Sitting in the café across the street from school, I warm my hands on my half-full coffee cup and stare at the suspiciously oily plastic surface in front of me. They wipe the tables after every customer; I’ve seen them do it. But with grease on the tabletop, and grease on the cloth, and the smell of old, cooked grease in the air, the result isn’t clean so much as smeared.
Best coffee in town. I almost hear it: the enthusiasm, the cheerful elongation of the vowels, the genuine sigh of appreciation to round it all off. Peter Lampforth and sarcasm were always strangers to each other. My head lifts automatically, the start of a smile forming on my lips, but the chair on the other side of the table is empty. I just wish –
Forget it.
I unzip the inner pocket of my bag and fish out the piece of paper I came here to think about. It doesn’t look like much, but it contains a whole universe. Because I wrote it down. As much as I could remember of what I saw through Oriana’s eyes, yesterday evening.
It occurred to me last night, lying sleepless on my lumpy mattress – clinging to it with fingers and toes, an insufficient anchor to the real world – that perhaps I could record them. The visions. What I see. Maybe then I’d start to recognise the difference between reality and fantasy. Setting the words on paper, detaching myself from the experience, would surely relegate the whole thing to the realm of fiction.
Yet now, scanning through what I scribbled down at some point in the early hours of this morning, it isn’t just caffeine making my heart race and my gaze skitter around the room. There’s a reason I didn’t do this before. Because if anyone ever found it …
Slowly, I turn my head to stare out of the window at the building opposite. Lakeview Secondary School. Not that there’s a lake in sight. Lumped together from sullen shades of grey, it’s a dirty concrete box that would be indistinguishable from a prison, were it not for the lack of bars on the windows; one of those dull, shabby buildings that feels worn out almost as soon as it’s made. It’s separated from the road by iron railings, which are meant to look fancy but miss the mark by half a ton of rust, and an expanse of tarmac where the younger kids play ball after lunch. The sign on the gate reads Lakeview Secondary School: Educating Future Adults. Peter and I once spent a whole hour coming up with possible endings for it. Educating future adults in how to … smoke without getting caught. Write a half-assed essay the night before it’s due. Identify repulsive canteen food by smell alone.
I was sent here three and a half years ago, once I’d adjusted to life after the accident. As it turned out, I hadn’t adjusted well enough. I didn’t have full control. There are lots of people in my class who remember me sitting there trembling and staring at the wall, whispering I’m Alyssia Gale, I’m Alyssia Gale over and over again. With the frankness of utter naivety, I even told some of them about my imaginary friends.
Really, it’s no surprise they think I’m a weirdo.
I look back down at my handwritten scrawl. I should get rid of it. Throw it away. Burn it. At the very least, I should have left it locked in my drawer back at Woodleigh instead of bringing it with me. Yet something about it …
Carefully, I trace Oriana’s name with my fingertip. Pinned down by my words, her pain has become more manageable. More contained. Writing, after all, is the art of reducing the infinite vastness of an experience to something that will fit on a page. Yet it also bestows truth. It gives this particular flight of fantasy, even more than any other, the status of an event that really happened. And that feels dangerous.
I’m just not sure that’s a bad thing.
A bell sounds, distantly, from the direction of Lakeview – one of the many benefits of choosing a café right outside school – and I check the time on my phone. Warning bell. Ten minutes until classes start. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to be late.
I swallow the last tepid dregs of my coffee. I stand up. One final time, I look at the piece of paper on the table. Then I fold it into eighths and tuck it back into the secure pocket of my bag. I can’t throw it away. Not yet.
At my locker, I swap yesterday’s unfinished History homework for the first of this morning’s ring binders. English. For someone who didn’t or couldn’t talk for weeks, after the accident, I’m doing all right at it. Not brilliant, but not terrible – same as every other subject I study here. Which is fine. I have enough going on in my head already. And besides, it isn’t as if anyone expects anything better from me.
The bell rings again. I’m really going to be late. As I hurry down the rapidly emptying corridor, I keep my gaze fixed on the floor. I count my steps, listening to the squeak of my shoes against the hard-wearing brown vinyl. I breathe in the smell of heated dust from the radiators. And I don’t look up.
You drift around school like a ghost, Peter’s voice accuses me. From near the end, when it all fell apart. You never speak to anyone.
But I spoke to him.
By the time I reach the classroom, there’s only one vacant desk: at the back, right next to Colin Bones. That makes no sense. He’s always surrounded by his sycophants. Unless –
Unless he kept it for me on purpose.
