The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “So, did you guys just call me so that I could sit here and watch you argue or are either of you genuinely concerned with the state of my physical and mental health?”

  “Both,” Felix quipped. “Come on, tell me you don’t miss this.”

  I tried not to smile. “Okay, maybe a little.”

  “So, what’s it like?” Dani asked.

  “The hospital?”

  “Is that all you’ve seen?” she said, surprised.

  “That and the hotel.”

  “You mean no walks along the Rhine? No dining out in dimly lit taverns and getting drunk off German beer?” She leaned toward the screen. “No shopping?”

  I shook my head. “My mom’s got me on a tight leash. Plus, we’re still trying to adjust to the time change. We’ve spent the last three nights ordering midnight room service and watching re-runs of Beverly Hills 90210. In German.”

  “God, that sounds awful.”

  “Or like a typical Sunday night,” Felix cut in. He nodded towards Dani. “You know she’s been in these same pajamas all weekend?”

  “What?” I narrowed my eyes at the screen. “Dani? Is that you?”

  “So what?” she shot back. “I’ve spent every day for the past twelve years waking up for school at the crack of dawn just to have time to shower, straighten my hair, and do my makeup, which has culminated in what exactly? Maybe I just want a break.”

  “Uh, you got me,” Felix said.

  “So? It’s not like you take me anywhere.”

  “Did I or did I not ask if you wanted to go have lunch today?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice dry. “At Ihop.”

  “They were having all you can eat pancakes!” he yelled.

  “Well, I didn’t want pancakes.”

  “Who the hell doesn’t want pancakes?”

  “He’s kind of right, Dani,” I said. “I mean only the criminally insane don’t like pancakes.”

  “Oh, thanks for siding with him.”

  “What are you two yelling about now?” My aunt peeked over the couch. She leaned down and suddenly her face was on the screen next to Dani’s. “Oh, Bryn…”

  “Hi, aunt Lizzy.”

  “Is your mom there?”

  I spotted steam from the shower still pouring through the door seam. “She’s still getting ready.”

  “Okay, well when she gets out tell her I’ve tried to call and—”

  My grandmother’s voice cut in. “Is that Bryn?” She came shuffling around on the other side of Felix, pushing him into the cushions as she leaned toward the screen. “Bryn! What time is it there? Are you all right? What have the two of you been eating?”

  I wasn’t sure which question to answer first but luckily I didn’t have to make a decision.

  “It’s been so awful since you left, Bryn. I told your aunt I’d be just fine staying at the house on my own. But she insisted. You know how she is.”

  “Mom.” My aunt Lizzy cut her off. “The girls were trying to have a conversation.”

  “Well, that didn’t stop you from butting in,” she said.

  “I was just saying hello.”

  “Just saying hello. Right. So you weren’t trying to get to Elena before I did so you could blame the fire on me?”

  “Fire?” I stopped them. “What do you mean a fire?”

  The bathroom door flew open and my mom ran out in a towel, her hair still dripping. “Fire,” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  Felix poked his head out, a sliver of his face barely visible behind my grandmother’s bosoms. “Uh…hi, Ms. Reyes.”

  My mom threw on one of the hotel’s complimentary robes before stepping back in front of the screen. “Well?” she said, arms crossed.

  “It was just…” My aunt paused, pursed her lips.

  “Go on, Lizzy,” my grandmother said.

  “I mean, it was nothing really. Everything’s fine. It’s just—”

  My grandmother cut her off. “She blew up your kitchen.”

  “What!” my mom yelled. “My what? You did what!”

  My aunt shot my grandmother a look. “I did not. Elena…”

  “Don’t Elena me. How bad is it?”

  “It’s…”

  My aunt said, “not bad,” at the same time my grandmother said, “ruined.”

  “Well, which is it?” my mom demanded.

  “Maybe…um…a little bit of both,” Dani offered.

