Legacy


Katherine

My life flashed before my eyes so quickly, I could barely catch a glimpse of anything.

"Mommy!"
The woman picked the girl up and swung her around. "I love you, honey."

"Hi, I’m Rachel. Who are you?"
"I’m Melissa!"

"A bike! Oh, Daddy! Thank you!"

"Happy Birthday, Melissa!"
"Oh, a kitten! It’s so sweet!"

"It’s the first day of school and we already have homework?"
"You think that’s bad, Melissa? I’ve a test tomorrow!"

"Mom, Dad, where are you going?"
"We have a meeting, honey."

"Hey, Rachel! You want to head on over to the mall?"
"Sorry, Melissa. I’m busy."

"Hey, Mom? Dad? Can one of you help me with this math problem?"
"We’re busy right now, Melissa."
"Besides, dear, you should learn to do your own work. That’s how you learn."

"I didn’t notice you."
The girl stepped back like she had been slapped. "But Daddy, I was crying."
Melissa, your father loves you more than you will ever. And more than he can ever show you.

Someone who knows

"Mommy? Daddy, where are you?"

"Dad, what is that?"
"Shut up, human."

"Prince Elfangor’s Hirac Delest."

"Taxxons are tracking you."
"What do we do?"
"We’re going to make them think you died."

An alien held a blue cube before a girl. <Press your hand to the surface.>

"It’s my decision. And I say yes."

The Hork-Bajir seer placed a clawed hand on the girl’s shoulder. "Welcome home."

<The Yeerks know.>

"A little girl named Karen."

"The Yeerks have begun an all-out attack. It’s over, Mel. It’s all over."

"If you do a wrong to stop and even greater wrong, does that make your wrong right?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"No wrong can ever be right."

"Don’t die yet, Melissa. I’m expecting you to stick around for a long, long time."
"You too, Toby, you too."

"The stars... I used to believe, if you saw a shooting star, and made a wish, it would come true. I don’t believe that anymore."
"And I used to believe that good things happened to good people. I don’t believe that anymore either."

"You make me happy."

"A cure. A cure for nothlits."

"We are sisters. My blood is your blood. My DNA is your DNA."

"When you get mad, you’re not even human anymore...We’ve been fighting so much we don’t think twice about murder. It’s not wrong anymore, because we stopped caring...We’re not human anymore, we’re killing machines...if the fighting stopped, our souls would stop disintegrating. But it didn’t stop. And now, it’s too late."

<Do you want to know how we captured your little band?>
<...A trail. A trail of human blood. Very distinct...And we followed it...straight to your little hide-out.>

I love you, Melissa.
I love you too, Toby.
Goodbye...and good luck.

A girl knelt down and wrote the words in the dust.
"Free or dead."

<So, do you believe in God?>
"I...I don’t know."

"Go to hell."
"I’ll see you there."

"When you demorph, you picture your body they way you see yourself. You see yourself with the scars. When your own perception has changed, your body will obey that perception." A Hork-Bajir smiled faintly. "Morphing is controlled by the mind, so you must learn to control your mind."

I love you, sister.

"Do you remember me?"
"I’ve never met you before in my life."
"Oh, we’ve met alright. Long ago. You're host had a daughter. Don't you remember, Daddy dearest? Her name was—"
"—Melissa!"

"That’s what I have to trade," the man said. "A whole planet full of . . . that."

"I know more about you than you could imagine, Melissa Chapman."
"That’s not my name."
"No matter how much you have changed, you will always be Melissa Chapman. You will always be human."

"We are all part of a cosmic play. And each has his own part. Your father plays an important role, and so do you. But someone has changed the script, and I must do the same. I cannot reverse it, but I can soften the damage to the future. But like him, I cannot directly affect the course of time. We must have others to do it for us, if they are willing. Are you willing, Melissa?"

"It is your choice, Melissa. Your choice." A woman pointed to a General Store on the corner of a busy intersection. "Go, or not. Come with me to the protest, or go meet destiny. Your choice."

"Katherine. My name is Katherine."

"But you’re not me. It is my choice. The blood will be on my hands. But think. I can save the lives of billions of people, by killing one man. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"That doesn’t make murder right."
"No, it doesn’t. But I shall pay the price Justice serves. If my father dies, his daughter ceases to exist. An eye for an eye."

I love you...
 
