Prism

by Faye Kellerman; Aliza Kellerman

  Zeke looked down as if to say, “You don’t get it.” Out loud he said, “One problem at a time.”

  “Agreed,” Joy said, still wolfing down cheese. “Ugh, this is really strong! I sure hope I’m not eating all this fat for nothing!”

  Zeke faked a yawn. “I’m beat, guys, and I have a swim meet. So as much as I hate to be rude…”

  “I understand,” I told him. “Look, it’s important that we act as normal as possible under the rules here, right?”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Joy said. “I’m not showing my arm to anyone!”

  “Good.” I turned to Ozzy. “I still want to read those papers.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  We gave one another hugs good-bye. I routinely did that with my friends, so I guess that meant that Joy and Zeke were now my friends. But it was more than that. It was the kind of hug that I bet people gave each other on the Titanic: Maybe I’ll see you again, but maybe I won’t.

  I sat on Ozzy’s couch staring at the pizza box from this afternoon.

  “I have leftovers. You want me to warm them up?”

  “I’m not too hungry and I don’t have a lot of time,” I told him. “But thanks.”

  “I’ll get the papers.”

  I had yet to meet Ozzy’s mother. She was sleeping when I arrived this afternoon and she was sleeping now. It was around nine-thirty in the evening and I had about an hour before I’d start receiving phone calls from my mother.

  Where are you!

  I didn’t want to call in—my voice sounded shaky to my ears. So that would mean I had to be home in about forty-five minutes. I had about a half hour at Ozzy’s house.

  He came back holding an envelope close to his chest. “This is a protective covering for the material.”

  “Okay…what am I looking at?”

  “Statements by people who claim they came from somewhere else.”

  “People like me?”

  “I suppose so, although I don’t really know where you came from, so it could be a world that’s different from yours.”

  “Do they write about medicine?”

  “They write about themselves.” Ozzy’s face was very intense. “Once I take the papers out, you’ve got to keep them in the glassine folder and you’ve got to be quick. You heard Luckman. Not more than two minutes each, so that really means about a minute and a half. If they fade, I’m in deep shit!”

  “I’m ready.”

  He took the first folder out of the envelope and looked at his watch. “Go.”

  The first one dealt with a woman named Sarah. She claimed she drowned and woke up in her own bed. She thought she had a bad dream. She didn’t notice anything until she went to work the next day. She was a nurse before, but the doctor’s office was gone. Furthermore no one knew what a nurse was—”

  “Time.”

  I gave the material back to him. “I just started.”

  “I know. That’s what’s so frustrating.”

  “How do you read so fast?”

  “Kaida, you learn to cope with all sorts of things when you operate outside the boundaries. You ready for number two?”

  “Yep.”

  “Here you go.” His eyes were on his wrist. “Go!”

  A doctor who committed suicide. He woke up in bed at home and couldn’t figure out why he was still alive. But he was happy he was. He ate breakfast, then decided he really needed psychological and physical help. He drove himself to the hospital where he worked, but it wasn’t there. No one knew what he was talking about. No one knew what a doctor was. His wife told him that he was an engineer—”

  “Time.”

  “Damn!”

  “I know, it goes really fast.”

  “I wish I was a speed reader.”

  “If you keep doing this long enough, you will be. Number three coming up.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  This guy was a drug salesperson. He worked for Mercy Pharmaceuticals. He had a traffic accident and when he woke up, he was in his own bed. He thought it was a bad dream. He got up to go to work, but instead of finding Mercy, he found a company named Harding that made industrial paints. He couldn’t figure out what happened to his company. He finally found a coworker and asked him about it, but the coworker had no idea what he was talking about—”

  “Time.”

  “Arg!” I handed him back the folder. “This is exasperating!”

  “Tell me about it,” Ozzy said. “So now you know the crap I’m dealing with. Also, once I return these folders tomorrow, I can’t go back to the archives for another four months without arousing suspicion. Iona Boyd has a ton of assistants. They like it that way. It means no one person knows too much.”

  “Who’s they?” I asked.

  “They…she…I don’t know everything.” He frowned and I could tell he was bothered. “I do know that you can’t visit the archives too often without someone asking probing questions. I know because it’s happened to me.”

  “Wow. Sorry if I screwed something up for you.”

  “No, no.” He put the protective envelope down and took my hand. “You’re one of the gifted. You know stuff! Like about moldy cheese. Tell me about moldy cheese.”

  I noticed he was still holding my hand. When he realized I was looking down at our interlaced fingers, he blushed and gently pulled his hand from mine.

  “Some moldy food has natural penicillin in it.”

  “And what is penicillin again?”

  “It’s called an antibiotic. It helps kill the stuff that makes you sick.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Bacteria…which are like little invisible bugs.” His expression was even more perplexed. It sounded crazy to my ears. I could surmise what it sounded like to him. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  “I do, I do.”

