“And don’t forget your hairclip,” Bertie said. She handed the clip to Clara; it was a round metal disc, about one inch wide, with a single metal bead in the center. “Everyone has to wear it,” Bertie explained. She pointed to the side of her head, where the clip perched just above the braid.
An alarm rang, and all the girls instantly jumped out from their beds and lined up in a row, facing the elevator door. Bertie grabbed Clara’s hand, and they squeezed into the line.
The elevator doors opened and a woman marched out, her shoes clacking with every harsh step. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and in her hand she held a long stick. She wore a plain grey dress, with silver buttons down the front. She walked to the end of the row where the tallest girl stood, and from there, she walked along the row of girls, staring at each one intently. Suddenly, she paused at Clara. She pointed her stick directly at her. “Name?” she demanded.
“Clara.”
“Why are you standing like that?” the woman growled, poking her stick at Clara’s arms, tight against her sides. “Relax your arms.”
Clara gulped. “But I can’t—” she started to explain.
“Step out of the line,” the woman demanded. “Bend over and touch your toes. Ten times.”
Protesting was useless. But as Clara lifted her hands away from her sides, her skirt began to slip.
The other girls snickered. Clara quickly grabbed the skirt before it fell any further.
The woman pulled out a string from her pocket, and handed it to Clara. “Tie it, then.”
Clara pulled the string through the belt loops of her skirt and tied it in the front. Then she reached forward again to touch her toes.
“Enough,” the woman barked. “Get back in line.”
She is impossible to please, Clara thought miserably.
The woman approached a door at the back of the room, just to the right of the elevator, and pressed her finger onto a plastic box on the wall. A beep sounded, and the door opened.
The line of girls shifted into single-file, and they followed the woman through the door into a long upward stairwell. At each landing was a large arched window covered with iron bars. “Don’t slip,” the woman barked.
The girls walked upstairs for a long time—about five flights of stairs, Clara counted. Suddenly the line halted. Clara heard another beep, and the sound of a door opening. The line continued forward again.
They exited the stairwell to a hallway with a large window at the end. Along each wall were dozens of closed wooden doors marked with room numbers. At this point, the woman halted and turned around to face the girls. “Room 204,” she told the first girl in line. The girl walked over to the room marked with the number 204, and she entered it.
The other girls were assigned to their rooms. At last it was Clara’s turn. “Room 220,” the woman directed.
Clara walked slowly forward along the hallway. As she passed the row of numbered doors, she searched for some sign of what this place was, and how she had arrived here. I might have been here all my life, for all I know. But I feel as though I lived somewhere else before this place. But the shut doors revealed nothing. I might as well try to read a closed book, she thought bitterly. At last she reached the door marked 220, and opened it.
Inside the room was a man in a lab coat, seated at a desk. Behind him a large white box, covered with wires. He smiled kindly. “Hello, Clara. My name is Dr. Gilac. Do close the door, please. Thank you.”
Clara closed the door and took a seat. “So, you know my name. How?”
“Of course I know your name,” Dr. Gilac chuckled. He sat behind the desk. “I know everyone’s name here.”
“So what is my last name?”
Dr. Gilac frowned. “Oh, now I can’t tell you that, Clara. No one here, except for us professionals, has a last name. We’re all family; why should we bother with last names?”
“Because I want to know who I was!” Clara insisted. “I deserve to know the truth! A girl told me that you gave me a drug: a drug that took away my memories. So I want to know: who was I?”
Dr. Gilac sighed irritably, and stared up at the ceiling for a few moments. “This girl,” he began slowly, “was her name Bertie, by any chance?”
“Yes. But how did you know that?”
“We all know Bertie here.” He clicked his tongue sadly. “Poor Bertie. You see, Clara, Bertie is not well. She has a troubled, confused mind—often makes up stories. We’ve tried to treat her, but her illness is incurable. Obviously whatever she told you was not true. You’ve always been a part of our center here, just as I said before.”
“I have?”
“Yes.”
“Then help me!” Clara shouted hysterically. She grabbed Dr. Gilac’s hand. “Help me! Please! I can’t remember anything at all! Tell me the truth! Or I won’t ever be myself again!”
“Of course. I will tell you everything that happened.” His eyes grew very serious. “Recently, your own mind had become very unwell, similar to Bertie. But unlike Bertie’s case, we managed to save you. Do you remember any of that?”
“No. Not at all. I can’t remember anything before today.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I will give you back your memories. ”
“Thank you,” Clara whispered, stifling a sob.
“You were so unhappy, so terribly unhappy. You were beginning to say that voices were in your head: telling you what to do and what to not do, telling you where to go, and where to not go. We were beginning to think you would never recover, but fortunately, one of our doctors managed to cure you.”
“Who was that doctor?”
“He does not wish to disclose his name.”
Clara sighed. It was very disappointing: here someone had saved her life, and she could not even express her immense gratitude to him. “Well,” she spoke at last, “please tell him thank you.”
“I will.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. And then at last, Dr. Gilac spoke. “So you say you are feeling better, then?”
“Yes. I suppose.”
“Do you think you are well enough to do the sort of work you used to do?”
