The Lost Girl

  I stop, frozen, on the inner page where the title of the book is usually repeated. I have to look twice to make sure I’m not imagining what I see.

  Mary Shelley

  FRANKENSTEIN;

  or,

  The Modern Prometheus.

  “He didn’t,” I say out loud, in disbelief. My pulse races. Excitement and shock creep into my blood like a fever. “He didn’t.”

  Sean broke the rule nobody ever broke in our cottage. My pleading and coaxing had no effect on any of them. Frankenstein, and everything based on it, was forbidden. Sean never bent, in spite of all those times I asked, begged. Then, when he knew I would be leaving England, he did.

  I stare down at the book, at the faded pages, the loose binding. I hesitate, frightened of it, of the secrets and story that I might uncover, things the Weavers never wanted me to know.

  Very gingerly, I pick the book up again, flip the page, and start to read.

  I read well into the night, tucked beneath a soft shawl, eyes wide and worried as the terrible, terrible story unfolds. Bits and pieces stand out, voices from the book leap off the page and whisper in my ear. The voice of a man who made a person from scratch and paid a terrible price for rejecting him. Violence, darkness, tragedy. But something else, too. Strength. The creature, this monster, he wins. He beats the man who made him. More than that: he destroys him.

  I read until I’ve finished and the clock tells me it’s far later than I’ve been awake in weeks. When it’s over, I put the book down and curl up into the smallest ball I can make.

  “Sean, I think I’ve understood,” I say very softly.

  He doesn’t reply. I can’t conjure him up. Instead I think of the strangest thing: a girl from long ago, faceless and little more than a myth to me. An echo who once defied the Weavers.

  And her lips move. She’s telling me to defy them too. Because like Frankenstein’s monster, I could win.

  I’ve almost forgotten how hot it was when I first arrived. The nights are cold now. This is the only time of year here that the air is sharp and smells of stars instead of dust and spices.

  No one at the house makes a fuss for Christmas, but I see Alisha cast worried looks at Neil over dinner, which makes me suspect that she wanted to but he asked her not to. He probably can’t bear to celebrate Amarra’s favorite holidays. Nikhil confesses to me later that the family normally decorates a ragged old Christmas tree, they have fun, the kids get presents. They skipped over Diwali this year, too: most Novembers, they went out into the street with lamps and soft Indian sweets and fireworks, spending hours out there with the rockets and sparklers and lights. The conversation takes me back to Mina Ma and the lakes, and our silly Christmases, and the one year Erik surprised her by bringing over little lamps and a box of noisy firecrackers around Diwali time. Our neighbors hated us that year.

  As we ease back into school in January, I explore the city on my own. Bangalore unsettles me, with its bustle and sounds. I’m fascinated by the spices and scents and such peculiarities as spotting men hunkered around a tombstone in a cemetery, drinking tea out of steel cups. If I could have chosen to come here, on holiday maybe, I would have loved this place and everything around it: the hills, the forests, the temples and statues. I would have wanted to go see an elephant in the wild or try and spot a tiger or panther in the forest. Jaya’s done these things; Lekha’s done these things; they tell me about it and it sounds incredible.

  But the city is the place that shelters Amarra’s ghost. And yet being out alone is one of the few places I can let the mask slip away, and instead of walking in her shoes, it’s like we’re two girls, ghost and echo, walking side by side. No one looks twice at me. A couple of times I run into an old auntie or uncle of Amarra’s, someone who pinches my cheeks and asks about school and the family, but these occasions are rare.

  So I go out when I can. I try food off the streets. I buy books at a little shop on Church Street. I drift through the malls looking for people I never find. I make a wish at a temple one silver morning. I wish to go home again.

  Sometimes I have nightmares about the accident that killed Amarra. Awake, I try not to think about the bright lights flashing by and the motorcycle’s tires screeching and the shattered glass as we—she—flew out of the car. Amarra’s ghost hovers very close to me on those days. I wonder what she would have thought if she could see me, if she would have hated me even more, if, wherever she is now, she is willing me to fail.

