Riftbound

By Adrian Appel

My Name is Lydia Park. Orphan. Juvenile Delingquent. Special Forces Soldier. Murderer. And, last but not least, something called a phasewalker. Connected with and able to travel through universes parallel to our own but invisible to the average human, I have abilities that the average person can only dream about. It's made me of interest to many people, most of which wanted to use my powers to further their own means. Good thing I'm not someone to be pushed around - mess with me at your own peril. My Name is Park, Lydia Park, and this is my story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9780244000189

Book preview

Riftbound

Riftbound

Chapter One

"When people learn about my gift, they usually go through three distinct phases of dealing with what they have found out.

The first is disbelief and denial. It's an understandable – if extremely annoying, because predictable and not very helpful – reaction. Most people have an instinctive fear of the paranormal and will go to great lengths to distance themselves from it and pretend it doesn't exist. Some people – those with the frailest minds – will never go beyond this stage – they cannot bring themselves to accept that that which they see is real.

People that come to accept that I am no fraud – even though I occasionally wish that I was – progress to the second stage. This second stage is fear and exclusion. People generally fear those things that they do not understand and distance themselves from them. Many people, upon finding out who I am, want nothing more to do with me. It's a mutual reaction. When people react like this to me, I want nothing more to do with them. As long as they leave me alone, I leave them alone. They're not worth the trouble.

Only the strongest of people progress to the third and generally final stage. Exploitation. Without fail, people that overcome their fear of the paranormal and accept who they are dealing with will attempt to use me for their own purposes, attempt to persuade me – by various legal and illegal means – to solve their problems that they are incapable of solving on their own."

The policeman – Lieutenant John Moore, as he's introduced himself – across from me nods and smiles.

I know the feeling. It's an occupational hazard.

His face screws up in concentration, and suddenly the chair he was sitting on just a moment ago is empty. I feel the familiar rush of cold air and see the frost covering the chair he was sitting on. The air is sizzling with an invisible energy that I can't really describe. There are goosebumps all over my arms.

I don't have to turn around to know he is now standing behind me, and I don't flinch like anyone else would have in this situation when he taps me on the shoulder. I can clearly see the connection, the lines of power connecting the position he was sitting in on the chair with the position he is standing in now. The lines go straight through me as if I wasn't there at all. They don't harm me but I can feel their presence.

I turn about to face him, but already there's another rush of cold air and he's sitting back in same chair he'd been sitting in before he started using his powers, concealing the exhaustion I can guess he must be feeling.

Lieutenant Moore suddenly appears back in the chair he'd been sitting in at the beginning of the interrogation, leaving behind only a short-lived ghost-like image of himself in the spot where he was originally standing, quickly fading into nothingness.

I stare at him as the implications of what I've just seen begin to dawn on me.

I always thought I was unique.

I've never heard of another one like me. No one I've ever talked to knew someone else who has the gift. No one except my mother – and she died when I was nine years old. Until this point, I didn't think there were other phasewalkers out there.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm sitting across from someone who actually knows how I feel, who's been through similar ordeals to the ones I've been through.

Now that, for the first time in more than a decade, I finally have someone with me who is willing to talk to me, who's willing to listen and who can perhaps relate to me, who can be in my presence without risking his life, I suddenly find that I don't have the first idea what I should say.

I'm not a people person. Never have been, as far back as I can remember. Other children always quickly picked up on the fact that I was different from them, that I did not fit in, and they rarely wanted much to do with me after that. I have a deep mistrust of other people, to the point where I've spent the last ten years living in almost complete isolation. The other reason for my self-enforced exile from society is that people that I get close to often tend to die. Violently.

Because having the gift is like having a bulls-eye on the back of your head.

You're a phasewalker. I say at length, my voice, so long unused, sounding odd even to myself, I thought I was the only one out there.

Moore smiles.

You're not the only one of us. There are at least five more phasewalkers 'out there', as you put it, he responds.

We look at each other in silence for quite a while, each of us waiting on the other to say something else.

Then Moore sighs and pulls out a document, handing it over to me to read.

