by Rysa Walker
Also by Rysa Walker
Novels
Timebound
Time’s Edge
Novellas
Time’s Echo
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, and events are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locations, events, or people, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Rysa Walker
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations included in critical articles and reviews.
For information:
http://www.rysa.com
First edition: June 2015
For my Mama
And all the other Mamas and Moms
who give your kids the side-eye
when they call you Mother.
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
September 14, 1984, 2:32 p.m.
“There’s no way Mom will let you out of the house in that,” Deborah says, looking up from her book. “Or with that much makeup. She’s going to march you right back upstairs and—”
“Ah, but Mother isn’t taking me. She’s locked up in the study working on some report. Dad’s driving me.”
Deb nods, because we both know that unless I get into the car in my underwear, Dad won’t have a clue whether what I’m wearing has earned the Katherine Shaw stamp of approval. A skirt this short would be vetoed in a flash. I had to buy the outfit with my own money, sneak it in, and hide it in the very back of the closet, behind that poufy thing I wore to the eighth-grade dance.
It was worth it. The edges of my red bra peek up over the black lace shirt if I move just right. I practiced in front of the mirror, and it looks perfect when I hold the violin up to my shoulder. Jason already seems to have forgotten that I’m fifteen—well, practically fifteen. With any luck, this ensemble will also make him forget I’m his student.
“But what about when you come home?” Deb asks. “You still have to get up the stairs, Pru.”
“Well, that’s where you come in, my dearest darling sister. Could you run interference when you hear the car pull up? Pretty, pretty please? I’ve been waiting three whole weeks for this opportunity, and who knows when I’ll get another one. I’ll return the favor and I’ll even let you wear this. Promise!”
Deb laughs and shakes her head, because we know that both promises are pretty much risk free. The guys Deb likes have parents picking out names for the grandchildren after the first date. And unless Deb has a radical change in style, she wouldn’t be caught dead in this outfit. We’re twins, but we’re most definitely not identical.
“Okay, okay,” she says. “But if Mom catches you, I had no idea what you were wearing. I was taking a nap when you left, capisce?”
“Capisce.”
“It’s capisco, if you’re agreeing.”
“Don’t care, mon frere. Thank you, thank you. I owe you one.”
Deb snorts. “You owe me about a million.”
Which is true, but she’ll never expect me to pay up, and that makes her the perfect sister.
I squeeze her foot and hurry over to the mirror, pulling my dark curls up and off to one side. “More lip gloss, or do I look perfect?”
She tips her head to to the right. “If by perfect, you mean three years older and asking for trouble, then yes. Absolutely perfect.”
Since I’m actually going for four years older, I add one more layer of my aptly named Darkest Berry lip gloss before grabbing the violin case. “Could you tell Dad I’m waiting in the car? And…maybe make sure the witch is still in her study?”
Sighing, Deb closes her book and stashes it under the mattress. Okay, that’s the one area where she matches me in secrets. Mother lets us read any sort of non-fiction, but when it comes to fiction, if she had her way we’d both still be reading Nancy Drew.
“Love you!” I yell as Deb heads downstairs.
“Yeah, yeah, love you, too.”
I reach into the dresser drawer, pull out the medallion, and stash it in the pocket of my skirt. If Deb or Mother saw it we’d just have another fight. I’m starting to think Deb is color-blind, or maybe just plain blind-blind, because she swears it’s plain bronze and I’ve never seen anything more neon green than this baby. I’m pretty sure Mother sees the color, too, because she turned white as a ghost when she caught me with hers, yanking it away like I’d found her diary or a sex toy or something.
She’s not as good a liar as she thinks. Like when we were arguing the other day and I asked if she’d ever dated someone older than her before she met Dad. Mother said yes, and then added that the guy was only two years older. Her eyes got all round and innocent like one of the characters on Astroboy when she said the last part. They always do that when she’s hiding something.
I don’t think this is the medallion that belonged to Mother, because that one was on a silver chain. This one, I found yesterday. It was hard to miss in the dark attic, with the green light seeping through the edges of the box. The same hourglass thing is in the middle, but this medallion hangs from a black leather cord. It doesn’t match my outfit, aside from the cord, but I want to see what Jason says. He’s artistic, like me. I bet he’ll see the light, too.
I wait until I hear Deb give our secret “coast is clear” knock on the stairwell wall and dash down the stairs, through the kitchen door, and into the garage. Dad joins me about half a minute later, patting his pocket for his keys and his glasses. I love him to death, but Jim Pierce’s picture is in the dictionary right next to “absentminded professor.”
We’re two blocks from the house, about to turn onto Glebe, when Dad says, “Oh, rats. I forgot my book.”
“Dad! We’re going to be late.”