  If she does will that, she gets her wish. I make one mistake too many. It’s careless and I have no excuse for it. My attention slips, only for a moment, but a moment is all it needed.

  During lunch on a Friday, Sonya rummages about in my bag, emerging with a packet of Ruffles crisps.

  “American Cream and Onion?” she says, wrinkling her nose. “What happened to the usual Classic Salted?”

  I am bent over my desk, desperately trying to finish some geography homework I was too tired to work on the night before, and I am barely listening to her.

  “I don’t like the Classic Salted crisps,” I say distractedly. “They don’t taste of anything.”

  “What’s a crisp?”

  I look up at her, my mind still full of uninteresting details relating to rock formations and soil density. “What?”

  “A crisp,” she repeats. “That’s what you called the chips just now.”

  She doesn’t wait for a reply, simply opens the bag of crisps/chips and helps herself. I stare at her, my heart plummeting. Did she have to pick up on it? Did she have to question it? Worse, did I have to say it on a day when Ray is eating lunch with us?

  I make myself look up at him, praying that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t hear. But he did. Oh, he did.

  The look on his face is worse than I could have imagined. He’s stunned, like someone has hit him in the face with a sandbag. As he stares at me, his mouth moves wordlessly.

  Such a small, insignificant mistake. And yet, to Ray, who knew every last nuance of Amarra’s speech, it’s the most significant thing in the world.

  I watch his eyes dart this way and that, his mind fitting the pieces together, adding up all my mistakes, all those suspicious moments. I watch him relive every minute or day I have spent with him since I arrived. I watch the thing I dreaded most: the look of horror grow on his face as he realizes he touched me, laughed with me, held my hand, kissed my cheek and my forehead. And the whole time, it wasn’t her.

  “Amarra . . .” he croaks.

  But he’s not asking. He’s not saying my name. He’s calling for her, knowing she’s not here. My bones rattle, icy cold.

  Ray blinks at me, once, twice, rapidly. Then he gets up and leaves the room, abandoning us without a word.

  “What’s with him?” Sonya demands.

  I don’t answer her. I spend the rest of the day feeling dizzy with fear.

  In my distraction, I forget to take home a book I can’t do my math homework without. I leave Sonya and Jaya at the buses and hurry back to the empty classroom. I find the book, turn around, and Ray is standing in the doorway. He must have followed me back to catch me on my own.

  I take a step away, like an animal preparing its defenses. His eyes are dreadful and dark with hatred.

  “I know what you are,” he says harshly.

  “I—”

  “I’ve been an idiot,” he says. “I should have seen it at the start. Jesus, I’ve spent whole days with you! I touched you.” He covers his face. “I knew something was wrong. I knew you were different, but I hoped—shit, I’ve been so stupid! I believed you when you talked about how you hurt your head, how you had problems with your memory. What a joke. I wanted to believe you. I didn’t want to think that she might be gone, because it means I killed her; it means she’ll never come back—”

  I retreat instinctively, as though the sound of his voice is a rush of air that has pushed me backward. He sounds like his pain and fury have been bottled up too long.

  “Ray—”

/>   “Don’t say my name! Don’t ever say it! I don’t know how you can stand to be what you are. Doesn’t it make you sick, stepping in and stealing her life? Or do you not feel things like that because you’re not actually a person?”

  I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to hide my hurt and my anger. I open my mouth to deny it, to tell him he’s got it wrong, to convince him the way I ought to. But I can’t speak. I can’t do it. I can’t look at him, not the way he is now, wracked with grief and fury, and tell him he’s wrong. He’d be more likely to hit me than believe me. Rightly, too.

  “Just go away,” he snarls. “Why did they send you here? You’re not even supposed to exist anymore!”

  I stare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I thought—” He stops, almost visibly bites his tongue. His fists clench and unclench by his sides. “Why did you come?”

  “I had to.”

