The Secret to Lying

by Todd Mitchell

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish,” she replied. “According to the site, my hobbies include luring guys into the pond with my skanky charms and getting them expelled. Or, in your case, suspended. Although there’s speculation that I poisoned you and threw you into the pond myself, hoping you’d drown.”

  “Ouch.”

  “It’s very amusing,” she said. “You should see all the clever remarks people have left about me.”

  “Why don’t you have it taken down?”

  “What’s the point? People would still hate me.”

  “No, they wouldn’t.”

  Ellie shook her head. “I know what people say about me. They think I’m stuck-up. Even before the pond incident, they called me the Ice Queen.”

  I glanced away, wondering if she knew that I was one of those people. “What about Amber Lane, or Jewel Sens, or Brandy Morales?” I asked. “They practically worship you.”

  “They probably started the site.”

  “That sucks.”

  “I’m used to it. All my life, people have been nice to my face, then they cut me apart behind my back. No one’s ever straight with me.”

  “I’ll be straight with you,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound too cheesy.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I will,” I said. “How about this — I always thought you were stuck-up.”

  “Good to know.”

  “But you’re not stuck-up,” I added. “Not really. It’s just that most people are scared of you.”

  Ellie chuckled and her knee fell against mine. “Most people are scared of you, James.”

  “Are you scared of me?”

  “A little.”

  “Why? It’s not like I’m a gun-toting psycho.”

  “That isn’t what scares me,” she said. “It’s more like I’m scared for you.”

  I glanced at my arm. A few of my scars were visible beyond the hem of my sleeve, but most were covered. “I can’t believe this,” I said, changing the subject. “We’re talking. I mean, really talking. I feel like I know you.”

  “Maybe you do.” She looked down, as if waiting for me to say something important.

  “So are you . . . ?” I started, then my voice got lost in my throat. I swallowed and tried again. “Are you going to the fling with anyone?”

  Ellie seemed taken aback by my question. “Oh,” she said. “Kevin Heegan asked me.”

  “Really?” Heegan was a tall, buff junior with a perfectly square jaw. All the excitement I’d felt the moment before drained out of me. It was like in movies when the bad guy blew a hole through the side of a plane and everything got sucked into the empty sky.

  “I haven’t told him if I’m going or not,” she added. “I was kind of hoping someone else might ask. What about you?”

  “I don’t know. There are a few people I could ask.”

  “Like who?”

  “Jessica Keen, for one.”

  “Didn’t you two break up?”

  “We had a little disagreement,” I said. “She probably expects me to ask her, but I haven’t talked with her since she got all weird and possessive over Christmas break.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Whatever.” I glanced away. Heegan. I couldn’t believe she’d go with Heegan. I guess he fit the part by being appropriately hunkish. “Look, I’ll tell you what really happened with Jess, but you have to keep it a secret. Okay?”

  Ellie nodded.

  “The truth is, these guys were chasing us, and I could have fought them, but I didn’t want to. Not with Jess there. So I tried to get away, and we got in an accident, and she flipped out.”

  “Someone was chasing you?”

  “These guys who wanted to fight me. I used to be in a street-fighting league, and I was never defeated.”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Ellie said. “Why are you always telling stories?”

  “It’s not a story.” I rolled up my sleeve and showed her the scars on the inside of my arm. “That’s how I got these.”

  Ellie dragged her finger over my scars. For a moment, I thought I had her, but when she spoke, it was in a hard, cold voice. “God, James. You don’t have to lie.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “That’s right,” she said, “you’re all car crashes, and explosions, and fights to the death. A real hero.”

  I jerked my sleeve down. “Forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  “You are stuck-up,” I said. Attraction. Repulsion. “You want to know why people hate you? It’s not because you’re pretty. It’s because you’re cold. You’re so cold, you’re dead inside.”

  Ellie’s mouth tightened. Her eyes grew wet and tears rolled down her cheeks, which was strange, because other than the tears she didn’t look like she was crying.

