The stairs called to me, and I tentatively stepped forward. Would they hold me? I didn’t care. Travis followed behind, and I wondered vaguely if he planned to catch me should I fall, or stand by and watch me plummet through the staircase into the basement.
I reached the landing without incident and continued up. Boot tracks in the soot led to the top of the stairs. More sky, more trees, more holes. The hall ended, the back half of the upstairs was missing, and I saw the den with the computer desk crippled under the heat of the fire. The space where the fake tree stood was nothing but ash. I would never know if Mom decorated it in time for Christmas.
To my left, the door had been hacked open by an axe. The drenched blue and red striped curtains hung limply across the window. The train set connected the rocking chair and the bed in a woven path across the wooden floor. The yellow paint peeked through where gloved hands smeared the ash away. I picked the dream catcher up off the floor and tucked it in my pocket.
Blackness closed in.
I fought against it, willing myself to stay present. The sweet strains of classical music tugged me forward, along the train tracks and into my past. I blinked, once, twice, clearing my head. I struggled out of Trav’s arms, peered into the blackened bones and the hollowness of it all. Memories emerged from the ruins. Little snippets of a boy and a girl. Blonde and small, running down the hall. Slamming doors during games of hide and seek. Laughter filled the air.
Jimmy.
My world wavered. I said the name out loud, forcing his ghost to turn. He smiled. Two missing teeth and dimples. Sunshine in the winter light.
“Gemi.” Trav’s voice cut through the image and the haze crept forward. I jammed my thumbs into my temples, pushing against the blackness that promised to deliver another hole in my memories.
Laughter sounded from behind me. I turned and looked into my own eyes. A child of six. A smile matching mine, but with twin gaps.
She ran past me, into the room, and slammed the door. I forced it open in my mind and followed her into the yellow room as it was before the fire, before the loss of my childhood. Jimmy sat on the floor, his gray-green eyes flashing mischievously. The child me sat in the rocking chair. A ball of orange yarn wound up through my knitting needles. A spray of knit feathers rested on my lap.
Somewhere below the dream room a door opened, squeaking on dry hinges.
My muscles contracted, freezing me to the spot.
Angry shouts and loud banging. Flesh on flesh. “I know what you did, woman. I know all about it.”
Smiles fell to the floor.
I choked back a sob and the yellow room slammed shut, closing me off from the secret just outside my grasp.
Chapter 27
Luna called to me from the edge of the burnt-out floor. The sun had fallen behind the smoke and clouds. The yard light shone through the missing roof, casting shadows into the bowels of the house.
There would be an investigation. Einstein said it first, and I knew he was right. It was the reason Luna wanted to jump through the gaping wound in the hall. She blamed me for the fire and wanted to end it all before we were found guilty and charged with arson.
As much as I wanted to fight with her, a small part of me thought she might be right. I could have started that fire. Granny’s car looked as if it had recently driven over the snow-packed roads, and I certainly wasn’t in the best frame of mind last night.
Yet, there were more important things to deal with right now than Luna’s fear.
Einstein called out, urging me toward the garage.
I pulled Luna away from the ledge and followed Travis down the steps to the front lawn. The carpet roll mocked me—another fire from another time—and I wondered if maybe Mom started the blaze to escape from her prison. Or if my dad started it to escape from his.
Somehow I convinced Travis to load up my boxes and books. He didn’t offer to take me to his house and minutes after unloading my stuff in the garage, Travis turned his truck back toward Prairie Flats. In two weeks, I’d lost everything and was truly alone. Still, the tears wouldn’t come. I was done losing time, and despite my exhaustion, I knew my dad and Mom would show up here eventually. And once they arrived at a clean, fully functioning home, I couldn’t imagine them leaving again.
2:36 pm
I carried my treasure boxes to my bedroom and stored them in the hidey-hole in my headboard. Next, I went through the basement, looking for boxes that held something other than what their labels boasted. My cursory search showed up nothing unusual, and my disappointment started to wear on me. Granny had planned for everything—right down to spare toothbrushes and emergency quilts—yet she had left me nothing in regards to the big secret.
It wasn’t like her. Convinced I was missing something, I wound my way to her room. Each box in her closet yielded a pair of shoes or a half dozen scarves. Granny apparently didn’t make treasure boxes of her own.
4:07 pm
The urge to keep searching nagged at me. With a mug of chai tea in hand, I walked through every room in Granny’s house, discarding items as impractical hiding places or those that had already been searched. My eyes landed on the cedar chest. I pulled the linens from it and stroked the silken lining—feeling for what, I didn’t know—found the hard edge of glue and tugged. The fabric ripped away from the shell, and I peeled back the silk to reveal scattered papers an inch thick across the bottom.
With trembling hands, I gathered the pages and carried them to my room like an offering. The first paper was a soft brown with faint red lines making parallel paths across the paper. I unfolded it, unaware that I held my breath until it released in surprise.
Letters scrawled across the page.
Forever.
Underneath that single word was a drawing of a stick boy with spiky blonde hair. His hand reached to that of a stick-drawn girl. Their fingers clasped together like a spider with too many legs.
In a heart above the girl someone had written “always” in a strong steady hand.
“Forever and Always.” That was Granny’s phrase.
It was Jimmy’s.
Rae whispered so softly I had trouble hearing her.
Angel did too,
You mean Gemi?
“No,” I whispered. “Jimmy.”
I traced my finger across the picture, letting it linger on the boy. “My brother.”
The answer belonged to me, as did the truth behind it. Jimmy was my brother.
