M.I.N.D. (7 page)

I bite down on my lip. I know she doesn't blame me for what happened that day on the boat—it would never even occur to her. I don't blame myself either, at least not in my mind. But in my heart, that's another story.

At the reception desk, we take a number. How insane is that? What if someone was having a baby? Would they tell her to hold it in? I take a seat in the waiting area, and that's when I see her, little Rose's mother, parked on a green plastic chair.

She's still in bandages, and her arm is in a cast. She looks hollow, I think. And shriveled, like she's been crying forever and now she's all dried up. A somber man appears at her side. His face is gray, his shoulders hunched over. “You're all signed out,” he says, his voice a flat line. “Let's wait for the taxi outside. I can't bear to be in this place another minute.”

I know their being here is perfectly logical, this being a hospital and all, but it still seems weird, like something else is going on. Something not so logical, like it's some kind of sign.

The woman stands up, and for one brief moment her eyes meet mine. What if she recognizes the locket? Is that what has me spooked? But then I remember that it's safely tucked away, underneath my T-shirt.

It was just an impulse, putting on that locket. I figured that if Oreo could sense something, maybe I could too. What if that mist was some kind of aura? (The mystical kind, not the switshetshela kind.) What if I could sense who the locket belonged to? I mean, seriously. If I can jump into a cat, anything is possible.

I realize then what it is that scares me. If she's thinking of me, even for a second, I could get sucked in.

But that's unlikely, I remind myself. For that to happen, I'd have to want to be her, and I wouldn't want that in a million years. I have enough grief of my own, thank you very much.

As she walks past me, I notice the yellow teddy bear. She's cradling it in her uninjured arm. As if on autopilot, my hand flies to the chain around my neck.

Poor little Rose.

In that OBE I had just after the bus crash, a little girl was clutching a teddy bear. It looked just like the one in the woman's arm.

The locket with the rose, the little girl, the yellow teddy bear…

Somehow I get the feeling I'm already sucked in.

***

“No nonessential people allowed,” a girl in a green smock says to my mother. She doesn't look much older than me, nineteen at the most. On her wrist is a tattoo of a heart with the initials S.L. She gives my mother a frozen smile.

Secretly I'm glad. I don't want my mother coming with me; I'm nervous enough and I don't need the stress. It probably wasn't a good idea to beam into a cat just before a brain scan. What if something weird shows up? Something catastrophic. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) She sure doesn't like that word,
nonessential
, but no matter how much my mother begs and threatens, the girl with the heart tattoo won't budge.

I follow Tattoo Girl down a long corridor. “Sorry about your mom,” she says as we approach the imaging center. “Patients only. Rules are rules.” Which is why I'm surprised to see Amanda's brother, Ethan, sitting in the waiting room. Apparently he's essential.

“Can I get you something?” Tattoo Girl asks him, all syrupy. “A magazine? Cappuccino?” Her phone number? Should I leave them alone? What about S.L.? Does not a tattoo signify commitment? But whatever.

Ethan is leaning back in his chair, his long, jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him. “No thanks,” he says in a dull voice.

He looks worn-out, his face drawn and pale. Even his dark brown hair looks tired, like it wants to curl but doesn't have the energy. Plus, he looks so sad, sitting there all by himself. Except for the two of us and the annoying Tattoo Girl, the waiting room is empty.

I sit in the blue molded chair next to his. Tattoo Girl shoves a copy of
Modern Medicine
into my hands and mumbles that it'll be a few minutes. She disappears through a red door, which leads to the torture chamber beyond.

“Hey,” Ethan says.

“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

He gestures to the door. “Amanda.”

I nod. “So how did you get them to let you in here?”

He frowns. “I'm a regular in this part of the hospital. I guess they gave up trying to fight me.” He gives me a curious look. “What about you?”

“Just routine. My…condition, and now the bus accident.”

“The things we do to get out of school,” he says with a ghost of a smile. His eyes roam my face. “Nervous?”

