In the Image of Grace

by Charlotte Ann Schlobohm

  “Girls, I have to get across campus,” Mr. Carl croaked looking at his watch.

  “Wait, let me ask you one thing,” I pleaded pulling off my bag and sticking it on a desk. I unzipped the front zipper compartment and pulled out the picture I got from the internet. “Is this her,” I asked holding the paper up to Mr. Carl with my finger near Grace Fernando’s head.

  “Where did you get that?” Mr. Carl asked with bug eyes.

  “The internet,” I quickly responded. “Well,” I said raising my eyebrows.

  He nodded his head yes.

  “So you did know her,” Clarissa said a little too loud.

  He nodded again. “Girls, just leave well enough alone.”

  “What!” It was my turn for my voice to get too loud. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to us? Where is she? What happened to her?” I could feel my face warming and turning pink.

  “Girls, I can’t answer these questions now. I really have to go.” He started walking across the lecture hall. We followed right behind on his heels.

  “That’s it?” Isabelle asked taking her turn to speak up.

  He stopped and turned. “I honestly don’t know what happened to her. One day she was just gone. I have to go.”

  “But we have so many more questions,” I cried out.

  He ignored me and walked out the door. We all somberly looked at each other and left the building.

  “Well, that could have gone better,” Clarissa groaned.

  Nobody said anything after that for a while. We walked back across campus in silence. While waiting for the train I started thinking out loud. “At least we know who our mother is, right, so we just have to find out where she went and why she left.”

  “How do we do that?” Clarissa asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How about missing persons?” Jeremy suggested.

  “Huh?” Clarissa, Isabelle and I all seemed to say at once.

  “If she just wasn’t there one day maybe somebody filed a missing person report. That professor guy made it almost sound like a mysterious disappearance or something, ya know.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea, but what if nobody did? What if it was just something between our father and her?”

  “Doesn’t hurt to try,” Jeremy said giving me a half crooked smile. I knew he was just trying to help. I gave him a meek smile back.

  The whole way back on the train I looked at that picture, at Grace Fernando, our mother. Our mother now had a name. We could actually refer to somebody as our mother. We weren’t just our father’s children anymore we were the children of Dr. Reginald Schlobohm and Grace Fernando. For a moment I felt somewhat happy and sad all at the same time. Happy, that we actually knew who our mother was, but sad that Elizabeth died not knowing. My happiness quickly went away and I was overwhelmed by sadness. Jeremy somehow sensed my sadness, grabbing my hand, holding onto it the rest of the train ride. I only had known him for a handful of days, but he was quickly becoming the best friend I ever had besides my sisters.

  Jeremy walked us down the block and then we parted ways. I then had to test the keys we copied on the lock to the gate to figure out which one fit. Third time was charm. We let ourselves through the gate and then found the other key that belonged to the front door. Ms. Dundefeltz had already left for the evening, so Clarissa ran across the foyer to enter the code and turn the alarm off.

  Chapter Six

  During study hall I did what had become my routine and that was going to the library. I didn’t go to the computers right away. I went to look for Jeremy so I could thank him. I looked around the library when I walked in and I didn’t see him. I actually saw my literature teacher, a man wearing a blue jumpsuit and an extremely short red haired girl; I didn’t even stop to ponder the combination of characters. I turned around and looked up and saw Jeremy up in the balcony shelving books. I went to the other side of the library, up the set of wooden stairs and down over to Jeremy. I noticed that his jeans were hanging dangerously low on his hips, his brown belt saving them from the fall.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He looked up and smiled. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” I paused and studied his face for a second. His eyes were a deep brown and lit up every time he smiled, which he did a lot. He had some stubble growing on his chin and across his jaw line. “I wanted to thank you for all that you’ve done for us. You barely even know me, but yet you’re so kind, thank you.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Jeremy.”

  “Yes,” he responded his smile getting larger.

  “After school would you like to get a quick bite to eat?” I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing, but I did know I wanted to spend more time with him.

  “Why yes I would,” he replied bobbing his head.

  “Wonderful, I now have to go and do some more searching on the internet.”

  “Okay, hope you find something.”

  I went back downstairs to the computers where there was one available in the middle directly under the windows. I was perfectly centered and it pleased me. I drummed my fingers on the table and thought about where to continue my searching. I decided to start with the police department website. It wasn’t much help to me. I found information on stopping crime in your neighborhood, becoming a city officer, finding my beat and then I found the missing persons section. I clicked on it and then hit city wide. A list came up of about eleven people. It didn’t seem like that big of a list for such a large city, but then I saw they only had missing persons for that year posted. It was pretty sad to think of all those people missing. The one listed on the top was a little kid. Underneath was a link for an age progression photo of the little girl.

