I have no idea what that means. But the significance becomes obvious when a man and woman enter my room later that afternoon and introduce themselves as Heather and Scott Carlson. They show me pictures of a house that exists one hundred and seventy-five miles north of here, a front yard with a rope swing hanging from a tree, and a young boy with big blue eyes and messy blond curls whom they introduce as their thirteen-year-old son, Cody.
These are the pieces that will make up my temporary family. My temporary life. This is where I’m expected to feel at home, until a real one can be located.
I take in their kind-hearted smiles and warm, engaging body language and decide there are worse places I could be asked to go. Plus, no one appears to be giving me a choice in the matter and I’m just anxious to get out of this hospital room.
‘We’ve chosen the Carlsons because of their remote location,’ Mr Rayunas explains. ‘They live in a small town called Wells Creek. It’s on the central coast of California. No one outside of this room will be given the specifics of your whereabouts. As you’ve probably guessed from watching the news, this has turned into something of a media circus. And we want to give you the best possible opportunity to take things easy. Heather and Scott will make sure you’re able to keep a low profile. In the meantime, we’ll be doing everything we can to find your family.’
He signs a document attached to a clipboard and hands it back to Dr Schatzel, who looks disgruntled. I have a feeling that if it was up to him I wouldn’t be going anywhere until this mystery was solved.
I’m glad it’s apparently not up to him.
‘Do you have anything you’d like us to help you pack up?’ the woman identified as Heather Carlson asks me, stepping towards my bed and offering another smile.
I shake my head and indicate the heart-shaped black locket I’ve been clutching in my hands. ‘This is all I have.’
Heather presses her lips together and retreats to her husband’s side, looking sorry she asked.
Kiyana enters my room, carrying a bag made of brown paper. ‘These are the clothes they found you in.’
I peer inside and see a bundle of dark grey fabric, neatly folded into a tight square. I make a mental note to sort through it later.
‘Although,’ she continues, ‘I’d get some new ones if I was you.’ She nods towards the bag in my arms. ‘They’re not the most flatterin’ things I ever saw.’
‘We’ll take you shopping for new clothes,’ Heather promises eagerly.
I try to smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘We’re gonna miss you around here.’ Kiyana steps close and wraps her arms tightly around me. She squeezes hard. I stiffen. It’s the first time she’s touched me with so many body parts at once. The first time anybody has. Normally she brushes her hand lightly against mine. Or grazes the side of my face with her fingertip. But now she’s everywhere. Her arms suffocate me. Her hair irritates my cheek. Her scent overpowers me. I can’t move. I feel the sudden urge to break free. To shove her to the ground.
Then a pleasant sensation begins to travel up my legs. It tingles, relaxing me nearly instantly. My eyelids begin to feel heavy. As though I can’t keep them open. Or don’t want to. They sag. Along with my torso. And right as they’re about to close, Kiyana releases me and steps away.
‘What was that?’ I ask, somewhat dizzy from the encounter.
She laughs and touches my hair. ‘It’s alrigh’, darlin’,’ she whispers so no one else can hear. ‘It’s just a hug.’
It isn’t until we step out the front doors of the hospital that I fully understand the meaning of the term media circus.
I blink against the strange flashes of light. They blind me again and again. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust. It takes my mind a second longer to translate what I’m looking at.
People.
Hundreds and hundreds of people.
More than I’m sure I’ve ever seen at one time before.
I feel a tightness in my chest. I start to count them. Trusting the sum to calm me. If I can determine how many there are, then I might be able to think. Breathe. Function. But I’m so anxious I lose count after 142. And Mr Rayunas is tugging on my arm, coaxing me to walk through them. Which only ratchets up the tension behind my ribs.
I hear voices everywhere. There are so many I can’t tell if they’re real or in my head. They’re demanding things of me. Things I don’t have to give.
‘Do you remember anything?’
‘Were you running away from home when you boarded that plane?’