  I stood. More tears rolled down her cheeks. I wanted to take it back, but I couldn’t. So instead, I walked away.

  johnnyrotten: Hey, I saw you blip on. I have to ask you something.

  ghost44: What?

  johnnyrotten: I want to ask you a question, but before you answer you have to let me explain. Okay?

  ghost44: I need to go.

  johnnyrotten: Just give me one minute.

  ghost44: Fifty-six seconds left.

  johnnyrotten: Will you go to the dance with me?

  johnnyrotten: Don’t answer yet!

  johnnyrotten: Here’s the thing. I know you think that if I see you, it’ll ruin everything, but I promise it won’t. You’re the only person I can talk with, and that’s more important than appearances — I get that now. I swear, how you look doesn’t matter to me. If you want, I’ll even wear a blindfold all night. It’ll be like a blind date and we can be with each other.

  ghost44: You are so pathetic. I can’t believe I ever wrote you.

  johnnyrotten: What’s wrong?

  ghost44: God, I’m such an idiot. I took your stupid advice. I tried reaching out. I tried to believe that things might be different with you — that there might be something honest in you, but I was wrong.

  johnnyrotten: What do you mean?

  ghost44: You’re the one who’s cold, James. You’re the one who’s dead inside.

  johnnyrotten: Ellie?

  ghost44: Don’t ever IM me again.

  johnnyrotten: Wait!

  johnnyrotten: I’m sorry.

  johnnyrotten: Come on, Ellie. Talk to me.

  johnnyrotten: Please.

  johnnyrotten: Ellie?

  johnnyrotten: Are you there?

  I SHOULD HAVE CRIED, but I couldn’t. Not one damn tear. It didn’t matter that I’d lost everything — Jess, Ellie, ghost44 — I felt nothing. I was dead inside. A cold, dead shell pretending to be human, while everyone else took it for granted that they were real. They didn’t have to lie all the time. They didn’t have to cut themselves to feel.

  I locked the door and slugged cough syrup until my stomach burned. Dickie was out, probably hanging in Cheese and Heinous’s room. I unplugged my alarm and stuffed some earplugs in so I wouldn’t hear him when he returned. Then I collapsed onto my bed, wanting to lose myself in sleep.

  Almost as soon as I closed my eyes, I fell through the mattress into the dark, cloudy night of the city.

  I dreamed of a courtyard surrounded on all four sides by brick buildings. The Thief was there, kneeling at the base of a scraggly tree. She poured water from a cup into cracks where the gnarled roots pushed up slabs of concrete. “It’s dying,” she said. “Every day it loses more leaves.”

  I looked at the tree. A few leaves clung to one branch near the top, but the rest were bare. “Can you help me?” I asked.

  The Thief kept tending the tree, holding the cup upside down until the last drops dripped onto the roots.

  “Please,” I added. “I need to find a way out of here.”

  She shook her head and set the cup down. “You can’t leave.”

  “Why not?”

  The T
hief gazed at the brick walls surrounding us. “The buildings have grown so tall, they block out the light,” she said. “I can bring the tree water, but I can’t bring it light. Time’s running out, James. When the tree dies, you’ll forget this place.”

  “Good. I want to forget it. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  “You don’t understand.” Her eyes locked on mine. “Part of you will always be here. You simply won’t remember what you’ve left behind anymore. You won’t remember that you once were someone different.”

  I realized she was talking about White Blade. She knew what I’d done to him — how I’d helped the Nomanchulators take him.

  “I warned you not to go after him,” she said. “But you wanted to take control. Rewrite your life. You gave yourself to them — that’s why you’re trapped here.”

  “What if I rescued him?” I asked.

  She seemed surprised by the idea. “I thought you wanted to get rid of him.”

  “I did.”

  “Then what changed?”

  A breeze swirled dry leaves around the courtyard. “I’m becoming like them,” I said. “Like the Nomanchulators. If I undo what I’ve done, I’ll be able to leave, right?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So all we have to do is find where the Nomanchulators took White Blade and take him back.”

