“So, you say you’re twelve,” she says. “You look nineteen, maybe twenty. You look like a grown woman.”
“So do you.”
She nods slightly. She looks off, glancing at nothing in particular. Her lips twitch, like she’s saying half-words that I can’t hear.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she says finally. “We need more information. Until then, we have to believe what our eyes show us.”
She again cups her breasts. She isn’t ashamed at all; she’s measuring, thinking.
The corners of her mouth curve up in a small grin.
“I can’t recall what I asked for, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t expecting these as a present,” she says. “Maybe it’s a good birthday after all. I mean, other than being locked up in the dark.”
Her fascination and delight with her body’s unexpected change hasn’t completely taken the fear out of her eyes. She reaches up, touches one of the carvings on her coffin lid. A jaguar, I think it is, one eye smashed and splintered from where I hit it.
“Some of these images seem familiar,” she says. “I can’t place them, but…well, they’re familiar.”
“My coffin has them, too.”
The red-haired girl wrinkles her nose, shakes her head. “Coffins are for dead people. We’re clearly not dead.”
She stares at my forehead. Her eyes narrow—she’s trying to work something out—then she looks away. Does she remember what my circle means? If so, she doesn’t share.
She points to the jewel-encrusted rod lying on the ground beside me.
“I think I know what that is,” she says.
I pick it up and wipe dust off the metal. I move it closer to her so she can see it better. “Maybe you used a weapon like this before?”
For the first time, the red-haired girl smiles wide. It lights up her whole face. She looks amazing. Her eyes gleam with delight. I’m not sure it’s possible for a person to be more beautiful than she is right now.
“It’s not a weapon,” she says. “I think it’s a tool.”
A tool? That never crossed my mind.
She starts to nod, like she’s sure she’s right, then stops. Her smile fades. She’s not sure. She isn’t sure about anything.
“Em…do you know my name?”
“No. Let’s find out what it is.”
I stand, take her hand and help her up.
She seemed so tall at first, but I’m only a tiny bit shorter than she is.
I lead her to the foot of her coffin. Just like with mine, there is a flat area surrounded by dust-covered jewels. I brush it clean. Blue jewels frame the engraved letters T. Spingate.
“That’s you,” I say. “I think. Your name is Spingate. Does that make you remember anything?”
She frowns. Her lower lip quivers. Her eyes water, and this time it’s not from the light. Her eyelashes are long and dark. I suddenly have a desperate urge to find a mirror. Do I have green eyes like hers?
Spingate shakes her head. “I can’t remember anything. I remember my mom…sort of. But I can’t remember her face.”
As soon as she says that, I realize I have no idea what my parents actually look like. Mom and Dad, they’re blank spaces. I know the concept of my parents, I know they loved me and I loved them, but their faces, their names…nothing.
Spingate sniffs, wipes away tears. She nods slowly, as if accepting things for what they are. She studies our surroundings, taking in the walls, the ceiling, the door-arch.
“Em, do you know what’s outside this room?”
“No idea.”
She looks at the coffin across the aisle, where I found the weapon.
“That lid isn’t shut all the way. Was that one yours?”
I point to my right, to the last coffin in our row. I see my path of footsteps through the dust.
“I was in that one,” I say.
Spingate stares down the aisle for a few moments. Her mouth moves a little again. When she does that, it’s like she doesn’t even know I’m there.
She looks me up and down.
“How did you get all bloody?”
Other than smears of dust, her shirt is clean and white.
“There was a tube in my coffin,” I say. “It stabbed me with a needle. That’s what woke me up.”
Her expression darkens. Maybe she realizes that if I hadn’t broken out of my coffin, she would still be in hers.
“But how did you get out? There’s no one else here.”
I shrug. “I got myself out.”
She gives me a strange look, as if the concept is unthinkable.
Spingate’s hands reach to her shoulders, rub slowly up and down like she’s hugging herself against the chill. She walks across the aisle, wobbling a bit but standing on her own, then kneels at the foot of the coffin with the slightly open lid. She brushes off the nameplate.
“It says B. Brewer. The stones are purple. Maybe we can use the tool to open it and see if someone is inside?”