Into the Real

by Z Brewer

  Caleb snapped the lock off and dropped the bolt cutters to the ground. As the door swung open, Lloyd collapsed out of his prison and into Caleb’s arms. Caleb cradled him. “Come on, Lloyd. I’ve got you.”

  Lloyd looked into Caleb’s eyes, unable to hold back the tears in his. “And here I thought I’d be saving you.”

  After a silent exchange between the two of them—one that was none of our business—we made our way to the creek. The water smelled fresh and clean. The earth was soft beneath my feet. Valerie went first, dipping into the water before holding her breath and swimming beneath the fence. Randall followed. Caleb and Lloyd went together, but Caleb made certain that Lloyd got through to freedom before he did. They were all free, with just a fence, thick bushes, and water between us.

  I stood on the bank, taking deep breaths, preparing myself. I couldn’t swim, as I’d told Caleb before, but what I hadn’t mentioned was how terrified of the water I was. Gathering all my strength and will, I jumped into the creek. After a moment, I dunked my head under the surface to get a feel for it, ready to be free of this damned place forever.

  Damned. Like the staff here thought all queer people were. If we were, then so be it. Better to be damned for being honest than praised for telling lies.

  The moment I came up for a big breath of air, a hand gripped the hair on the top of my head and pulled me from the water. The owner of that hand dragged me onto the creek bank. A large orderly stood over me with a scowl. Beside him were Alice and Dr. Hillard, looking as calm and certain and superior as ever. There was no way they’d missed seeing the others escape. Dr. Hillard said, “And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’”

  But I wasn’t a mother. And I wasn’t female. Not entirely.

  “Quinn’s not a girl. Not a guy either, really. They’re kind of both. Or neither, depending on the day. Depending on a lot of things, I guess.” Lia’s voice came through in my thoughts, bringing with it the sudden vivid memory of that world, that life. I was supposed to do something. Something the Quinn of that world was doing now. So that we could stop the . . . shifting.

  “If you would please escort Quinn to her room, Roderick.” Dr. Hillard began to turn away just as Roderick was dragging me to my feet, but turned back again with a light in his eyes—a light that scared the hell out of me. “On second thought, take the young lady to the Serenity Hut. It would seem she has much healing to accomplish.”

  There was something to be said for the strength of an oppressor, but quite something else for the strength of a person’s resolve when they’ve been attacked. I planted my foot in Roderick’s balls and shoved with all my might. He cried out, crumbling backward. The moment I was free, I dived back into the creek. A strong hand grabbed my arm and pulled. I looked up at Dr. Hillard. His eyes flashed with vile, unhinged hatred. “You will be cleansed, whore! If not through the will of God that has been stowed upon me, then by baptism in his holy name!”

  With his free hand, he pushed my head into the water, holding me there, his fingers tangled in my hair. My lungs burned. I tried to scream, but only bubbles emerged. I wriggled free enough to take a breath, and before I was plunged back under, I heard his babble of insanity—the final sound to reach my ears before I would die, I just knew it. “We ask forgiveness for this child, oh Lord, that she may be welcomed into your heavenly arms this very night!”

  Under I went again, gulping in mouthfuls of water. My head swam. I was drowning. I was dying.

  From within me, I felt the two other Quinns urging me on. Fight. Fight, they said.

  Turning my head, I sank my teeth deep into Dr. Hillard’s arm. In shock and pain, he released his grip. I grabbed a quick breath of air and dived under once more, pushing my fear of the water away long enough to get under the fence and come up on the other side. Once I was there, my friends pulled me to safety.

  Dripping wet and shaking, we hurried to the center of town. Once at the school, the six of us went to the pay phone right outside. There was strength in numbers, after all, and we weren’t guaranteed safety just yet.

  I dialed zero for the operator and placed a collect call to Lia. Every second that passed as the phone rang stretched out into eternity. We were almost safe. I had no idea what was ahead of us, but at least we weren’t at Camp Redemption anymore.

