“Someone else? You told me she was discombobulated, but—” She returned her gaze to Ellie. “Who are you, then?”
Why bother to answer? Nobody is ever going to believe me!
“Elony Montgomery,” she forced herself to say. “Everyone calls me Ellie. I live in Philadelphia. I’m a senior at Willow Grove High School. A man broke into my home and shot me.” She could tell that a hint of automation was starting to creep into her voice, as if this was just her rote-memory recitation.
“Someone shot you?” Fiona asked. “Do you have a gunshot wound?
Disheartened, Ellie didn’t answer. She could tell from Fiona’s slightly pinched expression that she was simply humoring her. If she’d instead claimed that she was here from another galaxy, Fiona would have asked which one. “My friends and I were about to celebrate my getting accepted at Stanford,” Ellie muttered to herself.
Fiona’s gaze never left Ellie’s features. “Whoa. Good school. You must be a top student. So are you class president?”
She shook her head. “Debate-team captain.”
“What’s the name of you teams advisor?”
“Mr. Branner,” Ellie promptly replied. Willow Grove’s debate team was nationally renowned. “I compete in the Lincoln-Douglas debate format. Are you on your school’s team?”
“No, I don’t know the first thing about debate clubs,” Fiona replied, now studying Ellie’s features as if puzzled.
“George Branner is also my AP World History teacher at Willow Grove. The principal’s name is Robert Westfall. The vice principal is Lillian Matthews.” Alexis couldn’t have known the names of the staff at Willow Grove. Even so, Alexis’s parents’ expressions hadn’t changed. Frustrated, Ellie looked at her hands. Her fingers were long and graceful-looking. She had the pianist’s hands she’d longed for during her ten years of lessons. She shut her eyes. Darkness was now the only thing she could experience that remained unchanged. “Please leave me alone for a while. I’ve got to rest up for my physical rehab session.” No matter what it took, she was determined to be able to walk on her own by the end of the day.
When she opened her eyes and looked up, Fiona quickly averted her own gaze. But Ellie could sense that Fiona’s reaction to Ellie had been radically different from anyone else’s.
Maybe I can convince Fiona, Ellie thought. I need an ally!
Chapter 4
For everyone’s sake, Ellie vowed to humor Alexis’s parents from now on. When they returned to her room with Fiona a couple of hours later, she hid her eagerness to speak to Fiona alone. Ellie kept their group conversation as light as possible by merely encouraging the three of them to share anecdotes about Alexis. She hoped that the conversation she’d had earlier with the psychiatrist—Dr. Schultz—would help convince everyone that she was Elony Montgomery, not Alexis Bixby; she’d been able to rattle off precise details of her life in Philadelphia. Dr. Schultz had mastered the technique of maintaining an inscrutable expression, but it stood to reason that a junior in high school in Albany, New York, could not possibly emerge from a month-long coma with a Philadelphia school’s debate team’s schedule at the tip of her tongue.
At five thirty, Nurse Susan told Alexis’s parents and Fiona that visiting hours were over till seven thirty. They said pleasant goodbyes, and the three of them left the room.
Ellie was promptly served an actual meal, only a slight improvement from her liquid-only breakfast and lunch—small amounts of easily digestible food. She had a glob of gooey white rice, Saltines minus the salt, and a bowl of broth. She couldn’t gauge if her taste buds actually worked.
Some fifteen minutes after leaving, Fiona popped her head back in the door and said, “Hey.”
“Hey,” Ellie replied. “I thought they didn’t allow visitors during the dinner hour. Hours, rather.”
“They don’t. I’m not your average ‘visitor.’ I didn’t get around to mentioning this earlier, but I do volunteer work here.” She slung her winter coat on a chair, then put on a purple vest that she’d been carrying. The ugly vest had a name tag pinned to it that read: Hi! I’m Fiona Rodgers! Fiona turned in a slow three-sixty. “Pretty snazzy, huh?”
“Definitely. It’s your color.”
“I work in the children’s wing. I want to go into special ed someday. As a teacher, I mean. Plus it’ll look good on my college apps.” She pointed with her chin at Ellie’s empty bowl. “What’s that you’re eating?”
