by Kat Zhang
I shoved my emotions away from Addie, shielding her from my frustration.
We watched as fire swept across the chaos-stricken city. Officially, the last Great War had ended when Addie and I were a baby, but the hybrids occupying the rest of the world had never stopped fighting among themselves. How could they? Addie and I had enough arguments, and we didn’t even share control. How could a society founded on two souls in each body ever be at peace? The individuals making up the country weren’t even at peace with themselves, and that led to all sorts of problems—constant frustration, lashing out at others, and, for the weaker-minded, eventual insanity. I could see the bleak prognosis on the pamphlets at the doctors’ offices, printed in boldface.
So I understood why the Revolutionary leaders had founded the Americas as a hybrid-free country, why they’d worked so hard to eradicate the existing hybrids of the time, so they could start clean and fresh and untainted. I could even understand, in the most rational parts of me, why people like Addie and me couldn’t, on the whole, be allowed free rein. But understanding a thing and accepting it are so very different things.
Addie dashed off some halfhearted notes as the movie came to a close and the bell rang. Normally I would help her, adding the facts I remembered to hers, but I was hardly in the mood now. We were out the door before our paper reached the front of the room.
We’d only made it a few steps down the hall when a second person shot out of the classroom and called Addie’s name.
“What is it, Hally?” Addie said, holding back a sigh.
To my surprise, Hally’s smile slipped a notch, but only for a moment. Enough, though, for me to say
“Want to come over for dinner?” Hally said.
Addie stared. The hall was filling with people, but neither she nor Hally moved from their spots in the middle of the corridor.
“My parents are going out,” Hally added after a moment. Her thick hair still wasn’t completely dry, and she wrapped a finger around a curl. “It’s just going to be my brother and me.” She raised her eyebrows, her smile returning to full force. “I’d rather avoid eating alone with him.”
“Oh,” Addie said. “Oh, well—I—I can’t.”
I’d never heard Addie turn down an invitation to go to someone’s house before—not without a very good reason. Many of the students at our school had attended classes together since primary; entering late had meant hitting a lot of walls when trying to make friends. Everyone already had a place, a group, a seat at the lunch table, and Addie had learned to grab on to what fingerholds she could. But Hally Mullan just plain being Hally Mullan was, I guess, enough reason to decline any offer of friendship.
“It’s my shirt,” Addie said, looking down at the stain in the white fabric. “I’ve got to get home before my parents and wash it. If they—” If they see it, they’ll ask what happened. And where. And then that look will fall over their eyes, the one that snuck onto their faces every time they saw another news report about a hybrid being discovered somewhere, or a reminder to watch your neighbors, to be forever on the lookout for the hidden enemy. It made our gut wrench. Made us want to leave the room.
“You can wash it at my house if you don’t want your parents to see,” Hally said. Her voice was softer now, less brilliant in its cheerfulness, but gentler. “I’ve got stuff you could wear while it dries, no problem. You could change back before you leave, and no one would ever know.”
Addie hesitated. Chances were, our mom was getting ready to drive home. We’d certainly get back before she did, but no way would our shirt be dry before then, and I told Addie so.
Addie said.
Hally took a step toward us. We were almost the same height, mirroring each other—or inverting each other. Hally’s dark, almost black hair to our dirty blond. Her olive skin to our pale, freckled arms. “Addie? Is something wrong?”
Again that question. Are you okay? Is something wrong?
“No,” Addie said. “No, nothing.”
“Then you can come?” Hally said.
I felt her waver and pushed harder. Addie might not have appreciated this girl who questioned Robby about Will and didn’t flinch from talking about settling, but I did. If nothing else, she intrigued me.
Addie chewed at our bottom lip, then must have realized what she was doing and said quickly, “Well . . . all right.”
Four
Addie had to run to the pay phone to tell Mom we wouldn’t be home for dinner, so by the time we reached the arranged meeting spot, most of the other students had gone. Hally stood alone by the school doors. She didn’t notice us until we were right next to her, and then she jumped as if we’d startled her from some quiet reverie.
“You ready?” she asked as soon as she found her voice.
Addie nodded.
“Great. Come on, then.”
The solemn contemplation of a moment ago disappeared. She was all bubbles and energy. Addie hardly got a word in edgewise as Hally blabbered on about how glad she was that it was finally Friday, how nice it was that it was almost summer break, how tiring the first year of high school had been.
Yes, said Addie. Yes, except for the mosquitoes and the humidity. Yes, but it had been fun, hadn’t it?
Neither she nor Hally brought up the ruined trip to the history museum.
We’d expected Hally’s house to be larger than it was, especially after all the pomp and circumstance of the wrought-iron gate guarding the neighborhood. It was bigger than ours, of course, but smaller than those of the other girls we’d visited after school. Whatever its size, the place was impressive, all worn brick and black shutters and a slender, pink-flowered tree in the front yard. The lawn was manicured and the door looked recently painted. Addie peeked inside a window while Hally rummaged for her keys. The dining-room table inside shone a deep mahogany. The Mullan family certainly didn’t need scholarship money to send Hally and her brother to our school.