  “Anyway, things like moldy cheese…sharp cheese like Roquefort.” I bit my lower lip. “I think also moldy, unprocessed salami…they help fight the germs.” I looked into his eyes. “This was something I picked up from my seventh-grade science class. I was twelve or thirteen and way more interested in boys and music than I was in science.” I didn’t tell him that I was still that way…or had been until the accident.

  “You must be on to something,” Ozzy said. “Zeke and Joy understood right away. So if I took cheese and let it rot and fed it to my mom, it would help her?”

  “I don’t know, Ozzy. I don’t know what’s making your mom sick.”

  Again he nodded, but he seemed dejected. “What did you think of the material?”

  “They all had a couple of things in common,” I said. “Something terrible happened. The people woke up the next morning in their beds thinking they’d had bad dreams. And then they discovered that their world—that included medicine and health care—had just…disappeared.”

  “How similar is that to your story?”

  “Identical, actually.” I paused. “Ozzy, have you read anything where a person consistently went back and forth between the two worlds?”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.” He took my hand again. “Maybe you can be the first one!”

  “I’m fifteen years old.”

  “Joan of Arc was fifteen when she led the troops and defeated the English.”

  At least we were learning the same history. “She was burned at the stake.” I pulled my hand away. “I need to get home, Ozzy.”

  “Absolutely.” He stood up and so did I. “I know I’m putting a lot of pressure on you, Kaida. I just want to tell you how grateful I am…grateful that I met you.”

  “It’s good for both of us. We need help with Joy’s arm.”

  “I’ll get on it right away.”

  “I’m sorry that I’m not Joan of Arc.”

  “Don’t be sorry, Kaida. I understand what you’re saying.”

  Of course he understood, but still I could tell that he was disappointed.

  14

  When I got home
, Jace was planted on the couch, crumbs all over his face, his eyes on the television screen.

  “How’s it going?” I asked my brother.

  “Keep it down. Suzanne’s asleep.”

  I love you, too, I thought. “Isn’t this supposed to be your toughest year of high school?”

  “That’s eleventh grade. Twelfth is much easier.” He was still involved in the tube. “Besides, it’s the weekend, and since you stuck me with babysitting, I figured I’d make the best of it.” He finally looked up. “Where were you?”

  “Just around.” I made my escape into the kitchen. A bowl of cookie dough sat on the counter. I accidentally knocked over a spoon. It clanged on the floor, and upstairs my sister began to wail.

  “Freakin’-A, Kaida! One night, I figure I can get her to sleep and just chill until Mom and Dad get home. But no!”

  “I’ll get her.” I ran upstairs to Suzanne’s room, which was painted lavender because my mom read somewhere it promoted “zen.”

  Suzanne was shrieking.

  Calm shmalm.

  I picked her up, rocking her while singing her to sleep. It took some time, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t want to deal with my brother. When she’d finally quieted, I tucked her in the crib and went downstairs. Jace was still in front of the television. I went back to the kitchen and took out some leftover pasta. Jace came in a minute later. His black shorts were covered with food stuff.

  “Sorry if I’m a little tense.”

  “No biggie. Want some pasta?”

  “No, I’m okay.” He didn’t look okay. “I heard you visited the archives.”

  “Yeah…I was only there for about five minutes and I didn’t even go inside.” I gave him the best smile I could manage. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Some people saw you at Hawthorne. I guess I just figured you took my advice—which I might not have been so bright to give you.”

  I tried to act casual. “You can have the ID back. I don’t think I’ll be going there again.”

  “Phew!” he said. “That’s good.”

  “Who is Erin White?”

  “She’s no one. Don’t mention her, okay?”

  “Trouble?”

  “It’s not important. Where’s her ID?”

  “In my purse.”

  Immediately he got up and rooted through my mess until he found the beaten-up ID. He stared wistfully at the picture. “So it got you into the archives or…”

  “Yeah, it worked, but I only spent a few minutes down there. Have you ever been?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t know why you sent me there. It’s very confusing.”

  “Yeah, I must have had brain freeze. I’m glad everything worked out okay.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. It’s stupid to ask so many unanswerable questions.”

  “Good for you!” Jace smiled. “You’re a much quicker learner than I am.”

  “How about if I take the pasta into the living room and we share it?”

  “Sounds good.”

  I followed him into the living room a few minutes later with two bowls of penne pasta.

  Jace said, “One more thing. People are also saying that you’ve been hanging around that kid, Ozzy Callahan.”

  I froze.

  “You are?” Jace looked ill.

  I didn’t answer him. There was only so much lying I could do in a day.

  “Look, he’s bad news, Kaida.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “Not the way Maria is bad news—Ozzy is actually bad news. Don’t hang out with him.”

  Sometimes we lived in too small a town. We ate for a few moments in silence. Then I said, “I just talked to him a couple of times.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Maybe you got the wrong information.” I gave him the rest of the pasta. “How about if I bake cookies and we eat them all before Mom and Dad get home.”

  “Kaida, I mean it. He hangs around the wrong—”

  “I don’t particularly need your advice at this time, thanks.”

