Another Me

by Cathy MacPhail

  Dawn agreed with her, as if they’d discussed it and wanted to have it out with me. ‘You can tell the truth now. It was a great joke. But it was you yesterday. Admit it.’

  ‘Believe what you like!’ I snapped and I pushed the button for the lift. ‘Some friends you are!’

  It was all the excuse they needed to turn angry and walk away from me.

  ‘I’m not coming back to school today, by the way!’ I shouted after them. ‘So if you think it’s me, it won’t be!’

  They didn’t even answer me. I wondered if they would ever talk to me again.

  It was only as I stepped into the lift, alone, that I realised just how frightened I really was.

  Because, she was staring at me. In the mirror. My reflection. Or was it really the other one, ready to step through the glass and take over my life? I didn’t take my eyes off her as the lift rose creakily to the 13th floor. I watched, terrified, waiting for a movement that wasn’t mine. A lift of the eyebrow, a wicked smile. But the face that stared back at me was as pale and terrified as my own.

  The flat was eerily quiet too. This time I didn’t savour the solitude or the silence. I switched on the television even though it was just some stupid chat show, and the radio, too, so I could hear music, people talking.

  Normal, wonderful, everyday life.

  Then I sat on the sofa and cried.

  I cried because I didn’t understand what was happening. I cried because I was afraid of how all this was going to end.

  I fell into a fitful sleep, until the phone ringing woke me with a start. I let it ring for a moment or two. If it was Mum, how would I explain my presence at home? But then, why would Mum phone knowing I was at school? I grabbed the receiver just before it clicked into the answering service. ‘Hello?’

  There was someone there. Even though I couldn’t hear breathing, or backgound noise, I knew there was someone on the other end of that line.

  You always do, don’t you?

  Someone who wasn’t answering.

  I was sure suddenly that I knew who that someone was.

  ‘Speak to me!’ I yelled. ‘Why are you doing this to me? Who are you?’

  I was answered by silence.

  ‘Stop it!’ I screamed. ‘Stop it, or else!’

  I was crying now, and was about to slam down the phone in anger when, very softly, a voice answered me.

  ‘Or else . . . what?’

  And the voice was mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Too scared to scream. I threw the phone from me and found I couldn’t make a sound.

  The voice was mine.

  Calling me, at the other end of the line.

  I backed away, my eyes never leaving the receiver as it dangled against the floor. Watching it, as if I almost expected her – Who? . . . Me? – to ooze from the very phone itself.

  I couldn’t stay in the flat alone. I needed company, normality, people. I ran, hauled open the front door and ran, not caring whether or not it banged shut behind me.

  Where was I going? I couldn’t think straight.

  The voice was mine. That was all I could think.

  I pressed for the lift. Watched it rising floor by floor. Would have stepped into it, but suddenly knew I couldn’t take the chance. The other one might be there, waiting for me, and I’d be outnumbered, because my reflection would be in there too.

  If I had to come face to face with my . . . fetch, it would be on my terms.

  School would almost be ready to come out. Drew. He would be coming home by the stairs. If I could see Drew and talk to him, I’d feel better. He’d know what to do.

  I clattered down the stairs, flight after flight, taking the steps two at a time. My mind in a breathless turmoil.

  The other one had been at school yesterday, instead of me, and now this. My voice on the phone, threatening me.

  Moving ever closer.

  A portent.

  No!

  When I reached the bottom and ran into the street the fog was closing in, growing thicker with the dusk. People moved in and out of it, emerging and then being swallowed up and disappearing. I looked all around, sure I would see her, stepping out, beckoning to me.

  ‘Whoa! Hold on there!’

  I gasped as I almost collided with my mother. She grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘Where are you going now?’

  I so wanted to tell her, hesitated, trying to find the right words. How do you explain something as strange as this?

  ‘You’re so pale, Fay.’ She stroked my face. ‘No wonder they sent you home from school.’

  So, Mrs Williams had phoned her, after saying she wouldn’t! Trust a teacher.

