Sometimes, it is what you do that matters. Sometimes, it is who you are. Usually it is just being in the proper place at the proper moment in time with the will to act.

We went home from the pizzeria. I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I looked at my new earrings in the mirror. My new hairstyle just fell right. I brushed out my hair and there was the new style again. I giggled and clapped my hands together.

'Didn't you promise. . .'

'Hush, Jams'

I thought at that moment that Jams was rubbing off on me, and I wasn't at all sure whether I was happy about it or not. I loved Jams, but I wanted to be my own person too. I know I was making her a home in my dreams, but there had to be another way. Something that would work out for both of us. I would have to think about it.

I slipped into my nightgown and crawled into bed. At some point, someone had taped some paper over the hole in the door. Looking at it reminded me of last night, so I hopped up and locked my door before getting back into bed and going to sleep.

I had the usual variety of dreams, and some unusual ones. Jams and I aren't the same person. I tend to dream in Technicolor about Princesses and Princes, castles and dragons, swords and sorcery stuff all the way.

Jams on the other hand dreams in sepia-tone. She dreams about James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Her mother is a huge classic film buff, and she gets a lot of her dream material from there.

Sure, we both had dreams of the more normal variety, every day stuff, but when we have control, we shape the dream to our fantasies. This, of course was my first time running into her fantasy world.

Jamie Spade, Private Eye threw me for a bit of a loop, to tell you the truth. It was also a lot of fun. Not that I ever get bored of princes and princesses, mind you, I just liked the change of pace for once.

We got up and I showered and clothed myself. I'm a big girl now. I went in. I had a thought of what I should do for my makeup. Something that would be more me than Jams. I went even lighter than she normally did, adding a bit of a difference in color. Her eyes had been more of a blue than my green. I had to mix her colors a bit to get an eye shadow that matched my nails. I tried it on, and both Jams and I agreed that it was not right. I went a bit darker, and a light brushing, and it was perfect. No blush, some lip gloss, she only has pink, and I was done.

I went downstairs to breakfast. Gabe was already finishing up but he stayed to talk to me. We talked for a bit, and then Mom came down. "Good you're both ready. I think both of you need to go back to school today."

"But, I don't know anything about Jamie's classes. I could ruin her schooling for her."

"She is in there with you. Just let her run the show while you're at school. It will be fine. I hadn't told them that she died, yet, so we should be able to keep everything going smoothly."

Even thought I dreaded it, I let Jamie take control, and we were off to catch her bus. How was it that I could subdue a murderer, beat up a child molester, and talk down and out of line police detective, and yet going to school filled me with terror.

We met a group of girls on the bus. I had seen them before, but I only now realized I didn't know their names in either reality.

I tried to pick them up through conversation, but it was going so fast, and from so many directions that I could barely keep up with what Jams was saying. I began to fidget. I felt trapped, and I had to get free. I tried to talk to Jams, but she was focused on her friends and her joy of living. I needed to get out. I started twitching my right hand. just shaking it a bit.

'Stop that, Sis. You're ruining it for me.'

'I can't breathe. I need some air.'

'Course you can't breathe. I'm breathing right now.'

And then she was off again.

"Jamie, what did you do to your hair? It's so short." This was said by a brunette with a pixie face.

"I got a wig so I could see what I would look like as my cousin. She looks so much like me. When I got done, I just had to try on her makeup style. She helped me with that."

Something really had to be done. She gave me an out for when I showed up later, but she still wouldn't have her own self, unless we started wearing a wig to pretend to be her. . .no. That would only work so long, especially if people expected to see us together sometimes, and as cousins that could be expected.

I tuned out while we finished the ride to school. More specifically I was using another sense. I was trying to find something. I knew that there were two worlds, but couldn't there be more? I was feeling out, and finding nothing, when I was bumped by Jams. We arrived at our school. The junior high school had changed little since I was there in my world. I felt my gaze going to the top of the Gym, then Jams clamped down on the motor control, and laughed at something one of the gaggle said to her.

It was so confusing. You know what it's like going into a packed theater to watch a movie, only the movie already started, and no one wanted to tell you what happened already. That's kind of what school was like for me that day.

We went from class to class, hour after hour, and I just became more and more frustrated. Then we got to the last class. Somehow, Jamie was in Creative Writing as well, and she had this worlds version of Mrs. Henderson.

Her name makes her sound like some old, grey, fat and happy woman.

Mrs. Henderson is definitely a happy person, but she is young and vibrant, and slender and blonde. I have always wished that I might someday grow up to look like her. I didn't really think it might happen until recently.

It was a basic writing class, so I won't bore you all with the details. It was the first fun I'd had all day. It was Jams' hand writing, but we were both telling the story.

I actually felt more upbeat by the end of the day, and I was better able to follow the bouncing conversation of her friends. That reminded me of what I'd tried to do on the bus earlier, so I spent the ride home sending my mind out, trying to make a connection to something.

'Oh, another one. How delicious.' Its tone had an oily, crusty feeling to it. It didn't feel at all human. 'I can feel you judging me, Jamie. You won't feel that way forever. Soon you won't do anything at all.'

It knew my name.

'Oh course I know your name. James Patriche, or are you one of the rarer Patrice variants. There are a lot of us out there.

I felt its hands touching my soul, and recoiled.

'Mmmm. A girl. I like the girls best. They know who they are. They're the true Jamie's. They are the most delicious.'

I felt its tongue moving up my side, across my ribs, over my brea. . .I was wearing the Guinevere costume. I smiled. I had something that it didn't expect.