“A little,” I admit. “I've had MRIs before. They make me feel trapped. But I'm not claustrophobic,” I quickly add. “I mean, I don't go ballistic or anything.” Somehow it seems important that he know this, as if it makes me normal.

“Try imagining you're a baby in a cradle,” he says. “All safe and snug.”

“Mind over matter?” Ha. He should only know.

“Exactly,” he says. “Just keep telling yourself that you're fine, and you will be.” And then he falls silent, and my heart squeezes. I should be the one doing the reassuring, not him. I should be telling him that everything is going to be all right, that any minute now Amanda will wake up and this nightmare will be over. But how can I promise what I don't know?

Sometimes things just happen and nothing can keep you safe.

“What do the doctors say?” I ask him gently. “Any change?”

“No,” he says, almost inaudibly.

He digs his hands into his pockets, stares into space.

I don't know what to say to him, so I fidget in my chair. When my father died, all these people I hardly knew came over to me at the funeral and said in that fake, somber tone, “Time heals all wounds,” like his death was a mosquito bite. And then there was, “If there's anything I can do, just call.” Yeah, right. And say what? “I don't know you, but can you come over and fix dinner? My mother and I are depressed.” Two months later, someone actually told my mother it was time she got on with her life. Who puts an expiration date on another person's grief? I know they meant well, but if you don't know what to say, sometimes it's better to say nothing at all.

I realize that I'm doing it again, and bite down on my lip. I'm thinking of Amanda in the past tense.

“Do you believe in life after death?” Ethan asks abruptly, as though reading my mind.

I hesitate, then say, “When I was ten, I sort of died for a minute. I didn't see myself lying on a gurney or anything, but my heart stopped and I had the weirdest feeling, like I was someplace else. It was like a dream, except it wasn't.” I don't mention the second time I was there, when I saw Amanda. I don't want to freak him out, on the off chance he'll believe me.

He nods. “Josh mentioned that you're into that stuff.”

“I didn't think the two of you were friends,” I answer, not hiding my surprise.

He looks amused. “Because I'm a geek?”

My cheeks heat up. “No, of course not. It's just that Leanne never said anything.” I'm also a little peeved. Obviously she had no trouble blabbing about
my
so-called stuff.

“It's okay. I
am
a geek. But no, we're not really friends. He brings me my homework, since he lives just down the street. I'm not in school much these days.”

That makes two of us. “What did he tell you?” I ask cautiously.

“Not much, really. Just that you were into the paranormal. Astral projections, apparitions, dreams… You know, life, the universe, and everything.”

“And you think it's all bogus.”

“Au contraire,” he says. “But I do think there's an explanation for everything. And I think the answers lie in quantum physics. I have a lot of books, if you're interested.”

“That depends,” I say.

“On what?”

“On what quantum physics is.”

He laughs, and I smile back, remembering the boy he used to be. When I was eight, I had this sort-of crush on him, but he was more interested in bugs than girls. Now he's a senior and thinks physics is fun, though I'm pretty sure he prefers girls over bugs. “It's a branch of science that deals with small, distinct units of energy called quanta,” he explains. “Everything is made up of energy, and it's constantly spinning. The atomic world is nothing like the one we live in.”

“I guess,” I say.

“I know, it's confusing. Mind-boggling, actually. Some scientists even believe that things can exist in two places at the same time.
You
could exist in two different places.”

Actually, I can.

His eyes are shining. They're green, I notice as if for the first time. Green like a cat's. Very exotic.

“Tahiti might be fun,” I say, picturing myself in a grass skirt, doing the hula.

He grins. “Sounds good to me. When do we leave?”

“If you're talking about an alternate universe, we're already there.” I grin back. “Hey, I'm not entirely clueless. I've seen every episode of
Star Trek
at least ten times. My father was a Trekkie. Except he was a purist. He only liked the original series, not any of the spinoffs.” My heart constricts. Watching old Star Treks was a ritual every Saturday morning. He'd be sipping coffee; I'd be having Fruit Loops. This was before my mother became a health food tyrant.

