Whispering Minds

by A. T. O'Connor

  Toward the end of my stay with Granny, my alters had emerged in my real life, their existence clashing with the onslaught of hormones at puberty. I wanted to spare Granny the pain of coming across angry Brutus, depressed Luna or promiscuous Indie. My journal recounted things that shocked me. Through Indie, I learned to pick the locks of the out buildings. Because of Brutus, I broke my favorite farm cat’s leg when it puked on my pillow, then promptly tried to overdose on Tylenol and mouthwash.

  I failed English and smoked out on the dock by the pond.

  In my last treasure box, I quit writing.

  My notebooks were virtually empty, and I had to flip through dozens of pages at a time to find an entry. Stuck between the pages at the end of the book was a project for health class just before my move home to Prairie Flats. I’d drawn a speedboat smashing into a dock shaped like a whiskey bottle.

  A ragged crack split the boat in two. When I looked closely, the splintered edges spelled the word Jimmy. On one side of the crack sat my parents, unaware that our boat had busted apart. Granny sat on the other side, peering over the edge into the water where I floundered in the waves.

  Eleven stick figures stood on the dock, each one throwing a life ring.

  A note from the teacher completed the illustration. Ugly red pen bled across the page, “The instructions were to draw a picture of your family. Yours has far too many people to be accurate and deserves an F for not following directions.”

  Below that, in pencil, I had written, “Goodbye, me.”

  In the end, I had asked to return to my parent’s house in Prairie Flats. The request must have crushed Granny and fueled the cycle of guilt and abuse between my parents, plunging them into a downward spiral of fear that I’d learn their secrets, as well as renewed alcoholism to deal with the stress. For me, the next four years passed in a quiet flurry of mundane activity. College prep, music competitions and work. By sheer force of will, I had defeated my past and moved into a better place where I could function as a normal teenager.

  And then something happened to rekindle a need for my individual alters. Collin came to mind, but I didn’t think he was the cause. He simply facilitated their emergence and captured it on tape.

  I looked at the clock—10:17 am—and called Clarence to let him know where I was. It was the least I owed him. Besides, the last thing I needed was to get banished from his home and sent to foster care via Sarah Stemple.

  His voice came across the phone strong and clear and not at all concerned about a missing girl.

  “Clarence, it’s me. Gemi.”

  “I was wondering when you would call.”

  I swallowed my guilt. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t sleep and wanted to collect some things from Granny’s.”

  “I figured as much. Are you still there?”

  “Yes. I...can I stay here for the rest of the day? And how is Mom?”

  “We admitted her to the hospital again this morning.”

  My throat constricted. “Is she okay?”

  “She was coughing up some blood. They think she punctured a lung.”

  “Can I see her tonight?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. Afterward, we’ll have dinner with Travis and his dad.” Before I could protest, he continued. “It’s our Sunday night tradition.”

  I wanted to ask if he’d cleared this with Travis yet, but I couldn’t disrespect him in that way. I mumbled my consent into the phone.

  “Maybe then we can talk about that email you sent this morning.”

  My body flushed at the thought of him seeing those videos. “So you got it, huh?”

  “Got it and already passed it on to the cops. I believe the Chief has made a visit to a certain downtown apartment. You did the right thing, Gemini.”

  I bit my lip before adding the last bit of drama to the morning. “One more thing, when I got here last night, the front door had been smashed in.”

  Clarence’s response wasn’t exactly reassuring. “I’ll send Travis over as soon as he gets off work.”

  After hanging up, I pulled out another flash drive. I only had a few hours to cull all the ones with me on them before handing the rest over to Clarence. A video of the boy from the OCD case study opened on the screen. His blond hair fell ragged over his gray-green eyes, and he blew his bangs away every few seconds. It was a copy of his interview on OCD. I skipped to the end and came across a second interview. This one pegged him as having Traumatic Brain Injury.

