I have a nightmare. Juniper is sitting in the chair in my room beside my bed, just staring at me. Our eyes meet, and she smiles a wicked, satisfied smile. I wake up in a sweat, my sheets damp beneath me. Feeling dizzy, I look around. Juniper isn’t here. The house is quiet. It’s midnight. I was sure someone was in my room; I felt a presence. I get out of bed, open my door quietly, and pad down the hall, limping as I keep the weight off my branded foot. I listen at Juniper’s door. It’s quiet. I slowly, quietly, push it open. I need to see her there, in bed, fast asleep. Her bed is empty. It hasn’t been slept in.
DAY SEVEN
I meet Mary May for the first time. I am expecting a tank of a woman, instead I see Mary Poppins. I have seen women dressed as her before but never understood who they were or what they did. She’s wearing what looks like an ancient nanny uniform: a conservative black dress with a white shirt and black tie. The tie has an embroidered red F. She wears black tights and black brogues. Over her dress she wears a heavy black button-up coat with a wraparound collar and red velvet cuffs. She wears a black bowler hat with a red band and another F on the front. Her hair is pinned up neatly and sits in a bun below the back of her hat. Her face is makeup-free and stern. I’m not good at guessing ages, but she’s in her forties or fifties and is a tiny, birdlike woman. She looks like she’s dressed for the middle of winter. She stares at me as I walk in. She looks me up and down, as I have done with her.
“Hi,” I say. I’m not sure whether to shake her hand. The heavy black leather gloves tell me not to attempt it.
“I’m Mary May, your Whistleblower for the foreseeable future. You are aware of the rules, or shall I go through them again?”
I shake my head.
“Verbal communication,” she snaps.
“No, I mean, yes,” I stammer. “I understand the rules.” I’m nervous because I don’t want to make a mistake, I don’t want to be punished again. I don’t know what’s right and wrong, what’s expected of me in this new world. I’ve read the rules, I’ve been told about them, but the reality is quite different. My family is all sitting at the table watching me with her. I can feel the tension in the room. I can’t make a mistake. Not again.
She likes how she has unnerved me. I see the smile in her eyes.
I sit for dinner for the first time since I’ve returned. A regular family dinner. Mary May remains in the corner, hat, coat, and gloves still on, her presence as calming as the Grim Reaper’s. Mom has turned music on to fill the uncomfortable silence. Juniper is at the table, eyes down that nervously flit to me when she thinks I’m not looking. The more scared of me she acts, the angrier she makes me feel. Ewan won’t stop staring at me, as though I’m not here to see him.
“What’s she eating?” he asks, looking at my plate of food with disgust.
“They’re grains,” Mom says. “They’re pumpkin seeds. And that’s salmon.”
“It looks like dog food.”
It smells like dog food.
The others are eating chicken and rice. The chicken looks dry and the rice pasty, and I wonder if it is deliberately so. Mom has also cooked cabbage, which she knows that I hate. I can see she is trying to help me, to make this easier for me. I know Mom has tried to keep it basic, but I still want to eat what they’re eating. I don’t want their food because it looks better than mine, or because I’m remotely hungry, because I’m not. I want it because it’s what I should be having. I want it because I’ve been told I can’t. I wonder, again, where this part of me has sprung from. I was the girl who followed rules, I was on their side. I never questioned anything; now I find myself on the wrong side of everything, questioning everything. This must be how Juniper felt every day. I look at her. She has her head down and is playing with her food. Once again it irritates me that she isn’t eating it. She can eat it. She has the right and she’s barely touching it. She looks up just then, sees the look on my face, swallows, and looks away again.
Ewan is staring at me. At the dressings on my hand, covering my temple. He eyes my chest curiously.
“Mom, Dad,” he whines. “She keeps looking at me.”
“Shut up, Ewan,” Juniper spits.
“She’s allowed to look at you,” Dad snaps. “She’s your sister.”
Ewan continues eating, in a huff.
“You know you’re allowed to speak directly to me, Ewan,” I say softly, finding strength within me to be gentle. He’s my little brother. I don’t want him to be afraid of me.
He looks startled that I’ve addressed him.
“Could you pass me the salt, please?” I ask.