VIOLET EYES

by Nicole Luiken

  “Your turn,” I said, smiling. “Tell me something you never told a living soul.” I looped my arms around his neck.

  “All right. Something I’ve never told anyone else, right?” he murmured in my ear. “Here goes: you’re pulling my hair.”

  I squawked and gave his hair a good yank.

  “What?” Mike said innocently. “I’ve never told that to a single soul.”

  I reached up to pull his hair again, and he kissed me, laughing. “Don’t be dumb,” I gasped at last. “Tell me something important: why did you pick such horrible parents?”

  His good humor faded, and he stared off into the distance. “Because they’re so unlikable. It’d be impossible to forget who they work for and become attached to them.”

  As I was attached to mine.

  At home I flew up the stairs to my bedroom like an arrow released from a bow.

  The white comforter, huge pillows, and scarred wooden dresser, which this morning had seemed so cozy, a haven, now appeared unbearably innocent to my eyes. Innocent and false, hiding the cancer at its heart.

  I had a small desk and a chair, which I used more as a clothes hanger than as something to sit on. I swept the jeans aside, grabbed the back of the chair and swung it at the floor-to-ceiling mirror.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass just before the chair legs punched through and was surprised at how calm I looked. Perhaps a little pale, a little grim around the mouth, that was all.

  The mirror fractured; isosceles triangles dropped like knives; powdered glass drifted down. A hundred small mirrors were born of one big one, and I saw a hundred avenging angels snarl and swing the chair again, grimness swallowed by savagery.

  Glass sprayed everywhere, an explosion of crystal shards. I nicked my arms in a couple of places and received a cut above my left eyebrow, but I wouldn’t have known it except for the blood dripping into my eyes.

  I reached through the hanging jaws of glass to the shelf mounted inside the wall and seized the camera that had spied on me all these months. The thickness of the wall had alerted me to the camera’s presence soon after we moved to Chinchaga, but at the time it had been in my best interests to play dumb and pretend it wasn’t there. Now I threw it out the window to the hard ground below.

  My parents burst into the room. Their alarm grew when they saw the glass carpet at my feet, sparkling on my hair and clothes.

  “Angel!” Mom reached for me, then drew back.

  “Mike’s gone,” I said. My voice was stark, brutal.

  An expression slithered behind their masks, too quick for me to read. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Dad said. “He seemed like a nice young man. Whatever’s happened, we can help you.”

  I cut him off before he could edge into “Why have you destroyed your room?”

  “Am I your daughter?”

  Their emotions swam closer to the surface. Shock? Pain?

  “We meant to tell you,” Mom said, rushing into a rehearsed speech.

  “We should have told you earlier, but the time never seemed right.” Dad sat down on the bed with a defeated sigh. “It’s hard even to know where to start. With the basics, I guess. We adopted you when you were four years old.”

  “No. You’re not listening to me.” I stamped my foot, and glass slivers fell from my hair. “Am I or am I not your daughter? Is Mom your wife or isn’t she? Make a choice.”

  Silence.

  Then Dad spoke, fiercely, “She is, by God. You’re my daughter, and she’s my wife, and no two-bit weasel is going to take her away.” He swept the two of us into a hug on the glass-sprinkled floor.

  Mom was crying.

  I got the whole story from them in bits and pieces.

  They’d fallen in love at university. Both of them had majored in drama. In their time all education from kindergarten to postdoctoral studies was provided free by the government, but once you graduated—or if you flunked out once too often—they demanded repayment. Instead of having to pay back student loans, you owed them several years of your life working on government projects.

  “We applied for a family license,” Mom said, “but they wouldn’t give us one until our years were paid up.”

  “There’s not a lot of government work for actors,” Dad said, “and we were faced with doing data entry and janitorial work at opposite ends of the country. It would have taken us five and a half years to get out of debt, and even then there was no guarantee that our application to marry would be accepted.”