  The Thief sighed and shook her head. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Why not? You’re the Thief — isn’t that what you do? Steal things?”

  “What the Nomanchulators take, they drag to the core,” she explained. “Even if we could make it down there, it would be near impossible to free him.”

  “Please,” I said. “I don’t want to stay like this.”

  She looked at the bare branches above her, then back at me. “If we go down there, we might not make it out.”

  “Things can’t get any worse,” I said.

  “Things can always get worse,” she replied.

  On the way to the elevator, the Thief explained what we had to do. The core existed several levels beneath the burrows. “Remember the first time you went to the burrows?”

  I nodded as if it was no big deal, even though I’d gotten the crap kicked out of me.

  “This is going to be like that, only harder. The deeper we go, the less you’ll be able to control.”

  “Fine.”

  “Things will change,” continued the Thief. “Not much can stay solid in the core. It’s possible you’ll forget yourself and never return.” She looked at me to see if I understood what we were getting into. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “What other choice do I have?” I said, pushing the button to call the elevator. The brass doors opened, and I stepped inside.

  “All right,” the Thief said, sitting on the bed beside me. “The important thing is to remember how many levels you go down.”

  I lay on the bed and closed my eyes. It took several minutes before I drifted off and the elevator started to descend. The tarnished brass walls glistened with the oil-on-water sheen of the burrows. Even the Thief appeared brighter, her blue eyes impossibly intense.

  “One,” I said.

  “No. This is two. You have to count the surface as one, because from where we are now, you’d need to wake up twice to make it out.”

  “Right,” I replied, embarrassed to have made such an obvious mistake. “Two.”

  I folded my hands across my chest and closed my eyes to dream of the next level. Sleep came quickly — a sudden drop that ended with a ding! The old-fashioned arrow above the door rotated back a notch.

  “Three.”

  My voice sounded funny. Disconnected. There was a lag between the movement of my lips and when I heard myself speak. The Thief leaned over me. “You’re doing fine,” she said, her mouth moving out of sync with her words. “Focus on the elevator. Keep going.”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes again. This time it was like the brakes on the elevator had snapped. I fell for a long time before I woke in the next level. The brass walls swirled with color, and the bed I lay on undulated when I moved. I rubbed my eyes. The bones of my arm flexed and wobbled.

  I sat up, terrified. My elbow bumped the wall, sending ripples through the whole elevator. Nothing here, not even myself, was solid.

  “Easy,” the Thief said. Her eyes drifted around, making me seasick.

  “How much farther?”

  “As far as you can go.”

  I swallowed and lay on the swaying bed. The elevator lurched back and forth for what seemed like hours before I fell asleep again and dropped to the next level.

  Where was I?

  An elevator — that much I remembered. But there was something else I’d forgotten. Something important. “Four,” I said, recalling my purpose. “No. Five.”

  I looked at the old-fashioned dial above the brass doors for confirmation. The arrow had melted. It dripped down the wall like candle wax.

  Everything began to melt. I held my hand in front of me and watched my fingers wilt and stretch like taffy in the hot sun. My mouth dropped open to scream, but my jaw wouldn’t work.

  “Focussss,” murmured the Thief. She slouched on the bed, her head lolling off, melting from the heat of a brilliant spark within her chest. “Pullll-ittt-tooogether.”

  I nodded and tried to remember her face the way it should be — her sharp cheekbones, wide smile, and intense eyes. Next, I willed my hand to be solid. My fingers drew back to their normal size. I flexed them a few times, head throbbing from the strain of it. The Thief held her palm to my cheek, as if checking my temperature. “Keep going,” she said, helping me lie back.

  I closed my eyes again and sought out sleep.

