Dead Girl Walking (5 page)

“See that path up ahead?” Grammy Greta pointed and bright bulbs of light lit up a winding pathway. “Follow the path to an area of velvety darkness illuminated with shooting streaks overhead that are as dazzling as the Milky Way. It’s very beautiful, but don’t linger. Make a left turn.”

“A left turn? At the Milky Way?”

“Right,” she said. “Be happy, Amber.”

“I’ll try,” I promised. Then we hugged—for the second “last” time.

Cloudy puffs under my feet pushed me toward the road of glowing lights. I was moving—not exactly walking, but almost floating through a fine mist that sparkled like body glitter. When I reached a burst of brilliant light, I hesitated. The light beckoned, offering a glorious glimpse of deep green trees against a sapphire-blue lake, with waving figures on a distant shore. I was tempted to follow the light—until I thought of my friends and family.

So I surrendered to the flowing current that pushed me forward, and entered a darkened tunnel. Darkness faded like a segue in a movie, from night to dawn, and overhead I saw a dazzling light show—like crystal shards of stars sprinkled across a glittering path. The stars shone brighter: glowing, waving, inviting.

“Like the Milky Way,” I murmured.

I replayed my grandmother’s directions to a fork in the starry light path, hesitating for only a moment to look each way.

Then I turned right.

Slowly, I swam back to consciousness.

When I tried to open my eyes, agonizing pain crashed into me, and I realized I was back on Earth.

“Grammy, take me back!” I wanted to scream. “I’ve changed my mind!”

The pain was too much, overwhelming, concrete buildings exploding with shards of piercing glass, slamming onto me, torturing. I couldn’t take it.
Please let me go back where nothing hurt and everything was perfect
.

My head floated, thoughts drifting and nausea and pain attacking my body. I sensed movement, someone bending over me … a prick on my arm and …

More nettles, I thought, as I sank into darkness.

When I awoke next, I heard a mechanical hum of machinery and distant murmurs. I smelled an odor like disinfectants and starchy sheets covering me. I vaguely saw pale light streaming underneath a door, and heard voices whispering outside. I tried to lift my head, but pain exploded. Moaning, I sank against a cool pillow. Weak, dizzy, utterly helpless.

Ohmygod! I was in a hospital! My condition must be serious! How badly was I hurt? I could barely move, although I was able to wiggle my toes and fingers, so I wasn’t paralyzed. I’d expected some broken bones (I mean, I’d been hit by a truck), only I didn’t feel any casts. But the pain was beyond miserable.

How bad were my injuries? Had I been disfigured? What if my face was horribly scarred? I’d seen an episode on Oprah once, where this supermodel was crushed so badly she didn’t have a nose or half of her mouth.

What if that happened to me?

How could I have a public career with a scary face?

Panic gave me the strength to lift my head. After the dizziness passed, I blinked and my vision cleared. I struggled through the pain to click on a bedside light.

When I looked down at my left arm and saw the tube poking from my arm, I almost threw up. It was all so real now, and my heart rate increased to frantic beats on the monitor. My hands were pale ghosts that I didn’t recognize. My arms seemed unusually thin, too. As if I’d been ill so long I’d wasted away. Not the way I’d hoped to lose weight.

And where were all the nettle bumps? My skin was pale and smooth, with no rash or bruises. How long had I been hospitalized? My visit with Grammy had seemed as short as a brief nap, but if my nettles had already healed, it must have been a long time.

Days, weeks … a month?

Grammy Greta said time ran differently between worlds. Had those brief moments with her passed by in weeks on Earth? Had the school year ended? Had I missed my finals? Had my class graduated without me?

I spotted a mirror on a tray just a reach away. But moving my body hurt so much … I couldn’t … too hard. Still, I struggled through waves of dizzy pain, gasping for each ragged breath as my fingers touched the edge of the tray.

The heart monitor quickened:
beep, beep, be careful
, it seemed to warn. Still there was no turning away. I had to know … was my face scarred and disfigured? Worse than scared, fingers trembling, I lifted the mirror.

Then I screamed and screamed and screamed.

The face looking back at me wasn’t mine.

It belonged to Leah Montgomery.

“LEAH!”

An elegant blonde woman I’d never seen before rushed toward me in a cloud of lavender perfume. She pushed aside a table to sit beside me, her diamond necklace glinting, tears streaming a pale trail down her rouged cheeks.

“Oh, Leah,” she sobbed, clasping my hand. Her hand on mine felt wrong, like we were both made of plastic and none of this was real.

I’m not Leah
, I tried to say, but her lavender fragrance caught in my throat. I gasped for breath.

“Leah, you’re awake! Thank God! At last!”

Not Leah. You’ve made a mistake.

“Leah, baby!” Trembling, she wrapped her arms around me. “You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been going through since Angie found you yesterday. You wouldn’t wake up! I’ve been frantic with worry that my baby girl was gone forever.”

