She holds a hand toward a fancy floral couch. "Have a seat. We will take tea, Thomas."
The butler nods and leaves.
Derek releases my hand, making my skin cold instantly. "If I may excuse myself, Madame Starling, my injuries would stain the couches badly. I will tend to myself and see you both at dinner." He kisses my cheeks, whispering in my ear, "You are safe here." He slips from the room, leaving me.
I don't know where this game is going to take us. I sit on the couch, wishing it were slightly less firm.
"Your parents took our firm to America. They were so excited to become Americans and see the sights. They never realized how alone we were as a family, just the five of us."
"Five?"
She nods, taking a large black book from the shelf next to her, again not moving her lower body. I am scared she can't move it at all. She opens the book, placing it on the large glass table in front of her and flipping through a lifetime. It's my lifetime. My parents-they match the flickers in my head. I refuse to attach myself to the images of the dead. I do not know when this reality will be a lie.
"You were so small and so obstinate." She lifts her face, revealing a grin. "I suppose that's the reason you are still alive, though, isn't it?"
I shake my head. "I don't know."
"This was your sister, Jane. She was so sweet and calm. She was the girl every parent thought their child should be."
It's like being punched in the guts. She is my twin. We are identical, even the eyes.
"You were so spicy. I always called you sugar and spice; she was the sugar, and you were the spice." Her eyes are fixated on the pictures of the small girls with brown hair and blue eyes and peacoats like Paddington Bear. A tear rolls down her wrinkled cheek. It's slow and lonely, the only one she sheds.
"Where is she?"
Her face lifts. "Oh, my poor darling. She's dead. She died in the car accident. The one you nearly died in too."
"Three years ago?"
She shakes her head. "No, some time now." She narrows her gaze, thinking. "It's been seventeen years."
"What!"
She nods slowly, still lost in the movie she's so obviously watching in her head. It starts as a picture but grows into a moment with each photo. "It's why they wanted you."
"The government, you mean?"
"Yes." Her tone sinks. "They wanted to test memory stimulation on you, and then they wanted to use you as a candidate for something else. Derek hasn't explained it to me well. I don't like hearing about it." She adjusts herself in the chair, trying to get more comfortable, maybe. "You and your sister were best friends. What was that song you girls always sang again?" I shake my head but she nods. "You know it. The one about the bullets are made of blood."
I scowl, wondering how she could know about a song I was given by a doctor. Did I tell her about the song? Is this a trick? "I don't recall it." I lie, but I don't know why. She doesn't scare me, but her knowing the song does.
The butler brings in the tea, offering me a cup with a drop of cream first and finishing with lemon, just the way I like it. "Thank you." I take it, inhaling a deep gulp of the aroma and then the tea. It's the perfect temperature to drink. The smell and the taste attempt to bring a vision, but it flickers like a radio not quite on the station. The words are lost in the fizz. I sip again, noticing the way my grandmother takes her mug, placing it down without drinking any and leaning back a bit. She smiles at me. "Biscuit, my love?"
I blink three times, and suddenly it's there. I feel as if I've sat in a field and a cloud has landed atop me, blocking me in its bright fluff. My eyes don't see and my ears don't hear, but there are sounds and movements. They're inside me, dancing in my head and making me believe I see them.
I squeeze my hands, to grip the cup, but it's not there, none of it's there.
"Where did you hide the monsters, Sam?" The question whispers in my ear.
The answer is there. I know this question, even if it is coming from a place I don't recognize.
"Where did the monsters go?"
Black images flash in my eyes, jerking and moving quickly, like a lightning strike. One second it's there in my eyes and then it's gone, but the flash remains in my view.
My lips part. I don't know what to say but I speak anyway. "The monster was gone, and I went to look-to look-to look-to look." I am stuck there. Hot tears trickle down my cheeks. "I only wanted to look. But the pretties were gone. He took them so I followed." The words are a whisper. "I can't say the rest aloud or the monster will hear and he will strike all he sees. Sometimes I think he strikes even the pretties who aren't there anymore. He speaks and shouts like they're in the room with us, like they made him do it, but I don't see them. They hide from me." The world becomes a blend of shapes and colors, but my eyes won't let me see. "I went to look and he was gone so I followed."
"Where did you follow the pretties, Sam?"
I shake my head, swearing I feel the sting of a lash against my skin. It makes me jerk, my back straightening harshly.
"If you tell us we will let you see them again."
I want that. I do. "I rode my bike to the water-the lake. It took me all day. I was hot and dusty. He was gone, on the boat with the pretties. But they were different." I shake my head, forcing the image of the blue wrapping from my mind. "They were different and then they were gone, to swim without me in the blue."
"The blue water, Sam? Were they like mermaids?"
I shudder. "The blue wrap. They were in the blue wrap, and they wouldn't talk to me anymore. They were different, and I was the same."
"Tell me about the swans, the way the swans circle the stars and the clouds shoot across the sky."
The words bring a type of calm with them. I can see the swans circling the stars. I don't know it at first. I blink in the sitting room, realizing I am alone. Derek walks in; his shirt is clean again. He smiles and drops to his knees, taking my hands in his and kissing them. He lifts my face, kissing me softly and muttering against my lips with hot breath, "I found you in the dark, and you became my light."
He kisses and fades away.
17. ALL THE PRETTIES IN A ROW
Can you hear my voice?" I can, but I cannot respond. There's a block, and my lips don't work. Light starts to poke its way through my lashes, beckoning me to come to the surface. "Come back, Jane. Come back to me." I think my lips crack a smile when I hear his voice.
I blink, trying desperately to let the light in. It blinds and shocks my eyes, but I push past the pain until I see something, a shape in the hazy fog. I blink it away like windshield wipers cleaning the mud off. He stands at the foot of the bed, giving me a look. I cock an eyebrow, moaning and trying to move my head a little. He sighs as if he's waited all day for this. "You all right?"
I lift my hand to my head, rubbing it. Everything is washing in, hitting me like waves after a storm. He sits on the bed, rubbing my foot as his face makes a story. He's Rory, my partner. "You had me worried this time; you were gone a long time."
I nod, finally sitting up a bit. "Lakes surrounding the house in Geneva. She rode her bike all day, but it couldn't be too far. She was eight, she couldn't have ridden too far." He's gone instantly, leaving me lying next to the blonde girl named Sam Barnes. She's still, peaceful looking, not at all how she seemed in her head. In there she was scared and unsure. I can feel it still on me, like I too am unsure of things. I wish I could take it away, all her memories-wash us both clean.
I wish I could go inside them and walk away scot-free, taking with me the evil they know so they can go in peace. But I can't. I take things away with me, things like songs and habits and fears, and sometimes they become mine too.
Rory comes in, grinning at me from ear to ear. "They've been dispatched. You're a fucking genius. We'll know something soon enough. There are seventeen lakes it could have been, but we cross-referenced with her father's friends to check on lakes he frequented or ones he avoided. The teams are dispatched."
"Stop cussing. It just gives Angie a reason to mock you."
He winks. "She loves me and she knows it, filthy mouth and all. Ya should hear her at home, cussing away like a typical Scot."
"You people are sick." I nod, not taking my eyes from Samantha Barnes's calm face. "It would have been a place he went to. Somewhere he wanted everyone to go to-he is smug."
"What?"
"The lake. He would have gone there, knowing they were dead and at the bottom of the lake. He would have reveled in it." I sit up completely, letting my legs fall from the bed.