Jet: Awakening

By Robyn C. Rhodes

Jade Emily Thomass childhood was spent in a juvenile psychiatric unit. Diagnosed with infantile schizophrenia at the age of seven and made a ward of the court by her parents who couldnt cope with the truths she spoke.

Jade had known when someone was going to die by the time she was a toddler. This gift or curse would change her life and the lives of those that break her out of the psychiatric unit. The reasons they want her when her own parents abandoned her becomes clear as her powers grow. These strangers need her and so does everyone on earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jan 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479774364

Robyn C. Rhodes

Robyn was born in New Zealand and had various occupations until undergoing her nursing registration in the 1990s. Her mum and two sisters are still in New Zealand and she has a brother in Sydney. She moved to Melbourne, Australia in 2004 and manages a nursing home in Melbourne. She has one son who lives nearby. Writing is done after a busy day at work and on weekends. She has a pedigree keeshond called Fletcher.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Robyn C. Rhodes.

ISBN:

      Softcover      978-1-4797-7435-7

      Ebook          978-1-4797-7436-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Acknowledgements

References

FOREWORD

Jade Emily Thomas’s parents realised as soon as she was born that she would be a special child. It was Shane and Hera’s first child. Jade was born on 09/05/1995 and ironically at 9.05am.

Shane met Hera at college when he was seventeen and she fifteen. They remained close throughout school even when they went to separate universities it never changed their resolve that they would always be together. They complemented and were comfortable with each other. By the time they married in 1991 they were completing each other’s sentences, and they were never good at spending time away from each other.

Shane had been educated to become a lawyer and he graduated top of his class and passed the bar examination with flying colours. Hera was an artist and she had her first art show at age nineteen and by 1993 she had her own successful gallery.

They both worked hard to obtain what they thought was important and when they found out they were having their first child in 1995, they were over the moon. The spare room was transformed into a nursery. They couldn’t wait for the child who would be showered with their love to arrive.

The pregnancy was a dream for Hera with nothing out of the ordinary. Jade was a placid baby who always slept through the night, fed well, smiled when she should have and gurgled when in the company of others.

When Jade turned three her parents started seeing slight changes in their daughter, some of the sentences Jade spoke were unusual in that she spoke more to herself than to anyone in a room with her, she sang small repetitive songs of people going away and never coming back. Health professionals thought them as insignificant and tried to tell Hera that she was over analysing situations as this was her first child. Hera’s father passed away when Jade was three years old. A day before he died Jade started to sing Poppa gone mummy.

Hera thought that Jade meant that her father was at his home, not theirs; but he would never visit them again. Then when Jade was four Hera fell pregnant with their second child, the pregnancy was fine until Hera reached six months. Jade started singing No brother, all gone. Hera didn’t know if it was her imagination, stress or her overworking but she became ill.

Hera’s mother looked after Jade while Hera was in hospital. Jade told her Grandmother that mummy would be okay but she wouldn’t get a brother. Jade was right, Hera lost the baby, a boy and started to think that there was something not quite right about their daughter.

At the age of seven Jade was diagnosed with infantile schizophrenia, the doctors held little hope that she would improve enough to be able to live a normal life in the community.

This is Jade Emily Thomas’s story. What happens in the life of a special person with powers that some will never fully comprehend and others would fight to the death to stop, for their own greed and manipulation.

As the story unfolds, feelings of love and conflict ensures it is more involved and perilous than first thought. The reasons why these strangers have been bought together to try ultimately to return the earth to the harmony it was originally created for.

CHAPTER 1

The year is 2000, my name is Jade Emily Thomas and I’m five years old. I just started school, I don’t like it much. The kids tease me sometimes because I see different stuff from them.

My mummy and daddy have been taking me to the doctor, I don’t like him either, he made me go to hospital once, and I stayed good so I could go home. They said I was mean to tell some of the other kids they were going to die.

I couldn’t help it, because that’s what I saw. I knew because Poppa died when I was three and I knew he would die, even if I didn’t exactly know what being dead was.

When I was four and mummy said she was having a brother or sister for me to play with. I knew I wasn’t. The ambulance came one night and grandma said mummy was sick, I knew mummy wasn’t sick, I also knew that my brother wouldn’t come home with her.

