Both of Me

by Jonathan Friesen

  “And we discovered that our problem was not in the hand, but in the eye. We could not see.”

  “But Elias could,” I said. “It’s his gift.”

  Elias’s gift. The thought of it chilled me.

  Doucette plopped onto the couch. “So what do we do? Each summer we come back, and when we return with these paintings, our names begin to be spoken. I don’t think we do him harm. We ask for nothing. He gives freely.”

  It is no longer a room for giggles.

  “I don’t know your plans, Clara, but . . .” Roseau looked around the room. “Maybe wait to judge. If you stay long, you will see: It is frightfully easy to live in Elias’s world. There is much less pain.”

  She was correct. It was easy. Addicting. Compelling.

  But it wasn’t right. Deep down I knew it, and I knew they did too. They were not artists. Elias was.

  The real Elias knew nothing of my past. It was time to set him free, never to be used again.

  Well, after I figured out from the Other One how much of me had been discovered.

  My quest had begun.

  “Do you see any themes?” I asked. “When Elias speaks, do you note any themes?”

  “Stars,” they said in unison. Doucette continued. “If it was up to Elias, every painting would be painted at night, which we, of course, cannot do. Always, there are stars and families of stars.”

  “Constellations,” I said.

  “Yes. He describes them in detail, and I admit, those descriptions we do not listen to.”

  “Nothing else?” I asked.

  “Non. Only stars.”

  I entered my room and turned on the light.

  Five faces stared at me.

  “Blast! Elias.” My heartbeat slowed. “A few things you may never do. Sneaking up on me is one of them.”

  “We need to leave. We need to leave now.” He stood up from the chair in the corner.

  “It’s late. We’ll start in the morning.” I collapsed face first onto my bed. But Elias shook the frame.

  “She said we need to go tonight.”

  “She?”

  “I told you. The queen —”

  “My mum said many things during her life, but I guarantee she did not tell you anything of the sort.” I flipped over.

  Elias backed up slowly. “Your mom, the queen?”

  “Yes, my mum the queen, I mean yes to my mum, no to the queen . . . at least not my queen. Maybe your queen.”

  He fell back into the chair. “Of course. How did I miss it?” He stood and paced the room. “It makes sense. Your sudden willingness to help me. Your possession of the instruction manual containing her picture —”

  “You mean my diary.”

  “She would only entrust someone close to her with such a delicate set of documents. You would know what to do, where to go.” He reached beneath my head and yanked out the pillow. “Come now.”

  I groaned and rubbed my neck. “Fine. We will walk around a tad and then come back, and tomorrow we will sort this all out.”

  “But Salem is a big place. You’ll need to get us a car.”

  I sat up, a heavy feeling in my stomach.

  “How far do you want to go?”

  “I’m not sure. My map and your manual together will tell us. I know you like donkeys for long trips, but that’s not an option in this part of the world.”

  “You can’t just leave, Elias. You can’t just leave your mum and take off who knows where without so much as a good-bye. You can’t do . . . that . . .”

  I lowered my gaze. Nobody should put family through that.

  “It’s unfortunate that it must be this way.” Elias bit a nail and furrowed his brow. “She’s kind.” He seemed on the verge. The thought of Guinevere’s worry looked to slow him, and he tightened both fists. Then his fingers extended, and his cadence quickened. “She would try to stop me. She is a good woman, but she doesn’t understand all that is at stake. She sees a very small picture.”

  I nodded.

  “If we don’t find what we’re after, all of Salem is in jeopardy. I see it now. I need your help.”

  “But the boarders. What about Juan and Jakob, Doucette . . .”

  “My teachers? I finished my lessons. History from Jakob. Art from Doucette. Government from Juan. My lessons are finished. My bag is packed. Now pack yours.”

  I slowly rose and gathered my things.

  Guinevere would be devastated.