  ‘They told you,’ I muttered, the first words I’d managed since the phone call.

  Mum smiled. ‘No, silly, you told me. Remember?’

  Icy sweat trickled down my spine. My heart thumped. ‘I told you?’

  Mum just carried on. ‘It was so nice being together this afternoon, Fay. Just you and me. I’m so glad you came down to the office to meet me. It gave us a chance to talk. Get a lot of things sorted out.’

  I felt as if the wind had been punched out of me. She had known I would be alone, and she’d taken my place again. But this was the worst. Worse than the phone call, and the voice – my voice.

  The other one had been with my mum. And Mum hadn’t known the difference.

  I wanted to tell her, shout at her, ‘That wasn’t me!’ But my voice wouldn’t come.

  My own mother hadn’t known the difference.

  ‘What’s wrong, Fay?’ Her eyes were full of concern. ‘Come on, we’ll go home and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea. Forget about talking to Drew. I knew you would never find him on the stairs anyway.’ She glanced across at the stairs, barely discernible in the thick fog. ‘I told you, you wouldn’t find anyone in this fog.’

  I followed her gaze. The other one would be there, on the stairs, waiting for Drew. I pulled away from Mum and began to run.

  ‘Fay! Fay, are you all right?’

  I glanced back at my mother. She was watching me with puzzled eyes. Then, like someone in a dream she was swallowed up by the fog.

  I had only one thought in my head. I turned and ran. Ran for the stairs.

  I ran after the other one.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  This was it. She was too close. Taking over my whole life.

  Talking to my mother. And my mother hadn’t known it wasn’t really me.

  No!

  I wouldn’t take this any longer. Not for one more day.

  She’d left my mother and headed for the stairs, minutes ago. Seconds ago.

  She’d still be here.

  This time she wouldn’t get away. This time I would see her. Come face to face with her.

  A portent of my own death. Could I face that?

  No! I wouldn’t let that be true. Who makes up the rules? Drew had said that.

  Well, from now on I was making up new rules. My rules. A new legend would begin today.

  The fog swirled around me as if it were alive, growing thicker by the minute. Filling me with a sense of doom.

  Sounds were strange in that fog. Strange and distant. A horn tooting somewhere in the town below, a dog whining in a nearby garden. The fog swirled around the overhanging lamps on the walls and between the branches of winter-dead trees. They reached out at me like ghostly fingers.

  I stopped, breathless, and heard her. Feet stopping just like mine.

  She was there. Somewhere on the steps above me.

  ‘Come down here and face me, ya bitch!’ I shouted, and my own voice seemed cloaked in the mist too.

  It echoed. Or had she called out to me, too?

  ‘Nowwww!’ I yelled as loud as I could. Let the word ring out for so long it seemed to hang in the air.

  And then, after an eternity, her feet began to move. Step by step, closer and closer.

  This was it. Right or wrong. I was going to see her at last. Face to face.

&
nbsp; A portent.

  * * *

  For an instant, just an instant, the mist cleared and I saw a faint figure moving towards me. A shape, unformed, ghostly. And I stood straight and tried not to be afraid.

  And I remembered another day, just like this so long ago, when I had waited on these same stairs for a figure coming through the fog.

  I remembered how I had pressed myself against this same wall, so frightened as I wondered, what would be the most terrifying thing that could come out of the fog?

  And suddenly, here on a dark December afternoon I had the answer.

  The most terrifying thing that could come out of the fog was . . .

  Another me.

  Chapter Thirty

  I wasn’t breathing. No sound. No heartbeat. It was as if I was already dead.

  NO!

  The figure moved. A shape, a shadow, a wraith. A fetch.

  Like something from a nightmare she emerged from the fog and I gasped with the shock of it.

  She was me! Her face, her hair, her eyes.

  Me.

  Yet, she couldn’t be me. I was standing here. Alive.

  I dug my nails into the palms of my hands and felt the pain. I am me. I kept telling myself over and over.