Mummy didn’t come home with a brother; she came home and cried a lot. She was sad from then on and daddy was at work so when grandma looked after me I would amuse myself drawing pictures.

I don’t think mummy, daddy or grandma liked the pictures I drew for them.

When I started school I knew the other kids were drawing different pictures than me but when I looked at people I knew when they were going to die, some were going to live a long time but some of them wouldn’t and I’d write the numbers in my head onto my pages.

I was seven when the doctors told mummy I should go and live somewhere else for a while, that would help me to get better. But I wasn’t sick!

Mummy and Daddy took me there even though I clung to Mummy and pleaded with her not to leave me. I didn’t see Mummy or Daddy for a long time after that.

The ladies at the place gave me needles every night; I didn’t like them, or the needles. They said I shouldn’t say stuff about people dying but I couldn’t help it because if someone was going to die, I just knew.

Each day would be the same, it would start with pills, then I had to have a shower, the towels were hard and the soap stung my eyes. I didn’t like breakfast, it was bad and I wanted my mummy to make me her pancakes with the smiley faces made of fruit. I cried a lot because I was only little and I didn’t understand what was happening.

I was here for a long time, a whole year when Daddy finally came to see me without Mummy I got mad and screamed and bit his thumb. He left me a picture of Mummy and their new baby girl, my sister.

I didn’t like Daddy for going away and I didn’t really mean to bite him but I just wanted to go home. Because I was angry they would give me needles to make me go to sleep. They didn’t stop the dreams.

I had been in this place for two years and I was nine when a boy who was seventeen years old came to stay. I didn’t know why he was here, he wasn’t like anyone else that was here, his mind worked just fine as far as I could tell, but his eyes, the brightest blue I had ever seen, shone with something, I had never seen eyes so blue ever.

I would stare at him when they let him out of his room because he wasn’t going to die, he was already dead. Why didn’t the people here know that, I could feel it, I didn’t even have to look at him.

I was drawing one day and he was sitting over from me watching something on TV, When did you die. I asked so quietly only he could hear.

You’re crazy, I’m not dead, he yelled back at me. His eyes were the deepest blue I had ever seen and seemed to draw me into their depths. He got up and stomped away and went back to his room. I told the nurse he would get sick soon but their medicine wouldn’t make him better.

Melody Simms would be dead soon as well because the boy would kill her so he didn’t get sick. No one believed me and the doctor came and gave me the needle, it makes them think I’m asleep, but really I’m only dreaming, the needles don’t take away what I know.

Melody Simms would sit by the window, day after day, night after night, staring at something or someone no one else would or could ever see. I was locked up in my room at night; it didn’t matter because I knew what was going to happen anyway.

The next morning Melody was still sitting in her chair by the window as the moon went to sleep and the sun was waking up, she sat very, very still. The nurse went to give her pills but Melody couldn’t take them, not today or any other day.

Melody just sat with a vacant look in her eyes, and an ever so slight smile on her lips and her skin a grey, white colour, not a mark on her body. I said to them I told you so, I told you this would happen. They just locked me in my room. When they let me out the next day the boy was gone.

Because I had tried to tell them about the boy and Melody they locked me in my room and didn’t let me out much for a while after that.

My room had four walls, and two doors, one that went out into the corridor and one that went to the bathroom. All the walls were pale green and I didn’t much like that colour.

I had a bed and a desk and chair so I could sit to eat and draw. I liked the bathroom best because there was a window in the ceiling and I could lie on the floor and look at the sky and clouds, sometimes I’d see a plane or on lucky days a hawk would land on the window staring down at me, staring up at it, sometimes it would peck at the glass or cock its head as if I were something of curiosity to it.

I liked the light from the window in the ceiling; the other one was too bright. That was all I had, sometimes they would let me out for a while but not if there were other kids around. I would try to see through the key hole in the door to the corridor but could only see flashes of colour if someone walked past.

I didn’t much mind being there, so long as they left me alone. When the man used to come to talk to me, he would always ask me why I told people they were going to die. Because they are! I would answer every time.

One day he came to talk to me when I was eight I think? He came in like always and asked me the same questions, this time I knew he was going to die, so I told him and the nurse came and gave me a needle. I never saw the man again.

