by Sara Gran
But it was over. An ambulance came racing up, sirens blazing.
All the exhaustion of the last few days came crashing down on me like a rough wave, knocking me out so deep I choked for air. I felt myself crumple down to the ground.
“She’s—”
“Blood pressure—”
But after that wave came and went and washed me clean there was more exhaustion underneath. The exhaustion of all the mysteries and all the crimes. A lifetime of running and fighting. I was tired down into what was left of my living and beating heart. My liver was depleted and spent; my kidneys could not try anymore. Always trying and always failing. Scrambling for what? For what purpose, exactly? The grief and wear and weariness peeled away only to reveal new etheric and physical levels of fucked-up and worn-out.
“She’s coming back—”
“Stable—”
Forty years in the desert. Forty years of clawing my way out of danger just to throw myself back into more. And for what purpose, exactly? I was tired. So tired I thought I could float away and sleep forever. And for what purpose, exactly, had I done all this? All this drama and worry and fuss. Like a cat jumping in the air over its own shadow. Look at the cat! Just look at how clever and foolish! Forty years of being that cat and why?
So tired I couldn’t even think about standing. So tired one breath was a full day’s job.
Who are you if you’re not that cat, fighting with your own shadow?
Who are you if you start again?
* * *
My eyes popped open. Or tried to. My eyelids dragged across the eyeballs like wood, leaving splinters behind. I saw a small glow of light and then black again.
* * *
Remember, remember.
* * *
“I think I was shot,” I said to someone in the car.
Laughter. I couldn’t see anything. I was shivering.
“I think so too,” a woman’s voice said. “Don’t worry. We’re taking you to the hospital.”
“I’m tired,” I said. “Really really tired.”
“I know,” someone said. “But it’s not over yet, Claire DeWitt.”
CYNTHIA SILVERTON & THE CHARNEL HOUSE GROUNDS
“And so,” said Cynthia Silverton, world’s greatest teen detective, to the assembled crowd of police, shoppers, and crime victims in the PriceSlasher parking lot, “I think we can all see now that the real villain in this case is our beloved grocer Tommy Madison. But what you probably didn’t know is that Tommy Madison . . .”
The svelte teen detective walked over to the balding, portly Tommy Madison and, in one swift gesture, ripped off his face.
The crowd gasped with fear as they saw Cynthia attack, and then gasped again as they saw who was underneath Tommy Madison’s life-like mask: criminal mastermind Hal Overton!!
“Sheriff Brown,” Cynthia said, with perhaps a hint of smugness, “I think this one’s ready for another arrest!”
But Sheriff Brown, along with everyone else, was running for cover. Hal Overton had suddenly manifested, in a cloud of white and strange-smelling smoke . . . a giant white Himalayan tiger!
But the chic and friendly criminology student only laughed.
“I suppose you’d like me to believe that white tiger is real,” Cynthia said to her adversary. “But I’m betting it’s a tulpa you created with the help of your old friend the Tea-Leaf Reader.”
“Don’t bet on it,” Hal Overton said. “And even if he is a tulpa, don’t forget, his teeth can still bite if the flesh is impure.”
“We’ll see about that!” the fashionably-dressed detective said. “Here, kitty!”
To the surprise of Hal Overton—and dozens of mystified spectators—the white tiger trotted toward Cynthia Silverton and sat down at her feet. Cynthia reached down and tickled the formerly vicious beast under his chin. The big cat lay down and purred. Cynthia knelt down to pet it as it curled over onto its back, exposing its wide white belly for the private detective—and lonely orphan—to stroke.
“We’ll see who’s so smart next time!” Overton exclaimed.
“We sure will,” Cynthia said. “After I perform a banishing ritual on this fella, and send him back to the etheric realms!”
* * *
And so that was the Case of the Tiger and the Tulpa. After a few days of rest, Cynthia went back to junior college, and got back to work. But Cynthia was barely prepared for the biggest case of her life—the very last case of them all!
