The Ghost of Tomorrow

Chapter 1: Aftermath

It’s the first Monday in February 1983, and I’m looking in the mirror
of the dresser that Dad dug up at a garage sale last year, after Mariska
kept complaining about me hogging hers. I’m in my light green checked
summer uniform dress, and I’m fiddling with my hair. Finding a style
that keeps my curls under control, out of my face, and won’t
make me look like a weirdo has had me fretting all week. Never mind that
both Marit and Mariska say that it’s fine, with Mariska muttering about
how in her day she had to wear her hair tied up with red ribbons…

Yes. Heaton. Enrolled as a girl. I did it. I’ve been living as a girl
after school and in the weekends for almost a full year now and somehow,
nobody has caught on that the boy at Ilam primary school called Nick is
also a girl called Natalie. At least, nobody likely to kick up a fuss.
It’s probably just as well I didn’t have many friends at primary school
other than Gavin, and that I never saw any of them at after-school
social activities.

Still, it’s been quite a ride from the day after my 10th birthday in
1982, when future Natalie came to talk to me, and quietly dropped the
bombshell on me that I was really a girl, and that she’d chosen to cease
to exist just to have 30 minutes with me to tell me things about myself
I’d already felt, but never really understood until then. That’s what
really shook me to the core. Her eyes. MY eyes, looking older
and wiser than I’ve ever seen anyone look. The calm acceptance that
while her existence was ending, she was willing to give up eternity just
so I would learn who I was sooner. That kind of thing has an effect on a
girl. Makes them feel like they have to earn that trust somehow. To be
what those eyes were showing me I could be.

There’s a beautifully carved wooden box on my dresser. Mum gave it to
me when we both got back from our whirlwind trip to the Netherlands the
week before last. I’m not sure if she picked it up at an antique store,
or if Opa or Tante Ingrid gave it to her, but I love it. It has a lock,
and the key is on my keychain. One of the keys. The other I gave to Mum
for safekeeping. In the box is my journal, and an old workbook from
primary school. That workbook has everything I can remember about my
meeting with my future ghost. It’s been well thumbed and pored over, and
I’ve made notes. 30 minutes is too short to cover a lifetime, but my
ghost was extremely economical with words. She knew me better than I
knew myself at the time, and while she might not have told me what the
future will hold, she did tell me more than I realised when I first
wrote it down. Or later when I made additions after waking up in shock
in the middle of the night with a new memory of a detail or turn of
phrase I had missed when I first put it down on paper. She gave me a
trail of crumbs to follow, and follow them I did. But I didn’t have to
follow them alone.

Ilam Primary School April 12th 1982. Just after
lunch.

“Nick, what’s the matter, why are you crying? Did something happen at
lunchtime?”

Mrs’s Johnson’s voice barely registered to me as I walked into the
classroom. I tried to speak, but I had no words. I just shook my head
and kept walking to my desk as I heard the titters of my classmates
spread out around the room as they all realised I was crying. Normally,
I’d have been mortified, but I was just numb.

Gavin was sitting at the desk next to mine, his grey-blue eyes
looking at me with concern.

“What happened?”

The events of the last half hour were still whirling in my head and I
felt panic rising inside of me. I had to write this down! What if I
forgot! But I couldn’t do anything while everyone was trying to
get me to talk. I wanted to run and hide. I reached into my desk and
pulled out a blank workbook, and held it and a pen tightly to my chest
like a shield.

Behind me, Mrs Johnson had given up trying to get through to me, and
was talking quietly but urgently to Gavin.

“Can you take him outside and just sit with him for a bit? I’d like
to send him to the nurse, but lets see if he’ll calm down enough that he
can tell us what happened first.””

I felt rather than heard Gavin come up behind me and put his hand on
my shoulder.

“Come on mate, lets go somewhere quiet for a bit.”

I let him guide me out of my seat and towards the classroom door. I
could feel the eyes of the whole class on me as I walked outside. I
walked along the veranda until we were out of eyeshot of the class and
sat down. Gavin sat down next to me.