“Nonsense. It will only take a minute to turn back. I’m not going to sit there for an hour doing nothing. I’ll just leave the car running and go in the front. We have plenty of time.”
I’m not so sure about that, given the rainy weather, but there’s no point arguing. He’s already turning around.
Dad leaves the car idling near the sidewalk and dashes into the house, pulling his jacket up slightly so that it shields his head from the rain. It does only take a minute before he’s climbing back into the car, book in hand.
I look up at the last second to see Mother standing in the doorway. There’s absolutely no doubt that she sees my makeup, even if she can’t see the clothes. There’s no way Deborah will be able to distract her now. She’ll be waiting at the door when we get back and I’ll be grounded for all eternity. Next violin lesson, she’ll have me dressed like I’m ten years old.
What the hell. In for a dime, in for a dollar.
I pull the medallion out of my pocket and hold it up to the window, giving her a screw you grin. Yes, it will probably add an extra eternity to my grounding, but it’s worth it to see that look on her face one more time.
“New outfit?” Dad says as we turn onto the main road.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I like plaid.” He turns up the radio, which—as always—is tuned to the local university station that plays news and classical.
Mother’s going to yell at Dad, too, although she’ll let him off the hook pretty quickly because she knows he’s clueless about this sort of thing. But I guess
I’m still feeling a little guilty, because I’m compelled to say I like the song that’s playing, even though I have no idea who the composer is.
We drive along for a bit. I listen to the boring music and watch the raindrops connect as they drip down the windows. The sky beyond the bridge is nearly the same shade of gray as the Potomac. I start to put on the medallion, but then I remember that one of these has been in Mother’s jewelry box for who-knows-how-long, and I don’t really want to know if Dad can see the glow. I’d rather believe that only Jason and I, along with a few other truly romantic souls, can see this light.
After my lesson, I’ll give it to Jason and he can hide it in his car. That way, he’ll think of me all week, each time he sees the glow.
I wrap the cord around my wrist, deciding to wait and put it on when I go in for my lesson. But I keep glancing back down at the thing. It’s weird, because I can occasionally see more than just the green glow when it’s in my palm. There’s an almost holographic effect as this black fuzzy square rises up from the circle, and occasionally, I see a blip of something that looks like numbers.
It’s hypnotic. I stare into it, watching as white specks like tiny snowflakes drift downward in front of my eyes.
The car in front of us brakes suddenly. Dad does the same, jolting me forward.
I blink.
And then I’m falling.
When I open my eyes, Dad, the car, the gray sky, and the gray river have all disappeared. There’s nothing but the blackness, although it’s not entirely black anymore. The glow of the medallion creates a halo of green, lighting up the tiny white specks around me that look like bits of paper or maybe rock.
It’s pretty until I look down and see that the ground below is rushing straight toward me.
My hand is on top of my face.
It's the first thing I see when I open my eyes. My hand, my arm, the black lace of my blouse. The blouse that will push Jason right over the edge.
Except I don’t think I’m going to make it to my violin lesson today. I can’t move my legs. In fact, I can barely move at all.
I smell smoke. And something else. Blood, maybe.
Where the hell am I? How did I get here? Why is my hand on my face?
The last thing I remember is watching the raindrops work their way down the windshield, and goofing around with the stupid pendant, looking at that odd, static-filled square of black hanging above it. Then the static cleared up. The square was pure black, with a few specks of light in the distance. And I was falling into that blackness.
Why can’t I move? Why is my hand on my face? And why does my brain keep insisting that the hand on my face is more important at this moment than the fact that every inch of my body is in pain? More important than the blood dripping down the back of my neck.
There's nothing weird about my hand being on my face. Except…I can't feel my face under my hand. The angle seems wrong, too. I can see the glow of the green medallion in that hand, but I also feel that same medallion in the hand down by my side. I feel the cord wrapped around my wrist. When I squeeze the disk tightly, the sharp edge cuts into my palm.
Yep. It’s definitely in my hand.
And the hand and the medallion can't be both places at once.
My mind drifts away and eventually settles on a memory from a few years ago. I’m sitting in the living room with my dad. He’s watching 20/20 and I’m doing the crossword puzzle in the TV Guide, mostly because I don’t want to go to bed yet. Barbara Walters comes on with this story about amputees who can still feel their limbs even though—
That thought rips a scream from my throat. The extra arm moves then, and I discover there's a body attached to it. An entire extra me. Wearing the same clothes, with the monogrammed purse Deborah gave me for Christmas strapped across her body. That seems to be the only difference. I must have dropped mine during the fall.
Stranger still, at the very same time that I see this other me and feel her weight on top of me, I also remember her not being here. I don't mean a memory from before she arrived. It’s not that she wasn't here and then suddenly she was. I remember both things at the same time. They’re both equally true, and that makes my head ache in an entirely different way.