  “Hello?” Her voice filled me with joy. Lia. At long last.

  “Lia! Can you come get me? I mean us. My friends and I broke out of Camp Redemption. We’re at the school.”

  Her tone reminded me of the sunrise—bright and promising. “Oh my God, Quinn! I’m so glad you’re okay! Of course I’ll come.”

  Flashing a grin at Valerie, I said, “She’s coming.”

  “Oh good!” Valerie was grinning too. It was refreshing to see true happiness on her face. I hadn’t realized how muted her smile had been back at the camp. There was joy in freedom.

  Lia broke in. “Who’s that?”

  “That was Valerie. You’ll like her, I promise.” My cheeks hurt, I was smiling so much.

  “Did you break out with a bunch of lesbians? That’s phenomenal. Like some kind of lesbian prison gang.” Lia laughed and so did I.

  I said, “Not exactly. There are six of us here and we’re all over the LGBTQIA spectrum. So we’re more like a renegade queer squad.”

  The phone went silent. Worry filled me that the call had been dropped. “Lia? Are you still there?”

  The silence stretched on, and just when I was about to hang up and call again, Lia said, “Yeah. I just . . . y’know, you’re clearly shaken up after your time in there with all those confused people. Once I get there and get you safely away from all of them, we can talk about this again.”

  My chest tightened sharply. My voice came out hushed—probably because I couldn’t fill my lungs with air. Shock was suffocating me. “None of us are confused. I know more about myself now than before I went to that awful place.”

  “It’s just . . .” Her tone was careful, almost like she was speaking with someone who was on the verge of a mental breakdown. “Those people are really delusional, Quinn. I hope you know that.”

  Those people. Meaning my new friends. Meaning . . . me.

  “Lia . . .” Words froze on my tongue and dissolved. It took me a while to speak again. The silence hung heavy between us. When I spoke, I turned away from Valerie so that maybe she wouldn’t hear the conversation. “How can you be so closed-minded? There’s nothing wrong with anyone under the queer umbrella.”

  There was a distinct pause before she said, “What did they do to you at that place?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She sighed, and when she spoke again, her words were painted with what sounded like frustration. “I mean it sounds like your new friends filled your head with a bunch of crap. I worried you’d change while you were there, but I never expected this.”

  “Neither did I. Not from you.”

  “Listen, I want to be here for you, but I refuse to be there for the people who messed with your head. You said they were all over the ‘LGBTQIA spectrum.’ Do you even hear yourself right now? You do know that all these people who are trying to jump on the gay and lesbian bandwagon because it’s cool are just moving the fight for our rights backward, don’t you?”

  My fingers tightened around the receiver. “What are you talking about? It’s the same fight.”

  “Puh-lease. We were finally gaining some ground and then all this bathroom law bullshit came up and now our rights are being threatened all over again.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lia had always been outspoken and opinionated, but I’d always thought when she was speaking about “our” rights, she meant everyone on the queer spectrum. “Were they ever not threatened? It’s a day-to-day fight for acceptance, Lia. I don’t understand why you’re placing the blame on trans people. We’re in this fight together.”

  Suddenly her tone wasn’t the s
unrise. It was bleak and empty, like darkness in the desert. “Look. I’m not going to argue with you about the effect trans people are having on the rights of gays and lesbians. I’m just not. We both know the T in that initialism never should’ve been added in the first place.”

  So that’s what the love of my life thought of me. She didn’t know I was genderqueer—how could she? But whether or not she knew, how could anyone be such a closed-minded asshole? “Stop it. I don’t even know who you are right now. How could you say those things?”

  “Because it’s the truth! Shit, Quinn, what is wrong with you? You’re talking like some brainwashed idiot.” Her words were venomous. It was like speaking with someone I’d never met before. “Y’know what? Call your brother. I just remembered I’m not in the mood to do you any favors.”

  “Lia—” The phone went dead. The tightness in my chest had given way to pain. After returning the receiver, I looked at my friends, hoping they hadn’t heard—especially Valerie—but knowing they’d probably heard enough. “She’s not coming. We . . . we need a new plan.”

