Disclaimer: Not. Mine. Just my story and my character belong to yours truly :D.
Chapter 15: All it Took
Anastasia
oOo
Location: Hazy-Oculus Memorial Hospital in Danville, Pennsylvania?
City Population: Unknown
Current time: 11:13 a.m.
Current date: Hazy-August 2, 2013?
Current alias: None?
At some point my memory must have started getting better, because I could remember where I was (if I thought about it for a little bit) and Jack Wilder (yes, without the name tag) had insisted that a nurse bring me a clock, which was somehow not already installed in my room. Well, now I knew the time, and when I was smart enough to do the math, I knew what day it was by the masking tape that said 21 DAY IN HOSPITAL (fourth row, sixth to the right)that was being changed every day to fit the actual day.
The nurses and the doctors were in on this, too, and they would all write things on the newest tape roll and stick a piece to the walls whenever they felt they needed to remind me of something. I liked to count the repeats. It kept me occupied-I had to start over every time my memory and attention faded.
Useless facts about my life were thrown up there as well by those who remembered them, which was mostly Dylan Rhodes (wall, fourth row, twenty-seventh to the right). The Horsemen (wall, fourth row, twenty-eighth to the right) knew some things too, apparently all of which I had revealed about myself in the short time that I had known them. They knew what my favorite drinks were, my favorite coffee, what I ordered at my favorite Chinese place in Crows Landing-all the little things that people who actually care should know. Things that I couldn't remember.
In truth, it was a little scary that they knew all that. Was that who I used to be? I loved a Virgil's Root Beer at five in the morning, on the dot? I couldn't resist a peppermint mocha from Starbucks, even if they weren't in season? I always ordered orange chicken with a side of white rice and an egg roll from The Bamboo House? Every time, without fail?
That's who I was, I suppose.
But who was I now? Would I ever be the same again? If I wasn't when I got my memories back, would I miss the old me? Would everybody else miss the old me? Would I even get my memories back?
oOo
My memory was hazy, but it was better. I was close to being able to making a fist now, closing my fingers almost all the way to my palm-the nerve damage wasn't permanent, like they had told me (and written) a thousand times. I could hardly feel them, however. It was just kind of a tingling sensation-no sheets between my fingers, no sweat on my palms. Just hands that were just there.
My ankles and torso had healed-the raw cuts from the chains and ropes were gone, but I still had scars for proof of whatever had happened. But there were so many others like them from my (very hazy and very, very distant) past that they just seemed like some small trifle to add to the collection.
Was that who I was? Where did this scar come from, on my right leg? Where was this one from, on my upper arm, and why is shaped like octopus tentacles?
Where did all these tattoos come from? Why do I have burn marks on my knee in song lyrics?
Dylan Rhodes was the one to sign the discharge papers on 28 DAY IN HOSPITAL. The doctors instructed that I check in constantly, and if there was any change in my memory, a certain one of them should be contacted.
We were driven home in a black SUV. Might I normally have been awake and alert? But I think I slept the whole way back, curled up in a ball, arms crossed, head lain on somebody's lap. Ah, yes, that was Jack Wilder to my right and Merritt McKinney to my left. The three of us occupied the middle row, Dylan Rhodes was driving while Daniel Atlas and Henley Reeves were in the very back seat, the latter in a similar position to myself.
Weeks passed by once back in the mansion (no, palace), each second seeming like a year and each minute seeming like a lifetime. I was dying inside, and there was no escape from anything. What there was to escape from, I had no idea. Inner turmoil ensued, but I kept it at bay for the sake of saving myself from a trip to the psych ward.
I was constantly being quizzed on my memory, just as I had been in the hospital when they told me to 'close my eyes and no peeking at my tape.'
"Who are the Four Horsemen?"
"Magicians. Wilder, Reeves, McKinney, Atlas."
"When is your birthday?"
"Ummm… March?"
"What day?"
"I don't know. Ask my tape."
"I'm asking you."
"And my answer is on the tape, so go look for yourself."
*frustrated sigh*
I hated it, they hated it. Hate all around, spreading like the plague. It wasn't often that my memory spiked, but when it did, I could remember things like my birthday and The Caste and Diablo and what had happened to me.
