In the Image of Grace

by Charlotte Ann Schlobohm

  In the center of the stage Reginald stood with his big fake smile and a microphone. Pastor Dave stood next to him strapped with a guitar. I looked past the stage at the sea of people that were crammed into the warehouse. It was standing room only. All the chairs were gone. It looked like the audience for a concert, not for us. There was a lot more people than last time. It looked like a whole lot of new members. All the eyes in the sea were focused on us standing off to the side. They didn’t even glance at Reginald. People were pointing, covering their mouths, clapping, cheering and screaming. Some were wiping away tears and others closed their eyes and mouthed things to themselves. Others had their hands raised in the air praying to Grace, our Grace, our mother, and supposedly their savior. And the three of us stood there lined up how we use to line up for every picture when we were little, we were just missing one, and Mr. Carl stood proudly next to us with a big stupid grin on his face.

  Reginald turned in our direction and held out his hand. “The new Children of Grace,” he exclaimed.

  I didn’t know if it was possible, but the crowd grew louder, more shrieking and cheering. Mr. Carl urged us to walk towards Reginald. We were frozen in place. Mr. Carl then lightly put his hands on my shoulders guiding me across stage and then went back for my sisters and did the same. We stood there motionless while people cheered for us. I tried not to look at the crowd. It was sickening. I looked up above the them where hanging from the rafters were three large long banners, each with a face of me or my sisters with our names above the picture, and in the very back of the place there seemed to have been a couple of booths. One said member information and the other said donations.

  It seemed we were expected to say nothing. There weren’t any TV cameras or photographers or flashes going off. We were there just so people could stare at us. Reginald somehow calmed the crowd after about five minutes of just screaming and staring. He was about to dismiss us off the stage. I then got the urge to say something. I swallowed down whatever it was that my stomach was trying to thrust up my esophagus. I walked over to Reginald and held out my hand for the microphone. My whole head was burning hot and I was trying to still not look at the crowd, the whole situation sickening. Reginald hesitated. He didn’t want to hand me the microphone. Then the crowd started shouting, “We want to hear her voice,” and, “Let her speak.” Reginald took a deep breath and handed it to me.

  I started out cautiously with my wording. I looked at my feet and said, “Hello everybody.” You would have thought I just said the most amazing thing ever. The way people were screaming I was for certain somebody was going to have a heart attack. I then turned towards Clarissa and Isabelle. Clarissa was trying to preoccupy herself by spinning her ponytail around her finger and Isabelle was still chewing on her finger. “My sisters,” I said. The two of them looked up at me with huge wide eyes. Isabelle didn’t look very stable. She kind of rocked back and forth. Mr. Carl walked next to her and put his hand on her shoulder before she could pass out. The crowd screamed and cheered for Clarissa and Isabelle.

  I then took a deep breath and really went for what I wanted to say. I knew I was going to have to be fast before somebody stopped me. “I just wanted to say something real quick,” I started out. “You all know this man,” I said pointing over at Reginald, “as The Giver of Grace, right, but I just want to let you know that he is a fraud. There are no aliens. We were not meant to carry on the human race. The Children of Grace is a scam. Don’t believe anything he has to say. If you need to belie…….” I felt a firm hand on my shoulder and a burning and stinging sensation in my neck and then everything went black.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I tried to open my eyes, but my whole head pounded. I had absolutely no concept of what time it was, or where I even was. I couldn’t feel the ground, that’s if I was on the ground at all. If I was in my bed I couldn’t feel my pillow. I just felt the beating of the drum that somebody put in my head. I lay there trying to remember anything. I remembered being at the warehouse, on stage, the crowd and then taking the microphone and saying something. Then after that it went straight to the pounding.

  I started to hear something between the beats; voices, my sisters’ voices perhaps. Then I felt something on my back. My back which I didn’t even realize was there because I was so focused on trying to get away from the pounding. It felt like a hand, a nice warm palm, with the gentlest of touch. “Charlotte,” I heard behind the drum. Then I heard it again and again, “Charlotte, Charlotte.” The Charlotte started getting louder and the beating of the drum started to quite down some and I fluttered my eyes open. I blinked hard a couple times to try to clear my vision of the fog I was looking through. Up close was Isabelle’s face. She was lying next to me and I’m pretty sure that was her hand on my back.

  “Charlotte,” she bleated with great excitement.

  “Huh,” was all I had in me at that moment. I was lying on my stomach, on my bed, with my head turned to the side. I pressed the side of my face into my pillow.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” Isabelle sighed giving me a wonderfully warm smile.

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s the morning. We’re supposed to be getting ready. I was told to come and wake you up.”

  “What!” I shouted or attempted to shout. It actually came out quite quiet. I sat up and almost tipped over.

  “Careful,” Isabelle said steadying me by the shoulder.

  “What happened?” I asked grabbing my head in both my hands. I was spinning like crazy.

  Isabelle grinned. “I was so proud of you, but Mr. Carl stopped you short.”

  “How,” I inquired realizing that there was also a small throbbing in the back of my neck.

