down the cemetery path behind Voh, followed by Heathcliff, and she followed him as far as the iron gates. Voh walked up the footpath, and went to cross the road on his way to the hospital.
He didn’t see the vehicle that hit him, young guys hooning around. The arrogant that think they’re immortal, that death will never touch them. Heathcliff grabbed Kodi and tried to pull her into his embrace, but Kodi fought him saying she had to get over to Voh. Then remarkably, she saw Voh stand up and walk off the road; he seemed confused and was looking around him as though he was seeing everything for the first time. Then she saw him, a man wearing a top hat and a black suit. She saw Voh, still shocked and dazed walk up to the portly man who offered his arm, and she saw the man lead him to a horse and carriage. He helped Voh climb up onto the carriage and it headed away to take Voh home. Kodi, still in shock looked to Heathcliff and said, “Who took him Heathcliff?”
“I can’t tell you that Kodi, but he’s gone home, just like you are going, all of this, everything here, it’s over Kodi, it’s passing away.”
“It’s passing away?” she asked
Heathcliff knew he didn’t have much time left to get Kodi to the room, “We need to get going now, there’s somewhere you need to be.”
She awoke to the beeping of her digital alarm clock. At first it had been just a vague sound somewhere outside of her head, but it had become louder and louder penetrating her deep sleep causing her to awake. As she opened her eyes she looked into a face, it was her face, no it wasn’t it was Marli’s, “Hey there sister,” she whispered, “I’ve got you now, we’re pulling the plug, you’re gonna die for sure this time, bitch.”
Kodi noticed the room was white, brilliant white, and as she scanned the room she saw all her friends, and the number on the inside of the door was 1215. As she stared up at her twin her heart ached for Marli because she knew what lay before her, she remembered the courtroom, the jail cell and lastly the lethal injection, and she pitied her sister.
“I forgive you Marli, but there are consequences for everything we do.” Suddenly she felt as though she couldn’t breathe, her head felt light and the room began to warp. Then she looked to the far wall of the room and she saw Troy.
“It’s going to be okay Kodi, you’re coming with me now, Heathcliff is waiting for you.” Troy smiled, and she knew that everything was going to be fine, then the beeping ceased. She sat up in the bed and pulled the tubes from her arms and the breathing tube from her throat and she climbed out of the bed and across the room to Troy. As she stood by Troy she turned back and she saw the shell that was once her broken and beaten body lying peacefully upon the hospital bed.
The last things Kodi Madison saw before she departed this life, were firstly the Police burst into the room and arrest Marli for the murder of her twin sister, and her unborn child. Secondly, she saw Chas standing over her, “Kodi, this is it girlfriend, you have to get going now, time to make your way across the mist.”
But he wasn’t looking at her body; he was looking toward the door where she was standing holding the hand of Troy. “Go on Kodi, get out of here, and tell my Ruby I love her,” said Chas smiling.
The next thing Kodi knew she was walking along a path toward a field and along the path she passed the people she had seen along the way. As she passed by Taite he said, “Time to cross the mist to your new life Kodi.” He was smiling at Kodi as she walked past him and so she smiled back and then she looked to Troy.
“Are you ready?” he asked as he led her under some trees. Once they were through the trees Kodi looked around her and she was in a paddock that was covered in mist. Troy held her hand as she began to walk through the mist. The ground was very soft beneath her feet it, and she could smell the aroma of Wisteria. It was very late in the afternoon, and the sun was just beginning to go down as they began to come out through the other side of the mist.
As the mist began to clear, Kodi could see Heathcliff standing there waiting for her, and as she walked toward him all the memories she had of him cascaded through her mind.
She remembered him leaning over her crib, holding her hand in the rain, getting her out of the cupboard, standing outside the shop as she stole bread and she remembered him scolding her for stealing it. As the memories of Heathcliff continued to play through her mind, she realised how much she truly loved him and she recognised him immediately as her soul mate. Before she knew it, Troy had let go of her hand and Heathcliff was holding her to him, “Welcome home my love,” he tenderly said to her as they made their way out of the very beautiful field. Kodi looked behind her as they made their way out and Troy waved to her smiling.
Kodi and Heathcliff walked around a bend in the road, then across the road toward his house and as she looked behind her she saw that the paddock with the mist was gone, and she suddenly felt very tired. Once they got up to the house Kodi asked, “Would you mind if I went to sleep for a while?”
Heathcliff gently said, “Sure Kodi, I will tuck you up on the porch swing and you can sleep for as long as you like.”
“I’m not going to have those dreams anymore am I?”
“No Kodi, no more dreams, no more panic attacks, none of it, it’s all over.”
Kodi climbed onto the porch swing and fell fast asleep and she was so exhausted she dreamed of nothing, just merely slept, it seemed for hours. The next thing she heard was Heathcliff gently trying to wake her up, “Kodi.”
Kodi awoke, looked up and saw Heathcliff crouching beside her next to the swing, “I need you to come with me, there’s someone you need to meet.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Not that long, but it’s time for you to come and meet your family, and someone really special, someone who has been waiting for you.”
