Once We Were

by Kat Zhang

“Is he all right?” Addie said.

  In the weeks between our escape from Nornand and his moving away, Jaime had gotten better in some ways and worse in others. On good days, he’d watched television with Kitty, helped us make sandwiches, and laughed like laughter was a language itself—one he hadn’t lost. On bad days, he’d grown so frustrated with his inability to say what he wanted to that he’d flown apart in rages. On the worst days, he acted like the rest of us weren’t even there. He wouldn’t look at us, wouldn’t try to speak, wouldn’t even move.

  He’ll get better, Addie and I used to tell each other. Today’s just a bad day, and it wasn’t as bad as the last bad day. Tomorrow will be better.

  We hadn’t even wanted to consider the alternative . . . that Jaime might get worse. That whatever those doctors at Nornand had done, the full extent of the damage hadn’t yet made itself known, and Jaime would continue deteriorating.

  “He misses you and the others,” Dr. Lyanne said. “But yes, he’s doing well, overall.”

  I wished we could hear a response from Jaime’s own lips. So much had been stolen from him already. I didn’t want anyone to forget that he was a person, that he was more than the victim of a horrific surgery, more than the first survivor of the supposed cure. More than a liability and a thing to be protected.

  For years, I’d been reduced to the Recessive Soul, the worst half of the Girls Who Just Won’t Settle. I knew what it was like to exist only as a label. And I knew what it was like to be voiceless.

  Addie and Dr. Lyanne started up the stairs again. We’d almost reached Henri’s door when Addie asked one last question. “This meeting—you’d tell us, wouldn’t you, if they’re trying to hide anything?”

  Dr. Lyanne frowned. “Who’s they?”

  “Peter,” Addie said.

  “Why would Peter hide anything from you?”

  It wasn’t that we thought Peter maliciously kept things from us. It was more that he only told us what he thought we needed to know, and as far as Peter was concerned, we didn’t need to know much. He hadn’t said anything about Nalles’s speech at Lankster Square, and he was sure to know about something like that.

  What else had Peter withheld from us?

  Dr. Lyanne sighed. “Peter isn’t hiding anything. There are things that are best discussed by as few people as possible, or—”

  “Like what?”

  “—or everyone will butt in with an opinion, and nothing will ever get decided.”

  “How do you know if you’ve heard all the important opinions unless you hear them all?” Addie demanded. “Peter doesn’t tell us everything. I know he doesn’t. Maybe he can’t. Okay. I understand. But anything—anything really important. Anything big that affects us or Jai—that affects us—you’d let us know, right?”

  Dr. Lyanne looked at us for a moment, her hazel eyes steady on ours. Then she bent down a little so we were the same height. She said, quietly, “We’re discussing plans to keep you kids safe. We’re talking a little about the Powatt institution. That’s all. No secrets, Addie.” She pulled away. “All right?”

  Addie hesitated, but she nodded.

  ELEVEN

  Somehow, without Addie and I really discussing it, it fell to me to tell Hally and Lissa about Sabine’s plan. We didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity. Soon after Emalia left for Henri’s apartment, Ryan and Hally came downstairs.

  “We were kicked out,” Hally said, raising her eyebrows.

  I was too busy sneaking glances at Ryan to immediately reply. He must have read the message in our eyes, because he gave a small nod.

  “We’ve got something to tell you, Hally,” I said, and she laughed like she thought it might be some happy secret. As if we still had things like happy secrets.

  “Well, what is it?” Hally said once I’d shut the bedroom door behind us. Her smile turned a little more hesitant but at least it was still there. If it had been Lissa in control, the smile would have disappeared completely.

  I looked to Ryan, and he looked to me, so I took a deep breath and explained everything.

  Hally wasn’t happy about it. Kitty was in the living room, so she couldn’t make a fuss, but the look on her face said enough.

  “Are you in?” Ryan asked. The television helped mask our voices, and he spoke just loudly enough to be understood.

  Hally opened her mouth, then shut it again. She shook her head, forming each word slowly. “You’re really considering this?”

  “Yes,” Ryan said.

  “Because just what we need right now,” Hally snapped, “is for one of us—or all of us—to get caught again.”

  I said nothing. The Mullan siblings didn’t fight often, at least not with any kind of real heat, but being cooped up with the same group of people for more than a month will grind anyone’s nerves. Addie and I quickly learned to stay out of things.

  But I couldn’t help wondering: Two months ago, would Hally have hesitated about this plan? She’d been the incautious one, the one who’d persuaded her brothers to reach out to Addie. Was this part of what Nornand had stolen from her? Her zeal? Her wholehearted enthusiasm? Her lack of fear?

  “Hally,” Ryan said quietly. “What are the chances, really, of someone recognizing one of us in the streets? We’re a thousand miles from Nornand, even farther from Lupside. Do you really think, out of every city, they’re going to figure out we’re in this one?”

  Hally glared at him. “They might if you start causing chaos at government-sponsored events. We’re not six anymore, Ryan. These aren’t war games in the backyard. The others—they’re sending you where it’s most dangerous. If anything happens . . . if you get trapped in that building . . .”

