Finding Me

by Dawn Brazil

  The decor was feminine. The mahogany bed had an ocean blue and chocolate brown blanket and pillows. Pictures covered every inch of the shortest wall next to a window and a large brown and blue print of a flower hung directly over the bed.

  I walked to the wall of pictures and immediately recognized the people in the photos. Many of the pictures were of me, or someone who looked identical to me because I didn’t remember taking them. “It must be the Great Eight.” I said aloud. There was an abundance of them on the wall.

  I laughed at the name I’d just made up. Another laugh sounded behind me.

  I spun around. My hand poised to strike the laughing person, but it was only Chris.

  “You okay, princess?” Chris asked. He kept his distance, peering at me with an amused expression.

  “I hate it when you call me princess. Have I ever told you that?” I asked. I was annoyed with him but not entirely certain why.

  “No, but Amanda has many times. I wondered when you’d say it, too.” Joy was evident in his eyes that I’d exhibited behavior similar to Amanda’s.

  It made me cringe.

  I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and turned back to the pictures on the wall. It was surreal to see photos with Amanda and everyone else. She was my identical twin…or perhaps me, as everyone else believed.

  Chris looked over my shoulder at a photo that captured my attention. “This was the first time Amanda and I visited our spot here in Tierra. So of course we wanted to capture it on film. We weren’t dressed in appropriate Tierra attire, but the dress code wasn’t as heavily enforced back then,” he explained.

  Amanda and Chris stood on the same mountaintop he’d taken me to a few weeks ago. Chris wore orange and blue swim trunks and Amanda had on a two-piece red bikini. It appeared as if they’d stepped out of a pool and popped in for a quick look at the mountains.

  “We did…just pop in, I mean. It was spontaneous – we didn’t think about it. We just did it,” he said. There was a hint of sadness in his voice. He sighed heavily. “Do you remember why you’re here?” He gripped my hips and turned me around to face him.

  “I don’t even remember where here is.”

  “Your mother. Tierra. This is her house.” He pulled me to him so that he could run his hands through my tangled hair. Trying to make me look presentable, I assumed.

  “Oh God, that’s right! What happened to me? Did something go wrong when we left my room? I don’t remember anything after that.”

  Raja and Sam walked in the room then. “You were drunk,” Sam said, laughing her usual soft chuckle.

  “Drunk,” I said, scrunching my face. “I don’t drink.”

  “Not that kind of drunk,” said Raja. I noticed she was not using her usual no-nonsense voice. “Well, in a way it was. It’s the air here. It contains a foreign agent, a toxin scientists have not been able to identify. The toxin has the power to influence people’s emotions. Like alcohol. Tierra was not always the way it is now, peaceful–”

  “And over-flowing with robots,” said Sam.

  “It was stock full of emotional basket cases,” Raja continued, “and the government could not fathom why. Researchers were able to detect a chemical toxin they named Zoriyah in the air. The name is derived from the scientist that made the discovery. This chemical was the cause of the people’s unruliness. After the discovery, Doctor Zoriyah patented a new drug, which he named Zoriatex. If given immediately after birth, the drug prevents the reaction that the brain has to the Zoriyah in the atmosphere.”

  “Even after the government discovered the drug disabled certain emotions, they didn’t discontinue its use,” Chris said. “Instead they decreased the dosage and have been using it ever since. The only people not affected by the Zoriatex are the UG’s. We think there’s something in their blood that prevents it. We never knew what affect not having it in our systems would produce. I guess we know now. We’d be sloppy drunk.” I grimaced.

  “Uh, yeah,” Sam said. “You were running around crying. Your makeup was smeared and your hair was tossed around. You were like, ‘Oh, I love nature. I love Chris. I love Christmas.’” Sam threw her arms about as she tried to mimic the nervous breakdown I couldn’t recall. I did that?

