EIGHT
I AWAKE THE NEXT MORNING feeling groggy and weak. There’s a subtle pain pulsing behind my temples and my mouth is dry. I groan as I pull myself out of bed. I eat some bread, which nearly comes back up, and eventually give up on food and splash water on my face instead. I sit at the table, my head pressed against the grain, and close my eyes.
Will she pretend nothing happened? Will she even remember that moment, that second when something clearly danced between us? I remember, but maybe all that magic was in my head, a trick of the alcohol. Maybe I felt something because I’m always looking for feelings. Without them, I don’t know how to act. Either way, had it not been for that slammed door, perhaps there would have been more to last night.
Then again, maybe it’s better that there wasn’t. The details would be a blur now anyway, the lines between real and imagined lost in the shadowy corners of my hangover. I like remembering the times I spend with Emma. I like to know they are real and honest. Ale has a way of turning both such things into dazzling illusions.
After another unsuccessful attempt to eat some bread, I change into clean clothes and head out. Except for Emma, the Clinic is empty when I arrive. She’s sitting at the back of the room, searching through tall shelves that house hundreds of scrolls.
“Morning,” she exclaims, bright and chipper. Clearly the ale did not punish her as it did me.
“Morning.” I slump into a chair and rub my temples. Emma hands me a revolting wad that looks like nothing more than weeds.
“It will clear the headache. Promise. Mine’s gone.” So she did feel ill this morning after all.
The concoction tastes even worse than it looks, but I force it down and within several minutes, the pain in my skull is indeed subsiding. I must look better, because Emma flops into the seat opposite me and tosses me a scroll.
“That’s her record,” she says. It seems rather small, and when I look at her apprehensively, she adds, “It’s all we have.”
I roll it open and slide some clay jars over the edges to keep the parchment from curling in on itself. Emma and I bend over and begin reading. The entire thing is a list, dates followed by brief descriptions written by Carter and various Clinic workers from earlier years. At the very top is my mother’s name, Sara Burke.
Year 11, January 3: born to Sylvia Cane, healthy
Year 14, February 10: treated for bad cough
Year 14, February 13: treated again for cough, seems to be recovering
Year 21, August 14: broken bones set in wrist from fall
Year 29, June 23: gives birth to boy (Blaine Weathersby), healthy
Year 30, June 23: gives birth to boy (Gray Weathersby), sickly, will need additional care
Year 44, November 8: treated for high fever and cough
Year 44, December 1: diagnosed with pneumonia
Year 44, December 21: health failing, receiving treatment via house visits
Year 44, December 27: patient lost
The entries stop here. No item is elaborated on, no comments scrawled in the margins. I push the weights off the scroll in frustration, and it springs back together.
“I told you I didn’t think you’d find anything,” Emma says heavily. “We don’t keep very detailed records, only the bare minimum, in case we need to check something against a patient’s family tree.”
“Oh, good idea. Can I compare these dates to the ones in my scroll? And Blaine’s?”
“I don’t see the point.”
“Please. This can’t be all there is.”
Emma sighs, but then returns to the shelf and pulls down two more scrolls. Blaine’s has but two dates: his birth, as noted in our mother’s scroll, and his Heist. Mine also has my birth date, one year to the day later than Blaine’s, but dozens of other entries. The first thirteen alone document house visits from when I was an infant, sick and feeble. I read through the later notations, recounting my more recent trips to the Clinic for treatments of hunting injuries and accidents. I’m remarking at what a healthy child Blaine was in comparison to me, when Emma interrupts my thoughts.
“Gray?” I look up and find her sitting at Carter’s desk. “I think you should see this.”
“What is it?”
“Well you mentioned comparing records and I thought maybe, just maybe, I should check some of my mother’s personal ones.”
“She keeps personal records?”
“It’s her notebook from house visits.” She holds up a leather book with Year 29 written on its cover. “She brings them with her, records any necessary information, and then copies them into the scrolls later. That way, if she makes multiple stops before returning to the Clinic, nothing gets forgotten or left out.”
“Okay, well let me see,” I say.
Emma hesitates, her lips pinched as though she has something to say but can’t find the nerve to spit it out. She looks over the page again and finally pushes the notebook into my outstretched hands. “Read here.”
I take the book cautiously, and as my eyes fall on the words, I suddenly understand Emma’s uncertainty. Scribbled between two other house visits, is a note of a visit to my mother. Even I cannot understand the words before me:
Year 29, June 23: gives birth to twin boys
(Blaine and Gray Weathersby), both healthy
I pause. Shake my head. This must be a mistake. I reread the line again and then sit with the book in my lap. I’m not sure if I’m furious or pleasantly surprised. If anything, at least for the moment, I am blank. Shocked.
I suppose this explains a lot of things. Why we looked so identical. Why I felt half of me had been ripped from my chest when he was Heisted. Why we could read each other so well, know what the other would say before the words even escaped our lips. It explains a lot of things and I can almost accept it. Almost. Except for one small, tiny detail.
“Gray, if this is true, you shouldn’t be here,” Emma says. “If you’re really Blaine’s twin, if you’re actually eighteen, you would have been Heisted weeks ago. With him.”
“I know.” It’s the piece that doesn’t make sense, the element I cannot fathom.
“Maybe the journal’s wrong,” she says.
“Why would it be wrong? Would your mother write down something that didn’t really happen?”
“No,” she agrees. “But why would she record one thing in her notebook only to return to the Clinic and record something completely different in Sara’s scroll?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you think this is what your mother was about to tell Blaine in the letter? That you are twins?”
I think of the last few words of the letter, which, from reading over and over, I have practically memorized. And so I share this with you now, my son: You and your brother are not as I’ve raised you to believe. Gray is, in fact—
Gray is, in fact, your twin. This must be it. It fits so perfectly. This is the answer I have been looking for, the secret that’s been kept from me. I accept it as if it were fact. The idea takes hold of me, drills itself deep beneath my skin and penetrates marrow. I am a twin, still here—the only boy over eighteen to ever beat the Heist. But why? Because it was kept secret?
“We have to ask your mother,” I say finally. “She wrote that note in the journal, and I want to know why she changed it when she copied things into the scrolls.”
Emma shakes her head frantically. “No, we can’t do that. She’ll know we were snooping around in her personal records.”
“Emma, this is so much bigger than that. I might actually be eighteen, and if I am, I think everyone here deserves to know that I wasn’t Heisted.” I can feel my pulse gaining velocity in my chest.
“But that’s just it, Gray,” Emma says sadly. “If you are really eighteen, you would have been Heisted. The journal is wrong.”
“If we ask your mother, we’ll know for sure.”
“Ask me what?” Carter is standing in the doorway of the Clinic, her gear bag in hand.
“Nothing,” Emma says quickly. “Gray and I were just stopping by to get out of the sun.” And then she grabs my arm and pulls me toward the exit, dropping the book on Carter’s desk while her back is turned.