Within moments everyone is completely rapt listening to his story and the animated way in which he tells it. He stands up and swings his arms valiantly to enact the final epic battle of swords that led to our victory and daring escape.
No one is even looking at me anymore. Everyone is intently focused on Zen as though they’ve completely forgotten about the scandal that prompted the telling of this story in the first place.
Everyone except Mrs. Pattinson, that is.
When I glance up, her vicious, distrustful eyes are still drilling into me. Her mouth is clenched, slicing a rigid horizontal line across the bottom of her face. She is not in the least bit dazzled by Zen’s spirited story. In fact, I doubt she believes a word of it.
I force a timid smile and ever so gently begin to pry my hand out from under hers. My arm snaps back when I finally break free. The whole time her gaze never abandons me. She never stops accusing.
I hastily finish the sock that I’ve been darning, place it on the table, and clean up my work space. Zen is still engrossed in the story of the great battle with the pirates, making up details with impressive ease and diligence.
I stand up without a word and head toward the stairs. Zen stops talking long enough to raise his eyebrows inquisitively at me.
Are you okay?
I shrug and nod weakly in response, anxious to leave the room, to disappear behind a closed door. To vanish.
I hurry toward the stairs, wanting so badly to bolt up them as fast as my legs can carry me. But I force myself to take cautious, timed,
human
steps—
one, one thousand, two, one thousand
—feeling Mrs. Pattinson’s eyes stinging the back of my neck the entire time.
4
TELLING
As soon as the door is closed behind me, I slide out of my mules, rip the bonnet from my head, untwist my bun, and shake out my long honey-brown hair. The bed squeaks under my weight as I collapse onto my back. I rest my hand on my chest, feeling my heart pounding. My rib cage rises and falls in desperate ragged breaths.
I close my eyes and try to calm myself. Try to tell myself it’s all right. By tomorrow she will have completely forgotten about it.
But I know I’m only lying again.
I wish I had access to one of Diotech’s re-cognization receptors so I could dig into Mrs. Pattinson’s mind, find that memory, and erase it forever. I was wearing a set of them when we arrived here but Zen insisted we throw them into a nearby pond, reasoning that they would only arouse suspicion if they were ever found in our possession.
Not that they’d be of any use to us without the right equipment. Even if I was able to sneak into her bedroom while she was sleeping and secure the receptors to her head, I’d still need some kind of computer connected to them in order to find the memory within her brain and delete it.
Absentmindedly, I run my fingertip gently over the ink-black strip of skin on the inside of my wrist.
“Satan’s mark.”
I remember when they found me the first time. When the thin black line buzzed with electricity. When they were close enough to track me.
It was August of 2013. In the small town of Wells Creek, California. When I was living with the Carlsons, my foster family. Heather, Scott, and their thirteen-year-old son, Cody.
People believed I was the sole survivor of a deadly plane crash. That I had somehow managed to fall from the sky and live to tell about it. That I had lost my memories as a result of the accident. And that I was just a normal sixteen-year-old girl with a family, and friends, and a home somewhere.
But none of that was true.
I was never on the plane.
I was never a normal sixteen-year-old girl.
I had no family or friends.
I ended up in the year 2013 by accident. When Zen and I were attempting to escape. We were supposed to come here—to 1609—but something went wrong.
Something neither of us has been able to figure out.
“What happened?” I asked Zen after we’d been here a week. “How did we get separated?”
He got very quiet then, refusing to look at me. “You let go,” he whispered.
His response startled me and I nearly choked on my next word. “What?”
He finally brought his eyes back to mine but something had clouded them. A layer of doubt that I’d never seen before. “You let go of my hand,” he explained. “I felt it at the very end. Like you’d changed your mind or something. When I opened my eyes and found myself here—in 1609—you were gone.”
“It must have slipped,” I reasoned, unable to believe what he was saying.
But he shook his head. “No.” The confidence in his tone made my throat go dry as he repeated the three words that still send chills through me whenever I think about them. “You let go.”
