The Lost Girl

by Sangu Mandanna

  At the end of August, I have another dream and it’s different from the others. I dream of a city, but it’s a real city. It’s Bangalore as it exists right now.

  And it changes everything.

  I recognize the city from Mina Ma’s descriptions and stories, from the photographs, from the snapshots of Amarra’s mind. There’s the ice-cream shop down the road from her house, with the Baskin-Robbins logo dark and unlit above the windows. It stays with me, that image. It’s the only clear spot as light flashes through everything else, setting my skull on fire.

  Then fragments, pieces flying one after another: the bright lights, a speeding car, streetlights that I try to count as they spin by, Ray, Ray’s face, laughing.

  A motorcycle comes around a corner too fast; the car swerves to avoid it. The car skids off the road. I’m scared, so scared. We’re scared. My body crashes through glass.

  Screaming, I thrash to life, fighting my own sheets. It happened so fast, I couldn’t stop it. We couldn’t even move.

  Mina Ma is there, holding me while I scream. I search my body, but there’s no blood, no car, no shattered glass. I am safe, I am alive.

  She pushes me gently back into bed and goes to fetch some water. Without her there to hold me in place, I flounder. Understanding seizes me, prompted by some unspeakable instinct. By a dark, empty thing in my chest. An absence. I curl up on the bed, shivering, and cover my face with my hands. “Amarra?” I whisper between my shaky fingers. As though she might answer. She doesn’t. She’ll never answer anyone again.

  Erik comes to visit us in the afternoon. Mina Ma is surprised to see him because it’s not one of his days, but I’m not. I know exactly why he’s here. I watch him, blank and unsurprised, as he tells me what I already know: that my other is dead and I have to go.

  PART TWO

  1

  Good-Byes

  I don’t want to go. I say it, over and over, but it doesn’t make any difference. I have to. This is why I was born.

  “You’re all your familiars have left now,” Erik reminds me. “They want nothing more than to have her back. They’re grieving. They need you.”

  “But they know I’m not actually her!”

  “Yes,” says Erik, “but you have to understand that all they have is hope. They’re hoping you will be perfect. It’s a one-in-a-thousand chance that Amarra’s soul could have survived her death, but that’s all they can think of. That’s what you must be for them.” He gives me a long, sad look. “You’ve been Eva too long. It’s time to be Amarra.”

  I’m going. I’m really going.

  And I will never see my guardians again.

  “Eva,” he says more gravely, “there’s something else we have to talk about. You know, of course, that echoes are illegal in India. And you understand that if the police discovered that your familiars have you, they would go to prison.” I nod. “What you may not know is if the police do find out, they will also take you into custody. They could choose to destroy you themselves. More likely, the Weavers will be able to win you back, but even so, I fear they would destroy you anyway.” Erik looks me in the eye. “Under normal circumstances, it is essential that an echo does not reveal what they are to anyone apart from their familiars. That’s even more important in your case. You will soon be breaking a law simply by existing.”

  “I understand, Erik.”

  “I don’t particularly want to see Neil or Alisha go to prison,” he adds with one of his twinkly-eyed smiles, “but I’m more concerned about you. Be careful.”

  “I will, Erik,” I promise.

  “Good.”

  “Will you be taking me to Bangalore?”

  He shakes his head. “No, unfortunately. Matthew has decided to take you instead. He’s better acquainted with your other’s family.”

  My family now. I don’t know which thought is more sickening. The idea of becoming part of someone else’s family and pretending they are mine? Or the idea of traveling across the world in the company of the Weaver who stitched me with his own hands? They’ve controlled me, kept me all my life. If I slip up, they’re the ones who will unmake me. How do you face someone like that?

  “What’s he like, Erik?”

  “That’s a difficult question,” says Erik. “Matthew is a difficult, if not downright insufferable, human being.”

  This is hardly reassuring. “But you’re friends.”

