I closed my eyes and kept the phone pressed tight against my ear. “She can’t talk to you.”
“Then listen closely, Althea,” Linus said, turning the name into something ugly. “If Rosie’s really there with you, which I seriously doubt, then let her know this. She has a lot of fans who care about her. They want to know if she’s okay, and they want an explanation for where she’s been all this time. If she’s not okay, they want justice for her sake. That goes for me, too. If you’re working for Sandy Berg and you’ve got her locked up somewhere, I swear we’ll get you.”
“I’m not working with Berg,” I said. “That’s ridiculous.”
“And one other thing,” he said. “If I find out you’re using me or my voice to tease her or test her in any way, I’ll come for you, personally. Get that?”
“That’s just sick,” I said. “You’re starting to sound like Berg yourself.”
“Then where are you? Tell me.”
I stared, unseeing, at my dark window. This call had gone nothing like I’d expected. I pressed my fist under my chin. I was lonelier than ever.
“She’s changed so much,” I said. My voice squeaked closed again. It wasn’t a proper answer to his question, but it was the best I had.
“We’ve all changed,” Linus said, and his voice was hard. “Tell her that doesn’t matter. Tell her I want to see her again. I want to cover her story for my show. Go on.”
I pinched a fold of the blanket. “She heard you,” I said.
“What does she say?” Linus asked.
I closed my eyes. “She says she won’t be on your show.”
“Then tell me why you really called.”
I wished I had a good lie, but what came out was painfully true. “Rosie just wanted to hear your voice,” I said.
The long distance spun for a moment, and when he spoke again, it was in a calm, quiet voice. “I am not doing this.”
I didn’t know how to answer. “Please, Linus.”
“No. Not happening,” he said, still too calm. “If Rosie ever wants to talk to me herself, directly, have her call me. Otherwise, leave me alone.”
“But she needs you!” I said.
He gave a sharp laugh. “Did it occur to you how mean this would be? Making me believe you know her. Never mind. I’m hanging up now.”
“Linus!”
But he was gone.
I’d done nothing to convince him. If anything, I’d gone backward. I slammed my phone against the table. I had to get out of this crazy place. I had to get back to some version of my own life because if I couldn’t, if I couldn’t— The yawning possibility stopped my heart cold. I buried my head in my pillow and squeezed away all the light and sound, but the dread still followed me.
I would have to become Althea.
10
ROSIE
DESPERATE PEOPLE
AFTER THE LIP GLOSS, Ian brings me a stick of cinnamon bark—dry, brown, and fragrant.
The next time, he brings me a chocolate chip, just one. The silky, melting taste of the chocolate is so sweet and rich that I nearly swoon with pleasure. I look to his hand for more, but he tosses the remaining chocolate chips back in his own mouth and masticates. Bastard. Otherworldly ripples of light emanate around his face like a halo.
“I could only give you one,” he says. “More than that might mess up your digestion. Like it?”
I’m salivating. “It’s heaven.”
Next he holds up my old video camera, the one my teacher from Doli High gave me, the one I used at the Forge School. I know the width of the wristband, every dial and scuff mark. My palm knows its cool weight even before he passes it over.
“Where’d you get this?” I ask.
“I summoned it for you,” he says. “The battery’s dead, but I thought you might like to hold it for a while. Happy birthday.”
I startle. “But I missed my birthday.”
“Yes,” he says, extending the word into a hiss. “But I bought you three extra years of age. You’re nineteen like me now, and I have another present for you. A surprise. I couldn’t bring you to see my grandmother, so I brought my grandmother to see you. Let me help you sit up.”
The ceiling drifts silently higher until the room is unnaturally tall. Through the door comes an old, bent woman with a cane. She teeters into a cone of light from a spotlight high above, so that her white veil gleams over her gray hair. Bizarrely, she’s carrying a dusty wedding gown over one arm and a bouquet of dead flowers in her other hand.
“I thought you could borrow my wedding dress,” she says.
A jolt of panic hits me. “This is wrong,” I say, looking to Ian. “Is this a dream?” I try to smell him for his tobacco, but the air tastes empty.
“If it is a dream, that doesn’t make it untrue,” he says.
“I know what’s real,” I whisper.
“Do you? What about me?”
My heart leaps in terror.
Ian’s face shimmers for a second and comes back into focus, nearer and harshly clear. “Desperate people invent desperate solutions. It’s not my fault if they do,” he says, in the voice of Dean Berg.
“No!” I scream. I bolt up, banging into the lid of my sleep shell.
I wipe madly at the gel on my eyelids and scramble frantically at the curved glass to push it open. I suck in a gulp of air and barely bite back another scream.
The room is dim. I’m alone and fully awake. Shivers of the nightmare fall away from me like black sand, seeping into the floor with a trickling, mocking sound. Rubbing more gel from my eyelids, I find pads and wires stuck to my temples. I rip them off and blink hard. I can’t have imagined Ian. I can’t have dreamed him all those other times. Our conversations have been too real, and he’s brought me things that I know I’ve touched and smelled.
But he’s not here now. I don’t have my video camera. There’s no granny with a veil.
I’m trembling beneath my gown. In the dark, windowless room, two dozen other sleep shells are parked around me with their lids glowing faintly. The open doorway lets in light from the hall. I check instinctively for cameras, but the upper corners of the ceiling are in shadow, and considering the times when Ian lingered to talk to me, we must have been unobserved. This is my first time fully awake with no one hovering, and I can’t waste my chance.
With shaky fingers, I pull down the neckline of my gown to inspect the place where the IV goes into me. A piece of tape holds the IV line in place, and a needle goes directly into the skin over my left breast. The small, foreign lump that serves as a port is fixed under my skin. It feels like a mini jelly donut in there. With a pinch, I loosen the tape and take out the IV needle. A second line leads out of me from a spot several inches below my belly button, and I’m able to disconnect its coupling from the longer tube. I can only hope my plumbing is going to work normally. I swing my legs around and reach my toes down. The floor is cool and smooth underfoot. All I need is a little strength, a little balance, and I lurch across to the next sleep shell.