Not the trembling shell of a person I am right now.
I force myself to focus on the sky. On the sun’s determined climb. It happens every day. Without fail. The same arc across the same sky. No matter the country. No matter the century.
The thought brings me a small amount of comfort.
I’ll take what I can get.
The sunrise isn’t as pretty here. It was one of the first things I noticed after we arrived. The pinks are less vibrant. Grayed out. The oranges are more muted. Almost faded. As though the artist was running low on paint.
Zen says it’s because the air is clean. Vehicles won’t be invented for nearly three centuries. Smog makes for better sunrises.
Regardless, it doesn’t stop me from watching.
I wasn’t lying when I told Zen it was the same dream. It’s always the same dream.
They come in the night. Capture me and transport me, kicking and screaming, back to their lab. They strap me to a chair with thick steel clamps that are impossible to bend. A large intricate contraption protrudes from the ceiling. Its clawlike arm, complete with razor-sharp teeth, pries open my mouth, reaches down my throat, and pulls out my heart. Then another machine takes over, working quickly to disassemble the still-pumping organ on a cold, sterile table. Half of it is carved off, placed in a jar, ushered away, while the other half is returned to the claw and replaced in my chest cavity by way of my throat again.
The partial heart settles back into its home behind my rib cage. I can still feel it beating, compelling blood in and out of my veins, keeping me alive. But the process no longer holds meaning. A perfunctory action done out of routine, nothing more. I am now forever incomplete. Half a person. A hollow casket that will be forced to seek the other half for the rest of eternity.
A dream.
Not real.
The problem is, dreams are supposed to get fuzzier the longer you’re awake. But this one only becomes clearer with each passing second. Crisper. As though I’m moving toward it. Getting closer.
As though they’re getting closer.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath.
“They don’t know where we are.”
“They can’t find us here.”
“We are safe.”
“I am safe.”
I recite the words over and over again, hoping that today will be the day when they no longer feel like strangers on my tongue. When I might start to believe them.
“They don’t know where we are.”
“They can’t find us here.”
“We are safe.”
“I am safe.”
But then, like clockwork, the bleak reply comes from the back of my mind. The shadowy version of the truth that’s much easier to believe.
I’m not safe.
I’ve never been safe.
They will never stop looking for me.
I reach down the collar of my still-damp nightdress and feel for my locket, rubbing my fingertips gently over the black surface of the heart-shaped medallion and the swirling loops of the silver design emblazoned on the front.
The eternal knot.
It’s an ancient Sanskrit symbol that, according to Zen, represents the flowing of time and movement within all that is eternal.
To me it represents Zen.
I insisted on wearing it here even though Zen suggested I take it off. Apparently people in seventeenth-century England don’t look kindly upon unfamiliar symbols that can’t be found in something called the Bible—a book everyone here seems to live by. So I agreed to keep it hidden under my clothing at all times.
But right now I need it.
I need it to soothe me. To erase the grisly images from my mind.
I hear careful footsteps behind me and I jump, scrambling to stuff the locket back under my nightdress. My head whips around to find Zen standing there, fully dressed—minus the doublet that I stole—and I let out a puff of air. He tosses his hands up in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
He sits down beside me. Even though the show in the sky is over, I turn my gaze back in the direction of the sunrise. For some reason, I can’t look at him right now. I am ashamed of my weakness. Every nightmare—every fear I let overtake me—is like a drop of poison in this new life that Zen and I have worked so hard to create. This paradise that we promised each other.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I laugh. It sounds about as fake as it feels. “I told you. I’m fine. It was only a bad dream.”
Zen cocks his head and raises his eyebrows. It’s the look he gives me when he knows I’m lying. I cast my eyes downward and lazily pick at a patch of grass.
“They don’t know where we are,” he offers. “They have no idea.”
I nod, still refusing to meet his gaze. “I know.”
“And if they did, they would be here by now.”
I nod again. His logic is sound. If they had somehow figured out that we escaped to the year 1609, they would have appeared instantly. They wouldn’t delay. Which means the longer we live here without seeing one of them, the more likely it is they have no clue where we are.
The only other person who knew we were planning to come to the year 1609 was Rio. And he’s …
I watch his helpless body writhe violently, arms flinging, eyes rolled back in his head, before he collapses to the ground with a horrific cracking sound. And then …
Stillness.
I shake the horrid memory away, trying to fight off the familiar guilt that comes every time I think about him.
The point is, they can’t find us.
We are safe.
The last thought makes me feel like a fraud.
“You need to let it go,” Zen urges gently. “Forget about everything that happened before. I’ll never let them take you back there.”
Before. Them. There.
They’ve become our code words for the things we don’t dare talk about.
That other life that Zen wants so desperately to forget.
That other place where I was held prisoner in a lab.
That other time when science has the ability to create perfect human beings out of air.
Before we came here.
I think we’re both terrified that if we actually utter the word Diotech aloud, they might hear us. Our voices will somehow reverberate through the very fabric of time, travel five hundred years into the future, and echo off the high, security-patrolled walls of the compound, giving away our location.
“Dwelling on it won’t do you any good,” he continues. “It’s in the past.”