  “We met at university. He, Adrian, and I. Elsa taught history. Matthew and I have been friends since. Sometimes against my better judgment.” A smile crosses his face. “When they became Weavers and took over the Loom, I became the first guardian. I thought I’d do better to protect you than create you.”

  I have a brief, chilling flash to what my life would have been like if Erik had chosen not to be involved.

  “You’ve saved me more times than I can count,” I say. I will have to leave him soon and might never have a chance to say this again. “You’re the only human thing about the Loom.”

  He shakes his head. “That isn’t true. The Weavers aren’t your enemy, Eva. At least, they don’t have to be.”

  “Only if I follow their laws.”

  He doesn’t answer that, which is acknowledgment enough. He stares out at the lake and his sea-colored eyes grow astonished. “It’s been thirty years. Sometimes it feels like it was yesterday. Matthew and Adrian were just boys then. So was I. Sometimes I look at them and still see those boys. Not the men they’ve become.”

  “What’s wrong with the men they’ve become?”

  Erik only sighs.

  “Can I trust Matthew?”

  That makes his mouth turn upward. “To get you to Bangalore safely, certainly. With anything else? Let me put it this way. Would you drink cyanide for breakfast?”

  I smile bleakly. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  We go back inside. The Weavers have given me a week, in which time I am expected to tie up my life in England like a present with a ribbon and bow. A week for two parents, far away, to tidy away the last of their daughter and await a copy.

  I pack my things over the next few days. A lady from the Weavers arrives. She puts me under anesthesia and places a tracker in my body, tiny and undetectable. I don’t know where it is, and no one will tell me for fear I might try to take it out. I must not be allowed to slip free of the net.

  After the tracker lady has left, I spend an hour running my fingers over my skin, hoping to feel some sort of bump or lump. Nothing. So I give up and go back to packing.

  My guardians give me things to take with me. Last presents. Ophelia hands me a box full of makeup. “Something silly and fun,” she says. “You don’t have enough of it.” Sean’s gifts are a bracelet made of seashells and a book called British Romanticism that looks so boring I’m somewhat surprised he’d even considered giving it to me. Mina Ma gives me a beautiful black dress, knee length and elegant, and it’s so unlike anything Amarra owns that a lump forms in my throat.

  And Erik gives me a single envelope. “There’s a key in there,” he says. “Don’t lose it.” When I look blankly at him, he explains, “It opens a safe-deposit box we set up years ago for you. You’ll have access to all of Amarra’s possessions now, so you may never need it. But if you do, if you’re ever desperate, it’s there. And Eva,” he adds, “I need hardly add that it would be best if the Weavers never found out about this.”

  I burst into tears.

  Right now I would give anything to stay, but Mina Ma, incredibly, is happy. She can live with the thought of never seeing me again because she believes I will be safe now. Hunters won’t find me while I’m playing the part of an ordinary girl. The Weavers won’t hurt me unless I break their laws. My familiars want me. Mina Ma is determined that I will live a long time.

  “You have learned her all your life,” she says to me with fierce intensity. “Be what they need now. Give them an illusion. Make them believe she’s still here. Give them that hope. If you do, if you make them see her when they look i
nto your eyes, they will keep you. For years. And if you are good, when they are gone, no one will be able to take your life away from you.” She touches my cheek. “It’s the only consolation I have.”

  So I smooth the lines of worry and ferocity from her face. I promise her I’ll do what she asks. I promise I will do my best to forget myself.

  I sit on my bed the evening before I leave. I will never come here again. I am not supposed to see my guardians again. This existence is over. I am Amarra now.

  My room looks bare, naked. It’s silly to think so, because not much has changed, I’ve only had to pack my clothes and a few other things. But the room already looks unlived in. It looks like I left a long time ago. I lie back on the bed, fully clothed, and try to swallow something hard and knotty in my throat. My guardians will all be here tomorrow, to see me one last time. We’ll say good-bye.

  How will I bear it? How am I supposed to spend the rest of my life with half strangers, never seeing Mina Ma again? And Sean . . .