  “Remember why we used to play those games?” Ryan asked. Hally looked away, then back to meet her brother’s eyes. For a moment, they were caught in some shared memory. “We wanted to be able to do something someday. Change something.” His voice held a quiet intensity, a lightning storm wrapped in a blanket. “Back at Nornand, when they took you . . . when they said they were going to cut your head open—I couldn’t do anything, Hally. I couldn’t do anything then, but I can now, and I will. I have to.”

  The television filled in our silence. Addie’s held breath was my held breath.

  “Okay,” Hally whispered finally. “Okay.”

  Once again, we snuck out after dark. The others met us on the street, then led us to the photography shop. I made sure to memorize the route this time, reading the street names as we passed.

  Everyone quickly folded Hally and Lissa into the group, and Hally, true to form, managed a grin for everyone in return. But I caught the lapses in her smiles. The moments of apprehension, even fear.

  “First things first,” Josie said once we were all situated in the attic. The fairy lights caught the gleam in her hair.

  Just as I’d tried to map our route, I tried to map the differences between Sabine and Josie. Josie moved differently. Quicker. Sharper. If Sabine glided like a dancer, Josie duck and wove like a bird. Sabine’s smiles were a slow warmth, steady embers. Josie’s were flashes in a pan. She and Vince got along well, I could tell.

  “If we’re going to do this,” Josie said, “we can’t keep meeting in the middle of the night. Curfew means no one’s on the streets after midnight without a special permit. With everything else we’ll be up to, it’s not worth the risk. Do you think you’d be able to make it if we met in the evenings? Or late afternoon, anyway.”

  Ryan nodded. “Henri’s already used to Hally and me spending a lot of time at Emalia’s. He never comes to check. And Emalia’s at work all day.”

  “What about Kitty and Nina?” I said.

  He hesitated. “You could tell them. Say you need to go out, meet a few people. Make them promise not to say anything to Emalia. They’d listen to you, Eva.”

  Addie said.

  I was positive that if Addie and I asked Kitty and Nina to keep something secret, they would. They trust
ed us that much.

  Did this count as a breach of that trust? I wasn’t sure.

  As we found out the following week, convincing Kitty to keep mum about our leaving the apartment was almost too easy. She was quiet as I explained how Addie and I, along with Ryan and Hally, planned to meet up with Sabine and her friends. How we were trying to make plans, trying to help, but it had to be a secret. Okay?

  She nodded. “Okay.” Anxiety must have clouded our face, because she smiled a little and said, “I get it, Eva. It’s fine. You’re trying to help people like Sallie and Val.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Soon we were going to the attic nearly every afternoon. It wasn’t a long walk, but Addie and I never breathed easily during it. It got even worse once the posters went up for the speech at Lankster Square. We passed two just getting from our apartment to the photography shop—both bright yellow and blue, with a bold, black font.

  Addie ducked our head every time we had to pass one. When I was in control, I wanted to avert our eyes, too, but I couldn’t. The posters drew my attention like a car crash. But most people’s eyes glazed right over them. Only a few stopped to read.

  One day, one man—young, twenties—walked by, hands in his pockets. As he passed the poster, he reached out and tore it down.

  I was so startled I stopped in my tracks. The man looked around. Our eyes met. He looked uncomfortable a minute, then tilted his chin up with something like defiance and disappeared around a corner, the poster now lying crumpled in a ball by the gutter. I never saw him again.

  The next day, another poster had gone up in the exact same spot.

  But I remembered the young man. And the defiance.

  And I thought, maybe—maybe Anchoit wasn’t all bad. Perhaps some of the people might, with a little push—a little encouragement—understand our point of view. Right now, our main goal was to stop the Powatt institution from ever opening. But we couldn’t stop there, could we? One day, all the institutions needed to close. If change was going to happen in the Americas, it might begin somewhere like Anchoit. It might begin with a spark.

  Cloistered up in the attic, we learned how to build homemade firecrackers. Although some Anchoit stores sold handheld sparklers and things like that, fireworks were banned. But it didn’t matter, because as it turned out, making firecrackers didn’t require more than Ping-Pong balls, black powder, duct tape, and some fuse. Sabine and Jackson gathered everything. No one asked how.

  Katy chattered away as she showed us how to pack the powder in the Ping-Pong balls, then wrap them with duct tape. I’d quickly learned to recognize Katy by her magpielike distractibility. The difference between her and Cordelia was so obvious I couldn’t believe none of their customers ever noticed how unalike the two girls acted, how uniquely they inhabited their shared body. Cordelia hummed with energy; Katy floated through the store, their pale hair trailing behind like spun sugar.

  “My brothers used to make firecrackers out of gunpowder and paper tubes,” she explained. “We lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and they liked to set them off when they got bored. Pissed off my parents like nothing else.”

  “Didn’t one of your brothers almost blow his hand off one time?” Jackson said.

  “I thought that was the end plan.” Katy pointed her foot at Christoph. “Wasn’t he going on about flying limbs and all?”