My pulse accelerates, but I force my expression to remain impassive. I dump my bag, hook the chair out with my foot, and sit down. Then I prop one elbow on the desk and lean my chin on my hand, letting my hair fall to hide my face. Maybe if I can’t see him, I won’t have to listen to him either.
“Hey, Lissy!”
Don’t reply. Don’t –
“Read any good books lately?”
I shoot him a quick glance through the curtain of my hair. I don’t even get why the question is funny, but a bunch of his friends are laughing all the same. Only Peter is silent. He’s a sci-fi nerd himself. At least, that’s what he used to tell me.
“Oh, but I forgot,” Colin says. “You don’t need books, do you? You have the voices in your head to entertain you.”
I grope for the right reply, but that’s just it. There isn’t one. Whatever I say will be mocked and twisted back on me. Saying nothing is unsatisfying, but at least it doesn’t give him anything to grab onto.
“What’s the matter?” Sharper now. “Forgotten English again? Someone better call the mental hospital and have you readmitted.”
Right … so saying nothing isn’t going to be much help either. I bite the inside of my cheek: a habit left over from my first months here. The sting of it helps to drive away the prickling feeling behind my eyes, replacing it with welcome anger. Straightening up, I turn to face him.
“You know what, Colin? Screw you.”
Grinning, he grabs his own crotch. “Sorry, darling. I’ve got far too much of this for your taste.”
I look away, and my gaze falls on Peter. A scarlet tide is creeping up his face, beneath the freckles, but he doesn’t lift his head.
Look at me, I tell him silently. You knew what Colin thought of me. You knew about all those times I came back to myself to find he’d drawn obscene pictures on my work, taken my stuff, put glue in my hair. Yet you still told him something I told you in confidence. You sold me out. At least have the decency to own it. Look at me!
“Ugh, stop staring at him,” Colin says. “Stalker.”
I swing back to face him. “So which is it? Do I hate men, or am I a stalker? At least get your story straight.”
Face darkening, he opens his mouth – but then the classroom door swings open to admit Mr Sorensen, running behind as usual, and everyone falls silent. Turning away from Colin, I prop my chin on my hand again. Old Sorry starts talking, but the words are no more than a distant murmur. Anger still simmers in my veins, made all the stronger by the fact that it has nowhere to go.
I could scream. I could break things. I could tell them, honestly, how much these small everyday wounds hurt; how they build on each other until just stepping through the front door of this building feels like removing another layer of my red-raw skin. But where would that get me? My feelings mean nothing to them. That’s the whole point.
“… childhood.” Even through my fog of frustration, the word hits me with enough force to set my heart racing. I shift in my seat, refocusing on Old Sorry’s voice.
“That’s why I want each of you to write about your earliest memory,” he says. “In as much sensory detail as possible.”
Heat washes over me. I don’t know where to look; I bow my head lower, staring at the initials scratched into the desk in front of me. Surely he must realise – surely he doesn’t expect me to –
“Oh, come on!” one of Colin’s friends mutters. “That’s the kind of thing we used to do when we were kids.”
“Waste of time,” Peter agrees. I glance up sharply. Is he trying to help me? He, out of all of them, must know what I’m feeling right now … but it doesn’t matter, because Old Sorry is shaking his head.
“This is about bringing a scene to life. Engaging the reader. Any incident, however trivial, can become compelling if you …”
I tune him out. The heat of panic has receded now, to be replaced by an invisible but persistent shiver that makes it impossible to concentrate on anything else. A cold lump sits in my stomach like a stone. I can’t write about this. I just can’t.
Around me, there’s a general rustle as the others find a clean sheet of paper, uncap their pens, and start writing. But I gaze blindly at the blank page, and that stone continues to drag at me.
Your earliest memory.
Except I don’t have one, do I? Not in the way he means. No, I have fear and fire and blood.
Give him that, the angry voice inside me says. Give him the truth.
I pull my binder towards me and begin to write.
Shadows, edged with orange light. A sharp, choking smell. Heat like a fist at my back, urging me forward. My left hand was throbbing; I looked down, saw my palm slick with dark blood. My head was filled with the roar and hiss of fire. I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember anything.
