by Marilyn Grey
I closed the book and opened my eyes. Vaughn....
I didn’t want to forget. I replayed the story in my mind three times, then grabbed a pen and paper to write it down. Maybe it would spark his memories and he would be able to explain why my mind was functioning in Audrey’s body.
I touched my neck and ran my fingers over my head to look for incisions, wondering if switching our brains was part of their experiment, but I felt nothing except smooth skin and silkier than silk hair. Apparently, Audrey really took care of herself. I guess I already knew that, but it still surprised me. If I had her body, then she probably had mine. I almost laughed, imagining her freaking out over my stringy hair and marked up skin. Not to mention her stick thinness compared to my more filled out body. Poor thing probably had a nervous breakdown.
“Josephine,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t tell me why, but wanting to ask anyway.
She appeared. “Yes, 413. How are you feeling? Can I get you a warm cup of tea?”
“Can you please give me some answers? That’s all I want. I want to know what I’m doing here, why I have trouble remembering everything I do here, why I’m in my sisters body, who Vaughn is, what The Order is, Third Rite, all that, and”—I took a breath—“I’d like to know what will happen if I leave before the end of the year.”
“That’s a lot of questions. I can answer a few of them for you. Vaughn is a sweet young man who lived in this room before you. He chose to stay when his time here ended. The Order and Third Rite will be explained at the end of the year. As for the other questions, I have not been given enough information to properly answer them.”
“What about if I leave? Run away?”
She laughed under her breath, if she even had breath. “That won’t be possible, but it’s not so bad. You are provided delicious gourmet meals in a historic mansion. Your best friend is here and you’re making new friends. You don’t want to leave.”
“I don’t want to leave?”
“You want to stay.”
“I want to stay.” I wandered over to the window and opened it. The frigid winter air blew a few flakes of snow into my hair, reminding me of the many white-covered hills I climbed with Blake.
For a minute it caused me to forget that I was still trapped in Audrey’s body with absolutely no idea how or why or if I’d ever have my own body back.
I sank into the chair in the corner of the room and stared at the butterflies on the television while relaxing music streamed from the speakers. Josephine assumed I wanted to be alone and she assumed somewhat right. I didn’t know what the experiment, or whatever it was, would be. All those years we “prepared” for it, but I guess a part of me thought maybe it would be a good thing, like those kids in old movies that go away to camps. I’d get away from my weird life at home with my princess sister, whacked out father, and equally whacked out mother.
My neck stiffened and my body swelled with heat, prickling my arms and legs. I curled my hands into fists and squeezed. An odd sensation.
“What am I feeling?” I wondered aloud.
Josephine’s voice sprang to life again. “Anger, 413. You are experiencing your first true moment of anger. You are familiar with contempt and frustration, but anger is new to you.”
The overwhelming fire seemed like it would be too easy to grow out of my control. I’d do something I’d regret. I’d lose myself and become someone I didn’t want to be.
I loosened my fists and placed my palms down on my knees. Only my palms weren’t my palms at all.
I curled them around the arms of the chair and squeezed as hard as I could. Tighter, tighter, tighter.
This isn’t me.
I released my grip, crossed my arms over my chest, and pulled my sleeves into my fists.
Problem was … I didn’t know who me was anymore or if I ever knew her at all.
ELEVEN
I found Blake—in Brayden’s body—sitting at the first table, waiting patiently for breakfast to be served. No free chair beside him, but there was a seat diagonal from him. When I sat down he glanced up at me through heavy eyelids and flashed me a tired smile, so tired I was probably the only one who knew it was a smile. I knew the feeling.
“Blake,” I said.
His eyes shot up as though I caught him in mischief. “Audrey? Did Claire tell you?”
I forgot, then mouthed, “It’s me. Clay.”
He pressed his lips together and reached across the table for my hand, then pulled back, then reached again and finally rested his hands on the table in front of him. The servers filled our plates with cream cheese stuffed French toast rolls, fresh fruit, and sausage with a generous helping of syrup and butter. My mouth watered. I’d never had French toast before. Only Audrey on special days, but I didn’t get jealous because the next day Mother and Father didn’t allow her to eat anything. They wanted to make sure she didn’t get “bigger like her sister.”
I cut my fork into the steamy tower of toast as something touched my leg, then my foot. I peeked under the table as Blake’s bare foot wrapped around my ankle. He didn’t look up. So I didn’t either. We ate in silence, rubbing Audrey and Brayden’s feet together. I don’t know about him, but it gave me a tiny piece of hope that maybe we’d wake up from the nightmare and be together again, alone in our woods, with our own hands and feet and hearts.
My heart. What was my heart anyway? Just a beating organ in the middle of my chest?
I finished eating and allowed myself to stare at Blake. His mannerisms were an odd mixture of Brayden’s and his own. I wondered what I looked like to him. If I subconsciously twirled my hair like Audrey. Please, no.
I wondered if we had our own brains and if so, how our thoughts and memories functioned in someone else’s brain.
