by Shaye Easton
I could laugh. “Yeah. Right.”
He does feel bad for me though; it’s written all over his face, pulling down the edges of his mouth, furrowing the space between his brows. I can tell he wants to help me, maybe say something more, but in the end, he just stares, powerless.
I nod. “Thanks for the generic advice, but I’ve got to go. Homework, you know?”
I head the rest of the way up the path. I don’t turn back. Not until the front door is shut firmly behind me. I wait there with my hands against the wood detailing, finger tracing the same carved flower around and around until I hear his engine disappear into the twilight.
“Melissa?” Mum moves cautiously into the small foyer. “What are you—where have you been? I’ve been calling you for the past two hours. Why weren’t you at school? I told you I would be picking you up this afternoon; I sent you texts. Your father and I have been worried sick. Why weren’t you picking up? Did something happen? Please tell me you’re not hurt, I—”
“Mum! I’m fine. Nothing happened. I just—lost my phone.”
“You—is that why you’re home so late?”
I fumble for the first thing that comes to mind. “Yeah, I was…I was looking for it. And when I found it, the battery was dead. So I couldn’t call you. I’m sorry.”
She sighs, arms twitching by her sides as if she wants to reach out for me. I recognise the same desire in myself. I want to hug her. I want to feel her embrace, hold on to her until I forget every bad thing in my life. The idea is so fantastical, so painfully distant, that I find myself convinced that one hug would solve every problem in the world.
If I could only touch her…
Dad appears from around the corner. “Melissa!” he exclaims. “Lou, is she alright? What’s happened?”
“She lost her phone,” Mum replies, but both have their eyes on me. “She’s fine.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“The important thing is that you’re safe. The danger you could have gotten into out there…” He shakes his head. The way he says it, you’d think the outside world is some evil place determined to hurt me. My father’s view of the world is that the world is against each person within it and every day is a fight to ensure the latter doesn’t win. He calls it The Big Bad World, only half-jokingly, and has been doing so since I was born, probably since even before. But I see it differently. We’re all a part of the world. Therefore, it isn’t just the world against us. It’s us against us.
It’s us against ourselves.
Now I lose the fight I’ve been having with myself since I stepped inside the house, and let my thoughts in.
The words fall out before I can catch them. “You love me, right?”
Dad blinks, somewhat taken aback. Mum just stares.
“Of course, Mel,” he says.
“Like, no matter what? Even after all the crap I’ve put you guys through?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“But—”
“You could take us to hell and back,” Mum says, “and we’d still love you.”
I feel my eyes welling with tears but I hold them back. Now’s the point in the family love fest where we all hug and cry out our happiness. This doesn’t get to happen in my household.
“Thanks,” I say instead. What I really want to ask them is whether they’d still love me if they found out I wasn’t their daughter. Do I still get to love them?
It’s like discovering I’ve been adopted—only my parents don’t know either. I wouldn’t even know how to broach such a subject. It’s always the parents who tell the child. Never the other way around.
They’re smiling at me even as their eyes reflect pain. Suddenly it feels so wrong to think of myself as anything other than their daughter. They raised me. I know them inside out, like they know me. I’m Melissa Croft. How could I be anyone else?
“I love you,” I say, meeting they gazes. “Both of you.”
Mum sucks in a soft, sharp breath like she’s surprised—or trying not to cry. “We know, honey.”
I nod. I retreat upstairs before they can say another word, and as soon as my bedroom door’s shut behind me, I collapse onto my bed—and the dam holding back all my tears bursts wide open.
Chapter Ten
“What are you doing, Sara?”
It’s another of my Sara dreams, and in it, I’m five years old and watching her slip into the small space between the chicken coop and barn. I crawl in after her, fitting easily between the two walls of wood.
“Hiding,” she replies.
“Who are you hiding from?” I peer over her shoulder at the sunny field before us. There’s no one in sight, but even then, butterflies start to swarm inside my stomach.
“You.” and suddenly I see a duplicate of myself on the field, except it’s seventeen-year-old-me, with extremely pale skin and hollow eyes.
“Sara!” older me calls from the field.
“Shh…” Sara hushes, sensing that I’m about to give away our location. “I can’t let you find me.”
“Why not?” I ask, but she doesn’t reply. Around me, everything starts fading and I panic. “Why not?!” I yell, and then it all disappears.
***
The weekend passes with all the speed of a tortoise, minutes trickling past, hours extending excruciatingly. I spend most of my time with my head in my schoolwork, finishing first assignments and then writing out study notes in preparation for exams. None of it manages to completely take my mind off things, but it’s better than stewing in my room.
By the time Monday arrives, I’m desperate to see Caden again, to ask him more about my situation. I feel caught in a liminal zone, unable to move forward but unable to go back. He was right; my entire existence is in the process of being altered, and now nothing looks the same. Nothing is the same.
But I don’t see Caden at all Monday morning, despite searching for him in every class, in every hall. Even at recess, I fail to spot him amongst the crowds of students, chatting and laughing and shivering. Their breath swirling upwards in white plumes.