  Valerie wrapped her arms around me in a hug that I very much needed. She was probably the only person in my life who could truly understand what I was going through. As we parted, she said, “It’s okay, Quinn. It’s really okay. All of it.”

  It wasn’t okay. It was so far from okay that it couldn’t even see okay on the horizon. I was in shock, for sure. You think you know a person. But people could always manage to surprise you—both in good ways and bad.

  Lloyd looked more solemn than ever. He squeezed my shoulder and said, “We’ll think of something. Why don’t we sit at one of the picnic tables in the park and talk it over?”

  The park. The cave. The mirror. That’s what the other Quinn was doing. That’s what I was supposed to do now. Enter the cave. Look at my reflection. Search it for answers.

  Meeting Lloyd’s eyes, I said, “Let’s go to the cave instead.”

  The walk across the street and through the park to the cave felt like it passed in slow motion. Valerie and I didn’t talk. The others exchanged quiet conversation, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I was too focused on two memories of the other Quinns filling my head. Lloyd ripping his shoulder free from the crossbow arrow. Kai moving methodically down a line of soldiers, killing them off one bullet at a time. On their heels was a question. The question that the other Quinn, the one facing the mirror now, had asked.

  How could three people look into a mirror and see the same person? The answer, I determined, was within the mirror.

  It had to be.

  5

  “Does it, now?”

  I looked to my right to find the Stranger sitting next to me in the hall, once again wearing filthy scrubs. The loud, high tone that signaled that Lloyd was dying blared in my ears. My face was still slick with my tears and Lloyd’s blood. The mixture stung my eyes. At the moment, I didn’t give a damn about whatever riddle the Stranger had brought me. I just wanted to be alone. “What are you babbling about?”

  “You, but not you, but still you, were about to enter the cave and musing whether or not they . . .” He clucked his tongue, admonishing himself. “You. Whether or not you would find the answer you seek in the mirror.”

  The image of a long, black tongue caressing my cheek filled my mind. It was so vivid, I could almost feel it now. I shuddered and considered how different each of my realities were.

  “Not completely different.” He lit a cigarette with what I recognized to be my lighter and then returned the lighter to his front shirt pocket. “As I told you before, certain things are immutable.”

  “Lia.” My voice was gruff from crying.

  “Not just Lia.” He took a drag and exhaled it in words that gave me a chill. “And not just me.”

  My head was pounding, but not enough that I couldn’t think clearly. I sat up straight with realization. “The mirror. The mirror is a constant. That has to mean something.”

  “Does anything?” Coe turned his eyes to the open door, to the room where Lloyd lay dying, perhaps dead already.

  The shoulders of the people surrounding the operating table sagged in defeat. Machines were turned off. A nurse scribbled something on a clipboard. The time of death, I assumed.

  Lloyd was dead. In two realities, Lloyd was dead.

  In two realities, it was my fault.

  The coin spun in circles, wobbled a bit, and then fell on my desktop with a clink. Pinching it between my forefinger and thumb, I spun it again and watched the silver blur. It wasn’t something to do while people readied a grave for Lloyd’s body outside, not fifty yards from where I was sitting. It was more that it was nothing to do. That was all I wanted at the moment. Just a little nothing amid all the painful something.

  I couldn’t go outside and watch them dig the grave. Not this grave. I couldn’t watch them lower the sheet-wrapped body down into it and cover it with dirt. Not Lloyd’s body. And I damn sure couldn’t listen to the proud, loving words that people would say about him. The sensation in my chest was an unbearable fullness, as if I were ready to burst from sorrow. If I attended his funeral, I might just lose my mind.

  I could feel the other Quinns urging me to go to the mirror, to gaze at my—our—reflection. Go, they said. The answer is there.

  But I didn’t much give a fuck about finding how to stop the shifts from one reality to the next. What was the point? In every life, I’d feel alone. In every life, I’d have horrors to face. And what made me so worthy of being rescued from this endless maze? I was a monster.