It's a 'wanted' notice. Just like you see them in the movies. Only this one happens to be real. And I’m all-too-familiar with the person described.

It's not the first arrest order with my name on it that I've held in my hand. I very much doubt it'll be the last. Wouldn't be the first time that I'm arrested, either, for that matter.

Name:Lydia Park

Age:27

Height:5' 1 ½" (1.54 m)

Appearance:Subject is of Asian descent, slight build, slim, black hair and brown eyes, noticeable burn scar on her left forearm, smallest finger on right hand missing, unit tattoo on her left ankle with inscription 'Animus fortior Gladius'

Crimes:27 Counts of Homicide, Aggravated Assault, Treason, Dereliction of Duty

Notes:Subject has extensive special forces training. Do not approach without express approval. Report all sightings to a superior before taking any action. Subject is believed to be mentally unstable. Turn over to Military Police upon arrest.

I snort.

Mentally unstable. They have no idea.

Someone has written phasewalker(?) in red ink at the bottom of the page. The picture of me is over ten years old and shows me as a teenager in special forces uniform, wearing the tan beret of the Canadian Special Forces. Next to it is a reasonable computer approximation of my current appearance, the computer having been used to simulate ten years of aging from the time the first picture was taken. The computer-generated face is a little more gaunt and harder than the real-life version, but the resemblance is clearly there. Score one for computer-simulated aging.

That was a part of my life that I would like to forget about if at all possible.

Actually, it's one of the periods of my life that I have the fondest memories of.

The events that ended that chapter of my life – permanently, without any option of going back – are the ones that I wish I could erase forever.

Together with many other events in my life.

I stare at the Lieutenant, again without saying a word, and hand the warrant back to him, careful not to betray and hint of emotion. My instincts are subconsciously taking in the possible exits from the room – and all the objects in the room that could be used as a weapon if necessary. If I was in the presence of an ordinary police officer, I don't doubt that I would be able to escape. I've done it before, and I'm pretty sure that I'll have to do it again. Trying to catch someone with the gift is like trying to keep water from running through your fingers – an exercise in futility.

But here I am, up against another phasewalker, or temperist as he apparently calls us. It's a completely new experience for me. It doesn't seem to be the case for him.

That gives him an advantage.

If I try to escape, it could – probably would – also mean having to hurt him.

I realize that I don't want to hurt one of the only people I've spoken to in almost ten years. I'm not sure I could, not when he's only carrying out his orders and doesn't really mean me harm. Pretty strange for a convicted mass murderer.

Besides, the worst the Canadian police will do is throw me into jail. Solitary confinement. And after all that I've been through, that's almost a holiday for me. As well as being no different from what I've put myself through for the last decade.

All of this is going through my head as Police Lieutenant John Moore holds up the arrest order in front of him as if studying it. It's all an act, of course – he's sure to already have read it, multiple times – hell, he even made his own notes on the page. He takes out a cigarette and lights it. I realize immediately that I won't be able to hurt him if I have to. Not because of the cigarette. It's because he's the only person – ever – that I can remember liking on sight.

He just happens to be working for the wrong people.

The sight of him smoking induces a similar craving in me. I reach for my cigarettes before realizing that my backpack has obviously been confiscated. Along with my hunting rifle, hatchet and anything else that could be used as a weapon.

As if that would make being in my presence any less dangerous.

Moore hands me a cigarette, saving me the trouble of deciding whether to ask for one or endure the cravings, and lights it. Smoking while my hands are handcuffed together is awkward, but better than having to endure the cravings on top of everything else that's happened in the last few days.

I remember the words of a good friend of mine.

You do know that those things are going to kill you someday?

Fat chance. The chances of my living long enough to die from smoking are getting slimmer by the second. Or at least my chances of living long enough in freedom. Add to that the fact that I'm much more resilient against physical injury of whatever form than most other humans, and dying from lung cancer is pretty low on my list of worries.

The policeman across from me is not especially attractive – although I did like the look of the brief smile that was on his face after demonstrating his powers – but something about him tells me that I can trust him.