  “Oh God, I think I need to sit down.” My mom lowered herself onto the only available seat, which was my lap.

  She barely noticed me there and I barely noticed her. I just kept seeing those flames at the farmhouse, the lights drawing me off the frozen beach in hopes that Roman had somehow made his way back to me. But it hadn’t been Roman I’d found. It had been my grandfather. Standing over the kitchen sink, oblivious to the heat all around him. And even now I could smell the smoke and taste the ash and what the hell was wrong with me?

  I’d thought it was the opening scene of a nightmare I’d had so many times before right after my grandfather died. But I should have known. This time he wasn’t sitting and reading the newspaper. This time I wasn’t on my knees, trying to drag him onto his feet. This time it wasn’t just a nightmare.

  This time it was something else, which meant that it was happening all over again, the dreams that were more than dreams. Or maybe they never really went away. I thought back to the kites strung up in that tree in the courtyard at school and to the crow statues my mom showed me at the landscaping firm’s latest installation. And the cardinal feather. The one Roman had plucked from behind my ear and tucked into the hollow of the tree house, the one I’d found in the real world just a few weeks before I found him too.

  I couldn’t even tell what was strange anymore or what was just…me. I sunk against the chair, my mom’s weight against my chest. I wanted to bury my face in her back. I wanted to hide but the thing I feared, the thing I didn’t understand wasn’t out there. It was inside me.

  It was me.

  The parts of me that dreamed things I didn’t understand. Before, the delusions and the dreams had just been a part of my sickness, but the strange things I was seeing now were more innate than that. More dangerous. They were less like symptoms of my KLS and more like a curse. Something sinister that mocked me the more I failed to heed its warnings. Had the fire in the dream-state been a warning? Could I have stopped all of this somehow? Or was I the one who made it happen?

  I inhaled and for some reason it felt like the first deep breath I’d taken in months. Because the truth was I’d been waiting for this moment. I’d been waiting for the next derailment and living in that anticipation was worse than facing the aftermath. It was worse than this. This confirmation. This truth that whatever was wrong with me still was. That Roman waking up hadn’t cured anything. And my dad. What was going to happen to him?

  “I’m still waiting for an explanation,” my mom said.

  “Mom left the oven on,” my aunt said.

  “Only because your sister dragged me out of the house by my ears.”

  “I did not,” my aunt shot back.

  “You did. I told you I could stay there on my own and you—”

  “I wasn’t going to let you be alone in that house for God knows how long.”

  “I don’t need your help!”

  “You do!”

  My mom’s voice was tired. “Dani, can you please explain to me what really happened?”

  “We went to pick up grandma and in all the…” She glared at both of them, “…commotion, the oven was left on. The kitchen caught fire. Brian found it and put it out.”

  “And what’s the damage?”

  “Everything’s pretty much burned to shit,” Felix said.

  My mom didn’t even flinch at his language. She just said, “thank you,” finally relieved to have the truth.

  She let out a deep breath and I felt her shudder. I wondered if she was thinking about my grandfather’s old coffee m
ugs that were stored above the stove, or the old skillet he used to use on Sunday mornings, or her china—the only things she’d carried with her from that trailer on FM 685.

  “I’m sorry, Elena.” I could tell my grandmother was trying to be gentle for once.

  “Me too,” my aunt said. “Brian’s already working on it. We’ll fix this.”

  “Yes. You will.” My mom was stone-faced. “The two of you will take care of the kitchen because I’m here taking care of Bryn. We’re not going to deal with this right now.” She rubbed her temple. “I can’t deal with this.”

  But I knew she wasn’t just talking about the kitchen. She was talking about me. About how I’d been asleep for eight weeks. About how I could be asleep for eight more, at any moment, my body starting to betray me in ways we’d never expected.

  I reached for her hand and as if suddenly realizing I was there, she finally stood.

  “If there are any other disasters I’ll be finishing my shower,” she said, turning on her heel as drops of soap littered the carpet.