It started on her very first day back at school.
Professor Gold pressed down on the remote control in his hand. The familiar click-whirl-click of the slide projector filled the dark lecture hall. On the wall appeared an image of a crime scene in a neat, modern, stylishly furnished home. On the plushly carpeted floor were the remains of a family of three—mother, father, and toddler son. Blood soaked the rose-beige deep-plush carpet. DIE PIGS was written on the wall in dried, brown blood.
“Now,” Professor Gold queried, “who can spot the clue in this picture?”
“Why, I know,” Hank Greene blurted out. “It’s the writing on the wall—that’s the clue!”
Professor Gold nodded evenly. “That’s true, Hank,” he said. “That writing is a clue—and for the police, it’s a pretty good one. But that’s not the kind of clue I’m talking about. Does anyone see another clue in this picture—one that’s a little more meaningful to them?”
The students shuffled their pens and papers, unsure of how to answer. Even Cynthia was stumped by this one. For once she hoped the professor wouldn’t call on her!
“Cynthia,” Professor Gold called out. “Why don’t you give it a try?”
Inwardly Cynthia groaned. Gee, would she look like a fool. But if there was one thing Professor Gold had taught her, it was that looking foolish wasn’t after all a very important thing in life. Not compared to finding the truth!
“I-I’m sorry,” Cynthia stammered. “I don’t know where to begin!”
“That’s OK,” the professor said with a smile. “How about this: look at the picture, and begin with anything that says something to you—anything at all. It doesn’t have to mean anything to anyone else but you.”
Cynthia squinted and stared at the picture.
“Don’t strain,” the professor said. “Relax. Let it come to you.”
Cynthia was embarrassed at her faux pas—the professor had gone over recognizing clues with her a thousand times—but she quickly recovered. She let her eyes and face relax, just as the professor had taught her. She didn’t so much look at the picture as sit with the picture, and let it tell her its secrets.
After a few minutes Cynthia stood up and walked up to the wall, becoming a part of the picture itself as the light shone bits of blood and bone on her neat yellow casual dress.
“This painting,” she said, tapping on a simple painting of sunflowers on the wall of the lovely, if gore-ridden, home. “I know I’ve seen it before.”
“Go on,” Professor Gold said, encouraging his favorite student.
“It was at the City Museum. I went there when I was a girl. Mrs. McShane took me there when I was sad. That picture—well, it cheered me up a little. I even bought a little postcard of it to take home, so I could look at it again.”
“Keep going,” Professor Gold said.
“Why it’s so cheerful it’s almost as if—well, you would think someone in the family wasn’t very happy, to need such cheering. And look at this,” Cynthia said, moving toward the bookshelf projected on the wall. “Look at these books here—Curing Melancholia and Be Happy. Someone in this family was depressed!”
Professor Gold smiled, but Cynthia needed no more encouragement. She was on a roll!
“And that makes me think,” Cynthia said, lost in the thrill of detective-time. “If you look at the angle of the gun and the blood-spatter patterns—”
Her jaw dropped open as she looked at the professor. They both grinned.
“I’ve solved it!” Cynthia said exci
tedly. “I’ve solved the mystery! The mother killed her husband and son, and then shot herself! I solved it!”
Professor Gold smiled broadly.
“That’s absolutely right, Cynthia.”
He turned toward the class. Cynthia returned to her seat.
“The clue is not the thing that tells you who committed the crime,” he explained to the class. “The clue is the thing that tells you why YOU were called to solve this particular crime. The question is never: Who did it? There’s always one question, and one question only: Who are you, and why are you here?”
Professor Gold looked out toward the class, his green eyes bright and mischievous.
“Here’s a question,” he said to the class. “How do you know who you are? Or to put it a different way: How do you know you’re you?”
Cynthia furrowed her brow, confused.
“Why, I’m Cynthia Silverton,” she said. “And I know because—why, because everyone says I am!”