“Devon?” Hally called, pushing the door open. No one answered, and she rolled her eyes at Addie. “I don’t know why I bother. He never answers anyway.”
I remembered the boy we’d seen at the gate yesterday, standing behind the black bars. Since he was two grades higher, Devon wasn’t as common a topic of gossip as Hally was, but our teachers mentioned him from time to time, and we knew he’d skipped a grade.
Hally slipped off her shoes, so Addie followed suit, undoing the laces and setting our oxfords side by side on the welcome mat. By the time we looked up again, Hally was in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open.
“Soda? Tea? Orange juice?” she called.
“Soda’s fine,” Addie said.
The kitchen was beautiful, with polished dark wood cabinets and granite countertops. A small, lushly colored statuette stood in one corner, a half-burned candle serving sentinel on either side. A tiny clementine lay at the figurine’s feet.
Addie stared, and I was too curious myself to remind her not to. Hally’s looks were one thing—she couldn’t help those. But to broadcast the family’s foreignness like this . . .
“I was thinking we’d get takeout,” Hally said. Addie turned just in time to catch the soda can she tossed at us. It was so cold we almost dropped it. “Unless you’re a brilliant cook or something.”
“I’m all right,” Addie said.
“But takeout sounds good,” she added.
Hally nodded without looking at us. She’d turn
ed her head a little, her eyes focused on some point in the distance. Addie snuck another glance at the small altar. Was it Hally’s mother or father who’d so carefully arranged the candles and the statuette?
“Devon?” Hally called again. But there was still no answer. I thought I saw her mouth tighten.
“I’ve never actually met your brother before,” Addie said, looking away from the altar as Hally’s attention returned to us.
“No?” Hally said. “No, I guess not. You’ll meet him tonight, then. He really ought to be home. . . . I don’t know why he’d be late.”
Addie set her soda on the counter and pulled at the bottom of our shirt. “Well, while he’s not here, could I . . .”
“Oh, right,” Hally said. She blinked and brightened, all smiles again. “Come on. You can choose something from my room. That stain shouldn’t be too hard to wash out.”
Addie followed her up the stairs, which were covered with a rich, cream-colored carpet that extended to the upstairs hallway. Our socks, I realized, had been soaked in that water, too. They seemed too dirty for this house, this whiteness. Addie checked behind us to make sure we weren’t leaving marks on the carpet. Hally didn’t seem to care at all. She bounded on ahead, toward what must have been her room at the end of the hall, leaving Addie trailing behind.
We could see it in one of the rooms on the way to Hally’s, a large, complicated-looking thing sprawled over a desk. We’d used computers once or twice at school, and Dad had mentioned, a long, long time ago, getting one once they got cheaper, but then we hadn’t settled and Lyle had gotten sick and there was no more talk of computers.
Addie paused to stare at it and, by extension, the rest of the room. A bedroom, I realized. A boy’s room with an unmade bed and . . . screwdrivers on the desk. Even more strangely, there was a gutted computer in the far corner—at least I thought it was a computer. I’d never seen one with all the wires hanging out, bright silver parts naked and bared. This was Devon’s room. It had to be, unless there was another member of the Mullan family I’d never heard about. But what sixteen-year-old boy had computers in his room?
“Addie?” Hally called, and Addie hurried away.
Hally’s room was ten times messier than her brother’s, but she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed as she invited us inside and closed the door. She threw open her closet and waved a hand at the clothes hanging inside. “Pick whatever you want. I think we’re about the same size.”
Her closet was full of things Addie would never wear. Things that said Look at me—too-big tops that hung off one shoulder, bright colors and flashy patterns and jewelry that might have gone well with Hally’s black-framed glasses and dark curly hair but would have looked like dress-up clothes on us. Addie looked for something plain as Hally perched herself on the edge of her bed, but Hally didn’t seem to own such a thing.
“Can I just, I don’t know . . . wear your spare uniform blouse or something?” Addie said, turning.
That was when I noticed something was wrong.
Hally looked up at us from her bed, but there was something in her eyes, something dark and solemn in her stare that made me stop, made me say
And then slowly, so slowly it was like something deliberate, there was a shift in Hally’s face. That was the only way I could put it. Something minuscule, something no one would have caught if they weren’t staring straight at her as Addie and I were staring now, something no one would have noticed—would have even thought to notice—if they weren’t—
Addie took a step toward the door.
A shift. A change. Like how Robby changed to Will.
But that was impossible.
Hally stood. Her hair was neat and tidy under her blue headband. The tiny white rhinestones set into her glasses twinkled in the lamplight. She didn’t smile, didn’t tilt her head and say, What are you doing, Addie?
Instead, she said, “We just want to talk with you.” There was something sad in her eyes.
“You and Devon?” Addie said.
“No,” Hally said. “Me and Hally.”