I struggled to speak, my throat burning, suffocating.

“Are you all right, darling?” the lavender woman cried.

I might be if you’d let go
, I wanted to say.

“Don’t exert yourself.” Her hold eased as she studied me. “You’re looking better already, and you’re going to be fine. That’s all that matters now.”

No it’s not, because I don’t even know you.

Shaking my head was a big mistake. Blinding pain exploded. I sagged back against the pillow and fought to speak, but only spit out a pathetic croak.

“Honey, are you trying to tell me something?”

Duh! I’m not your honey or anything.
But I couldn’t do more than moan. My energy faded. I wanted to sleep.

“Leah! Stay with me!” Hands gripped my shoulders, shaking. “You’ve made it this far, you can’t go back into a coma now. Don’t you realize what a miracle it is you woke up? They told me you didn’t want to live, which was utter nonsense. What do those quacks know? Thank God they were wrong! Don’t you ever do anything like that to me again.”

She hugged tighter and my throat burned like I’d swallowed flaming coals.

“That’s it, honey. Keep those pretty blue eyes open.”

Not blue eyes. Brown.
I opened my eyes wide.

“You can’t imagine the horror I’ve gone through since your accident,” the woman prattled on. “Your father blames me, and perhaps he’s right, so from now on things will be different. I vowed that if you got well, I would change, join one of those twelve-step programs, and I sincerely mean it this time. Oh, Leah, my dearest daughter.”

Lack of breath battled with the desperation to explain that I wasn’t her dearest anything. I had to make her understand that she must be in the wrong room, or needed glasses. But my body wasn’t cooperating. When I spit out “Not Leah,” my words croaked in garbled demonic language.

“What’s wrong?” Her eyes almost popped out. “Are you having an attack?”

I thrashed in bed, pointing at myself and shaking my head. Unbearable pain made me gag, jerk erratically, and even drool a little.

“Someone help! My daughter is in trouble!” The woman let loose with an ear-piercing scream that would have knocked me flat if I weren’t already lying on my back.

The door burst open with blinding light and a swarm of green-garbed figures. Noisy voices swelled like an attack of hornets. I closed my eyes, sinking into blissful sleep.

When I opened my eyes again, the empty room was dark except for ghostly lights from shadowy machinery. Rhythmic beeps echoed my own heartbeat.

Is it
my
heart, though? I thought with growing panic. Am I even me?

Of course I’m me
, I reasoned. I had thoughts and memories that were all about me. Being anyone else would be insanity. I was a lot of things—scared, confused, hurting—but I wasn’t crazy. The whole looking in a mirror and seeing Leah Montgomery (I mean, Leah of all people!) had to have been a hallucination.

Well I was awake now, so I’d just look in the mirror and prove that I was still me.

Only when I reached for the mirror, I stared down in horror …

At a stranger’s hand. Not mine.

My own fingers were chubby, tanned sausages; these fingers were as thin as French fries, and too soft to have ever washed dishes or changed diapers. Also, Grammy’s lucky bracelet was missing, replaced by a plastic hospital bracelet inscribed “Montgomery, L.”

Abso-freaking-lutely impossible.

My identity shouldn’t be like a tough question on a pop quiz. I knew who I was. Amber. Not Leah. So why did I look so different?

Possible Answers:

a) I’d looked into a trick mirror.

b) I was asleep and having a horrible nightmare.

c) Lavender Woman was part of a twisted conspiracy.

I was leaning toward “c” because LW was definitely
not
my mother. Theresa Borden was soft-spoken, with a gentle touch and a fresh herbal scent from working in her garden. Mom hated cooking but loved baking pastries, so she often had dough on her hands and flour sprinkled on her dark chestnut hair. She wasn’t complicated. She was just Mom.

Childishly I thought,
I want my mommy
.

Well, why not? I’d call home and ask Mom or Dad to come get me. I’d explain how I’d been dead for a little while, had this really cool talk with Grammy, and even got to pet Cola, but on the way back something went horribly wrong and I didn’t look like myself anymore. My parents were always solving triple-type problems from Cherry, Melonee, and Olive. Admittedly, my problem was more complex than locating a missing pacifier and dodging projectile spit-up, but my parents would know what to do. They would make everything okay.

I winced at the tube in my arm as I reached for the phone. Not so easy, I realized when the heart monitor sped up. My head didn’t feel so good, either—my brain was like a pinball machine with steel balls ricocheting around.

Still, I persevered, until my hand clenched the phone. My brain might be fuzzy, but fortunately my fingers knew the routine. I punched in my home number and waited for the familiar ring. Instead there was a click-click sound, then a young, uptight-sounding woman droned, “Community Central Hospital. May I help you?”

“Yes!” I croaked. It sounded like “uh.”

