The Lost Ones

by Sheena Kamal

  In the time I was enlisted, which, admittedly, wasn’t very long, I never saw anything that could compare with what happened after I left. I don’t know how to explain the horror of waking up from a long sleep filled with nightmares to find a child growing in your belly, a reminder that sometimes nightmares occur when you’re awake, too. A huge, distended stomach as evidence that something happened to you several months before, but you can’t remember what or when, though the how is pretty damn obvious and you only have hazy visions of the who. You don’t know the rest, but there, taking root inside of you, is proof that something horrible, something that you did not say yes to, did in fact occur. And you search your memories in desperation, hoping for anything that will shed light. But you just can’t remember. All you want is for the evidence to slip away quietly in the night, and you’re willing to let yourself go along with it.

  But the evidence does not slip away and she does not do it quietly, either. She runs, setting off a chain of events that brings me here, now. At the edge.

  Whisper rises from her vigil across the room and slinks toward me. As she passes the table, her tail brushes the bottles and pills go scattering across the floor. Though it seems an innocent enough mistake, it can’t be an accident. Because I know her. Because she’s the only guardian angel that I’ve ever had. The bitch did this on purpose and even if I allow for her heart being in the right place, as opposed to her unwillingness to find another food provider, she has just forced my hand. I won’t guzzle pills off the floor. I’m not that far gone yet.

  I retrieve my phone, mercifully intact, from the far side of the room and listen to my old messages. The ones I have pretended don’t exist, but can’t seem to erase, either.

  I feel like seeing a ghost from my past, but not tonight. I send a text. The reply comes almost immediately, as I somehow knew it would. Tomorrow.

  21

  The next afternoon, I wait for my ghost at the most beautiful building in the city. Elliptical on the exterior and built to resemble the Roman Colosseum, the Vancouver Public Library is nine stories high and part of a complex that takes up an entire block. Two doors on either end lead onto a covered sidewalk with the glass-encased library along one side, and little indoor shops and attached office building on the other.

  I stand on the sixth floor and watch as the birds that get caught in this pretty glass case swoop past, searching for the exit. Opposite me, just above the covered shops, I look at the art banners and feel, like I always do, a sense of deep reverence. On each banner there’s an outstretched hand, each in a slightly different position, but every one of them held out in welcome.

  Because I like the view, I don’t mind waiting the hour and a half it takes me to finally accept that he stood me up. That’s when I know that something is seriously wrong. And just as this realization sinks in, I see a lithe, muscular man weaving his way through a tour group and toward the library entrance. He doesn’t match the other patrons in their heavy raincoats and studious expressions. Because he’s not in a car and because he’s not munching on a healthy snack, I don’t immediately recognize the not-cop from outside the Kerrisdale house. He stands in the center of the concourse and looks up. His eyes meet mine, briefly, but long enough for me to register a flicker of recognition on his face. It could be he remembers me walking past Bonnie’s house, or perhaps from WIN’s security footage. Or maybe it is simply the intensity with which I am staring at him. I don’t stop to give it much thought because now I am moving swiftly through the stacks.

  The elevator would be foolish, would leave me at the mercy of whoever was on the other side of the doors when they open, so I take the central escalator down to the fourth floor, which still has areas under construction from the big centralized move the library has undertaken.

  I crouch between two carts of unsorted books. I have found surprise to be the most important factor when dealing with an attacker, especially if he is bigger than me. Surprise and an offensive strategy that uses my low center of gravity to subvert his higher one. A smaller person never wants to play fast and loose with the element of surprise. That sort of laissez-faire attitude can leave her naked and unconscious in the woods somewhere.

  There is the sound of oncoming footsteps and, sensing his location rather than seeing it, I send a cart careening in the direction of the sound. The not-cop dives out of the way, but the cart smashes into his shin and he falls to the ground with a grunt. I push a row of shelves over, but it doesn’t budge. It is bolted to the ground because this is a big and important library that leaves nothing, even unsecured furniture, to chance. I swear lightly and grab another cart, which I use both as a shield and a weapon as I sprint directly at him. His leg buckles under him as he tries to shuffle out of the way, his eyes comically wide, like in a cartoon. And, like a cartoon, there’s a sickening crack as the cart strikes him, but I have no interest in pausing to see the outcome.

  A middle-aged security guard is bounding up the escalator two steps at a time on creaky knees.

  “There’s a man over there—I think he’s causing some trouble,” I say, gasping and pointing in the direction of the fallen WIN Security agent. I can hear him shouting into his phone, describing me. Luckily, the aging security guard’s hearing isn’t as finely tuned as mine. “He tried to harass a lady and she ran him over with a cart.” There is no point mentioning the lady is me. Again, I don’t stop to see what happens. I make for the escalator going down and hope an altercation with the security guard will buy me a head start out of the building.

  At the entrance to the library, I spot a trim man with an athletic gait striding through the north plaza directly toward me. It can’t be a coincidence, not with the not-cop presumably still up on the fourth floor. This newest poster child for a well-used gym membership hasn’t seen me yet. I move quickly through the south doors, but there is yet another male fitness model powering his way up from Howe Street into the south plaza and a friend on steroids approaching from the other side. I’m blocked in all directions but up, so I take the staircase to my left, going into the attached office building of the complex.