  “So when the offer came along—”

  “—to come here and pretend to be a family—”

  “—and have a sweet little girl of our own”—they exchanged glances—“we jumped at it,” Dad finished.

  “It was only supposed to be for three years.” Mom closed her eyes, sitting on the edge of my bed. “And at the end we’d be all paid up.”

  “With a bonus to equal the rest if they got the desired results early,” Dad added.

  “After we mastered the history requirements it was easy. All that money for acting like a family, which was all we wanted to be anyhow. And when you were at school we could do whatever we liked. Take watercolor painting—” Mom’s eyes misted.

  “—stage little theater productions. It was no hardship to be your parents, Angel.”

  “We loved you,” Mom said.

  Dad sighed. “So when they offered to extend the contract for real money for another five years or as long as it took, we accepted.”

  “There were things we shut our eyes to,” Mom admitted. “Things we shouldn’t have allowed.”

  “Whenever we moved to a new house we would gradually realize there were more cameras, more listening devices, more reports to fill out than at the last place as they became more and more desperate.” Heaviness filled Dad’s voice, and he could not look at me. He kept staring at the broken mirror.

  “But by then we were in so deep—”

  “—and they kept blackmailing us, dangling that damned family license in front of our face—”

  “—and we didn’t want to leave you, Angel. You’re part of our hearts now.”

  “We thought, At least we love her. At least we can protect her from them a little.” Dad looked pained. “These last two months have been absolute hell.”

  “That horrible Mr. Vallant.” Mom shuddered. “At first it was just ‘Flirt with him. Mike and Angel will unite forces to break you two up.’ Then when that didn’t work they came up with that awful marriage scheme. ‘You can still be together during the day,’ they said.”

  Dad put an arm around her shoulders. “We’d just decided we couldn’t go through with it when you and Mike started dating.”

  Mom looked up, concern for me plain in her expression. “We knew right away he wasn’t one of your regular boyfriends. We’ve been so worried for you, darling.”

  Mike was gone. Fear slammed into me like a wall of water, poured through me, hollowing me out inside. What would I do if he was gone forever? “Do you know where they’ve taken him?”

  Mom shook her head. “Somewhere outside town, I’m sure. They don’t tell us any more than they have to.”

  “They know whose side we’re on,” Dad said softly.

  I swallowed past a lump in my throat the size of a golf ball and hugged them both again. “I chose well when I was four.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Dad asked.

  Get Mike back. “Declare war. Do me a favor?”

  “Anything,” Mom said passionately.

  “Disable the rest of the bugs.”

  Dad was already nodding. “Can do. What about you?”

  I flashed them a tight smile. “It’s eight-thirty, time to go to school.” I had more questions—dozens of them—but after smashing the mirror I didn’t dare remain in one place for very long. At least not until I was dealing from a position of strength.

  I figured that if the scientists could still hear me, they would think I was going anywhere but school—so that’s wh
ere I went.

  Wendy looked surprised when I tapped on the window at the back corner of the math room, but she didn’t hesitate to open it. “Late again, Angel? Hurry up before Mr. Thrombel arrives.”

  I shook my head. “You come out here. I need to talk to you.”

  Wendy shrugged and immediately started wiggling her way out the window.

  Some of the other kids laughed, but they quieted down when I put a finger to my lips. They wouldn’t give us away to Mr. Thrombel, expecting some kind of joke. But it wasn’t a joke this time, and I just hoped that whatever candid camera had been set up didn’t cover the back corner, or that the technician had gone for a coffee break and missed it.

  Wendy somersaulted onto the lawn beside me. “If I get grass stains on my new jeans you’re dead,” she groused.

  I wasn’t listening. “Come on. I don’t want anyone to see us.” I pulled her to her feet, urging her up the wooded hill behind the football field.

  “Here,” Wendy said when we finally stopped. “Have a Kit Kat finger.” She snapped me off a piece of slightly melted chocolate bar.

  I stared at it blankly.