“Okay, we’re alone now. What’s gotten you so upset that you still
can’t stop crying? I’ve never seen you cry before, so it must
be something serious.”

I took a shuddering deep breath, and slowly, hesitantly, I started to
speak.

“It is. I think I just saw my future self die, and she told me she
did it for me.”

Gavin blinked. Then looked startled as the rest of what I’d said
registered.

“She?”

“It’s a long story. And we don’t have time. Any minute now Mrs
Johnson will have time to come out to see how I’m doing and I have no
idea what to tell her.”

Gavin thought about this for a moment. He was always the clever one
when it came to people. Me? Not so much. I always got flustered.

“Tell her you fell asleep and had a bad nightmare?” He finally
said.

“That’s … brilliant.” I replied, suddenly seeing in my head
exactly what I’d have to say and how to say it. It wasn’t even
lying. Much.

“You still can’t just drop something this big on me and then not tell
me the rest. Can you come to my place after school?” Gavin asked.

“Your house is practically on the way home. I’ll call mum from there
to ask. I don’t have anything after school, I think?”

“Practically on the way, he says. You live three times as far from
school as I do. Most of the kids who live as far as you do get driven to
school every day.”

“I like cycling. Anyway, good idea.”

I saw Mrs Johnson come out of the class at that point and walk over
to where the two of us were sitting. She sat down next to me and looked
me over, eyes full of concern.

“How are you doing? Can you tell me what happened now? I can call
your parents if you like.”

I took a deep breath and answered.

“I’m sorry for making such a fuss. I fell asleep over by the trees
during lunchtime and I had a nightmare. I’d dreamt my sister had died
and it was all my fault. I was still really confused when the bell woke
me and I came in. I’m fine now. Can I just get back to class? I want to
forget about it.”

“Oh dear, that must have been really scary. No wonder you were such a
mess when you came in. Why don’t you wash your face and come back to the
class. Gavin, thank you for sitting with him. If you’ll go with him to
the loos to clean up, you can both come back together. We’re doing maths
exercises this afternoon, but I won’t mind if you just read a bit or do
whatever you feel up to this afternoon. Just keep it quiet, and that
goes for you too Gavin.”

After washing my face, which was looking red and blotchy, I felt a
lot better. Gavin and I headed back into the class to find everyone else
was deep in concentration in their maths exercise books and barely paid
us any attention at all. Mrs Johnson must have told them something to
keep them quiet. She was one of those teachers who was kind, but also
no-nonsense in a way that meant kids did what she asked them to do
without question for fear of her being disappointed in you. She was my
second favourite teacher ever, and miles better than Mr White, the
Standard 1 teacher who over three years ago now had hated me and tried
to convince my parents that I was retarded and should be sent to a
special school because I would stumble whenever I had to read out loud.
My parents were furious and complained to the Headmaster, pointing out
that I was so bored by his lessons that I had been reading “The Hobbit”
under my desk. And could quote the book from memory.

I’d made friends with Gavin that year. Both of us had started the
school year later than the rest of the class. Me because I’d spent
January and February of that year in the middle of one of the coldest
dutch winters of recent times at school in the Netherlands while Mum was
dealing with some kind of emergency with her mother. Gavin had just
emigrated to New Zealand from the south of England. His dad was some
kind of Professor at the University where my Dad worked. We’d ended up
together because everyone else in the class thought we were weird. Me
with my Dutch accent and Gavin with his English one. We’d quickly bonded
over our shared love of fantasy books. We both loved the very English
real-world based fantasy of Susan Cooper’s ‘Dark is Rising’ books, and
more recently had been reading other works like “The Weathermonger” by
Peter Dickenson. My Parents had gifted me a boxed set of Lord of the
Rings paperback books for my birthday just yesterday. I’d been reading
the Fellowship of the Rings all evening until bedtime. I’d just gotten
to the start of the Council of Elrond chapter when mum came in and told
me to get some sleep.