  She moved towards me, not as if she were walking at all. As if she were floating, and I took a terrified step back.

  ‘Who are you?’ My voice came out in breathless gasps.

  She smiled then, but it was a cold, wintry smile. ‘I’m you, of course.’

  The voice on the phone. My voice.

  I clasped my hands over my ears. ‘No! I’m me. There can’t be two of us. It’s not possible.’

  ‘But there is,’ she said. How like me she sounded. Then she added the chilling words. ‘But not for long.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked, though I wasn’t certain I wanted to know the answer.

  ‘Only one of us can go on,’ she said softly. ‘And it’s going to be me.’

  I didn’t understand. ‘But you’re supposed to be . . .’ The word haunted me but it had to be said. ‘A portent of my death ... aren’t you? That’s why you’re here . . . isn’t it?’

  She took an age to answer me. ‘I’m changing the rules.’

  That’s what I had thought, wasn’t it? That I would change the rules.

  She was so much me that she had had the same thought. She was going to change the rules. Create a new legend.

  I knew then that she didn’t mean me to die, only to be . . . replaced. Replaced by her.

  ‘And what’s going to happen to me . . .?’ I said.

  She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. ‘You’ll go where I’ve been all this time. You’ll be the reflection in the glass. The shadow on the wall.’

  The walking shadow, I thought, knowing now why those words had frightened me so much.

  ‘Only, I won’t ever let you out!’ Her voice was vicious then.

  And who would know, I thought? Who had known yesterday, when she’d walked in my shoes, talked to my friends; or today, when she’d talked to my mother? No one would know the difference.

  ‘I might as well be dead,’ I said.

  But this would be worse than death. To be trapped in her world, for eternity?

  ‘I want to live.’ We both said it at once.

  There in the fog we faced each other, and in that moment I realised that if I wanted to survive, I would have to be stronger than she was.

  She took a step towards me. ‘I’m not going back. I’m taking over.’

  I shook my head, moving away from her. ‘No. I won’t let you.’

  ‘You’re too late,’ and the way she said it I was even more afraid. If she came close enough to touch me, would she merge into me? Seep into my flesh, my bones? So that I would be gone for ever?

  Closer again, and still her eyes never left mine. As if she was trying to hypnotise me. ‘You won’t feel a thing.’

  Those words jerked me back into life. I stumbled backwards. ‘NO!’ I screamed, and I turned away from her and began to run.

  ‘You can’t run from me,’ she called, and when I risked a glance back it seemed she was still close behind me.

  I ran faster because I wanted to live. I had never wanted anything so much in all my life.

  Her voice seemed ever closer no matter how quickly I ran. I had to get out of this fog, I wanted people around me. Life. Noise.

  Yet, as I plunged down the stairs I could still sense her close, feel her cold breath through my hair.

  Her voice at times like a whisper, the whisper of a siren, ‘Come back to me.’

  I shut her words out and ran on. On and on, through the fog.

  It was as if the whole world had disappeared and all around there was only the fog and her and me.

  In the distance, at last, I could see dim, ghostly lights.

  The flats.

  If I could make the flats. The lift. I would be safe. Away from her.

  If only I could see someone. A neighbour. Someone from school. Anyone.

  Where was everyone?

  I was alone.

  Alone in the world.

  I ran into the flats and punched hard against the lift buttons.

  ‘Hurry up!’ I yelled, all the time watching for her, watching as the fog drifted menacingly into the entrance to the flats. Moving closer. ‘Hurry up!’

  The lift came at last. At the same moment she seemed to materialise out of the fog.

  And the lift doors slid open.

  Epilogue

  Daft Donald couldn’t stop grinning. ‘Best rehearsal we’ve ever had! You’re all going to be great!’

  He came right across to me and slapped me on the back. ‘Especially you, Fay. You were wonderful. I knew you would be.’

  I smiled back. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He walked away to congratulate Drew Fraser, and Kaylie and Dawn headed my way.