  “Well, we don’t want you here!” he almost shouts. “Stop pretending to be someone you’re not; stop trying to be her. You’re not! You’re nothing, you’re not even human.” His voice drops, becomes low and deadly and pained. “You’ve been lying to everyone. But it stops now. I’ll make them see how you’ve tricked us. They’ll all see you for what you are.”

  “If you’d listen to me—”

  “Why?” he demands. “What do I owe you? All you’ve done is lie to me. You let me believe you were her. Didn’t you think we deserved to know she’s gone?”

  I try to say something, but nothing comes out; my lips move soundlessly. Ray strides past the door. He turns back once to say one last thing.

  “You’re nothing but a cold, lying monster, echo.”

  The classroom door slams shut after him. I flinch and swipe angrily at my eyes, making sure no tears have slipped out onto my cheeks.

  So that’s it, then. I stare dully at the windows, the afternoon light, the sky. It’s finished.

  8

  Stolen

  My force of will has never been tested so severely. As I get off the bus, it’s all I can do to keep chatting to Nikhil and Sasha without breaking off, or crying, or frightening them. I do my best to seem normal. But only one thought runs through my mind as I look into their faces: their parents might go to prison because I made a stupid mistake. The ground beneath my feet feels shaky; it’s not solid enough to hold me up anymore.

  Erik warned me. He told me what exposure would cost us. I tried. I pulled it off for months. But I slipped in the end. I grew up refusing to be Amarra, and now I’m paying for that.

  At the house, I settle Sasha in front of the telly and wait until Nikhil heads out to play cricket with some of the neighborhood kids. The moment he’s gone, I race up the stairs. I can hear Alisha in her attic studio, clattering away, working feverishly on something new.

  “Ray knows,” I burst out before she can speak. “He knows about me. What I am.”

  Alisha’s eyes widen. “You’re not a what,” she says. “You’re a who.” She rubs her forehead, leaving behind a patch of paint. “So he knows about the new body?”

  “Yes.”

  “But doesn’t he know it’s you?” she demands.

  “He doesn’t believe it is,” I falter. “Like—like Dad.” The word is alien to me. “He said he’d tell everyone in class, make sure they knew the truth. He could go to the police. Anyone else could. I just—I wanted to warn you. You could take Nik and Sasha and go away somewhere so the police don’t find you. Leave the country—”

  I sound hysterical, but I can’t stop myself. I can’t watch them go to prison. How can I let that happen to Nikhil and Sasha? Or to Alisha? After all this time living with them, I care. I even like Neil. He doesn’t care much for me, but he’s been kind to me regardless.

  “Amarra,” says Alisha, very calmly and firmly, “take deep breaths.” She holds my face in her hands and looks me in the eye. “We’re not going anywhere, not yet. If Ray won’t listen to you, I’ll talk to him. You know him. He always acts before thinking about it. But he’s not cruel or cold. He’d never betray you.”

  “He doesn’t think I’m that person,” I miserably remind her. I think about that intense hate in his face. How the light died and he became someone else. I liked who he’d been: that he was nice and funny and moody. I liked it when he liked me. I never deserved it. I tricked him. I lied to him. Now he will always hate me.

  “But you are that person,” Alisha insists.

  I nod. Even now, I have to pretend. I could tell her the truth, scream that they’re right and I’m not Amarra. But I’ve seen the pain that truth has caused. I saw it in Ray’s face only an hour ago. How can I tell her that her daughter’s dead? If her own family won’t take what little hope she has away from her, how can I?

  “I’ll talk to him,” says Alisha. “If I can make him understand what his lack of belief will do to us, he may be willing to keep quiet.” She straightens. Her eyes are anxious, but she smiles at me. “You stay here and watch Sasha, baby. I’ll go see Ray.”

  “But—” I want to tell her it’s futile, but she has to do this. She won’t give up her life and her husband’s life, her children’s, if there’s a chance she can make Ray understand how she feels.

