Escape from Memory (8 page)

More than a little spooked, I shut the door behind me.

I found my suitcase beside my bed and shivered opening it. Aunt Memory had given me so much to think about that I’d forgotten about the suitcase; now I could finally find out why it was so heavy.

But it felt light now. And when I unzipped it, it contained only my jeans and sweatshirts, underwear and toothbrush, all jumbled together. I tried to refold the clothes more neatly, but my hands were shaking. I dropped my favorite Ohio State sweatshirt. When I bent down to pick it up, I heard a voice.

“Kira, whatever you do, don’t scream,” it whispered from under the bed. “You’re alone now, aren’t you?”

I swallowed the scream that had been forming in my throat. It came out as a yelp. I whipped back the dust ruffle of the bed.

And there, with lint in her hair, more than a thousand miles from home, was my best friend.

“L
YNNE
?” I
SAID IN DISBELIEF
. A
FTER EVERYTHING ELSE THAT HAD
happened that evening, I wasn’t sure I could trust even what I saw with my own eyes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if everything that had happened since I got home from school today was a hallucination. “What—How—?”

Lynne raised her head, clunking it on the frame of the bed. I giggled nervously but with some relief. Things like that don’t happen in hallucinations. Do they?

“Shh,” she said, putting a finger to her lips.

“Don’t you want to come out from there?” I asked. She had dust bunnies on her jeans. Some of her hair was caught in the bedsprings, just inches above her head.

“Believe me, I’d rather be just about anywhere else but lying on this hard floor,” she whispered back. “But I don’t think it’s safe. Keep your voice down. And pretend I’m not here if anyone comes in. Act normal.”

Oh, yeah, I’d look very normal if anyone came in. I always lie on the floor talking to beds.

“Are you out of your mind?” I asked Lynne.

“Are you?” Lynne retorted. “Letting a stranger into your house, agreeing to get in a car with a total stranger—”

“I did change my mind about that,” I defended myself. “But how did you know? How did you get here?”

Lynne sighed.

“I was walking over to your house from the library. You’d sounded so weird on the phone that I told my dad to go on home, that I’d just spend the night at your house when I got done at the library. Then I saw this strange woman walking up your stairs. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but you did have your windows open….”

I thought about what Lynne had overheard.

“And then it looked like you were actually going to go someplace with that wacko,” she continued. “I hid in the bushes. I wanted to see the license plate. I had my cell phone with me; I was going to dial 911 as soon as you drove away. But it was too dark to see the plate. The trunk was open—I didn’t stop to think. I climbed in. I hid in your suitcase—believe me, that thing’s not easy to zip from the inside. But I did it. I thought that was the only way I could help you. I thought I could call 911 from the car, they could track my signal—”

“So did you call?” I asked eagerly. I was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude at having a friend like Lynne. So ingenious, so loyal, so reliable. After all the confusing things Aunt Memory had told me, it would be wonderful to see police officers, deputy sheriffs—anyone with authority—burst into the room, take charge, straighten everything out.

“Um…” Lynne wouldn’t look me in the eye. “My battery was dead. I forgot to turn the phone off after using it to call the bank. I’m really sorry.”

My heart sank.

“For a genius, you’re a real idiot, you know that?” I hissed. Then I felt guilty. “But I do appreciate—you know. You didn’t have to be in this mess. I do. Hey maybe you can figure everything out.”

“What
is
going on?” Lynne demanded.

Lying on the floor, my cheek pressed against a braided rug, I told Lynne everything I could remember of Aunt Memory’s explanation. I wished I had Crythian abilities, Lynne kept asking questions I couldn’t answer.

“Did this Aunt Memory say the original Crythe was part of the old Soviet Union?”

“I think so.” I bit my lip, trying to remember. “I mean, she said they were right in the path of the radiation from Chernobyl, and that was in Russia, right?”

“Ukraine,” Lynne muttered. “And they worried about the radiation blowing across all of Europe, so Crythe could have been lots of different places.”

“Why does it matter?” I asked. My face was becoming one with the braided rug. My teeth had that fuzzy feeling that meant they really needed to be brushed. I was more tired than I’d ever been, even after staying up all night at a sleepover. I just wanted to go to bed and pray that when I woke up, I’d be in my own bed back home and everything since my hypnosis would just be a weird dream.