  I close my eyes and try to sleep.

  By three o’ clock the next afternoon, Ophelia has arrived. Mina Ma is keeping herself busy, making everybody a drink and somewhat ferociously offering food. I sit quietly. I can’t eat or drink anything. Sean isn’t here yet. Erik will be bringing Matthew soon. I can hear the second hand on the clock on the wall, ticking so loudly it hurts my brain each time. Mina Ma keeps looking at me as though she wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how. This worries me, but I can’t focus on it. My attention flits from one thing to the next. Ophelia is sniffing into a tissue, wiping tears away. I want to comfort her and tell her I’ll miss her, but I can’t move. Tick, tock, tick, tock, the clock is relentless.

  Where is Sean?

  After I’ve looked hopefully at the front door for the hundredth time in about half an hour, Mina Ma seems unable to stand it any longer. “He’s not coming,” she says.

  “The Weaver’s not coming?” I ask, puzzled but pleased.

  She’s struggling, then says very quickly, “Sean. He’s not coming.”

  I can’t quite digest this. “Why not?”

  “He’s ill.”

  This is a lie. Ophelia can’t even look at me. I have no idea what to do or say. So I turn back to the clock, squinting to keep it in focus because my eyes have begun to water. Unbidden, an image of Sean creeps into my head. I picture him under his slanting roof, at the window. I imagine him saying “Just go, Eva. I don’t care.”

  Tick, tock, tick, tock, and then the sound of Erik’s car pulling up outside the cottage. I stand. It’s time.

  Mina Ma goes to open the door. Erik comes in first. I look past him, into the eyes of the man who wove me.

  He is about as tall as Erik, and probably as thin, and about the same age. He reminds me of a polished predator, immense brilliance hidden beneath an urbane smile and shrewd dark blue eyes. His beard stubble is short and rough, salt-and-pepper like his cropped hair. Dressed in shirt and trousers, he has the strangest vest on over his shirt. It looks like thin chain mail, glittering silver like that of a knight from a forgotten time.

  I’ve seen him before. I’ve dreamed him before.

  “I know you,” I say.

  “You have a good memory, even for an echo,” he says, teeth showing in a smooth, feral smile. “You must remember your early months.”

  If Sean’s voice is layers of wood, and Mina Ma’s is a copper pot, then Matthew Mercer’s is the voice of a wild animal. I suddenly think of a movie Amarra and I loved when we were little, and I think of Scar, the lion who murdered his brother to become king. That kind of voice.

  “How like your mother you look,” he remarks.

  I shrink back, but say defiantly, “Alisha is not my mother.”

  Mina Ma gasps. It’s not a good start, but I can’t help it. He sets my teeth on edge. He scares the living daylights out of me.

  “Now, now,” he says. “Claws are unattractive on kittens. You have a latent temper, I see. I suppose I’m to blame. I did make you.”

  Erik frowns. “Don’t be flippant, Matthew. She’s having a difficult time.”

  “Aren’t we all?” the Weaver demands in indignation. “Are we or are we not recovering from a global recession? Difficult economic times, you know. We’re all suffering.”

  I look at him in disbelief.

  “Sir Matthew,” he says, sweeping me an elaborate bow, “at your service. But I wouldn’t take that literally if I were you. I’m notorious for only being of service if I feel like it, and I don’t usually feel like it.” He studies me a moment longer, and the strangest look crosses his face. His drawl fades. He becomes curt, an irritable stranger instead of the flippant one. “Shall we set off? We have a flight to catch in seven hours.”

  “I’ll get my things,” I mutter.

  “Sullen, too,” he says as I turn away. “I think we’ll get along marvelously, don’t you?”

  We pack the car in record time. My legs begin to drag and I try to draw it out as long as I can. The good-byes become a blur, an exercise in trying not to cry. Ophelia sobs openly as she hugs me. Erik is driving us to the train station, so I go, finally, to Mina Ma, blinking away tears. She grips me very tightly and whispers in my ear, “Be good. Be happy.”