  Half an hour later we were back at the hospital, my mom trying to force herself away from the doorway for the third time.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  My mom gave a weak smile, nodding to the window. “You mean tonight?”

  We were still adjusting to the time change and suddenly I realized the real reason for my mom’s anxiety. Not just that I was about to begin my first round of testing but that she was going to have to entertain herself for the next eight hours, alone in a foreign country.

  “Tonight,” I repeated, unhinging a yawn in hopes that it would make it easier for her to leave.

  “Are you sure you’re—?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Sheila stepped inside, followed by Sam. The little girl wasn’t in her nightgown anymore and she looked strange without it. As if the first time we’d met she hadn’t just mentioned dreams but that we’d been in one. Or maybe I was just still reeling from the fact that she might be like me, that somehow I wasn’t the only one.

  “She wanted to wish you good luck,” Sheila said.

  “Hi, Sam.” I tried to shake off the nerves and look my age. “Thanks for coming to see me.”

  “I brought you something,” Sam said. She held out a stuffed owl with large exaggerated eyes and soft felt feathers.

  “For me?” I said, reaching for it. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded. “I have one too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s nocturnal,” she added. “Owls, I mean. They don’t sleep at night so he can watch over you.”

  “Oh…”

  She smiled wide.

  “That was so nice of you.” I turned to my mom. “See, I’ll be just fine.”

  She managed a smile and then Sheila was ushering both my mom and Sam out of the room. I watched Sam hang back by the glass door for a minute and I hugged the owl to my chest so she could see it as I sunk down into the same chair she’d slept in just a few days earlier.

  “How long has it been since your last episode?” Dr. Cao asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  The nurse started sticking the cold electrodes to my skin and I shifted, trying to get comfortable as she walked me through the machine’s mechanics. All I really needed to know though was exactly what Sam had told me. It doesn’t hurt. Don’t worry.

  But I was worried. Not because of the machine I was connected to or even what the results might say but because I could feel another episode looming. My last one had lasted eight weeks and what if the next one was just as long? What if it was longer? What if I woke up with an IV in my wrist looking like a ghost?

  “Now just try to get comfortable.” Dr. Cao squeezed my hand and that’s when I realized it was shaking. “If you need anything, remember you can just buzz us here on the side of the chair. Can I get you something before we go?”

  I scratched at the cold wires against my skin already igniting goose bumps. “No, I’m okay.”

  Dr. Banz stepped into the room, the sight of him making my pulse spike, but not as much as seeing his assistant Vogle. He wasn’t dressed in his lab coat and without saying a word he knelt down, checking something on the machine. I knew there was no turning back now.

  “Everything ready to go?” Dr. Banz asked.

  Dr. Cao nodded. “All set.” She turned to me. “We’ll be back tonight. Try and get some rest.”

  The door clicked closed and Dr. Banz spoke. “How have you been doing lately?”

  It was the same question he’d asked me on that first day but this was the first time we’d been alone and I knew he was expecting a different answer. An honest one.

  Dr. Banz circled the chair before stopping to observe Vogle who was still checking the machine.

  “I haven’t seen them…” I said.

  “The shadows?” he asked.

  At that, Vogle’s gaze shot up, his hand trembling and losing hold of the small tool he was holding.

  I nodded. “But…strange things are still happening to me.”

  “Still?” Vogle suddenly asked. “You mean the boy?”

  I flinched at the mention of Roman. “No.” Dr. Banz and Vogle knew about the strange things I was seeing, but they didn’t know that they felt like more than that. They didn’t know that they were starting to feel like warnings. “I’ve been seeing things again,” I said. “Before they happen. After my last episode I thought maybe it had stopped but then…”

  “What do you mean before they happen?”

  Dr. Banz sounded surprised and it made me wonder if I’d been wrong about Eve. I thought we were the same in every way but if she never experienced these kinds of visions then that would mean we weren’t. And what if that meant that I was worse off than she’d been, that I was in even more danger?