I have to get out of here, but my legs still won't move. They seem to be pinned down.
Turning my head to the right, I see her face—my face—tinted a sickly green from the key. A chair of some sort is just behind her, leaning at a drunken angle. In fact, the entire room seems to be tipped downward, toward the center, almost like gravity is stronger there. Like we're inside a funnel.
She moans again, and opens one eye, staring back at me. When she moves, the medallion in her hand brushes against my face and a sensation like a static shock—a big one—runs through me. She must feel it too, because she moves her hand away.
I don’t know what she is or why she’s here. But I’m certain that this other me shouldn't exist. And from the way her eyes just narrowed, I’m pretty sure she's thinking the same damn thing about me.
When I try to move my arm at the shoulder to push her off, a blinding pain rips through my back. So I try my lower arm. It moves just enough for me to loop one finger under the black cord strapped around her wrist.
I pull the cord. She tightens her grip when she feels the tug, but it's too late. I flick the medallion to the ground on the other side of my body and shove her away.
Or rather I attempt to shove. It's more like a feeble nudge. I can't see what's on top of my legs, can't even feel the weight, really. Just a sense of pressure from a few inches above the knee.
But I can move my lower arm. I feel around the space beside me until my fingers locate a large chunk of something hard and jagged. A rock, or maybe cement.
She pulls herself across my upper body, reaching for the other medallion. Her legs seem to be working just fine. In fact, she's in better shape overall, probably because I cushioned her fall.
When her hand locks on to the medallion, my own face looks back at me with a grin of triumph.
It's instinct. Pure self-preservation. I bring the rock I’m holding down against the side of her head. It isn't a very hard blow, since I can barely move my arm, but the edge of the rock is sharp enough that she doesn’t want a second helping. She dodges away. Just a few inches to the left, toward that oddly tilted chair.
She reaches for the chair to brace herself. A look of pure terror fills her eyes as the chair slides even further, tumbling downward, into the funnel.
"Help me!" She grabs for my blouse, untucking it from my skirt. As she struggles to get a better grip on the fabric, the medallion she’s carrying slips from her fingers. It slides across the floor and disappears into the hole.
The other me pulls my upper body toward her, wrenching it away from the legs that won’t move, that are pinned to the floor by something I can’t see.
We both scream the same scream, in stereo.
I smash the rock downward again, this time on the hand grasping my shirt. Her fingers open.
She screams again when she falls, but I don't join her this time. I just clutch the rock and my medallion to my chest, and lie there, whimpering.
"Dad! Mom! Anybody? Someone help me! Please!"
But no one comes.
My bones are being ripped from my flesh. I try to scream, but no sound comes out.
Voices. A man's face.
Arms lifting me.
Then it’s just the blackness again.
When I open my eyes, I see green. Everywhere. It's like floating inside a bed of lime-green Jell-O. I flex my fingers through the stuff and then carefully move my arms. They move, both from the elbow and the shoulder, but my legs don’t respond. I can't even tell for certain that they're there.
I peer through the goop, searching for Deb, even though I know she’s not here. Wherever this place is, it’s nothing like the hospital where she had her tonsils removed last fall.
The next time I wake up, the medallion is missing. That's when
I realize the goo I've been lying in isn't really green. It was just reflecting the light from the pendant. The room still seems to have a faint green glow, but the vivid light is gone.
There’s no pain when I’m inside the tub of goo. There's only boredom when I’m awake and nightmares when I sleep. Nightmares where I’m falling into the dark. Nightmares where the girl with my face crawls out of that hole. And this time, the rock is in her hand.
People come into the room twice a day and pull me out of the tub. There's plenty of pain on the outside. Sometimes, a machine runs a thin wire along the bottom of my foot or performs one of the dozens of other tortures in its routine. Then back into the boring goop I go.
I prefer the boredom at the beginning, because the pain is intense. But after a while—weeks? months?—even pain is better than just lying here staring at the ceiling. That's about the time someone decides the goop is now only for nighttime. Only for sleep.
During the day, I sit on a bed that looks very much like a normal hospital bed. Rails on the side, but the bed seems to respond to my movements. When I lean backward, it reclines. When I try to sit up, it helps me. And it’s softer, conforming to my body.
I don’t remember eating when I spent my days in the goop. But now that I’m out, they bring food several times a day and I eat and drink what they put in front of me. Except for the meat. They get the point after a day or two and start bringing me cheese and nuts. Mostly it’s healthy stuff, but one of them slipped me a square of chocolate last week. The next day, she asked if I wanted more. Said she'd get me a whole bar if I'd say something. If I’d answer their questions.
As bribes go, it's pathetic. Unless she's offering me a large bag of Cheetos and a cherry Slurpee with that chocolate bar, it's not even tempting.
I'll talk when I have something to say.