  In this interview, he seemed completely normal. There were no cards to distract him, only the blank table. As the interview progressed, he admitted the struggles he faced were caused by damage to his brain when the car he was riding in crashed. He explained his gambling compulsion—with money and with his life—and spoke honestly about his inability to control his emotions. One minute he could be up and the next he would be fighting mad. This temper had earned him a place in juvie once or twice over the years. His childhood had been disastrous. He’d been taken away, he said, because he had sexually assaulted his sister.

  My blood chilled in my veins as I watched the way he told his story. His eyes never left the camera. He linked his hands together like he was praying, let his fingers close completely against the backs of his hands, then open again. He repeated this gesture over and over. It gave the impression that his hands were a living organism. Spiderlike.

  In an instant, his calm voice filled with tears. His hands shifted, crawling in place. “But I don’t remember it. I don’t remember ever hurting her. They just told me it’s true.”

  The boy dropped his head into the crook of his arms, his hands still clasped in front of his head, moving in time to his sobs. Numbers crawled across the bottom of the screen, ticking away the minutes. The date stamp read November seventh. Eight days before I launched my dream project.

  Collin’s voice broke in. “What’s your sister’s name?”

  The boy answered without lifting his head. Words the microphone didn’t pick up.

  Collin’s were crystal clear. “So it wasn’t you who deserved the bum rap. It was your sister. Probably made it all up just to get you in trouble. I bet she started it. She did, didn’t she?”

  The sobbing calmed to a soft hiccuppy sigh. The fingers tightened on each other. He shook his head.

  “Oh come on, of course she started it. How did it happen? An innocent kiss good night? A door she forgot to close before changing?”

  The boy’s knuckles turned white and stilled like carved stone. The spider had died and its legs were locked tight. To open them would be to break them. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know you didn’t. But she did.” Collin’s voice had an edge to it. I pictured his lips curved up and his eyes sparking with excitement. How had he convinced anyone to interview with him? What had he promised? He pushed some more. “What are you going to do to her? How is she going to make it up to you?”

  The boy lurched out of his chair and slammed his fists into the table. His face was engorged and his eyes looked ready to pop. “I’ll kill her.”

  Bile rose in my throat, and I removed the drive. Collin needed to be taken down. There was nothing scientific about watching kids fall apart. Egging them on was criminal. Without a doubt, these private videos of Collin tormenting mentally ill kids were far more damning than the porn movies he’d posted online.

  A second drive showed a party at Collin’s apartment. Nothing out of the ordinary beyond a keg, dice games and couples draped over each other on the couch. Someone, Collin’s roommate, must have walked around with a video camera waiting for something exciting to pop up. Five minutes into the video, I became the entertainment. The back bedroom door opened, and I stormed down the hall, wearing a pair of tight jeans and a see-through top. The shirt was torn at the shoulder and an angry welt flared on my upper arm, showing distinct lines like fingerprints.

  I flashed back to Christmas Eve when those same marks marred my skin. Now I knew where those bruises came from.

  B
ack on the computer screen, the camera froze on my face, catching my look of disgust—and a freshly blackened eye—as I whirled on the camera man. “You can tell your sick friend that if he ever tries to lay a hand on me again, I’ll take him down.”

  I pushed through the crowd and out the front door. The camera retraced my steps down the hall. Just before entering, the angle changed, as if the camera had been dropped to a casual place at someone’s side.

  Collin sat on the bed, near the wooden headboard. A chair sat beside it, draped with clothes. The imprint of an opened hand showed red on his pale cheek. Four parallel scratches drew blood along the finger lines. He laughed and turned his head toward the camera man. “Bitch is crazy.”

  The camera jerked, as if the product of a nod. The scenery swayed and twirled before settling down to reveal a close up of the dingy carpet. “I caught her face on the way out. She threatened you if you ever touched her again. Is this something we need to worry about?”

  “Nah.” Collin’s voice sounded muffled.

  “You sure? Because I have her on tape threatening you in case we need it”

  “Good man, Braydin. Bet your mom never expected you to use your talent quite this way, huh?”

