The Lost Girl

4

Illusion



We walk to the bus stop together, Nikhil, Sasha, and I. With each step, I feel a little sicker, my schoolbag heavier.

I’ve got a ham sandwich in my bag, a packet of crisps (chips, I have to remember to call them chips like they do here), a chocolate bar, a copy of Amarra’s schedule, and the books that seemed to fit the lessons she has on Monday. I am prepared but not prepared. I don’t know what to expect. What if they take one look at me and, like Neil, realize I’m a fake?

The only difference is that Neil knows Amarra’s echo exists. Her friends don’t. They’ll have no reason to question who I am.

Unless I make a mistake.

“It’s a private school,” says Nikhil, quite out of the blue. His voice is mild. “International. It’s quite small, about five hundred kids. So everyone knows who everyone else is, you know?”

Great. That’s all I need. To not be anonymous. But I appreciate the warning.

“You’ll be in the high school bit. Your classroom door is supposed to be yellow, but I think it’s more like the color of puke. The watercooler by the football field’s always broken, so don’t try using it ’cause Amarra always knew it was broken and used the one in the high school courtyard instead.” He hesitates. “You probably know most things already. But I just thought there might be stuff you never learned.”

“I never knew about the watercooler,” I say softly. “Thank you.”

He will never look at me and see Amarra. I understand that he’s telling me so. Nikhil reminds me of Sean, not physically, but in that sense of a boy older than his years. The comparison is so painful I have to turn away.

When I’ve recovered, I smile at him. He either doesn’t see it or pretends he hasn’t. I mention the heat. I’ve never known heat like this.

“Nik,” says Sasha, “will you play the swinging game with me?”

“Yeah, sure, Sash.”

Nikhil holds out a hand, and Sasha grabs it. She reaches with her other hand for one of mine. She hangs off our arms, giggling and kicking her legs up. I laugh in spite of myself, and a furtive grin flickers across Nikhil’s face, and this is how we arrive at the bus stop.

The trip on the bus is less stressful than I expected. It gives me more time to brace myself for our arrival at school. I know one of Amarra’s best friends, Jaya, is on the same bus, but she doesn’t turn up. I’d recognize her if I saw her. Straight haired and friendly, the kindest of them. Then there’s Sonya, who hates her nose, is loud, and has a temper. Responsible for that messy haircut. Then there are a few other names that often cropped up in her journal pages. And Ray, of course.

I close my eyes and let the humid air through the bus window hit my face. Air is not like this in England, so heavy and warm and salty. The city passes by in dust, concrete, and trees. I watch vendors hawking their wares by the roadside. Corn on the cob, green mangoes, coconuts, fat gooseberries wrapped in newspaper and spiced with lime and chili powder. As each thing passes me by, my tongue tingles, tasting the phantom flavors.

I’ve never been to school. I don’t know how I am going to figure out the classroom politics or get used to the atmosphere. I wish I had a road map or how-to book.

Suddenly it’s as if Sean is sitting right beside me, his jean-clad knees braced up against the seat in front of us, his eyes twinkling.

“Ask me nicely,” he says, “and maybe I’ll write a play about it. It would sell out in hours, don’t you think? Gripping things, how-to guides.”

I turn my head back to the window, tears prickling my eyes. I reach blindly for the bracelet clasped around my wrist. Shells woven together. Touching it makes me feel better.

When we get to school, I move as though I’m in a trance, following pictures in my head. It’s a simple enough campus to find your way around. It’s pretty, with its courtyards and trees and an open green soccer field. The grass is overgrown, stamped down by all the feet that have run there. Over the field, sparrows arc through the air and disappear into the sky. I watch enviously. If you fly fast and far enough, is it possible to vanish forever?

I find my way to the high school, a courtyard of its own surrounded by classrooms, a stairway leading up to an open terrace. There’s so much light and color.

There are people around my age everywhere, chattering, laughing, vanishing in and out of classrooms, frantically scribbling last night’s homework. My hands are clammy, and sweat breaks out on the back of my neck. I glance at the faces around me, recognizing several from photographs.

“Amarra!”

I stop in my tracks and turn.

“You’re back,” says a boy standing a few feet behind me. “We thought it’d be a while longer before we saw you, the way your mother was going on about your injuries. You look okay, no scars or anything. Feel all right?”

I nod.

“Cool,” he says. “Glad you’re okay.” He turns back to his friends, most of whom are glowering at him.

“Can’t believe you mentioned injuries and scars,” someone hisses. “Seriously?”

The first boy is bewildered. “What?”