  “Our other theory about the UG’s is that they are like us, with special abilities. They may not even know it,” Raja said. She shook her head. “The thought of someone not realizing how special they are is such a waste.”

  “We assumed you’d be like us…immune to the atmosphere still. You had the Zoriatex when you were born here,” Chris said. I turned to stare at him. He had his back to me, looking at the wall of pictures.

  “Well,” I said, “you’re making the most obvious assumption. Maybe I’ve never been here. Maybe I only closely resemble Amanda. Maybe Amanda wasn’t born on Earth at all. That’s why I reacted like I did to the Zoriyah.” I knew how much he wanted Amanda and I didn’t want to hurt him, but we had to look at the facts and weigh them appropriately.

  “It’s the serum, Chloe…the serum you created to wipe your memory. I think it also stripped you of the antibodies.” He didn’t speak for a second and neither did anyone else. Giving me time to gather my thoughts, I assumed.

  “We’d better go. I’m sure your mother can clear everything else up for you,” he said. He grabbed my hand and led me out of the room. I glanced in a taupe framed mirror on the wall and noticed someone had cleaned my face. Thank God.

  The house we were in was a two-story and modestly decorated using earth tones. Yeah. Mom here is completely different from on Earth. The hallway we walked through had family portraits lining the walls. Chris walked so fast, I couldn’t make out one face in them. We marched down the wooden steps that led to a sitting room, also decorated in the same earth tones as the other part of the house. He motioned to a large brown sectional and we all sat – no one talked. I wonder where everyone else is?

  “They went to get food,” Sam explained. She leaned around Raja and smiled at me. I smiled back. I guess the inner voice thing also happened during my intoxication period. But with the prospect of seeing my mother here in a few minutes, I barely had time to think about anything else. Sam was great, though. It would be nice to have a sister like her.

  “That’s so sweet,” Sam said.

  “Stay out of her head, Sam,” Raja said in her usual grumpy manner.

  I swallowed hard, waiting for the emergence of my Tierra mother. The thought of her here, knowing these things and supposedly having the same power as the others pulsing through her veins frightened me. She was so methodical in her every movement on Earth. How could the supernatural be any part of her here?

  I buried my head in my hands, unable to calm my quickening heart. Chris placed a hand on my back. It didn’t have the intended effect.

  A lone shadow, cast from the entry of the room, made me glance up. When I did, the person I expected to see wasn’t there. I squinted, confused. This person wasn’t even related to me.

  It was Ms. Graves, the nurse from school.

  I looked at Chris, uncertain, then back to her when he didn’t return my gaze. “Uh, hi, Ms. Graves,” I said, “I’m surprised to see you here. Is there a reason you’re here?” I articulated each word as if she might not understand me here in this foreign place.

  “Well, this is my home,” she said. She motioned with her hands to everything around us. “We do need to talk.” She crossed the room and sat in one of the plush high-back chairs in front of us.

  “Well…um, I guess you know if this is your house that I’m waiting to talk to my…” I stopped speaking. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get a word out. The lump in my throat obstructed anything from exiting. I looked at Chris. He had his head bent and refused to look at me.

  I looked back to her. Sitting, waiting patiently while I connected the dots. She knew about my powers, and she had some of her own. She was so protective of me, so motherly, nurturing. I couldn’t recall anything on Earth because I was separated from my biological m
other – not Karen Carmichael, Ms. Graves.

  It was like being slapped on both cheeks. “I don’t even know your first name.” Stupid the things we think about at critical moments.

  “It’s Miranda,” she said with a slight smile. “We should talk. Alone. I think it’s okay, Chris. She’s okay.” She looked at him and gave a slight nod. I looked over at Chris and he looked at me to gauge my response to her request. I nodded to signal I was okay…sort of.

  I sat silently as Chris, Raja, and Sam exited the room. Sam threw me a giant smile on her way out. I was sure she meant it to be encouraging and I needed all the encouragement I could get. But I wasn’t sure it worked.

