The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “Don’t,” I pleaded.

  He stayed where he was but he couldn’t stand still, his hands clutching the railing, his arms shaking. “Roman, be careful.”

  I heard a door open above me and then my grandparents were watching too.

  “What is he doing?” my nonna said.

  My nonno put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s going downstairs to be with his father.”

  I took another step, then another, concentrating on every cell and every sensation from my toes to the balls of my feet to my calves and knees. I took another step, already tired but I didn’t want them to see it.

  There were only three more to go and my dad reached a hand out but I didn’t take it. I took another step down and then we were at eye level.

  “You did it,” he said.

  I took one last step, planting my feet right next to his. “Now I did it.”

  We stood in the middle of the kitchen, my dad waiting for me to ask for some water or something to eat, anything to give his idle hands something to do, while I waited for my grandparents to go back to bed.

  When they finally did, my dad crossed his arms, facing me. “Is everything okay?”

  I stared at the floor, not sure how to start or even if I should. “I…couldn’t sleep.”

  “Is something bothering you?” He stepped toward the pantry, looking for the bottle of pain medicine.

  “No,” I stopped him. “I mean I’m not in pain.”

  His arms fell at his sides. “Oh.”

  A chill raced up my neck and my fingernails dug into my forearms “I think…” I hesitated but then I glanced back up the stairs and knew I wouldn’t be able to face that room again until I said the words out loud. “I saw something.”

  My dad lowered himself down into a chair, waiting for me to do the same. But I’d been sitting for the past four and a half months and I couldn’t stand it anymore. If I could have slept standing up I probably would have just to avoid the fear that when I woke up in the morning I might not be able to anymore. That whatever strength I’d found, I’d lost it again.

  “What do you mean?” he finally said.

  I shook my head, immediately regretting what I’d said. I didn’t want to scare him. I didn’t want him to think that I was like my mother.

  “I have to go to her,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Bryn.”

  I wasn’t sure what was happening to me but I knew that whatever it was had to do with Bryn and I knew that I couldn’t keep visiting the dream-state every night in her absence, just waiting for her to walk through that front door, and then shattering every time she didn’t, especially if she was in danger.

  It was the truth simmering inside me and the real thing that had driven me downstairs. Bryn was in danger, I knew that now, I’d seen it, and if the darkness had come back for me I knew it was only a matter of time before it came for her too. Unless it already had.

  “Now?” he said.

  “Soon.” I tried to hide the panic in my voice. “I need to tell her…”

  “What?” He stopped, looked at me, and he could see it on my face that it was horrible.

  “I need to tell her that I lied.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  There was an edge to his voice and I couldn’t look him in the eye as I said it.

  “Bryn.” Her name came out dry and thin. “I told her I didn’t remember her. That’s why she left.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

  “And now?”

  “And now I know that it wasn’t.”

  “Roman…” He pressed his hands flat against the table.

  “I need to do this. I’m…I need to.”

  He tensed at the urgency in my voice, his face full of concern. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

  I glanced up the stairs again. “That room…”

  His face paled. “What about it?”

  The way his voice caught, I knew he was thinking of my mother. The truth was I was thinking of her too and wondering if whatever had tormented her had a face like what was tormenting me.

  “You said you saw something?”

  He looked panicked. He looked pained and that’s when I realized I couldn’t tell him. Not now. Not ever.

  “I just…I can’t sleep knowing that I lied to her.”

  He looked confused but also a little relieved.

  “I just need to make things right,” I said.

  He nodded. “When do you want to leave?”

  25

  Bryn

  “You’re getting wet.”

  I looked down and Sam was standing next to me, her fingers curled around my coat sleeve as she tried to tug me out of the rain. Gravity let go of me and I stumbled, confused as I stared down at her.

  “Am I…?”

  “Sleeping?” she asked.

  “Am I having another episode?” I said.

  Sam shook her head. “You’re just dreaming normal.”

  Even though I’d seen my grandfather in the dream-state and even though I’d shared those memories with Roman for six whole months, I still wasn’t used to dreaming with other people. Not to mention, I’d already learned not to trust the dreams completely and it was rare that I dreamed at all when I wasn’t having an episode.

  “Are you dreaming too?” I asked.

  She was quiet for a while, staring into the rain. She wrinkled her nose. “They’re watching us.”

  I turned. “Who?”

  Sam pointed into the trees but I couldn’t see anyone. At first I thought we were at the farmhouse but the bark on these trees were knotted and wet, leaves like wide lapping tongues. The rustling was so loud that I swore something was moving towards us, and yet the grass beneath our feet was familiar—long and downy, not muddied and damp like the rainforest in front of us.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “They keep the shadows away.”

  “Shadows…”

  Sam held a finger to her lips.

  “But I don’t see anyone,” I whispered.

  “You’re not supposed to.”

  “But you do?”

  “I mean, you’re not supposed to know they’re there. It’s a secret.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “They told me.” She faced me again. “You always dream alone?”