“Who?” she asked puzzled, thinking she had met everyone already.
“Well it’s a surprise, “said Heathcliff grinning.
“I should get washed up, cleaned up and all that first.”
“You don’t need to worry about it sweetheart, honestly you look fine just as you are.”
“Just tell me who I’m meeting,” pleaded Kodi.
“If I tell you it won’t be a surprise,” he said smiling at her.
Heathcliff began to walk her over to Troy’s house where they were going to wait for Joe and Ems to arrive. As they walked there she knew that somewhere all Voh’s dreams were coming true too, some place, somewhere, in some other time, Voh was with his soul mate, and it didn’t make her sad to think of him because she knew that wherever he was, he was happy.
When they walked up the driveway to Troy’s place, Heathcliff said, “Now this might all seem a bit strange, but just try to go along for the ride.”
Troy came out to meet them on the steps, and he embraced Kodi as soon as he saw her again, “Welcome Kodi.”
“So this house was real all along?” she said, not really surprised.
“Yes,” said Troy as he nodded his head.
“I’ve come to pick up my little scally wag, has she been good for you Troy?”
“She’s been an angel Heathcliff, she always is, she obviously gets it from her mother,” he said giving Heathcliff a playful hit to the arm. As they walked through the foyer Kodi saw that there were a few people there waiting for them, and Troy said to them, “You all go through to the lounge.” Then he turned and said and I’ll just go and get Alexi for you. Second thoughts, Heathcliff, want to come, bring Kodi with you?”
Heathcliff nodded his head and Kodi just followed them both. She knew she could love his child, although she’d lost her own, she could pour all her love into Heathcliff’s baby. If he could love Alexi like she was his own, then Kodi wasn’t going to have any problems at all. Kodi followed the two brothers into the room and Troy leaned over into the crib to wake her, “Come on precious, there’s someone you need to meet.” Troy lifted her gently from the crib and placed her in her father’s arms, and then Heathcliff turned to Kodi and said, “This baby, she lost her mother.”
“Poor little thing, that’s terrible,” said Kodi as she stroked the little girl’s arm and then her face, “Why couldn’t she be with her mother, where did she go?”
“Her mother took little longer than she did, she didn’t realise she was meant to cross over, so…
“Obviously she must be going to cross sometime though?”
“Ah…" said Heathcliff, but he didn’t get to finish his sentence.
“So where is she now?” asked Kodi mesmerised by the little girl in Heathcliff’s arms.
“At the moment she’s here, in this room,” said Heathcliff.
Kodi continued to stroke the baby’s arms, hair, face and even her little feet. Then she realised what Heathcliff had said; “She’s here?”
“In this room,” said Heathcliff as he placed the baby into Kodi’s arms, “Congratulations Kodi, it was a girl.”
“She’s…she’s…my…the baby I was pregnant with? This…Alexi is my baby?” Kodi began to weep in sadness and then in joy and then her weeping was a mix of the two.
Heathcliff nodded his head.
“You’ve been taking care of her all this time? How did she get here?”
“Troy came and got her the night it happened.” Heathcliff wrapped his arms around Kodi and Alexi.
Kodi looked to Troy and said, “Oh I remember seeing you too, I felt you take her, I saw you walking away with her and you told me you were coming back for me. This afternoon, the grave, it was Alexi’s grave? But why…why did they dig…?”
Troy attempted to keep Kodi focussed on the happy things; the final step she had needed to take had fallen into place as it was supposed to.
“Remember the hospital this afternoon with Troy? When you left the room you left behind the vehicle that was your body in that life,” said Heathcliff.
“So the hole was dug…for me?” she asked, a little perturbed at the thought.
“Your friends back there still need to say goodbye to you in the way that is the custom there Kodi, but it is nothing for you to worry about anymore,” said Heathcliff.
Kodi looked at her baby and kissed her cheek and then cried overwhelmed to have her back, but saddened by the way her life had been taken. “Did she feel anything, did she suffer, did…” she asked as she looked to Troy.
“If it makes you feel better, she was peaceful when I brought her here, she had not struggled or suffered before I took her.”
“Thank you Troy,” said Kodi as she kissed her baby’s head.
“A similar thing happened to Tay’s mother Annie, except well as you know, that went terribly wrong.” Troy looked at Heathcliff.
“So what happened to Annie, what became of her?” asked Kodi.
“We don’t know, all we know is she never made it here, beyond that, no one can say.” Heathcliff smiled at Kodi reassuringly.
“Oh yeah, Kaleb is going to stop by in a few days with his little girl Shekinah, your niece,” said Troy.
“Marli’s baby was a girl? Who named her? How did she get here?” asked Kodi, some of what had been said at the graveyard a little fuzzy in her mind.
“Saul went and got her and brought her across the mist to Kaleb and I named her,” said Troy. Kaleb’s father Zachary is Voh’s younger brother. Voh never knew him over there, he died shortly after birth, but he knows him now.”
“So Kaleb is now Shekinah’s father?” asked Kodi, “But will she ever have a mother?”