“I'm talking about
a lot
of alternate universes,” Ethan says. “I'm talking about infinity. Imagine if every moment in time could produce a new universe for every possible outcome. Each of those outcomes spawns more outcomes, and so on. Now
that's
mind-boggling.”

“That means there's an infinite number of me's. Scary.” And if one of those me's is thinking about me—which is very likely, considering how much time
this
me spends thinking about me—could I jump through some kind of black hole or wormhole or whatever it's called into another me? What if another me jumps into the me back here? I think I'm getting another headache.

“Gives a new meaning to schizophrenia,” Ethan says.

“What about that theory that the universe originates in the mind? I think it's Buddhist, something Eastern for sure.”

“Ever hear of George Berkeley?” Ethan asks.

“Who?”

“He was an Irish philosopher who believed that the external world doesn't exist independently of awareness. He said that everything's an illusion.”

“Row, row, row your boat,” I say. Then I pause. “Can I tell you something? I have to warn you, it's really wild.” Even wilder than body-jumping, but at least I can talk about it.

“That's okay. I like wild women.”

I laugh. “Behave yourself.”

He salutes. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Okay, here goes. Sometimes I imagine that I'm the only living thing in my own universe and that I created everything. For instance, right now? It's not you I'm talking to. It's just a copy of you—a copy I downloaded for my own use.”

“Sounds kinky,” he says.

“You know what I mean,” I say, swatting him playfully.

“Actually, it sounds—”

“Egotistical,” I finish for him. “Just call me Empress of the Known Universe, Giver and Taker of Life. Creation according to Cass.”

“I was going to say
lonely
.” He strokes my cheek, taking me by surprise. “So I guess you can't feel that, since it's not really me who's touching you.”

His hand is warm, but I still feel a shiver. This is Ethan, I remind myself. The boy who put a snake in my lunch box. Fine, I was eight and the snake was rubber, but still. “I feel it,” I say, finding my voice. “But only because I made it happen.”

“Oh, so you're a control freak. What else can you make happen, All Powerful One? Can you make my hand touch yours?” He draws a circle on my palm. “Are you saying this isn't real?”

A tingle zooms all the way to my toes, and oh, it's real, all right.

“What about this?” he says, reaching up to trace the chain around my neck. “You're going to have to take that off.”

“Excuse me?”

His gaze falls to my wrist. “The bracelet too. Metal can interfere with the MRI's magnetic field.”

Right. I forgot about that. “What about my belly button ring?”

His eyes widen.

“Just kidding.”

He looks disappointed. I feel myself blushing.

I unclasp the bracelet and drop it into my purse. And then I get a quantum moment, so to speak. He'd know if the locket is Amanda's, right? And if it is, the number of possible explanations for how it landed in my backpack will be greatly reduced. Now there's a mind-bender for you. If you subtract from infinity, is it still infinity?

My hands go to the back of my neck. “Can you help me with the clasp?”

He smiles. He thinks I'm flirting, and maybe I am, a little.

His hands reach behind my neck, his fingers like feathers on my skin. “There,” he says, removing the chain. He stares at the locket in his hand, recognition flickering in his cat-green eyes. “Huh. Amanda has the exact same necklace.”

So. Leanne was wrong. It doesn't belong to that little girl's mother. My relief is so thick I can almost touch it. “I think it
is
hers,” I tell him. “I found it in my backpack. I know that sounds strange, but there's stuff about the accident I don't remember.” He looks confused, and I don't blame him. I'm confused too. “I mean, I thought maybe it was hers, since she was sitting next to me on the bus, but I wasn't sure. There's no photograph inside, which is weird. Lockets are meant for that. There's no inscription either, just some generic rose.”

“It's pretty new,” he says, flipping it open. “It could have come like this, and she never got around to changing the picture.”