by Emiko Jean
I rub the back of my head where a headache still lingers. Most of the medication I was given at the first hospital has worn off. I’m feeling more alert, anxious, and a little queasy. The numbness is dissipating, and emotions rip through me like fireworks in the night sky. I think of Cellie and her madness and where it’s taken me. In my mind, a red carpet unrolls and all I can see is a future with steel wire mesh framed in windows, a future that was dim before but is even darker now. What little prospects I had left—the hope of going to college, of distancing myself from Cellie—have been extinguished.
All the grief I’ve tamped down erupts, and I quietly sob. I think of Jason. That I can’t remember his last words hurts worse than any physical wound. Were they a plea? Did he quietly beg for his life and mine? Or were they soft and sweet—a final goodbye? Or maybe a promise to meet on the other side?
I let myself cry until there’s nothing left but hiccups. I stand and brush myself off. A steel rod settles in my spine. It’s then I know what I have to do, for Jason (and for myself). I say the vow aloud, just to make it real. “I’m coming for you, Cellie. Come hell or high water. I’m going to find you. And when I do, I’m going to kill you.”
I leave the bathroom and slip out of my scrubs. As I fold them, the white pill falls to the ground. Crying has made the headache worse, and now it’s settled into a dull, aching throb. Leaning over, I pick up the pill and study it in the moonlight. I need a few hours without grief and guilt. I pop the pill into my mouth and swallow it dry. I try to keep the noise to a minimum as I climb into the bed. I lay back and wait for the pill to do its work, make the blue turn black. Tonight I’ll allow myself to forget. And tomorrow, well, tomorrow is a new day.
In the hazy twilight of my sleep, I replay the day’s events. Something that boy Chase said sticks out in my mind. Overheard some techs talking about you, how the fire starters are back. Fire starters. He said fire starters, as in plural. Suddenly I know, as if there’s still some chord that binds us, that Cellie is here. She’s at Savage Isle, and Chase knows where she is.
…
FROM THE JOURNAL OF ALICE MONROE
Doc says I should start at the beginning, at the place where this all started. I suppose he’s right. Because it wasn’t always like this between Cellie and me. There was a time when she was my friend. My best friend. A time when if she told me she’d murdered someone, I would have asked her if she needed help digging a grave. So where does a story that ends in fire and death begin? It begins in the snow on the coldest day of the coldest winter of the last fifty years, with two girls on their sixth birthday in a silent house. It begins with a body.
The first thing I remember is a dream. A dream that tasted like cake and was filled with confetti, balloons, and gold-wrapped presents. The second thing I remember is waking up to quiet, to hollow, empty air. Cellie was already up. She’d made her bed in the top bunk in a sloppy and hurried way that sometimes irritated me. I preferred things to be a bit neater, with clean lines and crisp folds. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The night before, she’d kept me awake. Too excited to sleep, she’d chattered on about the next day. Our birthday.
The house was cold, and I shivered through the thin cotton of my nightgown. When my toes sank into the carpet, it felt as if ice crystals had kissed each fiber in the rug. For a moment I stayed still and listened to the quiet, trying to decipher a sound from below the stairs or from the snowflakes falling outside our window. But there was nothing, only the sound of my beating heart.
I bounded down the stairs, oblivious to what that silence was telling me. What secret it whispered. Like Cellie, I was too caught up in finding the promised birthday joy. In my haste, I kicked a slipper out of the way and sent it hurdling through the slats in the banister. It landed with a soft thud on the body. Grandpa lay sprawled out on the floor, his head tilted, so that his face caught the reflection of the snow through the window. I stopped, perched on the last stair. One arm was tucked under his stomach at a weird angle, the other arm stretched out, the fingers that clawed the carpet unnaturally still.
“He won’t wake up,” Cellie said. She sat by the fireplace, her legs drawn up to her chest, her chin resting atop her knees.
I took a deep breath but still felt as if I couldn’t get enough air. Cellie whimpered and ducked her head back into the dark cocoon of her legs. I crouched down and touched Grandpa’s paper cheek.
“I tried that already,” Cellie said.