I stumbled past shattered glass and burning oil to the cool air beyond. When I could breathe again, I turned. The flames were fierce, hazing the shapes of the two bodies at their heart. A soft breath of sound and the wreck buckled, sending sparks flying into the night sky. Their brightness made my eyes water. Yet I felt nothing. I knew nothing. My thoughts were bubbles that burst as soon as I tried to grasp them, leaving no more than a faint stain. Desperate, I flung questions into the void.
Where am I? What’s happened? Who am I?
And like an echo the answer came back: Alyssia.
I waited, but there was no more. A single word was all I had.
My pen wavers, then races on across the page in an urgent sprawl.
Sitting with Mama on the windowsill, listening to one of her stories. Her arm was around me, and her long hair brushed my cheek as she leaned to whisper in my ear.
A long, long time ago, when the world was new … That is how it would have started. Mama’s stories always started that way. The day I remember, she was telling me the tale of Rithima and her dragon-forged blade. I listened half-drowsy, lulled by her voice as it ebbed and flowed like the sea outside the window, and so I cannot bring it all to mind, only the ending. As long as she bore it, she never needed to use it; for her life had been blessed, and no evil could touch her.
After Mama said those words, she drew the jewelled dagger from the slender sheath at her own waist and held it out to me. I gazed at it wide-eyed.
“Is that really –?”
She smiled. “Maybe so. After all, I have been granted sufficient blessings for a lifetime. And you, my dawnchild – ” she dropped a kiss on my brow – “are first among them.”
Now, years after her death, she is only fragments to me: the colour of light on the sea, a snatch of an old tune, the scent of purpleleaf. But I remember the weight of her arm around my shoulders, and how safe I felt.
More. There’s more. I turn the page and keep going, my world tightening to a blur of ink and paper.
Someone had dropped a knife in the dirt. It lay there glinting at me in the afternoon light. I knew the right thing to do with a weapon was to wave it and look fierce – I’d seen the King’s Guard on the practice ground – and so I picked it up.
It was heavier than I’d expected. I held it in two fat fists and swung it about. It slipped from my grasp, back onto the ground. I picked it up again, only this time I went for the shiny end.
One confused moment of pain later, I sat down and howled. It wasn’t long before someone picked me up and examined my cut fingers.
“You’re not old enough for that yet, son,” he told me. “Knives are dangerous.”
Well, sure. I’d made that connection already.
It didn’t stop me, though.
The words pour out of my pen as if they’re flowing straight from my veins –
I remember … sunshine. Striking sparks from Catéda’s hair. And waves, I think, and the contentment of sand underfoot …
But it fades. All beauty fades here, in the end; like the sun, it leaves only shadows behind. Every time I wake, it is to something a little greyer, as though the blood is being drained from my memories, leaving only the stark bones. Eventually there will be nothing to cling to: no emotion, no life, no hope.
I strive to remember light, but the darkness always returns.
– as if they come not from my brain but from some hidden knowledge that swims in my blood –
The earliest memory I can be sure of is learning to read. Most children start with a sand tray and a stick; Isidor used our copy of the holy book, the Kyantil. It weighed too much for my knees, so he would prop it on the table and I would kneel on a chair in front of it, chin in hand, turning the pages. I don’t recall how he taught me. I just recall that one day, the apparently disconnected arcs and lines resolved themselves into words. Just as the random shapes of clouds may change in an instant to form castles and faces and ships, suddenly there was meaning where before there had been none.
There is meaning in everything, if you only look hard enough.
The pen falls from my hand, trailing a smear of ink across the page. My eyes feel scratchy and unfocused; I blink until my words jump into view. A lot of words. More words than I was expecting –
The stone drops another foot or so inside me. I’ve done it again. I’ve let my imagination overcome reality. One of these five things is not like the others …
Get rid of them. I fumble with the ring binder, before giving up and ripping the pages straight out of it – my own memory along with the rest. I’ll just have to write it out again. Or not. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I get rid of them –
“Thanks, Lissy!” With the inevitability of a nightmare, the crumpled bits of paper are snatched out of my hand, and I look up to find Colin grinning across the gap between our desks. Shit. I was afraid he’d find one piece of evidence to use against me, and instead I’ve handed him five. Maybe this is my fault. Maybe by writing what I saw through Oriana’s eyes, last night, I’ve opened the floodgates.
“Give that back,” I mutter.
“Old Sorry said we had to swap with a partner. Give each other feedback.”
What? I didn’t hear that bit. But then, I didn’t hear much of anything. I was too busy panicking. And true enough, a hum of conversation now fills the room.