  There’s a shout as they spot me.

  I can hear them behind me, closing in. They’re in better shape, with longer legs, and are right on my heels by the time I reach the next landing. I push my way onto the walkway leading to the office building. The not-cop I’d seen on the library concourse makes his way toward me from that side. I am sandwiched between the two at my back and the one in front of me and there’s nowhere to go but down. I slip my belt free of its loopholes. It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got.

  “Don’t be scared. We just want to talk,” says the not-cop in front in dulcet tones, as if he’s talking to a bad puppy. His eyes flicker to the two others closing in behind me. They move cautiously, though, just in case I’ve got something other than a belt hidden away.

  “You’re perfectly safe with us,” the one immediately behind me adds in an unconvincing voice that spans about three decibels.

  “Just come with us quietly and we won’t report the break-in to the police,” growls the one on steroids.

  What do they think I am, a novice?

  Every single one of them is lying.

  Thankfully, none of them belongs to the voice that I heard at the office. I don’t think I could handle that. I narrow my eyes at the one in front of me. “Don’t be scared,” he said. But that’s the worst thing you could say in this situation. Fear is our warning system. It’s what keeps us alive. He should have said, “Be very afraid, the odds are against you.” I would have respected that.

  There was a woman in the States who had damaged the fear center in her brain and was constantly having near-death experiences because of it. She couldn’t judge dangerous situations because she’d become inherently fearless. Her life was consistently in jeopardy. Fear, despite what various self-help gurus seem to think, is a perfectly healthy response. And right now, a necessary one. My spine stiffens and my shoulders hunch in on themselves.
Even if I don’t remember the violence done upon it, my body does. It’s protecting me, because I’ve done such a poor job in the past. The violence is absent from my mind, other than a few snatches of memories that come at night when I relax and close my eyes, but my body never forgets. It stands vigilant, ready to protect or to run at any sign of danger. It doesn’t trust my judgment. So I’m not totally to blame for what happens next. Some of it is just my body, weighing the options and deciding on what kind of pain it would prefer.

  By now, everyone with a seat at the glass window opposite gapes at us from the library. The visually open architecture of the building has led several library patrons to believe that there’s going to be a spectacle. They pull out their cell phones so that they can share it with their friends later. The not-cops are as uncomfortable with this as I am. The security guard posted at the entrance of the library way down on the ground floor is as shocked as the rest of them. Any second now he’s bound to pull out his own phone.

  On the art banner hanging from the wall there is an outstretched hand depicted in beautiful reds, yellows, and blacks. A symbol not only of welcome, but of reconciliation as well. This gesture is mimicked by the man in front of me, whose bland expression has twisted into a glower as he reaches for me in a move that is so opposite from reconciliation that it’s almost obscene.

  “There’s nowhere else to go, sweetheart,” he says.

  I think it’s the “sweetheart” that does it for me.

  There is a collective gasp from the library patrons as I loop the belt over the railing and launch myself over the edge. The not-cop closest to me grabs a fistful of my jacket, but his hold is too tenuous and it slips through his fingers. The belt doesn’t give me a lot of reach, but it’s enough to just barely grasp a corner of the art banner in my gloved hand on my way down. I release the belt from my other hand, hear a loud tearing sound as the banner is ripped from its restraints at the top, and as it falls, I fall with it. I was aiming for the concourse below but the ground rises fast and I don’t let go in time. Instead, I go swinging back toward the wall and the banner is now hanging off only on the bottom rung, but it’s enough for me to slide down the length of it as I go swinging toward the second floor and execute a bracing roll as I hit the ground.

  “Damn it!” comes a shout from above.

  The not-cops above me don’t dare follow my route down; their joints are far too precious for them to consider such a thing. My ankle buckles under me as I run for the staircase in the north plaza, but I don’t feel the pain yet. I know it will come, but not until the adrenaline has worn off. That stunt has given me a slight advantage, but they’re in better shape and will catch up unless I pick up the pace.

  There are more barked orders as the not-cops scurry back for the fire escape but, even limping on a badly sprained ankle, once I’m out in the city I can disappear as if I’d never been there at all. Out on the streets, I have the advantage. I know the roads and the alleys, the dark nooks and secret passages. I have slept on these streets and walked them at all hours of day and night. Light and dark. Nothing scares me out here anymore because this is my playground. I am transparent, like the rainwater that falls down on us now in a fine mist, and so I melt into the damp pavement and flow through the city, keeping to the dirty puddles and stench of human waste. The places no one else would think to go.

  22

  I sit in the alley at the back of the Hastings office, near the dumpster, until dark. Earlier, at a convenience store down the street, I bought garbage bags, a newspaper, and an ACE bandage. After bandaging my ankle, I use the bags as a barrier between me and the ground and crumple the pages of the newspaper. These balled-up sheets go in my clothes as insulation.

  The rain has been relentless today, but it somehow feels like it has always been this way. Because I’m in a terrible mood, I think about my sister.