‘Do you have any clues about your true identity?’
I clutch the locket in my hand tighter, concealing it entirely behind my flesh.
‘She has no comment,’ Mr Rayunas repeats over and over again as we struggle past. If he’s hoping this will dispel them, I think someone should tell him that it’s not working.
He eventually catches on and adds another obviously useless response. ‘Please, everyone,’ he implores, ‘she’s been through a lot. Allow her to recover in peace.’
For a moment I actually think that this appeal might work. But that moment is short-lived. Because the assault continues.
‘Can you tell us what’s going on in your head right now?’
‘Do you have any comment about how the airline is handling this investigation?’
‘Are you sure they’re not lying to you?’
I stop. Lift my eyes from the ground for the first time. Despite the persistent tugging on my arm, willing me to keep moving, keep walking until we’ve reached the vehicle at the end of the walkway, I don’t move. Someone has shoved a long black stick in my face.
‘What did you say?’ I ask.
‘Are you sure they’re not lying to you?’ a woman with big blonde hair repeats, looking proud that it was her question that finally caught my attention.
The crowd has fallen silent. They’re waiting for my response.
Why would they lie to me? I wonder.
But I can’t answer that question either.
The sea of faces around me starts to spin. Faster and faster. Appearing to me in a blur. I feel myself falling. Losing balance. Losing my sense of direction. The sky is no longer up. The pavement is no longer down. I know nothing.
There’s a faint pull on my arm. The world stops spinning. Individual faces come back into focus. I steady my feet.
‘You OK?’ Mr Rayunas asks.
I catch my breath. ‘Yes. I just got a little dizzy.’
‘C’mon,’ he says. ‘Let’s get you into the car.’
I follow willingly, keeping my eyes glued to the ground. It moves rapidly under my feet. I feel my legs tingle. They send signals to my brain, telling me to run. But I keep them in pace with my escort.
We reach a long black vehicle at the end of the walkway and I’m told to watch my head as I get in. I fall into the seat. The door is slammed, startling me.
Heather and Scott are already inside. Feeling protected by the glass window that now stands guard in front of me, I find the courage to look out at the wall of people we just walked through. They’re still calling my name, demanding my attention. Although now their voices have melded into one loud muffled hum. I can no longer make out individual questions. I watch Mr Rayunas attempt to make his way back to the hospital. My eyes scan the crowd, scrutinizing faces. Features. Eyes. Do any of them resemble mine? Kiyana says she’s never seen eyes like mine. The colour of violets. Surely I received that trait from one of my parents. So maybe that’s how I’ll know them. When they come for me.
If they come for me.
I allow my clenched fingers to part ever so slightly as I glance down at the locket in my hand.
Who gave it to me?
Who was important to me?
If I was wearing it when I boarded the plane, then it probably mattered. They probably mattered.
We begin to move. People disappear out the window. Old faces are replaced with new ones. And yet they share one commonality: they’re all watching me.
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We turn a corner and that’s when I see his face.
The boy who came into my room. The same thick sable hair. The same intense maple eyes. And, as my gaze meets his, the same soft, crooked smile.
Am I hallucinating again?
Or is he real?
A strange burning sensation begins between my eyes. Growing warmer by the second. Like a blazing spotlight pointed right above the bridge of my nose. I wince and touch my hand to my skin. It feels normal. Cold even.
But the longer I stare at him, the hotter my forehead grows. It’s like a fire. A fever. But it’s not violent. It’s . . .
Calming.
Almost peaceful.
As though suddenly sixteen years of a forgotten life no longer matter. Nothing does.
I eye the door handle. Rest my fingers gingerly on the shiny silver latch. But then I hear Kiyana’s voice in my head – media hungry . . . impostors . . . desperate for attention – and the fever breaks its hold over me.
He’s nothing, I tell myself.
His smile means nothing.
My hand falls back on to my lap. With effort, I manage to tear my eyes away from him. And as soon as I do, my forehead returns to normal.