I spent the rest of the afternoon writing down everything I could
remember of my lunchtime visitation. As I wrote, I had a moment where I
started questioning if this was even real? What if what I had told Mrs
Johnson was true, and I’d had a nightmare? Then I looked down at the
notes I’d been making and shook off the feeling. If this had been a
nightmare, it was a really weird and specific one. I’d never
heard of the word ‘transsexual’ or even ‘Eelers Danloss syndrome’ or
however you spelt it. I looked down at what I’d been writing. Nope, I
would never have come up with this myself. And so much of it made sense
to me too.

Like this entry on my list.

Your mind doesn’t work like other kids, and no, it’s not because
you’re gifted. You see more, hear more, feel more and can remember
things like they are real. Hardly anyone can do that, but it also means
you get tired faster, find it harder to concentrate because anything and
everything is a distraction, and you often need quiet time alone just so
you can hear yourself think. Don’t feel bad about yourself when people
say things like “You’re so clever, but you just need to work harder”.
They can’t see how hard you are working on the inside.
Do what you can to work smarter instead. And accept that there will be
some things you will struggle with that seem silly to other people. Like
planning and organising. The next time mum is frustrated about your
school reports, tell her what you find hard to do and why. Both of you
are a lot alike in many ways.

I thought about how I was making this list in the first place. I was
replaying the whole conversation in my head. Like watching a movie
inside my brain. Was this what she had meant with my mind not working
like other people’s? I made a note to ask Gavin if his memories worked
the same way. I’d been wondering for years why nobody could see things I
thought were obvious. This could be one of the reasons why.

brrriing!

The end of school bell rang, breaking off my musings. I quickly
shoved the notebook in my backpack. I’d been completely ignoring
anything that was said that afternoon, I’d have to ask Gavin if there
was any homework, and hope he had been listening. We were a lot
alike like that.

“Coming?” Asked Gavin as I walked to the cloakroom to grab my
jacket.

“Of course! I just hope mum doesn’t mind me changing plans at the
last minute. She’s usually fine about that. Until she isn’t and gets
angry.”

“Yeah, your mum is a bit scary sometimes. I can see why you’re such a
goodie two-shoes. I wouldn’t dare cross her either.”

That wasn’t it, was it? I did what mum told me because it made sense,
and I didn’t want to be naughty. It never occurred to me to try. All of
us were like that. Except Marit, sometimes, when she was in a mood. Only
Gavin did have one thing right. The few times mum had been angry at me
when I’d accidentally done something stupid like go off somewhere
without telling her, she was terrifying. I never made the same
mistake twice if I could help it.

Gavin did’t live far from school, just a 5 minute ride down Ilam
Road, crossing Riccarton Road on to Middleton Road and turning left into
Lochee Road. We parked our bikes in his garage and headed inside
together.

“Oh hello there Nick, did you enjoy your birthday yesterday?” asked
Gavin’s mum as we walked into the kitchen.

“Yes Mrs Locke. Thanks for bringing Gavin. We had a lot of fun.”

She smiled at that. Then the inevitable follow up question came.

“Are you staying for dinner?”

“I have to ask mum if I can. Can I use your phone please?”

“Of course dear. Tell your mum we can drop you off home afterwards.
You know the way to the phone.”

I walked down the hall to the nook with the phone. Gavin’s family had
a fancy phone with a keypad so I quickly called home.

brr brr … brr brr … click

I heard mums voice at the other end of the line. “Plasbeek.”

“Hi mum, Gavin invited me to come over and play. Can I stay here
for dinner?” I rattled off in Dutch.

“Of course dear. If they can’t give you a lift home, just call us
and I’ll ask your father to pick you up. It gets dark at six and you’re
still a bit young to bike home on your own after dark.”