  Still pinned to the map on my wall was that small piece of paper on which I had, at some point that I couldn’t recall, written “You can’t run from the monster. The monster is you.” I looked at it for a good, long time, reading it over and over again, trying hard to absorb its meaning. Had I been running from myself? Had I been struggling with facing the reality of who and what I was? If I was honest with myself, the answer was a resounding yes. Fear had held me back for so long—fear of judgment, fear of rejection. But I’d kept on running, stayed quiet about being genderqueer, fell in line, kept my secret. But sooner or later, the monster was going to catch up with me. Because I couldn’t run from myself no matter how hard I tried. I had to face my truth. It was the only path to truly being free.

  My thoughts drifted to the mirror. Why were the other Quinns so certain I needed to enter the cave, to gaze into the mirror’s surface? Did the truth of my shifting realities lie within my reflection? Or was it something more?

  Inside my heart I felt a tug of understanding. How could three people each look into a mirror and see the same person?

  They couldn’t . . . could they? Could we?

  With a timid step, Susan entered my office, a mug in her hand. Steam wafted up from its contents. She eyed me warily, and when she spoke, her voice shook. I wasn’t the only one mourning. She said, “I brought you some coffee.”

  “Thank you.” I kept my tone calm and kind, even though I was feeling anything but. The coffee smelled wonderful—perhaps more so because I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since the day before. The day that Lloyd had died. “Is . . . is everything going okay out there?”

  “The service is over. It was beautiful.”

  She didn’t say “You should’ve been there,” or anything else that would have made me feel like shit. She understood why I hadn’t gone. Without me even explaining it, she understood.

  Approaching with careful steps, she placed the mug on the desk in front of me and took a seat. “I’m so sorry, Quinn. About Lloyd, about Kai, about Caleb . . . about Lia. I wish—”

  “Stop.” Susan knew about Lia. Which meant that everyone did. I closed my eyes, and, in a whisper, I said, “Just be here. Just be here with me right now. I need a friend.”

  “Of course.” The words came out without hesitation.

  “I was wrong about you.” I didn’t meet her eyes. Like a coward, I couldn’t meet them. “You’re fully capable of going in
to battle. You’re capable of so much more than so many in Brume think. The fact that you’re a woman doesn’t matter, and I should have voiced that before.”

  Susan hesitated. “I . . . I appreciate you saying so, sir.”

  “Quinn.”

  Taken aback, her tone softened. “Pardon me, sir?”

  I looked her in the eye. “We’re friends, right? Call me Quinn.”

  “Quinn . . .” She rolled the name off her tongue as if feeling it out. Then she said, “Intel’s come back that the Allegiance is making plans to double down their efforts here in Brume. More soldiers. More weapons. And they’re moving fast. With Caleb and Kai dead, they’re out for blood. They want revenge. Resistance members are afraid. Everyone is. They’re losing hope of ever achieving peace.”

  Peace. All I ever wanted was peace.

  I was done running. I’d never be able to stop the fighting here. Could never bring the peace to my people that they so richly deserved. Not until I found peace on my own. Hard as it was, I had to admit to myself that I knew how to achieve my own peace. And if I accomplished that, maybe they could all feel at peace as well.

  “Quinn?” Susan’s words were a concerned whisper. “You went pale just then. Are you okay?”

  At last, I raised my eyes to meet her gaze, a weary smile on my face. “I’m fine. I just wanted to apologize for not treating you right when I had the chance.”

  “I . . . Yes. Of course, sir.” Sir. Some habits were hard to break.

  I stared for a moment at my reflection in the coffee mug. Then, with a decisive nod, I stood and moved out the door without another word. On guard duty was Gregg—a soldier in his fifties who had never failed me in the past, despite his initial reluctance at following such a young leader. On my way out, I told him, “Whatever you do, don’t let anyone follow me.”

  “Sir?”

  I barked over my shoulder, “Don’t question my orders, soldier. Just do it.”