  “Give me one day. Tomorrow night, we’ll leave.” I paused, jeans in hand. “I can do wonders as a guide, but some items take time to obtain. A car is no small feat.”

  “I believe you can do this.” Elias handed me my diary off the bedside table. “We’ll start at the bazaar.”

  “The bazaar?”

  Elias folded his arms. “The one you told me about. We’ll find someone there who can help us. Maybe Cliq.”

  What have I done?

  “And how do you propose we reach the bazaar?” I asked.

  “There’s a new light rail in this city. I’m sure you can find it.”

  I finished packing.

  We’ ll just ride the light rail system from Minnesota to West Africa. I’m certain we shall not have any difficulties.

  “I’m stating, for the record, that this is not the best way to begin this quest.” I grabbed my underwear from Elias’s hands. “If you would condescend to tell me what we’re looking for . . . We might even find it nearby. Right here, at the inn.”

  Elias thought a moment. “Find us a car, and I will consider the next of your tests passed. Maybe at that point I can tell you more.”

  “Right.” I snapped the clasp of my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Well, then, let’s get started.”

  Elias walked over to the disturbing face, the one on the east wall. He stared unblinking at the man for a long time, before reaching out and placing his hand over the picture’s enormous mouth. “I can’t hear you,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at me. “I’m taking her away from you.”

  I buried my face in my hands. I must be mad.

  We quietly left the room and the inn and wandered out beneath a full-moon sky. Elias’s face brimmed with confidence, and I rubbed my eyes.

  I was helping half of him.

  I was using the other half.

  What I was running from had found me.

  CHAPTER 10

  The light rail rocked and lurched over its tracks, and I gentled my head against the glass, dozing and then waking. Leaden eyelids raised and peeked across the aisle at Elias, sitting stiff and alert. That had been my posture as I left London, but thousands of miles soften the body to conform to its surroundings.

  Again, I tried to find sleep.

  “Where are we getting off?” Elias blurted.

  I inhaled long and hard and forced myself to vertical.

  “Right. Perhaps we could just ride the loop tonight and start off when I’m a bit more rested.”

  “That wasn’t the plan.”

  “Really now? Because I don’t recall there being a whole lot of planning inserted into this scheme. I don’t recall minor things like ramifications and destinations being discussed, do you?”

  Elias glanced at me and then let his gaze fall. “We discussed the bazaar. We discussed you finding a car for our journey.” He reassumed his vigilance and folded his hands. “I will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it.”

  “I’m a Sherpa without an Everest.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait. How do you know that mountain?”

  “Everyone knows that mountain.”

  “Do you know the Amazon River?”

  “Of course.”

  “Canada?”

  “I know my geography.”

  “The United States?”

  Elias paused. “Of what? The states of what?”

  “The fifty United States of America.”

  “I’ve not heard of it.”

  I folded my arms, and whisper
ed, “Fascinating.”

  Elias shifted in his seat. “Are you guiding me or not?”

  I turned to face him. “Apparently I’m not as of yet.” Above his head, a route map presented our options, and I squinted through bleary eyes. “Right. Now I am. The university. We will be getting off at the university exchange.”

  “What’s there?”

  I hoped Kira had only partially disowned me. Either way, she was the only other soul I knew in this town and so would have to do. Knowing her, she would still be awake. Alone was an entirely different matter.

  We exited the train and walked toward the shifting shadows.

  I had experienced enough universities to know there was little difference between them. Nightcrawlers came out with the moon in groups of three or ten. They took over the streets and the car parks and the lawns, moving loudly between parties, both drawn to and creating mayhem.

  Which gave fraternities, locked in unspoken competition, their most noticeable function: to become the beacon of urban wild; to throw the most damaging parties.

  Yes, finding fraternity row, and by extension Kira, involved simply following the noise. For Kira, second wildest would never do.

  “That’s it.”

  I pointed ahead to the three-story mansion. “That is the bazaar.”