  “You haven’t heard the news yet, have you?” She grinned, exhilarated. “I’m handing out candy instead of cigars. Raven had the baby Friday night—Saturday, really, at four o’clock in the morning. Eight pounds, thirteen ounces. He’s perfect, as fat and healthy as a tick. They’re naming him Dimitri. Dad stayed home today on paternity leave because they’re bringing the baby home from the hospital. I said, Hey, what about sorority leave? Don’t sisters have any rights? But they made me come to school anyhow. Do you want to come home with me at noon and—”

  I cut off the flood. “Mike’s gone.”

  It took a few seconds for my words to penetrate. “Gone where? Did you two win the tournament?”

  We’d lost very badly. “He’s gone. His mother says he got early acceptance to the university, but she’s lying. He’s been kidnapped,” I said starkly.

  “Kidnapped? Why? I mean, Mike’s not rich or anything, is he? Maybe his aunt died, and he had to leave town or something. He’ll be back in a couple of days.”

  “The only relatives Mike has are Uncle Albert and Aunt Patty, same as me.”

  Wendy blinked. “You and Mike are cousins?”

  “Not exactly,” I said impatiently. I didn’t have time to explain. “Mike didn’t leave for a funeral. He’s in trouble.” The words sounded woefully inadequate. The scientists had taken him at one o’clock this morning. Hours ago. “Please, Wendy, just take my word for it. Mike’s in trouble, and I need your help.”

  Her expression turned serious. “Shoot.”

  I paced restlessly. “I need to know where we are—exactly where we are. All I have are guesses based on tiny scraps of knowledge.”

  “What do you mean? We’re in Chinchaga.”

  “Where’s Chinchaga? In Canada, like we’ve been told? Does Canada still exist? Are we in Alberta? Or the United States? We could be in Russia for all I know.”

  Wendy stared. “Is this some kind of test? I know I said I wouldn’t care if my dad got fined last time, but I was a little surprised when you reported me.”

  “It’s not a test, and I didn’t report you. Until you mentioned it, I didn’t even know there were fines.” She was still staring. How could I convince her? Time was so short. “Please, Wendy. Pretend I really am from 1987, that I’ve been locked in a time capsule and never allowed outside all the museums. Where are we?”

  “Okay,” she said softly. “You can laugh at me later. We’re in Chinchaga, Peace River Province. The location on the maps is pretty accurate. Canada still exists as part of the larger North American Community.”

  I took in a deep breath. “And what is Chinchaga?”

  She still hesitated.

  “I’ve been living in these museum towns since I was four years old,” I said. “I know why I’m here and why Mike was here, but why are all the rest of you here?”

  She still looked as if she couldn’t decide whether I was lying or not. “Everyone has different reasons. Carl’s a Spacer; his parents sent him here to avoid the war. He’s on a scholarship. Maryanne’s parents are antique collectors. My dad’s an archaeology professor, and he and Raven thought a change of scene might be best for me. Get me away from all my city friends.” A fleeting smile touched her mouth. “I’m surprised they didn’t change their minds and yank me out of here when I started dating Carl. But the fees are nonrefundable, of course.”

  I felt like strangling her. “Fees for what? What is this place?”

  “Historical Immersion class. You know, ‘Don’t just study the past, live it.’”

  I went very still, more pieces tumbling into place.

  “They’re springing up all over,” Wendy chattered. “Historical Immersions and Historical Reenactments of the Old West, China at the time of Genghis Khan—Egypt is very popular—the Second World War, Watergate. I wanted the 1960s—the Bay of Pigs, Apollo Eleven, and all that—but Dad held out for the beginning of the computer age and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and of course Raven voted with him….” My expression seemed to sink in. Wendy’s mouth, outlined in dark red lipstick, fell open. “You didn’t know. You really didn’t know.”

  I clutched a tree for support, eyes closed, bark digging into the soft flesh of my palms. “Wendy, I don’t even know what year this is.”

  “It’s 2098.”

  That was 111 years after 1987. My mind raced. If the scientists’ purpose had been to retard us technologically, why hadn’t they pushed us back even further? Made us serfs under the whip of the tsar in Russia, for instance?