“I think it was egg-drop soup, minus the egg. Or the droppings.”
Fiona grinned for a moment, then every trace of good humor left her face. She crossed her arms. “Okay, Alexis. What’s really going on?”
Like everyone else, Fiona hadn’t believed her whatsoever. “Exactly what I told you before. I’m Ellie Montgomery. I don’t know how or why, but I awoke in Alexis’s body.”
Fiona was all but glaring at her. “I overheard your parents talking to the psychiatrist. Dr. Schultz says you’re faking it—either deliberately or unconsciously.”
Ellie snorted in disgust. “That’s ridiculous! I’ve been in a coma! I gave him dozens of names and facts about Willow Grove High and my Chestnut Hill neighborhood that he can verify on-line! Did he say how I could even remotely manage such a feat?”
“You could have looked at that school’s website last night.”
“I haven’t had access to a computer!” She made a sweeping gesture with her right hand. “Do you see any in my room?”
“Your mom has insisted on keeping some of your clothes here. She thinks your cellphone might be in the pocket of your coat. Dr. Schultz said the night-shift nurse reported that you got out of bed.”
“Yeah, for like two seconds! To use the bathroom! I certainly didn’t ransack the room for—” Ellie stopped, realizing that her hostility would simply drive Fiona away. “Is that what you believe?” she asked gently.
She shrugged. “If you’ve decided this was the only way out . . . maybe.”
“Why would Alexis be that desperate?”
Fiona rocked on her heels for a moment and searched Ellie’s features. “You were drunk and depressed that night. You called me. You said you were going to escape. That everything was wrong, and you were going crazy. I begged you not to go anywhere. I told you I’d be there in five minutes. You took off anyway. Drove straight into a tree at sixty miles an hour.”
Ellie hesitated. “I didn’t realize that Alexis’s car accident was a suicide attempt. That must have been really hard on you.”
“Thanks,” Fiona said sarcastically, as she plopped down on the chair. “Rest assured that Fiona is always willing to put up with Alexis’s crap. Just like Alexis has always been willing to put up with Fiona’s. It’s your parents that I’m worried about. Your mom’s like my second mother. She’s been put through way too much.”
“I realize that, and that only makes me feel all the worse. The last thing I want to do is add to their pain. I’m going to spare them as best I can. But, Fiona, I’m telling you the truth. Even if you accept Dr. Schultz’s theory, I can describe exactly how to get to my high school in Philadelphia from the Interstate. I can name a couple of dozen streets in the Chestnut Hill area . . . my old neighborhood. I can tell you zip codes, phone numbers, names of businesses. You can get online and check my accuracy. Whatever it takes to convince you, I’ll do. I need your help, Fiona. I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to make sure my mom’s okay! The same person who shot my dad and me could be targeting her!”
Voicing her fear for her mother’s safety only made Ellie’s predicament feel all the more dire. She forced herself to stay silent and allow Fiona time to think.
After a lengthy pause, Fiona said, “What’s the temple in Rome that was built as a tribute to all the ancient Roman gods?”
“The Pantheon, you mean?”
Again, she shuffled her weight back and forth for a moment before answering. “You did an oral report on Rome for History in November, but you did a half-assed job. You kept calling it the ‘Parnethon.’”
“I know none of this makes any sense, Fiona, but I’m telling you the truth. Please, please, help me get out of here.”
“I can’t!” Fiona cried. “You’re safe here. For all I know, if I sneak you out of here, you could have a seizure. Or an aneurism, like Sarah.”
Her heart pounding, Ellie scooted closer to Fiona. “That won’t happen. And I’m desperate. If our situations had been reversed, wouldn’t you want someone to help you get home? Just for a little while?”
Fiona looked anguished, but didn’t answer.
Ellie decided she had to bargain with Fiona. “Twenty-four hours,” Ellie pleaded. “That’s all I ask. I promise to come back with you by this time tomorrow, no matter what happens. I just need to see my mom. She lost her husband. I’m her only child, and I’m probably in a coma in a Philadelphia hospital.”
“But . . . maybe your doctors and nurses are right about your being delusional. Or maybe you and Ellie have had some weird psychic mind-meld. And both of you are still in your own bodies, but share memories.”