  I cleared my throat, trying not to panic, to just force the words out. “During my last episode the dream-state had been different. I’d been sitting on the beach when I spotted a light inside my grandparents’ farmhouse, but when I got close enough I realized that it was actually a fire. Then this afternoon before we came to the hospital my aunt said there’d been a fire at our house. My grandmother had left the oven on.”

  “And you said things like this have happened before?” Dr. Banz asked, inching closer. “These…premonitions.”

  “A few times.” I swallowed, thinking back to those hiccups in time when Drew was asking me to prom, to the rockets I’d seen out over the lake at the senior bonfire, to the kites and the crows and the cardinal feather. “Nothing dangerous,” I finally clarified. “I mean, nothing that really scared me. Not like this.”

  “What about it scares you?” Dr. Banz asked.

  I stared down at the wires poking out from the hem of my shirt. They suddenly felt cold again.

  “Maybe because…I just…” I remembered my dad’s face, his blood. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s all supposed to mean something. Like a warning, only I’m never aware of the signs. What if I see something, something bad, and I don’t figure it out until it’s too late?”

  He was quiet, leaning on his cane.

  “Did Eve ever see things like that?”

  I was afraid to ask or even just to say her name. The last time we’d talked about Eve Dr. Banz had almost come undone and so had I. There was no discussing her without thinking of her death and now I couldn’t think about her—about the shadows haunting her, about her lashing out in fear, about her body rejecting intravenous intervention, about her going mad—without thinking about that too. She died. That’s why I could barely force out her name. Because she died and talking about her only made me afraid that I was going to die too.

  “She mentioned something…just once,” he said. “Most of the time she seemed to exist in some waking nightmare, seeing and hearing and feeling things the rest of us couldn’t. I’d been anticipating a similar reaction from you in the midst of these more unpredictable episodes…” He pinched his c
hin. “But it seems you’re deviating from Eve’s symptoms in more ways than I expected.”

  There was a lump in my throat and I tried to speak past it. “What did she see?”

  Dr. Banz looked away. “Her mother.” He stepped to the window and stared at the street for a long time. “I was sitting with Eve next to her hospital bed. She’d just woken from another episode. It was just before the incident with the nurse that led to her transfer to the psychiatric hospital.” His fingertips grazed the glass. “She’d looked at me and there was something strange in her eyes. Sadness. I thought she was going to say something about the shadows again but instead she’d said, ‘If she falls, she won’t wake up.’” He sighed, faced me again. “Shortly after Eve passed, her mother had an aneurism. She fell in the bathroom while she was getting ready for bed.”

  “I’m…” I didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It took me years before I finally admitted to myself that she knew. That Eve saw what was coming and I’d just ignored her.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  He seemed to flinch at the words and I knew it was because he was talking about more than just his wife’s aneurism. He hadn’t believed Eve about the shadows, and worse, he hadn’t protected her from them.

  He walked over, patted my hand. “It’s different now, Bryn, I promise.”

  I wondered if he’d wanted to say, I’m different.

  “And this.” I nodded to the wires before directing the question at Vogle. “You think this will help?”

  Vogle stood, the look on his face unsettling. “I think that if we can see where you’ve been we might be able to get a better idea of how the disease is progressing and why.”

  “Disease.” It struck me that they were still using that word because after my premonition about the fire, I knew that whatever I had had moved way beyond KLS.

  “I’m not sure what else to call it,” Vogle said. “Not yet.”

  I sat up. “Not yet?”

  “Not until we have more substantial data,” he said. “This observation period is going to be extremely important. I know you’ve spent the last several years under Dr. Sabine’s care and her methods were not terribly invasive. She had quite a catalogue of blood samples to your name but I’m afraid the answer to what’s happening to you isn’t in your blood, Bryn.”