A few days later I heard the nurse through the door saying there had been an accident. I banged my hands on the door and yelled I told you all, I told him he was going to die! The nurse was crying and one of the others came in and gave me the needle again and got straps and tied my arms and legs to the frame of the bed.

After that they would strap me to the bed most of the time. They would let me sit at the table to eat if I had been good, I missed the window in the bathroom, so if I could sneak my food in there, I would, but they would come in to check on me often so I had to listen carefully for their shoes in the corridor or the jangling of their keys chained to their pockets.

I knew my Grandma was going to die before anyone told me, I know, I said when the nurse told me, and I just turned my face to the wall.

My head was the only part of my body I could move in the straps. I felt like a starfish that had been washed up on a beach, hoping that a wave would wash me back out to sea.

Sometimes I didn’t want to know what I knew, their pills and needles didn’t take it away so I had to try to let it be part of me and not me become a part of it; Sometimes though I couldn’t tell the difference.

Days and nights ran into one another and I couldn’t tell if time was fast or slow, I was just grateful it moved at all.

It didn’t take me much longer to realise that if I kept my mouth shut about people dying they would start to let me sleep without the straps, the longer I kept my mouth shut, the more stuff they let me do.

By the time I turned ten years old I had learnt to tell them what they wanted to hear, my mind had sharpened and I had become wiser than my years betrayed, but to them I was just a screwed up ten year old that was starting to respond to their medications.

They stopped restraining me, inwardly nothing had changed in fact if anything my mind seemed sharper and other thoughts would invade it, just like the flick of a switch and I would struggle to hold it longer than a few seconds as the images flew fleetingly across my mind like fragmented movies.

Children came and went, most were short term to review medications or treatments, some would be re admitted time after time and others I’d never see return, some of them I knew hadn’t made it in this life; the others I guess made it through their fragile lives, outside of this place.

The nurses started to give me chores around the ward and in return they would bring me books and magazines to read. The ward only catered for kids up to the age of seventeen then they were transferred to the adult wards.

At thirteen I started to sneak into the nurses’ station at night when there were less staff. They would sit in the staff lounge with their coffee and I would read through the notes, I wasn’t shocked when I read my own file and saw the words written in thick red ink, ‘Ward Of The State’, even though it had been five years since I last saw my parents I guess I kind of took it for granted that they would come back for me one day. There was no forwarding address for them amongst the words spilling from the file. I didn’t feel bad that they didn’t want me, when I read the words I knew I should feel something but it was like reading about someone else, you read it but it doesn’t affect you.

I found out what drugs they had been giving me and read the doctors notes, I had the intelligence to understand what they had noted about me and the behaviours I had exhibited that were documented, they had after all written the truth as they perceived it to be.

The only difference now was that I didn’t tell them what I saw or knew about the new stuff I was discovering about myself.

I was sitting watching TV one day when one of the other girls snatched the remote from my hand and started surfing through the channels, I was watching that, I said to her. I don’t care about you or what you’re watching, you’re a freak. She hissed at me.

I took the remote out of her hand and the next minute I’m falling to the floor with my arm outstretched to break my fall. I heard the crack in my wrist just before the pain tore up my arm. As I slowly tried to get back on my feet whilst cradling my injured wrist in my other hand, she kicked me in my side, I felt the ribs crack in my chest and the breath leave my lungs, I was winded with the excruciating pain couldn’t move from the floor. She picked up a chair and was about to break it over my head. I tried to roll to the side, but couldn’t move far enough away from the chair that was about to impact with my head.

When the blow failed to eventuate I managed to look up to see a couple of the security guards pull her away.

I was treated in another part of the hospital; I had three fractured ribs, a fractured wrist and several bruises. The plaster had to stay on my wrist for six weeks, I never saw the girl again.

Scuffles like these were unusual in the unit although there had been a few I had seen over the years here, usually the medications kept any anger or violence cocooned in a haze of drugs.

This was the first time anyone had directed their anger at me in such a physical manner and I hoped it would be the last.

I hadn’t been outside of the unit since the day I had arrived. I craved to have fresh air, to feel the wind brushing past my body and to feel the resistance my body made against it.