“Now Cynthia,” the professor said with a gentle smile. “You know everyone has often been wrong before. Remember the time when everyone told you there was no such thing as ghosts?”
“That’s true,” Cynthia said, puzzled. She rolled the professor’s question over in her head, and over and over again, and slowly she felt the worst feeling come over her—like she’d stepped off a cliff, and had only just now looked down. She tried to shake off the feeling, but a little of it stuck behind, worrying her in the corners of her mind.
“Now, what if I were to tell you,” the professor said, “that ‘Cynthia Silverton’ is nothing more than a clue to your real identity? Or rather, a set of clues?”
“A clue?!” Cynthia said. “Why, whatever could you mean?”
She had no idea what the professor was talking about, but now that she was on a case, she felt back on sure footing again. She’d never said no to a mystery before, and she wasn’t about to start now!
The professor looked at Cynthia seriously, his smile gone.
“Now, Cynthia,” he said. “I know you’ve faced many mysteries before, and you’re becoming an excellent detective—one of the best I’ve seen, to be honest.”
Cynthia blushed and murmured a deferment to the professor’s compliment. The professor caught her eye and held it.
“But this case,” he said, “is like no other mystery you’ve solved before. In this mystery, you’re both the client and the detective. You are the mystery, and the clues are both in you and in the world around you. You can’t go back once you know the truth. You can never un-know what you know. Are you sure you want to tackle it?”
Cynthia pursed her lips and considered what the professor had told her. At first she felt scared by the professor’s serious face and big words. Maybe some mysteries were best left alone. That was what people were always telling her, at least. Dick sure seemed to think so, and Mrs. McShane would be happy if Cynthia never touched another mystery again! Maybe she was too young. Maybe she should play it safe once in a while.
The long, black, road of a possible life curled out before her in her mind’s eye—she would marry Dick, she would have children, they would join the club, maybe get a dog . . .
Or, this.
“I’m in,” she told Professor Gold. “Let’s solve a mystery!”
But Cynthia’s joy was tempered by an odd, sad, look in Professor Gold’s eyes. It was almost as if he’d wanted her to say no.
Just what was this mystery, anyway?
“All right, then,” the professor said. “Here’s your case: Who are you?”
Cynthia started to laugh, thinking Professor Gold was joking. Of course Cynthia knew who she was! She was a teen detective, an orphan, and the best student at Rapid Falls Junior College. She lived with her beloved housekeeper, Mrs. McShane, and had passionate almost-sex with her fiancé, Dick, every Friday night.
But she looked at Professor Gold, and from the look on his face Cynthia could tell he was serious—DEAD serious.
“Who are you?” Professor Gold repeated. “Who are you when you aren’t a college student? Who are you when you aren’t Dick’s girlfriend? Usually we define ourselves by the roles we play in life—daughter, wife, teacher. If we no longer have those roles, what’s left?
“Who are you if you aren’t pretty anymore? Who are you if you aren’t so smart? Who are you when no one’s looking? Who are you without the context you’ve built around yourself? Can those contexts—those connections—serve as a kind of armor to protect from the truth? And if that’s the case, what might that truth be? That, Cynthia, is the mystery you have to solve. But you can still say no. Are you sure, Cynthia, this is a case you want to solve?”
Cynthia sat forward in her chair. She felt a flutter of something dark and almost sickening in her stomach.
But underneath her fear, every part of Cynthia yearned for the truth. It was an urge that had been with her as long as consciousness, and maybe before. Like all urges, there was something a little unseemly about it, something embarrassing. But despite—or maybe because of—the ways it made her vulnerable, and sometimes weak, this urge was the strongest, most real thing she’d ever known.
Maybe, she thought, that’s who I am—I am a thing that solves mysteries, and is therefore useful. But even as the words formed in her mind, she knew they weren’t true enough for her lips. Surely she was more than just a tool to be useful! She had to be something more than that!
Then who was she?
“Yes,” she said firmly to Professor Gold, even though the words were thick and frightening in her mouth. “I want to know.”