  I watched the door they exited for a moment before turning my attention back to her. “So…you were my mother on Tierra,” I said. But I knew that wasn’t it. No one likes to learn their entire life has been a lie.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m your mother, period, on all universes.

  “I don’t understand,” I said in a whisper of my former voice.

  “When you were born here, on Tierra, I was your mother. Well, not me, but the me that existed on this universe. This was your home, and that room you woke in was yours. When you were seventeen, you came to me and told me about your supernatural power. I didn’t believe it. Until you showed me the things you could do.” She paused and moved from the chair to sit beside me on the sectional.

  She reached for my hand and rubbed it gently. I didn’t shy away. Somehow I understood her.

  “You were an excellent student. Science was your favorite subject. You were always working on experiments. It was in your makeshift lab that you discovered a serum to reduce or delete memory. You tested it on yourself – against my wishes. You only used a small quantity, but it caused you to lose the memories you’d created the previous week.

  “You were careful, and explained that you didn’t want to alert the others to what you had invented. You were thinking of a way to use this as a weapon against your enemy. A couple months after you invented the serum you came to me and told me that you would die soon.

  “You begged me to give you the memory reduction serum once you were reborn on Earth.” The person she described seemed brave, strong. Not me at all.

  “I was skeptical, but you managed to convince me. Of course, everything I’ve said up to this point is what happened here on Tierra, not from actual events I could control. I’m from Earth, like you. What happened once you were born on Earth was all my doing,” she said with tears in her eyes.

  I didn’t stir or speak for fear I would do something or say something to offend her. Instead, I sat silently, absorbing her words. I waited patiently, giving her the time she needed to continue her story.

  “When I discovered I was pregnant with a daughter on Earth, I was horrified,” she said. “I could not fathom losing you again or having you tormented with secret societies intent on killing a homicidal being. I surmised, I simply did not understand or I just didn’t try to understand. With your well-being as my motivation, I put you up for adoption. But not before I gave you the entire dose of the memory reduction serum. I hoped you would never remember what happened here on Tierra. Then I destroyed the antidote.”

  Well, she was correct about the dosage of the serum. I couldn’t recall anything from any of the other universes.

  “Initially, I was confident I made the right decision because you were growing beautifully,” she sighed heavily. “I monitored you, trying to protect you with the powers you gave me. Then Zack died, and I was certain it had something to do with this secret group. I realized I had made a ghastly error. I contacted Chris a couple days ago to explain what I had done.

  “I heard the ENO’s thoughts the day Zack died. I don’t know how I was able to hear him because I had never been able to before. But I could hear him plainly. Once he determined your memory had not returned, he attacked Zack with the hope that he was actually Chris. He thought the two of you together might one day recall everything. So he killed him. It was his assumption that he simply looked different. He never knew he was killing the wrong person.”

  Honestly, I didn’t know how to feel. Her story explained so much: why I felt different from my family on Earth; why I couldn’t remember anything from the previous universes; why we had always gotten along so well, and why she possessed abilities.

  It also explained Zack’s death. His death had been avoidable. If I’d only been brave enough to stand up to my mother. If only I’d had the courage to break it off with him, he’d still be alive. A sourness invaded my mouth and rested there.

  “It’s not your fault, you mustn’t blame yourself,” said a familiar voice behind me.

  Startled, I jumped to my feet. I rubbed my eyes in amazement at what I saw. They were both here – Earth-born Ms. Graves and Tierra-born Ms. Graves.

  If I’d doubted the story at all, seeing them both, face-to-face, confirmed it.

  Chapter 19

  “Hello,” she said softly. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was Ms. Graves’ identical twin, but you could see the difference in age of about 10 years. The older Ms. Graves had random gray hairs and she wore glasses, but she resembled the younger version of herself tremendously.

  “Hello.” I looked from one woman’s face to the other to be certain I wasn’t hallucinating. These things just didn’t happen. My world had gone from tragically cliché to unbelievably supernatural in a matter of a few weeks.