A girl, rummaging through her schoolbag on the ground, glances up. She has thick, wavy hair and beady, birdlike brown eyes. She’s pretty in a sturdy, snub-nosed way. “You are tactful as always, Sam,” she says. Her voice is high and clear. “Tact bleeds out of you.”

“Says you,” one of the other boys scoffs good-naturedly. “You wouldn’t know tact if it bit you.”

“Was it me who accosted the poor girl first thing in the morning? I’ve got better manners than that, unlike some people—cough, Sam, cough. As if anyone would bombard somebody so early. I can’t even process basic math before lunchtime.”

I slip away. I flip through my memories to find their names. The boy is Sam. Samir. The girl? Lekha. I remember now. She sat in class photos with her chin in her hands. She has the brightest eyes, like there is always something to laugh about. Neither one featured much in Amarra’s journal pages, but it’s a small class and they all know one another.

Nikhil’s tip about the yellowish door helps. I take a shaky breath and go in. Of the twenty-three people I know are in this class, most have settled down already. I brace myself for instant discovery.

Instead, a girl approaches me, pointy-faced and sharp-eyed. “Hey,” she says. She’s trying to be gentle, but her voice is loud. I wince, convinced it will draw everybody’s attention. “You recognize me, don’t you?”

What an odd question. My heart skips uneasily. Does she know?

“Sonya,” I say.

“Yay!” she says happily, tucking her arm in mine. “I knew it’d be fine.” I stare at her, brow tense, and she explains, “Oh, your mom told us. You know? About the head injury? She said you’ve been having trouble remembering stuff, so to be gentle with you. But I knew you couldn’t have, like, forgotten us.” She tightens her grip on my arm. Her lip trembles. “I cried so much when I heard. You’re okay, right?”

Incredibly, Alisha has given me room for mistakes, diminished my chances of exposure. Amarra’s acting different? Blame it on her head injury. Amarra can’t remember something big? It’s that memory problem.

I clear my throat, trying to find a suitably Amarra-like reply. All I can come up with is “Oh, sure. I’ll be fine.”

I’m doing a poor job. I struggle to pull myself together, to regain my wits and force myself to get used to lying.

“Come on,” says Sonya. “You should sit down, rest. Your mom will kill me if you collapse or something.”

We slip into their usual places at the back of the classroom. The seating’s not assigned, but people pick their favorite spots and stay there most of the year. I spot pencil scribbles on Amarra’s desk, notes between Sonya, Amarra, and Jaya—and there, scratched into the wood at the edge of the desk, the names AMARRA and RAY with a slightly demented-looking heart scratched in between.

I swallow. She was just a girl who did sweet, silly normal things like scratch her boyfriend’s name into wood. Then she went away, and none of these people who loved her know that she never came back.

I’m lucky. I don’t have to speak much. Sonya does most of it for me. She flings books onto her desk, chattering nonstop. “Have you seen Ray? He looks rotten. Serves him right—I mean, seriously, he could have killed you! You haven’t talked to him, have you? Your mom told me she didn’t want anyone disturbing you while you recovered, so I guess that includes Ray. She’s not happy with him right now. He’s a dumbass. Is your cell still broken? I’m sick of calling the house.”

Cell? It throws me for a split-second before I remember. Cell phone. All my guardians called it the British mobile.

“I think I’m getting a new phone sometime this week.”

“Good. Do you know how weird it is not being able to talk to you for hours every evening?”

I try to hide my alarm. “God, I know,” I say. I rub my clammy palms on my knees. I could give myself away at any second. Head injuries don’t make someone’s skin almost a different color, for a start—a life in another climate does. Amarra’s accent was never hugely different from mine, but her speech pattern was more like Sonya’s. I’m not sure my tongue wants to work its way around the word dumbass.

Sonya is still chirping on. “Amarra, you and I need to have a serious talk about this almost-getting-yourself-killed hoopla. I don’t want to get all mushy, but I really, really hate the world without you, so could you kindly refrain from doing it ever again?”

The words stick in my throat, but I make myself say them. “Okay,” I say, forcing a twisted grin. “I promise.”

Sonya makes me “pinkie promise.” I comply, my jaw aching from biting back the urge to be sick all over her. I pull myself together. I have to do this.

“Ray’s not sitting with us,” Sonya pipes up, a little too loudly. “That was weird. He stood at the door staring at you, like he couldn’t believe you were actually here. Then he made this funny face and went and sat in the middle.” It takes all my willpower, but I don’t look around for him. “Does he think you’re pissed off about the accident? Or is he doing his angst thing and blaming himself? I won’t be surprised if he makes like a tortured vampire and tells you he’s too dangerous for you.” Before I can reply, she straightens slightly. “Damn, she’s here.”