Smirking, Colin sits back in his chair. With slow deliberation, he smooths my pages out in front of him, shooting little glances at me all the while. “You should take more care, Lissy. You’ve torn your work.”
I make a grab for the papers, but he tweaks them out of my reach. Then he angles his body away from me and begins to read.
“Give them back!” This time my voice comes out with surprising force, carrying me to my feet.
“Alyssia!” Mr Sorensen snaps from the front of the classroom. “Sit down!”
“But I – ”
“Sit. Down.”
What now? Wrestle Colin for possession of my memories? Yell at him and get myself kicked out of class? Why is it that I never have any decent options?
We create our own options, someone says in my head. I’m pretty sure it isn’t anyone I’ve ever really met. If you find yourself short, then the fault lies within.
Shut up, I tell it. Shut up shut up shut up –
“Wow.” Colin turns back round to face me, and there’s something new in his smile. Something gleeful. “You really are crazy.”
I punch him.
As punches go, it’s hopelessly unscientific, but I have the advantage of surprise. Even as I make an ungainly landing half on and half off his desk, my flailing fist catches Colin’s face a glancing blow. Swearing, he jerks away from me. A single drop of blood falls from his nose to stain the papers containing five people’s memories.
Stunned silence.
Then the world erupts in noise. Old Sorry storms across the floor towards us, saying something, but he’s drowned out by a slow handclap from some of the boys nearer the front of the classroom. Colin prods his nose gingerly with a finger, muttering profanities. Beyond him, Peter looks oddly as if he wants to laugh, though whether at Colin or at me it’s hard to tell.
You made the move, says the same voice in my head. If it is a false memory, it’s certainly an annoying one. Now you have to take the consequences.
I grit my teeth. Thanks for your input, imaginary wise old mentor. But on balance, I’d rather not. I’ve had enough of school for one day.
As I straighten from the desk, I seize the opportunity to twitch my handwritten pages out of Colin’s loosened grasp. He glares a silent promise of retribution, but I don’t care. Peter opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again. I pick up my bag before shooting one final glance at the pair of them –
The pair of bruisers on his tail are not the first people ever to plan to rob him, but they must be two of the most incompetent.
Fabithe keeps walking at an easy pace, giving no sign that he’s aware of danger. Behind him, the would-be thieves slip in and out of shadowed doorways and alley mouths, keeping just far enough back that he might believe himself alone … if he were that obtuse.
As he rounds the corner at the end of the street they break into a run, feet almost soundless through the drizzle. He slips a knife out of the concealed sheath in his sleeve and holds it ready, gauging their approach without looking. When they’re almost on him, he turns and drives the blade into the nearest man’s leg. The look of pained surprise on his face as he stumbles to his knees would be almost comical, if Fabithe were in the mood to be amused. Instead, he hits the man in the side of the head with enough force to leave him prone. Better to be safe.
“Fabithe.” The other man stops a short distance away. “There’s no need for trouble. Just give us the money and we’ll go.”
Fabithe gives him a derisive look. “And why would I do that?”
“Because you’ve lost your knife.” He brandishes a blade. “Whereas I still have mine.”
Dear sweet One. He thinks they’ve gained the advantage. Despite the evidence of his colleague’s incoherent groans. With this pair of numbskulls protecting him, I’m surprised Mercator Seregrass wasn’t killed years ago.
Encouraged by the lack of reply, the man moves a few steps closer. Fabithe slams the heel of his hand into the thief’s face, sending him staggering backwards. Then he snatches up the man’s fallen weapon and holds it to his throat.
“You tell that old bastard Seregrass that next time he sends his cursed bodyguards after me to steal back what I won in fair play, I’ll cut off his balls and feed them to the crows. All right?”
The thief nods, almost cross-eyed as he looks down at the knife. Blood streams over his upper lip and chin. Broken his nose. Perhaps it’ll teach him a lesson.
“Good.” Fabithe withdraws the knife, slipping it into his sleeve in place of the one that’s still embedded in the first man’s leg. He has others, but it’s the principle of the thing. “Now take your friend to find healing. If I ever see either of you again, I’ll kill you.”
He walks away without waiting to watch them go. They’ll not come after him, and it’s best to leave before the city guards turn up. He’s paid out enough of his hard-earned silver in bribes already.
Of course, he knows what all this means. This sort of thing has happened too often of late. He’s beginning to build a reputation for himself, which will make it much harder to earn a living. His room is paid till the end of the week, but after that …
He’s been in Easterwood long enough. It’s time to move on.
