‘You had to teach me a word?’ I ask.
‘I’ve had to teach you a lot of things.’
‘Why?’
‘Sera,’ he urges, tugging faintly on my hand, ‘come with me. Right now. I promise to answer your questions. But it’s not safe here.’
‘Why?’ I repeat adamantly, ignoring his request. ‘Why did you have to teach me things?’
He rubs at his chin and looks over his shoulder. Then finally he sighs deeply. ‘They were very selective about what vocabulary you knew. I think it was how they attempted to control you.’
‘Who?’ I demand, ripping my hand from his grip. My rage has finally boiled over. It’s taken control now. ‘Who are you talking about?’
He seems to have lost control of his emotions too. Because when he answers, his voice is much sharper. Commanding. Not to mention louder. ‘I’m talking about the people who made you like this!’ He gestures to all of me.
‘Like what?’
‘Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. Because I know you have. You’re not like everyone else. You’re different, Sera. Special. You have unique abilities that other people don’t have. Does any of that sound familiar?’
It does. It sounds way too familiar.
But right now it’s the last thing I want to think about.
My brain feels as though it’s on fire. I close my eyes and rub my temples in small circles with the tips of my fingers. ‘I don’t want to be different,’ I whisper. ‘I just want to be normal. I just want to find my family.’
‘But you’re not normal,’ he maintains, his voice soothing once again. ‘I think you’ve figured that out by now. And as far as I know, you don’t have a family.’
I open my eyes and take two large steps back. ‘What are you talking about?’ I ask in a measured tone.
‘Sera,’ he begins, closing the gap between us. He places his hands on my shoulders. His touch is urgent. Heavy. ‘When I first met you, you were living in a lab.’
Lab: short for laboratory.
Laboratory: a building, part of a building or other place equipped to conduct scientific experiments, tests and investigations.
He keeps talking. ‘On a compound for a company called Diotech. They’re a massive technology conglomerate. You were involved in one of their research projects. They do everything from aeronautics to experimental science to . . .’ He pauses and nods ambiguously in my direction. Then he seems to change his mind about continuing and instead says, ‘Listen. I’m staying at 1952 Bradbury Drive, room 302. Meet me there and I will explain it all to you.’
I shake my head and cover my ears but it does nothing to block the sound of his voice. I look for something to count. Tiles on the floor. But there aren’t enough.
‘No,’ I resolve fervently. ‘You’re lying. This is all a lie!’
He reaches for my hand again but I pull it away so fast – so unnaturally fast – it blurs in front of my eyes.
‘Sera, please,’ he urges.
‘Don’t call me that!’ I roar. ‘That’s not my name! And you are not my . . . my . . . soulmate. You aren’t anything! I don’t know you! And I don’t know why you keep telling me these awful things that aren’t true but I don’t want to hear any more. Please, just leave me alone!’
I whirl around and stomp towards the doorway, determined to find Heather and get out of here as fast as I can. I expect to hear footsteps behind me but all is silent. I fight the urge to turn back and study his reaction.
Then, out of the stillness, comes his voice. Passionate and earnest. ‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”’
And before I can process what he’s saying – before I can even fathom what is happening – I feel my lips start to move. I hear my own voice speak. Almost as though it’s coming from someplace else. An entity distinct from my body. Separate.
‘“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.”’
I skid to a halt, playing the words over and over in my mind. What do they mean? Where did they come from? How do I know them?
Did I recite that from . . . memory?
I turn and look at the boy again. The one who calls himself Zen. The one who calls himself my soulmate.
His eyes illuminate. His lips part. ‘Welcome back, Seraphina.’
18
FICTION
My instincts take over and I do the first thing that comes to mind.
I run.
I bolt through the doorway and zigzag frantically through the racks of clothing until I find Heather, standing at the cash register. ‘I need to go. Now.’
She peers at me in alarm. ‘Why? What happened? Is everything OK?’
No. It’s definitely not.
I nod. ‘Yes. I just want to go.’
Irina hands Heather three large bags and a receipt. Heather thanks her and then turns back to me. ‘OK. Let’s go.’
I follow close behind her as we head for the exit. I can see the boy watching me from the doorway where I left him. His eyes track my every footstep. My every move.
I feel my face grow hot with rage. My teeth clench.
I’m angry at him for lying to me. For clearly trying to take advantage of my memory loss, preying on my naivety. And I’m angry at myself for believing him. Even for a second.
‘I think we got some really cute stuff,’ Heather says as she starts the car and reverses out of the parking spot.
‘Yes.’ I stare vacantly out the window, trying to backtrack through all the things he’s told me and discount them one by one.
You were never on that plane. Lie.
Your name is Seraphina. Lie.
I gave you the locket. Lie.
You’re some kind of human science experiment for a company called Diotech.
Even I, the dysfunctional amnesiac, can recognize how ludicrous that sounds.
Heather peers at me. I must be clenching my teeth again because she puts a tender hand on my arm and asks, ‘Did something happen in the dressing room while I was gone?’
I cringe at the memory. ‘No.’