  Kaylie was dancing with excitement. ‘That Drew Fraser hasn’t taken his eyes off you the whole day! Think there’s a wee romance going on there.’

  And this time I didn’t contradict her. ‘He’s asked me to the Christmas disco,’ I told them smugly.

  Their eyes went wide at the same time. ‘Ya dancer!’ Dawn screamed. ‘I knew he liked you. And I knew you liked him too. In spite of all you used to say about him!’ She started to mimic me. Rabbiting on about Drew. ‘“He’s such a weirdo! He’s got skeletons and vampires hanging in his room. He loves horror stories, and ghost stories. Weirdo!”’ She giggled. ‘Some weirdo.’

  I just smiled. ‘People change. He did used to be a weirdo . . . now . . . he’s cool.’

  The girls loved it. Dawn was almost in a frenzy. ‘Poor old Monica is going to be as green as the snot in her nose.’

  We all looked across at Monica. Her face was grim and she was looking at us too. Wondering what we were finding so amusing. Wondering, correctly, if it was her.

  I laughed too. ‘Isn’t she just?’

  ‘Yeah, especially when she was sure you had to have been in that lift when it fell last night.’ Kaylie grabbed at my arm. ‘Oh, Fay, we were so sure you had to be in it. We heard the fire brigades and the news spread around the town like wildfire.’

  Dawn gave me one of her dramatic hugs. ‘It was a terrible accident. It’s a miracle no one was hurt. Weren’t you lucky you weren’t in it, Fay?’

  ‘Wasn’t I,’ I said.

  Dawn pulled at Kaylie’s arm. ‘We just have to drop this piece of Christmas cheer in Monica’s lap, right now. I’ll just say ... “Guess what?” And you say . . . “What, Dawn?” and I’ll say, “Drew’s asked Fay to the Christmas disco!” She will die, so she will.’ She hauled Kaylie along. ‘Come on. This should be fun.’

  I saw Drew watch them go and venture towards me. He’d heard us talking about the accident.

  ‘You were so lucky last night. You must have just missed being in it. I saw you. I was coming down the stairs, and I heard voices. I couldn’t see a thing in the fog, but I wa
s sure it was your voice. And then I saw you running down the stairs and I ran after you. I shouted, but you didn’t hear me. I was dying to ask you about Hardie’s test. Everybody was talking about it. It was so weird.’

  ‘You saw me?’ I asked.

  ‘You were running like a bat out of hell. As if you were chasing someone . . . or running away from them. I couldn’t catch you.’ He shook his head. ‘The lift collapsed right after that. I thought, I was sure, you must have been in it.’ I could actually see him shiver. ‘And d’you know what I thought? A portent of your own death. It had been true after all.’

  ‘But it’s not. I’m here. I did get into the lift, but I was so scared I jumped out again before the doors closed. I was scared to use it because of her. In case she got in with me. Best decision I ever made. So, here I am. I’m alive. Safe and sound.’

  One day I would tell him all that had happened. But not now.

  ‘But you did see her, didn’t you . . . the other one?’

  I said nothing, I couldn’t bear to even think about it now, but something in my eyes made him take a step back, away from me. He looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. ‘You saw her?’

  Still I didn’t answer him.

  ‘You sound different today, somehow . . . more confident. I’ve been thinking that since you came in.’ He hesitated for a second, then he recited slowly and deliberately, ‘“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is . . .”’ there was another long hesitation, ‘“heard no more.”’ He stopped, waiting for me to reply.

  I sighed. I was tired of all this. ‘Haven’t we had enough of this play?’

  ‘Humour me,’ he said. ‘Just one more time.’

  I pouted like a little girl. ‘For the very first time I remembered all the lines, and now you want me to remember some more.’ I shrugged. ‘Sorry, my mind’s gone a complete blank.’

  Drew had gone pale. ‘Don’t wind me up, Fay, please.’

  My face must have looked totally puzzled.

  ‘You really don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve been wondering because you did remember all the lines. You’ve never done that before.’