'I really think you're out of your depth, here, Monster. We're in my world now.'

'What are you talking about. . .'

In my dream, toward the end, Guinevere dresses in armor and goes out with her knights and soldiers to save Arthur. I prefer my ending to that in Le Morte d'Arthur that we had to read in school.

I drew my silver sword and slashed it through the tongue of the monster. The James monster. I am beginning to think there might just be one too many of me in the universe.

Its black ichor spewed over my silver armor, and began to bubble and his. Acid? I stepped under a waterfall of pure clean water. It washed clean leaving no marks of any kind.

'You'll have to try harder than that, Beast.' I no longer considered it to be one of us in my mind.

'Feel empowered do you, Little Girl.' it snarled at me. 'This wasn't even the opening round!'

'Jams yells louder than you do. Let me show you how to yell. DIE!!!!!' I threw my sword into the void. Something out there caught it. Well, at least it tried to catch it. Normal physics don't apply on this plane. I twisted the sword at the last minute and the Beast skewered its hand instead of catching my sword.

'The little girl has been practicing.'

'Jams and I have both been practicing.'

A tone of surprise entered the creatures thoughts, 'There are two of you? There've never been two before.'

'It would seem some of us are more social than others.' I couldn't help it. I stuck my tongue out at the Beast.

Suddenly I found an opening, and I was into his mind. His memories washed over me like raw sewage. He had grown up and stayed male. He was a bit older than either Jams or I. Well, I'm older than Jams too, but only by a year. He was a lot older. He was already in his late twenties. His life had been much like Jamie₂'s up until Brian jumped from behind the tree. Different reasons for it to start, but the same general outcome. He had never been allowed to start hormone blockers, however. Brian₃ and he had struggled over the knife. He got the knife away from Brian₃ and made a choice. He took all of his frustration out on Brian₃. I could feel the pleasure he had taken at killing Brian₃ in the way that he did.

I vomited. Not in my head. For real. All over the girl in front of me. She started to look ill, and then she vomited. When it was done, the bus had been pulled over to the side of the road, and the six of us were covered in puke. They called a bus for the other kids, but Jams' friends and I had to wait for our mothers.

I had gotten one last image from that Beasts mind before the connection had broken as he retreated: He had slaughtered his family with the same knife that Brian₃ tried to use on him.

Mom came and picked us up, and all of us girls went our separate ways, promising to call each other. They found out that we had lost Jamie's phone, and they would call the house.

'What happened back there, Sis?'

'We've got a real problem, Jams. We aren't the only ones out there. What I mean is, we aren't the only Jamies.'

'That's great news!'

'It would be if all of them were like us.'

'What do you mean?'

'One of us, I mean, one of the Jamies is a mass murderer. He has been killing all of the Jamies that he comes into contact with. That's not all.'

I shared with her a sanitized version of the memories that I had taken from James. Even so, I could feel her shudder in revulsion. Someone just like us had done this to another human being, and they liked it.

'So, what were you doing when this thing found you?'

'Well, um, I really love you, and all, but, I want to live my own life.' I blushed hotly when I said this. I really didn't want my true best friend in either world to get the wrong idea, but I wanted my head back to myself.
'I completely know what you are talking about, Sis. It was fun for a couple of days, but it gets to be a real drag. Not being able to talk to your friends, or wear your own clothes.'

'Having to take your classes, and let someone else control the body.'

'Having to get permission to use a body at all.'

I blushed again at this one. I admit, she had it worse than I did.

'So, what. Where you going to just push me off on another Jamie, and I would go from world to world, never having a home of my own?'

'Jams, I don't know. I hadn't really thought that far ahead. . .'

'So what do we do now?'

By this point we had gotten home and gotten in the shower. We let the water wash our bodies clean. I wished that it could wash those images from my mind, those emotions from my soul. I let the water pound into my skin as the two of us thought about what our next course of action would be.

'Wait, if he had killed you, what would have actually happened to your body.'

'It would have died too, wouldn't it?'

We felt a renewed sense of purpose, because there were the beginnings of an idea forming in my head. We hopped on the internet and began to search. We searched for "mind dead" first.

It brought up results about songs and strange social pages.

'Well, the mind is in the brain, isn't it?'

'I think you might be the smarter of the two of us, Jams.'

I felt her blush in pleasure. We tried "brain dead" next. One wiki page later, and we had some idea what we were looking for.

'I wouldn't want that to happen to me. To be just lying there, half alive, hooked to all those machines.'

I hugged her. 'Jams, don't worry about it. They're not there anymore. If the Beast had his way, then they are nothing but a body, like you are nothing but a soul.'

'Spirit is more like it.'

She fed me the exact line I had been looking for, 'yep, you're very spirited.'

She groaned at my horrible pun, but smiled all the same. We went downstairs to find Mom.

"Mommy, we're going to go lie down. We're still not feeling really well."
"At least you made it through one day of school." She put her wrist up to my forehead. "It doesn't seem as if you have a fever. You go lie down, and I'll bring up a bowl of soup a bit later."

We changed into a pale yellow nightgown, the same color as Jams' bedspread, only plush on the outside. We lay down in the bed, and I formed an image. I had looked up the machines that would be monitoring a coma patient, as well as several bed styles. I focused on a beautiful, female, Jamie. Close to our age. Long hair, Jams really missed her hair. I felt Jams lending her support. We both focused on what we were looking for. We reached out a mental hand together. We felt a connection. I let go of the world.