Stranger With My Face

  “The Abbotts were my one real hope. They had money, and they were willing to adopt me. The problem was that they had Kathy. She would always have come first with them, even if they made me legally their daughter. If things had gone as I planned, I would have been their only heir.”

  The smile was gone now. Her voice was thick with bitterness.

  “She lived long enough to turn them all against me. The lawyer the state assigned me was worse than nobody. He told me that if we submitted a plea of insanity I’d get off free. Free! That’s a laugh! They shut me up with a bunch of loonies. That’s when I decided to find you. I knew where you were. Kathy had brought home a book from the library one day by a writer named James Stratton. There was a picture of him with his family on the back of the jacket, and the biography said they lived on an island off the New England coast. I recognized the name, and the black-haired girl in the photo looked exactly like me. It had to be you! You had it all! And I had nothing!

  “Then I came and saw it—the island, the house, your parents! And I knew I would do anything to be in your place.”

  So you became Laurie. And what about me? Who, then, am I?

  She didn’t need to hear the question.

  “You have no more substance than the wind. And you’ll become even less as time goes by. The force of the mind is drawn from the brain. To keep it alive, you must retain physical contact. Think of a flashlight operating on battery power. If the batteries aren’t recharged, what will eventually happen?”

  She got up from the bed and laid the brush back on the bureau top. Then she turned and began to fold back the blankets. There was a gentle thumping sound as she plumped up the pillow.

  “Good night, Laurie,” Lia said softly. “Good night—and good-bye.”

  Lia did not attempt to communicate again. It seemed that as far as she was concerned, that formal farewell was to be her last acknowledgment of my existence. The explanation for her actions had been given without apology. In her mind, a wrong had now been righted; an injustice remedied. Whatever obligation she might have felt to prepare me for the inevitable had been fulfilled, and she was through with me.

  Lia had what she wanted. I was free to go. But to go where?

  To die? She had not offered me that option. I was not to be allowed to move, soul intact, into that natural realm of ultimate projection. Instead, I was to fade, to whisper away, until—

  I could not complete the sentence. Until what? Was the process endless?

  I closed my mind. I couldn’t begin to handle so immense a concept. Instead, I grasped frantically for alternatives. Lia’s body lay vacated. I could go and claim it. But what sort of life sentence would I be claiming along with it? To live out Lia’s years for her in an institution was hardly less awful than to have no physical identity at all.

  Perhaps I could travel. All I needed to do was to think myself someplace, and I would be there. I had never known anything other than New England, but now I could explore the world.

  Nor was I confined by the earth! Ingo Swann had been to Mercury! A chapter in the red-covered book had detailed his journey. On his return he had reported that the planet had both an atmosphere and a magnetic field. Astrophysicists and astronomers had declared this impossible, but a short time later a NASA spacecraft, Mariner 10, had provided data to confirm Swann’s observations.

  The idea of astral space travel had excited Jeff tremendously.

  “If you can get a grip on this thing, you’ll be able to explore the universe!” he had exclaimed.

  “No way,” I told him emphatically. “I’m not that much of an adventurer.”

  I had meant it, or thought I meant it, when I said it. Now, however, things were different. I had nothing to lose that I hadn’t lost already. Why shouldn’t I, in whatever time of consciousness was left to me, experience the impossible?

  Because—because—

  Because I couldn’t. It was that simple. The people I loved were here on Brighton Island.

  And so I stayed. In the days that followed, I grew to know my family well. I spent many mornings in Mom’s studio, watching the thin, clever fingers manipulate the brush as she layered colors upon a canvas. The painting was of a windswept beach, and the sky above it was alive with gulls. Their gray wings formed a pattern of arches against the deeper gray of the winter sky. The picture had a haunting quality that held me so I could not look away. Was the painting really so unique? Or was my reaction due to the fact that this might be the last of her paintings I would see?

  At night, after the rest of the family had gone to bed, I stood at my father’s shoulder as he was writing. I listened as he mumbled aloud to himself, trying out lines of dialogue.