Ellie tried to quell her emotions so she could answer logically. “If I’m crazy, my neighborhood won’t be like I remember it. Someone else will be living in my house, if it even exists. Or, if this is some kind of psychic phenomenon, maybe Alexis has awoken in my body at the hospital in Philadelphia. It’ll be super weird, but at least I won’t be alone in this nightmare.”
Fiona rose. “Damn it, Allie, that’s a ten-hour round trip! And ‘Allie’ is the closest to ‘Ellie’ as I’m going to get. Alexis has hated that nickname ever since Kindergarten, when some kids started calling her Alley Cat.”
Ellie held her breath and remained silent.
“We had a big blow out a couple of days before you drove into the tree. Afterwards, you told me you were going to get your act together again. You made me promise to stick by you, no matter what. But you went right ahead and . . .” Fiona was getting choked up. “You never should have tried to take your own life like that. It wasn’t fair to me. We’d have gotten through it together, just like always. And, I know what you’re thinking . . . that you’re not Alexis. But I just needed to get that off my chest.”
Fiona marched over to the tiny closet on the adjacent wall. She opened the door and started tossing clothes toward Ellie—jeans, bra, and a purple long-sleeved pullover. “Good thing your mom insisted on stocking your closet. And that this particular shift has two nurses who let your friends come and go.”
“Thank you so, so—”
“We’ve got, like, thirty seconds from the time I turn off your monitor till the nurses will come running. Get dressed. Quick.” Fiona turned off the machine, and Ellie yanked off her finger clip.
“I’m still not real steady on my feet,” Ellie warned.
“We’ll link arms. It’ll be like old times. You’ve been getting drunk a lot the last few months.”
“Sounds like Alexis had massive problems,” Ellie said as she pulled on her jeans. They were so loose on her she managed to do so with little trouble.
“That’s kind of hard to hear from someone who looks exactly like Alexis and has her voice and everything.” Fiona helped Ellie get her boots on. She grabbed the parka out of the closet.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to—”
Fiona held up her hand. “Let’s go try to find your mom.” She donned her coat, grabbed Ellie’s arm, and they headed out the door.
Chapter 5
Hours later, when they turned onto Ellie’s street, Ellie became so anxious about seeing her mother again that she could barely endure the pressure of the seatbelt against her shoulder and lap. Now, as Fiona stopped her car in front of Ellie’s snow-filled driveway, she stared with crushing disappointment at her two-story Colonial with its dark windows and unshoveled walkway.
“It’s deserted,” Ellie said. She’d been so intent on making sure that her detailed memories did indeed match up with the actual suburban-Philadelphia neighborhood that she’d thought about little else. “My mom wouldn’t be staying here by herself after what happened that night.”
“So . . . how do we find her?” Fiona asked. “Do you know where—”
“She’ll be at my grandmother’s house. It’s only about ten miles away.”
Ellie gave directions, but they exchanged no chit-chat for several minutes. “So, have you figured out what you’re going to say to your mom?” Fiona finally asked. “And to your grandparents, now? When we arrive at their house at eleven thirty at night?”
Ellie had said at the start of their long drive that she didn’t want to talk about what she planned on saying to her mother. She still didn’t. “It’s just my grandmother. My grandfather died last year.”
“How ‘with it’ is your grandmother?” Fiona asked. “Any chance she won’t notice that you look like Alexis Bixby, not her granddaughter?”
“Nah. She’s sharp as a tack.” She smiled a little as she studied Fiona’s profile. “So you believe that I’m really who I say I am?”
Fiona gave a disheartened shrug. “You’ve obviously got Ellie’s memory banks. I’m hoping it’s one of those paranormal, sci-fi things that’s going to fade over time. Like if bonking your head gave you ESP . . . but it actually gave you ESM—Extra Set of Memories. No offense, Allie, but I want Alexis back.”
“I understand. I want to be back in my own body.”
Fiona once again lapsed into silence as Ellie gave her directions. “That’s it right there,” Ellie said pointing to the ranch-style brick home that belonged to her grandmother. “Mom’s car’s in the driveway!” The silver Mercedes was parked in front of the garage.