“Grandpa?” I whispered. He still smelled like Grandpa, a heady mixture of spicy cologne that always made me think of far-off lands. I don’t know why.
Cellie grabbed my arm and pulled me away. “I said, I tried that already.”
“What do we do?”
She bit the inside of her cheek and turned to me, her look brighter. “We should let him sleep. He must be really tired. Let’s open our presents.”
Four presents wrapped in gold and silver striped paper rested on the dining room table. We tore into them. Grandpa had bought each of us a new outfit, a game, and a book. We decided that we were hungry, but there was only canned food in the house, and we weren’t allowed to use the electric can opener without Grandpa. Cellie found our yellow cake in the cupboard. We ate it till our stomachs hurt and then changed into our new outfits and raced around the house, slid down the banister of the stairs, and watched cartoons all afternoon.
By evening Grandpa still hadn’t moved. Not a finger. Not a toe. Not a blink of an eye. His skin felt even colder. Cellie covered him with a blanket, and after we said good night to him, we went upstairs, hand in hand, and tucked ourselves into our bunk beds. We liked our new outfits so much we didn’t bother changing out of them. From the top bunk Cellie read to me from one of the books Grandpa had bought us. I closed my eyes to the sound of her voice, so much like my own, so comfortable and familiar, like the feel of a well-loved blanket.
“Cellie?” I interrupted.
“Yeah?”
“Will you sleep with me?”
“Sure,” she said, shinnying down from the top bunk. As she climbed in next to me, I scooted over in the bed until my body touched the wall.
“Do you think Grandpa will wake up by tomorrow?” Tomorrow was a school day, and every Monday was show-and-tell. Taylor Knapp was bringing in his pet rabbit, and I’d never touched one before.
“Of course,” she said, her well-loved blanket voice suddenly scratchy, woven through with overconfidence and untruth.
I turned around and rested my head on her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” she said. “Don’t worry, Alice. Everything will be back to normal in the morning. I promise.”
Four days passed. Like weeds growing through cement, fear crept in. And with the worry, fear, and panic came bitter cold and hunger. The little ice crystals that had danced outside our windows now waltzed inside and coated the edges of the frames. Every night Cellie and I dressed in our snowsuits and huddled together in the bottom bunk under a mound of covers, but nothing warded off the chill. It would come like a thief in the night, stealing our body heat, robbing us of warmth. Every morning, Cellie would moan. She swore her blood was slush. Still she managed to roll out of bed, go down to the kitchen, and climb onto the counter. She would turn the faucet on to the hottest setting and we’d use the heat from the water to turn our slush-blood back to liquid.
We didn’t go to school, and I missed show-and-tell. We also hadn’t eaten anything but birthday cake. Cake that had gone stale and turned black around the edges. And then the flies came, dark obscurities that spent the day buzzing between Grandpa’s eyelids and the frosting on our yellow cake.
On the fourth morning we lined up all the canned food on the kitchen counter and studied the labels and pictures. Baked beans. Ham. Corn. Hunger clawed and screamed at the base of my stomach. Cellie decided we should make a meal of the glossy photographs. She rolled her tongue around in her mouth and marveled at the different flavors.
“It tastes li
ke Easter!” she exclaimed. “Now you have some.” But I couldn’t pretend. I licked my lips and my eyes drifted to the cake.
“It’s all right, Alice. You can have the last of it.” There was one thick red iced balloon left. My mouth watered and at the same time my stomach rolled. So hungry. So sick.
I hesitated. “Are you sure?”
Cellie nodded and folded her arms over her chest. She held herself so tight her skin turned white. I think she might have been physically restraining herself from eating the rest of the cake. “Eat,” she said. “Then when you’re done, we’ll check on Grandpa.”
I didn’t wait for her to insist again. I dug in, devouring the crusty yellow cake first and the red balloon last. Remnants of frosting clung to the cardboard sheet, and I used my finger to scrape it up. When I was done I grinned at Cellie, but my happiness was quickly extinguished by shame. Her eyes were glazed over and her hands trembled at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said, and rubbed her tummy.