  I clicked the back button and wrote down a phone number figuring maybe if I called the police department they could help. I did one more search and found a national missing person website. I clicked the search missing adults’ button and chose F from the drop down menu for searching by last name. I scrolled half way down the page and saw her. Grace Fernando, it said below her picture. My mother stared back at me. In the picture she looked younger than the one I had found online the other day. She looked fresh and happy. A small smile was on her face, as if somebody just told her a wonderful little secret. Her hair was perfectly in place falling down her back. She looked so much like Elizabeth, so much like us. I touched the screen longing for the mother I never knew. I could feel tears welling up in my eyes.

  Our mother was an actual missing person, which meant she could possibly be alive somewhere, but why did it take so many years for me to find out just even her name? Was our father trying to spare us the pain? Were we kept in the house out of fear that we might go missing? I could feel the warmth of my tears roll down my face. I wiped them away with the back of my hand. I looked under the picture at the date missing and it made absolutely no sense. The date missing was right after Elizabeth’s birth. It had to be wrong because our mother had three other children. I sniffled and printed the page. I actually printed the page three times, so I could also give Isabelle and Clarissa a copy.

  ……………………………………….

  Jeremy and I stood outside across from a wooden picnic table with yellow peeling paint. We were at a small shack of a restaurant that served some of the unhealthiest yet most delicious food available. Jeremy asked me where I wanted to go eat and I said fast food because our father never let us have any. Jeremy didn’t want me to have any ordinary fast food, so he took me to a place where he claimed my taste buds would be changed forever. The food shack looked like an old, white, wooden dog house, complete with red roof and more peeling paint. We went in. Inside there was barely enough room for three people to stand side by side. Up high on the wall was the menu which was all written out by hand in black marker on poster board. On the side of the big menu drink and shake cups and fry containers were affixed to the wall with all the different sizes you could order.

  I didn’t know what to order when it was our t
urn and there was a line out the door, so Jeremy stepped in and ordered me an Italian beef. “Ya like cheese?” He asked. I shook my head and he had them add mozzarella. He also ordered us both large banana-cookie shakes and fries. A large man with an extreme amount of oil shining on his forehead rang up our order. I guess it’s one of the downfalls of working in that business. He just kind of grunted when he wanted us to pay.

  After we paid we went and stood at the other end of the counter to wait for our order. The woman who gave us our food looked almost like the guy at the front counter, but she had her hair pulled up into a gray greasy ponytail. I’m pretty sure her hair was really blond, but due to the enormous amounts of grease and oil collected in it, her hair appeared to be gray.

  We took our white paper bag of food over to the picnic table with the peeling paint. The bag almost instantly turned translucent from all the grease. Jeremy opened the bag and handed me my Italian beef that was all wrapped up in white paper. I laid it on the picnic table and slowly peeled away its shell. Inside was a big crazy mess of beef, cheese, French bread like bun and what was called au jus, the greasy beefy sauce that the Italian beef was cooked in and then the sandwich was soaked in it. I picked it up and half of it instantly slipped off the bread and hit the paper that was holding it together just seconds before. I took a bite and Jeremy was right about the taste buds never being the same again. My tastes buds instantly exploded, they didn’t know how to handle the delicious flavor. I had never tasted anything like it before. I looked up at Jeremy who was eating his with more expertise.

  “Good?” He queried.

  “I can’t even find words to describe how delicious this is.”

  “Well, I’m glad you like it.”

  I continued to devour my sandwich. It felt nice sitting outside with the cold city wind slapping me in the back. I would never of thought of sitting outside during that weather and eating greasy food, but I found it most enjoyable. All the cars whizzed past on street we sat so near to. Buses and trucks stopped in front of us and then continued on. People passed on the sidewalk. A few other people sat at another picnic table also enjoying their helping of greasy goodness. I then took a sip of my shake. It just kept getting better. I then indulged on some French fries and ate some more of my Italian beef.

  “You said that professor guy was your tutor, right, so why again did all of sudden you start going to regular school?” Jeremy asked taking a gulp of his shake and trying to make conversation.

  I didn’t know exactly how to answer his question. Should I share the whole story with him? He only knew tid bits of my life, he didn’t know about Elizabeth. I never spoke of her death with anyone else. It was still such a fresh wound. I looked down at the greasy paper that once held my Italian beef. Pain started welling up inside of me. I tried to hold it in, but it felt like my eyeballs were going to burst, a full flood of tears poured out.

  “Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “No, it’s just that we had another sister and she just recently died.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “You couldn’t have because I haven’t told anybody.”

  Jeremy got up and came and sat next to me. He put his arms around me, embracing me in a hug. It felt perfect. I cried in his shoulder a while and then looked up sniffling. “I’m sorry,” I said feeling a wave of embarrassment.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He reached up and wiped some tears off my cheek with his thumb. “Ya wanna go walking. It might help ya out somehow, relax ya.”

  “Okay.” We threw our trash away and headed down the sidewalk. We walked in silence for a bit. The air was starting to get colder. You could tell winter was on its way.

  “I think we were sent to public school because of Elizabeth’s death. Maybe our dad didn’t want us to be next.”