“Right.” Old Sorry is by my side. I blink away rain and blood, shake off the memory of violence. Try to focus on what he’s saying. “To Ms Bolt’s office. Now.”
What? I didn’t … I …
I punched someone.
I stabbed someone.
Muffled swearing snags my attention; I whip round, spot Colin pressing a blood-stained tissue to his nose. Of course. There goes my attempt at a quick getaway, lost in a minute that lasted far longer.
Broken his nose.
No. I can’t have.
Perhaps it’ll teach him a lesson …
Stop it.
Yet something in me is clinging to what I saw. Something in me is trying to remember. It’s already fading, and usually I let them, but this time …
I want to write it down. I need to.
Foolish, I imagine Fabithe saying. Haven’t you learned your lesson? Don’t hand these people the weapons they can use against you.
Yet my own anger hasn’t faded. It spits back, But why should I let them silence me? Who cares what they think?
“Alyssia!” Mr Sorensen snaps. I follow him, blank-faced, while in the privacy of my own head I clutch at the vanishing strands of my latest experience. Yet it’s like candyfloss; they always are. Big, substantial clouds, filling my senses, but try to get hold of them and they melt into nothing.
Luckily Ms Bolt, the head teacher, is on the phone. Once Old Sorry has deposited me outside her office with a handwritten note and a stern admonishment to confess my sins, I’m free to fish my ring binder out of my bag and record everything I can still remember. It’s vague, but it’ll do. Then I shove it away, fold my arms, and wait to discover my fate.
It unrolls as predictably as everything else around here. Ms Bolt puts down the phone. She gives me a look through her open office door, beckoning me in. She reads Mr Sorensen’s note, frowning, while I try not to fidget a hole in her thin beige carpet. She listens to me mangle the English language as I try to explain what happened in your own words, Miss Gale, even though we both know where this conversation is going. And finally, lo and behold, I’m suspended. A whole week off school – as if that’s any hardship.
“I have no choice,” Ms Bolt says solemnly. “You’re about to turn sixteen, Alyssia. A girl of your age should know better than to react to a bit of teasing with all-out violence.”
And a boy of his age, I want to reply, should know better than to behave like an ignorant bully. But I keep that particular opinion to myself. At least the woman on the other side of the desk is treating me as simply a sixteen-year-old girl and not –
“I know things have been hard for you, Alyssia, and I did consider leniency.” Ugh. Looks like I called that one too soon. “I’ll speak to Mr Sorensen about the appropriateness of the assignment he gave you, given your … history. But you also need to take some responsibility for this.” Her glance holds a hint of sympathy. “You know what I’m going to say.”
Yeah. I do. I just hoped she’d be so distracted by the suspension that she’d forget.
“Theo Whyte is a good therapist, Alyssia. He’s worked with several of our students before.” Her eyebrows lift. “And let’s be honest, you’ve missed enough appointments already.”
This has been going on for a few months, now. Ever since Peter. Ever since my visions became a source of fear, not consolation. The school suggests that I’d benefit from talking to someone. They make me an appointment with their pet therapist. I nod and smile. And then I miss the bus, or oversleep, or simply forget to show up.
It isn’t that I have anything against therapy. I just don’t see the point of talking. I’ve had plenty of people talk at me before. Social workers and teachers and whichever set of foster parents were trying to make a go of things at the time. Stop daydreaming, Alyssia. Stop lying. Are you ill? Are you high? Are you trying to annoy me, you silly girl?
But I couldn’t, and I wasn’t.
The point is, I don’t see how reclining on some bearded man’s couch while he tells me I need to let go of my rage will do me any good at all.
“So this is what we’re going to do,” Ms Bolt says. “You agree to attend your appointment this week, and to continue attendance for as long as Dr Whyte considers it necessary. And I let you return to classes on Monday.”
I scowl at her. “You’re blackmailing me?”
“I’m making your attendance at school conditional on your attendance at therapy,” she says, all cold and formal. Then her expression softens. “Alyssia … you’re struggling. Anyone can see that. We only want to help.”
Sure you do. I paste a neutral expression onto my face. “May I go now?”
“Yes. Go home.” She massages her temples, looking suddenly tired. “But, Alyssia – please think carefully about this. It’s your future on the line.”
“What future?” I mutter under my breath, as I shoulder my bag and make my way to the door. But she doesn’t reply.