  “I don’t have anything to add to what she said. Except, I don’t think I truly believed any of this until I saw Christopher and the others a few days ago. How wrong I was,” she said. She shook her head and smiled with that far-away expression I’d seen before.

  “Can you tell me something, please? I’ve wondered ever since I found out about all of this.” I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure about my question. “Um…exactly…I mean, not exactly, but umm…how did I die? How did we all die?”

  The older Ms. Graves walked across the room and sat in the empty high-back chair in front of me. I knew this had to be a difficult subject for her, but I had to know. There was a great possibility that we could die on Earth also. The threat of death was greater for everyone involved if they depended on me to save the day. “Superhero” was not a word that was synonymous with Chloe Carmichael. So if I was going to die early, at least I could be prepared for it.

  She stared off into what I could only imagine was a dark space in her heart. “I came to wake you. We were about to leave for school…college. You were all packed and ready to go. You were so excited,” she said, smiling.

  “Christopher and your other friends had chosen the same college and that was all I heard you all talking about in the days before. That morning, when I came to wake you…I just…assumed you had stayed up late…talking to Christopher and Samantha. You talked to the two of them every night.” She sighed heavily, and then put her head down, unable to continue.

  “I entered to find you still tucked in bed.” The younger Ms. Graves must have seen what an enormous task completing the story was, so she picked up where the older version of herself left off.

  “Of course, I thought you were asleep,” she said. “I tried calling out to you. I opened your curtains, but nothing roused you. You were such a light sleeper that it didn’t make sense. Eventually, I remembered you had told me this would happen. But the fact that I had been forewarned did nothing to ease the pain.”

  She paused, wiped away tears that had fallen despite her visible attempt to keep them hidden. I looked over at the older Ms. Graves and she was crying, too. I had tears streaming down my cheeks also. My tears weren’t because I might die but for the pain these two women endured. Losing a child, I’d been told, creates a pain that never ends…it haunts you forever. I equated the feeling to the loss I would feel if my family were taken from me. Though we were different, I couldn’t imagine life without them.

  “I couldn’t move you,” the older Ms. Graves continued, “and I didn’t want any
one else to touch you. I went to your nightstand and pulled out the silver-handled hairbrush that your father gave you when you were a little girl, before he died. I brushed your hair and talked to you for some time. It was then that I prayed everything you said was true. That you would be reborn somewhere else.

  “When I called to inform Christopher and his parents about what had happened, his sister, Christina, informed me that he, too, had died in his sleep. I called all your friends and learned each of them had died in their sleep. All eight of you in one night.” She shook her head in disbelief and a shudder tore through me. “We launched an investigation into the deaths. No one believed them to be a coincidence. Tierra is a peaceful place with the exception of the rebels, or UG’s as you kids call them.

  “They performed autopsies and found nothing out of place with any of you. You were all in excellent physical condition. The case was dropped and the deaths ruled of natural causes. I held on to the notion that you were reborn on another universe. While this did not erase the pain…it brought me some comfort.”

  I sighed. “Well, I wanted to hear the story.” I wiped away the last of my tears. “I’m sorry.” I leaned forward and held the older Ms. Graves’ hand. “I wish things could’ve been different.”

  “Sweetheart, the fact that you are sitting here in this room right now is a miracle. Seeing you again will carry me to my grave. This is the happiest day of my life, to know that you are alive and well does my heart good. I can rest easy now.”

  I looked at the younger Ms. Graves. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, hurt that she never trusted me with such an important secret.

  “I wanted to…on many occasions. But you had a new family and I didn’t want to interfere. I wanted you to live a less stressed life on Earth. Please understand when you departed power to me, I remembered what occurred on all the universes, not just Tierra. None of the other parents have this ability. To remember…it’s torture. It started with Remah and I recalled every single miserable time you died.