  Bodies draped over the balcony, and from their cups beer showered down, shimmering in the beam of the searchlight set in the front yard. Shrieks punctuated the steady beat of club music that shook the ground on which we stood.

  As we walked across the lawn, Elias spun a slow, complete circle. “It isn’t how you described it.”

  “No, it has changed. But that would be it. The only sorority hosting a party. That little bit of rebellion will be where we find Kira.”

  A girl staggered into Elias, stumbled to her knees, and pulled herself to her feet using Elias’s jeans and shoulders as a ladder.

  “Thanks.” She smiled and kissed Elias firmly on the lips. His eyes opened wide, and he stood, frozen, throughout his ordeal.

  It was hard to say if he enjoyed it.

  Deep inside, I burned. Why, I did not know. I had no claim over either the desirable half of him or the paranoid half I’d helped run away. Was it a buried mother instinct? It didn’t feel that way. This feeling was darker and heavier, and I stepped forward and broke her lips from his.

  “On you go.”

  She disappeared into the night.

  Elias cleared his throat. “This is definitely not how you described it.” His eyes twinkled.

  “So it’s better, or worse?”

  “So far, better.”

  “Come on then.” I grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the front door. “Pay close attention to your bag, as it will be crowded inside. And whatever happens . . .” I clutched his hand, and though he recoiled I squeezed all the tighter. “Do not lose this hand.”

  “It’s not mine to lose.”

  I shook my head and we pushed inside.

  Eyes. Everywhere, eyes. Pulsating white in the light of a giant strobe. They flickered our way, but cared nothing for us, and I took a deep breath and pressed through the bodies. They gave easily, swaying as if barely upright, which was likely the case. The music pounded, and I headed for the stairs.

  Elias’s hand tried to escape mine, but I would not release him. Losing him in here would be a disaster.

  We reached the first step, and I checked on Elias. His free hand covered his eyes. “I can’t deal with this kind of light!”

  “Okay!” I pressed my lips to his ear, but yelled anyway. “Let’s get you upstairs!”

  I stepped behind him and pushed him upward. He stumbled and straightened, and we emerged on the second floor, in a central hall surrounded by six doors. Three girls lay unconscious on the floor.

  Elias knelt at their side. “Were they attacked?”

  “Yes, I suppose. A self-induced alcohol attack.”

  Elias shot me a look I remembered. One first given me by my mum when I came home with a lowly set of marks. Disappointment. That’s what it was. I hadn’t felt the emotion directed toward me for months.

  With Elias, I felt it again.

  “They could have been warned. You knew about this place and didn’t tell me? I should have warned them.”

  “About drinking?” I squeezed my forehead between thumb and forefinger. “They wouldn’t have listened . . . She didn’t.”

  Elias slipped his bag off his back and dug, eventually pulling up a sock. He wiped the spittle off a girl’s face, and gently placed the sock on her lap. “So that’s how you travel. You ignore pain so you don’t have to get involved.” He stood and shouldered his belongings. “These are your people. Or have you taken us out of Salem?”

  I rolled my eyes. “These are not my people. These are idiots acting like idiots.”

  Again, the look.

  I wished I could reel back my words, reign in my tongue. I wished many things. I closed my eyes and remembered: Mum had returned from the factory blitzed.

  Early on, it was not a common thing. Most days, her pay ended up where it should, in the hands of our landlord or converted to something for Teeter’s and Marna’s stomachs.

  But when the day was hard and her boss unyielding and her depression as thick as fog; on those days, the few pounds she made ended up at the pub. She drank herself into oblivion.

  I never blamed her. My father received my guilt-born hatred. And as I evolved into Mum and my mum reverted to a child, I thought of ways to exact revenge. To my young mind, the fact that Dad sat well fed without work or responsibility in a clean, dry room while the rest of us died a slow death seemed quite unjust.

  He committed the crime and we paid the punishment.