A knock on the front door interrupted us.
I moved toward it, but Cellie grabbed my arm, stopping me in my tracks. “Don’t. We’re not supposed to answer the door if Grandpa isn’t home.” We stood like statues, weighing the meaning of those words.
“C’mon, let’s go play outside. We can put on our snowsuits and make snow angels.”
When we stepped outside, icy wind whipped our cheeks and powdery snow swirled up from the ground like mini tornadoes. The yard was a perfect rectangle, and Grandpa had promised us that in the spring he’d plant a garden where we could grow tomatoes.
We ran a couple of laps. I chased her and then she chased me. We pretended to be airplanes zooming through the sky. I was thankful when warmth began to pump through my limbs. Still, my movements were slow and sluggish, and I stumbled more times than I normally would, the hunger in my empty stomach tripping me.
“Home sick from school today?” Our neighbor Mr. Chan peered over the fence, his mustache and hair catching drifting snowflakes.
Cellie and I stared at him from across the yard. Sometimes when we walked down the block to get the mail, Grandpa would stop and talk to Mr. Chan or his wife. They had a little white poodle named DeeDee that I liked to play with. It could do all sorts of tricks. Mr. Chan even trained it to take his socks off.
“Shouldn’t be outside if you’re sick,” Mr. Chan said, peering down at us.
I looked up at him. “We’re not sick,” I said.
Mr. Chan’s brow dipped. “Not sick?”
“Grandpa won’t wake up,” I said.
Cellie shoved me in the back and I stumbled forward, my body rocking the fence. “Why’d you tell him that?” she whispered in my ear. I wanted to snatch the words out of the air, but it was too late. They’d already landed.
“Won’t wake up?” Mr. Chan scratched his mustache. “Maybe I should come over and take a look.”
“No,” Cellie said. But Mr. Chan was already at the gate to our backyard, reaching his hand over and unlocking it.
Cellie pushed me. “Don’t let him go inside.” She pushed me again, harder. Before I could yell or raise a useless hand to stop him, Mr. Chan stepped over the threshold of the back door and paused. He crossed himself the same way Grandpa did in church, put a hand over his mouth, stifled a gag, and muttered, “Dear God.”
CHAPTER
1
Vanilla Cake
A BUZZER WAKES ME IN THE MORNING, DRAWS ME FROM A DEEP, DREAMLESS SLEEP. Rain spatters against the barred window like sniper fire. It drizzles down the glass and makes the trees outside look dreamy and sad. My pink-haired roommate is already up and dressed, moving around the small room. I sit up in the bed, the old metal frame moaning and groaning as I do—a sound that makes me think of ghosts in the walls.
“I was up last night when they brought you in. You were in the bathroom an awfully long time,” she says, turning toward me, hands on her hips.
I study her small face. With an upturned nose and spiky pink hair she looks like a pixie, something made of mischief and trouble. I swing my legs over the bed and reach for the scrub pants folded on the nightstand. I’m not sure how she wants me to reply, so I stay silent.
She shrugs and goes back to fiddling with whatever she was doing before. “I saw the pill fall out of your pocket, too.” I slip into the scrub pants as she goes on. “You know you can get in a lot of trouble for something like that.”
I walk over to my lavender bag and fish out a couple of pieces of origami paper, stuffing them into my hoodie pocket before she can see. “Are you going to tell on me?”
She turns to face me, flushing slightly. “No, of course not. I just want you to know that I can keep a secret.”
I shove my feet into my laceless Chuck Taylors. My gaze drifts down to the raised white scars on her arms. They’re not from burns. A burn scar has jagged edges. It is careless, messy, like the bite of a vicious dog. Her scars are clean and precise, as if made by a thin blade and a steady hand. “Me too,” I say.
Her face turns a deeper shade of red. “Well, good,” she says, pulling down her sleeves.
Another buzzer sounds, followed by the whoosh of all the doors in the corridor unlocking.
“Breakfast time. It’s Tuesday, so that means . . .” She taps her lips.
“Pancakes—they always serve pancakes on Tuesdays.”
She eyes me in an entirely different way. “You’ve been here before?”