  Jeremy looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.

  “She committed suicide.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I found her on the bathroom floor. She slit her wrists.” I was starting to choke up again.

  “You don’t have to be telling me this. It’s okay.”

  “No, I have to tell somebody.” I grabbed his hand and interlaced our fingers. He squeezed my hand in response. “We think maybe he thinks it’s because he kept us in the house our whole lives because Elizabeth never really did see the outside world. Sure we’d go places on occasion, generally events honoring our father, but we never really interacted with the world. I’m sure that was part perhaps, but her suicide was much deeper than that.”

  Jeremy just bobbed his head in understanding and bit his lip with his one bicuspid that occasionally escaped. A person on a bike rode by, so we moved single file to the side of the sidewalk. When the biker went by we rejoined hands and continued walking.

  “My sisters and I always said she was haunted. She’d always have these awful nightmares with this woman screaming, every night. Elizabeth always said she had a sense of doom about her, and she actually did, I swear you could look in her eyes and see it. I just wish we could have done something to save her.” Jeremy squeezed my hand again. “It was just barely weeks ago. We were told about a week after her death we were going to regular school. We really didn’t have time to think about it, about anything.”

  “Oh wow,” Jeremy said sounding shocked.

  “That’s why we’re searching for our mom now, we owe it to her. I had this dream that she told me to find our mom, so we’re going to.” I chose to skip over the part where I thought Elizabeth was in my room actually talking to me when I was sleeping and that I was now having the dreams or nightmares as I would call them with the screaming.

  “I will help you guys anyway I can.”

  “That really means a lot to me, thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” he said giving me a halfhearted smile. I think he wasn’t sure if it was an appropriate time to smile or make me feel better or what. I wasn’t even sure.

  …………………………………………….

  When I got home Clarissa and Isabelle had some interesting information to tell me. They buzzed me in and when I got into the house Clarissa grabbed my wrist and pulled me all the way upstairs to her room. “Boy do we have something to tell you.”

  “What?” I asked pulling off my coat and hat. I sat down on the edge of Clarissa’s bed. All of our rooms pretty much looked the same, white four poster canopy bed with coordinating dresser and shelves with a desk under the window. Except all over Clarissa’s room was little stuffed animal monster like things she stitched out of felt. A Clarissa original she called them.

  “Well, when Isabelle and I were at the bus stop, I noticed something that was stapled to the telephone pole that’s there. I went and looked and it was a pamphlet and on the front it said, The Children of Grace and there was this line drawing of….”

  I didn’t give her a chance to finish her sentence. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I could feel my arms and neck cover in goose bumps. “Well, what exactly is this, why, how?”

  “Wait, let me explain. It seems there is a group, religious group, cult, whatever you want to call them and they believe we are all in the image of Grace Fernando,” Clarissa said scrunching up her face.

  “What! Why?”

  “Well it appears she is the perfect replica of what the human species should be and behold and was sent by a group of people, not of this planet, called the Xtials.”

  “No, you’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It would be one sick joke, but let me go on. They’re having a gathering as the pamphlet said and guess who will be giving what is called the opening address, Dr. Carl Williams!” Clarissa shrieked.

  “What! This is insane. It makes no sense!” I was so confused. Mr. Carl most obviously knew a lot more than what he was telling us. “Is this is his way of giving us answers.”

  “I’m pretty sure he knew we’d be at that bus stop,” Isabelle said.

  I looked down at the pamph
let. It was on red paper with black writing and a line drawing of our mother. The top was ripped from being pulled off the telephone post. The front and back of the pamphlet was crammed with type. “What’s all this,” I said referring to all the writing, tossing it on the bed. I didn’t want to touch the pamphlet anymore. It all seemed so absurd.

  “Let me tell you,” Clarissa said. “It’s like their beliefs and history and stuff. Supposedly there was this guy they refer to as The Giver of Grace because he found and gave us Grace and he found out Grace was the one because he was approached by a man from this extra-terrestrial culture and he told this guy, The Giver of Grace, that humans are really from another planet, supposedly Pluto. Underneath all that gas there is a whole civilization and Pluto got demoted from being a planet because they weren’t ready for everybody to find out about it yet and they wanted to take attention off themselves at that time….”

  “What,” I yelped totally astonished.

  Clarissa smiled and kept talking. “Well, humans were put on this planet deliberately by these Xtials and were made in the exact image of them and I guess we were doing good, but then we started messing things up and stuff got out of control and there was so much overpopulation mainly with people who weren’t fit to be here like those with diseases and disorders and unpleasant features and things and they were waiting for a new perfect human to arise and that was Grace and supposedly she was to be reproduced and make everything better again with her perfectness.” Clarissa raised her eyebrows and shook her head. She looked over at Isabelle who was looking down at the pamphlet.

  “And people believe this garbage?” I asked in a high pitched voice.

  “It seems. They’re having a gathering tomorrow night to discuss those made in the image of Grace,” Clarissa informed me.