  “‘What is this world that man could choose to live here? Is it, in truth, so beautiful that he would turn his back upon the stars?’”

  Yes, I answered silently. Yes—yes, it is.

  The ones I spent the most time with were the kids. I followed them into the village for the mail and to the homes of their friends and to the landing to board the ferry for school. The boat was back in operation two days after the storm was over, and Meg and Neal, in parkas and boots, clumped their way every day down snow-covered Beach Road, teasing and shoving each other and sliding with shrieks of delight across wide patches of blue-black ice.

  Lia walked a bit behind them, unsure about the snow. It must have been the first she had ever experienced, for she dipped her boots and then lifted them quickly, like a cat. I could almost see the pads of her feet draw up behind the claws.

  When Neal, in a moment of eleven-year-old exuberance, tossed a snowball in her direction, she gave a scream and threw up her arms to shield her face.

  “Laurie’s a sissy!” he yelled, starting to run in premature reaction to the retaliation he expected.

  “You brat!” She breathed the words, but Megan, who had fallen back to form a snowball of her own, heard.

  She stood, molding the ball with her mittened hands, her eyes on Lia.

  “You’re weird,” she said.

  “What do you mean by that?” Lia asked sharply.

  “You don’t act the same as you used to.”

  “What am I supposed to do, let that brother of yours smash my face in?”

  “The snow wasn’t hardpacked.” She paused, frowning. Megan was frowning a lot these days. Megan, be careful! “He’s your brother too. Why do you call him my brother?”

  “Because you’re two of a kind, both spoiled rotten. Is there anything you’ve ever wanted that you haven’t been given? Why should you be so much luckier than other people?”

  “That’s what Mom was saying the other night.” Meg tossed the snowball lightly from one hand to the other as she spoke. “Then they got talking about Jeff. Do you know what they’re going to do?”

  “What?” Lia asked without interest, beginning to walk again.

  “They’re going to get Jeff ’s face fixed.”

  “They’re going to do what?” Lia stopped dead in her tracks. Shock wiped her face clear of expression. “You just said that to upset me, didn’t you?” she said accusingly.

  “To upset you?” Meg repeated in surprise. “I thought it would make you happy.”

  “Well, it doesn’t!” Lia’s voice was shaking with the effort it took to suppress her fury. “Plastic surgery to repair a mess like that would cost a fortune. People don’t throw that kind of money away on strangers!”

  “Jeff ’s not a stranger,” Meg said. “He’s your boyfriend.”

  “He most certainly is not. That’s been over for a week now. Gordon and I are seeing each other again. We’ve got dates for both nights this weekend. I’d die before I’d be seen in public with a freak like Jeff Rankin.”

  “That’s not how you used to feel.”

  “It’s how I feel now,” Lia said shortly. “How do you know your parents are planning to help Jeff ?”

  “They’re our parents, not just my parents.”

  “Stop talking back and a
nswer my question.” Lia’s eyes had narrowed to slits. “How do you know? Did they tell you?”

  “No, I heard them talking last night after dinner. Dad was saying he called the hospital on the mainland, and they’ve got some special doctor visiting from a clinic in Boston. He does plastic surgery on burn victims. Dad said he asked him to examine Jeff ’s face when he goes in next week to get his walking cast. If he thinks he can do the operation, Dad’s going to pay for it.”

  “Why hasn’t anybody told me about this?”

  “Mom asked Dad not to. She said she didn’t think they should get your hopes up or Jeff ’s either. She wants to wait first and see what the doctor says.”

  “So you decided to jump the gun and break the news yourself ?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d say.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “I thought maybe you’d say, ‘That’s great,’ or something like that.”

  “It isn’t great,” Lia said harshly. “They have no right to do this. It’s thousands of dollars we’re talking about. Without my permission, they’re planning to hand away a part of my inheritance!”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Meg said. “You don’t inherit things until people die, and Dad and Mom aren’t old or sick or anything.”