  “I think Christoph, like the rest of us, would prefer to keep all his limbs intact,” Sabine said. But she smiled easily. Everyone did, even Hally, who had quickly warmed up to the group. How could she not? Hally, who had been so desperate for a friend, she’d risked everything just to reach out to Addie and me.

  Up in that attic, lit by afternoon sun and fairy lights, we talked about time frames. About transportation. Who would be where and when, and what they’d be doing. We studied road maps of downtown, especially the area around Lankster Square. We talked through things that might go wrong: being stopped by security, a malfunctioning firecracker, a loss of contact with the others, being spotted. Sabine told us as much as she could about routine inside the Metro Council Hall.

  But before and after and in the middle of all that, we heard stories about Jackson’s various day jobs. We learned bits and pieces of Christoph’s past. Cordelia and Katy impersonated their more ridiculous clients, making us giggle until we couldn’t breathe, until our stomach hurt and our eyes blurred and the attic walls reverberated with our laughter.

  When Addie and I weren’t at the attic, we were learning more about our own abilities to go under. To remove ourselves temporarily from the world.

  I disappeared for the second time in my life on a warm Sunday morning. I’d thought this would be easier for Addie. That my disappearing would be less frightening, surely, than her having to do it herself. But I felt her terror, so strong it was almost a physical thing tying me in place, so I knew it wasn’t true.

  I whispered, as much to myself as to Addie.

  She nodded. She turned toward the mirror as if she wanted to catch the instant I faded away. As if it might show up in our reflection.

  Slowly, I shrank into myself, folding myself smaller and smaller in the nebulas of our mind. What would ten-year-old me think if she knew what I was doing? She’d clutched on so fiercely. She’d just wanted to live. To have a chance.

  I couldn’t think about that now. I couldn’t think about anything. I focused on untying myself, on letting go, like a boat’s sail finally ripped free of its mast.

  Addie hadn’t closed our eyes, so I couldn’t, either. But the girl in the mirror wasn’t me. I murmured this mantra to myself as I loosened the threads binding me to our limbs, our fingers, our toes.

  The girl in the mirror wasn’t me.

  Blond hair. Brown eyes. Freckles. The swoop of a collarbone, the curve of an arm.

  The girl in the mirror wasn’t me.

  The world reduced to our breathing, then our heartbeat. Then even that disappeared.

  Addie reached for me, as if on instinct. Come back! I thought I heard her cry, the instant before it happened.

  Her voice.

  Come back!

  I plunged and was gone.

  Nathaniel

  At three

  Five jam-sticky fingers

  And a jam-sticky mouth

  A grin. My name on his tongue

  Eva, look.

  The apartment where I grew up

  The fort beneath the table

  Flashlights after dark

  The park, where I climbed the tree

  And fell

  The lake

  Where we went camping

  Before Lyle and Nathaniel were born

  When it was just Addie

  And me

  And Dad

  And Mom

  Soft breathing in the tent

  The warmth between their bodies

  The swish of our fingernail against the sleeping bag

  Eva.

  The scrape of our fingernail against a coverlet.

 

  I woke.

  Before sight, before sound, before smell or speech or feeling—was Addie.

  Then came the first thought, as the world inked itself back into existence around me:

 

  We were still sitting on the bed, our knees drawn against our chest, our fingernails digging into the blue-and-white patterned coverlet.

  Addie stared at the girl in the mirror, who stared back. I struggled to reorient myself. Everything felt at once too sharp, too real, and not real enough. I hurt with the memory of—of what?

  I wasn’t sure. There had been so many memories, memories mixed in with dreams—truth swirled together with lies and hopes and fantasy.

  Nathaniel. I’d dreamed about Nathaniel. For a second, his face floated back to me, how he and Lyle had looked as a baby. Addie and I had been four years old when he was born. We’d stood on tiptoe to stare down at him in his cradle, his hair so light and fine it l
ooked like he didn’t have any hair at all.

 

  Addie’s voice was steady, but I felt the force of will it took to keep it that way.

  Twelve minutes. Twelve minutes of my life excised. In a way, it was no different from sleeping at night or taking a nap during the day. But I wondered if I could think the same once I started going under for hours at a time.

 

  Addie plucked at the coverlet.

  The image of him was fading. He was just a blurry face now, a baby that could be any baby.

  Addie murmured.

  I remembered my first time alone after Hally and Devon had drugged us. I remembered how Addie had been at thirteen, after her first time alone, her fear burning in the back of our throat.

  Addie shifted, leaning back against the headboard. The wood was cool against our shoulders.

  I’d had a month to get accustomed to being the sole occupant of our body. But this was Addie’s first taste of it in nearly three years.

  Funny, how I was more experienced than Addie at something. Me. The recessive soul.

  I said.

 

  Despite her words, Addie had more trouble than I did, both with dealing with my disappearances and with going under herself. Sometimes, instead of properly fading away, she slipped in and out of consciousness, jerking to and from the space next to me with such a dizzying tug and pull that I felt seasick. Sometimes, we sat there for half an hour and nothing happened at all.

  But when I least expected it, I’d feel that lurch that meant she’d gone. The sudden emptiness, like a part of the world had dropped away. And it would stay like that.