Only some of those thoughts carried over into my reality: an empty swamp of misery and despair, where nothing seemed clear. The only way to get out was to pick up and walk in a direction, hoping not to go deeper in, where most certainly a grueling, grimy, terrible, horrid death awaited.
oOo
The stars and the moon were even brighter to my pounding head than I thought they should be by night, but I forced myself to sit outside on the porch. I was reading a book I had found in my bag of belonging upstairs now: Each Little Bird That Sings, by Deborah Wiles. It seemed more of a children's book, but I was sure I had it for some reason. The pages were yellowed, the edges were packing-taped together and the image on the front had long ago begun to fade.
How long had I had this? How many times had I read it? When did I get it, and who gave it to me? Why was it important, and had I loved it for something more than just its contents?
I kept having to go back, always with a frustrated groan, to remember who the characters were, what they looked like, where they were. It was infuriating, but I wasn't going to give up. Had I always been like that? Stubborn?
"I gave you that book, you know," a voice answered my earlier silent questionnaire that was beginning to drip away from my conscious mind. I looked up and was greeted by the face of Dylan Rhodes, who no longer needed a name tag. "Last thing I ever sent to you. I was up in New York on a mission, and I knew right where we had dropped you as a baby. The little house on Corner Street, up on a hill overlooking the hustle of the city."
Try hard as I might, I couldn't picture it in my head. I shook my head and smiled faintly. "It must have been very beautiful."
"It was," he said. "Found that book in a bookstore, attached a letter to it, dropped it at the house and hoped you would get it." He stared for a minute. "Obviously you did."
I only held his gaze for a little while before dropping my eyes back to the words. "I think… I think I loved it. I must have known it was from you-it doesn't seem like something the old me would read if what you all say is true."
His face scrunched and his mouth opened like he was trying to figure out something to say, but nothing came. Maybe it was really that he couldn't think of anything to say, or maybe it was the little tan Honda Accord that pulled up into the driveway-a man and a woman in the front and something looking suspiciously like a small child in the back seat. I stood up and went to Dylan's side, both of us looking on as the (supposed) couple helped the little girl out of the car. She stood absolutely still until she took the woman's hand, then began to move forward, stepping carefully, her head turned up. Not at the ground, but up or straight ahead, her gaze unmoving.
Familiar. She looked familiar. Why? I must have known her, but when?
Strawberry hair bounced over the child's shoulders and a heavy red coat covered her upper body-they probably weren't from Florida then. Not even close.
"Shrike, is that you?" called the man.
"Conlin?" A small acknowledging noise came from the strange man when Dylan identified him. "What brings you all the way down here?" Dylan pulled his phone from his pocket, the light of the lock screen illuminating his face-his tired eyes, his more-than-five-o'clock shadow and the crease of worry above his brow. "And not even a phone call?"
"Didn't have time, and the wife thought it would be better if I didn't warn you."
"I have a name, you know," the woman scolded, sounding much less annoyed than her words suggested.
"Helen! How good to see you again!" Upon saying this, Dylan trotted over to the couple and the child, enveloping the woman in a friendly hug. He turned to me, as I was hanging onto the round post as though it was the only thing keeping me from sinking beneath the earth. "You both know my sister, Anastasia."
The man was in front of me in a second. "Of course, of course. It's an honor to meet you, miss, after all that you did for the Horsemen. Chris Conlin, at your service."
"You know the Horsemen? Aren't you FBI?"
Dylan's face showed slight shock that I remembered where he worked and had figured out that this man was a work fellow-but he knew Dylan's real name.
Conlin laughed merrily, placing hands on his slightly chubby stomach. "Smart girl, this one. Yes, I'm FBI, but I also work for The Eye, like your brother. You remember what he does, don't you?"
"It's a little foggy, but yes, I remember. I tip my hat to you, sir." I mocked a Victorian bow, swirling my hand in a dramatic effect. Conlin produced another laugh, in every way similar to the first. I had almost forgottenthe child until her small almost squeaky voice floated over to me.
"Maggie?" I stood at once and looked to the child, whose head was turned slightly so that her ear was more towards the sound of my voice than her gaze. Nobody, so far as I knew, used do my middle name. Had it been an alias? "It's you, isn't it? Why'd you leave? Where'd you go?"
What? I looked to Dylan for help, but it was Conlin that answered. "She was with you when... It all happened." He stepped closer so that he could talk without the child hearing. "Her parents were murdered by the man who tortured you, the man we're going to catch. She's been blinded. Permanent damage, as far as we can tell." He paused, hoping to ring a bell. Maybe some far-off, very, very distant toll, like a memory from a four-year-old me. "Her name's Clara Wilson."