I missed the simple things most, a soft bed, soft towels and sheets, a kiss goodnight and the feel of sand between my toes but I didn’t know if I would ever have those things again, I missed my parents but didn’t like to mention that too much to the doctors or nurses, I said enough to let them think I still missed them which would be a natural feeling.

My life had been encapsulated into corridors and square boxed rooms. It was only at night in bed that I could let my guard down and let my mind go wherever it took me, I didn’t mind knowing people were going to die, my mind knew that death happened to people every day, some only had short lives like my unborn baby brother, others lived long lives like my Poppa, I had nothing to do with their deaths, I just knew when it was going to happen.

I realised that I was only aware of this if I had contact with the person involved; which made me think of my brother that had died. I hadn’t ever seen him or touched him but he had been part of my mother and I often would touch her tummy and feel him kicking inside her.

If I was correct and I only had to see a person or be in their proximity, what would happen to me if I wasn’t in this environment and was in contact with people out in the streets or brushing past them as I walked by?

Would I know when they would die and if that was the case, would my mind go into overload if it was bombarded with all this information? There were still so many things I didn’t understand about what was happening to me but at least I was starting to learn to live with it and accept that it was part of who I was.

Time moved on, the seasons changed, the years went by, therapies changed and doctors and nurses came and went. My life within these walls remained static, never moving but caught in the void of the children’s screams at night and the bustle of food trolleys, medication cups and bed changes.

I remember seeing a clip of a girl on the TV once, she would sit not moving while everything around her moved in fast motion, that’s how I felt about my life; I was standing still while the world around me moved on, forever moving, while I stayed motionless.

What I had been feeling for some time was now starting to take form.

At first it scared me a bit; I had been so used to knowing when someone was going to die that when the first full images charged through my mind it left me short of breath and gasping for air. Kassy one of the kids on the ward was in a bad way and had tried several times to commit suicide, she had been in and out of the unit for as long as I had been here.

I was with her the evening that she succeeded, she was playing with the food on her plate at dinner, her hands shaking so much that the food wouldn’t stay on her spoon; I reached over to still her hand and when my fingers touched hers I saw as if watching a home movie what her life would have been like if she were to fail in this last attempt, unfortunately that was not to be.

Kassy would have lived until she was eighty two, she would have been happily married, had three children and six great grandchildren, she would have had a happy life had she not taken her own on 08/05/2009, the night before my fourteenth birthday.

It took me some time to come to grips with what my mind had shown me, I had no idea if it would happen again or even if what I had seen was just my mind making things up or if it was real.

It was weird the way I saw it in full colour and the movie lasted longer than I had first thought, I wondered if it depended on how long life was as to how long the movie would play. I wanted to write it all down so I didn’t forget what I’d seen, but if the doctors or nurses ever found what I wrote I’d be in big trouble.

All I could do was save it in inside my head and not tell a soul what I had seen.

I started to attend group therapy sessions with the other kids, none of them were like me, some had alcohol or drug problems, some were being treated for depression or other mental health problems.

I was the only one here that wasn’t actually sick and yet I had been here longer than anyone else. The other kids had visits from their families and even some of their friends would come to keep them up to date with their social and school lives.

I had tutors that came and I seemed to do well academically, but I didn’t get the life experiences that other kids did. Maybe I could become a doctor; however I didn’t think they would let anyone with my record try to treat another human being.

Sometimes I would sit and think about what the future would hold for me in this world, but I always came up with a blank. No one is ever going to want me for anything. I’m damaged and not quite right.

I liked listening to the others though and I learnt a lot about their lives and how they all felt as though they didn’t quite fit into mainstream life, if only they knew how lucky they were to have their families and friends away from this place.

CHAPTER 2

Tomorrow is my fifteenth birthday and I have been here eight years.

I have since learnt to hide the medications they give me and flush them away, I have earned their trust, and am now what they term as compliant, my thoughts are free even though my body is still trapped by the corridors and locked doors. I read a lot, whatever the nurses will bring me.