The living room curtains were open. Mom’s sitting on the sofa! Ellie’s heart lurched as she saw her mom wiping her eyes with a tissue.
Ellie couldn’t sit still. She unfastened her seatbelt.
Fiona stopped the car while they were still in the street and turned to face Ellie. She sighed. “We can’t ring your grandmother’s doorbell at this hour . . . not after what they’ve been through. We’ll freak them out all the worse. This isn’t a good idea, Allie. You’ve got to rethink this.”
“Mom’s right there in the living room!” Ellie cried, gesturing at the window. “She’s crying! Pull into the damned driveway!”
Fiona straightened in her seat and stared through the windshield, but kept her foot on the brake pedal.
“Well, fine. I’ll walk across the lawn,” Ellie said, grasping the door handle.
“Wait,” Fiona growled, pulling forward. As she parked next to Ellie’s mother’s car, Fiona said, “Your mother’s going to think you’re a crazy person! Or high as a kite!”
“I can’t give up now.” Ellie all but leapt from the car. Every bone and muscle in her body was screaming in protest, but she was charged with adrenaline. She headed up the concrete walkway. She wobbled a little, but her balance felt better. Her legs were finally cooperating. Fiona quickly caught up to her and grabbed her arm.
Ellie braced herself to pull away, but Fiona merely helped her up the steps. “This is a train wreck,” Fiona grumbled. “And here I am, steering you toward the train.”
Ellie tapped on the front door. Fiona hung back, saying: “Why would your mom even open the—”
The porch light was turned on. An instant later, her mother opened the door a little and peered at Ellie. Her mother looked horrible. She’d lost weight. Her face was ashen, her eyes were red and puffy, and she’d seemed to have aged ten years in the last couple of weeks.
“Hi, um, Ms. Montgomery.” Unable to turn off the adrenaline rush, Ellie’s entire body was shaking. “I’m so sorry about the late hour, but I need to talk to you about your daughter, Ellie. It’s important. Can I please come in?”
Ellie’s mother glanced past Ellie’s shoulder at Fiona, then returned her gaze to Ellie. “It’s well after eleven.”
“I know. I’m sorry it’s so late. I got here as fast as I could.” She felt a pang; her mother looked so defeated and exhausted.
“I’ve been so worried about you. And I just . . . needed to see you.”
Her mother stayed put, peering at them from behind the half-opened door. “You needed to see me?” she asked, her tone of voice rife with suspicion.
“We’re really sorry,” Fiona said. “Alexis has been through a major ordeal, but I shouldn’t have brought her here. This is my friend, Alexis Bixby. And I’m Fiona Rodgers.”
Her mother nodded and held the door for them. “Come in. Both of you.”
“Thank you,” Ellie said, feeling even wobblier on her feet. Her thoughts were wobbly, as well. She’d planned to tell her mother in precise detail the events of the evening that led up to her shooting—including what they’d eaten for dinner and their word-for-word conversation. Yet her mother looked like a shadow of her former self.
Ellie now realized she couldn’t bear to tell her mom the horrific story of those final minutes or to remind her of the last day in which her family had been intact. Her mom had suffered far too much already. Furthermore, Ellie’s theory now felt too freakish to share; her mom didn’t need to hear that the contents of her daughter’s brain had been sucked from her head and forced into Alexis Bixby’s.
So what could she say? That she’d had a stuffed dog named Leo as a child? That her dad’s nickname for her mother was “Wilbur?” Would any personal data be sufficient to convince even her own mother that she was her daughter in the flesh—when “the flesh” belonged to another girl?
As her mother shut the door behind them, Ellie had such a longing to collapse in her mother arms that she had to dab at her eyes. She sank into her favorite chair. It had been her grandfather’s favorite seat—a leather recliner.
“We’ll only stay a minute,” Fiona said, sounding uncomfortable. She perched on the wooden chair that was near the door. “And we’ll keep our voices down.”
“Grammy takes out her hearing aid at night,” Ellie blurted out.
“Pardon?” her mom said, still standing by the door, seemingly frozen in place.
The Body Shifters (Book 1 Body Shifters Trilogy): A Novel (The Body Shifters Trilogy) Page 3