  “He stuck you in the neck with something, stopped you mid sentence. I guess they were prepared for that situation.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “Somehow Mr. Carl made it look very natural. He said something about you being nervous and a little confused and led you right off stage. He then carried you and stuck you in the car. He just laid you across one of the seats and when we got home he carried you inside and plopped you on the bed. He said you were going to be okay and said, “Let that be a lesson for the two of you.” Like he was threatening us. I guess we’re supposed to keep our mouths shut.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face. “When will this all end?”

  “Not soon enough,” Isabelle moaned picking at a string on my comforter. “Before school we’re going to a press conference. At least that’s what Ms. Dunderfeltz says. A car will be here to pick us up.”

  “Serious?” I asked just in case Isabelle somehow contracted an odd sense of humor.

  “Yes.”

  I lay back down on my pillow. “Oh God,” I cried. “All this craziness just brings us further away from finding out answers about our mother.”

  Isabelle’s face lit up for some reason. As if not finding answers was a good thing. “This came for us,” she chirped reaching to the foot of the bed and grabbing something.

  She handed me what she grabbed. It was a small envelope, white and about the size of an invitation. “Are we invited to a birthday party?” I asked.

  “Just open it.”

  I opened it and inside was a piece of stationary paper folded in half. I unfolded it and a picture fell out. It was wallet sized and looked like a school photo. Our mother’s beautiful teenage face smiled at me.

  “Helen sent it to us. She says hopefully we’ll be able to get together again soon and that picture is when our mother was sixteen.”

  “Just like me,” I beamed holding the photo carefully in my fingers. It seemed so precious. I didn’t want to endanger it at all with a grip that was too tight. “It’s me. It’s us.”

  “It’s just like a photo of you Charlotte. Look she’s even wearing a gray sweater. That kind of made me laugh,” Isabelle said softly.

  “This is wonderful. We’ll have to send Helen a thank you card.”

  “Most defin
itely.”

  “Hey, where’s Clarissa?” I asked noticing her absence from my room.

  “She’s primping. Going to be on camera and all, says she has to look her best.”

  “Can we pretend that you can’t wake me up?” I asked hopeful.

  Isabelle shook her head. “Mr. Carl seems to know the lasting effects of whatever it was he gave you because he did assure me that you were going to be okay by morning.”

  “Well pooh,” I groaned in frustration.

  “Oh, Jeremy called you a couple times,” Isabelle informed me. “I checked your phone because I heard it ring. I answered it the second time. I hope you don’t mind. I filled him in on what was happening.”

  “Thanks.”

  “He sounded really pissed over what Mr. Carl did to you. I told him you would be okay, but he still sounded really worried.”

  “Girls,” we heard from downstairs. “The car will be here shortly,” Ms. Dunderfeltz yelled.

  “Great,” I sighed wincing, noticing that the drum was still beating, but at least I didn’t wake up with screaming in my head.

  “Want me to get you something for that?” Isabelle asked getting up.

  “If you can, please,” I said rubbing my temples.

  Isabelle left to find something for my head. I slowly got off my bed and headed to my dresser to find something to wear. I pulled out some jeans, a tee-shirt and a cardigan. The cardigan was my version of dressing up. I put the picture of our mother in my pocket. Isabelle then came back with something for my head and I thanked her till there was no end. Then we met up with Clarissa in the hall and went to meet the mob and all.

  We pulled on our coats, hats and bags and went out the front door. I felt like crap. The drum still beat in my head, but I almost didn’t mind it that much since the screaming was silenced.

  There were rough waves outside in the flood. People shouted things and others reached their hands through the fence. It seemed like that morning they were all trying to get us. The current was strong, but I was going to try to not let it pull us under.

  “Ignore them,” I whispered to Clarissa and Isabelle as we neared the gate. I held a sister in each hand. Mr. Carl appeared out of the crowd and cleared space so we could open the gate. I gave him a scowl as we walked through the gate and he parted the sea.

  “A little faster girls,” he urged.

  Cameras were closing in on us. I didn’t want it to seem like I was listening to Mr. Carl, but we needed to get into the safety of the car. While I was mad at the car for where it was taking us I was also grateful that it swallowed us up and was driving us away from the tumultuous waters. I petted the smooth leather seat thanking it. We were being driven downtown. I closed my eyes the whole ride, even with what Isabelle gave me for my head it still pounded.

  It didn’t take too long to get where we were going, rush hour traffic hadn’t kicked into full swing yet. We pulled up in front of one of the fancy downtown hotels where the crowds awaited. Getting out of the car and walking into the hotel was pretty much the same, people screaming questions, microphones shoved in our faces, cameras staring at us. Only difference was that it was unseasonably warm. As we walked into the hotel I pulled off my hat. Mr. Carl guided us to a room where we waited and it was all pretty much the same as the day before. I made a decision to keep my mouth shut that morning.

  After a while the three of us were shuffled into an expansive room with large crystal chandeliers and finely, carved crown molding and textured fabric on the walls. Reginald was behind a podium with microphones all over it and all the sharks were in the audience waiting. The water was slightly calmer for many of them sat.