  When next I dreamed, things looked translucent. The walls of the elevator were soap-bubble thin, and the Thief appeared ghostly and beautiful. The glow in her center that I’d seen before looked incredible — a radiant snowflake, twinkling and unique. I didn’t want to see her solid anymore. I wanted both of us to be light and colors swirling around. The elevator dissolved, but I didn’t care. I slipped free of my heavy, torpid self.

  “James,” came a whisper. It wasn’t like a spoken word so much as a thought. “James, come back.”

  Come back to where? I wondered. There was no place. No time. We could go anywhere, quick as thought. Except I already was going somewhere. Sinking. How could I be sinking if I felt so light?

  The elevator!

  I tried to remember the walls. A shimmering bubble glistened around me. “You have to keep going,” the Thief whispered. “Remember your purpose.”

  I yearned to keep the sense of airy freedom, but part of me knew that if I stayed here, I might never wake up. “Six,” I said, closing my eyes.

  We fell through the ghost level and landed with a viscous splash. The elevator completely disappeared. Thick air, heavy with the swampy smell of decay, clogged my lungs. I stood, and my feet sank beyond my ankles into the cold, black muck. Without asking, I knew we’d reached the core.

  I lurched forward, struggling to pull my legs out. The Thief gave me a hand, and my feet slurped loose, one at a time.

  We were in a cave. Jars stacked on shelves hewn into the rough stone cast an orange glow throughout the room. There were hundreds of jars, each one containing a small, flickering entity that tinked against the glass like a trapped lightning bug.

  “There,” she said, pointing to a dark mass in the center of the cave. A web of cords radiated from the mass to the outer walls. “That’s where they would have taken him.”

  The Thief hurried to the shelves on the outer walls, grabbing jars and placing them in a sack. I approached the dark mass in the middle. A shiny pod, taller than me, hung in the center like a giant translucent pumpkin seed suspended by a network of viney cords. I ducked beneath the cords to get a closer look.

  At first, I could only make out a hand floating inside the pod. Then a limp arm, crossing over a bent leg, the knee drawn up to the chest. His head
was tilted forward, and his eyes were closed as though he were asleep. I recognized every detail of his face, from the freckle on his left cheek to the unevenly cut hair to the fine eyelashes on his shut eyes. It was me, only I’d never seen myself like this before — never with my eyes closed. I moved, half expecting this other to move with me, but it wasn’t a mirror.

  Who was I if I was watching myself sleep? I thought. Was I a dream of this sleeping self? Or was this other self my dream?

  I reached to wake him, and my fingers pierced the outer shell, sinking into the warm, sticky fluid.

  “We have to go,” the Thief called.

  Her voice startled me. I jerked my hand back, but the outer shell had closed around my wrist. I tried to pry my arm out, only my other hand got stuck as well. My legs had already sunk in up to my knees. A spasm of terror coursed through me. I pictured myself sinking until the muck filled my open mouth and sealed my lungs.

  I heaved my arms back, shaking the seed. Strands from the web waved about, sticking to my cheeks and neck. The more I struggled, the more entangled I became.

  “Stop!” The Thief set down her sack of jars and hurried to my side. “Look!” She pointed at a few of the cords that stretched to the ceiling. “They’ll feel you. They’ll come.”

  I quit struggling. Cold muck crept up my thigh.

  “You have to stay calm,” she said. Then she wrapped her arms around my chest and pulled.

  Both my arms slid out to my wrists. I threw all my strength into it, yanking my left hand free. The pod shook, sending vibrations up the cords. Inside the pod, my other floated about like a corpse in water.

  The Thief grabbed my right arm and pulled. It wasn’t until my hand snapped free that I noticed her leg braced against the pod. Her foot had sunk in beyond her ankle.

  She tore the sticky strands off me, and I fell free of the web. Muck splashed around my waist. That’s when I spotted the Nomanchulators, emerging through dozens of holes in the domed ceiling.

  A drone like a million locusts filled the chamber. Nomanchulators crawled down along the cords in a sickening swarm. The Thief craned her head to look at me. Strands stuck to her lips and cheeks. “Go!” she yelled. “Now!”