I clutch the locket and squeeze, the metal clasp digging into my skin.
We keep moving. The people keep changing before my eyes. As we pick up speed, there are fewer and fewer, until they all disappear completely.
7
HOME
The Carlsons tell me they live in an old ranch house that was built in the early 1900s. According to them, the small town of Wells Creek used to be run by farmers, but in the last fifty years it’s been taken over by city refugees longing for space and quiet.
I’m told it will take three hours to get there. The Carlsons ride in the back seat with me while someone named Lance operates the vehicle. Heather calls it a car.
I like the way it moves. Smooth with occasional bumps that Scott says are due to insufficiencies in the California state budget. I nod as though this makes sense to me, even though it doesn’t.
The inside is very pleasing. Black leather that feels soft and silky against my fingertips. Buttons that make things move like the ones next to my hospital bed. I ask Heather and Scott if this car belongs to them and they seem to find amusement in my question.
‘Don’t we wish!’ Scott replies. ‘The airline sent it. I suppose it’s the least they can do.’
‘Why is that?’ I ask.
He rubs his hands on the knees of his pants. ‘Well, some people are saying it was negligence on their part. The fact that your name wasn’t on the manifest. Although to be honest, it was probably just a computer glitch. Happens all the time.’
‘Scott works in computers,’ Heather clarifies, touching her husband’s leg.
‘What’s a computer?’
Scott smiles. ‘Oh right. Basically it’s a device or a machine that processes data and performs operations. But you can pretty much programme them to do anything you want these days.’
‘Really?’
‘For the most part,’ he says with pride. ‘Computers are quickly surpassing human intelligence.’
I find this statement odd. ‘How do you programme a computer to be smarter than you?’
‘You programme it to think for itself and then eventually it evolves and becomes smarter than you. Computers can absorb information faster and with much higher efficiency than a human being.’
‘If they’re smarter than you,’ I begin pensively, ‘aren’t you afraid they’ll eventually destroy you?’
They both laugh. ‘You should get a job in Hollywood,’ Scott says. ‘But no. It doesn’t quite work like that. Only in the movies. You see, computers may be smarter than humans but they don’t react like humans. They don’t feel emotions like greed and envy and anger. Those are the kinds of emotions that might lead someone to want to destroy.’
I nod and turn to look out the window, just managing to see Heather and Scott exchange a glance out of the corner of my eye.
We arrive at the house and I immediately understand what they mean about the quiet. Their quaint home is nestled into the side of a hill and surrounded by hundreds of towering trees that almost completely hide it from view. I notice the rope swing from the photograph they showed me, hanging from a branch of one of the larger trees. Scott tells me he built it for his son, Cody, when he was younger, although he hardly ever uses it any more.
Heather points towards a leaf-covered trail that disappears over the edge of a small knoll. She tells me it leads to the creek. ‘That’s where Wells Creek gets its name,’ she informs me. ‘It runs through most of the town. Cody and his friends used to like to race home-made sailing boats in it.’
My bedroom is on the second floor of the house. It’s decorated in white and soft blues. There’s a bed in the centre, a small table in the corner, a dresser and a chair that rocks when you sit in it. There’s also a door to a bathroom that you can walk through to another bedroom.
‘Cody is at summer camp,’ Heather tells me, gesturing towards the half-ajar door at the other end of the bathroom. ‘Science camp.’
I lean forward to peer inside and catch sight of a desk covered in several pieces of unidentified circuitry.
‘He likes to take things apart,’ she adds, following my gaze. ‘I just wish he liked putting them back together as well.’
I smile, sensing it’s a joke from the way her eyes crinkle when she says it. I like jokes. Kiyana used to make them in the hospital. But they seem very complicated to me. Like something you need a special skill for. I wonder if I ever made jokes.
‘Maybe you went to summer camp,’ Heather muses.