"Daddy!" I screamed. My eyes snapped open. Ceiling. White. Smooth. I was in a house. I bolted up, adrenaline coursing through my veins. "Where the hell am I?" I whispered to no one.
Time stopped. I could literally feel it stop. I don’t know how. I just did.
Theresa appeared on my bed.
I jerked back, knowing full well she was not truly human. "What the hell did you do?"
"Did you think your contract was over?" She laughed. "Surprise!"
Now I was mad. "I wanted to die! I’ve had enough of this life. Enough! Do you hear? I can’t take it anymore!"
"Isn’t this what you wanted? A normal life. A loving family. The life you never had?" She asked.
Tears threatened to spill. "I wanted my life. My family."
She put a hand on my shoulder. "The cosmic game is not over. Act I has ended. Act II has yet to begin. Besides," she said as she pushed my bangs out of my eyes like my mother used to, "I think you’ll like this part."
I looked down at myself for the first time and realized immediately my human morph, only a bit younger. "You did this." I did not indicate what ‘this’ was.
"I can call an understudy, you know." Theresa whispered. "But I don’t think you should lose the starring role."
"Is it opening night?" I asked, my question midway between mockery and true curiosity.
"No." Her eyes got a faraway look. "This play has been cast and made many times, and each time it has failed. And each time, it gets harder to start again. But I can’t give up. You can never give up on something you believe in." She sagged slightly. "At least this time, they think it’s Act II. It’s really a new start, you know. But they think it’s Act II."
For a brief moment, I understood. The players of this gigantic chess game. The directors, the actors, even the audience we were trying to save. Then it past, lost in the far reaches of my subconscious mind.
"What’s my name?" I whispered.
"What name did you give yourself?"
I frowned. "Mel?"
"No, what you told Chapman."
"Katherine."
"Welcome to 1971, Katherine." Theresa stood up. "I must be going." She glanced at the door. "But you father’s coming up. He heard you yell." She turned back to me. "Love him, for he loves you very much." And then she was gone.
Nothing extravagant. No sparks or smoke or ‘Poof!’. Not even a light display. One second she was there, and the next, she was gone.
I heard thumping on the stairs, and the door creaked open. A bear of a man with a beard and whiskers came in. He looked nothing like my father, and I cared nothing for him.
"Are you okay, pumpkin?"
I nodded. "Fine. Just a nightmare."
He sat down and gave me a hug. "Wow, must have been some nightmare to make you scream like that." If you’d only knew.
I squirmed, not comfortable with a complete stranger giving me a hug. Especially since I had learned to be wary of everything. He took it as embarrassment.
"What? Too old for your dad? I’m not cool enough?"
I couldn’t help but smile.
"Come on, what do you say we sneak downstairs and go into town and get some ice cream at the parlor? Huh? Just you and me, like old times. You’re mother will never know." He winked.
Ice cream. I hadn’t had ice cream for years.
A frozen part of my heart melted a bit. The part that had been reserved for my father. For those ‘father-daughter’ hikes and learning how to ride a bike and ball games and even doing homework. The ice lump was there, just a little smaller.
I nodded. "Okay."

The ice cream tasted like heaven on my tongue. I had forgotten how wonderful it tasted. Cool and smooth, the richness of chocolate mingled with the pure sweetness of sugar.
I sighed contentedly.
My father grinned. "I know the ice cream would get to you."
I allowed a laugh. My memories of this life had surfaced. I knew this man. I knew myself, and my mother, and this world. But I still felt no emotion.
I did not belong here.
The ice cream suddenly tasted bitter in my mouth. I wanted to go home. To my home. With Rachel and Cassie and Jake and Ax and Marco and Tobias.
But, I chafed myself silently, they’re all dead. And you would be too had you stayed there.
I suddenly realized something. I was in the past. The future was yet to come. The world I remembered was not gone. It had yet to come. Twenty-five years from now, this would be the world I knew. The Animorphs would still be a group of kids. The only thing that would be changed would be me...and the Yeerks...and because of them, the world.
I may have lost the world I knew, but I had gained a new, and perhaps, better one.
Today was the 25th. I knew there was something I had to do.
I turned to my father. "Dad, thanks for the ice cream, but I’ve got to go. There’s a friend I have to see. You don’t mind, do you?"
He waved it off. "Go. It’s summer. Enjoy yourself, but be back for dinner."
I nodded and ran off.

I ran into the woods. I relied on my memory and instinct to find the meadow. It took a while but in the end I did. It was just as I remembered it.
Tobias’s meadow. It was his birthday. Or, at least, it should have been.
Ten years from now, he would be born. Or at least, I hoped so. No telling how my interference with the timeline would affect Elfangor and Loren. But I doubted the Ellimist...Theresa...whatever, would let his favorite human cease to exist.
There was a feather in the grass. A rusty-colored tail feather. I could have been from any red-tail hawk. I knew it was from Tobias.
I fingered it in my hand. "Happy Birthday, Tobias." I whispered. "And good luck."
A breeze ruffle my hair. The sunshine warmed my skin. I took a deep breath and smiled. Theresa was right. I had gotten what I wanted.
I’m home.







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