  “The time people die isn’t always determined by how old they are. People can have accidents.”

  “Like you and Jeff on the rocks?”

  “There are all sorts of accidents. Nobody’s immune to them. I don’t think Jeff will take the money. He’s got too much pride. He’ll refuse the offer, especially when he realizes what’s behind it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Meg said.

  “It’s a bribe, of course. It’s a bribe to keep him out of my life. Our parents are protective. They don’t want me hounded day and night by some half-faced freak when I could be going out with a guy like Gordon. They’re willing to pay off Jeff with plastic surgery or anything else he wants in order to make sure that he leaves me alone.”

  “They don’t have to do that,” Meg objected. “Jeff won’t call you if he thinks you don’t want to see him. He’s not like that.”

  “That’s not what our parents think. They know what disturbed people are capable of, and they’re afraid for my safety. What’s that thing that Rennie says? Mary Beth repeated it to me just yesterday. It’s something about Jeff ’s personality being as messed up as his face.”

  The ferry horn sounded, cutting through the conversation with three short, imperative blasts.

  “We’d better hurry,” Meg said with nervous relief. I knew she was upset, not only by the things Lia was saying, but by the fact that they were coming from a respected older sister.

  “You’d better run,” Lia agreed. “When you get on board, tell Jeff to get off and wait for me at the end of the pier.”

  “Tell him to get off ? But the boat’s getting ready to pull out!”

  “You heard me,” Lia snapped. “Tell him I need to see him. We can miss school one day without the world coming to an end. It’s more important to get this thing straightened out before Dad gets to him.”

  “Don’t tell him what you just said to me,” Meg pleaded. “It’ll make him feel terrible. Dad and Mom like Jeff. I know they’re not scared for you.”

  “I’ll talk to anyone I want and say what I choose.” Lia’s voice held a note of command. “Go! You’re going to miss the boat if you stay here arguing. Tell Jeff to get off and wait for me.”

  The ferry sounded a final warning. Meg shot Lia one last look of bewildered outrage. Then she whirled and took off like a startled rabbit down the snow-covered road.

  Lia stood, watching her. She herself was breathing as rapidly as though it were she who was running. Her warm breath made short puffs of steam in the icy air.

  “Accidents happen,” she repeated softly. “And you, Miss Know-It-All, are first in line to have one. Or maybe you’ll be second. Jeff had better not try playing any games. I haven’t come this far to lose out now on what should be mine.”

  She began to walk unhurriedly toward the pier, following the erratic line of the children’s footsteps. She was wearing my favorite winter hat, a bright red one with a tassel. Neal had given it to me for Christmas the year before. Her hands were thrust deep into the pockets of my old ski jacket. The fur-lined boots on her feet were mine; the scarf around her neck was my red plaid one with the fringe.

  She looked like Laurie. She was dressed in Laurie’s clothing. And yet—

  I drew ahead so that I could see her approaching as Jeff would see her—a familiar figure, cheeks flushed with cold, eyes squinted against the brilliance of sunlight on snow. Would he be deceived as easily as my family?

  As much as I wanted to believe he wouldn’t be, I knew it was doubtful. I could see the differences. Lia’s walk wasn’t the same as mine—it was more careful, more precise. Although the features were my own, the set of the mouth was not. But these things were too subtle, and Jeff wouldn’t be on the alert for them. He would be expecting Laurie, and it would be she whom he would see.

  I hadn’t been with Jeff since the day before the storm. I could have, of course, if I’d chosen to. I had the ability to go to him at home or at school. I could stand at his shoulder while he did his homework; I could rest beside him when he slept. I hadn’t done these things because I couldn’t bear to. I didn’t want to see the effect of what Lia had done to him.

  The phone call had been short and brutal.

  “It was a mistake,” she had told him. “I must have been crazy to have let myself get involved with you. Gordon and I have patched things up, and I don’t want you bothering me anymore.”

