Tabula Rasa Kristen Lippert Martin (8 page)

I rub my forehead. “I . . . I remember recent things,
 things that make no sense. Like playing with the Legos.”
“Legos?”
“Yes. They were a therapy aid—you know, to help
 rebuild hand-eye coordination, if you were having trou-
 ble with that. Me and Nurse Jenner always fought about
 them.”
“Why?”
“They said I was getting too fixated on them. I guess I
 kept trying to build something. This tower, or building, or
 whatever. I would get it mostly finished, but I could never
 get the top right. It was so frustrating. Every time I went
 to the rec lounge I’d try to build it. I did it over and over
 again. Then they made me stop.”
“What do you think you were trying to build?”
“I don’t know, but one day I went into the lounge and
 there it was. The tower I’d been trying to make. Someone
 had put it together for me. The top was like a . . . a sword,
 you know? Kind of tapered like that to a point at the top.
And I had this feeling, like I’d seen that building before.
That it was really important, but I had no idea why.”
“Who finished it for you?”
“Don’t know, but Nurse Jenner was furious when she
 saw it. She came in and started screaming at me, asking
 me if I was even trying to get better. Why was I always
 making trouble when they were just trying to help me? I
 didn’t get a chance to tell her that I hadn’t built the thing
 before she knocked it to the floor. Then she told me to
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clean up the mess. I had to crawl around picking up all
 the pieces while she watched to make sure I got every
 single one.”
Pierce sighs and says, “Nurse Jenner sounds like just the
 sort of super lady who should be working in the mental
 health profession.”
I wonder what’s happened to Nurse Jenner. If they shot
 her, too. I hope not. She isn’t very nice, but no one deserves
 that sort of end. That’s when I think of Jori. I can practi-
 cally feel her bony shoulder against my side.
“What’s up? You’ve got a weird look on your face.”
“I was thinking of this girl, Jori. She’s another patient.
I don’t know what happened to her. I tried to find her
 before, when the men were shooting at me. . . .”
“And?”
“I ran out on her. I left her behind. Nice, huh?”
“Men shooting at you does tend to distract one.”
Pierce is trying to cheer me up, let me off the hook
 maybe, but I can’t stop thinking that I let Jori down.
“I shouldn’t have run. I should have protected her.”
“How could you have done that?”
“You don’t understand. She relies on me. She’s very
 attached to me.” I look at him, and when our eyes meet, I
 look away. “I know that’s probably hard to believe.”
“Why would that be hard to believe?”
“I mean, that anyone would feel, you know, that way
 about me.”
“You think it’s weird that someone would like you?”
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“You said it yourself. That I don’t seem like the type
 who has too many feelings, or whatever.”
“I only meant that you seemed strong. Like you’re no
 pushover. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, there’s
 everything right about it.”
“But I’m not—”
Just then, the yurt shudders so violently, Pierce grabs
 one of the support poles and says something about securing
 a few of the ropes better, but it’s like his words have been
 tossed into the wind. Another memory comes barging into
 my head.
I am ten years old, and my mother and I are standing in the nave
 of a large, beautiful church. I am hot with anger and humiliation,
 and at the same time I know I have no right to be. It’s their church.
Their rules. Their steeple.
My mother is being scolded by the church secretary. The sec-
 retary keeps fanning herself like she’s on the verge of having a fit.
You’d think she’d been the one sitting up in the bell tower, dangling
 her legs over the edge.
“You should mind your daughter more carefully! Heavens! She
 could have died!”
My mother does not look at the woman, just at me. She’s
 checking me so thoroughly I wonder what she could be looking for.
I’m fine. And besides, if I’d fallen from the steeple, I wouldn’t have
 hairline cracks that needed close examination. Anything broken
 would be plenty obvious.
I really don’t know what the fuss is about. I wanted to have
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a look around. From way up high. I’d always wondered what it
 was like at the tippy-top of the church. I assumed the only person
 allowed up there was the priest, and that didn’t seem fair.
My mother hugs me while the secretary scolds her, scolds me.
Back and forth, like she can’t make up her mind. It seems to go on
 for a long, long time, and I want to leave.
My mother is more gracious than I think she should be to the
 secretary. She thanks her, apologizes, accepts all the blame for not
 keeping a closer eye on me. I’m angry at the secretary for making
 my mother feel bad.