"But how does she know me? And what does she mean I left her?"
"Dylan asked us to look after her while you were in the hospital and try to keep her away from your man Diablo," Conlin told me while. Helen whispered quietly to the girl a ways away. "But she kept asking us to find you. Maggie, the Magician from Delata, Florida. The one who made her a kite. She loves you, and you're the only one she can trust now."
I looked over at the girl, Clara. Her tiny hands roamed Helen's face, searching for something that could not be found. I guessed it was her her own mother's eyes, her mother's nose, her mother's lips and her mother's ears and hairline and everything else about her mother that was not Helen. Not this woman. "Her parents are gone and she doesn't even know what color hair I have, much less if I'm the man who killed her parents." He said killed like it was a sin. "But she still thinks she can trust you. Don't let her down."
Conlin back away. My eyes went to Clara Wilson and her strawberry curls, her little pale hands and little pale face-and her little pale eyes. Glazed, glossed, dead. Unmoving, nowhere to go, nowhere to see. I stepped off the brick patio and down the brick steps and onto the brick drive, all of them as red as an exploding star. A few more steps and I was crouched in a similar fashion to Helen, still in front of Clara.
"I'm here. It's me," I whispered. She turned to me and the sound of my voice, her arms stretching out once more to feel. She found my face, my shoulders, my arms, my collarbone. Then her arms were around my neck, the force of her launching at me sending me falling backwards, the weightless child atop me.
"Why did you leave? Where did you go? I couldn't find you anywhere, and they wouldn't let me see you! Why did you leave me?" Her eyes didn't water and no tears wet her cheeks, but her body wracked with sobs and her dripping nose made up for all the places tears were missing.
"Shh, shh," I cooed. "I didn't go anywhere. You just don't know it. I'm here now, I'm right here, and you don't have to let go. I'm not gonna leave you, you hear?"
She nodded and sniffed, and I managed to get up and sit with my legs crossed on the cooling pavement, rocking back and forth with the crying child. I could feel the others watching me, but I didn't care. My shirt began to feel wet with runny snot, and it may have been disgusting but I didn't care. I wasn't about to break my promise to Clara-I was important to her, we had been through it all together, and she needed me to help her. I would be there.
This crying child, this lonely child, this sweet, beautiful, poor little girl that knew me and remembered me and loved me and needed me was never going to have to live a scared day for the rest of her life. I would kill myself a thousand times over to see her in pain, to see her crying like this ever again or to have her feel as though she didn't have a place in the world.
I didn't know why, but that's how it was. It scared me a little, but it was good. It meant that maybe, just maybe, I had some hope. Feeling like that about somebody? That didn't sound like the old me from what I had heard. But I could change. I didn't have to be that person. The person who didn't let other people in. The person who had a wall, and emotions didn't pass through, the person who didn't choke when it came to death, to ending a person's life.
Except for the burning man, the man who screamed for mercy even after he was dead. Except for the woman with the child, the one I wrote the letter to, the little girl that I told her where her blanket was, and that her mommy still loved her, and that she would meet her again someday.
My eyes widened in realization.
The burning man, the little letter girl. The taxi out of NYC, the running, the hiding, the sleep deprivation, the money loss, the hunger. Black, the four hour car ride, the new phone and the Wendy's potato and the house and the city. Dylan Rhodes, my dear brother who cared for me more than he would admit after all that I had given him grief about, but put up with it because I was his little sister. Daniel Atlas, the royal pain in the ass. Merritt McKinney, the old dog that was made up of new tricks. Henley Reeves, the girl who could escape from anything, especially an awkward situation (usually with Daniel).
And Jack Wilder. Jack Wilder, who proved to be the best fighter I had ever come across, even before I started to train him. Jack Wilder, who had a stare that seemed as though he knew your deepest thoughts, darkest secrets, every embarrassing thing you had ever done. Jack Wilder, who had somehow, in that short of a time, made me less of me. The old me. That me. The person who I had been.
Here I was now, holding this crying child. And somehow I knew. I just knew. This little girl was special. She was the trigger, so to speak, that had brought me back. Well, in a sense, not me. But sort of. Bah, I'll get there later, the whole me thing. Feelings, thoughts, aliases. Who wants to think about that when everything is already so confusing?
But it was Clara. All it took was Clara.