  “This isn’t advice. Advice implies you can take it or leave it. This is a warning from your brother who cares deeply about you.”

  His concern was reason enough to worry. Jace is not the sentimental type.

  “Your advice is duly registered.” I kissed the top of his head. “I have to call Maria. I’ll see you later.”

  “You promise it’s Maria you’re calling?”

  “God!” I scolded him. “Enough of the big brother crap, okay? I heard what you said, I’ll take it into consideration, and yes, I’m calling Maria.”

  I made certain that when I got to my room, I closed the door softly. I didn’t want to have to deal with Jace or Suzanne.

  “Hey shugapie,” I said when she picked up the line.

  “Hi,” Maria croaked on the other end of the telephone.

  “Whoa, are you—” Sick, I wanted to say. But I caught myself. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m great,” she proclaimed.

  “Great.”

  She burst into tears.

  “Oh, God, Kaida,” Maria said. “I really hope it’s temporary. But what if it’s not? What if it stays? I’m scared. I’m so freaking scared!” She sobbed, her breaths coming out scratchy through the receiver.

  “Of course it’ll go away,” I said with authority. I wanted to say it’s only a cold, but I had to put myself in her position. This is what I’d have to worry about every day if I remained here. Oh, how I wanted to go back. How I wanted to take everyone I loved with me. “You know it’ll go away and so do I.”

  “Kaida, how can you honestly say that?” she said between hacks.

  “Cause I know these things. You’ve had this before and it went away, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So this one will, too.”

  “Oh, Kaida, you really know how to say the right things.” And with that she sneezed.

  “You know, one day…maybe they’ll fix this.”

  “Fix what?”

  “You know…getting sick.”

  “Everyone gets sick.”

  “Okay, yeah, you’re right. But some people…they don’t stay sick even if they’re very sick.” She didn’t answer. “Hello?”

  “I hear you. Don’t talk smack, Kaida.”

  “It’s not smack.” I bit my bottom lip and tugged on one pigtail, “Like you know…there are ways to help when you’re sick.”

  “I’m drinking hot tea.”

  “I mean something more—”

  “Don’t go there.”

  “Go where?”

  “Spills,” she whispered.

  “I know one. A spill dealer. If you need help—”

  “Do you have…” She sneezed. “Do you have any conception at all of how ridiculously insane that is?”

  “Maria”—my voice was tender—“you wore different-colored socks in kindergarten. You convinced me to dye my hair purple.” I hesitated, because Jace could’ve been listening, “You made me do a shot of vodka! I think you know insane pretty well.” Even if alcohol wasn’t illegal in this parallel universe, it was a pariah for me in my brother’s universe.

  “Kaida, this is beyond ugly clothing.” Her voice was trembling. “This will screw up our lives if we get caught.”

  “Getting caught is for the stupid teenagers.” I smiled slyly, even if she couldn’t see it. “And since when have we been anything like them?”

  Dear God, I thought, whatever you are, at least return my Maria to me.

  Then she said, “You’ve got a point there, Hutchenson. But before we take a serious step…let’s see what happens with me.”

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Kaida, thank you, thank you, for being the kind of friend who would do that for me. I hope that I would be the kind of friend who would do that for you.”

  “Of course you would.”

  She sneezed. “I’d better get back to my tea. It’s the only thing that makes me feel good. T
alk to you later.”

  “Bye.” I hung up and felt pretty positive about the conversation. Then I remembered that she didn’t ask who the spill dealer was and how I knew him.

  It set me to thinking.

  Jace knew I had been hanging around Ozzy. How did he find out?

  No, Maria would never do that. She’d never talk behind my back—especially to my brother.

  Unless…

  Unless she thought it was for my own good.

  I was awakened by a pounding on my door. I heard my mother’s voice, but I could barely understand her.

  “…up right now!” I heard my mother yell. Aroused from a deep sleep, I thought I heard two men arguing. Suzanne was wailing in the background.

  “Just rock her to sleep, Mom,” I told her.

  “Don’t you dare talk back to me,” my mom snapped, opening my door and turning on my light.

  “Mom, what—”

  “If you’re not downstairs in two minutes, you can expect something a lot worse than lack of sleep in your future.” My mother looked like she was about to pop a blood vessel. Her face was red, but her eyes appeared as if she had been crying.

  “Fine!” I got up. “I’ll put her back to sleep!”

  But when I reached for the baby, she turned her away protectively. “Kaida, this doesn’t concern putting your sister back to sleep! Come downstairs now!”

  I rubbed my eyes, but I still wasn’t quite awake. I was dreaming about the time my mother had fainted while coming out of the bath. Dad had picked her up and Jace had called the ambulance. If that had happened now, there’d be no ambulance to call.

  “It could mean nothing!” I heard my brother shout. At least I think I heard him. It was very hard for me to distinguish between dreams and reality.

  “Jace, shut up!” my father snapped back. “You’re a kid and you don’t know anything about anything!”

  Since when was the Hutchenson residence a made-for-Lifetime-TV special?