“How can I assist you?”

“Call.” This came out like a crow saying “caw.”

“I see that you’re calling from Room 289. I must inform you that this is a restricted line, so if you’re attempting to make an outgoing call, you’ll need proper authorization.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” is what I wanted to say, but it came out like a crow caw again.

“I regret that I cannot be of further assistance. Please contact your floor nurse or your physician.” The phone went dead.

She didn’t sound like she regretted not helping me. But that was the least of my problems.

I wanted to cry, but that would hurt too much. What was wrong with my throat anyway? Had I damaged my lungs in the car crash? I remembered the sound of gears grinding and the squeal of tires, but I had no idea what happened to my body afterwards. Impact with a truck had to be pretty serious, and seriously not pretty. But this body didn’t seem broken or even bruised. Mostly my head hurt. Even thinking about my head hurting hurt.

My thoughts and memories were the only part of me I recognized. Had the accident done so much damage that I’d needed plastic surgery? I imagined a doctor wheeling my body into the emergency room, taking one horrified look at my broken everythings and declaring my only hope was a total body makeover. But why an entire new face? Especially one that belonged to someone else?

When I looked in the mirror again, there was Leah.

To make sure it wasn’t a trick mirror, I angled the glass at the bed and saw a bed. I angled it at the metal tray and saw a metal tray. I angled it back at my face … and Leah was still there, her eyes mirroring my fear.

Not a hallucination.

Not a nightmare.

Not me.

But Leah? I mean,
Leah Montgomery!
At school I was so awed and intimidated by her that I avoided getting in her way. She wasn’t mean like Moniqua or sarcastic like Kat. Leah was loved and feared; aloof, controlled, royalty. Her power went beyond beauty and wealth. Leah possessed that elusive “X Factor.” That mysterious quality I’d sensed in Trinidad that separated ordinary people from extraordinary stars.

Kids around school bragged about their “Leah Moments.” Like Hollywood celebrity sightings, Leah Moments usually began in mundane ways. “I’d forgotten a book, and while I was getting it from my locker, Leah came over and told me she liked my shoes and asked where I’d bought them.”

“Her pen dropped on the floor, and I picked it up for her and she thanked me!”

Or sometimes it was just a casual brush with Leah fame, like pulling into her parking spot as she was leaving.

I had had a Leah Moment a few months ago. Unfortunately, it had not gone well. Since extreme humiliation was not something to brag about, I’d never told anyone about it … well except Alyce. (I mean, I had to tell my BFF Alyce everything). Here’s what happened.

The office secretary told me about this new student, Margrét from Iceland. So Alyce created an amazing basket, which I couldn’t wait to deliver. Inside the basket were snacks, coupons, school newspapers, spirit banners, and an adorable stuffed puffin (Iceland’s unofficial mascot). Margrét squealed excitedly over the basket and hugged the toy puffin. Then she went into the restroom, and I noticed she’d dropped the puffin. So I picked it up and as the restroom door opened, I tossed it to her. “You forgot your puffin.”

Only, you guessed it—not Margrét.

Leah Montgomery caught the puffin with a pinched, puzzled expression. She shook her golden head and said, “I don’t think so.”

“Sorry,” I murmured. “My mistake.”

“Obviously.”

“I thought you were someone else.”

“Oh?” She arched her blonde brows. “Who?”

“Not actually someone else, that’s not even possible. What I mean is …” Under Leah’s glacial stare my brain froze. What had I meant to say? Something clever and witty, like my book
Celebrities Are People, Too
advised. But my mind blanked
.

Afterwards, I would torture myself by replaying this scene in my memory. Leah’s hair flowed symmetrically like a waterfall, spilling golden waves over her slim shoulders. She wore a chic red-belted dress, a cropped jacket, and open-toed, gold-heeled sandals. Her makeup glowed with glossy peach lipstick and a luminous glitter trail across her dusky eyelids. Everything about her seemed so perfect … making me feel less than adequate. That’s my only excuse for fumbling my words, rambling on like an idiot, saying something lame about puffins and baskets.

“Whatever.” Leah held the puffin’s black tail delicately, with two French-tipped fingers. “I believe this is yours.”

Before I could even say “thanks,” she’d tossed the toy back at me and turned to join her groupies, who suddenly appeared out of nowhere. She whispered to them, pointing in my direction, and they all convulsed into giggles.

Humiliated, I shoved the fuzzy puffin in my backpack and took off running. After only one or two wrong turns, I reached my next class just as the bell rang. And the puffin remained tucked away in my locker for a month.

Now I was living the ultimate Leah Moment. There could only be one Leah Montgomery and I was definitely
not
her. I had to tell someone, but who would believe me? I didn’t know what to believe myself. Except I had a sick feeling this was all my fault. “Turn left,” Grammy had told me.