Which doesn't mean much. It's not like I'm the greatest judge of people.

He's wearing a spotless RCMP uniform – working uniform, not dress uniform. He's got glasses – sunglasses, I can see, probably to hide the bloodshot eyes that are a side effect of extensive use of a phasewalker's powers.

Either that, or he's watched a few too many James Bond movies.

The sunglasses aren't exactly necessary indoors or at this time of year. Which is early February, in case you're wondering. Early February in the small police station in North Bay, Canada.

His blond hair is cut short, his equally blond beard carefully trimmed and maintained. I would guess that he's about five years older than me. His athletic, muscular build and statue – he's a head taller than I am – denote that he doesn't rely solely on his gift.

Smart move. The gift should be used as sparingly as possible.

I remember the man that spoke those words.

Remember him well. He was like the father I never had to me for a while.

He's been dead for fifteen years.

I was not the one that killed him, but it was my fault that he died. I might as well have strangled him with my own hands – that's how guilty I am in his death.

My eyes widen in surprise, but that is all the reaction I show as John Moore takes the cigarette lighter and holds it to the warrant. The document quickly bursts into flame and leaves only a pile of ash on the table. The smell of the smoke from the warrant mingles with the smell of cigarette smoke in the room.

The Canadian government has ordered your arrest, he begins, I have something else in mind.

Here it comes. Someone else wants to use my powers for their own personal gain. And here I thought this man was different.

Get real, Lydia. No one is different. Everyone has their own agenda. Even you.

He must catch the look on my face, though, because he adds:

"I'm going to make you an offer. If you don't like it, I'll let you go and pretend never to have seen you, I'll put in the official report that that young man that found you and reported you in was delirious as a result of his physical condition, that we brought in the wrong person, and no one will doubt my story. But first, I'd like to hear your story. Most of all, I'd like to know where the treason charge came from – because I don't work with people that run out on their friends when they're in need. Not ever."

My eyes widen, and I mentally take back what I was going to say. For the first time – ever – someone is actually giving me a choice. I take the leap of faith and decide to trust this man, well aware that that's never led to anything but trouble in the past.

But then, none of the people that I put my trust into were other phasewalkers.

It can't hurt to give it one more try.

My heart is beating faster – in fear, and yet in anticipation – as for the first time in my life, I tell someone my story. Not a cover story that the special forces made up for me. Not a story that I've made up so as not to attract attention. It is the story of a girl named Lydia Park, a girl that few people knew for what she really was and that few people ever really got to know. The story of a life, with ups and downs the like of which few people face, and with experiences that I will never wish on anyone else.

My name is Lydia Park, and this is my story.

Chapter Two

I was born on January 13th, 1989. Friday the thirteenth. If I was the least bit superstitious, I would probably say that my date of birth was prophetic for how my life turned out. But really, it was a date like any other.

We make what we can with the life we have and we're responsible for what we do with the hand of cards fate deals us.

Not my words. They are those of an older and wiser person that I hope, someday, to be like.

If I live that long.

Which I doubt.

In my case, it was one awful hand of cards. Some other people might have folded it the moment that they saw it.

I'm not that kind of girl.

I don't do give-ups.

My mother was an upper-class Californian girl from one of those suburban neighborhoods where one house – mansion, really, compared to anything that I've ever lived in – looks grander than the next one and the neighbors try to out-match one another with ever more expensive cars. This is all a front, of course – it is done to hide the fact that they're all really insecure snotty people that are afraid to be themselves because of what other people might think of them. So they are who society expects them to be and hope that no one takes the wrong kind of notice.

Since my mother fell out with her parents simply over the fact that I was born in the first place and that she did not have an abortion, I've only met my grandparents once in my life, and that was through a one-way mirror at a police station. Suffice it to say that I don't have fond memories of the meeting.

My mother and father met on an evening in early May, one of the first days of that year that was nice and warm. It was at one of the endless beach parties that take place on the west coast at that time of the year, during spring break. Many young men and women – my parents included, apparently – often seem to think that spring break is a license to go throw down all inhibitions and have fun, regardless of the consequences.