  A mumbled agreement could be heard through the microphone, and the carpet shifted in and out of focus a few times.

  “Wanna tell James I need to talk to him?”

  My blood chilled, and I pulled the drive from the USB slot.

  James was alive.

  Chapter 36

  James was real.

  This one detail made no sense. It hadn’t in my perfect world of merging personalities. James could not be separate and yet a part of me.

  “Where is James?”

  For once the Dozen didn’t answer. Their eerie silence punctuated only by JayJay’s continuous loop of Johnny Horton.

  --whispering minds--

  “Where is James?”

  He’s not here. Rae, my voice of reason.

  The skin on the back of my neck prickled. “Has he ever been there?”

  Oh yes. The yellow room is full of him.

  And yet, he’s never here.

  Not like the rest of us.

  “Ever? Even when…even before I knew but didn’t know?” The question barely made sense to me, but I knew what I was asking. Back in middle school I had known my alters. They had been a part of me. They were my life rings keeping me from drowning as I navigated the rippled waters of my childhood. They had disappeared for nearly four years, suppressed by the real lack of threat to my survival. This was when I wanted to know about. The time after my brother Jimmy died and the Baker’s Dozen James emerged.

  The murmuring in my head was an insistent hum, like the buzzing of an electrical wire charged with energy. In the midst of the current, my body tingled, every muscle stretched tight. Something nagged at me, but I couldn’t place it.

  “Einstein, do you feel the same question? Like we missed something big?”

  Through the background static of my inner conversation, Einstein confirmed that we were, indeed, missing a vital piece to the puzzle. Yet it was something we had been told. Or something we had read. I wondered how, with so many entities inside me, I could misplace even the smallest detail.

  Rae spoke, confirming my biggest fear. We feel him, but we have never seen him.

  “Ever?” The question echoed in the air and through my body.

  Jimmy, my Jimmy, had disappeared one day from the closet with our dad. He never returned from the car accident. James of the Dozen was never present during my middle school writings. Just the faint presence like a coating of milk after the glass is emptied. Something that dried opaque. Residue in my mind.

  Then, he emerged. A participant in my dream study. A full force online. And now, a living, breathing boy on a video.

  All this I rejected. We were the Dozen, and James was a part of us. I just hadn’t figured out yet what his role was in our lives.

  The sound of an engine drew near. My heart jumped into my throat, and I scrambled from my perch on the couch, ducking down so nobody could see me through the window. The engine sped up and moved past the driveway. The scare propelled me into action. I grabbed the flash drives and took them to my cubby. Tonight I would bring them with me—a present for the cops that would seal Collin’s fate. But first, I needed to find James and confront the last of the Dozen so I could once again become whole.

  Another foray through Granny’s house turned up no new information.

  Needing a break, I called Mom’s hospital room to check in. When she answered the phone, she sounded shaky, but sober. Of course she was sober. Hospitals had a way of forcing that on a person. “Gemi. I’m glad you called. Are you on your way here?”

  My stomach clenched. I debated asking her for the answers I sought, but couldn’t follow through. She was still too vulnerable. I had to stay at Granny’s until I found the last key in the mystery of my life. “I can’t, Mom. Something came up, and I have to head out of town for the rest of the night. I’m staying with Clarence now…until you come home.”

  “I know, honey. You should have done that a long time ago. I should have fixed things a long time ago.”

  “Mom, I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can. But you shouldn’t have to. You’re just a baby, Gemi, too young to take care of yourself. Too young to take care of your parents.” Mom’s voice bordered on hysterical.

  “Mom.” It wasn’t quite a holler, but it was definitely sharp. I heard an intake of breath from across the line. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay. They’ll let me out as soon as I remember where Tracy lives.”

  Wanting her calm, I softened my voice. “Mom, you don’t know anyone named Tracy.”

  “Oh yes I do. My sister’s name is Tracy.”