A shudder passed through our body, so out of either Addie’s or my control it might have been a shared reaction. Another step away from the closet.
Our heart thrummed—not fast, just hard, so hard.
Beat.
Beat.
“What?”
The girl standing in front of us smiled, a twitch of the mouth that never reached her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Let’s start over. My name’s Lissa, and Hally and I want to talk to you.”
Addie ran for the door, so fast our shoulder slammed into the wood. Pain shot through our arm. She ignored it, grabbing at the doorknob with both hands.
It refused to turn. Just rattled and shook. There was a keyhole right above the knob but the key was gone.
Something indescribable was rising inside me, something huge and suffocating and I couldn’t think.
“Hally,” Addie said. “This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not Hally,” the girl said.
Only one of our hands grabbed the doorknob now. Addie pressed our back against the door, our shoulder blades aching against the wood. Words squeezed from our throat. “You are. You’re settled. You’re—”
“I’m Lissa.”
“No,” Addie said.
“Please.” The girl reached for our arm, but Addie jerked away. “Please, Addie. Listen to us.”
The room was growing hot and stuffy and way too small. This wasn’t possible. This was wrong. Someone should have reported her. This couldn’t be real. But it was. I’d seen it. I’d seen her change. I’d seen the shift. And oh, oh, but didn’t it make sense? Didn’t it make sense for Hally to be—
“You,” Addie insisted. “You, not us.”
“Us,” she said. “Me and Hally. Us.”
“No—” Addie twisted around again. The doorknob rattled so hard in our hands it seemed ready to jerk right off the door. Lissa started tugging at us, trying to make Addie face her.
“Addie,” Lissa said. “Please. Listen to me—”
But Addie wouldn’t. Wouldn’t stay still, wouldn’t take our hands from the doorknob. And I was just there, stunned, unable to believe, until Hally—Lissa—Hally finally gave up pulling at our hands and shouted, “Eva—Eva, make her listen!”
The world shattered at the sound of her voice, the name that leaped from her tongue.
Eva.
Mine. My name.
I hadn’t heard it aloud in three years.
Addie locked eyes with the girl staring at us. Everything was too clear, too sharp. The headband slipping from her hair. Her perfect, glossed nails catching the overhead light. The furrows between her eyebrows. The freckle by her nose.
“How . . . ?” Addie said.
“Devon found it,” Lissa said. Her voice was soft now. “He got into the school records. They keep track of everything if you haven’t settled by first grade. Your oldest files list both names.”
They did? Yes, they must have. Back in the first years of elementary school, when Addie and I were six, seven, eight, our report cards had come home with two names printed on the top: Addie, Eva Tamsyn. In later years, Eva had been left out.
I hadn’t realized my name had survived the four-hour drive, the transfer of schools.
“Addie?” Lissa said. And then, after a long, shuddery hesitation, “Eva?”
“Don’t.” The word exploded from our chest, burned up our throat, and hit the air with a crackle of lightning. “Don’t. Don’t say it.” A pain slashed at our heart. Whose pain? “My name’s Addie. Just Addie.”
“Your name,” Lissa said. “But it’s not just you. There’s—”
“Stop,” Addie cried. “You can’t do this. You can’t talk like this.”
Our breaths shortened, our vision
blurring. Our hands squeezed into fists, so tight our nails bit crescent moons into our palms.
“This is the way it’s supposed to be,” Addie said. “It is just me. I’m Addie. I settled. It’s okay now. I’m normal now. I—”
But Lissa’s eyes were suddenly blazing, her cheeks flushed. “How can you say that, Addie? How can you say that when Eva’s still there?”
Addie started to cry. Tears ran into our mouth, salty, warm, metallic.
“What about Eva?” Lissa’s voice was shrill. “What about Eva?”
Misery. Misery and pain and guilt. None of them mine. Addie’s emotions sliced into me. No matter what happened, what we said or did to each other, Addie and I were still two parts of a whole. Closer than close. Tighter than tight. Her misery was mine.
But Addie kept crying and Lissa kept shouting and the room packed to the brim with tears and anger and guilt and fear.
Then the world gave out.
Someone must have opened the door, because all of a sudden we were falling—falling backward, and I was screaming for Addie to catch us before we slammed onto the ground, and she was flailing, and I was bracing for the both of us, bracing for the pain, because that was all I could do, until the falling stopped. The falling stopped, and we were staring up, up at the ceiling, and Addie was still crying in her—our—fear, and because she was crying, I was crying, and everything was secondary to our tears. But someone had caught us. His arms were around our body, holding us up.
“What the hell did you do?” he said.
Five
We weren’t so much crying as just taking small, sharp breaths now. Addie wouldn’t—couldn’t—speak to me. But her presence pressed against mine, hot and limp with tears.
“I didn’t mean to,” someone was saying. “She wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know what to do. You wouldn’t have done any better, Ryan, don’t tell me you would’ve—you weren’t even home, and you said you were going to be—”