“Everyone, may I have your attention?” Sir Anthony stood in the center of the rows of tables. “Today we have something different planned. When we exit the room please form two lines. Orange, please exit to the left. Black, please exit to the right.”
As I walked behind Blake I overheard Sir Anthony whisper to Victoria that I was a Reliable-Restricted-Compulsive Personality, but they could easily change me into the CEN Spectrum, whatever that meant.
They led those of us in the black group outside. Blake and I looked at each other as we stepped into the snow.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I whispered. “I want to run away. If they catch me, oh well.”
He didn’t acknowledge me at all. No nodding or sighing or anything.
“Blake, do you hear me?”
“Just wait,” he said. “Wait until the end of the year and then see if they let you go.”
“But I’m losing myself. I ... I don’t even know what happens to me. Everything is blurred and I don’t understand.”
Silence answered back. We focused on our feet, covered in ice cold snow, as we trekked across a field in our white outfits. Interesting picture. Just needs some blood to set it off.
What? I had no idea where that came from.
“I don’t know my own memories and thoughts,” I said to Blake, feeling like I’d have a better conversation with my fingernail. “What is the heart? Mind, heart, all that stuff. What is it? If our heart is just our emotions, then wouldn’t that mean the heart is stored in the mind?” I tapped his shoulder. “Are you listening?”
“You talk too much.” He smiled like old times.
There you are. “Only with you.”
“I don’t know, Clay. I’m trying to get through this one day at a time without thinking too much about it.”
“But we have to think about it. What if ... what if we can change things, what if we can escape via our minds? I mean, if they can put my mind inside Audrey’s—”
“Silence, everyone. We have arrived.” Victoria clapped her hands and rubbed them together, then readjusted her scarf. “Sir Anthony will explain your assignment.”
I breathed on my hands and kept them against my mouth as I shook my legs to maintain some kind o
f warmth. My frosty breath circled around me as a few snowflakes danced to the ground. Ten minutes more and I’d be a frozen statue.
“231 and 333, please step forward.” Sir Anthony zipped his coat up to his chin.
Two guys stepped forward. I didn’t recognize them at all.
Sir Anthony held their shoulders and guided them to the edge of a frozen pond. “Very simple rules,” he said. “Two of you will walk out on the ice, but only one of you will return dry. You decide who will push who into the water. Have I been clear?”
The guys nodded, briefly looked at each other, then walked on the ice. Not a second passed before the shorter one lunged at the taller one, hugged his waist with force, and pummeled him to the ice, then kicked him in the ribs, kicked the ice three times, and ran back to us. The ice cracked around the other guy until his body disappeared into the water with a quiet splash.
“Guards!” Sir Anthony yelled. “Give him a rope, but leave him in the water for twenty minutes.”
Two men fished a rope to the poor guy. He tried to climb out, but the guards increased the slack every time he gained an inch. Twenty minutes? He’d die.
Lifting my feet one at a time, I tried to avoid the biting pain of my feet going numb. I looked around at the winter scene, dreaming of running away and knowing the impossibility that came with such hopes. We all knew about the camera drones. It wasn’t a secret. It was for our protection, they always said. Tiny little drones no bigger than the tip of my pinky finger. Floating around. Watching us and keeping everyone safe. I wouldn’t get far if I ran away, but maybe my end would be different. Courageous. Valiant, even.
I dreamed as another pair fought and both landed in the water. Then, numb from head-to-toe, I stepped forward when they called me and another number. Blake stood beside me and I told him to go back to his place, but he looked at me with a tear in his right eye, hanging on for dear life.
“No,” he said. “They called me too.”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I won’t do this.”
“You will,” Sir Anthony said, “or the boy dies.” He whispered something in Blake’s ear, snapped three times, and stepped back. “Go ahead.”
Blake grabbed my arm and dragged me out on the ice. I jumped from his grip and held his face in my hands.
“Blake!” I screamed. “Look at me. Don’t do this.”
His pupils hid his eye color almost completely, making his eyes look blacker than a starless sky. He tightened his hands around my wrists, but I managed to slip out of his grip and run full speed away. I slipped and knocked my chin on the hard ice, then slowly stood as I checked for cracks. Blake caught up to me, grabbed my hair, and yanked me toward him. I forced myself forward with every bit of energy left in me and ripped a few hairs out as I tumbled forward. I stood and positioned myself to run, but Blake pulled my foot from under me. I fell backward and cracked my head on the ice. He ran off, leaving me alone. Alone.
Alone.
Snowflakes landed on my face and flashes of light went off as I closed my eyes.
I imagined her face before she jumped. Blake’s first
and only love. We went for a walk on a day like this one. Snowflakes clung to our scarves and hats as we stood on the bridge. She held on, leaned back, and let the snow melt on her face, then she climbed to the other side of the railing.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“I hate my life.” She laughed. “He loves you. He loves you and I hate you for that.”