Regardless of the reason, I ended up in the twenty-first century alone and scared, without an identity or a single scrap of memory. In a time period I knew nothing about.
I became an instant celebrity. The police broadcast my picture to the world, certain it would only be a matter of time before someone came looking for me.
That part they were right about.
Someone
did
come looking for me. But it wasn’t my family. It wasn’t my friends. It was
them
.
And they almost managed to bring me back.
Thankfully, Zen found me first. He tried to explain to me what was happening. Why I was there. Who these mysterious people chasing me were. I didn’t believe him at first. I didn’t recognize him.
But something inside me—some deeply buried spark—lit up whenever he was around. Somewhere beyond my vacant, spotless, overly logical brain—beyond my fear and distrust and burning need for answers that made sense—I still remembered him. Still trusted him.
Still loved him.
I’m startled by a quiet rap on the door and I push myself up to a seated position, pull my sleeve back down over my wrist, straighten my shoulders, and call, “Come in.”
The door creaks open but I don’t see anyone on the other side. At first I think a breeze from an open window might have pushed it but then my gaze slides down about three feet and I see Jane’s tiny blond head poking into the room.
Just like in the barn this morning, her presence takes me by surprise.
Jane quietly pads into the room with Lulu, her doll, tucked in the crook of her elbow. She closes the door behind her without a word. Then she walks right up to the edge of the bed and stands in front of me, staring at me with a gentle but intrigued gaze. Lulu’s two black button eyes watch me with matched curiosity.
I feel uncomfortable and am tempted to look away but something about Jane’s innocent features keeps my eyes locked on hers. She bites her lip in concentration and her forehead crumples as she looks at me, like she’s trying hard to decipher something on my face.
Then, finally, she opens her mouth and in her small, docile voice and precious accent says, “Why do
you
never tell us any stories?”
The question catches me off guard. I’m not sure what I was expecting from her, but it definitely wasn’t this. I don’t have much experience with little children—
none
, actually. To be honest, they make me nervous. So small and fragile and unpredictable. Like they might punch you in the stomach, or burst into tears, or shatter into a million pieces at any moment.
“U-u-um,” I stammer. “I-I-I don’t know. I guess I don’t have any stories to tell.”
“Then why don’t you make one up?” she suggests, her voice clearly implying that this is an obvious solution.
“You don’t like Ben’s stories?”
She teeters her head from side to side, the straps of her little white cap bouncing on her shoulders. “I do,” she replies, sounding almost diplomatic. “They’re for boys, though. I want to hear a
girl
story.”
She’s looking at me with big, round, eager eyes and it takes me a second to realize she really is expecting me to just make up a story. Right here. Right now.
“Um,” I say again. “Okay, I guess I can make up a story for you.”
Her lips spring into an ear-to-ear grin, revealing two rows of miniature crooked teeth. One is missing from the bottom. She climbs clumsily onto the bed—hands and knees and elbows everywhere—and sits down right beside me. She places her doll in her lap, wraps one arm around its waist and the other she rests casually on my thigh, clearly thinking nothing of the gesture. As though we’ve sat like this a dozen times before.
I stiffen at her sudden proximity and her touch, reminding myself of the way that stupid horse reacts every time I enter his stall.
She looks up at me, chin jutted out, blue eyes blinking, mouth curved in a patient half smile. Waiting. Anticipating. I hope she doesn’t expect anything as remarkable as one of Zen’s stories because if so, she’ll be sorely disappointed.
“Okay,” I begin awkwardly, racking my brain for something to say. “This is a story about…”
About what?
Am I really expected to just
create
an entire story? An entire
life
? When I’m still trying to figure out my own? I rack my brain for inspiration. For a single detail I can begin with, but no response comes. My mind is blank.
Zen always makes it look so easy. Effortless. He simply starts talking and doesn’t stop until an entire epic saga has been described in painstaking detail. I can’t even come up with a single person, place, or thing to be the subject of one lousy story.
Did the Diotech scientists create me with absolutely no imaginative abilities whatsoever?
I suppose that shouldn’t surprise me.