“Yes she will have a mother before the year is out,” said Heathcliff.
“Is she nice? I mean will she be kind to Shekinah, she won’t hurt her will she?” Kodi asked.
“Kodi, you have a lot to learn about this place, but please trust me when I tell you that no harm will ever come to any child here, not ever. Shekinah could crawl into the ocean and she’d be perfectly safe,” assured Heathcliff.
Kodi knew that Heathcliff was speaking the truth and her concerns for Shekinah melted away and then she asked, “What about Voh, do you think he is happy where he’s gone?”
“Well that’s kind of the other thing we had to keep from you too, come with me Kodi,” said Troy as he took her hand and led her from the room. They walked down the big hallways of Troy’s home and into the lounge room where Saul, Ed, Joe, and Ems, were waiting with Tay and Ruby. Troy looked at Joe and then nodded to him. Joe got up from the chair where he was sitting beside Ems and he removed something from around his neck. “I’ve held onto this for many years and I never thought I’d ever get the chance to see you to…well I don’t know. But I think Alexi, my granddaughter should have this.”
Joe carefully placed the pendant around Alexi’s neck. “Someone very special to me sent this to me before I came here, it meant much to me and I always wished that I could see that person, and now I see that some wishes come true.”
“You’re Voh, but your name, and you died only today, I saw you.”
“Heathcliff, Emily, I’d like to have some time with Kodi on my own.”
Heathcliff and Emily both understood.
Voh took Kodi by the hand and they went and sat outside on the porch steps. “Part of me loved you deeply Kodi, I always have, like some place deep inside me, but it’s not romantic love, it never was. It’s a love that is very hard to describe, but it’s so deep that I wanted to give you the child you always wanted and I knew you’d be a good mother. It about killed me when I heard what had happened, Alexi being killed and then you...
“And here I was thinking you were just being mean when you said you weren’t my soul mate.”
“Well in some ways you are my soul mate, but in other ways you are not, but you are in every way Heathcliff’s soul mate, just as I am Emily’s. Does it make sense to you now?”
“Yeah it does, it makes perfect sense, I don’t really understand how you were still there when you’ve been here for years, that bit is really hard for me to wrap my little noggin around.” Kodi smiled at Voh.
“Time is definitely not the same thing here as it is back there and I really can’t find a way to explain it to you in a way that you can understand yet. Yes I have been here for many years, as you know. I am Heathcliff and Troy’s father, Emily’s husband, Kaleb’s uncle, Tay’s grandfather and also Alexi’s father. In the other place, Alexi would actually be my eldest child, but I am relinquishing her to my son Heathcliff, she is his daughter now, I hope you understand why I have to do that Kodi? But I’m not exactly losing am I? I mean I relinquish a daughter and gain another all in one day, and the truth of the matter is that I relinquished Alexi years ago.”
“I don’t really understand much of this, but I’m sure glad she got that name, and I’m okay with it, will make it easier for her too I guess. But why did you change your name?”
“I knew Alexi was your favourite name in the whole world, and she needed a name, so there you have it. As for changing my name, well you couldn’t know that I was even here because you needed to relinquish every tie you had on the other side, honestly relinquish it or else you would never have been able to get here. As soon as we knew you were going to be arriving we decided Joe was a good ruse, because if someone accidentally said Voh we could easily make you believe they’d actually said Joe. Childish I know, but we had to do it for you Kodi.”
“Voh, we fought before I was attacked didn’t we? I said things to you, things I didn’t mean, I’m so sorry,” said Kodi.
“Yeah we locked horns over something very silly and I said some things to you that I should never have said, and I am sorry too, but it’s in the past, it is gone, this is a new life for you, for me, for us all,” said Voh kindly.
“It really hurt to let you go…” Tears fell down Kodi’s face as she remembered the pain of thinking she’d never see Voh.
“Was no picnic for me either at the time, but once you do it you can move on, and as you know, I found my love here.”
“You always used to say to me that she was your soul mate…I used to think you were crazy, but wow you knew exactly what you were talking about. Voh, are we still going to be able to be friends?”
“Oh yeah, you think you’re going to get away that easily? And you owe me a hug kid, several in fact,” said Voh.
“The next few months will be a learning time for you Kodi, learning about how life here works, getting to know this precious little girl. Heathcliff knows that you will need to spend a lot of time with Alexi, so don’t feel pressured.”
“I won’t,” said Kodi as she held her daughter near to her.
"So you say goodbye to yesterday and move on to tomorrow Kodi, because tomorrow is always even better than the day that preceded it. If you remember nothing else I have ever told you, always remember that. Hey guess what is funny about all of this Kodi?”
“What Voh?” she asked, as she smiled at him and kissed her child yet again.
“You found your real life living breathing Heathcliff, that surely is something isn’t it? And kiddo?”
“Yes?” she asked as she breathed in the scent of her baby daughter.
“Welcome to forever.”
They both got to their feet, at which point Voh hugged Kodi and Alexi to him. They both disappeared back inside and the maid Hannah shut the big white doors behind them.

Piczo