“Kendall,” I pleaded as I reached over to pull her back to sanity. She smacked my hands away. “I don’t love Blake like that. I don’t. I swear. I’m not trying to take him from you.”
“He’s all I ever wanted. Do you know that? He’s the only happiness I ever had.”
“I don’t want to be with Blake.”
“Doesn’t matter what you want. Don’t you see? I care about what he wants and it’s you. He wants...” She let go and screamed, “You!”
The river moved slowly below us, its deep blue waves crashing against the bridge. Kendall’s hand slipped from the railing. I lunged forward and grabbed her sleeve, but it slipped off of her body. I reached for her hand, her arm, her hair, anything to keep her from falling, but it didn’t work. I failed.
As she floated down to the frigid river, barely moving her limbs, her eyes fixed on mine until she became a small dot that eventually disappeared in the water. I tapped my watch and hit the emergency button. Someone answered, but I couldn’t speak. She didn’t come back from the water. It was too dark, too cold.
“Please come,” is all I could manage as my breath curled around me, hugging me with its warmth. But it didn’t stop the shaking. The trembling of every inch of my body as I looked around frantically. A car passed on the bridge, the first since we got there. Then flashing lights appeared in the distance, painting the bridge with orange and white as they moved closer. My skin flashed orange and white as I stared into space, numb from the cold of what I just experienced. Of what they would do to me….
A few men in orange and black shoved me aside. I inhaled. Waited. Retreated into better memories as people swarmed around me, pulling at me, asking me questions I couldn’t answer.
She died.
And the next day Blake told me that she left a note.
Not your typical suicide note. She hated me and she made that known. Her last letter was a journal entry in her diary all about how crazy and mean and vindictive I was and how she wanted to hang out with me one-on-one to try to love me and help me learn to love people. She said I wanted to steal Blake and everything ridiculous like that. No one could assume that I pushed her though, because she left the journal in an envelope on Blake’s porch before our walk. He was the only one who ever saw it, besides me. She didn’t want me to die or go to the correctional facilities. She just wanted to take him from me. She wanted him to think I was a monster. And apparently her own life was worth that goal.
He said he didn’t believe it. He promised he believed me. But I always doubted and wondered.
The ice weakened beneath me and I knew I’d die. My muscles already tightened so much that I couldn’t move even if I wanted to.
“Blake,” I called. “Blake, I know it wasn’t you. I know this isn’t you. Don’t regret it. Don’t worry about me.”
I scrunched my face to avoid crying and the ice broke away, sending me into the sharp water. I’d definitely be dead before twenty minutes. I opened my eyes under water, but couldn’t see. Pushing myself toward the surface, I felt for an opening in the ice, but my body couldn’t handle the tiny knives piercing my body. I didn’t have the strength to make it out.
My heart rate slowed and I heard my pulse in short bursts as I let myself drift downward. Red’s words played in my mind, “He won’t take care of you, but I will.”
Something crashed and a man’s figure appeared beside me in the water. Red? He grabbed my arm and kicked his legs, using his other arm to pull us both back to air. I couldn’t see his face as he pushed me toward the surface. Couldn’t see anything. My eyes were open, I swore it, but everything turned black.
I hated black.
TWELVE
And white. I hated, loathed, completely, utterly one-hundred percent despised white. White walls. White blankets. White. White. White. I wanted to mess it up. Ruin every last bit of pristine with streaks of color and dirt and life. This was not life.
I stared at the ceiling after giving my blood sample, desperately trying to remember any little detail about the day before, anything to explain my lack of energy and why Red kept coming in my room to place fresh warm blankets on me.
I tried to remember my first day here or even the second day, but I couldn’t. Only fragments of memories came to me. I remembered a bus and Emily and amazing food. I somewhat remembered a dance and animals and snow, but no details and the more I thought about it the more my heart rate galloped into a bucking frenzy. Josephine would appear and remind me to rest, but every time I closed my
eyes I had a nightmare and I didn’t want another.
Eyes open, the thumping in my chest accelerated once again as Red came in and covered me with the fifty thousandth round of blankets.
“What happened to me?” I asked, my voice raspy and desperate.
He waved his hands. “Don’t worry about it. You had a bad reaction to the snow, that’s all. You’re okay now. I’m taking care of you.”
“Where’s Blake?”
“You mean 201?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know. I’m only in charge of you.”
“In charge of me?”
“That’s my job.”
He tucked the covers around me and I loosened them as soon as he finished. I expected him to leave again, but he sat on my bed and rubbed my feet. I slipped them back under the sheets.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I didn’t think I had to.”
I closed my eyes. “Okay.”
“Look at me, Claire.”
My eyelids fluttered as I forced them to stay closed.
“Claire.”
“You called me Claire.” My eyes opened. “Why’d you call me that?”
He shrugged.
“You never do that.”
“Look, I need to talk to you about what happened. I didn’t want you to think I was using you or anything and I want to make sure we’re on good terms.” He swallowed. “I meant everything I said that night.”