A teacher walks in. Mrs. Singh, all bones and elbows and sour faced. She’s in charge of the eleventh grade, and she also teaches English Literature. Very few people like her. According to Amarra, she’s too strict and she has a twisted sense of humor.

Everybody falls silent and settles into their places. Mrs. Singh opens her class register. As she runs through the names, she makes the odd dry remark, including casting serious doubt on Sonya’s claim that Jaya is sick today. When she gets to Amarra’s name, she sniffs and says, “Oh. I see you’ve recovered, Amarra. How nice to have you back,” in a tone that doesn’t sound like she takes pleasure in seeing any of us.

I suppose I should be grateful. If she knew what I was, she might have followed my name with “Well, children, I’m sure you’ve noticed Amarra’s echo by now. Remember, we must try to treat her like we did dear, departed Amarra and not like the unnatural life-stealing stain upon our world that she is. Is that clear?”

At the sound of my name, a black-haired boy two rows ahead of us stiffens. He turns his head to look back at me, then turns quickly forward again as our eyes meet. I catch a glimpse of his profile—flawless like marble; gorgeous.

Ray.

Why did he go sit there? I wipe my damp palms on my skirt, wishing I could see into his head, work out what he’s thinking. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t come straight to Amarra, hug her, hold her. Unless he knows that I am not the girl he loved.

I swallow hard, trying to make my heart slow down. It isn’t necessarily that. He could just be hunched up there blaming himself for the accident, like Sonya thinks he is, convincing himself Amarra’s better off without him. Sonya seems to think Ray capable of such tortured angst.

“Enough dawdling,” says Mrs. Singh, banging her register closed. “Anyone doing economics needs to be out of here in one minute. Mr. Fernandes isn’t in school, so you’ll have the class upstairs with a sub. Literature students, stay where you are—Karan, pull your trousers up this instant. I won’t stand for this nonsense of wearing one’s trousers below one’s bottom.”

“I have stupid economics,” says Sonya to me. “Will you be okay?”

I nod. She collects her things and disappears with half the class. I study Amarra’s schedule, memorizing it. She had three different lessons on Mondays. Double English Lit, then a break, followed by double geography, lunch, two free periods, and a single slot of English language. I know what she had been learning before she died. I learned it too.

I search Amarra’s bag until I find Macbeth and Wuthering Heights, her notebook, and her locker keys, which will give me access to everything else. The rest of the class, the ones still here, go through a similar ritual. I take note of the way they tuck their hair behind their ears or slouch in their chairs. Their conversations drift around me.

“Did you manage to finish chapter six?”

“I couldn’t be bothered. It’s such a stupid book. I mean, it’s not like anybody acts like this is real life—”

“It’s meant to be gothic, you idiot, you know, like Keats—”

“Personally”—I recognize the owner of this voice. Lekha, bright-eyed and wise-voiced—“I think you’re being absolute Palestines about this. Don’t you have any sense of Victorian culture at all?”

“Did you just call me a country?”

“No, I called you a person with no sense of culture.”

“No, you called me a Palestine. That’s a country.”

“Is it really?” says Lekha, sounding fascinated. “How odd. I always thought the country was called Philistine.”

I smother a giggle in spite of myself. Then, from two rows ahead of me, I hear: “Why is she sitting by herself, do you think?”

“Ray won’t look at her, it’s weird.”

“Shhh, she’ll hear you.”

I realize the last conversation is about me, and my face goes warm. I hastily look down at my copy of Wuthering Heights. I try to focus on it, shut out my awkwardness, my anxiety, but distracting myself from the classroom only makes me think of my guardians. Of Mina Ma. Of Sean. I swallow back my longing for my cottage by the shore of the lake. I can’t bring myself to accept that that life is over. That I will never see them again. I can’t accept that.

I know Wuthering Heights backward by now, so I don’t find the lesson hard. I stay quiet and let Mrs. Singh pick on others for answers to her questions. It cheers me up a little, knowing that I know as much, if not more, than they do about the book.

I try to imagine what Sean would say to this, his good-humored mockery, his wry voice in my ear. But it’s hard. I’m painfully aware that Sean is not really standing by my shoulder. I know the air rustling by my ear is not the sound of his breath. I imagine Mina Ma snapping her fingers in front of my nose, saying, “What use is this? Is it helping you? Get back to their world, child.”

So I push them away. My chest aches for them, but I pretend it doesn’t. Pretending has begun to get easier.

By the time the last bell rings, I am thoroughly drained by the day and the effort of being alert and tense all the time. I collect my things and follow Sonya to the buses. She gives me a hug and races off to catch her bus, at the front of the line outside the gates. Mine is fifth in line. I hover by the gates, waiting.