That’s something else: every room in the building is cold. I know this from watching my peers. The heating in this school was designed for the Australian winter, not temperatures like these. With one small heater in every classroom, and none in the major halls or corridors, the building freezes. It’s announced in third period that starting tomorrow, we’ll be allowed to wear our own jumpers and parkas over our standard uniform each day. After the announcement, I feel several dozen pairs of eyes turn my way. I ignore them all.
It’s not until fourth period history that I get my first glimpse of Caden, but he sits way up front with his friends, never once meeting my eye. I plan to confront him as soon as the bell rings, demand he talk to me but when the trill signalling the beginning of lunch echoes throughout the school, he’s up and out of the classroom before I even move from my seat. I grab my stuff quickly and half run to the door to see if I can follow him. But it’s too late; he’s already disappeared into the horde of students emerging excitedly from their classrooms.
It turns out to be the only time I see him all day. When the final bell goes, I race to the front gates, determined to catch him on his way out, and still, he never appears. Could he have left early? And if he did, why?
I can’t help but feel like he’s avoiding me. The feeling is as upsetting as it is bizarre.
The rush of students through the gates has slowed to a trickle when I receive a text from Mum, telling me I’ll have to walk home. I’m not bothered by it—if anything, I’m grateful. The idea of packing into a car and heading straight home is depressing. It would be like giving up. At least if I walk home, I can pretend my chances of talking to Caden today haven’t been completely eradicated.
My mind keeps running over everything I was told last Friday. The whole conversation stuck on a loop, playing out again and again until it gives me a headache. I can’t fathom why they waited so long to tell me any of this. If not for my qu
ick healing, I’d be dead. And they had no way of knowing that I had the capacity to heal as I do. Combined with the fact that now Caden appears to be ignoring me, it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There’s so much I don’t know. Isn’t it possible that maybe they don’t care about me as much as they seem to?
Before I know it, I’m walking up the path to my house, with no memory of how I walked the last five blocks. I blink, disoriented, tugging myself from my thoughts as I push open the front door and drop my bag by the welcome mat.
I tread into the kitchen to grab an apple before heading for the stairs. But something about the house seems off. Maybe it’s just quieter than usual, or even a little tenser, as though the house itself is holding its breath.
“Mum?” I call out. “Dad?”
I venture across the small foyer, rounding the corner into the living room. In the centre of the rug my parents are on chairs facing me, their hands tied to the armrests. Their eyes snap to me as I enter, round with fear. I frown as my brain tries to process what I’m seeing.
The apple falls from my hand.
“What are you do—”
An arm is around my neck in an instant, yanking me backward. My back hits the chest of someone much taller and wider than me. It’s like ramming into a wall. I gasp as the grip tightens, all but crushing my throat, and suck in a panicked breath. Then a hand comes down on top of my nose and mouth, cutting off the last of my air supply. I open my mouth to scream but the sound gets lost in the thick fabric of their glove.
By now my heart is beating so furiously that it washes out all other sounds, including the cries of my parents. I claw at the arm of my attacker, raking my nails into the fabric of their jacket as deeply as possible, but to no avail. My lungs burn with the need for air, an ache that starts in my chest but quickly consumes my entire body. I kick, twist and thrash. My body convulsing as my instincts kick in. Every single one screaming for life.
My attacker grunts with the energy of holding me down, but soon I won’t have enough energy left to keep fighting. My air-deprived mind fights to think of some way out, scrambling through the options, until finally I realise I never saw my assailant’s face. It’s a long shot. This person could be wearing a mask or could be too tall to reach, but it’s all I’ve got.
I give one last struggle, then I kick him in the knee, arch my back, and throw my arm up blindly. By pure luck, my hand slams down on something fleshy and solid.
By pure miracle, it turns out to be my attacker’s bare face.
A second later, the screaming starts. At once, his grip loosens, his hand falling away from my mouth. I rip free and spin around, clamping my second hand down on their face. The scent of burning flesh fills my nostrils, enough to make me gag, but I don’t stop. Not until the man’s instincts kick in, and I’m shoved violently away. I fall back, staring up in shock at what I’ve done.
Whoever he was, his face is a red, blistered mess. Both of his eyes are swollen shut. Blood oozes from several places on his cheeks and forehead. I sit there gasping, watching, unable to move.
“You little fuck!” The man yells, his voice ragged. “You—”
But he doesn’t get to finish because Dad has managed to break free of whatever restraints he had placed on him. All it takes is one strong punch, and the intruder is out cold.
The house is suddenly silent, save for the beating of my heart and my father’s fast breathing. He stands over the man, unmoving.
“Dad?”
He doesn’t reply, but my question must be enough to jolt him out of his shock because he turns to me. “Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”
I shake my head numbly and look across at Mum, who’s staring at us with wild eyes. It’s all the reminder he needs. As he heads over quickly to untie my mother, he says, “Melissa, call triple zero.”
I nod, scampering over to the landline in the kitchen, keeping my eyes anywhere but on the man lying on our living room floor. My fingers fumble for the phone, shaking as I press down on the buttons.