After promising to never ever go into the steeple or even the
 church again, we depart. When we are on the street again, I stop
 and look up longingly at the sharp tip of the bell tower. It’s like a
 spear piercing the sky.
My mother shakes her head and says angrily, “Don’t you ever
 do that again. I turn my back in the grocery store and you’re gone!
You can’t just go wandering off like that, climbing into the rafters,
 just because you feel like it. That tower has been closed for repairs
 longer than you’ve been alive. The stones are crumbling.”
That would explain why the stairs were blocked off and why
I’d had to climb over the barrier to get into the steeple. And break
 the lock on the door at the top.
“Why? Just tell me why you went up there.”
I want to tell her. I want to explain that I like to be high up
 in the air because I like looking down at the apartment buildings
 on our street. And the stores. And the people. How I feel closer to
 people when I’m farther away. And they can’t hurt me.
But I don’t know how to say this. I don’t know that I even
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understand what pulled me up those stairs, why I felt so free and
 comfortable with my feet dangling over the edge.
“I wasn’t afraid,” I tell her.
She pinches my nose and then whacks me lightly on the behind.
“You should have been.”
“I like to be up high,” I finally blurt out.
“Well, maybe you’ll be a construction worker someday. And
 you can skip along the beams of the skyscrapers.”
“Really?”
“Yes. That’s the only appropriate job for a girl who likes to
 hang around church steeples. That or becoming an angel, and
 somehow I don’t think you’re angel material.”
My mother called me Angel from that day forward. It was
 a joke between us—a reminder of that day we both got in
 trouble at the church. But it was more than that. Sure, I
 wasn’t the sort of girl anyone would mistake for an angel,
 but I also wasn’t going to be pushed around easily. I wasn’t
 going to let people walk all over me. Not even a little bit.
I think my mother was glad about that.
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CHAPTER 9
 ierce is pressing me against his hip, his arm tight
Paround my lower back to keep me standing up. He
 hands me a canteen, and I take a drink. The water is ice
 cold, and it hurts my teeth. I test my legs to see if they’ll
 take my weight, and as I do, he slowly lets me go until I
 can stand on my own again.
He whispers to me like he’s not sure if I can respond. I
 feel the tickle of his breath on my cheek. It’s like a gentle
 nudge to return to the here and now.
“You back?” he asks.
“Back?”
“Yeah, from wherever you just went.”
I must look frightened. I am frightened. I’m not sure if
I should tell him what I just saw, but I blurt it out before I
 can stop myself. “Her face was blank.”
“Whose face?”
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“I remembered my mother, but I couldn’t see her face. I
 mean, I could see everything clearly. As clearly as I see you
 right now. But my mother’s face was just this blank white
 space.”
“You’re all right,” he says. “At least I think you’re all
 right. Has this ever happened before?”
“Once. Right before I escaped. And then as I was wak-
 ing up a little earlier.” It’s finally starting to register that
 without him standing here, I’d fall down. “Is this—”
I blink. I’m worried about something and afraid to say
 it out loud.
“What?”
By now I’ve fully come out of my daze, and I push back
 from Pierce a little.
“I was going to say real.”
That I could be here, in a yurt, with this boy—I’m con-
 vinced I’ve made it all up. I must be lying in my hospital
 bed right now, dreaming the whole thing.
“Yeah. This is real. Here’s a good way to figure out if
 something’s real: Ask yourself, ‘Does this suck?’ and if the
 answer’s yes, then it’s probably real.”
“That’s actually not half bad.”
“I have my moments.”
I shake myself a little and then windmill my arms
 around. I take what few steps I can inside the yurt.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. The more I move around, the clearer my
 mind gets.”
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“Maybe it’s like with dreams,” he says. “They always
 seem so real and vivid when you first wake up, but then
five minutes after you get out of bed they’re gone. I once
 read that there’s something about moving around that does
 that. When you get up, go take a pee, whatever. It disturbs
 all those fragile neurotransmitters in your brain and—
 whoosh! It’s all gone.”
Maybe that’s why the note said to lie still after taking
 the pills.
“What else did you see? Besides your mother. I mean, if
 you don’t mind telling me.”
“I don’t. There wasn’t much to it. Just a childhood
 memory. A nickname my mother had for me.”
“Pumpkin?”
“No, not quite that bad.”
“What then?”
“Angel.”