  This new secret hit me hard, and I wondered if I’d ever fill in every memory gap. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  Mom’s singsong voice chilled my blood. “Her name is Tracy Roscoe, I think. Tracy Roscoe. My sister would take me. She takes everyone. She takes care of everyone. But I can’t, and you’re too young to take care of anyone. Tracy takes care of everyone.”

  My stomach churned, and I wondered who Tracy was taking care of now. “Where does Aunt Tracy live? Maybe when you get out, we can go visit her.”

  “Oh no. You can’t. You can never go see her, Gemini. That’s what the court said. That’s why we never took you there. She had to be dead to you. They had to be dead to you. Your dad and I made that deal. His secret for my secret.”

  Her adamant refusal piqued my interest more. The only court statement I knew of was the recommendation by Sarah Stemple. Maybe I could get more information from Mom in this state than I would otherwise. “Mom, listen to me. I need to know where Tracy lives. The judge said it was important.”

  “Oh my God, why? Did something happen to Jimmy?” Mom started to cry uncontrollably and call for her son.

  Her words stirred a hope inside me. “Mom, is Jimmy still alive?”

  “Tracy takes good care of him. Just like she’ll take care of me…”

  I stopped listening against the ache in my head. The pieces didn’t fit together. Jimmy was dead. Killed in a car accident when my dad hit a tree.

  I pressed my fingers into my temples. Nobody ever told me Jimmy had died. Nobody. He’d left with our dad one day and never returned. I’d assumed, or my alters had, that Jimmy died in that accident. Because I didn’t know, or didn’t want to remember what really happened, I assumed he died. It would have been the only thing that made sense to an emotionally broken little girl. I’d never connected Sarah Stemple and her investigation to Jimmy’s disappearance. The court had taken Jimmy from me, not death.

  Joy swelled within me. My brother was alive.

  Mom’s sharp keening pierced my ear. She needed a behavioral unit, not a treatment center. I heard a scuffle in the background, and another voice came on the line. “I’m sorry, Gem
ini, but it might be best if you said goodbye.”

  “I understand.”

  As I pulled the phone from my ear, Mom continued to wail. “I need to talk to Tracy. Tracy Roscoe. I want Tracy.”

  I punched the disconnect button.

  Nice genetic package you got there.

  Hush up, Luna. We all carry the same genes.

  Psycho crazy genes if you ask me.

  “Nobody is asking you.”

  A search through the phone book for Tracy Roscoe netted no positive results. I tried searching the web using my mom’s maiden name and found a Tracy Holland living in Roscoe. I printed off the directions and hopped in Granny’s car. If I didn’t dawdle, I’d have just enough time to make the thirty mile trek and be home before Travis showed up to fix Granny’s door.

  Fifteen miles down the road, my cell phone buzzed. I fished it out of my pocket and saw the missed text on my screen. I hit view.

  Travis: I’m on my way.

  It was too early for him to be done with work. I’d never make it back from Roscoe in time. Then I noticed the thread. A sent text from me with the Roscoe address. And a plea for help.

  When did I do that?

  I did.

  “Well, stop it, Luna. From now on I do things, not you.”

  A text from James buzzed through. Where are you?

  My pulse pounded in my temples.

  James could not text me if we were one and the same.

  But I texted you. Luna.

  With Rae’s help I dredged up memories of the night I fell prey to Collin in the snowstorm. I saw myself from the outside, like I had when I threw the plates at my parents. One hand was in my jacket pocket and the other holding a phone. A second night merged with the first, Christmas morning at Trav’s. My hands had been in my robe pocket when James messaged me.

  Was I James? A snow drift pulled me back to the present. My thighs cradled my phone. I reached into my right jacket pocket and pulled out another one. My old cell phone that I had lost. Not really lost, just lent to Luna and forgotten.

  I flipped open the phone and checked the text record. Outgoing and incoming. Both logs were cleared. I had no clue when I had last used the phone as Luna. Or maybe now as James?