“Mrs Locke already offered me a lift home.” I replied. They
offered me lifts every time I was there. I think they thought I was
dangerously independent that I would bike a whole fifteen minutes alone.
“Thanks mum, love you, i’ll see you tonight.”

“I love you too schat. Have fun.” click

I walked back into the kitchen. Gavin had put together a tray with
some cordial and snacks. He knew what I liked. I turned to his mum.

“Mum says it’s fine, I’d love to stay for dinner.”

“You two have fun then. Dinner is at six. I’ll call you when it’s
ready.”

We both headed down the hall to his room at the back of the house on
the right.

Gavin’s room was the same cosy mess it had been from the moment I’d
met him. His bunk-bed against one wall, a desk against the other under
the window. A book cabinet with a combination of books, meccano and a
model of the eagle shuttles from Space 1999 parked on one of the
shelves. I picked it up without thinking and sat on his bed, my hands
manipulating the release for the passenger cabin automatically.

click … thunk*

Gavin sat down next to me. “So, what now?” was the first thing he
asked.

I handed him the notebook I’d been writing notes in all afternoon,
and started talking. Telling him every detail of what had happened over
lunchtime. After I finished talking, he read my notes intently. After a
while he spoke.

“Well I know one thing. You didn’t make this up. Even you wouldn’t
write down stuff this boringly practical. I mean, when would
you ever tell anyone to exercise more and eat healthy food? And the
medical stuff? I’m sure you’ve spelled most of the words wrong, but I
think they’re real. We’ll have to find a medical dictionary in the
library and look them up.”

He peered at me curiously to see my reaction, then frowned.

“Since when do you wear jewellery?” he asked.

“I don’t?” I answered, confused.

“Well you do now. What’s this?” he said, reaching over to the front
of my shirt and hooking a pendant out from where he had seen it poking
out. I reached down and felt a smooth stone on a cord that had been
hanging around my neck without me even realising it. It was secured by a
pair of slipknots so after lengthening the cord, I lifted it over my
head and held it up so we could both look at it.

It was a small pendant in the form of a spiral, like the kind of
thing you found in souvenir shops, only this wasn’t made of plastic. It
was clearly greenstone, in a nice translucent grass-green colour that
let the light behind it shine through. The pattern was obviously Maori.
I’d seen greenstone carvings like this before in the museum. The cord
was thin and black, and felt much stronger than it looked. I couldn’t
tell what it was made of. It might have been nylon, but I’d never seen
nylon cord this sturdy and yet this smooth before. The whole pendant was
beautiful. The stone was so smooth you could barely feel it, and it was
warm to the touch, holding my own body heat.

I remembered with a shock where I had seen it before.

“Natalie from the future was wearing this. She must have put it on me
while we were hugging goodbye. I never noticed.”

“Can I have a look?” asked Gavin. I handed him the pendant.

He did the same things I had done. Holding it up to the light,
running his fingers over the stone and the cord, and finally taking a
meccano screwdriver from his desk and gently tapping the stone. It let
out a musical clink sound.

“Thats definitely Pounamu, he said.”

“Pounamu?”

“Greenstone. It’s a nice piece. I wonder how old it is. The cording
isn’t traditional.”

“Since when are you an expert on Greenstone?” I asked.

“I’ve been into geology and history since before we met. Remember my
collection of brass rubbings?”

“Do you think it’s magic?” I asked him, a bit apprehensively.

Gav shrugged. “It’s not glowing, levitating or doing anything special
at all. Other than appearing around your neck without you noticing,
apparently. That must be quite the trick. You’re impossible to sneak up
on normally. Honestly? I think your ghost wanted to leave you a
keepsake. It looks like a high quality souvenir. How about you keep
wearing it for now. I’m sure you’ll notice if something weird happens
around it. Weirder than your lunch break already was, anyway.”