‘Was it those girls?’ She takes a guess. ‘Did they say something to upset you?’
If only it was as simple as that. If only I was a normal human being who couldn’t speak in foreign languages without knowing I was speaking them and solve unsolvable math problems without remembering how. If only I didn’t have boys following me around, feeding me blatant insulting falsities. Then maybe my only problem would be girls in a dressing room.
But my life is not as simple as Heather would like it to be. I’m learning that far too quickly.
And now I just want her to stop asking questions.
I want to forget the boy and all the inexplicable things that have happened to me.
‘No,’ I assert again. ‘I’m fine. Nothing happened.’
I can sense Heather struggling. She wants to press on and investigate further but she can sense that I’m not willing to talk. I’m grateful when she remains quiet and leaves me alone.
I feel desolate and lost. Without an identity. Without a home. Without anything.
I don’t know who I am or what I am.
I’m certainly not like those girls in the dressing room.
I’m not like the Carlsons.
And even Cody admitted I’m not like the other girls he knows.
So what am I like? Where do I fit in?
And the question that is truly beginning to plague me: if that boy – the one who calls himself Zen – is really lying, why do all his answers make sense?
As soon as we get home, I go straight to Cody’s room. When I open the door, he’s sitting on his bed reading a magazine.
‘I really have to install a lock on this side of the door,’ he mumbles. He’s clearly not happy with me. I suppose I can understand that.
‘I’m . . .’ I fumble with an apology but it’s apparent from the stilted nature of my voice that unlike math problems and foreign languag
es, apologies are not something I’m inherently good at. ‘I’m . . . sorry . . . about—’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he snarls. ‘Save it. What do you want now?’
‘I need your help.’
He snorts. ‘Forget it.’
‘Please, Cody.’
‘In case you haven’t heard,’ he begins, his tone more venomous than I’ve ever heard it, ‘in case you happen to have already forgotten the conversation that happened outside yesterday, I’m grounded. Like for life. All thanks to you. So if you think I’m going to help you again—’
‘I just need to use the Internet,’ I interrupt.
His eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘The Internet?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re not going to ask me to take you to Guam or something.’
‘No.’ I pause, considering. ‘Unless the Internet is better there.’
Cody is silent for a brief moment and then he breaks into laughter. ‘Was that a joke? Did the infamous amnesiac supermodel actually make a joke?’
It wasn’t a joke. But I know better than to admit that because whatever I said clearly seems to have lightened his dark mood. So I smile and shrug my shoulders.
Cody closes his magazine, which I can now see is titled Popular Science, and slides off his bed. ‘Fine,’ he says with a heavy sigh. ‘You can borrow my laptop.’ He grabs a thin, rectangular metal device from the desk in the corner, tucks it under his arm, and motions for me to follow him. ‘C’mon. I’ll set it up in your room and teach you how to use it. But don’t go looking at any porn on here. My parents have one of those cyber-nanny tracking services set up and they can see everything I look at.’ He cringes. ‘I learned that one the hard way.’
He steps through the bathroom and into my room. I follow closely behind. ‘What is porn?’ I ask.
He chuckles and sets the laptop on my bed. ‘It’s . . . You know what? Never mind.’
He sits down and I stand over him as he flips open the device, revealing a dark screen and a black-and-silver keyboard.
‘Is this a computer?’ I ask, watching with fascination as he presses a small round button and the entire machine illuminates.
Cody flashes me a funny look. ‘Yeah.’
We wait as the screen cycles through a series of images and text. Cody’s eyes dart nervously up at me, taking in my new dress. ‘You look . . . nice, by the way.’
I smile and say thank you because it seems like the appropriate response.
He steals another peek. ‘That dress is . . .’ he starts, but his face colours and he looks away. ‘Well . . . it fits. Which is a nice change. That’s all.’
I smooth the soft purple fabric with my hands. ‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘It fits very well.’
Cody clears his throat. ‘So anyway, you type whatever you want into this little box,’ he explains hastily, pointing to the screen, ‘and Google will show you everything there is to know about the subject.’
He pulls the computer towards him. ‘Like this for example.’ He types in:
Freedom Airlines flight 121, survivor
He presses a key marked ‘Enter’. Instantly the screen morphs into a list of results. Halfway down the page there’s a row of photographs. Of me. I recognize one as the picture they showed on the news, and the rest appear to have been taken when I was walking from the hospital to the car the day I was released.
The day I saw the boy in the crowd.
‘Change it,’ I tell Cody urgently. ‘Put in something else. Please.’
He studies my face curiously for a moment before finally yielding. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘What did you want to look up?’
I lower my gaze. ‘Something I think I might have remembered but I’m not sure what it is.’
His eyebrows rise in interest. ‘No kidding? What was it?’
I take a deep breath and let my mind drift back to the dressing room. Although I don’t want to repeat it, I have to know what it means.
‘“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,”’ I recite, fully expecting Cody to display the same befuddled expression that I had when I first heard the words, and to confirm what I’ve believed since then: that they don’t mean anything.