“I don’t know what you mean. What did I used to do?”
“Oh, such a shame you don’t remember. I can’t even begin to explain it, or what it even meant. But you helped so many of us.”
“What did I do?” Clara demanded. Her chest tightened with an overwhelming sense of longing. But it was the worst sort of longing, because she could not even remember what she wanted. “How did I help? I want to do it again.”
“All sorts of…research. Oh, how can I explain it!” Dr. Gilac tapped his desk impatiently. “Well…you could see things that the rest of us could not.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your mind: it’s different from others. And you would use it to see differently. You could see the past, and the future—and you helped us so much with this unusual ability. Because of you, we found so many answers to our questions.”
Clara slumped in her chair. “Well, I wish I could remember how I did those things. I feel so useless.”
“Well. Try.” Dr. Gilac laid a thick book onto the desk. It was a navy blue book, with no title on the cover.
Clara stared at the book, confused. “Did I also read books to you?”
He chuckled. “Yes, in a way, I suppose. Put your hands onto the book, and hold them there.”
It was a strange request, but Clara obeyed, and set her hands atop the book.
“Now close your eyes.”
She shut her eyes tightly.
“And now,” Dr. Gilac continued, “Let your mind go blank. Slowly an image will come to you; the image will come from the pages of this book, and into your mind’s eye.”
“From the book?” Clara scoffed. Her eyes flew open. “But that’s impossible—!”
“—No it isn’t. You did this all the time, and you were very good at it. Show me that you’re still good at it.”
“You can, and you did,” Dr. Gilac insisted. “And you can do it again. Do you trust me?”
Clara slowly nodded. She could remember nothing; she had no choice but to trust him.
“Go on, then,” Dr. Gilac continued. “Close your eyes. Let the image come into your mind.”
She quickly shut her eyes, and struggled to empty her mind. Surprisingly, the task proved fairly easy because of her recent memory loss. Dark, dark, dark…still nothingness. She waited patiently and hoped that the image would begin to form; but nothing appeared. A great deal of time passed—how much, she could not say.
And then, in her mind’s eye, something abruptly appeared.
Flashing spots of color.
“Wait…” Clara said slowly. “Yes…something is coming now…”
“The image will become clearer,” Dr. Gilac said tensely. “Focus. Focus all your energy onto that book, and the image will become clear—clear as day. Focus.”
Slowly the grey and brown merged together, in a blurred muddy mass. Like a camera focusing, the image sharpened. A rectangle…a wooden box…
“A box….a long box…”
“What kind of box?”
The bottom was square, but the top had more sharp angles…like an octagon… “I don’t know,” Clara stuttered, “It’s got sharp edges all around it…”
Gradually, the image became clearer, so that she could now see what was inside the box. A man…his eyes shut, as though in deep sleep. At the corner of his mouth, a red bead suddenly appeared. A moment later, the bead broke into a thin stream of red, slithered out and down his cheek.
Blood.
Clara shrieked.
“Open your eyes!” Dr. Gilac’s voice called. “Open them now!”
Clara’s eyes flew open. Her eyelids felt sticky and heavy. She rubbed them furiously, but the swelling refused to go away. “What—” she struggled to speak, “What was that—?!”
“What did you see?” Dr. Gilac demanded. “Tell me!”
“It…it was horrible!” Clara began to cry. She covered her eyes. “Don’t make me talk about it! Please!” But as much as she wanted to forget that awful vision, it remained constant in her mind: the death, the blood…
“Tell me what you saw!” Dr. Gilac insisted. “This instant.”
Clara glared at him. “You’re very cruel! How could you make me relive that nightmare—”
“—Because it is very important I know what you saw,” Dr. Gilac said firmly. “I have to know if your mind is as well as it used to be, if you can see the things you used to see. You do want your mind to get better, don’t you? Don’t you want things to be how they were? Don’t you want to be normal again?”
Clara frowned at him for a few long seconds. Of course she wanted to be her old self, but could she trust Dr. Gilac to get her back there? “A man,” she began, her voice stiff with suppressed anger. “He was in a coffin…and blood was coming out from his mouth…it was horrible, like I told you. I don’t know why I even thought of it. It just…it just came into my head. From nowhere.”
“No,” Dr. Gilac disagreed. “It came from somewhere. It came from this.” He banged his fist onto the blue book. He flipped open the cover, so Clara could see the title page:
Vampiric Legends.
She looked at Dr. Gilac. “My thought didn’t necessarily come from this book,” she said angrily. “It could have come from anywhere. Why do you think it came from here?”
Dr. Gilac picked up a notepad from his lap and scribbled some notes onto it.
“That will be all,” he said.
“But that was only five minutes!” Clara protested.
“That was three hours,” Dr. Gilac said, pointing to the clock on his wall.
Clara looked at the clock: it now read 6 PM. “That’s impossible!” she gasped. “I only shut my eyes for a few minutes! I remember, I remember how I closed them and allowed the images to come, and it took only a short time—”
Dr. Gilac tossed his notepad onto the desk, and smiled. “Time flies when you enjoy yourself. As I said, that will be all.”