I sit for hours and devour each word and thought that line the pages, the books send me to places I can imagine vividly, I can feel others emotions through the words and I realised that there was so much that I am deprived of in this place. I never had a crush on a boy; I didn’t have girlfriends to share things with. I didn’t even know how to talk to people my own age, I didn’t know how to shop at a mall or to put on makeup and I felt socially inept.

The nurses had asked me what I wanted for my birthday and now I knew. I went to sleep that night with a resolve to myself that I would learn more about being a person and not a medical condition.

I awoke on the morning of 09/05/2010 to the sounds of people trying to be quiet outside my room, there was a tap on my door and three of the nurses Jess, Meg and Denise were standing in my doorway with pancakes for breakfast.

I hadn’t had pancakes since before my parents had left me here. They all began to sing Happy Birthday and I had to ask them to stop, my ears were sensitive and they were all tone deaf, not that I was an expert.

I felt tears in my eyes as each one of them placed a gift on my bed and gave me a hug. Don’t give up your day jobs I said with a giggle.

As I started to unwrap the presents I was hoping that I had got what I had wished for. The first parcel contained eye shadow and mascara; the second had four different flavours of lip gloss and the third a small bottle of perfume.

I felt so overwhelmed that I jumped up out of bed and gave them all a group hug. Some of them had been here as long or longer than I had so I had come to know them well, they had been my surrogate family for seven years; they would tell me about their families at night when I couldn’t sleep and I would always be left wondering what my life would have been like if I wasn’t what I was.

Because it was early they sat with me in my room while we all devoured our pancakes. Someone has to help me with this stuff; I don’t have a clue how to put it on? I said expectantly.

Don’t worry Jade, we have one more surprise for you and one of us will help you with the makeup, stay in bed for a bit longer while we sort out breakfast and medication for the others, then we’ll make you look beautiful. Sue said.

What would I do without you guys, I said as they all left the room. While they were gone I looked at my new gifts and smiled, no matter how much I would have liked to be anywhere but here I knew I would miss them when it came time to go. About an hour and a half later Jess tapped on my door and had another two parcels in her hands, two large boxes wrapped with red ribbons.

Due to the expression that must have been on my face she said laughing, You can shut your mouth now Jade.

The parcels looked too pretty to open, in the first there was new underwear, a long top and leggings, the second had a pair of black ankle boots, I had never seen such beautiful clothes.

Come on then, you jump into the shower and I’ll get this stuff ready for you, Jess said.

I did as she asked and then she helped me dress and showed me how to apply the makeup.

When I looked in the mirror I didn’t recognise the face that was reflected back at me. Jess took me out into the dayroom where everyone on the ward was waiting for me, they all sang happy birthday to me again. I couldn’t ever remember feeling so happy.

The day had been lovely, one of the best in the eight years I had spent here. I went to bed that night after carefully folding my clothes and just let my mind rest, with no thoughts about anything except how I loved being fifteen.

The next day I showered and dressed back in my new clothes, I knew they should probably be washed but I couldn’t bear to part with them just yet. I helped around the ward with some of the younger kids and after lunch went back to my room to study. It was at about three in the afternoon when I heard the commotion in the hall.

I knew that if one of the others were playing up they didn’t like the rest of us to be around, I had seen how dangerous some of the kids could be and had been at the losing end of one of their tantrums before.

I opened the door to my room just enough to peek at the nurses running back and forwards to the room opposite the nurses’ station, this was where they put the new kids so they could keep an eye on them.

It wasn’t long before the room went quiet and the commotion died down, the needles didn’t usually take long to work. I stepped back into my room, but something edged into my thoughts, I sat on my bed and tried to clear my mind of all thoughts, then I felt a fluttering as if a butterfly had been let loose inside my head.

"Jade do you remember me?

I didn’t know what to think, this voice was as clear as day inside my head. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or not until the voice continued once more.

I was here several years ago, you asked me why I was here and you seemed to know I wasn’t alive in the normal sense, I don’t want to frighten you but I’ve come back to talk to you. I’m not here to hurt you in any way, I know you must think this is weird and you’re not going crazy hearing me in your head. All you need to do to communicate with me is to think in your head what you want to say.

It didn’t take me long to recognise who’s voice was in my head, it was the boy that killed Melody Sims, but that was six years ago, what was he doing here and what was he doing inside my head?

"What