‘Maybe,’ I allow, as I unite the definitions of the two words, creating a visualization of what they might mean. Summer camp. Taking shelter in tents for the summer?
‘He gets home tomorrow,’ she goes on. ‘I’ll make sure he uses our bathroom so you have privacy. You can keep this door locked if it makes you feel better.’ She closes the door to Cody’s bedroom and flips the small knob under the handle, demonstrating how the lock works.
I shrug in response, wondering if I was a private person.
I run my thumb back and forth over the thin black tattoo on my wrist, as though the answer is just beneath the surface of my skin.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asks. ‘I can make lunch.’
‘Yes,’ I say, placing my locket on the dresser and following her down the stairs into the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later, I sit at the table with Scott. Heather sets a plate in front of me. ‘If I knew your favourite food, I would have made it.’
I glance warily at the unfamiliar object that I’m expected to consume.
‘If I knew my favourite food, I would have told you,’ I reply, causing Heather and Scott to chuckle. Their laughter takes me by surprise.
Heather slides into a chair and places a napkin in her lap. Scott does the same so I follow suit, assuming it’s the appropriate thing to do. ‘This is Cody’s favourite so I took a shot. It’s a grilled cheese sandwich. Pretty basic.’
I study my plate, noticing how the gelatinous orange cheese drips over the edge of the bread and seems to cling to the sides. I pick up one half and hold it tentatively between my fingers. This is my first real food since the plane crash.
Heather and Scott watch me closely as I take a bite.
The flavour explodes in my mouth, overwhelming me and filling me with a sense of elation that I can’t quite understand. The texture is both crunchy and creamy, and every time I chew it releases more and more delicious aroma on to my tongue.
I know I don’t remember anything, but I’m certain this is the most wondrous thing I’ve ever eaten. I don’t know how it can’t be. Is it possible for anything else to taste so delectable?
I let out a small, involuntary moan and Heather and Scott both laugh.
The flavour eventually starts to evaporate and the piece in my mouth turns soggy. I swallow it
down and immediately lunge forward for another bite. This one is just as enjoyable as the first and I let out sigh of contentment.
‘I guess that means you like it,’ Heather confirms.
I don’t speak, in fear that opening my mouth might allow some of the delicious flavour to escape. I simply nod and smile. Heather and Scott chuckle again.
‘I’m so glad,’ Heather says.
I swallow my second bite. ‘It’s the most wondrous thing I’ve ever tasted,’ I say zealously.
Heather beams and picks up half of her own sandwich. I can’t help but marvel at how happy she looks. And I find myself feeling happy too. Maybe that’s what food is supposed to do.
That night when I retire to my room I empty the brown paper bag that Kiyana gave me at the hospital, spilling its contents on to the bed.
I stare numbly at the unfamiliar pieces of dark grey fabric.
The clothes I was found in.
I so wish they had meaning. I wish I could remember picking them out. Putting them on. Did I keep them in a dresser like the one in this room?
Without thinking, I slip my white T-shirt over my head, step out of my jeans and strip down to my red-and-orange-striped underwear. I guide my arms through the short sleeves of the grey collared shirt, remarking at how soft and worn it feels.
Does that mean it was my favourite?
There are white buttons all down the front. I work quickly, fastening each one. Then I step into the matching grey cloth pants, pulling them up around my hips and securing them with the fabric string that ties at the waist.
I peer at myself in the full-length mirror that hangs on the door to the bathroom. The ensemble is comfortable, but certainly not flashy. In fact, looking at my reflection, I can see it’s very drab. Almost gloomy.
Was I a gloomy person?
Or maybe this is what people wear on long flights to Asia.
Obviously it’s what I wear.
But for some reason now it feels all wrong. The clothes fit physically but the longer I wear them, the more uneasy I become. Suddenly I have a desperate urge to shed them as quickly as possible. I throw the shirt over my head, yank the pants down and kick them from my ankles, feeling better almost immediately.