  I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I realized that Lorelei and I were not the same. That we would never be. Same mother and father (I think). Roughly the same genetic material. But throughout our lives, the sun shone down on her while a damned rain cloud seemed to hover over me. Wherever I went people would step aside to avoid being drenched, whereas with her the exact opposite was true. They would move closer and she would shine brighter. Me, though? My cloud still won’t give me a rest. It follows wherever I go and I’ve come to expect it, even enjoy how the damp air feels on my face. When there’s no rain, there’s snow. I am a harbinger of precipitation. But the sky isn’t weeping for me; it’s just letting me know that I shouldn’t get too comfortable. That a dark cloud overhead is biding its time, sending a little squirt down every now and then to let me know that it’s there. So I’ll be ready.

  I watch the back of the building, my whole body clammy, even with my newspaper insulation, and with a right ankle that is on fire. The same vagrant I’d given a granola bar to wanders nearby, picking through the litter. “Got any more of those bars, sweetheart?”

  What’s with this sweetheart stuff? Because his tone isn’t patronizing, I fish around in my pocket and hand him one. He unwraps it right in front of me and breaks off half, returning the rest. With a tip of his grimy hat, he shuffles off and I am left with a soggy half of a granola bar in my hand, wondering how long it’s been since someone legitimately looked at me and thought “sweet” and “heart” in the same breath.

  The rain amplifies and in this sudden deluge, I can wait no longer. Whisper is probably up by now, thinking about urinating indoors. I slip through the back door and am about to go straight through to the basement when something, I’m not quite sure what, makes me turn toward the main hallway instead. The door to the office is closed, but there is a light on inside, visible by a strip just at the bottom of the door. No one but me usually stays at the office this late, and that is only because I happen to live in the basement underneath.

  Inside, I find Seb going through the bottle of whisky he stashes in the bottom drawer of his desk, and making some good progress. It was full the last time I checked and now it’s almost half-gone. He stares at me as I come in, eyes red behind his glasses. I see my name scrawled on a manila envelope on the desk.

  He doesn’t comment on the fact that I’m favoring my right leg or that I’m dripping all over his floors and there’s a wad of garbage bags and balled-up newspaper under my arm. “Sit down, Nora.”

  Though he hasn’t said this loudly or forcefully, I know he means business. Normally I take offense at this kind of tone, but I owe Seb, and he knows it. So I sit and watch as he leans back in his chair and gathers his thoughts. He pushes the bottle of whisky toward me and for a second my fingers reach toward it before I remember that this is my greatest weakness and that for Whisper and the girl, I can’t afford to give in. Not even a little bit. Not even once. My fingers retract and find their way to the arm of the chair, where I dig my nails into the wood and then run the pads of my fingertips over the scratches I made.

  Seb puts the bottle back in the drawer and I am able to breathe deeply again. It occurs to me that he has just tested me and I am once again in awe of his cleverness. I have never admitted to him that I’m an alcoholic, but somehow he must have known.

  “We’ve known each other a long time,” Seb begins. This is his standard interview technique. Start with something irrefutable, preferably something light. Make the other person comfortable. I nod, but say nothing in return.

  “Now, I never asked where Mike Starling from the Post got your name. He just said that he knew someone who might be able to help me with that piece I was doing with Rebecca Pruitt. You remember?”

  After relapse two but before three. Yes, I remember, and probably better than he does. “The sex worker assaults in East Van.”

  He smiles. There is genuine warmth there, warmth that I have not always felt that I deserved. “You did a great job getting me those interviews.”

  I say nothing. He wouldn’t have hired me on afterward if I hadn’t.

  “I wouldn’t have gi
ven you the job afterward if Starling hadn’t gone to bat for you.”

  Oh.

  “That being said, I’ve never regretted the decision.”

  There’s that smile again.

  “Then Starling goes overseas, becomes a foreign correspondent, and I don’t hear from him for years. Last week, he calls me out of the blue looking for you. He won’t come to the office, ranting about how he’s being followed. I give him your number and then . . .” Seb pauses here and his friendly demeanor turns cold. “He goes missing. Know anything about that?”

  I hesitate. This is not a matter of trust. If anyone has my trust, it’s this man. It’s a matter of bringing him into a story that I don’t fully understand and one that might, judging by what happened at the library just a few hours ago, put him and Leo in danger. “He wanted to meet with me but he never showed up.”

  “Why did he want to meet with you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you break into WIN Security? What were you looking for?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Was it this?” He nudges the envelope to me. I see that it has been opened. There’s a single key inside.

  I stare at the key, perplexed. “Who sent it?”

  “Starling,” he says, just as I realize it for myself. “When we worked together I’d seen enough of his notes to recognize the handwriting on the envelope. What does this key open, Nora?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “There seems to be a lot you don’t know lately,” he says, an edge to his voice that I hear only when he’s talking to Melissa. Just like that, I’m relegated to the ex-wife level on the pain-in-the-ass spectrum. He takes off his glasses and cleans them with the edge of his shirt. For a moment we just sit there in his office and stare at the plaques from his three Canadian Association of Journalists awards, proudly displayed next to his degree from Queen’s University and his certificate of completion of French pastry, level one, from a culinary school in Montreal.