Nothing in my life indicated this was true. There were no pictures of two little blonde kids. In fact, pictures of me had been virtually non-existent beyond my school photos, church directories and the snapshots Granny gave me after a weekend at her house. For my thirteenth birthday, I got a digital camera I used on scenery, not people—with the exception of Travis. I didn’t like the contrived emotions people forced onto their faces while posing for the camera. I assumed my parents felt the same way. We just weren’t picture people.
We were collectors.
I collected books—stories of hope. Mom collected treasures, ugly things she found beauty in and hoped to rehabilitate. My dad bought hobbies—sports equipment for sports he never played. His yearly binges filled the spaces where Mom’s treasures didn’t reach. Together they had collected a lifetime of things and found no pleasure in any of it.
Apparently, we also collected secrets. Like long-lost brothers.
Yearning for more, I opened a construction paper card. The crayon boy stood behind a birthday cake with eight candles.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JIMMY!
I MISS YOU.
FOREVER AND ALWAYS, GEMI.
I sifted through more cards that never reached the birthday boy. Cards I had no recollection of making. Nor did I remember sliding them into the lining of the trunk and sealing it shut with glue. That knowledge unhinged me and satisfied me at the same time. My memory lapses were not new. Yet there was also a purpose for them. On some level, they helped me cope with Jimmy’s disappearance from my life.
5:58 pm
I gathered the papers from the cedar chest and hid them in my headboard next to my treasure boxes and messenger bag. I pulled out the notebook journal from the past few days and reread the things I had known but forgotten, adding new notes for the future when I’d need to learn them again.
I had a brother named Jimmy.
He started the pet phrase, forever and always, a tradition Granny and I kept long after he was gone.
But where did he go?
And what about Abi, Trav’s niece? Did they disappear at the same time, together?
Eleven years ago would have made me six, about the same age as the memory-me in the yellow room.
The ghost-me that held a ball of yarn and a turkey hat.
The spider webs connecting us: the people I knew but had forgotten.
I scratched my new question on the next line: How was it possible to forget someone I’d known my whole life?
Clarence would know. I put a star by his name and continued reading.
Clarence and Granny were friends, then and now, but not my parents.
We were back to the beginning, to a time when my dad smiled holding a baby Jimmy. Right before I was born. I was the secret. Not Jimmy.
But that didn’t make sense. None of it did.
The clock chimed—7:15—pulling me away from my task. The clock. The church. The directory. Panic rippled through my body as a memory solidified. The picture of my parents holding Jimmy.
Mr. and Mrs. Dan Baker, and Jimmy.
Jimmy. The nickname for James.
* * *
Luna made her way to the medicine cabinet where the night time cough syrup beckoned. She chugged one capful of the thick liquid, then refilled the measuring lid a second time. She read the label—it was too much—and tipped it back anyways, letting the bite of medicine slide down her throat. Next she grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen and took a handful to ease the ache in her head. She felt almost giddy as she chased the painkillers with three day’s worth of depression meds.
Satisfied, she curled up on the couch and waited for sleep.
As the edges of her world wavered, Luna called James. “It’s finally done.”
* * *
My body felt like it had been steamrolled. I couldn’t find the source of the noise that woke me, nor could I focus on my world. When I tried to stand, my legs gave out from under me. I fell to the side and smacked my chin on something hard. I blinked, but there seemed to be no difference in the light.
Hands shook me and my stomach rebelled.
Oh Lord, what happened?
“Gemini?” A slap on the face. Another. Neither hurt. Something rattled, and I wondered if I’d been bitten by a snake. It was a painful way to die, I’d heard.
A finger jammed down my throat, and my head slammed against something solid. My neck rested on an unforgiving ring. I gagged, but didn’t puke.
Another slap.
“What did you take?”
My tongue felt thick and dry in my mouth. I tried to answer, but the words got stuck.
More rattling. Wallpaper came into focus. The thermostat clock above the toilet flashed 8:11 pm.
“How many did you take?”
My head lolled to the side. I held up my fingers. Three, no five. I shrugged and hunched back over the toilet, cradling the cool porcelain in my arms. I closed my eyes again and saw Luna curled up in the corner of the yellow room. Rae held Luna’s head and stroked her hair. She whispered words I couldn’t hear.
Just let her go.
Rae turned on Fell.
You know we can’t. We don’t know what would happen to the rest of us.
It’s called integration, Rae, and you know it. It’s the only way to stay healthy
.
Rae’s face clouded.
It’s the only way for you to remain in control. I won’t let her die.
I focused on Luna, her lifeless form wrapped in Rae’s arms. Another set of arms hugged me from behind. Orange ginger. Mom. “Call an ambulance.”
Her plea was met with silence.
“Now, Dan. She’s your daughter.”
I tried to cry out, but my body convulsed with pain.
What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with me?
Then it hit me. I was dying. Like Luna, my body was shutting down. Part of me welcomed the mercy of death, the quiet that would come from ending my crappy life. I relaxed into Mom’s embrace and thought of seeing Granny again. Of being whole and happy like when I’d lived with her.
“No she’s not.” My dad stomped off, slamming the door behind him, and like that, anger ignited my will to live. I scrounged the vestiges of my mind for help. I needed to vomit like my puppy had after eating one too many socks.
What had we used to make him puke?
“Need. Peroxide.” The words slipped out painfully. Mom released her hold and dug through the medicine cabinet. She returned with a brown bottle in hand. I opened my mouth and let the bitterness dribble past my swollen tongue.