“Every detail is important,” Lynne said. “Because Aunt Memory has to be lying, and we’ve got to figure out if any of her wild tale is true.”

I just looked at Lynne. She’s the most confident person I know, and usually I admired that. But no one in her right mind
would stay confident lying on the floor under a bed, with nothing but a dead cell phone and unknown danger all around.

“Yeah?” I said. “Just because her story’s weird doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

Lynne shook her head.

“Come on, Kira. How could someone remember
everything
that ever happened to her? Every time she tied her shoes. Every time she brushed her teeth. Every time she washed her hands. It’s so—so boring. Tedious. You can’t remember all that.”

“
You
probably could,” I teased.

“No, I couldn’t,” Lynne said. “And I wouldn’t want to.”

Lynne had an odd look on her face.

“You’re jealous,” I said. “You wish you were Crythian.”

“I do not!” Lynne insisted.

Somebody knocked at the door. I froze.

“Is okay in?” a man’s heavily accented voice called out.

I dropped the dust ruffle, hiding Lynne. Then I scrambled to my feet. I walked to the door and yanked on the knob.

Two men in those gray-jacketed uniforms were in the hall. They stood erect, on either side of my door. They had not just been walking past. They were guards, sentries.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I was just, uh, talking to myself.” Both men looked puzzled. “It, uh, helps me think,” I explained. “I think out loud.” I decided babbling like that sounded suspicious. I shut up.

Both men gave me the same measuring look Aunt Memory had used on me. I didn’t like being examined that closely. I had the feeling they were memorizing every strand of hair that I had out of place. I probably had a faint imprint of the braided rug on the side of my face; they were probably even now
deducing that I’d been talking to someone under my bed.

“So, um, I’m fine. You can go on now. I’m sure you two are tired too,” I said, trying to hide my desperation.

Neither man moved.

“We here,” the older of the two said. “We keep you safe.”

“Um, thanks,” I said, defeated. “That’s very nice of you, I’m sure. Um, good night.”

I shut the door, but I did not go back to Lynne. I went into the bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, changed into my usual nightwear, sweats and a T-shirt. I was trying so hard to make normal, all-by-myself noises that I’m sure I was suspiciously loud.

When I finally went back to the bed, Lynne had slipped a piece of paper just far enough out for me to see. I cautiously bent down and picked it up.

Who or what are they protecting you from?
Or are they imprisoning you?
Why won’t Aunt Memory tell you “everything else”
before you make your statement tomorrow?

“I don’t know,” I whispered. I didn’t want to think about any of those questions.

Lynne shoved another scrap of paper out at me:
Does your door lock?
it said.

I bent over, lifted the dust ruffle, and shook my head at Lynne. No. Of course it didn’t lock. She sighed silently, grimacing.

“Do you want to talk some more?” I asked in my softest voice.

Lynne shook her head.
Go to sleep
, she mouthed.

I climbed into the bed, willing it to be hard—which was what I deserved, given where Lynne was going to be sleeping.
But the bed was soft and welcoming, a haven. Had my nurse ever put me down for naps on this bed, years and years ago? Had my real mother ever sat on this bed, watching me play? Had I belonged here all along?

I
N THE MORNING THE COMFORTER WAS MISSING FROM MY BED
. I found it and Lynne tangled together in the bathtub. I shut the bathroom door and turned the water on full-blast in the sink to cover the noise of us talking.

“Lynne?” I said. “Wake up. There might be maids or, I don’t know, cleaning ladies coming through.”

Lynne didn’t move. “Go ’way,” she groaned, her eyes still shut.

“Lynne!” I pleaded.

Lynne opened one eye halfway.

“Do you know how hard that floor was?” she asked.

“You’re not on the floor anymore,” I said.

Lynne grimaced. “Yeah, I decided a little risk was better than a sleepless night, so I moved in here, as the next safest place to hide. But do you know how hard this tub is, too?”

“Sorry,” I muttered. The water roared in the sink behind me.

Lynne opened her other eye.

“They’ll know we re missing today,” she said. “When we don’t show up for school. They’ll call home, and my parents will go crazy with worry.”

Her parents would. I wondered, if the situation were reversed, and it was Mom back home in Willistown and me chasing after Lynne, if Mom would even notice me gone.