  She is the last thing I see before the car turns the corner. I catch Matthew’s dark, amused eyes in the passenger mirror and I look away, hating him.

  At the train station, letting go of Erik is unbearably difficult. He is the last one left. The only trace remaining of this world that I so railed and stormed against and loved in spite of it all. Matthew hums as he watches a seagull above us, but I watch Erik as he walks back to the car and gets in, lifting a hand to wave to me. I wave back like a small child. As he goes, I think of the way Jonathan used to spend hours in the garden with me, pushing me back and forth on that swing, how Ophelia kept my secrets for me, and Erik kept secrets from me because he would have stopped at nothing to shield me—and Mina Ma, who loved the baby the doctors loathed, who scolded and teased and protected and loved me, no matter what I did. I was so lucky to have them.

  2

  Creation

  Erik’s car vanishes. I follow Matthew into the train station. My mind trudges away, back to the cottage by the lake, but I keep my eyes on him. Warily.

  On the train, we don’t speak for the first quarter of an hour, apart from Matthew telling me we’re changing at Preston. I look out the window, watching the now-familiar English countryside pass us by. We’re taking the usual train to London and one of the stops is Lancaster. I allow myself the indulgence of wallowing in self-pity for a minute and wonder if it’s possible to feel more miserable than I do right now.

  “Yes, it is,” says Sir Matthew, yawning, “Try childbirth. I hear it’s far more painful.”

  I jerk my head in his direction. There are any number of things I’d like to say to him, but I bite them down. “You can read minds, can you?”

  “Just faces.”

  “In other words, a lucky guess.”

  “I am never lucky. I am always right. I,” says Sir Matthew, “know everything.”

  Under any other circumstances, I might have laughed at him. But considering how horrible this day has been, and how unwise it seems to laugh at a Weaver, I settle for being skeptical.

  “I doubt that.”

  “Well, that settles things, doesn’t it? I see I shall need all my wits about me to counter your ruthless intellect.”

  I glare at him. Matthew’s expression is a testament to complete boredom. But his eyes are watchful, watching me, relentlessly. I watch him back.

  “You can’t possibly know everything.”

  “I think you’ll find I can.”

  “So you know, say, ancient Greek?”

  “Indeed I do, especially as I am a renowned scholar of ancient languages.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Clearly you know best,” he drawls, pulling a magazine out of the seat pocket in front of him. He
yawns elaborately again. “Now I expect you will embark on a quest to prove me wrong by asking questions. Do. I’ll play along. Being clever is, to me, like stealing sweets from an infant. I do it very well.”

  On principle, I want to refuse, to tell him I’m not interested and I’ll be reading my book for the rest of our trip, thank you very much. Unfortunately, I can’t do it.

  “Do you know the capital of Turkey?”

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” scoffs Matthew. “That would be Ankara.”

  “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

  “The egg,” he says with a yawn.

  “You can’t possibly know that, no one does.”

  “That is a transparent lie. Haven’t I made it clear that I know it? Now don’t be insufferably imbecilic. It’s quite clear the egg came first, as anyone with the slightest grain of intelligence would know.”

  “What is four hundred and sixty-two multiplied by sixty-nine?”

  “Thirty-one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-eight.”

  He gives me a feral smile. I don’t know the answer myself. I grit my teeth. Several questions later, my Weaver has not gotten a single question wrong nor even appeared to have taxed himself at any stage.

  “Tell me about Frankenstein,” I say, goaded, “if you know so much.”

  He is disdainful. “Why on earth would I do that?”

  “Because I want to know and you want to show off.”

  “It’s against the law,” he says deceptively softly. “Is that really what you want to do?”

  I fall silent.

  “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  I stare at him in astonishment. “Like you care.”

  “But I do,” says Matthew. “I am very interested to know what my creation has grown up to be. Did I go wrong? Did I create perfection? Of course I must know! Not that one would call you grown up, per se, but—”