  So I step back. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  Her face softens. “Everyone makes mistakes,” she says. “It’s not a crime.” For a moment, something flickers in her eyes, something that makes me wonder if she sees me and not Amarra. She blinks. “I’m the reason you’re here. In a shitty situation. You can forget I said shit, by the way. Ray drove that car too fast, and he’s also the reason you’re here. We gave you a body and all these rules, shoved you into something strange and different.” God, she could be talking to either of us. “When you’ve been put in such a small box, there are really only so many steps you can take before you hit something.”

  She kisses the top of my head, then walks past me down the stairs.

  I sit on the steps and wrap my arms around my knees. I messed up, but maybe it would have happened anyway, sooner or later. Ray was never entirely sure of me. Amarra must have told him she had an echo. He always knew I existed. But if he tells the rest of the class, someone’s bound to go to the police. I wish I knew how to protect us all. How to make sure Nikhil and Sasha don’t lose something else.

  Can they prove I am an echo? I don’t know if the Mark can be removed with laser surgery, but it surely can’t withstand a knife removing the skin? I almost laugh at how reckless and awful that idea is, but if I can replace the Mark with a wound—a scar from the accident splitting open, perhaps—if I can somehow replicate Amarra’s old scars in time, maybe no one will be able to prove that I am not her. Or maybe they will. I don’t know. I don’t know how the Weavers and my familiars arranged this.

  My panicked, rash thoughts tumble one after another as I sit there on the steps. It’s only the thought of Sasha downstairs, knowing I should check on her, that makes me get up and go down again. I sit on the sofa with her and wait for Alisha to come back.

  It’s a couple of hours before she does. She goes to the kitchen to talk to Neil, and I run in after them. I don’t know how Neil feels about me right now, but I have to know what happened.

  “He was angry,” says Alisha, “and in pain. He wouldn’t believe me. He told me that you and I, Neil, we had no right to keep the truth to ourselves, that we aren’t the only ones who loved her. And he wouldn’t make any promises not to tell the rest of your classmates. He thinks they should know. But,” she adds as both Neil and I stare at her in alarm, “he did say he wouldn’t tell the police. He seems to understand that it’s the kids I’m worried about.”

  She smiles. I can’t help feeling relieved too. At least no matter what happens at school, Nikhil and Sasha won’t suffer for this.

  But Neil says, “Can we be sure someone else won’t go to the police? If he tells her friends—”

  “He seems to believe they’ll keep their mouths shut,” says Alisha, rather tiredly
. “He says no one would show so little respect for Amarra’s memory or so little care for two innocent children. I did try,” she says to me. “I tried to tell him, but he refuses to believe you’re you. I’m worried about how your friends will treat you if they won’t believe it either.”

  “That’s okay,” I say, giving her the most reassuring smile I can muster. “Honestly, it’s going to be fine. As long as no one tells the police, nothing else matters.”

  I catch Neil’s eye, and there’s a look on his face that tells me he knows I’m lying. If Ray tells everyone, he knows they will never forgive me either.

  “You don’t have to go back to school,” he offers. It’s kind of him. Kinder than I deserve right now.

  I shake my head. Turning away from school will only reinforce his belief that I’m nothing like his daughter. It will only shake Alisha’s belief. It won’t make them any happier.

  “They’re my friends,” I say, because that’s my line and even Neil might believe it. “I can’t not see them again. They’re too important to me.”

  We look at one another in silence for a minute or two. Typically, it is Alisha who regains her composure first.

  “It’s time to eat,” she says firmly. “Why don’t we make Sasha happy and pick up some malai chicken from the club?”

  I spend the night and the rest of the weekend fighting a constant urge to be sick, my nerves all knotted up into dread. Every time I think about school my stomach hurts, and I have to take Alisha’s sleeping pills to get to sleep at all. I don’t know who Ray might have talked to over the weekend. It wasn’t Sonya or Jaya: both called me a couple of times and sounded normal. But Ray will have plenty of opportunities to talk to them and everybody else at school.

  Neil offers to call school on Monday morning and tell them I’m not feeling well, but I say I will go. Alisha seems pleased. She’s the kind of person who thinks hiding is the wrong way to deal with a problem.