  I had stood there, helpless, cringing as I listened to the sound of my own voice speaking the incredible words. I knew the hurt they were inflicting, but I was powerless to prevent it.

  Just as I was powerless, now, to stop the thing that was going to happen on the pier.

  Jeff, believe her—accept what she tells you—react as she hopes you will! Tell my parents to keep their rotten bribe money!

  I hurled the words with all the strength my mind possessed. Would he sense the message? It was the best I could hope for. If he didn’t, there was nothing more I could do to warn him. Jeff was strong, but he was balancing on crutches, and the water at the pier’s end was cold and deep.

  The ferry was already three hundred yards offshore now, chugging along like some huge, determined water animal. Its decks were empty, so Lia didn’t have to worry about witnesses. Gordon and Nat and the others would be down in the cabin, protected from the wind, laughing and chatting and, perhaps, wondering why Laurie Stratton was skipping school.

  “I talked to her last night,” Gordon would be saying. “There was nothing wrong with her then. In fact, she sounded more like herself than she has in months.”

  Jeff was waiting at the end of the pier as Lia had requested, slouched over his crutches and looking belligerent. Gone was the good-humored self-confidence of recent weeks. This was the old Jeff Rankin, jaw set defensively, face dark with brooding hostility. I moved toward him as Lia did, watching his eyes narrow with a flicker of some emotion I could not identify.

  For a moment neither of them spoke. It was Jeff who broke the silence.

  “So what’s up?” His voice was cool and carefully non-caring. “Meg says it’s important. Did Ahearn dump you again?”

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Lia said. “But I’m afraid that’s not it, and there’s not much chance it’s going to happen. If it did, I wouldn’t be rebounding in your direction. This is something else entirely. It’s about my father—” She broke off the sentence, a look of surprise flashing across her face. This was immediately replaced by an expression of such total fury that I couldn’t recognize my own features.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to stay with Jeff.” Megan stepped out from behind him, her hands extended in a gesture of pacification. Inan
ely, I wondered what she had found to do with her snowball. “Please, Laurie, don’t act like this. Go back like you used to be. I don’t like you anymore!”

  “Do you think that I like you?” Lia snapped. “You’re a forty-year-old brain in a fat midget’s body! I told you to get on that boat and stay there. I need to talk to Jeff.”

  Meg turned to Jeff. “See what I mean? She’s not Laurie anymore! She’s mean, like the ghost thing turned solid!”

  “Ghosts don’t turn solid,” Jeff said. “They’re just spirits. But a practiced one might project so well that she could create a realistic illusion. That would be easy enough to discover. All we’d need to do is grab hold of her.”

  He reached out so quickly that Lia couldn’t jerk back soon enough to avoid contact. His hand closed around her arm, and I watched the momentary expression of anticipation fade as he felt the solidity of bone and flesh beneath the padded thickness of the parka.

  “Get your hands off me!” Lia snarled. “I mean that! It makes me sick to look at you, much less have you touch me!”

  “That’s not the song you were singing a couple of weeks ago.”

  “I told you before, I must have been crazy!”

  She drew back her free hand as though she were preparing to hit him, and Jeff released the crutch he was leaning on and made a grab for her wrist.

  “She’s no ghost, Meg,” he said grimly. “Much as I hate to admit it, this is your sister.”

  “It’s Laurie on the outside, but inside it’s the ghosty! I know it! I can feel it!” Meg was almost hysterical. “She doesn’t eat drumsticks! She doesn’t remember anything like she should! She hates everybody! My real Laurie wasn’t like that!”

  “I don’t know. Is it possible?” He hesitated, his hand still tight around the flailing wrist. “Hey, Laurie, remember the day you first came over to my place? You brought the books. It was right after the accident. The radio was blaring, and you told me to turn it down. What was playing? What group was playing?”

  “How should I remember? Some rock group.”

  “You’ve got to remember. You made such a big deal about the racket they were making. You wanted to talk, and I was hiding behind the noise. I was scared of what you might say.”