  The answer surfaced at once: there were no schools back then. The scientists wanted to test our intelligence, so they needed a time period where most people finished high school and went on to college.

  “No wonder you never slipped,” Wendy whispered. “Who did this to you?”

  Time to gamble. “Remember the social studies test I got ninety-eight on? I can get one hundred on any test I want, without studying, if I’ve seen the material even once.”

  She squinted at me through a thick coating of mascara. “So you’re, like, some kind of genius?”

  I nodded. “The scientists figure we’re some kind of new human subspecies. Homo sapiens renascentia. They want to study us, use us. Another group wants to kill us.” Dave had turned out to be a fake, but the Orphanage fire had been all too real.

  “Bizarre.” Wendy shook her head.

  “Do you believe me?”

  “Hey, I’ve seen some of your schemes in action. I always told Dad you were smarter than you made out.”

  “Good. Will you help me?”

  “Of course.”

  I looked her straight in the eye. “It might mean more than a few fines this time. You’ll be going against the government.”

  She grinned recklessly. “According to local law I’m still a minor. How bad can it be?”

  “Bad.”

  Wendy raised a thinly plucked eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me the plan or not?”

  “Who said I had a plan?”

  She laughed. “Angel, you always have a plan. You’ll break Mike out with a flamethrower and a bucket of water if you have to.”

  So I told her.

  She gave a low whistle when I finished. “Sounds like fun.”

  So we went back down the hill and caused a riot.

  CHAPTER 11

  WE SET EVENTS IN MOTION by barging into our math class. Mr. Thrombel looked annoyed but resigned. He waved us to our seats.

  I didn’t take mine. “Mr. Thrombel, can you help me with a small math problem?”

  “What is it?” Mr. Thrombel was a fairly relaxed teacher and could often be steered off the curriculum into digressions.

  “I was just looking in the hallway, and I could swear the outside of this room is bigger than the inside. I mean, I know the walls account for some of the difference, but it’s off by quite a bit. Come
see.”

  Mr. Thrombel loved to bite into a good, practical math problem. He produced measuring tapes from his desk and got half the class to measure the inside of the room while the remaining half measured the outside.

  To Mr. Thrombel’s consternation the inside of the math room was too small by several square feet.

  “Hypotheses, class?”

  “We measured wrong?” Maryanne suggested.

  “That might account for an inch or two, but not four feet,” he said.

  “The inside walls are thicker than the walls we measured?” someone proposed.

  “A distinct possibility, but a four-foot-thick wall does seem a little odd.” Mr. Thrombel worried over the problem.

  “Maybe there’s a secret passageway,” I said. Before he could point out how unlikely that was, I added, “How would you find out if there was one?”

  “Look for secret doors, I suppose,” he said.

  “Lets do it,” I said, projecting my excitement at the rest of the class like a lantern throwing out light.

  Mr. Thrombel frowned mildly. “We’re supposed to be learning trigonometry.”

  The class groaned in unison.

  He grinned. “On the other hand, I never could resist a mystery.”

  I remembered why Mr. Thrombel was my favorite teacher, and I hoped he wouldn’t get into too much trouble when this blew up in his face.

  The wall was constructed of concrete, patterned to resemble stone and painted white. While the rest of the class prodded at the baseboards and the corners—“Someone should dust a little more often. Phew!” Maryanne said—Wendy and I stood on desks and attacked the chalkboard.

  A metal bracket in each corner kept it attached to the wall.

  Fortunately, I had thought ahead and borrowed a screwdriver from the janitors closet earlier. Wendy had taken a battery-operated electric screwdriver on the principle that if you were going to steal something, you might as well steal the best.

  Mine took longer, but it was quieter. Half the class looked up when she unscrewed the bolts on her side. I slipped the bracket in my pocket then lifted the chalkboard out of the bottom bracket. The thing was heavy. “Timber,” I cried, jumping from my desk.