Creativity obviously had no function in whatever it was they planned to do with me. In fact, any creative talent at all was probably considered a liability. A threat. A skill that might facilitate an escape plan.
They obviously weren’t counting on Zen.
Jane is still staring up at me, waiting for some exciting, perilous tale. Unfortunately I’ll have to break it to her that it’s just not going to happen. I’m simply not wired that way. She’s going to have to get her source of entertainment from somewhere else tonight.
“About a princess,” she whispers beside me.
I frown back at her. “What?”
She looks impatient for a moment before letting out a sigh and explaining, “All good stories are about a princess.”
“Oh,” I splutter. “Right. Yes. Okay, it’s about a princess.”
Jane nods contentedly, indicating her satisfaction, and then motions for me to keep going.
“It’s about a princess who … who…” But once again nothing comes.
“Lives in King James’s court?” she asks, raising her eyebrows hopefully.
“Oh no.” I shake my head, confident about
something
for the first time. “She’s from much farther away. A very, very distant place.”
Jane’s eyes light up. “The New World?”
“Even farther. Farther than you could ever imagine.”
She flashes me an encouraging smile.
“So,” I continue tentatively, still unsure where I’m going with this, “the princess was … she was…”
“Special.” Jane finishes the sentence. “She has to be special.”
“She does?”
“Of course,” she replies with authority. “Otherwise why would there be a story about her?”
“Good point. Yes, she was very special.”
“Why?” Jane prompts, gazing up eagerly at me again.
I peer around the room for some help. There’s none to be found. “Well, she was special because she had these … these…” I stop, press my lips together, glance down at my wrist, safely hidden behind my sleeve again. I take a deep breath.
“… magic powers,” I finally conclude.
“Oooh!” Jane nods her head vigorously in approval. She scoots even closer to me, our legs now touching. “What kind of powers?”
Her excitement unexpectedly invigorates me. Makes me feel giddy. A surge of warmth runs through my body and I suddenly find myself wanting to do anything to keep the feeling alive. To please her.
“Well,” I begin. The smile on my face is automatic. Unconscious. “She could run
really
fast. And she was
very
strong.”
“Stronger than the boys?”
“Stronger than anyone.”
Jane’s eyes are wide with fascination, her mouth hanging open. Her passion fuels me. Presses me forward. “And she could see in the dark,” I add, attempting to give my voice a mysterious lilt, the way I’ve heard Zen do so many times. “And hear things from very far away. And read very quickly. And speak several languages.”
“Like French?” Jane asks.
I nod. “Yes. Like French and Spanish and Portuguese and Russian.”
“That’s
wondrous
!” Jane marvels, clearly entranced.
I can’t help but laugh. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
“She’s very lucky.”
I let out a sigh. “Actually, no. She isn’t. Because you see, she was forced to run very far away from her home. To a place that she didn’t know at all. She had to hide because there were bad people chasing her.”
“They wanted her magic powers,” Jane adds shrewdly.
“Exactly. They wanted to capture her and bring her back to where she came from.”
“But there was a prince?” Jane assumes, as though this solves everything.
And I suppose, when you’re six years old, it does.
“Yes, there was a prince. And he was…” My voice trails off for a moment and I feel that subtle tingle that covers my skin every time I think of Zen. “Well, he helped her escape from the bad people. She loved him very much.”
I can tell right away that this was the correct answer. Jane smiles triumphantly. “So now she could be happy? Because she escaped?”
The expression on Jane’s sweet little face causes a splinter to stab into my chest. She looks as though the weight of her existence—everything she knows to be true—is riding on this very answer.
“She
was
,” I say cautiously. “However, because she was so different, she often felt…” I exhale, finding the truth in my breath. “Lonely. And scared. Like she didn’t belong anywhere. Like she wasn’t…” I pause again, glancing down at Lulu, her tiny handcrafted body tucked into Jane’s slender, pale arms. Her faded red lips, permanently drawn into a smile. Her blank button eyes stare back at me. Unblinking. Unfeeling.