A familiar face joins me. “Hi,” I say to Nikhil. “How was your day?”

“It was okay,” he says. “How was yours?”

“It could have been a lot worse,” I tell him truthfully.

“Must be hard to pretend.”

I hesitate, then say, “I don’t know if it’s all right to talk to you about your sister, or if it’s too hard—”

“It’s all right,” he says. His eyes are like an undisturbed pool of water. “I don’t mind. But don’t ask me if I miss her or if I’m sad. Those are dumb questions.”

I acknowledge that. “I was only going to say that your mother’s told people Amarra had a head injury and now has trouble remembering some things. It’s made it a bit easier for me to get away with mistakes.”

“Mom believes you’re Amarra,” says Nik, starting toward our bus, which has drawn up level with the gates. “She says she’s not stupid; she knows you’re different. But she says she really, truly sees Amarra when she looks at you. She says she’s still here.”

“Your father doesn’t agree.”

“No,” says Nik, “but he won’t tell her that she’s wrong. He says that if we force her to believe something else, it’ll just cause her a lot of pain.”

“What do you think?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I want her to be here, but I don’t think she is. At least not the way Mom thinks she is. She’s not you.”

“Do you resent me because of that?”

“No, but Dad does. He doesn’t like looking at you.” He catches a glimpse of my expression, and a tiny frown skitters over his brow. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“He doesn’t mean it,” Nikhil offers. “It’s not his fault. You don’t know my parents. You don’t know how much they loved my sister.”

“Don’t I?” I ask him. “I know they loved her so much that I was made.”

He smiles.

We’re at the steps of the bus when I stop, like I’ve walked into a wall. Ray is a few feet to my right, and he’s crouching down to talk to Sasha. My pulse jolts in panic, and I clutch the strap of my schoolbag very tightly. Sasha knows I’m not Amarra. She calls me by that name, but she knows. What if he asks her? What if she tells him about my “holiday” and my mysterious arrival with a strange man?

“Sash!” Nik calls, and I almost faint with relief. “Come on, we have to go!”

“Okay,” she says brightly. “Bye, Ray!”

He watches them as they get on the bus, then turns his gaze on me again. I can’t move. I don’t know what to do. Every instinct wants to run, but I know that’s not what she would have done.

Ray gives me a sad, confused look. It’s familiar by now: that look of someone searching my eyes for something. I try to look relaxed, shy, happy. But it’s so hard. He’s searching for her in me and I’m terrified that if he looks long enough he’ll realize she’s not there.

I know what I’m supposed to do. I can’t kiss him. But I could go to him, touch him. Only I don’t know if I want to touch him or not. I don’t know how to feel about him.

I compromise by standing still.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” I say.

A conflicting mixture of emotions cross his face: relief, and delight, and confusion.

“I thought you might be angry,” he says. “I could have gotten you killed.”

I make myself smile. Her smile, practiced from photo-graphs. “I don’t do angry.”

“Well, you should. I’m so sorry.”

“It was an accident,” I remind him. There’s perfect truth to that, because I was there too. I was watching as she died.

He shuffles his feet. “Are you okay? I heard about your head—”

“It’s made my memory fuzzy,” I say, taking the only route I can. “I have blanks, bits I can’t remember, especially the last year. I know you. I know that we . . . that you and I—well, you know. We were together. But there’s so much that’s foggy, and the doctors say it could be weeks before it starts coming back. I just . . . I can’t remember us as well as I should.”

My heart is pounding so fast I’m afraid I might faint. The words trip out, much too quickly, but he doesn’t question me.

“Sorry,” I add softly.

“It’s okay,” he says. He very carefully takes my hand. I swallow. “We could go out sometime this week, just to talk? You can ask me questions and I can tell you stuff you’ve forgotten. Amarra,” he says, and his voice is so tender, so desperate to believe every word I’m telling him, that it’s agony to listen to him. “I love you. I’ll always love you. But right now we don’t have to be what we were. We can start again if you want.”

This is it. This is why I came here. This is what I was woven to be. She loved him and I must give that a chance.

There is only one answer I can give him.

“Yes,” I say. “I’d like that.”

His eyes light up. I feel so guilty I could break something.

“Saturday?” he asks.

I nod.

“Okay.” He glances at the bus. “You better get on or they’ll leave you behind.” He kisses me on the cheek, so lightly his lips are a breath. I blush.

I reach for the handle by the bus step, but before I can leave him behind, he says, “Amarra?”

“Yeah?”

“It is you, right?”

My heart plummets.

Lie.

I have to.

Lie.

I force a smile. “See you tomorrow,” I say. And I get on the bus.