  Mum stumbled in late one night and I jumped to my feet. I caught her thin frame as she collapsed in the doorway, and together we reached her bed. I removed her shoes, her glasses.

  “I’m sick,” she moaned, turned her head, and churled over her bed, a combination of beer and blood. I grabbed a towel and sopped it dry as best as I could. Then I went to the drawer and removed a dishtowel. I wiped her mouth and placed the towel gently over her midsection.

  I sat down beside her, surrounded by stench and sadness, and I never loved my mum as much as I did that night.

  “I know you’ve been traveling, and I’m sure your diplomatic trips are important.” Elias straightened. “But now that you’re home, you need to spend more time with your people. Look at them. After all, the queen won’t live forever, and then it all passes to you.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, and let it fall shut.

  “No answer?” Elias asked.

  “We need to find Kira.” I stepped forward and pounded the first door. A girl peeked out.

  “Kira Haley?”

  “Third floor, end room. Doubt she’s there now. If she is, she won’t want to be interrupted.”

  The door closed, and we traipsed up the stairs and down the hall.

  “Stand behind me, Elias.” I knocked hard.

  Her door flew open. “Now is not the time . . . Clara?” Her face brightened, and then darkened. “You finally decided to visit. Well, I’m a little busy right now.”

  “Who is it, K?” A male voice from inside the room.

  Kira stared at me. “Nobody.”

  I stuck my foot in the doorframe just in time.

  “What do you want from me?” She slowly widened the crack.

  “I need the bloke gone, and I need your time. I’ve been crap for a friend, but I need you now.”

  Kira tightened her lips and flattened her T-shirt. “Out, Drew.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Out, Drew.”

  Drew cursed and pushed Kira aside. He glanced at me and winked before storming into the hall.

  “I think you might just have saved me. Let’s lock the door and catch up.” Kira threw her arms around my neck, hugged me deeply, and then stiffened.

  “You brought him.”

  I
said nothing.

  “You didn’t really come to see me,” she continued.

  More silence.

  She licked her lips. “I suppose it’s too late to get Drew back, so you might as well come in.” She exhaled. “Both of you.”

  “Thanks.” I followed her in. Elias did not.

  “Come on in, Elias.”

  He gestured to me and I walked toward him. “How well do you know this girl?”

  “Well enough,” I answered with an exaggerated whisper.

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “London.”

  “You are kidding me.” Kira laughed. “What’s wrong with the guy?”

  “No, he’s . . .” I turned back toward Elias. “If you trust me, please, trust Kira.”

  Elias looked up and down the hall and slowly entered the room. “Have a seat.” Kira pointed at a chair, and grabbed some gum from her desk. She started an obnoxious chew, and plopped onto her bed. Elias still stood.

  “Or, you know, keep standing.” Her voice raised. “Like a freaking statue.”

  “Shut it.” I plopped down beside her, stared about the room. Rather tidy as universities went. My gaze fixed on the painting of Jesus hanging on the wall.

  I pointed at the frame. “Why is he here?”

  “My roommate’s. She says it keeps her from doing something stupid.”

  “Don’t believe her. It’s a non-god.”

  I hadn’t always believed that. My early years were filled with simple prayers and church steeples and real belief. Dad said God was real, so it had to be so. Mum tried to keep up the act after Dad was gone, but I was a good guesser and she was rotten at charades. Besides, a fiction only willing to bring his own son back to life did little good for me, little good for Little T.

  No, this picture could not be counted on. Dad once said that since Little Thomas was born different, he’d have a special place in non-god’s heart. But Jesus, Dad, and Little T all disappeared on the same day.

  I hadn’t seen any of them since.

  I wrapped my arm around Kira’s shoulder. “There are things I need to say and explain. There are reasons I haven’t texted and . . . I don’t understand all of them myself. But I need you. I don’t have any right to ask your help after these last days, but there it is.”

  She whispered into my ear, “He is kind of a nut, you know.”