I swallow. “My sister and I were here for a couple of weeks. I’m Alice, by the way.”
A short blaze of recognition flashes in her face. For a moment it seems as if she’s going to say something, ask me about my pyromaniac twin, my epic escape with Jason, or the mangled flesh on my right hand. The burns tingle and I flex my fingers, waiting for her inquisition to begin. Instead she bites her lip, then smiles. “I’m Amelia.”
Amelia and I stroll to the cafeteria together. We stand in line to get our pancakes, and the servers avert their eyes when they hand us our trays. The line moves slowly. The girl in front of me slams down her tray and screams, “I want bacon!” I glimpse a server in the back eating a piece of bacon. Two techs rush over, and the girl is artfully silenced with calm words and a threat of the Quiet Room. She cleans up her tray and softly weeps. I don’t blame her for her outburst. Because I don’t think it’s the bacon she really wants. It’s what the bacon represents. A freedom. It’s a question of equality, and here there is none.
Amelia and I sit at a round table. Patients spread out among us. Some sit together, others deliberately away from one another. Because they are jellyfish, there is no rest. Some rock back and forth while they eat; some bodies stay still, but their eyes constantly move. Even though our day is rigidly structured, it still feels like there’s too much disorder. My palms itch to take out a piece of origami paper and start folding. That’s when Chase comes in.
Amelia picks at her food, dissecting the pancakes into little chunks and then even smaller pieces. She pushes tiny bites to the edge of her tray and spreads the food around. I nod toward Chase. “What’s up with him?”
She follows my gaze. “Chase Ward. He was transferred here last week. He was in the Quiet Room for the first couple of days. He just got sprung.” The Quiet Room is a white padded cell. It has a steel door with a double-plated window for observation. Cellie went to the Quiet Room once and screamed bloody murder until two techs and a nurse came and made her be quiet.
I touch my throat where it suddenly feels raw. “I had a run-in with him last night. I don’t think he likes me very much.” I want to add that the feeling is mutual.
Amelia takes a tiny bite of her pancake and washes it down with a giant gulp of water, like she’s swallowing a pill. She opens her mouth to say something, but we’re interrupted by a girl walking past. I recognize her from before, but can’t remember her name. She’s got curly hair pulled high into a bun and a round face that makes her look soft and sweet. The gi
rl drops a crumpled piece of paper into the pool of syrup on my tray and keeps going. I reach out and tentatively open the note. Written across the lined sheet in big, bold black letters are two words: DIE PYRO.
I crumple the note back up and toss it onto my tray. Pain rips through my skull and then down my arms. Tears of shame and embarrassment burn my eyes. I look around and all I see are faces, faces with big eyes that stare at me, big eyes that couldn’t have missed the huge black letters. Damn Cellie. She haunts me everywhere, even in a place that’s closed off from the outside world.
Amelia takes the note from my plate and frowns. She turns, and before I know it, she’s hurling the dripping, sticky wad at the girl’s back. “Monica, you snatch,” she yells as the note hits the girl square between the shoulders.
The girl swivels around. “You really want to go?” Her hands fist at her sides, a clear invitation to fight.
Amelia stands and the room goes quiet. Suddenly the jellyfish aren’t jellyfish anymore; they’re sharks, and they smell blood in the water.
“Is there a problem, ladies?” Nurse Dummel shouts from across the room. Her voice cuts through the tension like a steel knife.
“No problem,” Monica says. Her hands unclench. She smiles a smile that’s almost as sweet as the syrup dripping down her back. “I was just cleaning up something I spilled.”
Nurse Dummel shifts her bulldog gaze to our table. Her eyebrows raise a notch higher.
“What Monica said—there’s no problem,” I blurt.
Amelia sits down with a loud thump.
Monica picks up the piece of paper and throws it away. Cafeteria conversations start again as if nothing has happened. Everyone resumes focusing on their pancakes, their appetites seemingly increased by the show. Except for one. Chase sits across the way, his eyes level with mine. A smile plays at the corners of his mouth, a smile that is equal parts curiosity, disdain, and amusement.