I was one of those consequences.

I don't know much about my father. I know his name was Bo-Ram Park – or at least that's the closest approximation of his Korean name that the limitations of western phonetics and our alphabet can portray. He was from South Korea and on vacation in San Francisco at the time, paid for by one of his parents. I know he ran into trouble – drugs, crime – later in his life. That's pretty much the entirety of my knowledge about him. I never made the effort to track him down.

As a child, it was because the man that broke off all contact with my mother and – by extension – me after learning that that one night's fling had made him the father of a young daughter didn't mean anything to me. That's not to say I was angry with him. Suddenly being thrust into the role of a father is a great responsibility, and I don't blame him for trying to back out of it. That's just the way some people deal with hardships in their lives – they try to run away from them. I just didn't see the need to go find him afterward.

My mother must have made the effort to track him down, perhaps to try and change his mind, to attempt to raise me together, but if she did, then she did it in such a way that I never got wind of it. I know that she cared deeply about my father – as deeply as you can about a man that you've only really ever spent a single night with.

As an adult, I never made the effort to track him down not only because he didn't mean anything to me and because he had caused my mother a lot of pain, but also because despite of all that, he didn't deserve to be put into danger.

After all, I'm not exactly the safest person to know.

Never have been.

Never will be.

My mother's pregnancy caused quite a scandal in her neighborhood. An upper-class white girl just shy of her eighteenth birthday from a well-to-do family, pregnant without any sign of a father.

It probably didn't help that she lived in the sort neighborhood where nothing ever happens and where, as a result, gossip of that sort sticks around forever, to be brought up at every opportunity. If my mother hadn't eventually left the neighborhood to start a new life far away from the gossip and the influence of her parents, it's very likely that the two of us would still be facing the same gossip today.

And I would happily trade in any amount of gossip at my expense in order to have my mother back. If you've stared death in the face, then slander and harsh language pale in comparison.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me tell the story one thing at a time.

My mother had grown up in a very sheltered state, kept as safe as possible by her parents. My grandparents were ridiculously overprotective of my mother – her words – and as a result, she was something of a rebel in her teens. But it also explains why she never came into a situation where she instinctively used her powers.

That's right.

My mother was a phasewalker as well. It's something that's usually inherited – inherited matrilineally – as it was in my case.

A phasewalker that doesn't know that he or she is gifted will occasionally use his or her powers instinctively. This generally happens when you are subject to strong emotions, especially fear and anger because those emotions tend to trigger a fight or flight response.

If my mother ever did get into a situation like this, where she used her powers, she didn't realize what had happened. My mother never knew she was a phasewalker – she probably didn't even know what that term means or that they existed at all.

One evening, there was yet another heated argument where her father – my grandfather – vainly tried to convince my mother to have an abortion so the family could pretend that everything was going to be all right. I don't know exactly what happened – my mother was pretty vague on this point when she told me – but words led to shouting and the heated argument came to an abrupt end when her father slapped my mother full-tilt across the face.

Hitting a phasewalker is neither smart nor especially effective. I've been told – by people that have tried to hit me, in special forces training or in the myhriad of tussles that you get into as a teenager with an attitude – it's roughly like hitting a brick wall. A phasewalker can use his or her powers to deprive a blow of all of its force.

It's likely that my mother instinctively used this ability against her father.

He broke two fingers on his right hand.

My mother packed her bags that night. She didn't want anything to do with her parents after that.

It may seem extreme to leave your family – the people you have spent your entire life up until this point, and who've always cared for you, despite some disagreements that you may have had – because of a single blow, but you have to remember that for months previously, my mother and her parents had been in perpetual disagreement and argument. The blow was the straw that broke the camel's back – I'm pretty sure my mother would have left her parents regardless at a later time and in fact told me that she'd been making plans to do so for days.

She moved to Canada.

Why Canada? I don't know. She never told me. If I had to guess, it was probably because it was as far away from California as she could reasonably get yet similar enough to her home, culture-wise, in its own way. My mother kept herself afloat doing odd jobs in a small town called Huntsville. It's in northern Ontario, on the edge of a large and almost uninhabited National Park called Algonquin Park. It's basically in the middle of nowhere.