I smile weakly. “Well, technically, it’s in the future.”
He bumps playfully against my shoulder. “You know what I mean.”
I do. It’s a past I’m supposed to have forgotten. A past that’s supposed to be erased from my memory. I have no actual recollection of Diotech, the biotechnology company that created me. My final request before we escaped was that every detail of my life there be completely wiped from my mind. All I have now are Zen’s accounts of the top-secret compound in the middle of the desert and a few abridged memories that he stole so that he could show me the truth about who I was.
But apparently that’s enough to populate nightmares.
“Do you miss it in the slightest?” I say, surprised by my own bluntness.
I can feel Zen’s body stiffen next to me and he stares straight ahead. “No.”
I should know by now not to ask questions like this. They always put Zen in an unpleasant mood. I made this mistake several times after we first arrived, when I tried to talk to him about anything related to Diotech—Dr. Rio, Dr. Alixter, Dr. Maxxer—and he simply shut down. Refused to speak. But now the question is already out. I can’t take it back. Plus, I want to know. I feel like I have to.
“But you left behind everything,” I argue. “Your family, your friends, your home. How can you say that you don’t miss it?”
“I had nothing there,” Zen re
plies, and the sudden sharpness in his voice stings. “Except a mother who cared more about her latest research project than her own family. And a father who left because of it. My friends were friends of convenience. Who else was I going to hang out with when I was never allowed to leave the compound? You weren’t the only one who felt like a prisoner there. So no, I don’t miss that at all.”
I can tell immediately that I’ve gone too far. I’ve upset him. And that’s the last thing I wanted to do. But this is also the most information I’ve ever gotten about Zen’s parents. He never speaks of them. Ever. Which only makes me want to press further, but the rigidness of his face warns me that it would be unwise.
“Sorry,” I offer softly.
Out of the corner of my vision I see his jawline relax and he finally turns to look at me. “No, I’m sorry.”
It’s a genuine apology. I can tell by the way it reaches his eyes.
He rises to his feet, struggling slightly, as though the action requires more effort than it should. Then he brushes the damp dirt from the back of his breeches and holds out a hand for me to take. “C’mon, Cinnamon. Everyone will be up soon. You should get dressed.”
His use of the nickname Cinnamon makes me chuckle, effectively lightening the mood. It’s a popular term of endearment in this time period, that we picked up from the husband and wife who own the farmhouse where we’ve been living.
I take his hand and he pulls me to my feet. But he doesn’t let go once I’m standing. He keeps pulling me toward him until our faces are a mere fraction of an inch apart. “It’ll get easier,” he whispers, bringing the conversation back to the reason I came out here in the first place. “Try to forget.” He places his hands on the sides of my face and softly touches his lips to mine.
The taste of him erases everything else. The way it always does. And just for that moment, there is no there, there is no them, there is no before. There is only us. There is only now.
But I know eventually the moment will end. Because that’s what moments do. And sooner or later, I will be doubled over the side of that bed again, fighting for air. Because even though I have no real memory of the former life that haunts me, I still can’t do what he wants me to do.
I can’t forget.
2
FOREIGN
Living and working on a farm in the countryside of England is one of the many precautions we’ve taken to stay off Diotech’s radar. Zen thought it would be better if money never changed hands and no official transactions were recorded. So we work here in exchange for a place to live and food to eat.
I enjoy farm life. It’s not overly complicated. There is a set of tasks to undertake each day and I feel satisfaction in completing every one. Like hundreds of tiny victories. Plus it’s quiet here. Peaceful.
John Pattinson owns and runs the farm, while his wife, Elizabeth, tends to the maintenance of the home and their four children. Zen mostly works alongside Mr. Pattinson, helping with the sowing, plowing, reaping, and general upkeep of the crops. I help Mrs. Pattinson with the domestic chores and the care of the animals.
The problem is, Mrs. Pattinson doesn’t like me. Zen says I’m being paranoid but it’s something I just know. Sometimes I catch her watching me as I’m going about my work. She has a suspicious look in her eyes. Like she’s waiting for me to screw up. To show who I really am.
I think she can sense that I’m different. That I don’t fit in here.
I suppose neither does Zen. After all, he was born five hundred years in the future. And seventeenth-century farmwork is something we both had to learn very quickly. But somehow he’s been able to assimilate a lot easier than I have.
That’s one of the (many) downsides of being created by scientists in a lab. You simply stand out. Even if people don’t quite know why. They can perceive there’s something strange about you. Something unnatural about the way you were brought onto this earth.
That’s what Mrs. Pattinson senses. Whether she understands it or not is irrelevant. I understand it. Which is why I always feel like I have to tread carefully when she’s around.
I remember one of the first things she said to me when I arrived. She looked right at me, her gaze darting skeptically up and down my entire body before finally landing on my eyes.
“I’ve never seen purple eyes before,” she said, her tone brusque and accusing.
I swallowed hard and opened my mouth to speak. Even though I hadn’t the slightest idea what I would say or how I would recover.
Thankfully, Zen was prepared, as always. He stepped forward, put his hand gently on my arm, and replied, “Her great-grandmother was from the Orient. Lots of purple eyes out there.”