He pondered a bit longer. “There’s a book on the symbolism of the
different carving forms somewhere in this house. I know the adze
pendants mean strength. I think a spiral is meant to be a stylised koru
leaf, that means new growth. But there are probably more meanings, there
always are. Give me a moment.” he said before slipping out of the room
and down the hall. I pondered the meaning he had given me. New Growth. A
memory of a lesson on Maori culture from Mrs Wood last year intruded on
me. Gavin was right, and there was more. The Koru or silver fern was an
important symbol of New Zealand. It was something about change and
journeys. Both of which felt hugely significant to me right now. We
still hadn’t talked about the elephant in the room yet. Was I really a
girl? Because that was about as big a change as I could imagine. Yet
somehow it didn’t feel like that either. I’d often wondered what it
would be like to be a girl, but I’m sure that was something everyone
did. Imagine what it was like to be someone else.

Gavin returned a few minutes later with a book in his hands, opened
on a page showing different Maori art symbols.

“Koru. Here it is. New Beginnings: Marks fresh starts,
transitions, the birth of a child, or a new phase in life. Growth and
Rejuvenation: Reflects the continuous journey of emotional, creative, or
spiritual development.Return to Origin: The inner coil signifies
grounding, inner strength, and staying connected to one’s roots while
moving forward. Harmony and Balance: The symmetric flow represents a
peaceful state of balance between an individual and nature.”

I looked over at Gavin, shocked. My future Ghost had somehow handed
me something that perfectly described everything they’d talked to me in
a package I could hang around my neck. Gavin looked back.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking when I found this too. Your ghost
is about as subtle as a slap in the face.”

“We need to talk about the most important thing my ghost told me.” I
answered. “How do I know if I’m actually supposed to be a girl? I mean,
I’ve thought about it, what it would be like. I don’t hate the idea. But
I suppose everyone considers stuff like that sometimes.”

“I haven’t.” Shot back Gavin.

“Really?”

“Really. I like how I am just fine. I mean, imagine this. You wake up
tomorrow morning, and you’ve turned into a girl. And everyone acts like
you’ve always been one and that this is totally normal. What do you do?
Because I would freak out so badly.”

“I don’t get it. I’d try it to see if I liked it before I started
panicking. It would be like putting on other clothes only you’re putting
on another body. I wouldn’t mind trying on another body for size. I
don’t like this one much. This one is a mess and doesn’t fit right.”

Gav just looked back at me intently. Waiting.

Oh. OH! I didn’t like this body because it didn’t fit right.
Because it looked and felt like a boys body? I had no idea, but I’d have
to think about it.

Gavin was still waiting for me to react. “I think my ghost was on to
something with her telling me I’m a girl. I’ll have to think about it a
bit more.” I told him.

“So if you’re really a girl, what should I call you? Because Nick
isn’t a girls name.”

“Natalie. You can call me Natalie.”

“I assume only when we’re alone?” he asked me.

“Until I’ve worked out how to tell my parents and we see how they
react. And I have no idea how we’re going to do this. I need books. Lots
and lots of books.”

“I’ve got an idea…” Gavin answered with a grin on his face. This was
not going to end well…

We spent the rest of the afternoon brainstorming how we were going to
get the information we needed. In the end, Gavin’s plan was actually
fairly sensible. We’d tell our parents we were working on a class
project together, which was true. We had an open subject poster to make
which we’d been putting off doing since last week. Which gave us the
perfect reason to go to the Public Library together tomorrow after
school. If we couldn’t find the information we needed there, we’d come
up with an excuse to go digging in the stacks of the University Library.
Since both of our fathers worked at the university, we hoped a couple of
ten year olds in the stacks wouldn’t be too unusual. We’d both been in
there before.

Dinner at the Locke family was the usual quiet affair, and soon
after, Professor Locke put my bike in the boot of their car and drove me
home. It was only a short drive but I nearly nodded off. This had been
one of the most intense days of my life. Mum took one look at me when I
walked into the kitchen and told me to get into my pyjamas and brush my
teeth. After kissing the family goodnight, I rolled into my bed and was
out like a light in seconds.