He turns his head slightly and his eyes narrow. “Angel?”
“I know, right? Hard to imagine.”
The wind blows so hard, the yurt buckles on one side.
Pierce lunges for one of the tentpoles. “Help me.”
Together we push it upright, but then freeze. There’s
 another sound hiding behind the wind—like a small chain-
 saw revving up. Pierce leans toward me; his mouth is an
 inch from my ear.
“Did you hear that?”
I nod. I’m only just realizing that the woods—the
 outdoors, generally—is not my comfort zone. I may not
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remember everything about it, but something deep in me
 misses the glass-and-concrete world of New York City.
“If we’re lucky, it’s just the Mounties,” he says.
“Mounties?”
“Canadian police. Used to ride horses; now they ride
 snowmobiles. Really fast ones. We’re right up against the
 border here. I’d say yards from Canada at most. The storm
 should give us cover, but let’s hope whoever it is doesn’t
 have infrared technology. I’m sure we’d light up like a
Christmas tree on fire.”
“So we’re sitting ducks?”
“We’re definitely some kind of ducks. Maybe slightly
 better than sitting. Let’s say we’re standing ducks. Maybe
 whoever it is will think we’re just hunters or something.”
“Hunters with a satellite dish on the top of their tent?”
“Yeah. You’re right. We’re in big, possibly dead, trouble
 if it’s not the Mounties.”
We stay motionless. Hoping the predator will move
 on. The motorized whine gets louder then quieter several
 times. They’re circling around.
“I suppose the fact that they’re not shooting at us is a
 good sign,” I say.
We hear the engines again, and finally, the sound is
 carried off by the wind. We stay still for a while longer,
 though. Just in case.
I suddenly remember being vigilant like this. I remem-
 ber the thrill and fear of waiting in the dark until everyone
 had gone home from the work site, hoping my luck would
 hold out just one more day. I wasn’t some careless daredevil
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when I climbed those tower cranes. Not for one second did
I forget that every single handhold, every single step, was a
 chance to die. It was always on my mind.
But remembering these feelings is so frustrating. It’s like
 remembering how I felt going to and then leaving a car-
 nival, but not recalling anything about the carnival itself.
The concrete things my feelings are attached to—I still
 can’t get ahold of them.
“I think whoever’s out there just drove off,” Pierce says.
He turns to me, eyes narrowed. “Hey, come here a sec.”
“Why?”
“Just come here.”
I take a step toward him.
“Closer.”
I take another step, but I guess I’m still not close enough.
He pulls me forward until I’m an inch from his chest. This
 is not the best moment to realize how bad I stink. Pierce
 seems so clean by comparison. Well, maybe it’s not that he’s
 all that clean, either, but he smells good.
I look up at him and see that he’s staring down at my
 head. “Look here,” he says. He holds up one hand, pulls his
 sleeve down, and then turns his hand around so I can see
 there’s nothing in it.
“Are you going to do a magic trick?” I ask.
“Watch,” he says, snapping the fingers of his left hand. I
 do. A moment later, I feel a sharp pain.
“Ow!” I slap my hand against my head, furious. “What
 was that?”
He holds his right hand out—the one I wasn’t looking
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at. There’s a small piece of metal in the center of his palm.
It’s one of the inserts for the halo.
“This was wiggling back and forth, so I pulled it out.
You could probably use a stitch or two, but I doubt either
 of us wants this to be my first experience as a medic. I have
 some butterfly bandages that should help keep the wound
 closed well enough.”
I pick up the metal insert, look at it briefly, and then
 throw it toward the door of the yurt.
“Sorry about the sleight of hand, but I figured it was
 better that way.”
“Where’d you learn to do that?”
“I went through a magic phase when I was twelve. I
 read books, practiced; I even had a cape. I used to pull
 quarters out of my kid sister’s ears.”
“I bet she loved that.”
“She did.”
Two emotions march across his face in quick succession.
Sadness, then revulsion.
“She’s gone now,” he says. “She died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Happened a few months ago.” He moves me back a
 little and says, “You’ve got another wound near your tem-
 ple. The dressing is pretty well soaked through with blood.
Here. Sit down.”
He retrieves a first aid kit from his backpack and kneels
 in front of me. He’s only inches away, and I feel frozen in
 place, like I’m back in the halo.
“I’m going to pull this bandage off. You want me to do
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