“It doesn’t matter that it’s not true,” Zen later explained to me. “It only matters that she believed it.”
But I wasn’t even sure about that. She may never have mentioned it again, but I see the doubt on her face every time she looks at me. I hear it in her gruff tone when she addresses me.
Her children don’t seem to like me either. They pretty much avoid me as much as they can.
The only person in the house who doesn’t seem bothered by my presence is Mr. Pattinson. But I don’t consider that any type of accomplishment. He’s a sweet-tempered, jovial man who appears to love everyone. If his wife has voiced any objections to us being here, he certainly hasn’t entertained them. It’s fairly clear that, in this time period, the man of the house makes all the decisions.
Because it was Mr. Pattinson who, six months ago on a chilly day in late March, agreed to let us work here in exchange for food and lodging. He was the one who welcomed an unknown eighteen-year-old boy and sixteen-year-old girl with open arms and offered to lend us some of his and his wife’s clothing. And he was the one who enthusiastically ate up Zen’s story about us being newlyweds who were both born and raised aboard merchant ships that have been sailing back and forth from the Far East for the majority of our lives, which accounts for our “funny accents.”
I was actually quite surprised to see how prepared Zen was when we arrived. Everything had been carefully thought-out ahead of time, even down to our fake period-appropriate names—Sarah and Ben. He told me that, in reality, the plan was as much mine as it was his. We’d been working on the details for months before we left the Diotech compound. Of course, I have no recollection of this.
But even if I had remembered planning our cover story, I was glad Zen was the one to deliver it. He’s a natural storyteller. When he speaks, his voice is so calming, his face so earnest, it’s hard not to invite him right into your home.
The boys, Thomas, James, and Myles, are enamored of him. They sit around the fireplace for hours every night after dinner, listening to Zen tell made-up stories about his life on the high seas with his father, the merchant trader. Sometimes I even find myself leaning forward in my seat with anticipation, waiting to hear what comes next, desperate to find out whether or not the crew really can fight off a Chinese giant squid and live to tell about it. I then have to remind myself, with sinking disappointment, that none of it actually happened.
As soon as the front door closes behind us, he pulls me toward him, capturing my mouth in his. It’s a hungry kiss. Eager. It takes me by surprise. I love how he can still take me by surprise. Zen’s lips gently pry mine open and his tongue starts to explore. I remark how much better the porridge tastes on him than it did on my spoon five minutes ago. I feel his fingertips press into my lower back, urging me closer. Then his hands are under my cap, in my hair, massacring the tight bun that I spent the morning coaxing my hair into, but I can hardly bring myself to care. I’m too swept up in Zen’s fierceness. His famine for me. It spreads over me like a wildfire.
When he breaks away, I’m breathless, gasping for air. Although I’d take his kiss over oxygen any day.
“What was that?” I ask, resting my forehead against his lips and inhaling his scent.
I feel him smirking into my skin. “A goodbye kiss.”
This makes me
laugh. I tilt my head and gaze up at him. “Where are you going? Saturn?”
“Nah. Just the wheat field.” He reaches out, his fingertip tracing the hook of my ear and drifting off my cheek, heating my face to a boil. “But without you, it may as well be another planet.”
I open my mouth to speak but only stammering air escapes.
He smiles, teasing me with his eyes. “Bye, Cinnamon.”
And then he’s gone. Disappearing in the direction of the wheat field. I rake my teeth over my bottom lip, attempting to savor him for another second before reluctantly starting toward the barn.
October is only a few days away which means it’s time to harvest the fruit in the orchard. Mrs. Pattinson has assigned me the task of picking the apples and pears. I wouldn’t mind it so much except for the fact that it requires me to work with Blackthorn, the Pattinsons’ horse.
He hates me, too.
With a sigh, I grab the rope halter from the hook on the wall and let myself into the stall. Blackthorn stiffens the moment he sees me, his head jerking up and his eyes narrowing. Then, upon noticing the halter in my hand, he whinnies and stamps his foot.
“I know,” I tell him. “I don’t like it any more than you do.”
I take a step toward him and he startles and kicks his back feet against the wall.
“Come on,” I implore. “Don’t be like that.”
But my coaxing doesn’t seem to be doing any good because he edges himself into the corner and stares me down, ears pinned back, nostrils flaring. I have no doubt he’s planning to charge if I get any closer.
Mr. Pattinson says Blackthorn only reacts this way because I’m too tense when I’m around him. I have to learn how to relax. Horses can sense fear.
Unfortunately I don’t think it’s my fear that he senses. Even the horse knows there’s something off about me.
Before we came here, I’d never seen a horse before, or any animal, for that matter. I didn’t even know what they were. When the Diotech scientists designed me, they were very particular about what I knew and what I didn’t. Even down to the words in my vocabulary. Zen says that was just another way to control me. By controlling what knowledge I had access to. And apparently they didn’t think horses were important enough to add to my mental dictionary. I made the mistake of nearly leaping out of my shoes and letting out a piercing shriek when we arrived on the farm and I came face-to-face with Blackthorn for the first time.