I can’t breathe.
Caden was right: there are people out there who, for whatever reason, are after me. They want to hurt me. They know where I live.
Caden was right. Caden was right.
I’m no longer safe.
***
It’s not long before two police cars, one ambulance and a van for the local news station are all parked outside our front door, lights turning our street ominous shades of blue and red. I sit on the bottom step of the staircase while a medic checks my vitals. She has to wear the standard mint-coloured plastic gloves over a pair of woollen ones so as to not get burnt while examining me for injuries.
“Tilt your head to the left,” The medic tells me and I do as she says. The intruder is still lying on our living room floor. The police have come in and cuffed his hands behind his back, but haven’t yet woken or moved him. One officer has knelt down beside the man and is taking a closer look at his face.
“How did he get these burns?” he asks my parents. The two of them are hovering in the foyer, my Dad with his arm around Mum’s shoulders.
Dad shifts, uncomfortable. “Our daughter, she, ah, put her hands to his face to get away.” He mimics the action with his free hand.
The cop looks in my direction, a big burning question mark branded onto his features. “I don’t—”
“It’s the weather girl, Paul,” another officer says, coming to a stop before my attacker. He’d been looking around our living room—I don’t know what for. “You know, the one who made this darned early winter?”
The first cop, Paul, looks at me wide-eyed. “You bring this cold with you, hun?”
I hate having their eyes on me. I feel like a freak show. I swallow. Looks like the rumours have fled the school and escaped into the town.
“And tilt your head to the right,” the medic says.
“How’d you do it? Burn the man?”
I want to sink into the floor and stay there forever. “I have cold skin. It’s a medical condition.”
The second officer nods. “Burning cold.”
“Now that’s a superpower if I’ve ever seen one,” Paul says and laughs. “A superpower for a superhero. You saved your mum and dad tonight. I’m sure they’re very proud.”
I saved myself, I think. But I don’t say it.
“Swivel your body to the right for me. I’m just going to check your spine.”
“Have you ever considered a superhero name?” Officer Paul is still talking. I think he’s trying to make me feel better. But he’s completely missed the age bracket. I’m seventeen, not seven. “Ice girl,” he says, emphasising the ‘I’ in ice. “Burning frost.”
“Cold fire,” the second officer says, and I go very still. Hadn’t Rand used that word just the other day, when describing the cold ghosts and spirits radiate?
“Don’t think she likes that one, Brett.” Paul laughs.
Shut up, I want to tell him. Shut up, shut up, shut up!
Because now Officer Brett is looking at me, and I swear it’s like he knows something. As if sensing danger, my body prepares itself to run, muscles tensing, heart racing.
The medic behind me says, “It’s okay. You can relax.”
But I don’t think it is.
Brett cracks a smile, and instead of making things better, it just makes it worse. Get away! My brain screams. Run!
Then the man lying face down in the middle of the room grunts, shifting, and I’m forgotten. “Okay, let’s get you up, pal,” Officer Paul says.
Blinking, groaning and still only half-awake, our intruder is dragged from the house.
Chapter Eleven
The whole thing is on the news the next morning. I wake to images of our house plastered on the news, a reporter in a suit jacket and skirt relaying what happened. It all sounds so much less of a big deal when she says it. Like he was here for only minutes. Like the struggle lasted seconds.
And maybe it did. But it sure didn’t feel like it.<
br />
Before I know it, the segment is over, and they’ve moved onto the next neighbourhood debacle.
“I’m driving you to school today,” Mum announces, and I know better than to argue with her. It’s a miracle she’s even letting me go to school. “Be ready in fifteen.”
When getting ready, I take full advantage of the new, freer dress code and put a white scarf on over the top of my uniform. There’s still a faint ring of bruising all around my neck, and until my speedy healing kicks in and wipes it away, I’d rather not have every kid in school gawking at me. Or, at least, any more than they already do.
The ride to school is tense, but not in the normal way. Mum keeps looking over at me every now and then, as if checking to make sure I’m still there, still alive. All her movements are shaky, and there are massive purple bags under her eyes. The ambulance medics referred us all to therapists to ensure we didn’t suffer any long-term psychological trauma. Mum’s first session is today and I’m hoping like hell that it’ll help. Out of all of us, she’s been rattled the most.
It takes a good ten minutes longer than usual to get out of the car. Mum locks all the doors until she’s lectured me on every point of safety in the parental handbook. When I finally escape, there’s only five minutes to the bell, and I have to run to my locker to ensure I’m not late for my first class.
I’ve just shut my locker door when, out of nowhere, Caden appears, taking me by the elbow—luckily covered with the sleeve of a school cardigan—and dragging me into an alcove outside an empty classroom.
“Caden! What the hell!” I say, swatting at him. My heart is racing in my chest, terror flooding my veins. I have to remind myself that my attacker isn’t here. He’s in jail. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“You were on the news,” he says.
Fucking hell. “You think I don’t know that?”
He gives me a look—one of the let’s not be dumb variety.