~
The hallway outside the office was empty, and Clara did not know where she was supposed to go. She approached the big window at the end, and looked outside. The view overlooked a small grassy courtyard, completely surrounded by tall stone buildings. On the left wall was a heavy wooden door, with a large rusted latch. In the center of the courtyard was a stone fountain, but it was dry and cracked.
Clara looked across the courtyard to the other building. It was almost exactly like the building where she was confined; the building even had the same large window, and it appeared to be at the end of a hallway.
Suddenly, in the other building’s window, a boy appeared along the right side. He was thin and pale, with a blue sweater.
A boy! He was the first boy Clara had seen in this entire group of buildings. I wonder what he is doing here, she thought.
The boy paused and stared out the window towards Clara; a moment later, he walked away down the hallway. She could not tell whether he had seen her.
~
“So how did she do?” Dr. Canidia asked.
“Very well,” Dr. Gilac replied. “Just as you predicted she would.”
Dr. Canidia had not recruited Clara randomly for their program; she had been studied very carefully—her upbringing, her IQ test, and even her medical history. It was the medical history that had grabbed Dr. Canidia’s attention: Clara’s accident, when she was three years old. She had fallen from a tree, and her skull had fractured. The doctors thought she would have permanent brain damage, but on the contrary, her IQ had increased after the accident. Trauma, Dr. Canidia knew, could open the most powerful regions of the mind—as in Clara’s case.
“So,” Dr. Canidia continued. “Do you think she will be able to carry out the assignments eventually?”
“Yes,” Dr. Gilac assured him. “She needs more training, though.”
~
“Line up!” a voice barked.
Clara spun around. The woman with the stick, and most of the other girls, had appeared out of nowhere. Clara and the other girls quickly formed a line. Suddenly Clara realized: Bertie was nowhere in sight. Where had she gone?
The woman walked along the line of girls, inspecting each as she went. “One of you is missing,” she said angrily. “You are all supposed to be here at 6:10 PM.”
One of the doors flew open, and Bertie ran out. She sandwiched herself into line between Clara and another girl. “Sorry I’m late,” Bertie mumbled. She looked horribly pale, as though someone had drained half the life from her.
“Enough delay,” the woman grumbled. But even in the woman’s stern eye, Clara saw a spark of pity. Might that have been pity for Bertie? There was no way to know. But as they marched downstairs again, Clara noticed that the woman led the lineup much more slowly than earlier that day. As they moved along, Clara steadied Bertie’s arm. “So what happened to you?” Clara whispered.
“Nothing,” Bertie mumbled. “I’ll be all right. I just need some food.”
Clara shook her head in disbelief. Whatever “this” was, it was not normal. Bertie looked pale as a ghost.
Eventually they exited the stairwell through a door, to a large dining hall. But there were no tables; there were only benches along the walls. As the girls entered the room, a fat old woman handed a bowl to each girl. Clara noticed a ring of dried oatmeal in her bowl, and wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Stew?” a tired voice asked.
Clara glanced upward. A girl, no more than fourteen, was standing over a huge vat of soup. Her red hair was stringy and damp from steam.
“Stew?” the girl said again.
“Yes, thank you,” Clara said.
The stew slid onto the crust of old oatmeal. And one slice of dry toast on top of the brown mess.
“Thank you.” As Clara moved along in the line, she could still hear t
he girl asking, again and again, “Stew? Stew?”
Does she ever say anything else? Clara wondered.
By the time Clara and Bertie got their soup, the benches were already crowded with girls, balancing their soup bowls on their knees. So Clara and Bertie were forced to sit on the floor. Bertie seemed paler than ever; her breathing had become heavier.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Clara asked worriedly.
“Yes,” Bertie said quickly. “I just got my blood test. We get one every few months, just like the rest of the Pangaeans. You don’t remember that, but you used to get one too. Before you came here.”
Clara nodded, but she did not believe what Bertie said. I’ve always been here, Clara recalled Dr. Gilac’s words. Don’t listen to what Bertie tells you. She is not well, and her words cannot be trusted. She is mentally ill.
“You don’t believe me,” Bertie said abruptly. Her dark eyes stared upward, above Clara’s head. “I can tell.”
“What do you mean?” Clara sputtered. “I never said—”
“—Don’t deny it. I can tell you don’t believe me.” Her eyes continued to stare upward. “Your thoughts are plain as the nose on your face.”
“Stop!” Clara cried. “Stop saying this nonsense! This is why people think you’re crazy!”
Bertie did not respond. Her eyes steadily gazed just over Clara’s head. “Dr. Gilac told you that I’m insane,” she said, “he said I’m delusional. He said you shouldn’t trust me, or listen to anything I say. Now, he is partly correct. I do have a broken mind. But only because they did that to me, trying to erase my thoughts with that memory drug. They tried again and again, but it never worked. I remembered everything as much as ever. And the funny part is that I’m still more sane than the lot of them. These other girls just wander around like dumb sheep: eating, sleeping, doing as they’re told, never asking why. The people here don’t let us have books, so they can build our entire reality for us. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Listen to me, Clara: you don’t have to become a sheep like the other girls here.”
Pangaea Page 3