her mother’s promises, that the girl in her home was not her sister at all.
Things began well at dinner. There was food to compliment. Sasha demanded extra peppers and made everybody laugh by spilling them, and Alisha kept up a lively stream of chatter. But even she couldn’t do this indefinitely, not on her own. When Matthew went suspiciously silent, the talk died.
I glare sideways at him now, knowing his silence stems from a malicious desire to see what we do, to watch how we struggle to find level ground to stand on. But my glare has no effect on him. He smiles and continues to tap his foot, tap, tap, against the table leg. I wonder who he’s punishing. Me? Them? Is he simply doing this out of interest, the way someone might put a rat and hawk together in a cage to see what happens?
My stomach is knotted tight. I wonder if I will ever be able to relax in this house.
Dinner has to end at some point and it does, after what felt to all of us like an entire historical era. I watch Matthew leave with mixed feelings. He was something from my old life, my own world. He made me. But he’s also the man who knows enough about me to destroy me.
“Why don’t I take your things upstairs?” Neil says.
Alisha frowns at my bags, as if noticing them for the first time. “Why did you need to bring so much? All your things are here.”
“It’s, erm—” I stammer. “It’s just stuff.”
“Oh.” Alisha catches Neil’s eye and lets it go. She touches my cheek. “Do you want me to come up and say good night in a bit?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to go straight to bed now.”
Watched by eyes that are pretending not to, I walk up the stairs and to Amarra’s room without error. Even if I struggle with pretending to be her, my memories of her life, whatever they told me, are crystal clear. I don’t hesitate when I reach the landing that splits off two ways, and I find it very easy to choose the right bedroom door.
I hesitate on the threshold, in the dark doorway. My hand reaches automatically up to the light switch on the right. I remember that this is not my room. The switch here is on the left. No one ever told me that. I learned it from the photographs. Why would you tell somebody where switches are? It’s not something anybody would think of. It is only by the grace of memory that I recall seeing them.
Neil follows me in and puts my bags down.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He hovers by the door for a moment. “If you need anything—”
“I’ll ask. Thanks.”
He turns for the door, then stops and looks back. “Who are you?”
“Amarra.” He doesn’t look satisfied. Hesitating, I add: “An echo of Amarra.”
“Is she there?”
It’s almost funny. Is she here? As though my body is a house and everyone is knocking. They want to know if she’s home.
“I am,” I answer, and let him make of that what he will.
He nods. “Good night.”
The door shuts behind him. My shoulders drop. I realize how stiff, how tense they have been all evening. There’s a stabbing ache between my shoulder blades. I relax now that I am alone. Now I can take off the mask. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before opening them again.
I face the room squarely, taking in every stark detail of the life a girl has lost. It’s a funny sort of word to use at a time like this, lost. You lose your keys. Your phone. Your favorite shoes. And often you find those things again, days or weeks later, under the sofa or buried in the back of a closet. But it isn’t quite the same for a lost life. A lost girl. Can you find those things again?
Everything—from the clothes strewn on the bed to the photographs on the desk to the books on the shelves—breathes of somebody else’s world. Where has she gone? Her clothes are here, her ancient teddy bear, her computer. Nothing has been touched. The room smells of a girl, but it’s not me. She wore something with a soft mango scent. If I listen, I can almost hear her voice. On the phone with Sonya or Jaya. Brushing Sasha’s hair. Giggling with Ray on the bed, shushing him so her parents won’t hear them. Where is she?