I was born not long thereafter.

Even during her adult life, I don't think my mother ever found out that she was gifted. Her powers were never very strong, she rarely got into situations where she used them instinctively and so I don't think the opportunity for her to discover her true self ever arose.

If it did, she never told me.

But I don't think she knew.

If she had known, that knowledge might later have saved her life.

***

Children are often quicker to realize that a person is somehow connected to the paranormal than an adult. In my opinion, this is because of two reasons.

For one, adults are set in their ways of thinking. Many of them have never come into contact with phasewalkers or the paranormal and are convinced that it does not exist.

Only a select group of people in some branches of the government, the military and various research groups know that phasewalkers exist. Well, and me. I guess I don't fall into any of those categories. I used to be military, but that didn't end well.

Not believing that something exists causes people to come up with all kinds of explanations for what is happening right in front of their eyes instead of going with the simple truth.

Children, on the other hand, aren't so set in their ways of thinking. Their minds are still open for learning and for them, seeing is believing. They are used to the fact that adults do not always tell them the truth – since for various reasons, they often don't – and when they see something that does not coincide with what an adult has told them, they are ready at once to question it. Not that most children consciously follow this line of thought, but that's the way it works, all the same.

The other children in the school that I visited as a child quickly caught on to something. Not that I made it especially hard on them.

At a very young age, I discovered that many objects would talk to me if I would only listen.

I would – if left to my own devices, which I often was – spend hours sitting in a corner of the classroom, oblivious of my classmates, the teacher or anything else about my surroundings. I would stare at an object, totally immersed in the story it had to tell, forgetting the flow of time.

The old math book I'd been handed down from an older student had been witness to more than one drama. It had been used – unsuccessfully – to cheat on a test and had been witness to the various dressings-down and punishments that the student had been handed out as a result.

It had been thrown at another student as a result of an argument, giving him a black eye and leading to a detention which the thrower had – ironically – spent copying down the first chapters of the same math book that had earned him the punishment. Talk about poetic justice – sometimes teachers apparently do have a sense of humor. Finally, it had once been tossed in the wastepaper basket only to be rescued and lovingly repaired – using copious amounts of duct tape – by the librarian, before being handed to me.

The other children began avoiding me. Well, not avoiding me, really. They just stopped actively seeking me out and asking me to 'come play with them'. That was absolutely fine with me. I'd tried to tell them at first about the stories that pens, pencils, desks and books told me. In hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprised that they weren't interested.

Few children in first grade have the patience to listen. To them, I was just the continuously dreamy girl that it was boring to be around and that never talked or joined them in a game of tag. School life went on around me, oblivious of me.

This was just fine with me.

My teachers eventually picked up on the fact that I was always off by myself somewhere and often seemingly lost inside my own head. They were worried about me, worried that there was something wrong with me, worried that I was perhaps being mistreated by someone or that I suffered from one of many mental disorders.

At least that's what I later gathered from their behavior towards me. They never told me in so many words.

They'd take me aside after class, talk to me and try to find out what was wrong. They never believed me when I told them nothing was. They never got to the heart of the matter either, though. None of the teachers had ever heard about phasewalkers. When I tried to explain to them what I did, they would think I was telling them stories to evade their questions. The person that came the closest to believing me was probably my English teacher, Mr. Owens, an older man close to retirement who would listen to my stories with interest.

You've got an extremely fertile imagination, Lydia, he'd say, some day, you're going to make a lot of money as a writer.

Aside from my mother, he was the only person I was at least somewhat close to.

To me, there was nothing wrong with me per se – I just preferred spending time by myself. I tried to explain this to my teachers, but they'd just sigh and try to explain to me how I couldn't hope to go through life always remaining distant and dreamy.

I was moved to the front row next to the class clown instead of my back row seat next to the window. That didn't change anything.

Eventually, the teachers contacted my mother to explain their worries.

