The One Safe Place (20 page)

Nothing disturbed the monotony of the days except for the occasional group activity and visits to the Place, which Devin learned happened about once every two weeks or so. He wasn’t expecting to have to go again for a while, so it came as a shock when he got the message barely four days after his last visit.

“Too soon,” Luke said, looking worried. “Kids never have to go again that soon.”

All the way to the Place, Devin kept the images of field and farmhouse tight in his mind. And as he allowed himself to be led to the chair to wait for his shot, he imagined himself in his favorite place of all, the barn. It was dark and sweet in there, the refuge of mice and small creatures. Up in the beams over the door, swallows made their nests. The walls were old, and sunlight sent a hundred golden threads through the chinks and cracks in the wood . . .

Devin closed his eyes as the needle went in.

I remember the barn. I am there, I am there.

But then he woke and his memories were gone. In their place was nothing but pain and confusion. He lay very still, crying silently, the tears dripping down the side of his face onto the pillow.

This time he didn’t turn his head or speak when the woman came in with the drink that took away pain. She put it down on the bedside table.

“Down in the dumps are you?” she said. “Dear, oh dear.”

He waited until she had left before reaching gratefully for the drink. His hands trembled. He twisted, trying to get a better grip on the glass, but his fingers were wet with tears and the glass slipped and fell, tumbling onto the floor, the liquid drenching the sheet and carpet.

He heard himself groan—a long, low, terrible sound.

He needed the drink. He couldn’t endure another moment without it. He lifted his head from the pillow and called out to the woman, his voice reedy with panic.

“Help! Come back! I spilled it.”

But nobody came.

After a long struggle, he managed to shift his legs over to the side of the bed. Slowly he sat up. A bolt of pain shot through him from the base of his spine, then ebbed as he gasped and panted. He rested his feet cautiously on the floor and swayed upright. He could see out the window. There were fields and buildings and a great number of birds wheeling in the sky. He rubbed his eyes. His fingers were sticky from the liquid that he’d spilled. He turned toward the door that led to the small bathroom.

It was hard to walk. He had to go carefully. His whole body felt as though it might break at the slightest misstep. Without the numbing effects of the painkiller, the pain was severe, but his mind also felt sharper. He found himself able to think and even form vague opinions. There was something wrong, for example, very wrong, with the way his feet moved. His head was too heavy; his arms seemed to dangle far below him. But he was too busy to pay these things more than passing attention.

He shuffled by slow degrees toward the bathroom and stopped when he reached it, leaning against the door, out of breath with effort.

At the sink he reached out and turned on the tap. He lifted his head and stared at the wall above the sink. It was blank. Shouldn’t there be something there? There was a bar of soap in a small dish by the side of the sink. He reached for it automatically. It smelled of something. He brought it up to his face, breathing in the scent.

A long sighing sound, a flash of blue—very bright and clean.

Smells good, doesn’t it?

He reached for the name and like a miracle, he found it. Rosemary.

It helps improve your memory. A long time ago people used to place it in graves for remembrance.

The soap smelled of rosemary. And in an instant, like a door unlocked and suddenly thrown open, everything came back to him. It was just as if his grandfather had returned from the dead and was standing at his shoulder, his collar straight and his eyes calm.
You are Devin,
his grandfather said.
Wake up! Remember!

In the same moment, he knew what was missing from the space above the sink.

It was a mirror.

Devin dropped the soap in shock. He lifted his hands and looked at them.

They were not his hands.

But he could feel the hands! He could feel the smear of soap on the tips of the fingers, a slight itch in the right palm, the way the ring—shaped like an eagle—chafed against the skin.

But they were not his hands. And these legs—long and bony; these dangling arms; this heart pattering weakly in his chest; this breath itself, coming in short, fearful gasps . . . None of it belonged to him. He brought his fingers up to his face and groped his cheeks frantically. All of it was unfamiliar, the features of somebody else, somebody old and weak.

He was dreaming, Devin told himself desperately. It was just another dream. But he knew it wasn’t. It was too real and detailed to be a dream, and his body hurt too much. He staggered against the sink.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, sick to his stomach, his senses reeling in confusion. What should he trust, his mind or this withered body? Where did he really exist?

You exist where I am,
his grandfather answered.
In your memory, in your love.
Remember when you were small and used to hold my hand to walk?

Devin nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

Hold it again. Hold on as long as you need to, Dev. I won’t let you fall.

Devin closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

He was Devin. He used to live on a farm, and now he lived at the Home for Childhood, where terrible things were done to kids . . . and where something terrible had just been done to him. There was an explanation and he would find it.

The tap was still running. He thrust his hands under the stream and splashed his face, shuddering at the feel of his slack and pitted skin. He wanted to wriggle away, out of this body, as ugly as a cuckoo in another bird’s nest. But he forced himself to stay calm. He dried his face on a hand towel and tottered back into the main room.

He looked out the window and at once recognized the view. It was the Home, of course. There was the tower, the wheeling birds, and there was the carousel, still turning. He was in a room at the top of the Place. He’d never left it.

But that wasn’t possible. Of course he’d left it! That’s what happened at the Place: You went in and then you came out and for two days you were in the Dream. You didn’t remember it, but everyone else could see you perfectly clearly . . .

Yet he was here. At least his mind was here, all his thoughts and memories and feelings.

Then who was the boy—the Devin—that was running around down there?

He breathed deeply, keeping the panic at bay, trying to think.