“But that’s good,” I argued. “Maybe they can track us down, save us, and Mom, too.”

“How in the world would they track us here?” Lynne asked.

“Oh” I said. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I couldn’t think straight. The sight of all that running water in the sink suddenly made me want to cry. “What are we going to do?” I appealed to Lynne.

“You’re going to ask to have breakfast sent up to your room, so we can share, instead of me trying to survive on the one measly stick of gum I have in my backpack,” Lynne said. “And then I’m going to sneak out and find the nearest pay phone.”

I was impressed. Just three minutes awake from a miserable night’s sleep and Lynne already had her day planned. She’d have us rescued in no time.

“Now, turn that water off,” Lynne said. “They’re going to think you’re drowning yourself.”

I showered and was in the middle of getting dressed when someone knocked on the door. I finished putting on my T-shirt and waited until Lynne slipped back under the bed before I called out, “Yes?”

Aunt Memory thrust open the door. She had a huge swath of fabric draped over her arm—orange and yellow and green, brilliant colors, practically shining in the sunlight streaming in through my window.

“Your ceremonial dress,” she announced. “For this morning’s speech.”

She shifted her grasp to the top of the piled fabric and
lifted it up, and I saw that it was really a dress. It wasn’t constructed like any I’d ever seen before. I tried to think of words to describe it—“kimono”? “sari”? “dirndl”?—and rejected them all. This dress had layers of skirts flowing out from the waist and just as many layers of sleeves flowing from the bodice.

“You said—,” I started. “You said my jeans and sweatshirts were fine.”

“Well, for the trip, certainly. But this is an important speech you’ll be making. You’ll want to look your best. And people will expect … this.”

She gave the dress a little shake and it shimmied before my eyes.

“Oh,” I said. I swallowed hard. “So now it’s a speech I’m making? Before it was just an appeal. A statement.”

“It’s all the same,” Aunt Memory assured me. “Appeal, statement, speech—why does it matter what we call it?”

“Okay, okay. Whatever,” I said. My stomach chose that moment to growl, and I remembered Lynne’s idea. “Um, I’m kind of nervous about that speech. Do you suppose I could just have some breakfast sent up to my room beforehand?”

“Of course!” Aunt Memory said. “What a good idea. I’ll eat here with you.”

Oops. That hadn’t been what I had in mind.

But Aunt Memory was already stepping over to the door and conferring with one of the guards.

“Sausage and eggs sound good?” Aunt Memory asked over her shoulder.

I was calculating how I could slip something under the bed. Sausage and eggs wouldn’t work.

“Um, and fruit,” I said quickly. “Apples and oranges. Lots of them. And maybe some toast.”

Ten awkward minutes later Aunt Memory and I were sitting at a table brought in just for us, over huge platters of everything we’d asked for. I kept wishing Aunt Memory would take her eyes off me for just a second, so I could slip an apple and an orange into my pocket for Lynne. Then when I took off my sweatshirt, I could slide it under the bed…. My mind was going a million miles a minute.

Aunt Memory kept watching me. Silently.

“Um, this is very good,” I said, though I was too nervous to actually taste anything.

“Taste is very closely linked to memory,” Aunt Memory said. “In fact, we use that in some of our very first memory sessions, when we are training children. What do you remember when you are tasting that?” She pointed to the piece of sausage on the fork I was bringing to my mouth.

I bit and chewed and swallowed.

“Saturday mornings at my friend Lynne’s house,” I said. “The seasoning is different, but that’s the only place I ever eat sausage.”

For some reason, tears stung in my eyes.

“See how powerful memory is?” Aunt Memory murmured.

Angrily, I rubbed the tears away. I’d been thinking about Lynne under the bed now, in danger now, not safely at her house like all those Saturdays in the past.

“Why does memory matter so much in Crythe?” I asked. “What’s so wrong about forgetting something every now and then?”

Aunt Memory looked aghast.

“Oh, my dear,” she said. “How can you even ask that? But, of course, you were not raised properly …. We have a saying in Crythe:
Mogha laha dahr sa
. I believe it would translate as, ‘Why live if you don’t remember?’ No, no—that’s too trite. It’s more like, ‘Life is best lived many times’ If you remember, you can experience every moment of your life many times. So it’s like having many lives.”