The first I learned of this was when I came home that night.

I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating dinner. We would usually eat take-out food or instant meals, probably because my mother never really got the hang of cooking and didn't want to torture her daughter – or herself, for that matter – with her attempts at cuisine. On this evening – I remember exactly because of the events that followed – it was Kraft Dinner. If you've never had Kraft Dinner, you should. It's awesome – perfectly cooked Macaroni with a gooey cheese sauce. It's one of my favorite foods – still is now, as a matter of fact.

My mother comes over and leans against the table next to me, fixing me with a serious look.

I don't know why, but as far back as I can remember, my mother was the only adult that always took me seriously. She treated me like an adult, trusting in me, and in return I would honor that trust as best as I could. It seems an odd way of raising your daughter, but for me it worked, because I always tried my absolute hardest to honor that trust. She taught me more, in her own way, than a hundred admonitions, dressings-down or punishments would have.

The teacher had a talk with me about you today, she says.

I look up at her, catching the worried look in her striking green eyes.

I didn't inherit those green eyes. I must have picked up most of my appearance from my father's side of the family.

He says that you spend a lot of your time daydreaming, that you're often off by yourself and that you don't seem to have any close friends.

Even if I wanted to – which I rarely did – I learned early on that lying to my mother isn't something that I should do. She has – had – an uncanny knack for figuring out the truth. Either that, or I'm just a terrible liar, which is quite possible since I rarely get any practice.

He's right.

My mother sighs, clearly concerned like all of my teachers.

Why? Is there no one in your class that you like? No one that wants to play with you?

Her slim, spindly fingers stroke through my hair gently and she sighs. Again.

The other kids in my class are boring. All they ever do is play tag, throw snowballs at each other...

And you want to do something else? she asks.

I talk to things. Books. Desks. And they talk to me. A lot of them have very interesting stories to tell. I sometimes tell Mr. Owens these stories. He says I'll be a great writer someday.

My mother isn't – probably isn't – aware of her powers as a phasewalker. But she must have some clue that the paranormal does exist, that the two of us are somehow different, maybe subconsciously, because she doesn't question me whatsoever.

Lydia, she says instead, her eyes now intently fixed on mine, there will always be people in life that will try to tell you what to do and what not to do, people that will try to make you fit in. You have to realize that people that do this are afraid to step out of line themselves. You have to figure out for yourself what it is you want to do and how you're going to go about doing it, because no one else is going to do it for you.

I've remembered those sentences ever since. It's one of the things that was extremely important to my mother, and it's something that I've based my life on ever since.

Then she suddenly smiles.

What's your Mac & Cheese telling you?

Nothing aside from 'eat me!'

We both share a laugh at that, although it’s the truth. Food and other items of day-to-day use usually just aren’t around long enough for people to associate strong memories with them, and when they do, those memories usually aren’t very interesting. There are only so many variations on ‘god, I’m starving’, after all.

It's one of the rare times that I actually made a joke that people laughed at. I'm occasionally surprised to discover that I do, sometimes, have a sense of humor. Sometimes.

On a sudden impulse, I reach up to touch the necklace she is wearing.

It is the only piece of jewelery that my mother owns and she wears it every day. It's a gold heart on an otherwise unadorned gold chain.

I'm not even remotely prepared for the rush of memories that floods over me. The stories that objects have to tell are often interesting, but rarely emotional.

This one is different.

Tenderness. Nervous excitement and giddiness. My mother, eight years younger, walking along a beach in the sunset, hand in hand with a young Asian man that can only be my father.

Him reaching over and putting the necklace around her neck.

The two of them kissing.

Hope. Sorrow. Pain. My mother waiting at the same beach, alone, staring out across the water.

Despair. Anger. My mother sitting in a room that I've never seen before, staring down at the necklace in her hands, crying.

Throwing it into a wastepaper basket across the room, only to stare after it in panic, running to the wastepaper basket and retrieving it, holding it to her chest, tears falling down her face.

My mother reaches up and gently moves my hand away from the necklace. I wipe the tears from my eyes. I'm too