They’ve swapped us, he thought. Me and some old man. I have his body and he has mine.

It was the only explanation that made sense. No wonder they kept it a secret. The thought alone was enough to drive anyone half crazy. Devin reached his bed and saw the glass still lying on the floor where it had fallen. He bent painfully and picked it up and put it on the table. There was a large wet stain on the carpet where the drug had spilled. He tugged at the sheet on the bed, pulling down a corner to cover the stain, and then made his way to the large chair on the other side of the room. He sat down.

There was a rattle at the door and he closed his eyes, lolling his head as if lost in sleep. He had to act like he was in a daze, he thought. He had to look as if nothing unusual had happened.

He smelled food. It was the woman with a tray holding his lunch. He heard her place it heavily on the table.

“I dunno why they bother giving you this fancy stuff,” she grumbled. “But the clients can’t miss their creature comforts, even if they’re not here to enjoy them.”

He knew that voice! He half opened his eyes for a second. How could he not have recognized Mrs. Babbage before? But this was not the Mrs. Babbage he knew. Gone were the smiles and placating gestures. This Mrs. Babbage was hard and complaining.

“Wants everything perfect, she does,” she muttered. “Worse than before, ever since
he
came . . .”

She leaned toward him, and he felt her breath against his cheek.

“Bon app-e-teet!” she said, drawing the word out with relish.

She’s not stupid at all, Devin thought. Not even slightly dim. She was actually enjoying his suffering. It was the only fun she got in life.

He heard her footsteps going away and then the rattle of the door being locked. He glanced at his meal, an elaborate arrangement of baby carrots and delicately sliced meat. It smelled good, but Devin had no appetite. The thought of eating, of thrusting food down his throat into someone else’s body, suddenly seemed almost disgusting.

He had to get out of the room. Kit had taught him to pick locks back in the city, using a piece of bent wire. Could he do it here? The thought made his heart pound weakly and he pressed his knotted hand against his chest, trying to still himself. There wasn’t any wire in the room, nothing he could use. There was only the bed and the chair and the small table. The lights were even set into the ceiling.

Devin didn’t know how long he sat there, sunk in dismay, his gaze fixed dully on the gray carpet. After a while a tiny object came into focus, something that lay half on the carpet and half off. He hadn’t seen it before, but it was late afternoon now and the light had changed. The beams of sunlight coming in through the window were lower, and one of them had found the object where it lay in the shadows and made it glitter.

Devin leaned forward for a better look. He lifted himself out of the chair and with a great effort got to his knees and crawled over to the object.

It was a hairpin.

Mrs. Babbage, Devin thought as his hand closed eagerly over it. It must have fallen out of her bun on one of her trips to and fro.

It was harder than he thought to pick the lock. This wasn’t because it was particularly difficult, but because his old hands shook so much. It was a while before he could steady them enough even to insert the pin into the lock, and then it took a good ten minutes of fiddling before he heard the click of the door coming free. He hauled himself to his feet, opened the door, and looked out cautiously.

He saw nothing but an empty corridor with white walls. A thin strip of gray wool carpet ran down the center, and there were three doors—all closed—on the same side as his room. At the end of the corridor was another door, larger and without a doorknob. Devin took a deep breath and stepped out into the hall.

His feet were bare. They were horrible to look at, huge blue-veined things with gnarled yellow toenails. But he was glad because having bare feet meant he could walk quietly. He crept along, keeping to the wall. When he got to the first door, he paused. He could hear something. He leaned his ear closer to the wood, listening. Someone inside was wailing very softly, with a sound as formless as the wind.

They have another kid in there, Devin thought. Someone else who’s been swapped. He remembered his first sight of the place, how he’d seen something moving at the window. He’d thought it was a claw, but now he knew it wasn’t. It was the hand of someone very old, pressed up against the glass . . .

He walked on past the other doors. When he got to the one without a doorknob at the end of the corridor, he paused and listened. But he couldn’t hear anything. He pushed the door and it swung open. He was standing at the top of a flight of stairs. There were no windows. Instead, the staircase was bright with a cold, harsh light that cast no shadow. There was nowhere to hide if anyone came up the stairs toward him.

Devin took a firm grip on the stair rail and began slowly easing his way down.

The stairs led to the ground floor. The corridors were wider down here, although equally white and clean looking. There were a great many doors leading into rooms that looked like offices. Devin shuffled along, not sure what he was looking for and desperately afraid he would be caught. He saw a door made of metal that was polished as bright as a mirror, and a wide lobby with chairs. Everything was lit with the same artificial light.

He passed a hallway that he recognized—it led to the room where he’d sat for his shot—and turned away hastily. Then, just ahead, he heard the sound of footsteps. Someone was coming around the corner, walking briskly. Without thinking, Devin pushed open a door to his left and ducked inside. He held his breath until he heard the footsteps pass by, and then glanced around to see where he was.

He was in a pleasant-looking room with a big vase of yellow roses on a low table and a lot of soft chairs. A large portrait of a man in a gray suit hung on the far wall, and a table in one corner held a variety of drinks and crystal glasses. A neat pile of magazines lay on the table, and Devin walked over to take a look.

Up close, he realized they were brochures, not magazines. He picked one up. There was a photograph on the cover. It was a picture of the Home, the large meadow with the courtyard and tower in the background, and a soft, sunny haze on the grass. In large letters above the photo, he read the words
An Introduction
.