  “Sometimes during an episode I see someone. But when I dream like this, I’m alone.”

  She nodded. “They did something to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sam rolled up the sleeve of her jacket and held out her arm. There was a long raised welt that twisted from her elbow to the underside of her wrist.

  I reached for her. “What happened?”

  Then she touched the scab on my cheek.

  “The shadows?” I asked.

  “They couldn’t hurt us before because the women did something to us.” She pointed into the trees again.

  “Like the women were protecting us? But why?”

  She shrugged. “But they can’t do it anymore.”

  “Who?” My voice strained against the rain that was starting to fall harder.

  Sam pursed her lips, distracted, and I gripped her shoulders.

  “Who, Sam? Who is it?”

  But she didn’t answer me. All she did was point into the darkness again, shadows of the leaves skittering across the trunks of the trees.

  “They look like you,” Sam whispered into her cupped hand.

  Just before I turned away, just before I blinked, I saw the face—wet hair sticking to stark pale skin, black pupils wide and glistening. But despite her strangeness and despite her youth, I would have known that face anywhere. My grandmother.

  “This one’s yours,” Sam said.

  “What?” I blinked and the face was gone.

  “The dream,” Sam said. “It’s not mine, so it must be yours.”

  Mine.

  I
looked down and the ground was pulsating, the grass wringing itself into knots. I hadn’t felt that hungry tug in years but suddenly I was back in that nightmare, a child again as I tried not to let Sam see me tremble.

  She took my hand, shaking. “Does it hurt?”

  I wanted to lie but as the vines climbed my legs, thorns tearing into my skin, all I could say was, “Sometimes.”

  We were both tangled in them, Sam struggling and trying to tear free. But I was still. I knew it wouldn’t matter.

  Sam looked up at me, tears hanging on her lips. I buried her face in my coat as the swarm rose above the trees. I remembered burying my own face in the damp soil as the locusts tried to shred me to pieces. I remembered screaming as my skin split in two. I remembered the ocean.

  “Wake up, Sam.” My voice was strangled by the vines as they strung around my throat. “Just wake up.”

  “But I’m scared,” she said.

  “It’s okay. Just make yourself wake up.”

  I found Sam in one of the waiting rooms along the corridor leading to Dr. Banz’s office. It was small with Looney Tunes characters painted on the walls and rows of fake theatre seats that all faced a small television. Sam had her knees pulled to her chin and was watching that same German dog cartoon when I sat down next to her.

  “You remembered,” she said, still watching the screen. “My mom never remembers when she dreams with me.”

  “You’ve done it before?” I asked.

  Sam nodded, ponytail bouncing. “Sometimes I’ll tell her things, like that we should go to the zoo or to see the turtles at the park, and the next day she’ll take me. But she never remembers why.”

  “And that works?”

  Her cheeks turned red. “Sometimes. But when I dream there’s always someone there. Most of the time it’s Schotzie.”

  “Who?”

  “My dog.”

  “Oh.”

  I wasn’t sure what else to say. I had a million questions but I could tell by the way Sam was chewing the inside of her cheek that she was trying her hardest to think about something else. I knew how she felt and the last thing I wanted was to remind her of the vines or the shadows or the welt on her arm that was still just barely visible beneath the sleeve of her sweater. But whether we spoke of it now or later, the fear would always be there until we figured out a way to put an end to all of this.

  “Thanks for telling me to wake up,” Sam said, startling me with her decision to speak of it first. “I didn’t know that I could do that. Is that how you get away?”

  “I didn’t really know I could do it either,” I said.

  “Sometimes when I see them I pretend Schotzie’s a bear and he scares them away.”

  By the way she said the word them I knew she meant the shadows and not whoever had been watching us from the trees.

  “Does he now?” I was trying to tread carefully, not quite sure what parts of Sam’s stories were products of her innocent imagination or the truth.

  She made a face and growled. “They don’t like bears.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Once, I pretended to be invisible and it worked.”

  “Invisible?”

  She looked down at her hands. “I was at the playground, sitting on the swings. Not the real playground but the dream playground. Schotzie wasn’t there and they were coming so fast so I just closed my eyes and pretended to be invisible.”

  “They didn’t see you?”

  She shook her head. “It was cold and then it wasn’t cold anymore and when I opened my eyes they were gone. But it only worked that one time.” Sam held out her arm again, tugging up her sleeve. “I tried to be invisible.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She reached for my face, the tip of her finger grazing my cheek. “I’m sorry too.”

  “Sam, what did the people in the trees tell you?”

  “That I’m special.”

  “Special?”

  “Like you,” she said.

  “But I don’t know how I’m special,” I said. “For the past five years I just thought I was sick.”

  “But you dream…” her voice trailed off, distracted by the cartoon dog dodging traffic.

  “Most people do.”

  “Not like us, silly,” she said, smiling.