  Everybody was dressed in nice suits and skirts and sat with their hands in their laps and for a moment they looked calm. Then once Reginald started excepting questions the sharks got hungry and they all fought against each other trying to get their question in. We sat on folding chairs off to the side of the stage with our ankles crossed and our backs straight, looking like proper young ladies. I was still in somewhat of a fog, so I just kind of went along. I looked over at my sisters. Isabelle nervously bopped up and down in her seat. She dressed accordingly. She wore a buttoned down shirt and slacks. Clarissa looked perfect with every hair in place, but her face was a pale shade of white. There was security all around, but we still didn’t feel safe sitting there. It seemed like everybody in the world wanted at us.

  It all kind of went with a blur, but pretty much what we already knew was answered. I perked up when somebody asked about Grace. Reginald skirted around that one and somehow ended up talking about ethnic makeup. I actually found out something new then. I knew we were half Filipino and for the other half I always said German and Polish because that’s what Reginald was, but then I forgot to consider that he actually did not contribute to our genetic makeup, so Robert gave us the Filipino and Helen gave us Dutch and Norwegian, it explained our extremely pale skin.

  A lot of the questions had to do with ethics or bioethics as many called it. Others asked what gave him the right to play God and some were concerned with our development as individuals, were we exactly alike, or were we able to become our own separate persons. Some of the questions were about how we felt about being clones, how were we dealing with all the pressure, were we going to do our own interviews and so on and so forth. Pretty much Reginald said we were happy well adjusted individuals and we were doing fine with everything. Besides the people that belonged to The Children of Grace, nobody ever mentioned Elizabeth, not just at that moment in particular, but not on any of the previous days. It was like she never existed. She was flawed. I guessed word of that couldn’t get out since supposedly we were perfect and all.

  ………………………………………………

  After the press conference, which I’m sure aired on every single television station worldwide, we were dumped at school. Since the press conference was so early we only missed the first class. Word was floating about the halls. It seemed more so than the days before. I heard some girls arguing if we were actually that perfect. One of them said she actually didn’t think we were that pretty. Maybe she was right, but she seemed to be in the minority on that one. Some kids near my locker were trying to dissect the process in which we were made. They didn’t really seem to care that I was standing next to them. I slammed my locker. They shut up.

  In division I slumped in a desk next to Rain, who had a look of sympathy on her face. “How ya doin,” she asked cringing as if it was a painful question to ask.

  “Getting by I guess,” I replied rubbing the sore spot on my neck.

  “I listened to the press conference on the radio this morning on the way to school. It’s a lot to take in. I can’t even begin to imagine how it is for you,” Rain said giving me a comforting smile.

  “Yeah,” I sighed with my mind kind of wandering off. How it was for me.

  How was it possible that my sisters and I were individuals, were we? I thought we were, but maybe that’s because we developed our sense of self before we knew we were clones. Were we being held to some kind of standard that would stand in the way of our individuality? Were people expecting us to be any different or better than the average teenager? Then I was thinking about how most normal people are conceived. Conceived, that was the big word. We really weren’t. We were copied and that genetic material was then stuck in an egg from our mother and then placed in somebody’s uterus. That wasn’t being conceived, that wasn’t how human life was to begin, and so once again I was back to what did that make us? If there was a God did we not count because neither he nor nature made us? Rain was right. It was a lot to take in.

  ………………………………………….…..

  During study hall I went and sought out the in-school suspension classroom because that was where Jeremy was. I stared with the main hall on the first floor, looking in all the windows to the doors to the classrooms, or just through the open classroom doors. After the main hall turned up empty I went
down the hall that ran down the right hand side of the school. I got to the very end and did not find what I was looking for, but at the end of that hallway to the right was a short hallway and the last door on that hallway was it. I wasn’t supposed to be there because I wasn’t in in-school suspension and the kids in there weren’t to socialize with the ones who weren’t, but I figured why not. I quietly walked into the classroom.

  The classroom had about fifteen kids in it which all looked half asleep. Many had their foreheads propped in their hands looking as if they were reading, a couple just had their heads on their desks, and one had his mouth hanging slightly with his head bent back, which was Jeremy, so needless to say nobody seemed to notice me when I came in the room, not even the teacher that was in there at the time. He was busy reading some fantasy novel with a picture of a woman with super long red wavy hair and a mermaid on the front cover.

  I did a fake clearing of my throat and the teacher looked up. He had a bushy tan mustache and some hair sticking out of his nose. He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, like how dare you interrupt my story.

  “May I speak with one of your students in here,” I politely asked.

  At first the teacher didn’t respond. He just waved a bony finger at me. Then blurted, “You’re one of them!”

  Maybe I really was an alien and just didn’t know it because that’s what he made it sound like, them, the other people. The invaders. I looked over at Jeremy who regained consciousness and was getting out of his seat.

  “Hey,” he said walking up to me. “How’s everything?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered glancing in the direction of the teacher. He was just watching me. It seemed the teacher didn’t know quite what to say to me, besides the short sentence he had already muttered. “May I talk to Jeremy here for a moment in the hall?”

  The teacher bit his lip and looked up as if pondering my request. “You have exactly one minute.”