Professor Gold gave her a look that was a little wry, maybe even sad, when he said, “I knew you would, Cynthia.”
* * *
At home that afternoon, Cynthia’s happy Irish housekeeper, cook, and surrogate parent, Mrs. McShane, fixed Cynthia her favorite fig-and-yogurt bowl for her afternoon snack. Cynthia sat at the kitchen table, listening to Mrs. McShane prattle on about the neighborhood gossip.
“Mrs. McShane,” Cynthia said.
“Yes, m’dear?” the kindly, plump housekeeper replied.
“Who are you?” Cynthia asked.
Mrs. McShane laughed and looked at Cynthia funny.
“Now dear girl,” Mrs. McShane said, “you haven’t been eating mushrooms from the woods again, have you?”
Cynthia laughed.
“No, not today,” she said. She explained her new project to Mrs. McShane: Professor Gold wanted Cynthia to find out who she was.
“I guess I thought if I knew who you really were,” Cynthia said, “I could figure out who I am.”
Mrs. McShane smiled at her beloved charge, but there was a little wistfulness around her weathered eyes.
“But you already know everything about me you need to know,” Mrs. McShane said. “I love you dearly, I promised your ma I’d take care of you, and as long as I’m alive I will.”
Tears sprung to Cynthia’s eyes. “I love you too,” she said, without hesitation. “But who are you when you’re not with me? Who were you before I was born?”
“Ah,” Mrs. McShane said with a wave of her hand. “That’s a long story, and in my eyes, yer still too young to hear it. Lots of blood and lots of death. Ireland wasn’t an easy place for a young anarchist with a penchant fer casting spells! But we got enough sadness in this house already. I like leaving mine outside the front door. Now, on to your other question, who are you?” Mrs. McShane said, a twinkle coming back into her eye. “Ah, that’ll be quite an adventure for you, girl. You’ll find out something the rest of us have tried to hide from you for many years now.”
Cynthia felt her stomach drop and her vision start to blur. “What’s that?” she asked, fear creeping into her voice.
“That you’re a grown woman, and ya don’t need any of us anymore!” the housekeeper said with a vivacious laugh.
But that night, Cynthia couldn’t sleep. She stood up in the middle of the night in her dark room and took off her white cotton nightg
own and her white cotton panties and looked in the mirror. She was too thin, and the outlines of ribs pushed up against her chest. Her hip bones stuck out like corners. Her many scars glowed in the dim moonlight.
She felt like she was looking at a ghost.
Who was she? Who was this woman with this slim, pale, body? With these scars from fights and falls and bad luck? With the small tattoo of the Unspeakable Symbol just above the neat, trimmed line of hair between her stomach and netherlands?
As she looked in the dark mirror, Cynthia had the strangest sensation. As if everything she was or had been could just float away—her body, her house, her beautiful and fashionable wardrobe—it could all just dissolve, and there would be no Cynthia left. Just some small pile of unloved-little-girl, some misplaced little abortion, a puddle of things no one wanted, left behind, a miscarriage not even worth cleaning up . . .
But almost as soon as the sensation hit her, she found it too ugly to bear. She shook it off by reminding herself about the people who loved her: her boyfriend, Dick; her teacher, Professor Gold; her lama; Mrs. McShane; and so many others. She put her nightgown back on as if to protect herself against fate, and went back to bed, telling herself, over and over, that she was real. And as long as she was loved, she could prove that she was real, and would never have to face her own terrifying nothingness again.
The next morning Cynthia overslept, and was late to Professor Gold’s class for the first time. Cynthia flew into the classroom like a whirlwind, and all eyes were on her as she tried to take her seat without attracting any more attention.
Professor Gold looked at her sternly.
“Thank you for agreeing to join us today, Miss Silverton,” he said dryly. “Perhaps next time you’ll even grace us with your presence before class is halfway done.”
Mortified, Cynthia stared at her desk and stammered out a response.