Reciprocation

Stranded in Parallel [Chapter 6]

Quit messing with my notes. I don’t know what sort of tricks you’re using, but I’ll put a hex on it if you continue. Anyone who touches it besides me will be stricken with misfortune.

My eyes scanned the lines of text over and over. It resembled the drawings on the other pages, like the ink was a part of the page. The writing was neat and intricate, written with something other than an ordinary pen or pencil.

I read the words over and over, lingering on the words hex and misfortune. I picked up and chewed on the end of my pencil, thinking of something equally unique to write back.

“You could think of something better than misfortune. I’ve already got loads of that. If you can conjure any hex, you could have something blow up in my face. Dye my hair bright orange. Make me grow a big, nasty beard. Make it so my pants won’t ever stay up. That way, you would instantly know the perpetrator.”

I giggled to myself properly this time. I laid on my back and held the notebook in the air above me, hoping for more writing to appear. I waited and waited, with my arms eventually getting tired. I placed it back on the bed, open to the same pages. I stood and paced, holding myself back from constantly looking. I made my bed in the meantime, allowing myself only a glance or two. I went down and retrieved a few more of my books. Another peek, but nothing had changed.

I organized. I eyed the unchanging pages. I closed and opened the notebook just in case, then placed it back exactly where it had been. I made lunch down in the kitchen, ate half of it, and came back to the same amount of blank space residing on the page. Back downstairs, I plugged in the TV and screwed in the cable from the wall while nibbling at the remainder of my lunch. I scanned the channels mindlessly while the strange anticipation shifted around my stomach.

I was about to jump back up and check one last time when the lock on the door clicked open. I held my breath as Mom slid into the entryway, untying and sliding off her clunky black work shoes. My eyes met hers and she smiled.

“Welcome back,” I stammered, looking back at the TV sitting by the table there on the ground.

“I’m home,” she smiled. “Anything happen while I was away?”

“Uh… the cable guy came.”

“I see that,” Mom chuckled. “I’d say not to sit so close to the set, but I guess I’ll let it go this time.”

I glanced back at the heavy CRT there on the floor and nodded. “Yeah. No way I was going to move this on my own.”

Mom huffed, setting down her purse and marching my way before settling down on the ground beside me. “I thought packing up all our stuff was bad, but getting everything back together is probably worse, huh?”

I nodded while she rubbed my shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Let’s work on this whole… mess… tomorrow. Together.”

“Sure.”

Just as I turned my eyes back to the set, the commercials came to an end. The channel I had settled on randomly returned to a Spanish-language soap opera, the characters mid-argument. Mom chuckled and ruffled my hair. “I’m guessing the channels are all different here, huh?”

I mashed the off button on the remote and tossed it aside. “Yeah.”

---

I almost forgot about the strange notebook while I helped my mom shuffle around half-empty moving boxes, then helped with dinner. Almost. The first chance I had after eating, I hurriedly shuffled back up to my room. The notebook was still lying open there on my bed. The bed squeaked as I jumped stomach-first onto it, followed by the sharp creaking of the floor below. I remembered that I was on the second floor, and worried that my mom might have heard me jumping around upstairs.

Those thoughts were cut short by the sight of more writing. There it was in the same angular letters, seemingly embedded in the fibers of the paper.

You have quite the imagination. And quite the tricks to get to my notes again without me noticing. What do you want?

I dove around to find the pencil from before, but my mind took a little while longer to settle on a response.

“I don’t want anything. I’m just really confused. I think these notes of yours are also my notes. My notebook. Well, not mine. I found it. Do you have a name?”

I felt my hands shaking as I put down the notebook and pencil. I’m not sure why I wrote that last part. It must have been that instinct, instilled in me by my parents, teachers, and other older people, not to talk to strangers. And if the writing in the textbook, or the… thing making it had a name, it wouldn’t be a stranger.

“Nat!” Came a call from downstairs.

I nearly jumped out of my skin upon hearing my name. “Yeah?” I shouted back down.

“Weren’t you going to help me set up the TV in the living room?”

I flung myself up off the bed. “Coming.”

I checked the notebook before going to bed that night, but it hadn’t changed. I placed it on my nightstand, facing it as I drifted off to sleep, thinking about the owner of those words on the lined pages.