  I tried to smile back but I couldn’t hold onto it. “Did they tell you why? I mean, why we dream?”

  The dog in the cartoon dodged a taxicab and it struck a fire hydrant, igniting a small geyser. Sam laughed.

  “Sam?”

  “I like this part,” she said.

  I glanced at the clock. I was late to meet my mom in the lobby so we could head to the Ludwig Museum—the first stop of many in our attempt to be tourists for the week. But I couldn’t go without an answer.

  “Sam, did they tell you what the shadows want from us? Why they’re trying to hurt us?”

  She looked up at me. “They want to make us sleep.”

  I shook my head, confused. Just the night before I’d been able to wake myself out of the dream-state and each time I found myself there I managed to manipulate it more and more. Almost like being in the dream-state somehow made me stronger. Why would the shadows want that?

  “They want to make us sleep?” I repeated, trying to keep Sam’s attention. “But why would they want to trap us in the dream-state?”

  “Not in a dream,” Sam said.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  She chewed on her fingernails, eyes trailing back up to the screen. But still, she said nothing. I finally stood, wary of leaving Sam alone, of not getting an answer. I took a few steps toward the door.

  “I have to go, Sam.”

  Then Sam turned to me, her eyes dark as she finally said, “A nightmare.”

  26

  Roman

  We pulled up to a small brick house with large windows facing out onto the street. The curtains were pulled closed over every single one. I knew Bryn had been planning to go to Germany for treatment but it had been months since she’d left Albuquerque. All I could do was hope that she was back home by now.

  “You sure this is it?” my dad asked.

  “No, but I guess we’ll find out.”

  I reached for the door handle and then I stopped. I’d been preparing for this walk for the past three weeks. Twenty-seven days of walking from one end of the room to the other, Craig and my dad flanking me on either side, my nonno sitting in a chair at the finish line like I imagined they’d done seventeen years ago. Only I wasn’t all chubby cheeks and still in diapers. I was taller than all of them, broader too, my shirts tighter after all those work outs with Craig. If I stumbled no one could just reach out a hand and catch me by the belt loop. If I fell it was going to hurt.

  But I hadn’t. I’d walked from one end of the room to the other, from one end of the front yard to the other, down the sidewalk, down the crowded aisles at the supermarket, into my dad’s office, all of his colleagues cheering me on, into Mr. Moretti’s restaurant, giving the patrons a new reason to stare, and into Dr. King’s office, igniting a look on his face that I will never forget.

  I’d done it and I could do it again. With my legs still stiff, my hips sometimes locking and forcing me to stop, with feet that felt too big, I would walk to her front door. I would.

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I need to go alone.”

  I got out of the car, letting my body get used to standing before I tried to do anything else. The breeze was suddenly cold and the whole street felt abandoned. I took a careful step off the curb and then another, awkwardly dodging glass and a busted baseball. I made it to the other side of the street, to the edge of her sidewalk, to the front steps. I stopped, listening, and then I slowly made my way toward her door.

  I looked down at my body, hoping it was still recognizable even with legs that were shit and a face full of scars that I wasn’t sure would ever fade. I’d thrown on the Mismatched Machine t-shirt
just in case, hoping it would help—that maybe she’d see it and I wouldn’t have to say a word, that I wouldn’t have to explain why I was there or how I’d gotten my memory back, that she’d just smile and reach for me and never let go.

  I took a deep breath and then I knocked. I turned back toward the street, not wanting my face to be the first thing she saw when she opened the door. I didn’t want her to see the guilt there or the fear.

  But no one answered. I stared at the grain, wishing I could see straight through it. Part of me just wanted to turn and go, relieved that I’d gotten what I deserved. But we’d come all this way. I knew I couldn’t leave, not without seeing her.

  I knocked again. I waited. Still nothing.

  After a long moment I finally took one step off the porch, trying to force myself down the rest. Someone came around the side of the house, stopping when he saw me.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Bryn.” My voice cracked. “I was looking for Bryn.”

  “She’s not here,” he said.

  He was wary and it made me feel like I was trespassing. When he didn’t offer any other information I turned back toward the car, hating myself already for not asking where she was or when she’d be back. But I knew he’d be watching me walk across the street, feet stumbling, knees struggling to bend, and I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible.

  “Roman?”

  I stopped and suddenly he was next to me.

  “Are you Roman?”

  That’s when I realized that it was the very thing I was trying to hide—my brokenness—that gave me away.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He reached out a hand, pretending to shake, but steadying me instead.

  “I’m Bryn’s uncle, Brian.” He nodded toward the car. “Is that your dad?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you two want to come inside? I imagine you’ve come a long way.”

  We circled the island in the kitchen. It was scraped clean of the laminate and I noticed that the backsplash above the sink was gone too. Cabinet doors were left off the hinges next to unopened paint cans and the room smelled faintly of smoke.

  “Sorry for the mess,” Bryn’s uncle said as he poured us some drinks.