But he doesn’t.
Instead he laughs.
‘What?’ I ask, affronted.
‘That’s the first memory you’ve had!?’ He laughs harder.
I don’t understand why this is humorous. And I don’t appreciate his amusement either. ‘Yes. Why are you laughing?’
He wipes his eyes. ‘Sorry. I just find it totally messed up that you can’t remember what the Internet is but you know the words to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.’
My eyes widen in surprise. ‘Shakespeare’s what?’
‘It’s a famous poem.’
I feel somewhat disappointed. A poem. Why would I remember a poem? Of all things? ‘Well, what does it mean?’ I ask impatiently.
Cody rolls his eyes. ‘It’s some sappy crap about eternal love or something.’ He sticks his finger in his mouth and makes a gagging sound with his throat.
Eternal love?
I think of the locket sitting in the top drawer of my dresser. Two hearts, intersecting at their cores.
‘How do you know it?’ I ask.
‘We studied Shakespeare in school last year.’
‘So it’s possible that’s where I learned it too?’ I ask, my hopes instantly rising. ‘In school?’
Not in some sinister lab.
Just a regular, everyday school.
He shrugs. ‘Probably. Girls totally dig that mushy stuff. So I guess I’m not surprised you remember it.’ He contemplates for a second. ‘Or you could have been a serious history buff or something.’
This piques my interest. ‘History?’
‘Yeah,’ Cody says, as though it was obvious. ‘That poem was written like four hundred years ago.’
My blood starts to pump faster as my mind automatically does the math. ‘Four hundred years ago,’ I repeat. ‘In what year?’
He shrugs again. ‘I don’t know. Sixteen something.’
‘Sixteen what?’ I demand, surprised by the intensity in my own voice.
Cody shoots me a look of contempt. ‘Chill out. I don’t know.’
Exasperated, I gesture towards the computer. ‘Well, can you look it up?’
He throws his hands in the air. ‘Fine, fine. Calm down.’
As he starts typing, my leg bounces nervously. Cody shoots me another strange look.
The screen morphs into a page of text. An illustration of a man with puffy black hair and a white collared shirt appears under the name ‘William Shakespeare’.
‘OK, let’s see.’ Cody leans in. ‘Sonnet 116. It says here, first published in –’ his eyes quickly scan the page – ‘1609.’
19
VISITOR
Heather says Scott wants us to meet him in town for dinner. We’re going to go to something called a restaurant. Cody explains from the back seat of the car that it’s what people do when they don’t want to cook at home. Or when they want better food than what their mother can make.
Heather gives him a bitter look in the rear-view mirror. ‘Just be grateful we’re bringing you at all, Cody.’
He crosses his arms and makes a pff sound with his lips.
‘Your father and I are still extremely disappointed in you.’
‘Whatever,’ is his reply.
At the restaurant, Heather shows me how to order from a menu and recommends a few items she thinks I would like. I finally decide on something called baked ziti because Heather says it shares an ingredient with the delicious sandwich she made for me a few days ago.
And although the dish is very good – unbelievably good – I can’t fully enjoy it. My mind is distracted. The events of the day are replaying on an endless loop.
‘Did you have fun shopping today?’ Scott asks me after he sucks a long noodle into his mouth. r />
‘Yes,’ I lie.
I seem to be doing a lot of that lately. I wonder if it’s somehow indicative of who I used to be.
‘We got some really adorable stuff,’ Heather adds. ‘It was so much fun to be able to shop for a girl for a change.’
Across the table, I see Cody roll his eyes. He’s fully engaged with something on his phone.
I’m not very talkative and soon the conversation shifts to the topic of Scott’s work. I’m grateful to have the time to myself to think.
Why am I reciting poetry from the year 1609?
Why do I have a locket with that very year engraved on the back?
Why is it the first thing I said when they pulled me from the ocean?
And why is that boy – Zen – the only one who seems to know anything about any of it?
I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know who to trust. I can’t even trust my own mind. I want to crawl under this table and never resurface. I want to swim into the sea and never turn around. I just want to escape.
After dinner, we step out into the warm summer-night air. It feels fresh and rejuvenating on my skin. The sun has already set and I can smell the faint traces of the ocean a few miles away. Scott takes Cody in his car, saying something about making a quick stop at the drugstore, and I go with Heather.
She navigates the twisty dark road that leads to the house, the headlights illuminating only a few feet of the way ahead of us. As we near the driveway, I notice a man walking up the hill from the other direction. Heather spots him a good five seconds later and slows the car.
I find it odd for someone to be walking alone in the dark but it doesn’t seem to bother her. She simply smiles and waves. The same way she always does when she passes pedestrians. On the way to the supermarket the other day she explained that it’s something people do in small towns: they wave to each other.
But the man doesn’t wave back.
As the car comes closer, his eyes lock on me and my heart leaps into my throat.
I recognize him.
He’s tall, with bright auburn hair and a matching beard.
I saw him yesterday. He was on the bus Cody and I rode from the airport to the bus station.
In Los Angeles.